Monday, June 26, 1876 Day two of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Reno fights to hold his positions and against thirst, Gibbon marches south, Crook camps on Goose Creek..

The Battle of the Little Big Horn continued on with Reno and Benteen's command dug in on high ground. The day was marked by sniping fire and thirst.  Obtaining water was becoming critical with some troops volunteering for very dangerous trips down to the Little Big Horn.

Between the two days of the battle, June 25 and June 26, twenty-four men serving under Benteen performed acts of heroism that would result in their receiving the Medal of Honor.  Most of that was associated with retrieving water.  

Every single one was an enlisted man.

They were:

 Otto Voit Pvt. Co. H Bravery in Action

 Benj. C. Criswell Sgt. Co. B Brought up ammunition

 Henry Holden Pvt. Co. D Brought up ammunition

 Thomas Murray Sgt. Co. B Brought up pack train

 Richard P. Hanley Sgt. Co. C Recaptured pack mule

 Chas. Cunningham Pvt. Co. B Continued firing after being wounded

 Henry W. B. Mechlin Bks.* Co. H Sharpshooter for water party

 Charles Windolph Pvt. Co. H Sharpshooter for water party

 George Geiger Sgt. Co. H Sharpshooter for water party

 James Pym Pvt. Co. B Brought water under fire

 Neil Bancroft Pvt. Co. A Brought water to wounded

 Abram B. Brant Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

 Thomas J. Callan Pvt. Co. B Brought water to wounded

 Frederick Deetline Bks.* Co. C Brought water to wounded

 Theodore W. Goldin Pvt. Co. G Brought water to wounded

 David W. Harris Pvt. Co. A Brought water to wounded

 William M. Harris Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

 Rufus D. Hutchinson Sgt. Co. B Brought water to wounded

 Stanislas Roy Sgt. Co. A   Brought water to wounded

 George D. Scott Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

 Thomas W. Stivers Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

 Peter Thompson Pvt. Co. C Brought water to wounded

 Frank Tolan Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

 Charles H. Welch Pvt. Co. D Brought water to wounded

Midday Lakota scouts sighted Terry/Gibbon's command to the north and reported it back to the village, which then began to break camp, that process continuing on into the evening.  As we noted, Terry was now with Gibbon who had marched east from Ft. Ellis down the Yellowstone at the beginning of the campaign while Terry and Custer had marched west from Ft. Abraham Lincoln.

Breaking camp was inevitable in any event as the camp was so large the locality could not sustain it for long.  As bands broke camp, they broke into individual bands and headed south.

Crook was encamped at Little Goose Creek in what is now Sheridan, Wyoming, having pulled off a fair distance to recuperate from the Battle of the Rosebud and to await reinforcements.  A monument in Sheridan Wyoming is located at that spot, but I've not personally seen it.

President Grant issues a proclamation on the Centennial of American independence.

June 26, 1876: Proclamation Celebrating the Hundredth Anniversary of Independence

A Proclamation

The centennial anniversary of the day on which the people of the United States declared their right to a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth seems to demand an exceptional observance.

The founders of the Government, at its birth and in its feebleness, invoked the blessings and the protection of a Divine Providence, and the thirteen colonies and three millions of people have expanded into a nation of strength and numbers commanding the position which then was asserted and for which fervent prayers were then offered.

It seems fitting that on the occurrence of the hundredth anniversary of our existence as a nation a grateful acknowledgment should be made to Almighty God for the protection and the bounties which He has vouchsafed to our beloved country.

I therefore invite the good people of the United States, on the approaching 4th day of July, in addition to the usual observances with which they are accustomed to greet the return of the day, further, in such manner and at such time as in their respective localities and religious associations may be most convenient, to mark its recurrence by some public religious and devout thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as a nation during the century of our existence, and humbly to invoke a continuance of His favor and of His protection.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 26th day of June, A. D. 1876, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundredth.

U. S. GRANT.

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH,

Secretary of State.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 25, 1876. The Battle of the the Little Big Horn.

Labels: 1790s, 1791, 1870s, 1876, Army, Battle of Little Big Horn, Battle of the Wabash, Blog Mirror, cavalry, Cheyenne, George A. Custer, Great Sioux War, Indian Wars, Sioux, Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake)

Sunday, June 25, 1876. The Battle of the the Little Big Horn.

Today In Wyoming's History: June 25: 

June 25

1876  The legendary Battle of the Little Big Horn occurs in southeastern Montana. On this date, in 1876, a large combined group of Cheyennes, Sioux, Arapaho and maybe even a few Metis, defeated an assault by the 7th Cavalry in southern Montana, resulting in the complete elimination of one prong of a split assault, and the retreat and desperate defense by two other elements of the command. The 7th's effort was part of a summer 1876 campaign on the northern plains, which had seen a the defeat of a combined unit of elements of the 2d & 3d Cavalry, 4th and 9th Infantry, and Crow and Shoshone scouts in southern Montana several days earlier. Both Plains Indians victories marked the high water mark, and the rapidly receding tide, of Indian power on the northern plains.

Little Big Horn is by far the most famous of American Indian battles, and almost defines them for the average person. It remains one of the most written about of all American historical events. It was a huge shock to the American psyche at the time, and resulted in the Army being expanded by 2,500 men for Plains service.

In terms of actual casualties, the 7th suffered about 52 percent casualties of the force that was deployed, in a battle that saw fighting at widely separated points, several miles distant, including 16 officers and 242 enlisted men killed. One officer and 51 enlisted men survived the battles with wounds. The battle is mostly remembered due to the fact that the every man in Custer's immediate command was killed, which makes up the bulk of the casualties. This may be a bit unfair, as it somewhat discounts the effective defense put up by Reno and Benteen's men in a separate location.

Of interest, 22% of the 7th Cavalry was detached prior to the expedition on other duties, a fairly common occurrence. 166 men and officers therefore were not present on the campaign, and missed the battle.

Some may wonder why I have included this even in a Wyoming daily history blog, as I included an item about Colorado's Sand Creek Massacre yesterday, but these are all regional events, which had an enormous impact on Wyoming at the time.  For the Indians in particular, the territorial borders did not exist.

The battle remains the greatest single defeat, and the greatest single loss of life in a single battle, in the post 1865 Indian Wars.  It is not, however, the U.S. Army's worst day during the long struggle with Native Americans.  That day was the Battle of the Wabash in 1791 in which the Northwestern Confederacy of Native Americans decisively defeated the U.S. Army with the Army loosing 656 men to the Natives 21 in spite of the forces being evenly matched.  It was by some measures the worst day in American military  history.

This is also the most written about even in American military history of all time.  Only the Battle of the Bulge and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor rival it, which shows what a major psychologic impact it had on American culture and historical memory.  There are, of course, a number of reasons for that which remain worth considering for a number of reasons.

To start off with the battle was, of course, a major shock at the time that it occurred, although it was no unprecedented.  Fetterman's detachment being wiped out on December 21, 1866 outside of Ft. Phil Carney provided an earlier example which its always temping to draw analogies too.  That particular battle, which resulted in the loss of 81 soldiers and armed civilians at the hands of some of the same combatants, and at the hands of the same tribes, actually had a more dire immediate effect on the survivors in that the post was so remote it was in serious danger of being overrun, had the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho bothered to attempt it, which they did not.  81 men, of course, is considerably less than 242.

A big part of the shock was due to the early press reporting.  In spite of the Fetterman Fight, the press and the public was not prepared for such a singular defeat at the hands of Plains Indians, even though Custer's detached command was considerably outnumbered at the time of the attack.  Custer was thought of as a real Indian Fighter, which he in fact was not, and the result was nearly inconceivable, resulting in a lot of fanciful speculation.  To add to this the surviving officers had a built in incentive not to be responsible for what occurred, and indeed in the 7th Cavalry's case, they really were not.  That didn't keep, however, some from trying to blame them just as Custer was elevated to an absolute hero.  As time went on it was fairly clear to the U.S. Army what had happened, even if it wasn't necessarily to civilian writers.  Early histories, moreover, assumed a level of knowledge about certain things, particularly horses, that later historians lacked, resulting in both of them omitting them.  All of this contributed to a sense of romantic mystery that endures to the present day.

Evan as that mystery has endured, however, Custer became a symbol for the entire American effort against the Native Americans, from 1620 through Wounded Knee, a fact that his peculiar character lent itself to.  Hated by many of his men, and detested by many of his fellow 7th Cavalry officers, he made a ready and easy scapegoat that further allowed some historians to assign personal blame to him for what occurred on this day in 1876.

In truth, what occurred at Little Big Horn is really obvious if a person is actually familiar with the conditions of frontier campaigning, which unfortunately many of the post 1930 or so historians have not been.

Alfred Terry had detached Custer's command on June 22, 1876, because it was a cavalry command and he needed a force to cover vast distances quickly.  Cavalry suited that purpose.  But even as it did, it was saddled with certain distinct limitations, the most pronounced being the very thing that gave it mobility, the horse.

American cavalrymen, like European cavalrymen, and the cavalrymen of ever modern army (and yes this was a modern army) assigned one mount per man.  Officers often had a second.  This was not, it might be noted, the historical norm.  Mongols, for example, had multiple mounts per man.  

In fact, Native Americans had multiple mounts per man.  And so did cowboys when working cattle, in spite of what the movies may have falsely told us.  The cowboy norm was seven mounts per man.  The Native American situation depended upon his personal wealth, often measured in horses, but to be an effective warrior he needed more than one.  Indeed, the entire culture of horse raiding is explained by this.

The reason for this is that horses "break down".  In a campaign, at first, this is not a factor.  But by June 21, 1876, when Custer's command was detached, his troopers, and their horses, had been in the field for weeks.  By that time the horses were undoubtedly fatigued.

Moreover, American cavalrymen were mounted on American Horses, big cavalry mounts that were strong and adept at covering ground, but also horses bread for more temperate conditions.  In the East, there was always plenty of feed, but that was not true in the West.  As a result, horses "broke down" quickly.  Once a mount "broke down", a cavalryman was converted into a foot soldier for the rest of the campaign, attached to the baggage train.

The Army was well aware of this problem and studied it constantly  One solution was to pick up local mounts, like those the Indians were using, and like those used by cowboy.  "Range horses" were really ponies, but were tough and acclimated to their conditions.  Like any horse, they would break down, but they'd endure much more than American Horses would.  In some commands cavalry units going West swapped out American Horses for Range Horses, much like Marines deploying to combat during part of the Vietnam War swapped their M16s for M14s.

The Army had also long attempted to address this by severely limiting the weight load of a horse.  Cavalrymen themselves were limited in height and weight.  They were short, generally not being taller than 5'6", and the were light, generally not weighing more than 140 lbs.  The McClellan saddle they used was very light weight.  They carried very little. Even at that, however, they were faced with the problem of horse fatigue.

Indeed, while cavalry was critical, the problems it faced were so severe that at one point one Army commander lobbied for only having infantry.  That was extreme, but it shows the difficulty that could exist.  In contrast, Crook routinely mounted his infantry on the pack trains mules, mounting them on the mules, a double tough animal that wasn't as fast as a horse, but which was faster than walking, and saved fatigue on the nervous infantryman.

On walking, cavalrymen walked a lot in order to save their horses.  This differed greatly from the native practice.  Natives in transit didn't walk at all.

The Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho, in contrast to the Army, had all Range Horses and large numbers of them.  This avoided the problems noted above, but in a camp of this size, it meant that they had to move every few days as they'd wipe out the forage.  Ultimately, they couldn't keep a camp this size together at all.

Custer's command spent the night of June 24 in the Wolf Mountains. At 3:00 a.m. his scouts climbed a peak called "the Crow's Nest" and at first light, 5:00 a.m. they sighted it.  It was 15 miles distant.  The 7th Cavalry started its advance on the camp at 8:00, an hour after Custer was informed of the camp's presence.  It took the 7th Cavalry four hours to cover the ground.  Once the command departed at 8:00, it was committed to action, albeit with no plan in place, as the risk of the natives detecting the dust of the huge  number of  horses was too great not to advance to conclusion.

At noon Custer's command had a good view of a portion of the camp and he divided his command, detailing Maj. Reno to hit what would have been the left flank, from his prospective.

This brings up a couple of things that need to be addressed in any discussion of the battle.  One thing is that there was no reconnaissance of the position being attacked whatsoever.  This probably isn't surprising, however, even though reconnaissance was a function of cavalry.  Once committed at 8, as noted, the command was committed and there was no choice but to go forward.

But was committing itself a mistake. Terry suggested, but did not command, that Custer wait for Gibbons and Terry to advance from the north.  The location of Terry and Gibbon, however, was completely unknown, and it was clear to all that a large camp would move.  Native camps, moreover, were notoriously able to move without being detected.  Custer had some justification for attacking when he could.  By the same token, however, shadowing the camp, was a bit of an option, although the longer the cavalry was nearby the greater the risk that it would be attacked itself.  Custer's decision, therefore, was not unreasonable.

Added to that, Custer did not really have very much experience in Indian warfare.  Nobody in the post Civil War Army did.  There had been men with vast frontier fighting experience n the Army prior to the Civil War, but the war had consumed them in one form or another, and  they were not the field commanders of the post Civil War Army.  Custer had campaigned against natives before, but those campaigns had been largely ineffectual with no trace of the natives being found. The exception was Washita in 1868 which had been a near disaster and a moral travesty.  

Custer had, of course, a lot of Civil War experience. Every officer in his command did. That, however, was not particularly useful on the plains.

The second part of this is that once the location of the camp was determined, Custer had a choice of hitting it from one side, with a unified command, or trying to effectively surround it, and hit from both sides.  He opted for that latter option.  In theory, that was a good decision, but it depended on the right flank being found and hit with no reconnaissance.  

Once the decision was made, it took from noon until 3:00 for Reno's troops to charge the village.  He hit alone, with Custer's command detached and its location unknow to Reno.  It's known now that Custer personally advanced down to the river several times to try to determine where to hit the Indian village, only to find that he was not yet on its edge.  It took Custer an hour to find a location to attempt to charge the camp.

All of this means that as this was occurring the entire command was mounted on horses that were fatigued to start with. During the last phase of the operation horses would have been kept at a fast gait the entire time.  From something like 2:30 until 4:00 every mount in the command was at a canter or faster.

Reno's charge immediately stalled out and he was forced to have his troops dismount and fight a defensive action from 3:00 to 3:40, at which point the survivors retreated in the hills, to be later joined by Benteen who was bringing up the pack train.  This means that Custer actually committed his command after Reno had already retreated.  The native camp covered an expanse of three miles. not a great distance, but a difficult one for cavalrymen because of it hilly terrain, where as the Sioux and Cheyenne were on the flat river bottom.   The native combatants, mounted on fresh mounts, were able to cover the distance from Reno's failed retreat to Custer's new charge in no time.  Reno in contrast was effectively immobilized, in spite of later criticism that he should have attempted to ride to Custer's aid.  In reality, he could not have and that would have resulted in the elimination of his command as well.

Custer's command was destroyed over a period of an hour, much longer than popularly imagined, with a huge volley of fire being heard at one point.  The last of his troops were overrun at about 5:30.  Native combatants thereafter drifted back to where Reno was to take potshots at his dug in troops.  They kept it up all the next day until they decamped and departed the night of June 26.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 24, 1876. Custer marches into the Wolf Mountains, Terry starts down the Big Horn.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Alfred Terry, Battle of Little Big Horn, Big Horn River, cavalry, Cheyenne people, George A. Custer, Great Sioux War, Indian Wars, John Gibbon, Little Big Horn River, Montana, Sioux, Yellowstone Expedition

Saturday, June 24, 1876. Custer marches into the Wolf Mountains, Terry starts down the Big Horn.

The 7th Cavalry halted at where Busby Montana presently is.  Knowing that the Sioux were somewhere in the vicinity, scouts were sent ahead to the Crow's Nest in the Wolf Mountains. The command then married a further fifteen miles at night towards the location.

Keeping in mind that sundown occurs in this region on this day at about 9:00 p.m., this means the already exhausted command was making a difficult night march.

Not all that far off, the Sioux/Cheyenne camp was holding the Dying Dancing Ceremony in which teenagers vowed to lose their lives in battle to defend the camp.

Terry's command was ferried to the southside of the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Big Horn to proceed up the river's valley with the goal of reaching the mouth of the Little Big Horn by June 26.  It was hoped that Custer's command would have maneuvered to the south of the camp by the 26, which was an approximate date, allowing the camp, which was known to exist somewhere in the area, to be trapped.  As it was, Custer had maneuvered to the southwest of the camp by the late night of the 25th.

Last edition:

Friday, June 23, 1876. Camp on the Rosebud.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, California, cavalry, George A. Custer, Great Sioux War, Indian Wars, Montana (Rosebud Creek), U.S. Grant, Yellowstone Expedition

Thursday, June 22, 1876. 7th Cavalry leaves the Yellowstone.

The 7th Cavalry, under George A. Custer, departed the Yellowstone River under orders to ride south the entire length of the Rosebud, then went until they encountered the Sioux.  Gibbon and Terry marched the rest of the command to the South, with there being the thought they would accordingly trap the Sioux in this fashion.

Custer as given written orders, stating:

Headquarters of the Department of Dakota (In the Field)

Camp at Mouth of Rosebud River, Montana Territory June 22nd, 1876

Lieutenant-Colonel Custer,

7th Calvary

Colonel: The Brigadier-General Commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since. It is, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn towards the Little Bighorn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the escape of the Indians passing around your left flank.

The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible. The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock's Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon's command.

The supply-steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the river is found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the mean time you receive further orders.

Very respectfully, Your obedient servant,

E. W. Smith, Captain, 18th Infantry A. A. J. G.

Much has been made of this order, but it is clear that it gave Terry's wishes, while also giving Custer operational freedom. 

Col. Gibbon was in command of the 7th Infantry of the Montana Column consisting of the F, G, H, and L of the 2nd Cavalry under James S. Brisbin from Fort Ellis.

Reno of the 7th Cavalry, as noted, had seen traces of a Sioux party on the Rosebud, which was likely the band that had earlier hit Crook, a battle which the Montana Column was unaware of.  Crook was drawing off towards the Big Horn Mountains at the time.

Custer's command made ten miles that day.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 21, 1876. Far West.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Alfred Terry, Battle of Little Big Horn, Battle of the Rosebud, cavalry, Crook, George A. Custer, Montana (Rosebud Creek), Yellowstone Expedition

Wednesday, June 21, 1876. Far West.

Brig Gen. Alfred Terry held a conference of war aboard the steamboat the Far West.  They determined to use a pincer strategy and divide their forces in order to locate and subdue the Sioux and Cheyenne in the field, with one column under Lt. Col. George A. Custer and another under Terry.

Custer was to go up Rosebud Creek to track a village known to be somewhere in the area.  It was not known that George Crook had just encountered the same native band, and had been turned back.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 18, 1876. Montenegrin-Ottoman War commences.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Herzegovina, Montenegrin–Ottoman War, Ottoman Empire, Serbia

Monday, June 5, 1876. Soldiers falling into camp.

Sitting Bull had a vision of "soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky" during a Sun Dance on Rosebud Creek, Montana.

Sweet, yellow bananas were introduced in the United States at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. They were foil wrapped and sold for .10.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 4, 1876. Fast train.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Railroads, Transportation, United States

 

150 years later, the Brinton Museum examines the Battle of the Little Bighorn through Indigenous eyes

Monday, April 10, 1876. The Army enlists Curly, Denver celebrates with beer.

Colonel John Gibbon enlisted 23 Crow men at Crow Agency (then located on Mission Creek, present day Livingston, MT) to serve as scouts for his Montana Column moving east along the Yellowstone River.  

These included the famous Crow Scout Curly (Ashishishe).

He passed away of May 22, 1923.

Married twice, he had one daughter.  He has a large number of descendants.

Early Colorado brewers celebrated the centennial with a commemorative bock beer

This week in 1876: The Denver Brewing Company markets its ‘peculiar and superior beverage’ to local saloons

Last edition:

Sunday, April 9, 1876. Homestake.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Mining, South Dakota (Lead)

A look at the later lives of Wounded Knees' Twenty Medal of Honor recipients.

Wounded Knee, the Massacre, has been back in the news this past week due to wannabe "War" Secretary Hegseth determining that the review of the Medals of Honor awarded for action there is over, and the now long dead soldiers will keep their medals.  We posted on that here:

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded ...: Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor. :  Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor. Sgt. Toy receivin...

But, what happened to the Medal of Honor recipients from Wounded Knee?  

Most thinking people recall the incident with horror, inkling, frankly towards a genocidal view of the massacre, and not without good reason.  But at the time, the Army honored those who participated in the battle at an unprecedented rate.

What became of them?

Let's take a look.

• Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee

William Austin has the unusual distinction of having been born in Texas (Galveston) but having entered the service in New York City.

Austin left the Army in 1892 to enter the cotton business.  He served again in the Georgia National Guard during the Philippine Insurrection, and then returned to civilian life and ultimately had an automobile dealership.  He served again as a Reserve Quartermaster during World War One.  He was married three times.  His first marriage to an actress ended in divorce, and he outlived his second wife.

He lived in California in his later years and died in Palo Alto in 1929 at age 61 by which time he looked quite old by modern standards.  All in all, he had lead a pretty successful life.

• Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

Feaster was a career soldier who served until 1914, having served at some point as a lieutenant..  He died in 1950 at age 82.

Oddly, for a very long serving soldier who was commissioned at some point, finding details on him is next to impossible.

Or perhaps it's not so odd.  His commission was probably a wartime one, and he was a career enlisted man otherwise.

He was born in Pennsylvania, and died in California.

• Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

Hamilton was a Scottish immigrant and was 25 years old at the time of Wounded Knee.  He had not, like many Irish immigrants, immediately joined the Army upon arriving in the United States.  He also wouldn't make a career out of the Army, leaving it, as a Sergeant, in 1899, having served in the Spanish American War.  He took his discharge from the Army while in Cuba, and then went to work as a packer contracter to the Army in Cuba.

His ultimate fate is unknown.

• Private Joshua B. Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

Hartzog rose to the rank of sergeant but did not remain in the Army.  Following his time in the Army, he returned to his native Ohio and married in 1894.  He moved to Alabama with his wife thereafter, but his wife soon died.  He remarried in 1918, but divorced and remarried again in 1923.  He died in 1939.

• Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

Hillock was born in Michigan to an Irish American family (his father was a Canadian).  He left the Army soon after Wounded Knee and became a miner in Lead, South Dakota.  He contracted sort of a shotgun marriage soon thereafter but it did not last long, although that may have meant that his spouse died.  He married again, albeit unsuccessfully, and seems to have relocated to Ontario for a time and then disappeared.

• Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

Bernhard Jetter was born in the Kingdom of Württemberg and first joined the Army in 1883.  He left the Army in 1896 with a "special" discharge, probably indicating a service disability, and married for a second time in 1916.  Nothing is known of his first wife, other than that she had died.  He moved to Brooklyn and died at age 65.

• Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

Loyd was Irish born and joined the Army in 1866, the year after the Civil War at which point there was a huge turnover in the Army.  He had been at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

He killed himself, while still a serving soldier, at Ft. Riley in 1892, at which time the 49 year old Loyd was regarded as an old soldier.

• Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

McMillian is very unusual in that he was a school teacher, the son of a U.S. Senator, and had attended Princeton prior to his enlistment in the U.S. Army.  He seems to have been what some would refer to as a soldier of fortune.  He was court-martialed for using vile language towards a woman in 1892, and left the Army at the end of his enlistment.  He moved to  St. Paul, Minnesota and entered the University of Minnesota where he earned a Bachelor of Law degree in 1894, that being a "law degree" before reformist elements in the law converted the basic degree to a doctorate.  He worked for West Publishing Company, the premier legal publisher even today, thereafter as an editor.  He suffered a nervous breakdown at that time and his fortunes declined thereafter.

McMillian was likely a sensitive man, and he's  a 19th and early 20th Century example of PTSD.  He likely couldn't overcome what he'd witnesses, and had been awarded a medal for, at Wounded Knee.  He served as a Red Cross driver in World War One.

After Wounded Knee he requested that he be reduced to the rank of Private.  His request was refused.

• Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

Sullivan was an Irish immigrant who moved to the US at age 28 and immediately entered the Army.  He made a career of the Army and retired as a First Sergeant after 23 years of service, which would indicate that he likely retired early due to medical reasons.  He served in the Spanish American WAr and the Philippine Insurrection.

Sullivan married after he left the service and took up various employments, including policemen.  His wife Ellen was also an Irish immigrant.  He died in 1940 at age 80.

• First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

Trautman was a German born Civil War veteran who retired from the Army in 1891.  He died in 1898 of a stroke at age 58 while living in Pennsylvania, which is where he had originally entered the service from, first serving in a Pennsylvania cavalry unit.

Information on Trautman is hard to find, but an interesting aspect of this is that his first and last name are most commonly associated with people of the Jewish faith.  That doesn't mean he was Jewish, but a person has to wonder.

• Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

Ward was a first generation American from an Irish family in Quincy, Massachusetts.  He was the second of seven children.  He left a bricklaying job to join the Arm in 1876 and had been first stationed at Ft. Laramie.  His last enlistment, the one he was on during Wounded Knee, was short, indicating that he was discharged for medical reasons.  He married after he left the service but his health continued to decline leading first to his paralysis, and then death in 1901.

• Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

Cpl Wilson is particularly unusual as he was black.  He was known as a marksman and for wearing a non regulation black leather coat and a broad brimmed hat.  He is the only black soldier to have won the Medal of Honor at Wounded Knee and the last black soldier to win it on American soil.

He deserted the Army in 1893, with  his rifle, after being detailed to a rifle match.  Desertion wasn't that big of deal at the time, and he returned to Maryland, where he married and had seven children.  He died in 1928 at the age of 58.

Desertion in the 19th Century Army was extremely common, although taking your firearms was regarded as bad form.

• Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

Ziegner was born to Hugo and Lena Ziegner in Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and emigrated to the United States when he was 14 years old.  He enlisted in the Army in 1889. He left the Army after eight years of service and married, but served again in the Spanish American War where he was a sergeant and later the first sergeant of Company E, 71st New York Infantry. He went up San Juan Hill in the famous charge.  He died of service induced malaria in 1898 at age 34, his family being reduced to poverty as he suffered through it.

Whatever his service at Wounded Knee entailed, his service in Cuba was clear, and he, and his family, suffered for it.  Curiously, his tombstone notes only his service in the Indian Wars and his rank, at the time, of private.

• Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy.

Clancy is hard to find dentils on.  He was a New Yorker who joined the Army at aged 19 and he left the Army in 1894.  He died, oddly enough, at the home of the cavalry, Ft. Riley, in 1934 at age 64.

• Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

Garlington was a West Point graduate who received accelerated advancement, at a time in which Army appointments were very much by regiment, due to the losses at Little Big Horn.  He served as inspector general in Cuba during the Spanish–American War and participated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, obtaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  He was retired from the Army as a General in 1917 due to age.  He died in 1934 at age 81.

• First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

Gresham was a career soldier who retired as a Colonel in 1915, and then had a position in the California National Guard during World War One as a ROTC instructor.  He died in 1926 at age 74.

• Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

Hawthorne is perhaps the most eccentric of the Wounded Knee MoH winners as he was a Naval Academy graduate who after a brief hitch in the Navy, transferred to the Army.  He served in the Spanish American War and was the military attache to Japan from 1909 to 1911.  During World War One he served as the  Inspector General in the Panama Canal Zone and was awarded the Purple Heart (oddly) and a Silver Star. He retired as a Colonel in 1919 after World War One and died in 1948 at age 88.

• Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

Hobday was an English immigrant who enlisted in the Army in 1868 and at the time of Wounded Knee was a very old soldier, being 48 years of age.  He died of pneumonia in 1891 while still a serving soldier.

• First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery; 

Toy was a career soldier with an exemplary service record.  He served as an orderly to President Theodore Roosevelt and was recalled from retirement as a training officer during World War One.  He died in 1933 at age 67.

• Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

We know know that this fire may have resulted in many innocent deaths, including that of women and children.  Weinert probably knew that at the the time and stated upon being informed that he'd be awarded the Medal of Honor that he had expected to be court-martialed..

Weinert was a German from Frankfurt, he served two hitches in the Army, the second one during the  Spanish American War.  He died in 1919, at age 49.

So what can we draw from all of this?

Well, perhaps not much, but we can glean some interesting facts and make a few conclusions.

One thing is, and we'll start with the Weinert comment, at least some soldiers appreciated right at the time that the battle had turned into a massacre.  Weinert's comments showed that he appreciated that the "battle" had taken unnecessary lives and had descended into a massacre.  McMillain's request to be returned to the grade of private says something similar, as does his difficulties in life thereafter.

Not all of the soldiers, however, seem to have been bothered by what they experienced, which in spite of our modern assumptions to the contrary, if fairly common, and franky disturbing.  We'd like to think that we'd appreciate the horror of a thing right from the onset of it, but many people frankly don't.

The number of career soldiers who won the MoH is surprising. That is, it's surprising so many of them were career men.  Most soldiers in the Army have always been sort of passing through, but many of these troops were not and stayed in for as long as they could.

That might partially be because so many of these men were immigrants, eight out of the twenty, and several more were first generation Americans.  The Army had been a haven for immigrants, and in particular Irish and German immigrants.  These awards show that.

Some disappeared.  It'd be difficult for a Medal of Honor recipient to do that today, but as we've noted, the Medal of Honor was not as rare then, as it is now, being the only medal the U.S. awarded.

We'd like to think the men were haunted by their roles in what is now widely regarded as an atrocity.  But, most don't seem to have been.  The number who left the service and then returned for later wars suggests that they retained either a loyalty or some sense of fondness for military life, in spite of the horrors they'd participated in.  Only McMillain seems to have been the exception.

Pretty Nose. 1851-1952.

She fought at Little Big Horn.

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

A really radical idea that won't happen, but maybe should.

There have been really horrific floods, as we all know, in Yellowstone National Park. Roads in the northern part of the park may be closed for the rest of the summer.  Here's a National Park Service item on it:

Updates

• Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance.
• Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.
• The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.
• To prevent visitors from being stranded in the park if conditions worsen, the park in coordination with Yellowstone National Park Lodges made the decision to have all visitors move out of overnight accommodations (lodging and campgrounds) and exit the park.
• All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for flood waters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety.
• There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.
• The park’s southern loop appears to be less impacted than the northern roads and teams will assess damage to determine when opening of the southern loop is feasible. This closure will extend minimally through next weekend (June 19).
• Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen. This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.
• At this time, there are no known injuries nor deaths to have occurred in the park as a result of the unprecedented flooding. 
• Effective immediately, Yellowstone’s backcountry is temporarily closed while crews assist campers (five known groups in the northern range) and assess damage to backcountry campsites, trails and bridges.
• The National Park Service, surrounding counties and states of Montana and Wyoming are working with the park’s gateway communities to evaluate flooding impacts and provide immediate support to residents and visitors.
• Water levels are expected to recede today in the afternoon; however, additional flood events are possible through this weekend.

Here's an idea.

Don't rebuild the roads.

For years, there have been complaints about how overcrowded Yellowstone National Park has become.  A combination of a tourist economy and high mobility, and frankly the American inability to grasp that the country has become overpopulated, had contributed to that.  For years there have been suggestions that something needed to be done about that.

Maybe what is needed is. .. nothing.

Well, nothing now, so to speak.

Yellowstone was the nation's first National Park.  It was created at a time when park concepts, quite frankly, were different from they are now.   Created in 1872, its establishment was in fact visionary, and it did grasp in part that the nation's frontier was closing, even though the creation of the park came a fully four years prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn.  There was, at the time of its creation, a sort of lamentation that the end of the Frontier was in sight, and the nation was going to become one of farms and cities.

Nobody saw cities like they exist now, however, and nobody grasped that the day would come when agricultural land would be the province of the rich, and that homesteading would go from a sort of desperate act to something that people would cite to, in the case of their ancestors, as some sort of basis for moral superiority.  Things are much different today than they were then.

Indeed, in some ways, the way the park is viewed is a bit bipolar.  To some, particularly those willing to really rough it, Yellowstone is a sort of giant wilderness area.  To others, it's a sort of theme park. 

The appreciation of the need to preserve wilderness existed then, but what that meant wasn't really understood.  The park was very much wilderness at first, and some things associated with wilderness went on within it, and of course still do.  Early camping parties travelled there.  People fished there, and still do.  Hunting was prohibited early on, which had more to do with the 19th Century decline in wildlife due to market hunting than it did anything else.  This has preserved a sort of bipolarism in and of itself, as fishing is fish-hunting, just as bird hunting is fowling. There's no reason in fact that Yellowstone should have not been opened back up to hunting some time during the last quarter-century, but it is not as just as the park is wilderness to young adventurers from the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, and hearty back country folks of all ages, it's also a big public zoo for people from Newark or Taipei.  

Since 1872, all sorts of additional parks have been created. Some are on the Yellowstone model, such as Yosemite.  Others are historical sites such as Gettysburg or Ft. Laramie.  All, or certainly all that I've seen, are of value.

But they don't all have the same value.

Much of Yellowstone's value is in its rugged wilderness.  Some cite to the geothermal features of the park, but that's only a small portion of it.  And for that reason, much of Yellowstone today would make more sense existing as a Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act that helps preserve the west in a very real way, and which western politicians, who often live lives much different than actual westerners, love to hate.

A chance exists here to bring back Yellowstone into that mold, which it was intended in part to be fro the very onset, and which many wish it was, or imagine it to be, today.

Don't rebuilt the roads.

That would in fact mean the northern part of the park would revert to wilderness, truly.  And it means that many fewer people would go to the park in general.  And it would hurt the tourist communities in the northern areas, and even in the southern areas, as the diminished access to the park would mean that the motorized brigade of American and International tourists wouldn't go there, as they wouldn't want to be too far from their air-conditioned vehicles.

But that's exactly what should be done.

October 15, 1878. Edison Electric LIght flips on the switch.

 A long time ago I started a series of posts that riffed off a George F. Will column, in which he stated:

In many ways, the world of 1870 was more medieval than modern. Three necessities — food, clothing, shelter — absorbed almost all consumer spending. No household was wired for electricity. Flickering light came from candles and whale oil, manufacturing power from steam engines, water wheels and horses. Urban horses, alive and dead, complicated urban sanitation. Window screens were rare, so insects commuted to and fro between animal and human waste outdoors and the dinner table. A typical North Carolina housewife in the 1880s carried water into her home eight to 10 times daily, walking 148 miles a year to tote 36 tons of it. Few children were in school after age 12.

I can't recall if I ever expanded on the whale oil lighting specifically, but I did generally, in this post here:

I don't dispute the details that Will recites here, but I do doubt the "more medieval than modern assertion.  Indeed, some of these things argue, I think, the other way around.  Still, it taps into what we're discussing here.  This is just the sort of thing that this blog exists to explore, particularly given that the time frame that Will is discussing, 1870 to 1970, fits right in with the time frame, sort of, that this blog is looking at, as earlier noted. 

Whale oil chandelier, photo from the Library of Congress.  Up until the Will entry, I'd never even considered there being such a thing as a whale oil chandelier.

What Will noted was quite true, but was this Medieval in character?  I'd assert not.  I don't really know, however.  Whaling has taken place to some extent since ancient times, but the widespread use of whale oil, I suspect, didn't come about until well after the Medieval period.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to have been done in an appreciably large manner until maybe the 17th Century, although whaling itself does go back much further than that.  Whale oil, once it became a common commodity, did see use in lamps in candles in an appreciable manner.   Starting in the 19th Century, however, kerosene began to come in.  Whale oil reached its peak in 1845 and then began to fairly rapidly decline thereafter as kerosene became more common, although whale oil would continue to see some use up until electrical generation replaced it in the early 20th Century, a fairly remarkable fact.

That post was entitled:

They could get by without electricity

Well, today is the day that started changing, in 1878.  Today is the anniversary of the Edison Electric Light Company commencing business.

To put this slightly in context, George A. Custer and the men under his immediate command at Little Big Horn had only been in their graves in Montana for two years at this point.  Most of Central Wyoming completely remained Indian territory and the big Texas and Oregon cattle drives to that region of the state hadn't yet commenced.  Rail transportation hadn't penetrated into most of Montana and was only in Southern Wyoming.

Put a slightly different way, for context, when this anniversary reached its centennial, I was in high school.