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Today In Western History: John Wesley Hardin Is Born

May 26, 1853

 

One of the west’s most prolific and sociopathic kills is born today in Bonham, Texas.  Named for a famed minister, John Wesley Hardin is likely a real sociopath and cold-blooded killer. 

John Wesley Hardin a real sociopathic killer
John Wesley Hardin, a real sociopathic killer

Between his 15th and 25th birthday, he will kill at least 20 men.  John Wesley Hardin (May 26, 1853 – August 19, 1895) was an Old West outlaw,  gunfighter,  and controversial folk icon. From an early age, Hardin was usually on the wrong side of the law for one reason or another. and he was pursued by lawmen for most of his life.   He frequently hid at the homes of family and friends, and this led to the death of his brother-in-law.  After being arrested on a train in Pensacola, Florida for the murder of a Texas deputy sheriff,  he was finally sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder in 1877.  When he was sentenced, Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men but newspapers of the day attributed only 27 murders to him.  While in prison, Hardin wrote a highly slanted  autobiography and even studied law and most surprisingly, after his release in 1894, he was admitted to the Texas bar.   Alcohol and depression quickly took over and in August 1895, Hardin was shot to death by Constable John Selman, Sr. in an El Paso saloon. 

John Selman Jr., a notorious gunman and former outlaw in his own right, town constable and killer of John Wesley Hardin.
John Selman Jr., notorious gunman and former outlaw in his own right, town constable and killer of John Wesley Hardin.

While serving his time in prison, Hardin penned his autobiography which is the source for many stories about him, but he was known to tailor the facts to fit his perceptions, and even making up such facts as he needed to support his perceptions.  In many of his “life stories” he described his participation in events that cannot be substantiated. 

In November 1868, when he was 15, Hardin challenged his uncle Holshousen’s former slave, Major “Maje” Holshousen, to a wrestling match, which Hardin won.  According to Hardin, the following day, Maje “ambushed” him as he rode past. Hardin drew his revolver and shot Maje five times. In his auto-biography Hardin claimed he rode to get help for the wounded man, but he died three days later, but given his Southern sympathies and beliefs, this is very unlikely.  He also claimed his father did not believe he would receive a fair hearing in the Union-occupied state so his father ordered him into hiding.  Hardin claimed the authorities eventually discovered his location and sent three Union soldiers to arrest him, at which time he “chose to confront his pursuers” despite having been warned of their approach by older brother Joseph:

…I waylaid them, as I had no mercy on men whom I knew only wanted to get my body to torture and kill. It was war to the knife for me, and I brought it on by opening the fight with a double-barreled shotgun and ended it with a cap and ball six-shooter. Thus it was by the fall of 1868 I had killed four men and was myself wounded in the arm.

Soon afterwards on August 6, 1871, Hardin, his cousin Gip Clements, and a rancher friend named Charles Couger put up for the night at the American House Hotel after an evening of gambling. All three had been drinking heavily. Sometime during the evening, Hardin was awakened by loud snoring coming from Couger’s room. He first shouted several times for the man to “roll over” and then, irritated by the lack of response, drunkenly fired several bullets through the shared wall in an apparent effort to awaken him. Couger was hit in the head by the second bullet as he lay in bed, and was killed instantly. Although Hardin may not have intended to kill Cougar, he had violated an ordinance prohibiting firing a gun within the city limits. Half-dressed and still drunk, he and Clements exited through a second-story window onto the roof of the hotel. He saw Hickok arrive with four policemen. “Now, I believed,” Hardin wrote later, “that if Wild Bill found me in a defenseless condition he would take no explanation, but would kill me to add to his reputation.   The incident earned Hardin a repu-tation as a man “so mean, he once shot a man for snoring”.  Years later, Hardin made a casual reference to the episode: “They tell lots of lies about me,” he complained. “They say I killed six or seven men for snoring. Well, it ain’t true. I only killed one man for snoring.  

His intense hatred of Northerner carpet-baggers in general and former slaves in particular led him to caused him to become repeatedly involved in political battles between pro- and anti-Reconstruction forces (naturally Hardin was pro-southern) in 1873 and he killed a former State Police officer who led the local pro-Reconstruction forces. In 1874 he murdered a sheriff’s deputy in Brown County, Texas, leading to him fleeing with his family to Florida. However, he was captured by Texas Rangers on a train in Pensacola in 1877 (during his stay in Florida, he was suspected of killing at least one and probably five more people). He was tried for the Brown County deputy’s murder in 1878 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but only served 16 years before being pardoned in 1894.
In 1895 Hardin testified as a defense witness in a murder trial in El Paso, and after the trial was over, he decided to stay in that city and open up a law practice. Soon afterwards he began an affair with a married female client. When her husband found out, Hardin reportedly hired several off-duty lawmen to murder the man. An El Paso lawman, John Selman, Jr., arrested Hardin’s acquaintance and part-time prostitute, the “widow” M’Rose (or Mroz), for “brandishing a gun in public”. Hardin confronted Selman and the two men argued, some reports alleging Hardin had pistol-whipped the younger man. Selman’s 56-year-old father, Constable John Selman, Sr. (a notorious gunman and former outlaw in his own right), approached Hardin on the afternoon of August 19, 1895, and the two men exchanged heated words. That night, Hardin went to the Acme Saloon, where he began playing dice. Shortly before midnight, Selman Sr. entered the saloon, walked up to Hardin from behind, and shot him in the head, killing him instantly. As Hardin lay on the floor, Selman fired three more shots into him. Selman was arrested for murder and stood trial, where he claimed self-defense.  His story that he witnessed Hardin attempting to draw his pistol upon seeing him enter the saloon, and Hardin reputation as a mean drunk, resulted in a hung jury and his being released on bond, pending retrial. However, before the retrial could be organized, Selman himself was killed in a shootout following a card game by the US Marshal George Scarborough on April 6, 1896 during an argument.  Hardin was buried the following day in Concordia Cemetery, in El Paso.

US Marshal George Scarborough, former outlaw and the killer of John Selman, Sr, the killer of John Wesley Hardin
US Marshal George Scarborough, former outlaw and the killer of John Selman, Sr, the killer of John Wesley Hardin

Today In Western History: New Mexico Prohibits Slavery

May 25, 1850

New Mexico adopts a new constitution, one that prohibits slavery.

In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, the United States created a provisional government that lasted until 1850.  Although Mexico had officially ceded the territory when the war ended in 1848, the territorial boundaries were somewhat ambiguous.  

It wasn’t a smooth path to statehood for the territory as it had made this request earlier in the year using a constitution that permitted slavery, and while it was initially approved, it fell apart and died when Texas laid claim to the same territory.  The proposed state boundaries were to extend as far east as the 100th meridian West and as far north as the Arkansas River, thus encompassing the present-day Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and parts of present-day Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, as well as most of present-day New Mexico.  In addition, slaveholders were worried about not being able to expand slavery to the west of their current slave states if this boundary was accepted.

On September 9, 1850, the Congressional Compromise of 1850 was accepted and this stopped the early 1850 bid for statehood from going any further. On the other hand, other provisions of the Compromise organized both New Mexico and neighboring Utah Territory, and also firmly established the previously disputed western boundaries of the State of Texas that are still in place.

The status of slavery during the territorial period provoked considerable debate, much of it hotly con-tested and acrimonious. The granting of statehood was up to a Congress sharply divided on the slavery issue. Some (including Stephen A. Douglas for the Democrats) maintained

Senator Stephen A. Douglas. He won the Lincoln- Douiglas Debates but lost the election.
Senator Stephen A. Douglas. He won the Lincoln- Douglas Debates but lost the election.

that the territory could not restrict slavery, as under the earlier Missouri Compromise, while others (including Abraham Lincoln for the 

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President.  He lost the Lincoln- Douglas Debates but won the election.

Republicans) insisted that older Mexican Republic legal traditions of the territory, which abolished black, but not Indian, slavery in 1834, took precedence and should therefore be continued. Regard- less of its official status, actual slavery was rare in antebellum New Mexico and Black slaves never numbered more than about a dozen.

As one of the final attempts at compromise to avoid the Civil War, in December 1860, U.S. House of Representatives Republicans offered to admit New Mexico as a slave state immediately. Although the measure was approved by committee on December 29, 1860, Southern representatives did not take up this offer, as many of them had already left Congress due to imminent declarations of secession by their states.  

In the middle of the Civil War, Congress made an effort to sort things out.  They passed the “Arizona Organic Act“, which split off the western portion of the then 12-year-old New Mexico Territory as the new Arizona Territory, and abolished slavery in the new Territory on February 24, 1863, As in New Mexico, slavery was already extremely limited, due to earlier Mexican traditions, laws, and patterns of settlement. The northwestern corner of New Mexico Territory was included in the newly established Arizona Territory until it was added to the southernmost part of the newly admitted State of Nevada in 1864. Eventually Arizona Territory was organized as the State of Arizona.

 

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

Today In Western History: The Potowatamie Massacre

May 24, 1856

 

John Brown gains his nickname, Potowatamie Brown, when he leads his followers in the massacre of five pro-slavers at Potowatamie Creek, Kansas, in retaliation for the killing of an abolitionist in Lawrence, Kansas.

John Brown, Abolitionist, first American 'terrorist', author of the Harper's Ferry Insurrection, and spark stat started the Civil War
John Brown, Abolitionist, first American ‘terrorist’, author of the Harper’s Ferry Insurrection, and spark stat started the Civil War

The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces,  John Brown and a small band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. This was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War, which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas was largely brought about by the Missouri Compromise and Kansas–Nebraska Act.

A Free State company under the command of John Brown, Jr., set out, and the Osawatomie company joined them. On the morning of May 22, 1856, they heard of the sack of Lawrence and the arrest of Deitzler, Brown, and Jenkins. However, they continued their march toward Lawrence, not knowing whether their assistance might still be needed, and encamped that night near the Ottawa Creek. They remained in the vicinity until the afternoon of May 23, at which time they decided to return home.

On May 23, John  Brown Sr. selected a small party consisting of John Brown Sr., his sons Frederick, Owen, Salmon, and Oliver, and Thomas Weiner and James Townsley, to go with him on a private ex-pedition.  Late in the next evening, they called at the house of James P. Doyle and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury (all former slave catchers) to go with them as prisoners. The three men were escorted by their captors into the night, at which time Owen Brown and one of his brothers killed them with broadswords. John Brown, Sr. fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle to make certain he was dead.  Brown and his band then went to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out, where he was slashed and stabbed to death by Henry Thompson and Theodore Winer, possibly with help from Brown’s sons.  Following this murder they crossed the Pottawatomie, and after midnight, they forced their way into the cabin of James Harris. Harris had three house guests: John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry Sherman (“Dutch Henry”), a militant pro-slavery activist.  After questioning all four men, William Sherman was led to the edge of the creek and hacked to death with the swords by Winer and Thompson.

In the two years before Brown’s raid, there had been 8 killings in Kansas Territory attributable to slavery politics, and none of those were in the vicinity of the massacre.  Brown murdered five in a single night, and this was the flash point to the powder keg that exploded into violence.  Over the next three months, 29 people died in a series of retaliatory raids and battles.

John Brown wasn’t done and he wouldn’t be done until October 18, 1859, when he would lead an un-successful slave revolt at a little town called Harper’s Ferry in Virginia.  This future raid would make his name a household word and he would forever be viewed as either a hero or a terrorist, depending upon where you stood on the issue of the day, which was, of course, slavery. 

 

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

Today In Western History: Kit Carson Goes Under

May 23, 1868

Christopher Carson, legendary mountain man, trapper, explorer and soldier
Christopher Carson, legendary mountain man, trapper, explorer and soldier

Kit Carson dies of old age, at 58, in Fort Lyon, Colorado.

Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson was an American legend.  He lived in a time of change, when the West was opening up to exploration and development.  For most of his life he lived off the land, holding few actual paying jobs.  During his lifetime he had been a trapper, a mountain man, a wild-erness guide, Indian agent, and even an American Army officer.  As with many of the famous names of that period, their reputations were greatly enhanced by repeated embellishments of their exploits, sometimes by themselves or just normal story-telling by others to build up their own reputations, and sometimes by their biographers or people just looking to make a dollar by selling complete fiction.  Ned Buntline did this for Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Frontiersman, creator of the Rodeo
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Frontiersman, creator of the Rodeo

Christopher left home at the age of 16 to become a mountain man and trapper in the vast and un-explored Western territories.  In the 1830s, he accompanied Ewing Young on an expedition to what was then Mexican California and later joined fur trapping expeditions into the Rocky Mountains.  To improve his chances of survival and acceptance by the carious tribes, Carson lived among and even married into the  Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes.  In the 1840s, based on his growing reputation as the one who knew the mountains, he was hired as a guide by John C. Fremont, the man who would become known as the Pathfinder.  Carson achieved national fame through Fremont’s accounts of his 

John C. Fremont, The Great Pathfinder"
John C. Fremont, The Great Pathfinder”

expeditions.While serving with Fremont, Carson took an active part in the uprising in California at the beginning of what became known at the Mexican-American War. Later in the war, Carson served as a courier and a scout, and became celebrated for his rescue mission after the Battle of San Pasqual and for his coast-to-coast journey from California to Washington, DC., to deliver news of the conflict in California to the U.S. government.  In the 1850s, he was appointed as the Indian agent to the Ute Indians and the Jicarilla Apaches.

During the American Civil War, Carson led a regiment of mostly New Mexico volunteers of Hispanic heritage supporting the Union at the  Battle of Valverde in 1862. When the Confederate threat to New Mexico was eliminated, Carson turned on the native Americans he had lived with and led forces to suppress the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, Kiowa and Comanche Indians.  For this service, Carson was breveted (a type of military commission conferred especially for outstanding service by which an officer was promoted to a higher rank without the correspond- ing pay) a Brigadier General, and given command of Fort Garland, Colorado, but after only a short time his declining health forced him to retire from military life.  Carson was married three times and had ten children.  Carson died at Fort Lyon, Colorado, of an aortic aneurysm on May 23, 1868. He is buried in Taos, New Mexico, next to his third wife Josefa Jaramillo.

 

 

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

Today In Western History: Captain William Becknell Heads For Santa Fe

May 22, 1822

Captain William Becknell (1787-1856) takes a wagon train out of Arrow Rock, Missouri, headed across the plains and desert to Santa Fe, in the New Mexico Territory in 1821.  This is his third trip west, as he has been there twice before, as a trader.   His plan was to take three wagons loaded with merchandise, twenty-four slow-moving oxen, and twenty-one men across the plains. Because crossing the plains on fast horses was dangerous and uncertain enough, when the people learned of his plan, they considered it fairly certain suicide and death and joked he was insane and referred to Becknell’s wagon train as the ‘Caravan of Death’.

The spring of 1822 was exceedingly rainy, and the heavy wagons, weighing more than seven thousand pounds each, sank into the mud almost to the hubs. Along the way, they often had to deal with Osage Indians and Comanches, who were trying to steal their horses or goods.  The Pawnees, Kiowas, Cheyennes and the Sioux, who were later to take such a toll on the immigrants as they traveled along the Trail, were not a problem at this early point in their interaction with the whites traveling through their lands. 

The most treacherous part of journey was when the caravan reached the desert and the home of the Comanche, then things became much more desperate.  The wagon train went into the desert  with only their canteens filled with water and a compass to guide it over the glittering sand. Behind and around them was always the fear of a sudden attack by the Comanches. The men’s nerves were at breaking point, waiting for the dreaded attack to come.

At the end of two days they ran out of water and the water holes disappeared.  As the day wore on, the heat increased and the lack of water affected everyone, men and animals alike began suffer-ing to the point of madness.  They began having hallucinations (seeing mirages), delusions and sev-eral went mad from thirst.  Ultimately, however, it was a possible mirage that saved their lives.  Captain Becknell had been seeing mirages for a long time now and thought he was seeing another one when he looked up and saw a herd of buffalo just twenty yards away from him.  In desperation, he fired his gun at it and killed one with one shot.  Captain Becknell knew buffalo never ventured into the desert without a stomach full of water and after dragging himself over to it, and cutting into it with his knife, he found the stomach, filled with gallons of water.  This told him there was water somewhere nearby, and after sharing the contents of the buffalo’s stomach with the other men, he gathered all the canteens and went looking for the water.  He found it, filled all the canteens and took them back to the men, saving everyone’s life.  Thirty days later, the wagon train reached their goal, Sante Fe.  They had traveled over eight hundred long and dangerous miles, and opened up a new road to the southwest – The famed Sante Fe Trail.

          Becknell made a third trip to New Mexico in the fall of 1824 and received a license to trap in the Green Mountains, a pursuit that occupied him for the next several months. The following summer he participated with a group authorized by Congress to mark the Santa Fe Trail via the Cimarron Cutoff as the central route to the Southwest. Certainly this, in addition to his previous exploits, helped earn Becknell the sobriquet of “Father of the Santa Fe Trail.”

          Becknell subsequently retired from the trade, serving two terms in the Missouri Legislature and several years as a justice of the peace. Then in 1835 he sold his property and relocated with his family and several slaves to Red River County in northeastern Texas, where he became a prominent farmer and stockman. He took an active role in the Texas War for Independence, and served briefly in the first Texas Congress. William Becknell died on April 25, 1856, and was buried west of Clarksville, Texas. The Texas Legislature marked the grave with a large granite stone in 1957.

 

Today In Western History: The Lawrence Raid

 May 21, 1856

Things are heating up as pro-slavers raid Lawrence, Kansas, killing one man.  This initial raid on Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, even before the Civil War started, when pro-slavery  activists attacked and ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers to help ensure that Kansas would become a “free state”. The incident only made worse the guerrilla war in Kansas Territory that became known as Bleeding Kansas.

The trouble began on April 23, 1856, when Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones was shot while trying to arrest free-state settlers in

Pro-slavery Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, instigator of the Lawrence raid
Pro-slavery Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, instigator of the Lawrence raid

Lawrence.  Jones belonged to the pro-slavery faction and was using the law to try and drive out the free-state settlers to control the voting that was to determine whether Kansas would become a slave state or a free state.   After wounding Sheriff Jones, the residents drove him out of town.   Three weeks later, on May 11, Federal Marshal J. B. Donaldson made the decision their act had interfered with the execution of a legal judicial process against the extra-legal Free-State legislature, which had been set up in opposition to the official pro-slavery territorial government.   Based on this proclamation, as well the finding by a grand jury that Lawrence’s Free State Hotel was actually built to use as a fort, Sheriff Jones assembled a posse of about 800 southern settlers to enter Lawrence, disarm the citizens, destroy the anti-slavery presses, and dismantle the Free State Hotel.

This raid is often confused with the Lawrence Massacre, led by William Clarke Quantrill, but that massacre took place seven years later on August 21, 1863. 

 

William Clarke Quantrill, Confederate guerrilla, responsible for the Lawrence, Kansas massacre
William Clarke Quantrill, Confederate guerrilla, responsible for the Lawrence, Kansas massacre

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

Today In Western History: Bad Things Come In Threes.

May 20, 1916-1918

 In what is a remarkable, if not strange, twist of fate, a tornado tears up the small town of Codell, Kansas on the same day, three years in a row.

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as twisters or cyclones, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology, in a wider sense, to name any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating.

The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour (480 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km).   Tornado speeds are measured by the Fujita Scale, where an F-0 tornado is capable of reaching wind speeds of up to 78 miles an hour in a 3 second gust, and an F-5 tornado is capable of reaching wind speeds of up to 317 miles an hour in a 3 second gust.

These first two photos are of an F-0 tornado.  Impressive, but little damage caused.

F-0 tornadoes, impressive to look at, but little real damage caused.
F-0 tornadoes, impressive to look at, but little real damage caused.

F0 tornado site unknown

These next two images are of F-1 tornadoes.  Also impressive, but costly.

The tornado galleries of Eric Nguyen
The tornado galleries of Eric Nguyen
The tornado galleries of Eric Nguyen
The tornado galleries of Eric Nguyen

Now we are getting a little more serious.  These next two images are of two different F-2 tornadoes, date and location unknown.

F-2 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-2 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-2 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-2 Tornado, date and location unknown

It’s getting more serious now, these next two images are of reported F-3 tornadoes.  Head for cover!

F-3 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-3 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-3 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-3 Tornado, date and location unknown

Now we move on toe the real killers!  Here are two F-4 killer tornadoes.  You DON’T want to be around them!!

F-4 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-4 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-4 Tornado, date and location unknown
F-4 Tornado, date and location unknown

And finally, the baddest of the bad tornadoes, the dreaded F-5.  As in the movie. “Twist”, the ‘finger of God.  You DON’T want to have one of these come for a visit!

Category F5 tornado (upgraded from initial estimate of F4) viewed from the southeast as it approached Elie, Manitoba on Friday, June 22nd, 2007.

Category F5 tornado (upgraded from initial estimate of F4) viewed from the southeast as it approached Elie, Manitoba on Friday, June 22nd, 2007.

F-5 Tornado, date and location unknown

F-5 Tornado, date and location unknown

Tornado seen at an oil rig
Tornado seen at an oil rig

 

Today In Western History: Cynthia Ann Parker Is Kidnapped

May 19, 1836

Cynthia Ann Parker is kidnapped, at the age of about ten (possibly as young as 8 or already over 11 (her age was never verified), by Caddo, 

Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped, at a young age, she lived among the Comanche and is the mother of Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief
Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped, at a young age, she lived among the Comanche and is the mother of Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief

Comanche and Kiowa Indians on a raid in Parker’s Fort, a community situated just 40 miles east of present day Waco, Texas.  In the custom of the  Indian culture the period, She was adopted by the Comanche and lived with them for 24 years, She was given the Comanche name of Na’ura (also variously spelled “Nadua” and “Nauta”), which means ‘the found one’. 

In time she married a Comanche chieftain, Peta Nocona, and had three children with him.  Cynthia was finally recaptured by the Texas Rangers when she was about 34, but having been acculturated to her new life, she was unable to adapt to living among the white culture any longer.  She spent the re-maining ten years of her life refusing to adjust to life in white society. At least once, she escaped and tried to return to her Comanche family and children, but was again brought back to Texas.  The Texans of that day could not comprehend that she preferred to be among the ‘savages’, and they kept bringing her back. Cynthia never fully understood her iconic meaning to the nation, which saw her as having been rescued from the Comanches, while she saw her place as being among them.  .Heartbroken over the loss of her family, she stopped eating and died of influenza in 1871. 

Two of Cynthia’s three children disappeared from history, as they were just part of the tribe, but one them made quite a name for himself 

Quanah Parker, the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by the Comanche as a young girl. He was the last great Chief of the Comanche Indians.
Quanah Parker, the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by the Comanche as a young girl. He was the last great Chief of the Comanche Indians.

later in life.  His name was Quanah, and became one of the last Comanche chiefs. The U.S. appointed Quanah principal chief of the entire nation once the people had gathered on the reservation and later introduced general elections.  He had a long and accomplished career, always watching out for his people.

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

Today In Western History: The Salt Creek Massacre

May 18, 1871

Kiowa war chief Satanta leads an attack on a wagon train at Salt Creek, Texas, killing seven of the party.

Also known as White Bear, he was the last last, of the Kiowa War Chiefs and was well known for both his prowess as a warrior, and his soaring oratorical powers
Also known as White Bear, he was the last last, of the Kiowa War Chiefs and well known for both his prowess as a warrior, and soaring oratorical powers.

In October 1867, federal officials had held a summit with Kiowa and Comanche leaders in Barber County, Kansas, resulting in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. For a number of reasons, the treaty was a failure, as were most of the treaties between the whites and the Native Americans.  As usual, many Indian bands did not recognize it as valid. Similarly, the federal government was lax about enforcing the treaty once it was signed, allowing white outlaws to prey upon reservation Indians.

The primary reason most of the treaties failed is that neither side fully understood the other’s form of governmental structure, and both expected the other to operate as they did. In the Native American culture, the chief was an elected position, but no one was obligated to do what he said if they disagreed.  He did not represent the entire tribe.  For the white culture, they expected the chief to represent the whole tribe or the entire collection of tribes.  The Native Americans didn’t understand the concept of ownership of the land, so they couldn’t understand the settlers cutting it up to farm.  This mutual misunderstanding could only lead to disaster for both sides, but mostly for the Native Americans, as the different tribes seldom fought together, the major exceptions being a little dustup in June of 1876 out in western Montana.

The late 1860s was a time of danger and conflict for everyone, Texan or Indian, as the frontier remained unsafe and unpredictable.  The forts were undermanned, making it very difficult to police the serious violations being committed by both sides on the other.   For both groups, the situation appeared no different to any significant degree from the way things were long before the war.   Unfortunately, for the Indians,  things were changing and not in a good way for the Indians.  General William T. Sherman, commander of the U.S. Army, and the commander

US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia
US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia

of U.S. troops in Texas, General Philip H. Sheridan, who were both hardened veterans of some of the worst fighting of the Civil War. Sherman and Sheridan had learned

US General Philip Sheridan, originator of the line, "Thew only good Indian is a dead Indian."
US General Philip Sheridan, originator of the line, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

not only to wage war on the battlefield but to break the enemy’s will to resist. To this end, they began a policy of encouraging the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd.

In January, 1869, General Sheridan held a conference with 50 Indian chiefs at Fort Cobb in the so-called Indian Territory (later part of Oklahoma). At that time, Sheridan, who had gained recognition as a Union officer in the Civil War, was in charge of the Dept. of the Missouri. One of his duties was to oversee the Indian Territory, making sure the Indians remained on their reservations and did not har-ass the white settlers. When Comanche chief Toch-a-way was introduced to Sheridan at the conference, the Indian said, “Me Toch-a-way, me good Indian.” Sheridan reportedly smirked and replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” Later on, the remark became “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”  This attitude, along with Sherman’s concept of total war, did not bode well for the Indians.

In early May, 1871, a party of more than one hundred Kiowas, Comanches, and others left Fort Sill and crossed into Texas. Led by Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, they took up positions on the Salt Creek Prairie. A group of heavily armed white soldiers was allowed to pass unmolested; unknown to the Indians, the military escort was for General Sherman, who was conducting an inspection tour of Texas. The next group of whites to pass was a wagon train belonging to a freighting company. The Indians swept down upon the wagons and attacked. They killed the wagon master and seven teamsters and looted the wagons, then returned immediately to the reservation.

When General Sherman heard the news from a teamster who escaped the slaughter, he ordered ruthless reprisals and reversed an earlier prohibition soldiers from  Indians on to the reservations. Sherman quickly traveled to Fort Sill, where he personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree and ordered them transported back to Texas to be tried for murder. Satank was killed during an escape attempt, but Satanta and Big Tree were put on trial. By early July both had been sentenced to hang.

As a result, hundreds of Indians began leaving the reservation to join their relatives on the Staked Plains. In an effort to avoid mass reprisals and carnage, Governor Edmund J. Davis commuted the sentences to life in prison. The Indians were eventually paroled, but it would be Satanta’s fate to commit suicide in 1878 while serving another prison term at Huntsville prison. The character of Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry’s classic novel Lonesome Dove was partially based on his life. Big Tree was more fortunate. When the Indian Wars came to a close, he counseled his people to accept peace. Big Tree converted to the Baptist faith and lived to age eighty.

The Salt Creek Massacre, also known as the Warren Wagon Train Raid, would have far-reaching consequences for Texas Indians. Because of the raid, General Sherman developed a policy of all-out offensive against the Plains Indians. The next few years would be bloody indeed.

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

 

Today In Western History: Custer Leaves Ft. Lincoln For The Last Time

May 17, 1876

 

It is the beginning of an epic failure, as Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry ride out of Ft. Abraham Lincoln.  Traveling with him is his brother Tom Custer, winner of two Medals Of Honor during the War, and his brother-in-law, LT. James ‘Jimmi’ Calhoun.  Also tagging along for the fun was Custer’s nephew Boston Custer, serving as a teamster.

Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero in the Civil War and failure in the Indian Wars
Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero in the Civil War and failure in the Indian Wars

under the command of Gen. Alfred Terry, with the intent of dealing with Indian resistance in western Montana along the Yellowstone Territory.    

Major General Alfred H. Terry. He gave Custer the widest latitude in following his orders.
Major General Alfred H. Terry. He gave Custer the widest latitude in following his orders.

This story needs little explanation to true students of the West.  It is a well documented tale of glory hunting, egotistical over-confidence, failure to take due caution and supreme under-estimation of one’s enemy.

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was a hero during the Civil War, and the favorite of General Sheridan. He could always be counted on for taking charge of a situation, and he was always at the front of that charge.

US General Phiip "LIttle Phil' Sheridan. He was Custer's biggest supporter.
US General Phiip “LIttle Phil’ Sheridan. He was Custer’s biggest supporter.

Custer was the head of the cavalry group that fought at Yellow Tavern, and brought down Confederate  Cavalry General and hero James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart.

James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, CSA General
James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, CSA General

Custer didn’t lack for courage, although some called it foolhardiness, and some called it “Custer Luck” that he always came out ahead. 

He had been a shining star for the Union during the Civil War, but fighting Indians out on the Plains was a different matter.  They didn’t fight like he was used to, they would run off in different directions and wouldn’t fight unless the odds were in their favor.  They didn’t wear uniforms and they didn’t fight out in the open.  Custer was a bear for discipline, unless it applied to him.  He was used to the men under his command following him without serious complaint, but he forgot – or didn’t recognize – that in the war, they were mostly volunteers fighting for a common cause.  Out of the plains, they were not volunteers and they did not see the need for such rigorous discipline.  And many of them would run off to go gold mining whenever the opportunity arose.  This was a much different war, and different soldier, than the one he had just served in and with. 

Despite all these problems, and he had several – a much debated fight on the Washita River, leaving a small party of troopers led by Major Joel Elliott behind to be killed by the Sioux,

Major Joel Elliot, 7th Cavalry. He was left behind by Custer.
Major Joel Elliot, 7th Cavalry. He was left behind by Custer.

abandoning his post to ride one hundred miles to be with his wife, Libby – among others, and even a suspension of his rank and duties, but he always seemed to land on his feet.  At least, he did until this campaign. 

Elizabeth Bacon Custer, she loved him and made his name a legend, then protected it for the rest of her life.
Elizabeth Bacon Custer, she loved him and made his name a legend, then protected it for the rest of her life.

 

To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “The Spirit Of Redd Mountain”, Click Here

 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com