The Wild West Was a LIE Outl4ws, Ma.ssacres, and the Truth They Buried

The Wild West Was a LIE Outl4ws, Ma.ssacres, and the Truth They Buried

Few places in history have as much nostalgia, drama, rumor, myths, legends, heroes, villains, and conspiracy theories as the Wild West. From bandits, cattle rustlers, horse thieves, g.unf1ghters, lawmen, renegade Indians, miners, and cattle barons, there is no shortage of interesting stories. But some legends and myths d1e much harder than others.

But if you ask the average person who William H. Bonney, Henry McCarty, or Brushy Bill Roberts were, they have no idea. You mention Billy the Kid, then they think they know everything. Who was the real Billy the Kid? Why and how did he become such a national anti hero and celebrity? What was his real name? Who really k1lled him, if he was k1lled at all? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, military veteran, historian, author, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.

Billy the Kid was believed to have been born around November 23rd, 1859, possibly in New York City’s East Side. But this has not yet been proven. There are many versions of his story, so we will put together the most plausible facts. One of the greatest mysteries was his real identity. His mother, Catherine McCarty, came to the United States during the potato famine in Ireland, but But do not know whether this was her married name or her maiden name.

Most historians believe that his legal name was William Henry McCarty Jr. He was only 21 years of age when he was sh0t by Pat Garrett, or so the story goes. He had several aliases, but is  best known as Billy the Kid. As a child, he went under the name of Henry McCarty, later Henry Antrim, and William H. Bonney Jr.

, which was the name he used in his famous trial. So, we do not know his true name. Another possibility is that Billy the Kid was in fact Ollie L. Brushy Bill Roberts, who escaped, lived in both Mexico and the US Southwest,    rode in wild west shows, and d1ed in Hico, Texas in 1950. Billy the Kid’s family moved to Kansas, where his father d1ed of unknown causes, after which his mother took Billy and his brother to Colorado and remarried.

The family then moved to New Mexico when Billy was about 14, and he soon delved into illegal activities. After his mother d1ed in 1874, his life changed. He was considered to be a very honest 14 year old when he became an orphan. He lived in a hotel doing odd jobs after the owner took him in, who was impressed with his honesty and work ethic.

For unknown reasons, Billy had to leave his temporary home, and there was good evidence the hotel owner either d1ed or sold the business. Being on his own, he was caught stealing food. Then 5 months later, he was arr.ested for stealing clothes and firearms. 2 days later, he escaped from jail and started life as an outlaw fugitive.

He joined a few gangs engaged in robberies and was wanted for his first murd3r in New Mexico. Not in dispute was the fact that he was only 18 when he k1lled his first man. Billy tried to stay out of trouble, apparently, but it seems he made the wrong kinds of friends. The legend is that he k1lled 21 men during his short life, but research shows that eight or nine is probably correct.

The Lincoln County W4r was a war over cattle and grazing land starting the careers of several famous g.unslingers  such as Billy the Kid, Sheriff William J. Brady, James Dolan, John Chisum, Jose Chavez, Lawrence Murphy, and Alexander McSween, among others. The murd3r of English born John Tunstall on February 18, 1878 by Jesse Evans and others working with Sheriff Brady on orders from James Dolan started the war.

Dolan, along with Lawrence Murphy, controlled the entire county and stole cattle from Tunstall and John Chisum on a regular basis. The murd3r was witnessed by Fred Waite, Richard Brewer, John Middleton, Henry Newton Brown, Robert A. Widenmann,    and Billy the Kid. His de4th hit them hard, especially Billy.

Because Tunstall had hired Billy and many of the young nomads to work for him, and he was highly respected and fair with them. And Billy looked upon him as a father figure. Tunstall was also well liked in many local citizens formed a group  called the Regulators to bring his murd3rers to justice. But with New Mexico still being a territory, the entire criminal justice system was controlled by allies of Murphy, Brady, and Dolan.

Billy and the other members of the Regulators were deputized by Lincoln County Justice of the Peace Const4ble Martinez, and they tried to serve the legally issued arr.est warrants on the murd3rers. Sheriff Brady then ran interference and arr.ested and jailed Martinez and his deputies  in violation of their legal law enforcement status.

On March 9th, 1878, the regulators captured Buck Morton, Dick Lloyd, and Frank Butler, all part of the Dolan gang involved in the Tunstall murd3r. The regulators had their pr1soners and they wanted  to k1ll them, but William McCloskey, who opposed the prospect of k1lling the pr1soners, rejected the idea.

Tunstall’s other two k1llers, Tom Hill and Jesse Evans, were sh0t while trying to rob a sheep drover near Tularosa, New Mexico. Hill d1ed and Evans was severely wounded and later arr.ested on an old federal warrant for stealing stock from an Indian reservation. Bradley managed to collude with territorial attorney general Thomas Benton  Catron and territorial governor Samuel B. Axtell.

Axtell ruled that John Wilson, the justice of the peace, had been illegally appointed by the Lincoln County commissioners. Wilson had deputized the regulators as well and issued the warrants for Tunstall’s murd3rers. But the new ruling meant that the regulators’ legal actions were now illegal and he dismissed the US Marshal, making Brady the only law in the county.

On April 1st, 1878, the regulators 4mbushed and k1lled Brady and Deputy George W. Hindman. Later, the shootout at Blazer’s Mill occurred when Bucksh0t Roberts, one of Tunstall’s k1llers, was found. He was k1lled, but he also k1lled regulator leader Richard Brewer and wounded Billy and three other regulators. After the de4th of Brewer, the regulators elected Frank McNab as their leader.

On April 29th, 1878, Sheriff Peppin’s posse, including the Jesse Evans gang and the Seven Rivers W4rriors, arrived to k1ll the regulators and started a shootout. McNab was k1lled and a few regulators were wounded and escaped or    were captured. The following day, Seven Rivers members Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson, and John Galvin were k1lled in Lincoln, but Billy and his men apparently also sh0t at US sold1ers while shooting at Dolan and his men.

Filing upon the army changed the dynamic. On May 15th, the regulators tracked and captured Jesse Evans gang member Manuel Segovia, who was allegedly sh0t trying to escape. On July 15th, 1878, the regulators were surrounded by Dolan’s collective while hiding in the Ellis General Store and McSween’s house in Lincoln.

The standoff lasted about 3 days until sold1ers commanded by Colonel Nathan Dudley arrived and brought cannons, forcing the regulators to escape. On July 19th, Murphy and Dolan torched the house with Susan McSween, widow of Alexander, who was k1lled, and another woman and five children. They were given safe pa.ssage out of the house while the men inside continued to f1ght the fire.

The Lincoln County W4r was effectively over. Murphy d1ed of cancer shortly after and Dolan was indicted for the murd3r of Tunstall, but released. He confiscated Tunstall’s property eventually and d1ed in 1898. Every member of the regulators was now a federal fugitive and in December 1880, Billy was charged with murd3r and captured by Pat Garrett.

He was tried and convicted and sentenced to hang. Another fact not in dispute was that while awaiting execution, he escaped jail on April 28th, 1881, apparently without side a.ssistance, and k1lled two deputies and remained on the run until, as the story goes, he was tracked down and 4mbushed by Pat Garrett, who k1lled him on the evening of July 14th at the ranch home of Pete Maxwell.

Billy the Kid’s grave is supposedly in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where he d1ed. The case started out confusing after the k1lling because the postmaster, Bill Milner Rudolph, arrived from his home 6 miles away early the next morning to hold the  investigation. Rudolph arrived to find the locals somewhat angry and in fear for their safety.

Garrett, Poe, and McKinney were barricaded in a bedroom in the home of Pete Maxwell. Of interest, there had already been a previous inquest a couple of hours earlier before Rudolph was even called. Local businessman, A. P. Anaya, according to what they told the editor of New Mexico magazine, was that he and a friend were members of that first inquiry.

Rudolph was also told the body on the bedroom floor was the man Garrett had k1lled, meaning Billy the Kid. Rudolph held the second coroner’s inquiry and brought in five witnesses. He held the inquest in the bedroom with the de@d body. But, in Pat Garrett’s own book, he claimed that Billy the Kid’s body was taken to the carpenter shop right afterward, meaning after he k1lled him.

If that were the case, then why would the body have been brought back to the bedroom where Billy the Kid was sh0t? Garrett and Maxwell testified to Rudolph and the five witnesses as to how things occurred. When completed, Rudolph then sent the required report that was signed by the witnesses who were the coroner’s jury.

The second report stated that William Bonney was k1lled by a sh0t in the left breast in the region of the heart fired from a pistol in the hand of Patrick F. Garrett, and our verdict is that the act of the said Garrett was justifiable homicide and we are unanimous in the opinion that the gratitude of the whole community is due to the said Garrett for his act and that he deserves to be rewarded.

But the story only becomes more convoluted. The coroner’s report was never entered into the official San Miguel County records as required. Also, Fort Sumner Justice Alejandro Segura never made mention of this report and why were there two inquests? Anaya himself claimed that his verdict signed by himself and his friend disappeared and that Garrett and Manuel Abreu, Pete Maxwell’s son in law, wrote  a replacement, a more flowery one for filing.

The problems arose when the signatures of the men who were not even part of the first inquest appeared on the second report. And the signatures were misspelled, which would mean that it was a forgery by Pat Garrett. But the story gets even better because E.B. Mann, writing in Guns and Gunf1ghters, wrote that the only three witnesses identified the body and that one later admitted that the corpse was not Billy the Kid because he knew  him.

Adding to the confusion and conspiracies was simply the way things were done back then. When an officer of the law k1lled a wanted criminal, the identification process was exacting. This was because there had to be clear positive proof that the peace officer had not k1lled the wrong person, which would have been a problem.

Due to the speed of the two inquests and the rapid burial of the de@d man, many believed that Garrett took control of the second inquest and wanted it over very quickly in order to hide the fact that Garrett had k1lled the wrong man. Another practice of the Old West was not done in this case. It was that when a famous outlaw was k1lled, the law enforcement officer would have a photograph taken with the de@d outlaw and the body placed on public display.

This allowed the locals to see that the criminal was in fact de@d and the proper person had been k1lled. Garrett would have definitely done all of the above since he was known to aspire to high political office and such a photograph would have been excellent campaign propaganda. But that only works if the man he k1lled really was Billy the Kid.

Garrett also stated that he filed the report officially as being a de4th certificate was required. But according to the New Mexico Secretary of State in 1949, Alicia Romero, there is no record in this  office of any coroner’s verdict in the purported de4th of William H. Bonney, which was the name of record for Billy the Kid.

Garrett even tried to collect the $500 bounty but was denied due to the actual fact that there was no proof the Kid was even de@d. Basically, to this day, there is no record of the de4th, no record of the inquest, and no proof of a burial for Billy the Kid. Legally, he was still alive. Due to these issues, Garrett ordered a third coroner’s inquest that has the same problems as the others.

False signatures by men who never saw the body and if they had, did not even know Billy the Kid. What has never been explained was the reason for the hasty burial in the Fort Sumner military cemetery next to the graves of Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, who were friends of Billy the Kid. It took Garrett until February 18th, 1882 to get his bounty paid when he entertained the New Mexico territorial legislature, who were his supporters, political cronies, and he paid for their drinks and entertainment.

They finally approved the bounty be paid, but in their approval decree, they erroneously had the date of the shooting as August 1881. And here’s another fascinating fact. Although often accused of being Billy the Kid, William Henry Roberts, better known as Brushy Bill, finally later admitted to being Billy the Kid, which created quite a stir given historically accepted story that Billy the Kid was sh0t by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

Naturally, there were skeptics, but here are some interesting things about Roberts, who got the nickname Brushy Bill as a scout for a stagecoach line in the Black Hills of Idaho. Roberts matched Billy the Kid in every physical and possible way, including his voice, laughter, and eye color. Photos of Roberts and Billy the Kid were scientifically compared by the University of Texas at Austin and validated by the FBI showing Roberts and Billy the Kid to be the same person.

Also, adding credibility was that when Roberts was interviewed about his background, it was evident that he knew explicit details about the people, places, events, and little known details of Billy the Kid more than anyone else alive, even the historians back then. Most of what was known to historians was from Pat Garrett’s own book, ghostwritten by Marshall Ashman Ash Upson, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, which became gospel on the subject.

Deputies John Poe and Thomas Kidd McKinney also testified afterward that Garrett k1lled Billy the Kid. However, in later years both Poe and McKinney stated that Sheriff Garrett did not k1ll Billy the Kid and Poe’s account during his original testimony contradicted Garrett’s on several important and relevant points.

According to writer Frederick Nolan, Garrett’s book was a farrago of nonsense that has been responsible for every single one of the myths perpetuated about Billy the Kid and for many inaccuracies, evasions, and even untruths. Most serious historians today do not give Pat Garrett’s book much credibility as Garrett was well known to fabricating his own life and embellishing many events.

However, Roberts’ credibility has only increased as more is learned. Another factor supporting the calls for Roberts was the family Bible found after his de4th. They recorded the names of his family members such as Bonney, McCarty, and Antrim, all the aliases used by Billy the Kid. Of course, some detractors state that Roberts was not Billy the Kid because Billy the Kid was right handed while Roberts was supposedly left handed.

Billy spoke Spanish and they claimed Roberts did not. They also claimed that William Henry Roberts was actually Oliver P. Roberts whose documented past did not coincide with the life of the Kid. But in fact, Roberts was ambidextrous and spoke Spanish fluently and he knew every detail one would expect if he were in fact Billy the Kid.

William Henry Roberts claimed that the man who was k1lled by Garrett was a friend of his named Billy Barlow who was half Mexican and looked a lot like Billy the Kid except for his dark beard and dark skin. A few months later before the shooting in Fort Sumner, the editor of the Las Vegas Gazette, J. H.

Koogler, interviewed Billy the Kid in person while he was in town waiting to be transported to Mesilla for his murd3r trial. Koogler’s descr.i.ption was different than  the man Garrett sh0t, quoting his report, “There was nothing very mannish about him in appearance, for he looked and acted a mere boy. He is about 5 ft 8 or 9 in tall, slightly built and lithe, weighing about 140.

A frank, open countenance, looking like a schoolboy with the traditional silky fuzz on his upper  lip, clear blue eyes with a roguish snap about them, light hair and complexion.” Roberts recited that actual interview, even describing Koogler. Ben Kemp provided the following in a Frontier Times magazine dated March 19, ’80, concerning his uncle, John Graham, who knew Billy the Kid.

On the morning after the shooting, Graham and a Mexican  were sent to the cemetery to dig a grave for Garrett’s v1tim. Graham stated that when the wagon carrying the casket arrived, it was accompanied by an armed guard with strict orders to see that no one opened it to see what was inside. Of interest is the word used being what, not who.

According to the story, Graham was told that the de@d man was an employee of Pete Maxwell’s, not Billy the Kid. The marker was sh0t to pieces by locals over the years, and the bod1es of the more than 20 sold1ers buried there were reinterred in the Santa Fe National Cemetery in 1906, but not the unmarked graves. The accepted grave sites of Billy the Kid, Tom O’Folliard, and Charlie Bowdre attract tourists from all over who believe that Billy the Kid is in fact buried there.

The fact that Pat Garrett violated every rule of a law enforcement officer protocols, both state and federal, and did not follow any protocol, and had the cover ups regarding the inquiries, never filed the paperwork and de4th certificate, and hastily buried the body is d@mning evidence. Brushy Bill Roberts matched every physical and chronological aspect of Billy the Kid, and pretty much proves that  Pat Garrett lied and murd3red the wrong man.

But, we will let you decide. The Wild West had many figures, heroic, controversial, often trag1c. From g.unslingers to lawmen and Indian f1ghters, they all caught the public imagination, and their stories were published and often propagandized in the famous dime store novels of the day. A century later, they would be immortalized in books and film, men and women who are household names today.

However, most people do not know the dark side of our heroes or the bright side of our villains. Many men and women walked a narrow line in both worlds and became legends, whether deserved or not. We will talk about one of them. Who was Doc Holliday? How did he walk into history? What was his real connection to other legendary figures? How did his legend become greater than the reality? Why is he still in the public imagination? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army and Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of

Forgotten History. Hot wax.  John Henry Holliday was born on August 14th, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia to Henry Holliday and Alice Jane McKey Holliday. Henry was a Mexican American W4r and Civil W4r veteran and he taught his son to shoot rifles and revolvers and the young man became an expert sh0t. The young John Holliday traveled quite a lot during his childhood such as in 1864 when the family moved to Valdosta, Georgia where Doc attended first through 10th grade at the exclusive and private Valdosta Institute.

He was considered an outstanding student and excelled at rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history, and Latin. He also learned ancient Greek and stud1ed the great philosophers and loved ancient history. He could quote Cicero, Plato, Aristotle, Pliny the Elder and Younger and he was a devoted student of Suetonius, Julius  Caesar, Alexander the Great, among others and he also had a great interest in medicine.

His uncle Dr. John Styles Holliday, who was a dentist, had a great influence on him.    And at age 19, he moved to Philadelphia and enrolled in the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. In July 1872, after graduating, he joined a dental practice in Atlanta but soon afterward he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which was then called consumption.

His mother had d1ed of the same disease. Upon receiving medical advice, he decided to relocate to a much drier climate hoping that would help his condition. So, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he practiced under another dentist for a while before moving on to Dallas, Texas eventually opening his own dental practice.

However, due to his uncontrollable coughing which increased in frequency and violence, his patience abandoned him. His mathematical sk1lls and intelligence as well as his ability at reading people and  counting cards saw him find a more successful occupation as a gambler to support himself which was according to the legend how and when he k1lled his first man.

Holliday was something of an oddity in many parts of the West being a highly educated Southerner with a direct and dry sense of humor who made his money gambling so he could rub people the wrong way. While in Dallas, Holliday was arr.ested twice for illegal gambling and eventually he won those cases. But he was also arr.ested for murd3r.

He claimed self defense after another player accused him of cheating. According to one of the more plausible stories, witnesses testified that the de@d man had called him out and then pulled his g.un. After being acquitted of murd3r, he left Texas in January of 1875. During his travels, he met and est4blished a common law relationship with Mary Katherine Haroney Cummings born Maria Isabella Magdolna Haroney on November 9th, 1849 spending her first 10 years in the Kingdom of Hungary in present day Slovakia.

She became an outlaw, gambler, dance hall girl, and prostitute with her own history of questionable relations with the law. She also worked for a St. Louis madam, then moved to Texas where she met Holliday at John Shanssey’s Saloon at Fort Griffin,  Texas in 1877 after Holliday returned. Holliday was again in trouble and was arr.ested for either st4bbing a cheat in the stomach or drinking liquor.

Both his stories are quite controversial and murky. Uh drinking liquor while gambling was prohibited, and the record here is unclear. With Holliday being held in custody in a local hotel, Kate set a fire, and when the locals ran to put the fire out, she went to the hotel and thre4tened his guards with two pistols.

They left quickly on stolen horses. And given the problems they experienced, they left Texas for good and moved to Dodge City, Kansas in the spring of 1878, where Holliday met and became friends  with the a.ssistant city marshal, Wyatt Earp. Kate found work working with Wyatt Earp’s sister in law in the saloon she managed,  and it was Kate who introduced Holliday to Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan,    which Kate said she later regretted.

She stated, “The Earps had such power, I could not get Doc away from them.” Soon afterward, Wyatt Earp credited Holliday for saving his life during a shootout with outlaws at the Long Branch Saloon. When Earp was about to be 4mbushed by cowboys wanted for a series of crimes, and Earp had warrants for their arr.est.

This event est4blished the basis for their long standing friendship. That friendship would later manifest itself as Holliday also became friends with the other Earp brothers James, Virgil, Morgan, W4rren, and half brother Newton. All were lawmen, gamblers, and businessmen. All of them would become legends as well.

Holliday and Kate had a legendary and explos1ve relationship, as both had hair trigger tempers. Once after a major f1ght, Holliday told Wyatt Earp, “You know, I had to quiet her, Wyatt. I hit her gently over the head with the butt end of my g.un. I had to quiet her.” But it would appear that Kate gave as good as she got because Holiday bore a lot of bruises for a long time.

In September 1880, Holiday and Kate followed the Earp brothers when they sought new fortunes in the wild and booming silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Kate lived nearby in the town of Globe, where she ran a hotel. Wyatt was working as a Wells Fargo stagecoach security agent and a bank guard when he joined his brothers.

Wyatt and Holiday, despite having only met 4 years earlier, formed a strong bond and they often crossed paths, but they were not together most of the time. Tensions in Tombstone were high as Deputy US Marshal Virgil Earp and Morgan Earp tried to maintain order as they were the law enforcement officers for Tombstone.

The Earp brothers est4blished their presence in that atmosphere, which saw a rise in violence because the well known Clanton gang saw the Earps as a challenge to their authority. The Clanton gang was a group of cattle rustlers and murd3rers and the likes of Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury made their ranks, who k1lled and stole at will until the Earps rode in.

In essence, the town was not big enough for both of the groups and tensions arose. On October 25th, 1881, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury arrived in town for supplies and they had several vi0lent confrontations with the Earp brothers. The next morning, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury, g.unf1ghter Billy Claiborne, all arrived to support Ike and Tom.

Wanting revenge after learning that both men had been pistol whipped by Wyatt and Virgil Earp. Doc Holiday, who had only been in town for a short while, was deputized by Wyatt as he trusted Holiday and knew that he was reliable with a g.un. The Clantons, Claiborne, and McLaury brothers planned an 4mbush against the Earps who were tipped off.

There is still deb4te as to who fired first leaving Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers de@d but Doc Holiday, Virgil, and Morgan Earp slightly wounded. But here is how the g.unf1ght went down. At 3:00 p.m. on August 26, 1881, the Earps and Holiday faced the Clanton McLaury gang behind the OK Corral. Though it’s still deb4ted who fired the first sh0t, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and sh0t Billy Clanton point blank in the chest while Doc Holiday fired a sh0tg.un blast at Tom

McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a sh0t in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few sh0ts before collapsing as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were de@d and Virgil and Morgan Earp, as well as Doc Holiday, were wounded. Ike Clanton was at the g.unf1ght but was unarmed due to having his w3apons confiscated the day before and managed to escape on a horse.

The g.unf1ght had lasted all of 30 seconds. The g.unf1ght made headlines all over and due to the great public interest, an inquest was convened. The presiding judge of the territorial court found that the Earps and Holiday had acted within their duties as lawmen at the OK Corral. There were no charges brought at first.

However, Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout and was a friend of the Clantons, later charged the Earps and Holiday with murd3r. However, a month later, a Tombstone judge on appeal found the men not guilty, ruling that they were fully justified in committing these homicides due to the announced premeditation on the part of the Clantons and McLaurys.

Despite the facts and the ruling, Ike Clanton still wanted revenge, and in the following weeks, Morgan Earp was murd3red, and the k1ller was suspected to have been Clanton a.ssociate Frank Stillwell, who had been seen in town. Later, Virgil Earp was permanently maimed when he was sh0t in the right arm by an unknown group of cowboys believed to be friends of Ike Clanton.

Wyatt Earp, armed with federal warrants for the arr.est of Ike Clanton, Frank Stillwell, and others, formed a posse that Holiday joined, which became known as the Earp Vendetta Ride that tracked the outlaws for over a year, eventually k1lling four of them, including Frank Stillwell at the Tucson railyard. Then, while in Albuquerque, New Mexico territory, Wyatt and Holiday then learned that those warrants had been issued by Sheriff John Behan for their arr.est, as well as for the arr.est of their posse members and themselves for the k1llings

at the OK Corral, despite their federally authorized credentials. Then, later, they had learned of the judge ruling that the shootings had been justified. At this point, Wyatt and Doc had a disagreement which saw Holiday and fellow posse member Dan Tipton leave the collective. They decided to go to Trinidad, Colorado, which was a growing gambling and entertainment mecca full of cattle drovers and gold miners.

In early April 1882, Holiday and Tipton parted ways when Holiday took a train to Pueblo, and Tipton returned to the posse. This was where Holiday met a man named Perry Mallon, who arrived on another train soon after. Perry Mallon approached Doc Holiday for the first time at the Theater Comique in Pueblo, Colorado.

This brief meeting would have larger consequences for both men, as Mallon would inadvertently  make Doc Holliday even more famous than his presence at the OK Corral. Mallon told Holliday that Frank Stillwell’s brother was looking for Doc and wanted to k1ll him. Naturally, Holliday had no reason to doubt this information.

Holliday asked Mallon to identify Stillwell’s brother, but for some reason he refused, and Holliday was arr.ested by Mallon for the murd3r of Frank Stillwell. Mallon then claimed that he had been personally deputized and therefore authorized to arr.est Holliday on the warrant by Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan.

There had been a warrant issued for Holliday, but that had been ruled invalid. At that time, Wyatt and his youngest brother W4rren were living near Gunnison, Colorado, and they set up camp with fellow posse riders Dan  Tipton, who had returned, and Texas Jack Vermillion. When the Earps learned of Holliday’s arr.est, Wyatt worked on having the extradition request on Holliday to Arizona denied.

This was facilitated by Earp’s friendship with Bat Masterson, who was the marshal of the town of Trinidad, who also happened to be in Denver for the horse races when Holliday was arr.ested, and he knew Doc Holliday. Mallon’s credibility fell apart over time, as he had spun lies and great tales about his adventures tracking down Holliday, even going so far as claiming he knew Holliday was a criminal in Utah Territory, and that he had committed a murd3r there.

But when Holliday proved through interviews with reporters and telegraph messages,  which were replied to, proving Holliday had never been in Utah and was in fact in Denver at that particular time, and that he had only met Mallon in Pueblo, things began to change. However, Pima County Sheriff Bob Paul arrived from the territory to escort Holiday back to Tucson, but he had lacked the necessary paperwork, forcing him to wait in Denver for the appropriate requisition documents to arrive.

Sheriff Paul had taken the job at the request of Johnny Behan, so Wyatt, his brother, friends including Bat Masterson, spoke up in Holiday’s defense and hatched a plan to delay extradition proceedings. They created a fake criminal fraud case against Holiday in Pueblo as a ruse to prevent his extradition, and a writ of habeas corpus was issued to the court to release him from custody in Denver to face the very creative charges in Pueblo, which did not exist.

This would delay extradition paperwork to Arizona, where Holiday would face a very partisan and hostile crowd despite his warrant being null and void. Sheriff Paul, meanwhile, the Arizona territorial officer, upon arrival stated that he had never heard of Mallon, he never deputized him, therefore making his arr.est of Holiday illegitimate, and the Tribune newspaper that had clamored for every word Mallon had said about Holiday began to take another look at him.

But Mallon doubled down, and his ins@ne tales grew more outlandish and were fodder  for all the newspapers, which only increased the notoriety of Doc Holiday even more, raising him from an obscure former dentist wounded in a shootout in Arizona into a national headline creating the legend. In the winter of 1886, Holiday met his old friend Wyatt Earp for the last time in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel in Denver.

Erb’s common law wife, Sad1e Marcus, later described Holiday, who used a cane to walk, as    a constantly coughing skeleton standing on unsteady legs. Holiday had always been labeled as a loner, quick to anger, and a very moody person, probably  due to his suffering with tuberculosis for many years, which was often compounded by drinking and later the dru9 laudanum that he took for pain, that added to his reputation as a loner.

Holiday’s reputation as a fast g.unman, sometimes ruthless and at other times a benevolent k1ller, was often portrayed as someone with a de4th wish. In truth, Holiday’s fearsome reputation was far probably more fearful than the man himself. He’s believed to have k1lled fewer than a handful of men in his life. In fact, only two men can actually be attributed to him.

According to Oregon Smith, regarding Doc Holiday’s arrival to the mountain resort    on May 24th, 1887, the tr.i.p from Leadville was hard on Doc. The jolting from the narrow gauge would cause him to cough up pieces of lung and bl00d. It was about 2:00 when the stage reached the Hotel Glenwood. Kate said it was May 24th.

Doc was coughing from almost each breath, and upon arrival and had to use his cane to support his weight. Doc was very frail in body when I saw  him, and his hair was a silver gray. His face showed lines of age and looked sick in his eyes. His appearance resembled that of an older man since pulling out of Hooker’s Ranch.

One might argue that Doc was content in his actions and that his daily consumption of whiskey came to be his only escape from his suffering. However, during his travels, Holiday had made many friends as well as a few enemies, but he was highly respected, even feared. In fact, his long time friendship with a Colorado newspaper man kept his legend alive, and many saloon keepers all over the West remained in contact with him.

The respect that they all had for him was manifested when they learned that Holiday lay in a room dying in the Glenwood Springs Hotel in 1887. By that time, Holiday was completely broke, but fellow gamblers, even old friendly rivals and saloon keepers, sent money to help him pay the bills. Part of the great mystique surrounding Holiday and the Earps has been misrepresented throughout history.

For example, unlike in the movie Tombstone, Wyatt Earp was not present when Holiday d1ed. They had not seen each other in some time. John Henry “Doc” Holliday d1ed on November 8th, 1887 at age 36. Holiday’s common law wife, Kate, left Glenwood Springs the day after his de4th, but before she left, she packed up his belongings and had them shipped to his relatives in Georgia.

Dr. John Stiles Holliday, his uncle the dentist, collected the trunk and its contents. In addition to clothes, the trunk contained a gold stickpin  missing its diamond, a set of straight razors, a small knife, and several gambling devices.    Significantly, the trunk contains no dental equipment nor the Colt .

45 mentioned by Charlie Smith. John Henry “Doc” Holliday is buried in Linwood Cemetery overlooking Glenwood Springs, Colorado. In 1888, Kate married a blacksmith named George Cummings in an unhappy a marriage as Cummings was apparently an abusive alcoholic, but the marriage gave her the name inscribed on her tombstone, Mary Katherine  Haroney Cummings.

There is no mention of Holiday, which means that they were probably never legally married. After his de4th, Doc Holiday’s friends and even a few former enemies wrote glowing articles and epitaphs about him. Years later, in an 1896 article, Wyatt Earp said of Holiday, and I quote, “I found him a loyal friend and good company.

He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler, a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond, a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit, a long, lean, blond fellow nearly de@d with consumption, and at the same time the most sk1llful gambler and nerviest, speed1est, de@dliest man with a six g.un I ever knew.

” The 1993 movie Tombstone elevated Holiday’s legendary image as a devil may care eccentric gambler and g.unf1ghter due to Val Kilmer’s iconic role. Despite the film taking great liberties with the facts, there is one spoken line that appears to be historically accurate. In the film, Holiday, when meeting bad guy Johnny Ringo, played by Michael Biehn, says,  “I’m your huckleberry.

” Which was a popular comment at the time, meaning “I’m the one you’re looking for.” Or “I’m the man for the job.” Also, another fact is that at the OK Corral, witnesses say bad guy Frank McLaury got a late advantage on Holiday during the 30 second f1ght and declared,  “I got you now, you son of a bitch.” as he leveled a g.un at him.

Holiday answered, historically, so this is about as close to accuracy as you’ll get, quote, “You’re a daisy if you do.” Although some versions say that he said, “You’re a daisy if you do have.” Meaning got me. The phrase meaning good for you if you do. McLaury apparently didn’t have the drop on him because he d1ed.

Still Doc Holliday’s reputation as either one of the worst or one of the best characters of the Wild West is now part of American folklore. Doc Holliday has been played in many movies by a range of actors such as Kirk Douglas in 1957’s Gunf1ght at the OK Corral, by Stacy Keach in 1971’s Doc, by Dennis Quaid  in 1994’s Wyatt Earp, and of course the legendary role Val Kilmer played in Tombstone and many others.

After the Civil W4r, many former sold1ers, especially from the Confederacy, found themselves unemployed. And many who had land lost it during reconstruction. Many turned to crime as a way to earn a living and some were more famous and  successful than others. Many films and TV shows, as well as books, have dealt with the Wild West outlaws.

Many times romanticizing the exploits of the famous desperados. But few were as famous and wanted in their lifetime or as successful as Frank and Jesse James. Who were Frank and Jesse James? How and why did they start their careers as outlaws? What was it about them that gave them such ma.ss public appeal? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army and Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.

Hot fuzz!  Alexander Franklin Frank James was born January 10th, 1843  and Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5th, 1847 in Clay County, Missouri. And they had a younger sister,    Susan Lavinia James. They were of English and Scottish descent. Their father, Robert S. James, was a hemp farmer in Kentucky and also a Baptist minister before coming to Missouri.

After he married his wife, Zerelda, he moved to Bradford, Missouri. Bought a 100 acre farm worked by his six slaves. An educated man, he helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. Robert then headed to California to minister to miners but d1ed of unknown causes in 1850. Zerelda James later remarried twice.

The first to Benjamin Sims in 1852, then following his de4th  in 1855 to Dr. Reuben Samuel. Zerelda and Samuel had four children together becoming the half siblings of Frank, Jesse, and Susan. Sarah Louisa, John Thomas, Fanny Quantrill, and Archie Peyton Samuel. Zerelda and Samuel bought seven additional slaves who worked on their tobacco farm.

The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 raised the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the Kansas Territory, which divided the state and Clay County especially, as most of the residents had Southern roots and allegiances.  Many people living in Missouri migrated to Kansas, both pro and  anti slavery activists, and the violence that evolved on the Kansas Missouri border was the precursor to the aggravating factors that would later begin the Civil W4r.

When the war broke out, the James Samuel family sided with the Confederates. Frank James joined a local company recruited into Drew Lob’s army and fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in August 1861. Falling ill, he returned home to recuperate. But in 1863, he was recognized and reported as a member of a group of raiders that operated in Clay County.

In May 1863, a Union militia company raided the James Samuel farm looking for Frank’s group, torturing Reuben Samuel by hanging him from a tree until he lost consciousness. It was reported that they whipped the 16 year old Jesse to get information. Infuriated, Frank and Jesse joined  the Confederate raider William T. “Bl00dy Bill” Anderson.

During a brief engagement, Jesse was sh0t in the chest but survived. Frank and Jesse James were accused of taking part in the Centralia ma.ssacre in September. At this point, they joined forces with William Clark Quantrill of the famed Quantrill Raiders. The Centralia ma.ssacre was a raid against a train carrying unarmed Union sold1ers returning home on leave, at 22 of them being k1lled or wounded, and some  of the sold1ers were scalped and dismembered.

They also 4mbushed Major A.V.E. Johnson’s Union troops of around 100 men who were sent to k1ll or capture them, and k1lling those surv1vors who surrendered, who numbered more than 100. Jesse had personally k1lled Major  Johnson. Becoming infamous, the Union occupation forces ordered to leave Missouri, and being civilians, they allowed them to go to Confederate territory, but they moved  to Nebraska instead.

After William T. Anderson was k1lled in an 4mbush, Frank and Jesse went their separate ways. Frank formally joined William Clark Quantrill in Kentucky, while Jesse went to Texas with Archie Clement, one of Anderson’s lieutenants. Jesse returned to Missouri in the spring    when he was sh0t in the chest for the second time while trying to surrender after his group encountered and was surrounded by a Union cavalry patrol near Lexington, Missouri.

On February 12th, 1866, they committed perhaps the first daylight armed robbery in US history  at the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, making off with $60,000 in cash and bonds,  but k1lling pa.sserby George Wymore on the street. State authorities  suspected Archie Clement of leading the raid and promptly issued a reward for his capture.

In later years, the list of suspects grew to include Jesse and Frank James, Cole Younger, John Jarrett, Oliver Shepherd, Bud and Donnie  Pence, Frank Gregg, Bill and James Wilkerson, Joab Perry,  Ben Cooper, Red Mankus, and Allen Parmer, who later married Susan James, Frank and Jesse’s sister. On June 13th, 1866, in Jackson  County, Missouri, the gang freed two jail members of Quantrill’s gang, k1lling the jailer in the effort.

It was believed that Frank and Jesse James were part of that action. In 1868,  the authorities first identified Cole Younger, John Jarrett, Arthur McCoy, George Shepherd, and Oliver Shepherd as the prime suspects in the robbery of the Nimrod Long Bank in Russellville, Kentucky. Frank and Jesse  were not named.

Jesse James himself became famous on December 7th, 1869 when he and Frank robbed the Davis County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. There was little profit and Jesse is believed to have sh0t and k1lled the unarmed cashier Captain John  Sheets. It is believed that he mistakenly thought that Sheets was Samuel P.

Cox who had k1lled Bl00dy Bill Anderson during the Civil W4r. Jesse and Frank  managed to escape right through the middle of a posse chasing them which brought widespread newspaper coverage of the duo for the first time. An 1882 history of Davis County said, “The history of Davis County  has no blacker crime in its pages than the murd3r of John W. Sheets.

” Ironically, the only civil case on record involving Frank and Jesse James was filed in the Common Pleas Court in Davis County in 1870. In that case, Daniel Smoote asked for $223 from Frank and Jesse James to replace a horse, saddle, and bridle stolen as they fled the robbery of the Davis County Savings Bank. Frank and Jesse denied the charges saying they were not in Davis County on December 7th, the day the robbery occurred, and when they failed to appear  in court, Smoote won his case.

Although it is not known if the money was ever paid. The robbery in 1869 made Jesse the most famous former Confederate and raider and it was the first time that he was publicly proclaimed an outlaw. In fact, Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden posted a reward for his and Frank’s capture. The press coverage and notoriety started an alliance between Jesse, Frank, and former Confederate cavalryman John Newman Edwards, the editor and founder of the Kansas City Times.

Edwards had been campaigning to return former Confederates to political power in Missouri. Six months after the Gallatin robbery, Edwards began publishing letters from Jesse James in his paper a.sserting his innocence. Over time, the letters gradually became more political in tone and James  denounced the Republicans and expressed his pride in his Confederate loyalties.

The James brothers soon became symbols of Confederate defiance of federal reconstruction policy. The James brothers then joined with Cole Younger and his brothers John, Jim, and Bob,  as well as Clell Miller and other former Confederates becoming the James Younger Gang. Other members were John Jarrette, who was married to the Youngers’ sister Josie, Arthur McCoy, George Shepherd, Oliver Shepherd, William McDaniels, Tom McDaniels, Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts, William Chadwell, who was also known as Bill Styles, and a Matthew “Ace” Nelson.

They committed several robberies across the country from Iowa to Texas and from Kansas to West Virginia robbing banks, stagecoaches,  even a county fair in Kansas City often times committing crimes in front of crowds, and Jesse’s personable demeanor during the crimes and joking with astonished witnesses increased his public image.

The gang robbed a bank in Columbia, Kentucky on April 29th, 1872 and sh0t the cashier, R. A. C. Martin, who had refused to open the safe. Later, on September 23rd, 1872, it was claimed that Jesse James and  Cole and John Younger robbed a ticket booth at the second annual Kansas City Industrial Exposition witnessed by thousands of people getting away with his $900.

But during the encounter with the ticket seller, a girl was sh0t in the crossfire. With exception to the information given by Chiles, there was no evidence that James or the Younger brothers were involved. Once the story broke, Jesse later wrote a letter denying that either he, Frank, or the Youngers were involved.

Quoting, “Cole was furious over this because neither he nor brother John had been linked to the crime before the letter.” Kansas City Times editor John Newman Edwards wrote a famous editorial entitled The Chivalry of Crime. Edwards soon published an anonymous letter from one of the outlaws believed to be Jesse that referred to the approaching presidential election.

“Just let a party of men commit a bold robbery and the cry is hang them. But President Ulysses S. Grant and his party can steal millions and it is all right. They rob the poor and rich and we rob the rich and give to the poor.” On May 27th, 1873, the James Younger gang robbed the Sainte Genevieve Savings Association in Missouri.

As they left, they sh0t in the air and shouted, “Hurrah for Hildebrand!” This referred to Samuel S. Hildebrand, a famous Confederate raider who had recently been k1lled in Illinois. On July 21st, 1873, they derailed a Rock Island Line train west of Adair, Iowa, taking almost $3,000, or about $76,000 in today’s money.

For some reason, they wore Ku Klux Klan hoods to hide their identities, probably because the Klan had been suppressed and declared illegal under President Grant’s Enforcement Acts. The locomotive engineer, John Rafferty, d1ed in the crash. The outlaws took the money from the express safe in the baggage car, having narrowly missed another train that actually carried a much larger amount of cash.

Frank James was later arr.ested and stood trial, but was found not guilty. But the James Younger gang was getting better. Their method of robbing trains evolved, and they only robbed the pa.ssengers twice, usually only taking wh@tever was in the safe in the baggage car. These events were covered by John Newman Edwards, who created an image of the James and Younger gang as modern day Robin Hoods, although there is no evidence that the James gang ever shared any of the robbery money outside their personal circle.

In January 1874, they robbed a stagecoach in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, and another suspected stagecoach hold up between Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas. In this latter robbery, the gang returned a pocket watch to a Confederate veteran, saying that northern men had driven them to outlawry, and that they intended to make them pay for it.

On January 31st, the gang robbed a train on the Iron Mountain Railway at Gads Hill, Missouri. For the first of two times in all their train robberies, the outlaws robbed the pa.ssengers. Both robberies    targeted the safes in the baggage cars belonging to an express company. In one strange situation that added to their public image was when they examined the hands of the pa.ssengers to ensure that they did not rob any working men.

Many newspapers reported this robbery was actually committed by the Arthur McCoy gang. Jesse made sure to telegraph a report of the Gads Hill robbery to the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper for publication, as it was good public relations. Jesse then married his cousin Zee on April 24th, 1874, and had  two children who survived to adulthood.

Jesse Edward James, born in 1875, and Mary Susan James, later Barr, born in 1879. Twins Gould and Montgomery James, were born in 1878 but d1ed in infancy. Ironically, Jesse James Jr. later became a lawyer who practiced in Kansas City, Missouri and Los Angeles, California. Due to the railroad and bank losses, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency was hired by the Adams Express Company in 1874 in response to the James Younger Gang’s activities.

The Pinkertons found locating, let alone capturing, the gang very difficult as they had a lot of former Confederate support in many states. Pinkerton agent Joseph Whicher, who went to Zerelda Samuel’s farm, was found murd3red. And agents Captain Louis J. Lull and John Boyle, who were sent after the Youngers, were both k1lled.

Lull was k1lled by two of the Younger brothers in a roadside g.unf1ght on March 17th, 1874. But Lull, before dying, fatally sh0t John Younger. Also k1lled was Deputy Sheriff Edwin Daniels. The gang next robbed a train on the Kansas Pacific Railroad near Muncie, Kansas on December 8th, 1874. And it was one of their most successful robberies, netting $30,000.

Soon after, William “Bud” McDaniels was captured by a Kansas City police  officer but sh0t during an escape attempt. Allan Pinkerton took personal control, working the former Unionists who lived near the James family farm. On the night of January 25th, 1875, he led a raid where an incendiary device was thrown into the house and it exploded,  k1lling James’s young half brother Archie and blowing off one of Zerelda Samuel’s arms.

Afterward, Pinkerton denied that the raid’s intent was arson. But biographer Ted Yeatman found a letter by Pinkerton in the Library of Congress in which Pinkerton declared his intention  to burn the house down. Politics again played a role as former Confederates in the Missouri legislature voted to limit the amount of rewards offered for the gang, especially the James brothers, and even to offer them amnesty.

Daniel Askew, who lived in near the James farm, was believed to have been k1lled by the gang on April 12th, 1875 for cooperating with the Pinkertons in the January 1875 arson of the James house. In September 1875, some of the gang went to Huntington, West Virginia, robbing a bank on September 7th. Two new members participated.

Tom McDaniels, the brother of Bud, and Tom Webb, a Confederate veteran who had been at Lawrence with Frank and Cole. McDaniels was k1lled by the policy and Webb was caught. Frank James and Cole Younger managed to escape. On July 7th, 1876, Frank and Jesse James, Cole and Bob Younger, Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts, Bill Chadwell, and Hobbs Kerry robbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad at the Rocky Cut near Otterville, Missouri.

Kerry was arr.ested soon after  and identified his accomplices. On September 7th, 1876, disaster struck when the James Younger gang’s robbery of the First National Bank  of Northfield, Minnesota went down at 2:00 p.m. when they split into two groups. Three men entered the bank while two guarded the entrance door and three men covered the bridge into and out of town across the square.

The cashier, Joseph Lee Heywood, claimed the safe was secured by a time lock despite having a knife at his throat. In frustration, And was struck on the head by a pistol butt. The a.ssistant cashier, Alonzo Ennis Bunker, took off through the back door of the bank catching a bull3t in the shoulder for his efforts.

While the suspicious men guarding the door drew attention. Some towns people brought their g.uns and they sh0t two of the five gang members de@d and wounded the others. As the robbers left the bank, the unarmed cashier Heywood was sh0t in the head. On the way out of town, Swedish immigrant Nicholas Gustafson was also k1lled as the  gang’s surv1vors rode out of town and along the way burned 14 Rice County mills.

After several days, the gang had not gone beyond the western outskirts of Mankato when they split up. But the Youngers and Pitts on foot moving west until they were cornered in the Hanska Slough swamp just south of LaSalle, Minnesota on September 21st. Pitts was  k1lled and the Youngers were then wounded and surrendered and they pled guilty to murd3r in order to avoid being hanged.

Frank and Jesse stole horses and escaped through southern Minnesota on the border of the Dakota Territory. This marked the end of the James Younger gang. On September 23rd, 1876, the Younger brothers were taken to the Rice County Courthouse on November  16th where a grand jury issued indictments for the murd3rs of Joseph Heywood and Nicholas Gustafson, bank robbery, and for a.ssault with de@dly w3apons on the wounded bank clerk.

All three brothers pled guilty on November 20th, 1876 and were sentenced to life in pr1son  in the Minnesota Territorial Prison at Stillwater. In another strange turn of events, the gang held a captive, William Elroy Curtis, a newspaper reporter. Curtis actually interviewed the gang members and they allowed him to send his articles to the Chicago Inter Ocean paper.

Frank and Jesse separated from the Youngers and the rest and  went to Missouri, but the posse chasing the gang discovered both Youngers and gang member Charlie Pitt, who was k1lled, and the Youngers were captured. After this, Frank and Jesse a.ssumed the names of B.J. Woodson and Thomas Howard, and Frank took a break from crime.

But Jesse created a new gang including Clell Miller’s brother Ed and brothers Robert and Charles Ford. They robbed a bank in Glendale, Missouri, on October 8th, 1879. This robbery started an unprecedented crime wave including robbing a federal paymaster of a canal project in Killen, Alabama, followed by two more train robberies.

Jesse’s new gang was not a group of combat veterans and hardcore believers, and they soon turned against each other or volunteered information when captured. On September 3rd, 1880, Jesse James and Bill Ryan robbed a stagecoach near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and then on October 5th, they robbed the store owned by John Doby in Mercer, Kentucky.

The following year on March 11th, 1881, Jesse Ryan and Jesse’s cousin Wood Hite robbed a federal paymaster at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, taking $5,240. Not much later, Bill Ryan got drunk and bragged about the robbery and was arr.ested in Whites Creek near Nashville, Tennessee. Hearing the news, Frank and Jesse returned to Missouri.

His bragging saw Frank James again arr.ested and again tried and found not guilty. On July 15th, 1881, Frank and Jesse James, Wood, and Clarence Hite, and  Dick Liddil robbed the Rock Island Railroad train station near Winston, Missouri taking $900. The conductor, William Westfall, and the pa.ssenger, John McAuliffe, were k1lled in the process.

Then, on September 7th, 1881, the gang robbed their last train belonging to the Chicago and Alton Railroad, robbing the pa.ssengers when they found the safe empty. That same day, gang members Creed Chapman and John Bugler were arr.ested for the robbery and confirmed as having participated in previous robberies from the testimony given by the previously convicted members of the gang, but neither Creed nor Bugler was ever convicted of any crime.

As a result of their renewed activity, the governor of Missouri, Thomas T. Crittenden, convinced the state’s railroad and express ex3cutives  to put up the money for a large reward for the capture of the James brothers. Jesse himself grew suspicious of other of the gang, scaring one man out of the gang and many believed that he k1lled another man whom he distrusted.

The remaining gang members then robbed two general stores in Washington in Adams County and Fayette in Jefferson County, Mississippi, netting $2,000 in the second robbery. They sought shelter in abandoned cabins on the Kim Plantation south of Saint Joseph, Louisiana, but they were followed by a posse which @ttacked and k1lled two of the gang, but the rest escaped  with Frank and Jesse going back to Tennessee.

Due to local authorities growing suspicious of who they were, they returned to Missouri, and Jesse moved his family to Saint Joseph in November  1881, close to their boyhood home. Frank ostensibly went to Virginia to go straight. In December 1881, Wood Hite was k1lled by Little during a dispute regarding Martha Bolton, the sister of  the Ford brothers.

Bob Ford, although not a member of the gang at that time, a.ssisted Little  in the shooting of Hite. Ford and Little, with Bolton as an intermediary, made their personal deals with Governor Crittenden and gave up information. On February 11th, 1882, James Timberlake arr.ested Wood Hite’s brother Clarence, who made a confession but d1ed of tuberculosis in pr1son.

As part of his deal, Ford agreed to bring down Jesse James in return for the reward. In the aftermath of their criminal careers, the fates of all the gang members changed forever. On April 3rd, 1882, Bob Ford paid Jesse  James a visit at his rented apartment in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and sh0t him behind the ear.

Both Bob and Charley Ford then surrendered to the authorities, pleaded guilty, were charged with first degree murd3r, convicted, and sentenced to hang. But both men were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden. All of this happened in less than 17 hours. That was apparently part of their deal. The Ford brothers received a small part of the reward and left Missouri.

Sheriff James Timberlake and Marshal Henry H. Craig were awarded most of the bounty. Later, the Ford brothers got into show business and starred in a touring stage show in which they reenacted the shooting of Jesse James. Suffering from tuberculosis, which was then incurable, and having a morphine addiction, Charley Ford committed su1cide on May 6th, 1884 in Richmond, Missouri.

Bob Ford operated a saloon in Creed, Colorado, but on June 8th, 1892, Edward O’Kelley arrived, entered the saloon, and said, “Hello, Bob.” Before k1lling Ford with a double barrel sh0tg.un. O’Kelley was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in pr1son, which was commuted because of a 7,000 signature petition supporting his release, and also  because he suffered from an undisclosed medical condition.

The governor of Colorado pardoned O’Kelley on October 3rd, 1902. On October 4th, 1882, Frank James returned and surrendered to Crittenden with the understanding that he would not be extradited to Northfield, Minnesota for that robbery and murd3rs. Frank James d1ed on February 8th, 1915 at age 72. The Youngers remained loyal to the James brothers while in pr1son and never informed on them despite being offered early release to give statements.

They were model pr1soners and once helped keep other pr1soners from escaping during a fire at the pr1son. Cole Younger founded what is still the longest running pr1son newspaper in the country. Bob Younger d1ed in pr1son of tuberculosis on September 15th, 1889 at the age of 36. Cole and Jim Younger were finally paroled in 1901 on the condition they remain  in Minnesota.

Jim Younger committed su1cide on October 19th, 1902 in St. Paul, Minnesota at the age of 54, suffering from medical problems and depression. Cole Younger received a pardon in 1903 on the condition that he leave Minnesota and never return. He went back to Missouri and joined a Wild West show with Frank James, where he d1ed on March 21st, 1916 at the age of 72.

Jesse James’ original grave was on the family farm, but it was later relocated to a small cemetery in Kearney. The original footstone remains, but the family replaced the headstone. Zerelda James Samuel apparently wrote the following epitaph for Jesse. In loving memory of my beloved son, murd3red by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy  to appear here.

James’ widow, Zee, d1ed alone and in poverty. Almost every American knows the name and believe that they know the story of George Armstrong Custer. If for nothing else, his defeat and de4th at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But Custer had a colorful career long before that fateful day, including service in the Civil W4r and after that on the Western Frontier.

Who was the real George Armstrong Custer? What was his real claim to fame? How was he perceived by his peers and enemies? Did he really accomplish anything of military value during his career? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, military veteran, historian, author, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.    George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio on December 5th, 1839 into a large extended family.

When rather young, he went to live with an older half sister and her husband in Michigan. Custer did well in various schools and was hired as a young teacher for about 1 year. Growing up in a middle cla.ss family with no political connections and a reputation as a rabble rouser, somehow he did manage to obtain a recommendation to the US Military Academy at West Point after he turned 18.

Upon matriculating in 1857, Custer, despite being highly intelligent and gifted in many areas such as history, geography, Latin, Greek, and horsemanship, he was a disciplinary problem, earning many demerits and restrictions, and was basically a lazy student, nearly being expelled several times. Custer amazingly collected 726 demerits in just 4 years, almost setting a West Point record, and his dismal academic standing saw him graduate last in his cla.ss.

The student graduating last is commonly referred to as the goat. His lack of academic achievement would have normally limited his future army career, but with the Civil W4r having just started, officers were badly needed, and after he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was a.ssigned to Washington, D.C.

Despite his unimpressive academic record, the US Army desperately needed officers to serve in the newly beg.un Civil W4r. He was commissioned a second lieutenant, and then found himself in the proper location to make connections. Custer’s baptism of fire was at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. His actions and methods, deemed reckless by many, impressed Union General George McClellan, who placed him on his staff.

Custer then made a name for himself in a small way during the Peninsula Campaign that began in the spring of 1862, where he earned his growing reputation for both bravery and reckless leadership. Custer would take many chances that many of his peers and superiors would not. He was not a calculating cavalry leader, but more of an immediate reactionist.

Throughout his combat career, while his men fell wounded and de@d around him, he rarely sustained anything resembling a major 1njury. When he saw an opportunity, he took it. It became known as Custer’s luck. Custer also became famous as a narcissistic publicity hound, never missing the opportunity to have his picture taken or give an interview to newspaper men who were reporting on the war.

In fact, the Harper’s Weekly newspaper attached a permanent reporter to Custer throughout the war because his name and exploits sold newspapers. In fact, Custer was the one officer they usually went to for a story, whether he was involved in an action or not. But Custer’s luck endeared him to the senior Union leadership.

He led by example in b4ttle, never shirking or avoiding direct contact, even against superior numbers, much to the lament of many of his sold1ers. Custer married a childhood friend, Elizabeth Bacon, when he returned home on leave in December 1862, despite her family not being very impressed with the young, unproven, and quite brash lieutenant.

Known as Libby, she came from a wealthy and prominent business family, which was the reason Custer considered going into business after the war, as money was very important to him. General Philip Sheridan proposed to General Ulysses S. Grant that Custer should be given command of a regiment or even a brigade.

And in the summer of 1863, the flamboyant Custer, the goat of West Point’s cla.ss of 1861, was promoted to Brigad1er General at the age of 23, ahead of more senior officers, and a.ssumed command of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. Soon after, he began sporting an unusual and flamboyant uniform, which brought him even more attention. Custer, despite his arrogant and flagrant persona, proved to be effective, such as at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his cavalry screen located and then prevented General Jeb Stuart from @ttacking Union troops on

their flank, and later managing to capture several hundred Confederate sold1ers retreating south following their defeat. However, Custer’s success and participation in the Union victory was costly, as his brigade lost almost 300 men, bearing the highest casualty rate of any Union Cavalry unit. Perhaps the only reason he was never relieved of command was because he led his men into danger, rather than ordering sold1ers to their possible de4ths.

As the war continued, Custer would continue being successful, but his casualties would always be the highest in the Union Army, with an attrition rate averaging between 25% and 40%. This did not go unnoticed in Washington. Despite his mercurial rise in his professional fortunes, Custer was well known as a gambler and womanizer, and had several affairs.

He was even rumored to have slept with the wives of other officers, even targeting the widows of the men who d1ed under his commands. Libbie often traveled to where Custer was stationed, which was rather unusual for the time, and they never had children. She may have wanted to keep an eye on him. Yet, when they were separated, both were diligent and voluminous letter writers, and many of those letters still survive.

Custer was still considered a very reliable Cavalry officer by Major General Philip Sheridan, and Custer was with Sheridan during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign in 1864, where after f1ghting a series of skirmishes, he was placed on the cover of Harper’s Weekly. Custer’s Cavalry unit was transferred to Petersburg, Virginia, where they participated in the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse.

Custer led a daring Cavalry raid, one of the last in the war, which got him promoted to both major general, albeit a brevet or temporary rank, and national hero status. Custer was with Grant and Sheridan at Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, with his wife Libby also present. Sheridan gave the table at which Grant and Lee signed the formal surrender documents to Libby Custer as a gift.

The war ended and Custer’s name and exploits were in almost every major national newspaper. His b4ttlefield successes were sometimes exaggerated, but they always played to the fact that Custer was never seriously wounded, some claiming that he was anointed and protected by God. Such was Custer’s luck. After the war, Custer reconsidered leaving the army and going into business, but was convinced to serve in the Southwest where troubles ensued with Native American tribes.

To sweeten the deal, the 7th Cavalry Regiment was created and he was offered command. Custer, now reduced in permanent rank to lieutenant colonel, as his temporary flag rank was taken away, met his troops after he and Libby arrived in Kansas in September 1866. The sold1ers were all well aware of his exploits during the war, as well as his record of casualties.

Custer was immediately involved in the military campaign against Sioux and Cheyenne in the spring of 1867. As was customary, platoon and even sometimes company sized elements of his regiment would do scouting patrols, checking the condition of settlers and also the temperament and location of the Indians. Custer sometimes went on these patrols and sometimes not.

But when some of the men were k1lled in a f1ght, the surv1vors in their majority bl4med Custer believing that he had abandoned them. And on a few occasions he did abandon his command and it was during one of these absences that the sold1ers were k1lled. Custer was brought up on charges of abandonment and desertion.

He had actually been spending time with his wife. The resulting court martial found him guilty sentencing him to 1 year without pay and loss of his command and he and Libby returned to Michigan. Given the task of quelling the restless natives, Sheridan formally requested that Custer be returned to duty as soon as possible.

The war department relented and Custer was reinstated. Returning to duty and out to prove himself in this new theater of operations, Custer @ttacked a Cheyenne camp along the Washita River in Indian Territory, which is now modern day Oklahoma. In November 1868. Custer claimed that his men had k1lled a large number of warriors which could not be confirmed, but it did pacify the area for a time and was the army’s first major success in the region.

The action was highly publicized and Custer soon became a household name once again. But US citizens were not the only people taking notice of the man the Cheyenne called Yellow Hair. Then a problem arose that had to be addressed. Prospectors discovered a small deposit of gold in 1864, but a much larger gold deposit was found in Deadwood Gulch in November 1865 in South Dakota and thousands of prospectors flooded to the new town of Deadwood by 1876.

The problem was that this area was still Sioux territory and was still under the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 with the US government including the territory of Wyoming that it would not be intruded upon. Under intense pressure from politicians and looking at a tough re election, President Ulysses S.

Grant issued the order in 1875 that all Sioux would have to leave the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming by January  1876. The government knew that the Sioux would be unable to exit the territory during the notoriously brut4l winter, which the W4r Department took to interpret as failure to comply and justified military actions.

The US government now had a major problem since the primary leaders of the Sioux resisting the invasion included Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Dakota chief and highly revered holy man. Since Custer had provided army protection to the gold miners who encroached upon sacred burial grounds and tensions in Washington were growing.

As a result of the miners invading the area which led to a few small skirmishes, Custer was brought back to Washington for a formal hearing. Custer was accused of allowing the miners to enter the territory violating the Treaty of Laramie. But in his defense during his testimony before the congressional hearing, Custer deflected responsibility refusing to be the fall guy, the scapegoat, and he clearly implicated several members of the Grant administration as being responsible.

There was also another problem. The US government had entered into the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 with the Cheyenne and Arapaho with lands granted to both nations. The tribes never lived on the lands considering it unworthy and restrictive which did not allow them to follow the buffalo herds. Those Custer claimed of furthering US expansion and expulsion of the Sioux, violating the treaty, included Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler, Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont,

Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow from 1874 to 76, and his successor Lot M. Morrill, Secretary of W4r James D. Cameron and his predecessors William W. Belknap and Alphonso Taft. Custer had just outed the men who wanted the territory at any cost, and he made a lot of enemies in the process. He also exposed the corruption stemming from Belknap, who resigned on May 2nd, and Orville Grant, the president’s brother.

Belknap and Orville Grant were involved in setting up monopolies at frontier posts, forcing out any competition and setting very high prices, exploiting the settlers and the sold1ers. There was also the issue of Indian Bureau agents working with both Belknap and Grant in stealing the food and supplies promised to the Native Americans and then selling them at higher prices.

Custer also became a pariah after leaking the details of the expansion in violation of treaties and the details of the hearing to the national press. Washington could no longer contain their ambitions, and they bl4med Custer. Custer proved they were responsible. President Grant was said to have been in a rage, and he removed Custer from his command and had him arr.ested when he tried to leave Washington and return to his troops.

It took the efforts of several high ranking generals such as William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, Winfield Scott Hancock, and James Crook. All of these generals and many others sympathized with Custer as they knew the truth, and they intervened on his behalf. Grant finally relented, bowing to the pressure, and allowed Custer to return to his command of the 7th Cavalry.

Otherwise, it would have been a political disaster for Grant. The US expulsion campaign began in May, which prompted former enemies to come together as close allies for their mutual surv1val, such as the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. Chief Sitting Bull requested the unusual gathering, which was also attended by Dull Knife of the Northern Cheyenne, Crazy Horse of the Cheyenne, Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota Sioux, and others previously mentioned.

The Grant administration had just instigated a war with the most famous warriors of the Plains Indians, with an estimated 2 and 4,000 warriors and their families, totaling between 6 and 10,000 Indians in total, depending upon the sources, that gathered along the Little Bighorn River in Montana. On June 25th, only five Arapaho representatives arrived.

Left Hand, who was half Blackfoot, half Cheyenne, but adopted by the tribe, Yellow Eagle, Yellow Fly, Well Knowing One, and Waterman. After several long days in reconnaissance, Custer’s scouts located the large camp. The Arapaho in general were not interested, and when the five arrived at the camp, they were disarmed and thre4tened with execution as the Sioux did not trust them.

Until, as stated by Left Hand in an interview with Colonel Tim McCoy in 1900, to quote him, “Two Moon, chief of the Cheyenne, went to the Sioux chiefs and told them that we were Arapahos, and that they must give us back our g.uns and set us free, which they did, but they watched us closely so we could not get away.

” Custer, deciding upon the element of surprise, chose to @ttack, dividing his 210 man command into three elements to each @ttack the camp from both flanks with a frontal diversionary charge. Custer and his men did not survive, and there was some speculation that Major Marcus Reno, his ex3cutive officer and support element leader, was one of the officers who resented Custer, blaming him for the 1867 ma.ssacre of 7th Cavalry sold1ers.

Both Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, who was supposed to prevent the Sioux from retreating, joined together and did not support Custer, with conspiracy theorists suggesting they allowed these men to d1e. The bod1es of Custer and his men, including his brother, Captain Thomas Custer, a two time Medal of Honor recipient in the Civil W4r, were discovered two days later.

The 36 year old George Custer and the others had been str.i.pped of their clothes by the Sioux women, but not scalped, and his body had a single bull3t wound to the chest and another in his head. The sole survivor was a Comanche scout, and according to his and opposing Indian accounts, the b4ttle lasted almost 2 hours, with the sold1ers unable to handle the Indians using powerful and de@dly repeating rifles.

The news of the defeat sh0cked the nation and stirred a lot of racial prejudice against not just the tribes involved, but all Indian nations. In fact, it was the catalyst for an even more aggress1ve US government push deeper into the western territories, sparking another two decades of unrest. Libbie Custer dedicated her remaining years writing a series of best selling books about their life together, Custer’s career and maintaining his legacy and legend, which made her even more wealthy until she d1ed in 1933.

George Armstrong Custer has been both deified and vilified, but wh@tever you think of him, he was a brave man who took incredible risks. The man called Yellow Hair by the Indians at least kept his own hair even in de4th. Every religion has its dark  past due to the actions of those believers who take it upon themselves to interpret and invoke their perspectives on their faith.

Throughout history, Christians to include Protestants and Catholics as well as Muslims and Jews have fought  wars due to conflicts of ideology. From holy wars pitting one faith against the other or witch h.unts and inquisitions  that sought to punish others out of superstition or a sense of perceived wrongs, these malad1es also arrived in the New World and exacted a terrible toll.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints or Mormons were no exception with crimes both perceived and real embedded deep within their short history. What was the Mountain Meadows Ma.ssacre? Why did it occur? Who was responsible? Who were the v1tims? Was anyone held responsible? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in Fayette Township, New York on April 6th, 1830. And in 1831, he moved his church to Ohio, where he ran into trouble with the local authorities. Smith was accused of bank fraud, which may have been a ruse due to the locals not accepting his religious beliefs.

Due to their unique interpretation of holy scr.i.pture and their practice of including baptizing the de@d and polygamy, they were persecuted across several states, sometimes vi0lently @ttacked. Although polygamy would not be outlawed in territories under federal law until 1862 by the Moral Anti Bigamy Act and again throughout the entire nation in 1882 under the Edmunds Act, most states and even cities and towns had their own laws and they were against the practice,  which were often vigorously enforced against Mormons.

Smith then moved on to Missouri, where the non Mormons there also rejected his teachings, eventually leading to the Mormon W4r of 1838. Smith then again relocated his followers to Nauvoo, Illinois in 1839, but by 1842 tensions were again rising. In 1844, while Smith was under arr.est for inciting a riot, a mob stormed the jail in Carthage, Illinois and k1lled him.

Smith’s de4th sent a sh0ckwave and induced a certain level of legitimate paranoia among the Mormons, who became militarized in order to defend themselves. His successor, Brigham Young, decided there is no place for the church within the confines of the United States and moved his people west in 1846 to the Utah Territory, which was then a part of Mexico.

Young wanted to est4blish a religious community outside of the US government and their jurisdiction, seeking refuge from further h0stility where they could practice their faith in peace. By the time they reached what is today Salt Lake City, the territory had become part of the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when Mexico had ceded the region as well as California, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to the United States after the Mexican American W4r of 1846 to 1848.

Upon arrival, the Mormons initially had an uneasy relationship with a few of the Indian tribes in the area, such as the Ute and Paiute, which sometimes resulted in violence. These encounters brought the army into the territory as tensions between the Mormons and Indians became impossible to ignore, and President James Buchanan empowered the US government to intervene.

Buchanan decided to send federal troops to Utah in 1857 to rea.ssert control.  The last thing Buchanan wanted was an Indian uprising against settlers and the government, and Young’s instituting his own laws and policies were creating problems, which were incompatible with US federal law regarding settlements.

The main problem was that Brigham Young, who was appointed governor of Utah Territory after it was formally recognized by the US Congress in 1850, responded by declaring martial law, forbidding entry into the territory without official permission, arr.esting and incarcerating strangers, and still allowing polygamy.

Young had also tried to have Congress recognize his territory as an independent state, which he called the State of Deseret. But this was rejected. In response, Young initiated the Mormon Reformation of 1856 to 1857, encouraging members of his sect to reject the ways of non Mormons. He preached about their selective and unique relationship with God, reminding them of past persecutions and the dangers they faced, and he emphasized that they must only rely upon each other.

Outsiders were the enemy, and that his followers should always be prepared to use violence to protect their community. Young told them that they were an independent community beyond the laws of the federal government and were in fact a law unto themselves. This led to widespread refusal to recognize United States officials in the region, eventually resulting in the Utah W4r.

During this period, conflict, hysteria and mistrust of non Mormons surged, exacerbated by reports of prominent Mormon Parley P. Pratt’s murd3r in Arkansas on May 13th, 1857. Now, anyone entering Mormon territory was immediately suspected of being a spy and working for the federal government. The situation with Pratt was interesting.

When Pratt married his 12th wife, Eleanor McLean Pratt, she was already married to a man named Hector Hugel McLean and Pratt was captured by a small posse led by McLean. McLean st4bbed Pratt three times in the chest, then returned and sh0t him in the neck. That event est4blished Brigham Young’s mindset. The Utah Mormons feared that these actions would continue to plague them and follow them, hence their migration west as others were also coming west.

They grew suspicious of new immigrants who they believed might ally with incoming federal troops. This paranoia would prove de@dly and start what would become known as the Utah W4r of 1857 to 1858 and the worst ma.ssacre in Mormon history. Brigham Young, his counselor Jedediah M. Grant and other leaders preached with fiery red rhetoric, warning against the evils of sin and those who dissented from or opposed the church.

This only increased strains between the Mormons and the non Mormons around them, including federally appointed officials. As a result, President Buchanan decided to replace Brigham Young as governor and in what became known as the Utah W4r, sent an army to Utah to escort his replacement. But a situation would arise that would change everything.

The Baker Fancher wagon train, organized by Alexander Fancher and John Baker, comprised around 137 men, women, and children and departed from Kansas in April 1857 bound for California. Upon reaching Utah in August, they knew nothing of Young’s proclamation forbidding pa.ssage without a permit or the rising tensions. When they arrived, they were not welcomed and they were denied supplies in Salt Lake City, having been instructed by Mormon leader George A.

Smith to stockpile supplies against the thre4t of armed conflict with US troops. This open h0stility forced the Baker Fancher wagon train away from the town, so they continued south to Mountain Meadows, where they stopped to rest and graze their horses and cattle. However, rumors soon began to spread among the Mormons that the immigrants had insulted their faith and violated Young’s martial law edict by traveling without a permit and that there were also federal spies in their ranks.

There was no evidence presented and there was no attempt to speak with the wagon train members to a.ssess their intentions, but the Mormon’s paranoia escalated. Mormon militia leaders Isaac C. Haight and William H. Dame, believing the immigrants to be a thre4t, planned their @ttack, but they needed permission from Young.

Although a messenger was sent to Brigham Young asking for guidance, if not permission, local leaders proceeded with their plans before receiving  his response. Haight sent word to one of his militia officers, John D. Lee, to come to Cedar City and Lee arrived meeting Haight.    And according to Lee’s own 1877 confession, “Haight told me all about the train of immigrants, that they were rough and abusive set of men.

That they had while traveling through Utah been very abusive to all the Mormons they met. That they had insulted, outraged, and ravaged many of the Mormon women. That the abuses heaped upon the people by the immigrants during their tr.i.p from Provo to Cedar City had been constant and shameful.

That they had poisoned the water so that all the people and stock that drank of the water became sick. Now, there was never any evidence presented to support any of this. Lee also said that he asked Haight on whose authority he was acting. According to Lee, Haight answered, “It is the will of all authority.” Giving Lee to understand that Brigham Young himself approved of the action.

Lee then put the plan into motion. On September 7th, 1857, a group of Mormon men disguised as Paiute Indians along with some actual Paiute allies, who they promised loot, 4mbushed the Baker Fancher wagon train. The group circled the wagons and quickly dug defensive trenches and fought back against their Mormon @ttackers.

Seven of their group were k1lled on the first day and another 16 were wounded. The Baker Fancher group held out against the @ttack for 5 days before they began running out of ammunition, food, and water. As the siege wore on, the Nauvoo Legion’s leaders discussed their situation and they realized that it would be impossible to allow any of the Baker Fancher party to survive since they could testify that white men were among the @ttackers and any report of such an @ttack would bring more US troops to the region.

On September 11th, militia leader John D. Lee arrived under a flag of truce and offered the immigrants safe pa.ssage if they surrendered their w3apons and livestock to the Paiutes,  who he said had been their @ttackers, with no exceptions. The Baker Fancher party agreed, laid down their w3apons, and abandoned the safety of their wagons.

Trusting his word, the party laid down their arms and left their wagons and were marched  into an open field. The Mormons separated all the adult men from the women and children, and as they marched away, the Mormon militia members opened fire k1lling the men first. Then they @ttacked the women and older children, beating most of them to de4th in order to save on powder and sh0t.

Many were slain with rifle stocks to the head,  knives, or other blunt objects. 17 children under 6 years of age, now orphans, who were considered too young to possibly remember the event or identify the k1llers, were spared and taken in by Mormon families, and according to some reports, they seem to have treated them quite poorly.

When the k1lling was over, approximately 120 immigrants lay de@d. Their bod1es were hastily buried in shallow graves, and the livestock and possessions of the Baker Fancher party were taken by the @ttackers and later sold off to fellow Mormons. Following the ma.ssacre, the Mormon leaders attempted to conceal their involvement, blaming the Paiute tribe.

All the particip4nts in the ma.ssacre were sworn to secrecy, but as scholar Sally Denton notes, there had to be some explanation given for the de4ths of the immigrants and the looting of their wagon train. She states, “After the fact, there was great uncertainty among Mormon leaders about how the crime would  be viewed both by the Gentile world and by the Mormons themselves, despite the earlier efforts to demonize the Fancher Baker party.

Now, the church hierarchy had to redouble its efforts to castigate the Paiute Indians, est4blishing a clear motive for why they could be said to have perpetrated the crime. To serve that end, the myth of the poisoned  springs was invented. The Mormons had earlier spread rumors that the Baker Fancher party had been hostile, for    absolutely no evidence, and the fabricated story by Haight, having told Lee about the poisoned water making Mormons sick, now became the new version of events, a poisoned stream

that had caused the de4ths of some Pavant  Indians who had then avenged these de4ths in the @ttack. However, Chief Kanosh of the Pavant band of the Ute Nation, who had close ties to the Mormon community, rejected the story outright. Denton writes, “The story was ultimately discredited by military and other government investigators and dismissed by various journalists and historians, but the Mormons tenaciously kept the fiction alive.

For without the poison tale, the credibility of Indian h0stility towards the immigrants completely dissolved, and with it a motive for the atrocity. Indian leaders themselves denied involvement just as vehemently, claiming any who participated were hired a.ssa.ssins and renegade mercenaries who had been promised payment in clothing, g.uns, and cattle by the Mormons.

However, federal investigators, including Major James Henry Carleton, quickly discredited this narrative, uncovering the true perpetrators. Several Paiute were interviewed, and there were reports that even a couple of Mormons also volunteered information, feeling terrible about the event. Brigham Young was said to have responded to the message from Cedar City with instructions to leave the Baker Fancher party alone, which if it was sent arrived too late.

And he launched an investigation into the incident, placing Mormon leader George A. Smith, who had previously encouraged his fellow Mormons not to trade with the Baker Fancher party, in charge. Despite the vast amount of evidence, including examining the bod1es that were exhumed and testimonies from interrogations, most of those men responsible evaded justice.

Smith himself concluded by June 1858 that the Mountain Meadows Ma.ssacre was the work of the Paiute Indians responding to the poisoning of their water by the immigrants, which  was refuted. Regarding Young, his response to the messenger may in fact be true, but there is no record of Young giving his permission for the murd3rs.

However, modern historians suggest Young’s rhetoric and policies contributed to a hostile climate that enabled the ma.ssacre, but he was never held accountable or responsible due to a lack of evidence. The Utah W4r delayed the formal federal investigation until May 1859 when Major James Henry Carleton arrived.

Carleton concluded that the Mormons were responsible for the ma.ssacre. He and Jacob Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, helped reunite the 17 children kept by the Mormons with their families back  in Arkansas. Reports from the children themselves also varied, as well as reports on their condition, but the one constant was that they could all identify their mothers’ jewelry worn by Mormon women, notably the wives of John D.

Lee and their fathers’ branded horses in Mormon st4bles. William Bagley writes, “Reports on the condition of the rescued children contrast sharply. James Lynch charged the children were in a most wretched and deplorable condition with little or no clothing covered in filth and dirt. They presented a sight heartrending and miserable in the extreme.

James Carlton railed against the fiends who dared to even come forward and claim payment for having kept these little ones barely alive, but James Forney said,  “I feel confident that the children were well cared for whilst in the hands of these people.” Arrest warrants were then issued for Isaac C.

Haight, John Higbee, and John D. Lee, but all the men fled the territory    with Lee going to Arizona where he est4blished Lee’s Ferry. The outbreak of the Civil W4r prevented further measures against the perpetrators. However, in 1871, Philip Klingensmith, one of the particip4nts  in the ma.ssacre who had since left the church, provided the authorities with an eyewitness account of the event and agreed to testify in court with immunity.

For many years, the LDS Church maintained that local leaders acted without approval from Brigham Young, slightly changing the story that the Paiutes did it. Even so, Haight, Higbee, and the others could not be found.  Therefore, John D. Lee was the only one located, arr.ested, and brought to trial. He claimed that he was being made a scapegoat to protect Young and others.

Nevertheless, he was found guilty and executed by firing squad in 1877 at the very site of the Mountain Meadows Ma.ssacre. None of the others involved were ever brought to justice. The Mountain Meadows Ma.ssacre remains one of the darkest chapters in Mormon and American history. Though long shrouded in controversy, continued research and official recognition have helped bring greater clarity to this tr4gedy.

In 1990, relatives of the Arkansas immigrants joined with representatives of the Paiute Nation, Latter day Saints residents in Southern Utah, and church leaders in dedicating a memorial at Mountain Meadows. Rex E. Lee, president of Brigham Young University and a descendant of John D. Lee, held hands with v1tims’ descendants and thanked them for  your Christian like willingness to forgive.

In the early 2000s, the church made diligent efforts to learn everything possible about the ma.ssacre. Historians in the Church History Department scoured archives throughout the United States  for historical records. Every church record on the ma.ssacre was also opened to scrutiny. In 2008, authors Ronald W.

Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard concluded that while intemperate preaching about outsiders by Brigham Young, George A. Smith, and other leaders contributed to a climate of h0stility, Young did not order the ma.ssacre. On September 11th,  2007, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints finally abandoned their official story they had supported for 150 years and formally took responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Ma.ssacre,  issuing an apology to the descendants of the young surv1vors of the Baker Fancher

party, and to the Paiutes they had always bl4med for the ma.ssacre. On this 150th  anniversary of the ma.ssacre, President Henry B. Eyring taught, “The gospel of Jesus Christ that we espouse abhors the cold bl00ded k1lling of men, women, and children. Indeed, it advocates peace  and forgiveness. What was done here long ago by members of our church represents a terrible and inexcusable departure from Christian teaching  and conduct.

” In 2011, the descendants of the surv1vors and members of the church joined together again at the designation of Mountain Meadows as a national historic landmark. The site includes several monuments in honor of those who had been k1lled including the first one raised by Mayor Carlton in 1859 over the ma.ss grave of 34 of the v1tims of the ma.ssacre who had been identified.

In that year, 2011, Mountain Meadows was designated a national historic  landmark commemorating the lives that were lost. Comanche Throughout history, the name has instilled fear and respect. Often regarded as the most effective and ruthless of all North American Indian tribes, their territory was the largest of all and covered most of Texas into Oklahoma, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.

How did the son of a captive white woman and a Comanche become the first est4blished, last, and only official chief of the entire Comanche nation? How was Quanah Parker so successful having never lost a major b4ttle? What prompted Parker to bring the Comanches into the Christian religion and est4blish a church? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former sold1er, Marine Corps scout sniper, history professor, historian, and book author.

And we’ll answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History. Quanah Parker was the son of Chief Peta Nocona of the Kwahadi band and Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman captured as a child by the Comanches. Quanah later, as an adult, adopted his mother’s maiden name.

Quanah’s mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was the daughter of white settlers who had built a compound called Fort Parker on the Navasota River in East Central Texas. In May 1836, Comanche and Caddo warriors raided Fort Parker and captured 9 year old Cynthia Ann and her little brother John. Tall and muscular, Quanah became a full warrior at age 15.

A series of raids est4blished his reputation as an aggress1ve and fearless f1ghter. He became a war chief at a relatively young age. Quanah Parker’s paternal grandfather was Peta Nocona, better known as the fierce warrior chief and medicine man Iron Jacket for wearing a Spanish coat of mail with the ability to stop arrows.

Unfortunately, Iron Jacket, with at least six shooters under Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross shooting at him, k1lled the semi legendary war chief at the Peace River on May 12th, 1858. Quanah’s father, Peta Nocona, was also highly revered as a war chief. He led raids on the Texas frontier from the 1830s until December 18th, 1860, when as the story goes, his luck supposedly ran out.

In 1860, Texas Rangers @ttacked a Comanche encampment on the Peace River, an event still mired in controversy and is still contentious. All versions of the event agree that Cynthia Ann and her young daughter, Prairie Flower, were captured. American forces were led by Sergeant John Spangler who commanded Company H of the US 2nd Cavalry.

And the Texas Rangers under Sul Ross would claim that at the end of the b4ttle, he wounded Peta Nocona, who was thereafter k1lled by Spangler’s Mexican servant, but this was disputed by eyewitnesses among the Texas Rangers and by Quanah Parker. It is believed that Quanah Parker and his brother Pecos were the only two to have escaped on horseback and were tracked by Ranger Charles Goodnight, but escaped to rendezvous with other Nakona.

Some including Quanah Parker himself claimed the story is false and that he, his brother and his father Peta Nakona were not at the b4ttle at all. That they were at the larger camp miles away and that Peta Nakona d1ed years later of illness caused by wounds from b4ttles with Apaches. What is unclear is how many particip4nts were involved on both sides, whether Nakona was k1lled, if Quanah and Nakona were even present at all are still in dispute.

Regardless it seems that Nakona was not even present as he was not identified. His de4th is still a mystery. During the b4ttle the Texans recaptured Cynthia Parker and her infant daughter Prairie Flower. Cynthia Ann who was fully a.ssimilated to Comanche culture did not wish to go but she was compelled to return to her former family.

She became something of a public curiosity and was placed on public display. As one account described she stood on a large wooden box and was bound with rope. She made a pathetic figure as she stood there viewing the crowds that swarmed about her. The tears were streaming down her face and she was muttering in the Indian language.

Her case became famous and the Texas legislature upon hearing of her story authorized a $100 annual grant payment for 5 years. However, she withdrew from white society and fell into a deep depression which grew worse after the de4th of Prairie Flower in 1864 from scarlet fever. Cynthia Ann Parker d1ed in 1871 from self induced starvation and influenza.

Quanah Parker moved between several Comanche bands before joining the fierce Kotsoteka particularly bitter enemies of the h.unters who had appropriated their best land on the Texas frontier and who were destr0ying the buffalo herds. In order to stem the onslaught of Comanche @ttacks on settlers and travelers the US government a.ssigned the Indians to reservations in 1867.

Quanah and his band however refused to cooperate and continued their raids. Attempts by the US military to locate them were unsuccessful. Quanah Parker walked in two worlds, that of the whites and that of the Comanche. In June 1874, Quanah and Isa tai, a medicine man who claimed to have a potion that would protect the Indians from bull3ts, gathered over 250 warriors from among the Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa and @ttacked about 30 white buffalo h.unters quartered at Adobe Walls, Texas.

Although the raid was a failure for the Native Americans due to a saloon owner allegedly being warned of the @ttack, the US military retaliated in force in what became known as the Red River Indian W4r. The @ttack was repulsed and Quanah himself was wounded in this incident, which may have been the catalyst to start the Red River W4r.

Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in this war, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Bad Hand Mackenzie’s Fourth US Cavalry Regiment and Pompey Factor’s Buffalo Sold1ers. This event was what brought Pompey Factor into the story, who became known to Parker. According to legend, the Comanche leader gave him the name Stalking Shadow due to his ability to track them day or night.

The Red River Indian W4r of 1874 75 was an uprising of warriors from several Indian tribes thought to be peacefully settled on Oklahoma and Texas reservations, ending in the crushing of the Indian descent by the United States. Presumably, the Treaty of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, October 1867, had placed these tribes on reservations.

A number of Southwestern tribes, such as the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and Kataka. Many braves, unwilling to accept this fate of confinement, broke out repeatedly to raid white travelers and settlers. Encouraged by Chiefs Big Tree and Satanta, the Indians carried out an @ttack in 1864 that k1lled 60 Texans and launched this war for sure.

In the fall of 1874, about 3,000 federal infantry and cavalry under the overall command of General William Tecumseh Sherman converged on the Indians concentrated in the Red River Valley, Texas. Resistance was so determined that 14 pitched b4ttles were required to curb the Indian power by mid November. Following a year of b4ttles in which his men were never truly defeated, but which finished Comanche power, Quanah Parker concluded that f1ghting against the whites was a losing proposition.

Quanah Parker’s surrender at Fort Sill, Oklahoma to American authorities in 1875 was a turning point, not just for the Comanches, but for him personally. He and his band of 100 Quahadis settled down to reservation life and Quanah promised to adopt white ways. When he surrendered, government agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, probably recognizing Quanah’s innate intelligence and leadership abilities, designated him as the chief of the Comanche nation.

Quanah Parker was different from other Native American leaders in that he had grown wealthy after his submission. Under Quanah, the Comanches became relatively successful at ranching and profited by leasing their land to cattle barons as grazing space. The whites saw Quanah as a valuable leader who’d be willing to help a.ssimilate Comanches to white society.

More conservative Comanche critics viewed him as a sellout. He took that money and invested it in real estate and railroad stock. He was successful enough that he was deemed to be the wealthiest Native American in the United States by the turn of the 20th century. Quanah decided to abandon a traditional Comanche teepee and had a two story, 10 room house built for himself in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma.

Quanah had seven or eight wives, if you include his first wife who was an Apache, and who could not adapt to Comanche ways. Quanah was also a devotee of Comanche spiritual beliefs. He initially rejected traditional Christianity, even though one of his sons, White Parker, was a Methodist minister. Though he encouraged Christianization of Comanche people, he also advocated the syncretic Native American Church alternative and fought for the legal use of peyote in the movement’s religious practices.

He was even elected deputy sheriff of Lawton, Oklahoma in 1902. Parker stated that “The white man goes into his church house and talks about Jesus, but the Indian goes into his teepee and talks to Jesus.” One of his most powerful connections and friendships was President Theodore Roosevelt, who first met Quanah when he visited Indian Territory for a reunion of his regiment of Rough Riders from the Spanish American W4r.

This relationship extended into Roosevelt’s presidency when the two h.unted wolves together in 1905. Like other whites, Roosevelt viewed Quanah as a model of a.ssimilation, but also listened to Quanah on Comanche issues regarding equality, education, employment, and prosperity. Roosevelt said, “Give the red man the same chance as the white.

The country is founded on the doctrine of giving each man a fair show to see what is in him.” Roosevelt, perhaps the greatest of American conservationists, also visited Quanah’s Star House many times, and Roosevelt delivered 15 bison from the Bronx Zoo to the newly created Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Quanah was greatly excited for the return of the nearly extinct animal that was emblematic of the Comanche way of life.

They both remained friends till Quanah’s de4th on February 23rd, 1911 of pneumonia at Star House. Quanah Parker was originally buried by his mother at the Post Oak Mission in Oklahoma. With the de@d chief were buried some valuables as a mark of his status. In May 1915, one or more grave robbers opened the grave and stole three rings, a gold watch chain, and a diamond brooch. The criminals were never found.

Instead, Quanah’s family cleaned the bones and reburied him in a new casket. This was not the end of Quanah Parker. In 1957, Fort Sill was expanding its missile firing ranges, which encompa.ssed the Post Oak Mission. As a result, both Quanah and Cynthia Ann Parker were disinterred and the bod1es moved to Chief Nohl at Fort Sill.

Many cities and highway systems in Southwest Oklahoma and North Texas, once Southern Comancheria, bear reference to his name. The monument which guards his grave reads, “Resting here until day breaks and shadows fall and darkness disappears, is Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches.” American history is colorful and no period has drawn more interest than the Wild West.

Gunf1ghters, lawmen, sold1ers, American Indian warriors, and gamblers have been the subject of books, films, and popular culture. The Wild West period lasted about 40 years after the Civil W4r, being replaced by technology and industrial expansion. This nostalgia was not lost upon people from all over the world.

Europeans were enamored with the Wild West. In fact, in World W4r II, German airmen called enemy aircraft Indiana or Indians out of respect because Westerns were the favorite genre of film entertainment. And such films from the silent black and white era through the current day have always had major appeal. However, one man managed to bring the Wild West to the world, broadening that interest and educating other cultures into that world just as that world was dying out.

And he and his traveling Wild West show were, in fact, for a time the greatest show on Earth. Who was William Frederick Cody? How did he begin his career in the Wild West? What influence did he have upon history? What is his legacy? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.

William F. Cody, better known as a Buffalo Bill, was born on February 26th, 1846 in Scott County, Iowa. His father, Isaac, relocated the family from their LeClaire, Iowa farm on the Mississippi River to Kansas, where he operated a general store and trading post near the Kickapoo Indian Agency. During that time, Kansas was divided between those who opposed slavery and those who supported it.

Being an abolitionist, Isaac was st4bbed while delivering an anti slavery speech in 1854, causing his eventual de4th in 1857. Young Bill started working for the Russell, Majors, and Waddell Freight Company at age nine to support his family, where he honed his abilities and became well known as a sk1lled horseman.

During a cattle drive in 1857, Cody k1lled a Native American during an @ttack on that cattle drive, which started his legend. He was celebrated as the youngest Indian f1ghter on the Great Plains. This was also when Cody met Wild Bill Hickok, who was also a wrangler on the drive and helped Cody in a de@dly dispute with an older man who had a grievance against him.

In 1860, at age 14, Cody began riding for the Pony Express. He had already been working as a dispatch writer, delivering messages between wagon trains for Russell, Majors, and Waddell and had the a.ssignment for a 45 mi ride between various posts. Cody became famous for his work as a rider due to some of his  exploits.

Despite the dime store book writers and journalist of the day hoping to make money off of his story, his actual bravery is worth mentioning. One dr4matic round tr.i.p of some 300 mi in Wyoming between Red Butte Station and Pacific Springs Station saw Cody complete not only his own ride, but also covered the missions of several missing relief riders.

Cody managed to complete 22 continuous hours of riding without sleep through hostile territory, changing horses two dozen times. Cody added to his fame when he outran a group of mounted Sioux warriors to Three Crossing Station, Wyoming, where he found the  station keeper had already been k1lled by the Sioux and the Pony Express horses stolen.

Followed by the pursuing Sioux, he successfully evaded them and rode  to the next station. Once he arrived there, he gathered a group of men and led an @ttack against the Indians who had camped, surprising them and recovering the stolen horses. On another mission, Cody was to deliver a large amount of cash, and knowing that he may be robbed as word spread quickly in those days when money was to be delivered, he placed the money under his saddle blanket and packed newspapers into the saddle bags.

Cody suspicions proved very accurate as bandits were waiting for him, and he was held at g.unpoint. He tossed the official Pony Express saddle bags to the bandits who luckily did not k1ll him, and they rode away quite content. With Cody getting out of there fast, the amazing part of his story is that, despite an accurate record of his express work, his name is not on the register of official Pony Express riders because he was not paid by the government, he was paid by the company.

When the Civil W4r broke out, Cody’s first a.ssignment was as a Union scout during the campaigns against the Kiowa and Comanche. That lasted until 1863 when he joined the 7th Kansas Cavalry, which saw action in Missouri and Tennessee. He was well regarded as a scout. After the war, he worked for the US Army as a civilian scout and dispatch writer out of Fort Ellsworth in Kansas from 1866 to 1867.

And afterward, due to his outstanding marksmanship,    he h.unted buffalo to feed construction crews on the Union Pacific Railroad from 1867 to 1868. During which time it is believed that he k1lled 4,280 head of bison, which gave him the nickname Champion Buffalo Killer. That was it.

In 1868, he was also then hired by the US Army 5th Cavalry as a scout and guide during the government’s missions to eliminate Indian resistance to settlement of the land west of the Mississippi. Which he did until 1876. His sk1lls were in great demand due to his recall of the vast terrain he had already traversed, knowledge of Indian ways, courage, and endurance.

In 1872, General Philip Sheridan arranged for Cody and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer to guide Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on a h.unting tr.i.p that had been set up by then US President Ulysses S. Grant. Cody frequently took on d4ngerous a.ssignments that others refused, and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions.

On April 26, 1872, as scout for the 3rd Cavalry that was pursuing Indians who had stolen army horses near Fort McPherson in Nebraska. However, that Medal of Honor was revoked in 1916 as part of the general review to identify individuals who had received the award but had not technically been members of the military as officers or enlisted men.

Scouts were cla.ssified as civilians, but the US Army later restored the medal to Cody posthumously in 1989 due to his service with the Army as a scout. One of the reasons was due to his reputation, which was well chronicled. During his distinguished career, he’s believed to have been involved in 16 f1ghts against various Indian tribes and k1lled over 120 Native American hostiles.

One of his more inglorious moments was when he was scalped by the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair on July 17th, 1876 in Sioux County, Nebraska, which was in retaliation to the government’s response to the ma.ssacre  of George Armstrong Custer’s command at the Battle of Little Bighorn earlier that year. Becoming known as Wild Bill in the press due to his exploits, newspaper reporters and dime novelist hungered for any mention of him in the newspapers or even street gossip, and they turned him into an American folk hero.

Writers such as Ned Buntline, writing under the pen name of E.C. Judson, and Prentiss Ingraham saw value in Cody and saw a chance to exploit his fame in dramatizing the West. In 1872, they convinced Cody to star in the Buntline’s drama, The Scout of the Prairie. Although he was not a trained actor, he managed to become a superb showman and ringmaster, launching what would become a 45 year career in show business.

Cody performed his shows during the winter months and continued scouting for the Army during the warmer months, such as spring, summer, and fall, as well as escorting h.unting parties and wagon trains to the west. Cody’s legend grew as he wore his flamboyant theatrical clothes into  b4ttle and on missions, later donning the same outfit to recreate  his @ttacks on stage.

He definitely stood out. In 1883, Cody, with the help of producer and partner Nate Salsbury, organized his own Wild West Show. This would become the most famous traveling outdoor entertainment business in history with a ma.ssive cast often numbering over 400 people. The aud1ences around the world loved the imagery, including fancy shooting, hard riding cowboys and Indians in mock f1ghts, along with recreations of buffalo h.unts, the capture of the Deadwood, South Dakota stagecoach, and so on.

The show lasted 4 hours and included Indian war dances and an @ttack on the stagecoach, and his personal  pony express ride was replicated. Among his stars were the already renowned rifle marksman Annie Oakley and the legendary Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, who was his friend and joined the group in 1885.

In 1887, his show was performed at Madison Square Garden, New York City, with a cast of about 100 Indians, Annie Oakley, other trick riders, ropers, and shooters, and such wild animals as buffalo, elk, bear, moose, and deer, as well as the ever present hostile Indians. The show then played all over Europe and was a requested performance at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, launching the first European tour.

So enthralled with the performance, Queen Victoria saw the show three times. Cody had expanded his entertainment venue to include Cossacks from the Russian steppes and vaqueros from Mexico and South America, adding to the spectacle making him one of the most recognized and sought after people and entertainers in the world.

In 1891, the show arrived in Glasgow, Scotland and one of the exhibits was the bl00d stained ghost dance shirt taken from a Lakota Sioux at the Wounded Knee Ma.ssacre the year before and it became part of a collection a.ssembled by George Crager. Now, Crager was a Lakota interpreter for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and he offered his vast collection of Indian curiosities to the Glasgow Museum.

See our video on Wounded Knee and the backstory on the return of the ghost dance shirt. In 1893 alone around 3 million people attended the shows in Europe, which was billed as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. During a show in Germany, Crown Prince Wilhelm, later to become Kaiser Wilhelm II, was skeptical about the sk1lls of said Annie Oakley and he offered Annie Oakley an opportunity to prove her worth.

Oakley, who was called Little Sure Shot, was challenged to shoot a cigarette out of Wilhelm’s mouth. She clipped the ash off at 30 paces. She then entertained the crowd with her usual tricks such as at 30 paces she could split a playing card held edge on. She hit dimes tossed into the air, sh0t cigarettes from her husband’s lips and a playing card thrown into the air shooting it full of holes before it ever touched the ground.

A friendly rival named Pawnee Bill, who also had his own Wild West Show, but it was a smaller venue, joined with Cody in 1908 expanding in entourage as well as the show’s repertoire. Buffalo Bill continued to perform in his Wild West show until 1916. Although, at age 71, he often had to be helped onto his horse backstage due to arthritis and old injuries.

While Buffalo Bill’s exhibition remained extremely popular in the United States and abroad, Cody had lost the fortune he had made due to very poor investments, including his purchase of an unproductive gold mine. His last public appearance occurred in November 1916. After Buffalo Bill Cody d1ed on January 10th, 1917 in Denver, Colorado, his many employees and followers kept the tradition and  scope of his Wild West shows alive.

And despite the world being at war, messages of condolence were sent by the same crowned heads of state, both Allied and Central Powers, who he had entertained and were themselves at that time locked in their own brut4l war of attrition. There has never been a showman like him, and even today in several nations, Wild West shows are performed in his honor and memory.

These shows are performed in several European countries, but it is very  prominent in Germany. I, your Hamburg correspondent, actually went to one. And they are very, very popular, especially in Munich, where approximately 40,000 practitioners, known as hobbyists, participate in these anachronistic recreations, but the response  to this by actual Native Americans has been largely negative.

The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompa.sses geography, history, folklore, and culture, which has captured the American imagination, if not the world. Stories abound about cowboys, bandits,  g.unslingers, and lawmen. But there were another group that should have received far more attention.

One such group are the Buffalo Sold1ers, and in particular, the US Army Indian Scouts. How did a former slave become one of America’s greatest heroes? What did he do to gain the respect and fear from his fellow white sold1ers and Native Americans alike? Why were men like him important to the history of the Old West? Hello, I’m Colin Heaton, former sold1er, Marine Corps Scout Sniper, history professor, historian, and book author.

And we’ve answered these questions and other issues    on this segment of Forgotten History. Pompey Factor was a former slave and son of captive mixed black Seminole Chief Hardy  Factor and an unknown Biloxi Indian woman. As the Seminoles, like most Native American tribes, welcomed runaway slaves and were not discriminatory.

Following the Second Seminole W4r of 1835 to 1842, the last major campaign to remove Native Americans from lands desired by the federal government waged in Florida and southern Georgia. The second campaign concluded when the tribe removed west and sent into slavery in Arkansas, then moved to Texas, much like the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears.

Pompey was born into slavery in 1849. Following his father, many runaway slaves being returned to slavery and the Seminoles being placed onto reservations, many tried to escape and some successfully did so. But the rebellious Hardy escaped with his family to Mexico and to freedom. Pompey received a Jesuit education, was well read in Latin, Greek, and spoke Seminole, English, and Spanish.

When he turned 16, the Civil W4r had ended and slavery was over. He returned to Texas and enlisted in the US Army on August 16th, 1870, and was a.ssigned as a private with the attachment of Seminole Negro Indian Scouts supporting the 24th Infantry, an all black  regiment known as Buffalo Sold1ers, based at Fort Clark, Texas.

As a scout, he performed reconnaissance duties in West Texas for the army, tracking the movements of Comanches, Apaches, Kiowa, and other Native Americans who refused to go onto the reservations. So adept was he at tracking, even at night, he was appointed chief scout under the command of Lieutenant John Lapham Bullis. Pompey Factor’s courage and sk1ll would be displayed many times during the Red River W4r of 1874 and 1875.

The Comanches in particular, who wanted to k1ll  him, also respected him as a fellow warrior. They gave him the nickname Stalking Shadow because he could never be captured, but always knew how to find them. In April 1875, Pompey Factor, Sergeant John W4rd, and Trooper Isaac Payne, along with their commander Lieutenant Bullis, were tracking an Apache group that had @ttacked a stagecoach, stolen horses, and due to Pompey’s great tracking sk1lls, on April 18th, they found approximately 30 Apaches driving a herd

of 75 stolen military horses towards Mexico. Rather than @ttack, they continued tracking the Apaches to confirm their actual number. And on the early pre dawn morning of April 26th, they caught up with the band at Eagle’s Nest Crossing just before reaching the Pecos River. Using stealth during the night, the three Seminole scouts recovered the horses and were quietly making good their escape, but then the Apaches discovered the horses gone and a furious pursuit began.

The rest of the 24th Regiment was several miles behind them. The four men were cut off without support. They were on their own. The sold1ers saw that the hostile force coming for them were also armed with rifles, so they abandoned the horses and set up a hasty defense. The f1ghting erupted at Eagle’s Nest Crossing near present day Langtry, Texas, and W4rd had his rifle butt shattered by bull3ts, and Lieutenant Bullis was sh0t in the leg and unable to mount his horse.

Low on ammunition, the decision was made to retreat fast and return to the main  force. Factor and Pain mounted their horses to make their escape. Sergeant W4rd noticed that the wounded Lieutenant Bullis could not mount his frightened horse, so all three men dismounted. While W4rd helped the Lieutenant onto his horse, Factor and Pain alone held off the concentrated @ttacks, which lasted for almost two hours until the f1ghting became hand to hand.

Their Spencer rifles when out of ammunition became clubs. Knives became the w3apons of choice. W4rd, Pain, and Factor k1lled over a dozen Apaches in their first @ttack. The Apaches retreated, reorganized, and then broke off into two groups to hit the four men on both flanks simultaneously. W4rd fired from the saddle to disable as many Indians as possible until his rifle was shattered.

Again, while Factor and Pain still on foot continued to be engaged by wave after wave of mounted enemies. After the two hours with most of the Apaches k1lled, all four men managed to collect their horses and retreat to the safety of their company. Their platoon was coming to meet them having heard the b4ttle.

On May 28th, 1875, Factor, W4rd, and Pain were recommended for the Medal of Honor for their bravery. Despite this honor, after two years, Factor left the scouts and returned to Mexico dissatisfied with the treatment of the scouts by the white settlers in southern Texas. He carried with him two letters, as did W4rd and Pain.

The first was a personal letter written by Lieutenant Bullis attesting to Factor’s service and bravery, hoping that it would ease his life as he came into contact with whites still prejudiced against blacks. The other letter, also carried by all three men, was from the Secretary of W4r, James Donald Cameron, on behalf of President Ulysses S.

Grant, stating Factor and the others had performed a great service to the United States and should be shown such gracious consideration. After the turn of the century, Pompey Factor returned to Texas. In 1926, he applied for a pension. His military records were lost, and thus he could not initially prove that he had even been in the army.

Two years later, the army granted his pension, but Factor nonetheless d1ed destitute  in a small shack on March 28, 1928 and was buried in the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery at Brackettville, Texas.    His name appears on the Texas Medal of Honor and Seminole Tribal Rolls. Pompey Factor, not well known to history, is still a legend to those who served with him and those he served.

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