Frederick Wyllams

Steve, I will confirm that I did not look at the age incorrectly next week if/when I get over to the National Archives in Kansas City. Of course, it may have simply been that he deliberately gave the younger age to avoid having any problems due to being too old to enlist-I can't remember the cut-off age in 1866 but perhaps Steve Wilk or someone else knows. I think 40 Miles a Day has that information also. If I can find my copy I will look it up.

Billy

Thanks for all this information guys. This seems to make sense. As per the archives at Kansas, are they likely to have additional information which is not at Washington? I did wounder if I could trace the letters sent from Fredericks Wife to the army. Although they are quoted in replies to his wife there are none in the Pension file. I have applied for Fredericks service records. Ron McCoy at the History department in Kansas says when he applied they could not find any. (Time will tell).
Anyway re this area of History not directly involved with Frederick Wyllyams you will be pleased to know my wife came back from the shopping with my first Book on the subject. I have also ordered two of my own . Give me a week or two and my comments and questions may not be so narrow.

Hi, I am a new member (based in the UK). I have been researching Wyllyams for some time, but have become stuck recently trying to access his pension records (which deal with his widow's pension application). I understand from Ron McCoy that his service record is missing. Enquiries of Eton college seem to show that he did not attend that school. I have had no luck in tracing him as a merchant seaman in the UK or his father as an army surgeon in the UK National Archives. He seems to have come from the Bristol area of the UK, but other than that, I have drawn a blank. My analysis of the various reports of his death suggest that the famous Bell photograph was staged, rather than being taken on the battlefield as is usually suggetsed. He was buried at Fort Wallace, but his body was subsequently moved to Fort Leavenworth where it remains.

Gary

Bell's account makes it clear that he did visit the battlefield in the immediate aftermath; it makes sense that he would, as a medical doctor, when there could be wounded to treat. And he definitely implies he took the picture on the spot: "as he lay". His very minute description includes the arrows, and I don't doubt that the photo reflects the sight he saw. However -- it's hard to believe (though not impossible) that his first thought was to grab his camera as well as his medical bag. And if he did, why not more photos? E.g. of a battlefield scattered with corpses? So I'm in two minds about this.

Whether they could have transported Wyllyams' corpse back to Fort Wallace complete with arrows I don't know. I suppose it's just possible. Or possible that if any of the arrows came adrift en route, they could have been replaced for the purposes of the photo: not to fake anything, but simply to recreate the original reality.

I haven't yet been able to pin down a precise date for the photo: whether they recovered the corpses the same day, or the next, or what. Nor for the burial. I think it's Theodore R. Davis who remarks that the air of Kansas is so dry that bodies don't decompose, but simply sort of mummify -- so perhaps they could have kept the corpses on hand for several days before burying them. (I'm intrigued by this, obviously, for Keogh reasons in particular; one of his letters implies that he ordered the photograph taken. At the time of the Barnitz fight, he was away from Wallace on escort duty with General Hancock; but Bell didn't leave the fort until after Keogh's return ... So if Gary's right about the staging, it's just conceivable that Keogh wasn't exaggerating!)

Billy, that interment record is just wonderful. (A pity it doesn't give date of burial as well as date of death, which could have solved the photo question, but even so ... superb.)

Fascinating to see, from the grave numbers, that they can't have had any deaths at the post until this spate of disasters begins in June '67. (Poor Keogh must have been livid. "The moment my back is turned ...") Also great to see who the cholera victims were. And -- how interesting that they've listed Charles Johnson, the shot deserter, as "killed by Indians". Tact? A deliberate lie? Or just a clerical error?

Thanks so much for posting this. It's great.

Hi Diane, Elisabeth and Billy,

Thanks for the feedback.

There are two representations of Wyllyams body. The first to be published was not in fact Bell’s photograph, but an engraving published in Harper’s Weekly and reproduced in Bell’s account of his travels, 'New Tracks in North America'. Indeed, Bell’s photograph was not reproduced in his book at all. Instead, the author, or perhaps his publisher, preferred the less graphic engraving. The article in Harper’s Weekly describes the engraving as being made “from sketches by Major A. R. Calhoun and Dr. Bell”.

The photograph of Wyllyams’ body shows the sergeant lying on a patch of grass with what appear to be five arrows protruding from his torso. His injuries are clearly shown in the photograph.

The etching is clearly based upon the same image, but shown from a slightly different angle so that Wyllyams right arm obscures his genitals. The etching also shows six arrows sticking out of the victim. A closer examination of the photograph however reveals that a shadow on the right side of Wyllyams’ body might well be a sixth arrow viewed from a foreshortened angle.

On the face of it, the image is exactly what it purports to be. In Bell’s words, “a photograph of him, poor fellow, as he lay”. Bell tells us that Wyllyams “…lay dead beside his horse; …Horse and rider were stripped bare of trapping and clothes, while around them the trampled, blood-stained ground showed the desperation of the struggle”. The first thing that strikes the viewer of the photograph (and indeed the etching) however is that there is no horse shown in the picture. Further, there is no evidence of blood on the ground (although the photograph posted byDiane shows what could be blood - or simply marks on the negative) or trampled ground in the photograph.

There at least two potential answers to these questions. Firstly, it could be argued that the picture was taken from an angle which did not include the horse, even though it might have been lying nearby. Further, the photograph is not of first class quality; this might then explain why the blood stains and trampled earth cannot be seen. Perhaps the real answer can be found in Barnitz’s letter to his wife Jennie, written on 29th June 1867, three days after the fight (And reproduced in Utley 'Life in Custer's Cavalry').

Barnitz’s letter to his wife contains a good description of the skirmish, including the death of Wyllyams. Wyllyams was clearly known to Jennie Barnitz as Barnitz includes the comment that he was “..the one who fixed the tin protection to our stove pipe. –and who was such a gentlemanly soldier…”. More importantly, it throws some light upon the circumstance in which Bell took his photograph when he says:

“He also photographed the body of Serg’t Wyllyams, after it was brought to the post, just to show our friends in Washington, the Indian Agents, what fiends we have to deal with!”.

This little phrase seems to explain the queries highlighted above. The horse, the blood and the trampled ground are not shown in the photograph because it was taken at the post and not at the scene of the sergeant’s death. If this analysis is accurate, Bell did not brave the battlefield to photograph Wyllyams “as he lay”, but waited until the body was brought in to the post. Such an interpretation is consistent with not only Barnitz’s letter, but also some of the comments in Bell’s own account.

Prior to giving his description of Wyllyams’ corpse, Bell gives an outline of the fight. He states that at the outset of the skirmish, he and others rushed out of camp with their rifles towards a nearby ravine. On finding that there were no Indians in the ravine, they “…returned to breakfast, feeling it undesirable to go farther unprotected and alone”. He then tells of a two hour wait that was brought to an end by “…a horseman from the field of action, who came to get an ambulance for the dead and wounded”. At no time does he talk of travelling to the scene of the fight with his camera or medicine bag.

Assuming that the body was photographed at the post rather than on the battlefield, this raises further questions about exactly how this was actually done. It seems unlikely that the body would have been brought in with five or six arrows still sticking out of it (or without breaking the arrows). If so, were the arrows removed at the site of the killing and stuck back in the body at the fort for the benefit of the photographer? Quite a gruesome thought!

Gary