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Post by Scout on Feb 9, 2006 7:52:46 GMT -6
Where is Charley Reynolds buried? I posted this question some time ago and got no response,which may say more about why they called him 'Lonesome' than anything else. I have emailed the LBH battlefield with this very difficult question...you would think they would know the answer, but they never response...what is their job anyway? Aren't they there to answer questions and serve the public? I then attempted to extricate an answer from various members of the CBHMA...and again, no answer. Is Charley that forgotten?
Now I know Ol' Charley had a personality like wallpaper and wasn't as flamboyant as GAC, but I would like to know the answer. As many of you know I have a great deal of interest in the myths surrounding the battle.
Here's the story...according to a story in the 1963 Montana History Magazine Yellowstone Supt. Philetus W. Norris rode to the battlefield in 1877 and dug up Charley and removed his remains to parts unknown. He had met Charley only one time but after Charley's death wrote warm and fuzzy tributes to him. Norris claimed he moved Charley and later used it as an article he wrote. Was Norris telling the truth or was this so much buffalo dung? The Charley Reynolds marker [where he fell] was moved once, by a farmer but, as I understand has been put back in it's original place. But the question remains: Where is Old Charley buried? Anybody know have close personal friend at the LBH who could put down the coffee long enough to answer a simple question? Does anyone know the answer?
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 9, 2006 8:44:01 GMT -6
His orginal grave was where he was killed then his remains were dug up and put in the mass grave on LSH.
That's all I got . . .
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Post by Scout on Feb 9, 2006 12:49:25 GMT -6
And you got that from where? This is the problem....I can find no definitive source on where he is. My getting a lot of heresay on the subject...anyway thanks for your reply horse. I have heard from other people that the good old folks at the LBH Battlefield are nonresponsive to mail and emails...what is there job exactly? Do they even know? Aren't they payed to answer questions regarding the battlefield?
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 9, 2006 13:03:57 GMT -6
Scout:
I did a GOOGLE search for CR and most of the sites stated what I had on my post.
There is also mention of Reynolds trying to assist Dr. DeWolf with a wounded man. According to Herendeen he saw Reynolds trying to flee on horseback but his horse was shot and Reynolds ended up fighting from there. Not sure about helping the Dr. when DeWolf was scampering up a hill when killed and Reynolds killed near the timber.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 9, 2006 16:25:38 GMT -6
Well, there's nothing to say he couldn't have helped DeWolf before they were killed. Just because DeWolf was killed ascending the bluffs and Reynolds was killed in the valley, it doesn't rule out previous actions.
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Post by George Armstrong Custer on Feb 9, 2006 17:09:06 GMT -6
Hi Scout, This from Brininstool's Troopers With Custer, pp. 319-320:
' [After stating that Reynolds' headless trunk had been buried by Terry's forces] At this point, the [James H.] Taylor narrative states that Reynolds body was afterward reinterred by a professor from Ann Arbor University near the site of that Michigan institution. This is an error, as the author tried in vain to verify it. Correspondence with the Ann Arbor authorities gave no light upon the matter, the dean of the college stating that Reynolds was not buried near Ann Arbor University, and that there must be some mistake in such a statement. Further correspondence with Supt. Asbury of Crow Agency, Montana, near the battlefield, brought out the information that Reynolds' body was buried on the side of the river on which the Reno forces fought, and that the site had been appropriately marked.
Several years ago information was received from Supt. C. H. Asbury at Crow Agency as follows: "Dear Mr Brininstool; I stated that Charley Reynolds' grave and burial site was not exactly known, but in harking back, it occurred to me that it had recently been marked with an iron tablet (about 1920), and I wrote to the custodian of the battlefield to find out if I was correct in my surmise, and I find I was. Reynolds' body was buried with the unrecognized dead on the top of Custer Hill, so I am informed. The spot where he was shot and killed is about one mile southeast of the present railroad station of Garryowen, along the Burlington Railroad, which runs close to the battlefield, within a mile or so. '
You may know that photographs and a good account of the fluctuating fortunes of the various (wandering) memorials to the spot wher Reynolds fell is given in the superlative Where Custer Fell, pp. 36-37, (including the 1926 marker erected by none other than E. A. Brininstool himself.) The authors repeat the Norris story of retrieving Reynolds' remains, but do not comment on its veracity, nor do they give their opinion on the current whereabouts of the body - one of the few disapointments I've encountered in this essential new book.
Ciao, GAC
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Post by Scout on Feb 9, 2006 20:21:04 GMT -6
GAC,
Many thanks for the information on Reynolds....it certaintly alot more than I got from the experts at the battlefield. I do have a photo of Charley's monument on the day of dedication [Aug. 18, 1938] Brininstool is pictured along with several other Custer notables including R.S. Ellison, Kuhlman and Fred Dustin...and Charley W. Reynolds....grand nephew of Charley Reynolds. Anyway thanks for the info.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 10, 2006 4:16:10 GMT -6
This site says that Norris removed Reynolds' remains to his own family burial plot in Detroit: www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/custer5.htmlThey don't say where they got the info. But it might be verifiable via Find A Grave or something? Also, Norris seems to have left loads of papers. (Googling "Philetus W. Norris" is quite productive. Thank goodness he had such a distinctive name!) Here's one reference to a library that has stacks of them: www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/haines1/iee0b.htm
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Post by Scout on Feb 10, 2006 7:58:54 GMT -6
Liz,
Just when I was beginning to think the Norris tale was figment of Norris's vivid imagination you come along and put the doubt back in my mind. There appears to be no definitive answer to this question. Norris only met silent Charley one time but later wrote articles about him that border on down right obessive. This still dosen't answer the question though. As GAC says the park supt. in the 1920's ...probably Supt. Eugene Wessinger....says Charley was buried on Custer Hill. If Norris did hall Charley's remains off, for some noble misguided reason, why bury him someplace and then not put a tombstone up. Norris says he buried him in a plot in Detroit. And yes, Norris did leave loads of papers...just don't how truthful the man was.
I personally think Norris story was nothing more than so much fantasy, but then I could be wrong. Brininstool adds more mystery to the story when he says Charley's headless body was reburied by Terry's men. Could one of the heads found in the village been Charley's? It appears no one knows for sure where 'Silent' Charley is buried. Another mystery of the LBH I suppose.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 10, 2006 8:15:35 GMT -6
Very odd, certainly.
Maybe if we coud locate Norris' own grave, we'd have found the burial plot; and possibly a tomstone for Charley there?
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 10, 2006 8:35:06 GMT -6
According to this web site, Reynolds is buried at Last Stand Hill (look in Seventh Cavalry)
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Post by Diane Merkel on Feb 10, 2006 11:02:04 GMT -6
Oh, man, don't make me the last word! Very few of the sources for the listings are primary. I just checked my sources file and cannot find where I got that. I will look into it. Hammer (Nichols edition) has him "Probably reinterred in Norris, . . " and quotes this from The Bismarck Tribune, August 27, 1877: Col. P. W. Norris, Supt. of the Yellowstone Park, now in the city, visited the Custer battlefield on the occasion of the disinterment of the unfortunate officers of Custer's command and secured all that remained of the famous scout, Charley Reynolds, and is taking the bones home for burial. Find-a-Grave reports the reburial as being in Detroit Memorial Park West in Redford (Wayne County), Michigan. The link is too long to post. Go to www.findagrave.com, put in the first and last names Charles and Reynolds, and designate the state as Michigan. You'll see it. I'll dig more. If I put him under the memorial, there was a reason to support that. Diane
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Post by Scout on Feb 10, 2006 14:08:21 GMT -6
I believe Brininstool's account is the only one that says Charley was beheaded. With all the question marks surrounding ol' Charley I think a better name would be 'Mysterious' Charley Reynolds. The strange thing is the numerous accounts of where and when the marker was set. If Charley was 'removed' by Norris in 1877 how would any one know where to set the marker, which was put in place later on? The two just don't add up. I need some of you super sleuths to figure this one out because I am totally confused. This would make a good article for the newsletter...whatcha think Diane?
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Post by Diane Merkel on Feb 10, 2006 20:42:51 GMT -6
Tom O'Neil ran a two or three-part series about Lonesome Charley when he was the Newsletter editor in the 1990s. This weekend will be hectic, but I'll dig it out on Sunday and see what that says about his burial.
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Post by bubbabod on Feb 11, 2006 23:41:24 GMT -6
When they refer to Reynolds helping Dr. De Wolf, they aren't talking about as De Wolf was ascending up the worng hill to his death, but rather at the edge of or in the timber. And I don't know if it was De Wolf or Porter that he stopped to help. My understanding is that Reynolds sort of got left behind by providing a covering fire, more or less sacrificing himself to the point he wasn't able to get away himself. I've been to his marker and it is nowhere near the river and is about two hundred yards from Mc Intosh and Dorman's markers.
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