kenny
Full Member
Posts: 156
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Post by kenny on Feb 11, 2006 23:58:08 GMT -6
Is there any imformation and pictures of 1st. Lt. James E. porter?
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 1:56:06 GMT -6
There's one picture of Porter in "Custer and his Commands From West Point to Little Bighorn", by Kurt Hamilton Cox (p. 55); I've seen another, less flattering, one somewhere else, but can't remember where.
I don't know anything about him, though, beyond the basic facts: born February 2nd 1847 in Strong, Maine; enlisted June 15th 1869; 1st Lt. of Co. I from 1st July 1872, succeeding Moylan (who'd been appointed from 31st December 1870, but for some reason is listed as "never joined" -- anyone know why?). And he was married. That's all.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 12, 2006 2:34:41 GMT -6
That Cox book is excellent. I really wish I had picked it up, though I do believe it'll still be at the location I last found it. Lots and lots of good pictures.
Elisabeth: I haven't forgotten to send you your book, I am just trying to get that stupid CD finished. Had some computer issues and am getting ready to move as well, so I'm getting to it. Its already packaged up and your address is on it, its just not sealed as I want to slip in the CD.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 2:40:18 GMT -6
Thanks to Melani for pointing me towards that book -- it's great, isn't it.
Don't worry about the parcel, if you've got all of that going on! Anytime will do.
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Post by Dietmar on Feb 12, 2006 4:24:26 GMT -6
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 5:08:10 GMT -6
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Post by El Crab on Feb 12, 2006 5:14:29 GMT -6
Don't worry about the parcel, if you've got all of that going on! Anytime will do. You wacky Brits and your words! What the heck's a parcel? Just kidding.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 5:20:19 GMT -6
Sorry -- "package"! (But that has rude connotations for us wacky Brits ... Then again, most words do!)
Sorry, too, that the above link dosn't seem to have copied over properly. It's the American Memory website, History of the American West section. Probably simpler to go to that direct and do a search?
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Post by El Crab on Feb 12, 2006 5:26:10 GMT -6
You know, seriously, looking at photos really hammers it home. You read names and you see the words "trooper", "soldier", "officer", etc., but when you see their faces and you know this man died, and likely in a way that can never be envied.
I think we're really immune to a lot of this violence, having seen so much killing and bloodshed on the TV. But while I can imagine what it'd be like to have a bullet zip 4 feet from my head, and watch the man next to me drop and writhe in the dust, I won't ever truly know what its like. All of these guys, they either were shot or stabbed or clubbed to death. And the lucky ones didn't see it coming. The unlucky ones crouched behind a dead horse or ran for their lives. I've been in pain before, but no wonder these guys eventually cracked. Its like that saying about boxing, you have a plan until the first time you get hit. At some point, these young men realized they were not going home. They were not going to live to see the sun go down. They were going to die somewhere on this hill. It was just a matter of time. When you go to the field, you stand on top of Last Stand Hill, and at any time you can just walk away. But about 130 years ago, if you were on that hill, you were either staying there or maybe spending the last few minutes of your life running through a gauntlet.
It really is chilling, especially when you look at Lt. Porter's face and think about what it must have been like to find his bloody jacket in the village. The jacket he was wearing when the bullet went through his back and probably out his chest.
Ok, I've probably espoused enough dramatics for the evening.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 5:44:43 GMT -6
You're right -- and maybe that's what makes this battle so mesmerising: that we have photos of so many of the participants, and can feel we know them?
Imagine how they felt, too, if they could see the troops on Weir Point ...
There's a nice quote in Wayne Sarf's The Little Bighorn Campaign from a Cheyenne warrior named Limpy, in 1934, looking back on his part in the Powder River fight. He'd been unhorsed, and was dramatically rescued by Young Two Moon, with "bullets kicking up the dust around them". He said: "When you are in a tight pinch like that it seems like you don't have no feelings. It seems like your feet don't even touch the ground." It'd be nice to think that adrenaline had the same effect on Custer's men; but I suspect your picture of their feelings is more accurate ...
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kenny
Full Member
Posts: 156
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Post by kenny on Feb 13, 2006 1:41:41 GMT -6
Have they ever found 1st.Lt James Porter remains?.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 13, 2006 3:41:00 GMT -6
Have they ever found 1st.Lt James Porter remains?. They may have found them, but they never identified them. Likely, his remains were buried under the monument. All they ever found was his bloody jacket with a bullet hole under the right shoulder.
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Post by stevewilk on Feb 13, 2006 10:10:24 GMT -6
There's one picture of Porter in "Custer and his Commands From West Point to Little Bighorn", by Kurt Hamilton Cox (p. 55); I've seen another, less flattering, one somewhere else, but can't remember where. I don't know anything about him, though, beyond the basic facts: born February 2nd 1847 in Strong, Maine; enlisted June 15th 1869; 1st Lt. of Co. I from 1st July 1872, succeeding Moylan (who'd been appointed from 31st December 1870, but for some reason is listed as "never joined" -- anyone know why?). And he was married. That's all. Elisabeth, that photo in the Cox book p. 55 is NOT Lt. Porter. That is Lt. Ezra Bond Fuller, one of the replacement officers commissioned after LBH. There are a few misidentified photos in that book. I posted a thread on Fuller a few months back in this section. The only photo of Porter I am familiar with is in Hammer's book _Men With Custer_. Porter did not enlist. He attended West Point, class of 1869, ranking 16th in a class of 39 cadets. He served with regiment in Kansas and in the south, also accompanied the Northern Boundary Survey in 1873 so he missed the Yellowstone Expedition. He was married as you mentioned. Along with a widow, he left two sons, David, and James Frances, (born March 1876, at Ft. Lincoln, died Dec. that same year at Strong, Maine).
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 13, 2006 10:22:45 GMT -6
Steve, thanks for the correction! I was struggling to understand how he could have gone from being chubby-faced at West Point to quite gloomily handsome in the Cox book, and back to chubby-faced in the later photo ... The obvious explanation never occurred to me. I'll treat those captions with caution from now on.
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Post by Melani on Feb 13, 2006 11:22:16 GMT -6
There's a picture of Porter on page 133 of the Langellier-Cox-Pohanka book on Keogh.
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