Tom Custer and Mark Kellogg

[Diane Merkel]

Joseph Taylor's cabin is currently in Washburn, North Dakota. Here is part of his story:

While hunting to secure meat for the hay cutters, Taylor stumbled across a grisly scene ­ the rotting corpse of a buckskin-clad man sporting a red beard. When he returned to the hay cutters' camp with the news of his discovery, Taylor encountered the foreman of the crew. It was Mark Kellogg, a part-time writer for the Bismarck Tribune who would later ride to his death upon a slow mule at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Kellog recognized the body as that of a Frenchman he had seen in Bismarck and, according to Taylor, said some appropriate words about the evil effects of alcohol over the emaciated corpse.

Included in his early writings was another episode involving a man who was destined to meet his maker on the same day as the unfortunate Kellogg. Taylor was with a group of hunters who were encamped below the Square Buttes, roughly halfway between present day Washburn and Bismarck, and warming themselves by the evening fire when a voice called out. A man who said he had crossed the Missouri on a cake of floating ice and was unarmed, asked to share the fire and acquire some food. The man was Tom Hannon.

Hannon explained to Taylor and the others that he had escaped from the guardhouse at Fort Lincoln, that he was improperly implicated in the theft of stores of government grain and that he now must skedaddle from the territory. Taylor's group agreed that Hannon could spend the night but informed him that it was in the best interest of all parties that the relationship be terminated as soon as the sun rose the following morning.

The first thing Taylor heard the next morning was, "Oh my gosh. It's Tom Custer and his whole command." There, silhouetted in morning's first light, was Company 'C' of the 7th Cavalry. They had tracked Hannon to his temporary place of refuge and formed a semi-circle around the camp, daring him to attempt another escape. Hannon gave himself up and was returned to the guardhouse at Fort Lincoln.

It was later learned by Taylor's party that there was another escape the night that Hannon slipped from the guardhouse. Also gaining freedom was noted Sioux warrior Rain-In-The-Face, the same Rain-In-The-Face that would later take revenge by cutting out the heart of Tom Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and be immortalized in poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Article: www.minotdailynews.com/news/story/0312202006_new12news2.asp

[Tricia]

That Tom ... always in the middle of things. Revenge was not only Rain-in-the-Face's (if you believe it) motivation at LBH, but it appeared the same condition existed on Tom's part. When Rain-in-the-Face killed Tom's pal, the veternarian Dr. John Honsinger, Tom seemed more than happy to bring the fellow in, unaware of the part "revenge" would have in his own death. The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone?

Regards,
Leyton McLean

[elisabeth]

Leaving aside the vexed question of whether Rain-in-the-Face was even at the LBH battle -- this is fascinating stuff. I love the "appropriate words ... over the emaciated corpse". No wonder Kellogg was such a devoted cheerleader for Custer; it's just like Custer's own little homily over Cooper's corpse!

I wish we knew more about that whole grain theft episode. There's a smell of something not quite right about it. Novelist Romain Wilhelmsen, in The Curse of Destiny, picks up on that to make it part of a deep-laid government plot with Pinkerton agents provocateurs at work; not sure I quite buy that (though it's fun) but one does feel there's something more going on there ... Has anyone done any detective work on this, do you know?