|
Post by fred on Aug 28, 2006 20:29:14 GMT -6
rch--
I think you may be wrong about the Weir DOR for CPT. Ron Nichols claims it was 31Jul67, but the Fort Harker muster rolls show 31Aug67 (making him the fourth-ranking CPT in the 7th Cavalry at the battle). His DOR as a 1LT was the day the regiment was formed, 28Jul66.
He was breveted to MAJ & LTC on 31Jul67, for action in the Civil War against Nathan Bedford Forrest on 1Dec63, but that promotion to CPT seems like it took another month.
Best wishes, Fred.
|
|
|
Post by markland on Aug 29, 2006 15:11:17 GMT -6
rch-- I think you may be wrong about the Weir DOR for CPT. Ron Nichols claims it was 31Jul67, but the Fort Harker muster rolls show 31Aug67 (making him the fourth-ranking CPT in the 7th Cavalry at the battle). His DOR as a 1LT was the day the regiment was formed, 28Jul66. He was breveted to MAJ & LTC on 31Jul67, for action in the Civil War against Nathan Bedford Forrest on 1Dec63, but that promotion to CPT seems like it took another month. Best wishes, Fred. Fred, the July 31, 1867 date comes from Heitman's Register as well as the Army Register, 1867. Billy
|
|
|
Post by fred on Aug 29, 2006 18:45:18 GMT -6
Fred, the July 31, 1867 date comes from Heitman's Register as well as the Army Register, 1867.Billy Would they be definitive? Why would the Harker rolls be different or were they simply wrong? Best wishes, Fred.
|
|
|
Post by rch on Aug 29, 2006 19:42:20 GMT -6
Fred
Officers had to formally accept appointments and promotions. Could 31 Aug be the date the War Department's notification, that it had received his acceptance, reached Harker?
However the 31 Jul date for his brevets and his promotion does seem coincidental. Heitman may have missed a later correction made in later Registers. If there was a mistake ot appears to be in Weir's favor and he may not have cared to see it corrected.
rch
|
|
|
Post by fred on Aug 29, 2006 20:35:35 GMT -6
rch--
I don't really know. Weir had a tremendous Civil War record so I would assume he deserved the early rank, but I don't know what is definitive here. The Army Register seems like it would be the last word, especially if it was an army publication, but I don't know that either. (Even today, you have a number of these quasi-official organizations w/ names that sound like they are right out of the Pentagon J-3 section.) The 1 month would not make any difference in seniority in the 7th (at the LBH), since Yates, who was the 3rd-ranking CPT in the command at the time, had been promoted in June, but it would still be nice to know.
Best wishes, Fred.
|
|
|
Post by markland on Aug 31, 2006 13:32:21 GMT -6
Fred, the July 31, 1867 date comes from Heitman's Register as well as the Army Register, 1867.Billy Would they be definitive? Why would the Harker rolls be different or were they simply wrong? Best wishes, Fred. Fred, the Army Register was compiled by the Office of the Adjutant General and was not a private enterprise. That being said, there are errors in them, usually typos, etc. which they corrected with an Errata page at the beginning. I need to verify whether 1867 had one or not-if it did, for some reason I didn't copy it; or, it did not have one. More substantiative information is available at this link, under Administration: www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/094.html#94.1Billy
|
|
|
Post by markland on Sept 2, 2006 23:46:12 GMT -6
rch-- I think you may be wrong about the Weir DOR for CPT. Ron Nichols claims it was 31Jul67, but the Fort Harker muster rolls show 31Aug67 (making him the fourth-ranking CPT in the 7th Cavalry at the battle). His DOR as a 1LT was the day the regiment was formed, 28Jul66. He was breveted to MAJ & LTC on 31Jul67, for action in the Civil War against Nathan Bedford Forrest on 1Dec63, but that promotion to CPT seems like it took another month. Best wishes, Fred. Fred & RCH, to confuse matters further are these quotes from the regimental returns of the 7th Cav.: 0267: Weir joined the regiment 02/19/1867 as First Lieutenant; he was appointed Regimental Commissary Officer dependent upon the approval of the Secretary of War. He was in the field from that period on to August, 1867 in places such as Spring Rock, Kansas & Pawnee Fork, Kansas. The August, 1867 regimental return states the following (which throws everything into confusion): Ft. Harker, KS-"Dropped from Field and Staff in Regimental Commissary by reason being promoted Captain in 7th Cavalry to date from Aug. 27, '67 as yet unassigned to a company." And trust me, I looked over that August date extremely carefully!!! Elisabeth, the November, 1866 regimental return shows Keogh joining the regiment on November 6, 1866. The 1866 End-of-Year return indicates November 16, 1866 as the date he joined. Possible conduits for information about things going on in the Department of the Platte: 1) Jno. R. Lemmon transferred from 2d Cav. to Co. H, 7th Cav. per orders issued 12/08/1866. 2) John Stanley transferred from 2d Cav. to Co. H, 7th Cav. per orders issued 12/08/1866. Be good, Billy
|
|
|
Post by elisabeth on Sept 3, 2006 0:04:36 GMT -6
Billy, that's most intriguing. If the November 6th date is correct, his Fort Zarah trip must have been official ...
Is it safe to assume that the November regimental return is more likely to be correct (having been made at the time) than the End-of-Year return?
|
|
|
Post by markland on Sept 3, 2006 0:23:38 GMT -6
Billy, that's most intriguing. If the November 6th date is correct, his Fort Zarah trip must have been official ... Is it safe to assume that the November regimental return is more likely to be correct (having been made at the time) than the End-of-Year return? Elisabeth, to be frank, damned if I know! You would think the End of Year report should be more accurate, insofar as getting more data but...my opinion is that the monthly regimental return may be more accurate as far as dates are concerned. The reason I state it thus is that the Adjuntant had to read the various company returns and a typo could have easily occurred. As a matter of fact. on the "project from Hell." I somewhat toss a coin when I see alternative spellings but usually go with the monthly regimental return as far as dates are concerned. Billy
|
|
|
Post by elisabeth on Sept 3, 2006 0:28:02 GMT -6
That makes sense.
Well, this is getting more interesting by the day!
|
|
|
Post by markland on Sept 3, 2006 0:37:31 GMT -6
That makes sense. Well, this is getting more interesting by the day! Arrrrrggggghhhh! The frontier Army and it's reports are interesting, however, to dissuade you from being overly optimistic, the End of Year reports stopped in 1867. Which for me, trying to read some Adjutant's "fancy" handwriting, is a darned shame! Imagine trying to decide if (at the simplest) the surname is Barnett or Burnett ~ oy vey, headache city, especially when the monthly and the End of Year do not agree! Billy
|
|
|
Post by elisabeth on Sept 3, 2006 0:44:11 GMT -6
My sympathies!
|
|
|
Post by elisabeth on Sept 3, 2006 7:52:04 GMT -6
Billy,
Still harping on the Fort Zarah question (apologies to all, but I'd really like to get to the bottom of it!): Gordie earlier gave us Mike Sheridan's joining date as November 26th. I'm beginning to think that must have come from the End-of-Year returns as well, as he was definitely en route to Fort Morgan well before then -- writing to Custer from Fletcher on November 21st. What are the chances that that's another adjutant's typo, and that his true joining date was also the 6th?
If so, we could be back to Interpretation A, that Keogh and Sheridan together took in Zarah on their way west. Now ... no-one's yet turned up (as far as I know) any communication with Custer on the subject ... but Mike being who he was, could he have been tasked to report back on the Council to, say, Hancock? Or Sherman? Or Grant? Or even just brother Phil? That Sherman letter you quoted elsewhere demonstrated the extent to which the arming-the-Indians question was a major political football in the War Dept. versus Interior Dept. struggle, and with Butterfield at the heart of it. (If you can have a heart of a football. But you know what I mean.) It could have been really useful for those in high places in the army to have a report, either official or confidential, from a trustworthy insider like young Mike. It'd give them good ammunition to use ...
Which leads to yet wilder speculation. Are the discrepancies in joining dates purely innocent slips of the pen ... or could they be attempts to fudge the timing so as to conceal this mission? Both alleged joining dates end with a 6; easy enough to put a 1 or a 2 in front of that at a later date if need be. (Such as when the Keogh letter hits the papers?!) Crazy conspiracy theory, I know, but stranger things have happened ... No idea why they'd want to conceal it, but if Mike S. was being used as a spy it might perhaps be embarrassing in certain quarters?
I'm making this up out of whole cloth, I realise, but we've now got three oddities: (1) a Fort Zarah trip apparently unrecorded; (2) two conflicting dates for Keogh; (3) a physically impossible joining date for Mike Sheridan. Any one of those on its own might mean nothing, but the three together start to exude a faint smell of fish -- don't they?
|
|
|
Post by markland on Sept 3, 2006 11:11:34 GMT -6
For some reason I did not copy the officer's present or absent off either the November, 1866 or 1866 EOY. However, I did make a note from the November,'66 report that Mike Sheridan joined the regiment November 9.
Now to add to the confusion even more. There are two November, 1866 returns! The first, what I consider the original, has the dates that the various officers joined. It also has Keogh placed "temporarily" in command of Company I. The second November, '66 report simply states that he is in command of Company I per Special Order of the 7th Cavalry blah-blah-blah. I haven't compared the numbers between the first and second November returns but obviously there is a discrepancy that was caught at a later date by either the adjutant or, more likely, the Adjutant General's Office.
Now off to find the aspirin and refill the coffee.
Billy
|
|
|
Post by Diane Merkel on Sept 3, 2006 11:16:30 GMT -6
|
|