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Post by oglallah on Jul 2, 2023 7:32:53 GMT -6
Yes, these are dark waters. But then I always say that there are experts and there are experts. In some criminal trials you can have so called experts, called by the prosecution and defence, who both have different and sometimes conflicting opinions on the same thing. Handwriting is a good illustration. In my country, England, we had the remains of King Richard discovered in a car park a few years back and they reconstructed his face from the skull. Now I have no doubt in my mind that the remains found were those of the King, but the reconstruction looks very similar to the contemporary painting of Richard. Was this life imitating art. Maybe the painting itself was a faithful rendering of Richard's image. The Mitch Bouyer controversy does open a can of worms though.
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Post by oglallah on Jul 3, 2023 6:22:06 GMT -6
This is a thread I stared on the Indian Wars section. Does anyone know if there has been similar study of the troopers and civvies who died with Fetterman to the ones done on Custer's Seventh i.e nationality, age, enlistment dates etc? I know that around 40% of Custer's regiment were foreign born...German, Irish, English etc. It would be interesting to know if the same data is out there regarding Fetterman's command.
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Post by oglallah on Jul 3, 2023 8:36:27 GMT -6
Cloth Caps and Cowboy Hats; the Day the Wild West Came to Wigan
On the 29th of September 1904, a small army invaded the cotton manufacturing town of Wigan in Lancashire. Nearly a thousand strong it was a mixture of veteran US soldiers, Lakota Indians, American cowboys, Mexican vaqueros, Arab Spahis (light cavalry), japanese acrobats, wives, consorts and other camp followers. There was also a contingent of teamsters, horse wranglers, carpenters, stage hands, electricians (for the special electric light plants), armourers, cooks and butchers. Together with a convoy of fifty wagons, including a stagecoach, carrying supplies and equipment, they made the trek through the town to Lamberhead Green, a semi rural area just over a mile to the south. It was pure spectacle with the Sioux warriors resplendent in warpaint and eagle feathers, the vaqueros in gaily coloured ponchos and sombreros and the darkskinned Spahis mounted on their spirited chargers. Then came the cowboys wearing stetsons and silver spurred high heeled boots amusing the spectators with rope tricks. And in the vanguard waving gallantly to the crowds lining the roadside, rode Col William Frederick Cody, six feet four and clad in buckskins, thigh length black riding boots and wide brimmed white sombrero. Ex army scout, showman and self-styled killer of Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hair, with cascading curls and well waxed moustache and goatee, at fifty eight still erect astride his prancing horse. It was an entry to make even Caesar blush. Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show was in town.
Arriving at their destination, an area stretching from Lamberhead Green to present day Worsley Hall, an encampment of canvas tents and tipis was erected. Then came the main tent and a number of marquees around a central horseshoe shaped arena. Inhabited by peoples of many nations, it was a town within a town. Two weeks before the Shows arrival hundreds of posters had magically appeared in shop windows, on billboards and vacant walls, heralding the imminent arrival of BUFFALO BILL AND HIS CONGRESS OF ROUGH RIDERS OF THE WORLD! The frenetic schedule included two shows, afternoon and evening (hence the new fangled electric lighting). Admission was priced at one shillings upwards to four with box seats costing five shillings and seven shillings and sixpence. Children under ten were admitted at half price. For a ha'penny you could have a cone filled with popcorn. Programmes and other souvenirs were also on sale. Locals were even allowed to visit the tipis of the Native Americans. Some of those who attended later recalled how they had dressed up in their Sunday best for the once in a lifetime occasion. Some may even have remembered earlier visits to Lancashire by Bill and his Wild West. The famed frontier scout had whooped them up on three previous tours. He had even met Queen Victoria, a huge fan. So the ground was well ploughed.
The Show opened with a review of the entire company who, to the accompaniment of William Sweeney and his Cowboy Band, galloped and paraded around the arena. Then, as the music morphed into The Star Spangled Banner, Buffalo Bill made his dramatic entrance. Mounted on a handsome black steed wearing a silver bridle, a present from Edward Vii back when he was Prince of Wales, with a flourish of his white sombrero he introduced the Congress of Rough Riders of the World who, at his signal entered into a dazzling, kaleidoscopic routine of interspersing concentric circles. Then came the entertainment proper. A panoply of riding and roping and shooting exhibitions performed by the troupe - Cody included. Edwardian Evel Knievel George C. Davis did death defying feats on his bicycle, one of them involving a fiftysix foot jump across a chasm. There were also acrobatics and other spectacular feats. The cavalry and infantry drilled and marksman Johnny Baker showed off his considerable shooting skills. But these were only curtain raisers for the melodramatic main events - frontier vignettes featuring Buffalo Bill as Pony Express rider, Buffalo Bill as buffalo hunter, and Buffalo Bill as the thrilling last minute rescuer of a settlers cabin surrounded by Indians. There was also an Indian attack on the Deadwood stage. Buffalo Bill to the rescue again! And then the high point of the whole spectacle - a re-enactment of Custers Last Stand, the finest hour of Lakota and Cheyenne resistance to white encroachment on their land. The arena echoed with gunfire and the war whoops of triumphant Indian warriors as they wiped out the wasichus. Johnnie Baker, wearing built up boots and a blonde wig, played Custer. The Indians played themselves. Some of them may have even been present at the actual battle. Sitting Bull jnr, son of the chief who had, played the role of his father. For him, like the rest of the Native performers, it was a temporary escape from the grim realities of reservation life. And the pay was good. But of greater importance though, was the opportunity it gave them to present a culture and lifestyle that was fast disappearing, and to relive again the old ways and old victories.
Then it was over. The last shot fired, the last Indian felled, the last settler saved. Buffalo Bill bade the crowded stands farewell and they filtered home with their programmes and souvenirs and memories. In the just dawning century a new medium, made of flickering images, would take on the role of storyteller of the American West, presenting an image that the old scout, both in real life and in fiction, had had a major role in developing. He would even appear before the camera himself. But the movies, captivating as they were, could never deliver the excitement, the experience of being there. You were in the presence of REAL Indians and REAL cowboys and a REAL western hero - Buffalo Bill, attesting to the authenticity of his Frontier tableaux. For Cody himself, the show presented America's, and his own, take on the conquest of the Plains and it's native peoples. He was the most famous American of his day, and the world was wild about the West. But to the hundreds who crowded the canvas covered stands on that long ago day in Wigan, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was never anything more than entertainment and spectacle. A temporary bolt hole out of a coal mine or cotton mill and into another world, albeit one long gone.
References
Gallop, Alan. Buffalo Bill's British Wild West. Sutton Publishing Limited, 2001. Kasson, Joy S. Buffalo Bill's Wild West; Celebrity, Memory and Popular History. Hill and Wang, 2000. Sell, Henry Blackman, and Victor Weybright. Buffalo Bill and the Wild West. Oxford University Press, 1955. Stillman, Deanne. Blood Brothers; Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill's America; William Cody and the Wild West Show. Vintage Books, 2006.
Newspapers.
Blackburn Times The Guardian The Northern Daily Telegraph The Rochdale Observer The Southport Visiter The Wigan Observer
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Post by herosrest on Sept 30, 2023 14:23:21 GMT -6
I misplaced some information linked to Mitch Bouyer a long while ago, and return to the hunt for it from time to time. This session produced the following anecdote. Charles 'Johnny' Dillon - Fast Running HorseThomas LaForgeRose LaForge Dillon When Mary Laforge was born about 1874, in Wyola, Big Horn, Montana, United States, her father, Mitch Bouyer, was 38 and her mother, Mary Magpie Outside Bouyer, was 26. She married Little Nest about 1885, in Crow Agency, Big Horn, Montana, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 3 daughters. She lived in Crow Indian Reservation, Big Horn, Montana, United States in 1910 and Montana, United States for about 5 years. She died on 29 April 1943, in Crow Agency, Big Horn, Montana, United States, at the age of 70, and was buried in Lodge Grass Cemetery, Lodge Grass, Big Horn, Montana, United States. linklinkAnyway, life being as it is, and as a full blooded warrior of the Plains, did 'Fast Running Horse' guard Speer?
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Post by herosrest on Oct 3, 2023 8:12:31 GMT -6
Some considerable Montana history Lookin' Back - Bighorn County and one of those little snippets and people who changed things. Page 220 JULIA SCHENDERLINE - An Indian Princess, an early white trapper, a Custer Scout, a French Noblewoman-the ancestors of Julia Schenderline of Lodge Grass are a varied lot who saw and created much of Montana's History. Mrs. Schenderline, 84 is the great, great, grand-daughter of Lone Walker, chief of the Pikuni Tribe of the Black feet Confederacy.
Lone Walker's daughter, Sinopaki-an Indian Princess-who was Mrs. Schenderline's great grand-mother, married the trapper Hugh Monroe, reportedly the first white man to set eyes on what is now GlacierAnyways.......... continued to p221: 'In 1902, Julia Schenderline went to Pennsylvania to attend Carlisle Indian School. While at the school she became acquainted with Olympian Jim Thorpe, who used to sit behind her in class and pull her hair. She also knew Charles Dillon who astonished the football world by hiding the football under his jersey and running for a touchdown. "That play was outlawed right after that", Julia said. Charles met Rose LaForge at Carlisle (I think). link
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