James M. Bell

[markland]

I posted at my site the transcription of an article written by Maj. Bell for the Journal of the United States Cavalry Association entitled, "Reminiscences." It deals with the period, 1867, when Bell was stationed at Ft. Wallace in the Seventh Cav.

Nothing earth-shattering as far as revelations but still, a nice little article.

The URL for my site is:

freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~familyinformation/

and the link to the article may be found under "New."

Please note I have included a watermark this time in an effort to head off having the article show up for sell on Ebay. If any members want a non-watermarked copy, please PM me and I will furnish it to you.

Best of wishes,

Billy

[elisabeth]

Very nice, and really conveys the awful conditions.

Libbie tells that same story about the woman in the stagecoach, but as usual just refers to an unnamed "officer". Good to know it's Bell. Useful also to get Bell's perspective on the Barnitz fight, the cholera, Custer's stop at Fort Wallace, etc -- annoying though it is that there aren't any "earth-shattering revelations"!

One thing he does underline is Comstock's usefulness, and thus (though he doesn't say this) how devastating it must have been to the Fort Wallace command when Custer stole him ... One of Keogh's reports says pointedly that "without knowing exactly where to surprise their [the Indians'] camp, or having a guide who can track them at a run" it's "a waste of horseflesh and time to endeavour to come up with them". With no Comstock, they really were operating with one hand tied behind their backs.

[markland]

Elisabeth, glad you enjoyed it. One of my favorite parts of the article was the vignette dealing with the detachment of the 38th Infantry regiment. In case you or others did not know, the 38th was created by the same Congressional vote as the more famous 9th & 10th Cavalry, the Buffalo soldiers, along with three other infantry regiments, the 39th, 40th, and 41st. The 38th became an interest of mine while dealing with the frontier deaths of U.S. soldiers as several companies left St. Louis for posts on the Smoky Hill and in New Mexico. Historians and on-the-spot observers, including the then-current Surgeon General, blame the 38th for bringing cholera to the western forts in 1867. All I can say is that approximately 100 of their men died from the disease and its kindred diseases....dysentery and diarrhea being foremost. I will look up the exact number from their regimental returns after I get through cleaning viruses and spyware off the daughter's computer.

Unfortunately, during the military act of, I believe, 1868 (I will get back on that), the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st Infantry regiments were consolidated into only two regiments. I believe the 38th and 40th were combined to form the 24th Infantry regiment (still all black) and need to look up the 39th and 41st...maybe the 26th I.R.

Best of wishes,

Billy

[elisabeth]

Billy, thanks for this. I knew the 38th had been blamed for the cholera, but didn't know the background.

There's something I've never understood, and you may know the answer. There was a General Field Order No. 19, H.Q. Div. of the Upper Arkansas, May 26, 1867, providing for vaccination of troops against the cholera. Keogh, being Keogh, had taken the order seriously, and the Fort Wallace garrison itself got through the epidemic unscathed -- unlike Bankhead's 5th Infantry, camping just outside the post. I realise some units will have been in the field at the time the order went out, and so missed out on vaccination ... but the way the disease rampaged through the various posts, it almost looks as if many commanders paid no attention to the order whatsoever. Do you happen to know how well or badly the vaccination programme was carried out?

[markland]

elisabeth said:

Billy, thanks for this. I knew the 38th had been blamed for the cholera, but didn't know the background.

There's something I've never understood, and you may know the answer. There was a General Field Order No. 19, H.Q. Div. of the Upper Arkansas, May 26, 1867, providing for vaccination of troops against the cholera. Keogh, being Keogh, had taken the order seriously, and the Fort Wallace garrison itself got through the epidemic unscathed -- unlike Bankhead's 5th Infantry, camping just outside the post. I realise some units will have been in the field at the time the order went out, and so missed out on vaccination ... but the way the disease rampaged through the various posts, it almost looks as if many commanders paid no attention to the order whatsoever. Do you happen to know how well or badly the vaccination programme was carried out?

Hmmm, didn't know that there was ever a vacination for cholera. Even today there are, if memory serves correctly, only two which are only recommended if going into a high-risk area. Are we sure it was cholera and not small-pox?

Billy

[elisabeth]

Not sure! You could be right. Haven't seen the order myself (the perils of using secondary sources!); all I know about it is from a footnote in Kurt Hamilton Cox's essay in the Langellier/Cox/Pohanka biography of Keogh -- p. 110, footnote 56. I'll try checking further.

[elisabeth]

Ooops, and mea culpa, and all that: you ARE right, and I was wrong. Can't find a shred of evidence of any form of even attempted vaccination for cholera until around 1880, and then not much seems to have come of it. Smallpox, on the other hand, was a standard vaccination both in the army and in civilian life.

What a valuable lesson, and one that underlines the splendidness of all the work you're doing for us on digging out primary sources. You can't do everything, of course(!), and we'll inevitably have to trust the accuracy of published historians as to bare facts -- but this is a reminder that it can be rash to take it for granted that the conclusions they draw from those facts are correct ...

This is what Cox says in the body of his text. We're in mid-August 1867, and Captain H. C. Bankhead has just arrived at Fort Wallace to take over command:
'Bankhead had lost his wife to cholera, which had broken out in the Fifth Infantry camp a mile below Wallace. Myles noted, "For a few days it has been appalling," but there were "no deaths at this Wallace Garrison," perhaps as a result of the vaccination program initiated there in May.'
The footnote to this paragraph cites the quotes as being from a Keogh letter to Weir, August 16th 1867, and then goes on to cite the General Field Order that I mentioned in 3 as the source for the vaccination programme.

Still, it opens up another line of enquiry, perhaps, for when you've got your full statistics on dead soldiers? Posts with and without smallpox cases, as a clue to posts with and without serious attitudes to medical directives from HQ?

[markland]

"Still, it opens up another line of enquiry, perhaps, for when you've got your full statistics on dead soldiers? Posts with and without smallpox cases, as a clue to posts with and without serious attitudes to medical directives from HQ?"

Well, a quick count of causes of death show of the 1042 troops listed currently in the database; that 162 died from cholera and 10 from variola or small pox. Of course, there are about 160 men who died but no cause of death is given in the primary source. Some, given their stations, I am confident died of either cholera or yellow fever. I hope to eliminate the majority of the these from the "unknown cause" by cross-reference with either the regimental returns or the enlistment record, depending upon which I used to initially input the data. Also, I have a few of the hospital registers from the Kansas forts which should identify more. Do I have Ft. Wallace? I have to check that.

Speaking of which, time to head out to find some more. Working currently on pre-Civil War...ughhh...troops died but date and the fact that they died seems to be the only reporting criteria on those regimental returns. It is fascinating though to look at the regimental return for the 1st Cavalry and see the commander was E. Sumner and names such as McClelland, Garnett, Stuart and Chaffee...for some reason, Heitman does not show Chaffee in the 1st Cavalry pre-war. He resigned in, I believe, 1857 or 1858. Perhaps it was another Adna Chaffee

Later,

Billy

[Rabble]

Hi Billy!
just a few words of thanks for all the information you are providing on your site. I am sure that it is appreciated by many of us who do not have means (or knowledge) to access it otherwise!
Ron

[markland]

I like it when I can eliminate an unknown. The sick infantryman who Lt. Bell had on the stage when it was attacked who was then wounded and died of his wounds was Pvt. Jacob S. Miller, Co. "E", 3d Infantry Regiment.

Billy

[elisabeth]

Billy, that's fabulous. How on earth did you pin him down?

[markland]

Actually it is more of an informed guess until I get my hands on the Regimental Returns (today hopefully) and verify against a primary source. However, comparing his regiment; date, type and location of death with Michno's Encyclopedia entry of Bell's action leads one to that conclusion.

Billy

[elisabeth]

Sounds pretty copper-bottomed.

As you say, WONDERFUL when you can eliminate an unknown!

[markland]

The regimental returns of the 3d Infantry Regiment confirmed that it was Jacob S. Miller who was killed on June 11, 1867. The 3d Inf. had two other men killed by Indians on June 15 at another station to what I think would be to the east of Big Timber station as the return states that they were killed "between Goose Creek and Big Timber." Miller's entry states he was killed "between Cheyenne Hills and Big Timber."

Best of wishes,

Billy