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Post by surprisewind on Jul 12, 2007 15:04:41 GMT -6
This topic may have already been handled on this board. I searched but came up with nothing... so at the risk of sounding like a loony (ye gads, again)
Can any of you recommened books, etc. that tackle the subject of "supernatural" activity at the battle site? I recently read a book about the mystery of the grey horse troop, and while I know that book has, shall we say, issues, it mentions a psychic being present during the attempted excavation in Deep Ravine. That got me thinking...
Thanks much in advance for not sending the men in white coats to my IP address.
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Post by BrokenSword on Jul 12, 2007 15:41:20 GMT -6
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Post by Melani on Jul 12, 2007 16:16:17 GMT -6
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 12, 2007 23:18:08 GMT -6
A new book is Custer's Ghosts and Custer's Gold, which explores the psychic stories of Little Big Horn as well as what became of the payroll.
Available from Upton & Sons: http://pub.sandiego.com./shop/store.idc?s=8 (click the author's name for a brief description)
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Post by crzhrs on Jul 13, 2007 9:14:04 GMT -6
Or just use a Quija Board . . .
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 13, 2007 10:50:26 GMT -6
Which raises the question: are there any records of seances involving the relicts of those who died? Spiritualism was a huge thing in the late 19th century. It would be surprising if no widows/offspring/friends of the dead had a go at "contacting" them ...
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Post by BrokenSword on Jul 13, 2007 12:59:39 GMT -6
Elisabeth-
Excellent question! Spiritualism was indeed at high tide in the 1880-90s. What's notable is that there are NO stories of any such goings on. None that I have seen, anyway. Maybe they are around and historians/authors have tossed them aside when discovered.
M
M
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Post by surprisewind on Jul 13, 2007 13:06:34 GMT -6
Oh my... I can at least claim not to be that looney...it was creepy creepy ick. Thanks, all, for the responses!!!
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Post by BrokenSword on Jul 13, 2007 13:49:07 GMT -6
Elisabeth-
A quick Google turned up a tale of Gen'l Custer's 'ghost' haunting his old quarters at Ft. Leavenworth as well as reports of a group of ghostly soldiers drilling in formation on the parade grounds at night. hummm
Maybe Markland, on his next visit to Leavenworth, will carry a couple black candles and a camcorder and.......... nawh, probably not.
M
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Post by Melani on Jul 18, 2007 13:12:27 GMT -6
I got "Custer's Ghosts and Custer's Gold," and was fairly disappointed. The "ghosts" part is all stories available on the website I linked to, and the "gold" part just says there wasn't any, as well as a fictional ghost story.
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Post by mwkeogh on Jul 18, 2007 15:07:19 GMT -6
Wasn't the spirit of Benny Hodgeson conjured up one time during a seance?
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Post by BrokenSword on Jul 18, 2007 15:20:45 GMT -6
I believe you're right about that Keogh. The notorious Mrs. Nash was supposedly conjured up at a seance only a few weeks before 'her widower' did himself in. Have no idea if it was at the same event.
M
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Post by Scout on Jul 18, 2007 16:04:07 GMT -6
surprisewind,
The October 1997 issue of True West magazine has a story "Ghosts Along the Little Bighorn" by Sandy Barnard, a member of the lbha. The story has some spooky stories on the LBH. Send me your address and I will send you a photocopy.
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Post by harpskiddie on Jul 23, 2007 16:35:34 GMT -6
This is the genesis of the Benny Hodgson story, which comes from John Carroll originally, but is reproduced from another source, and is, I believe, outside of copyright. I have slightly shortened Carroll's version by eliminating the background, which tells how he came to correspond with his source, and the limitations she put on revealing names of some of the characters in the drama. There are some photos of documents reproduced in the original, which I am unable to reproduce. I will say, however, that when Carroll says that the signatures match, he is not exaggerating one bit.
These are Carroll's words. I'll omit the quotation marks.
Lieutenant Clinton H. Tebbets and Lieutenant Benjamin (Benny) Hodgson were graduated from West Point in 1870, six short years before the fatal engagement on the Little Big Horn. The officers were very good friends, and often double-dated during their cadet years [I'll omit the part about which sisters were involved, but one of them died in 1876 and figures in the psychic part which comes later]...........
One day in 1877 (the exact date has long become lost to history as none of the notes were dated) Miss Mary Tebbets father, Clinton H. Tebbets, was walking down the street in Harrodsburgh, Kentucky, with a friend who suddenly turned to him and said, "Look here, Tebbets, I have an appointment with a mind reader, Mr. Baldwin, at the hotel, and I will take you with me." Since there were no objections from Mr. Tebbets, both gentlemen headed for Mr. Baldwin's room at the hotel. It is important to state at this time that Mr. Baldwin was newly arrived in Harrodsburgh and had never been there before. It is of importance to note also that Mr. Baldwin had been expecting only one person. There was no time for the mindreader to do any "homework" on the unexpected visitor, and further, Mr. Baldwin certain;y had no way to know Mr. Tebbets had attended West Point or that he knew the person so intimately who was the subject of his message to the "beyond."
Once in the hotel room, the three gentlemen sat down at a table which contained some scratch paper and two or three powder papers (papers which were used at that time to dispense medicine or to write prescriptions on). The table, three chairs, and the material on the table were the only things in the room. Mr. Baldwin gave each a powder paper and told them to write their messages on them. Both did so using a pencil which explains the faded condition of these messages now almost one hundred years later. Mr. Baldwin then told the gentlemen to double up the paper into tiny pellets and hand the pellets to him. Mr. Tebbets did and then sat back in his chair with his thoughts concentrated on his own message - a condition imposed by Mr. Baldwin.
"Now wait a minute," said Mr. Baldwin. "I see a soldier in uniform lying on a bank of a stream." Remarkable? Absolutely! To have surmised Mr. Tebbets was or had been a military man would not have been too difficult for a trained confidence man since Mr. Tebbets very likely carried himself in a military manner. To have surmised that he had addressed his message to a military comrade certainly narrow the chance factor considerably, but for the mindreader to identify a body "lying on the bank of a stream" is without belief. But there are other strange factors equally mystifying yet to come.
The message Mr. Tebbets had written, and the question asked, was this: "Lieutenant B.H. Hodgson 7th Cav. Dear Friend. Did Custer's command go into his last fight willingly, or not. C.H. Tebbets"
Mr. Tebbets had tried to communicate with his old classmate from West Point who had died at the Little Big Horn the year before, and it was almost obviously a successful communication for Mr. Baldwin saw the uniformed figure on the river bank. With the image still clear in his mind, and he so obviously "in contact," Mr. Baldwin picked up a pencil, opened the pellet containing Mr. Tebbets' question, and wrote "Yes." Compare the signature of Mr. Tebbets on the message with his signature in the class album. There is no doubt both are one and the same [they are]: consequently this story is no fabrication of a later date designed as a hoax or a cruel joke.
"Yes," said Mr. Tebbets, addressing Mr. Baldwin. "I asked him a question..." He didn't finish for Mr. Baldwin reached for a sheet of the scratch paper and proceeded to write as if taking dictation. This is what he wrote:
My dear Clint, We of course went in willingly for we never deemed defeat possible. We were anxious for combat with the red devils, and we had it too, but their numbers were too much for us, and we died gallantly, by the way [the dead girl] is here and says Come now Hodgson go away. I want to talk to Tebbets about [the girl he married]. So goodbye old boy, by the way, I've written inside for you. B.H. Hodgson
Hoax. Not likely, for the peculiar and unexplained coincidences now begin to multiply. The comparison of the signature of Hodgson from his class album and on the paper taken in dictation by Mr. Baldwin were identical [they are]. In addition, according to Miss Tebbets, the only person who ever called her father "Clint" was Lieutenant Hodgson. In her last letter to me Miss Tebbets confirmed that "Hundreds of bank officials would have honored Benny's autograph."
My mind is open to any possibility. Is yours?
That is the end of Carroll's story - make of it what you will.
Gordie, in '69, I was twenty-one, and I called the road my own. I don't know how that road turned into the road I'm on....................................................................................
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 24, 2007 6:18:01 GMT -6
That's a splendid story. Two mentions of the subject in Shirley A. Leckie's splendid Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth. First, she says that in later life Frederick Whittaker became obsessed with spiritualism. No further details given, but maybe he left some record of his experiences ... The other (p. 294) is that in the 1920s, when Libbie started spending her winters in Florida, she visited the village of Cassadaga -- a community of spiritualists that had been set up in the late 1890s. Some info on Cassadaga here: www.funandsun.com/1tocf/allgosf/2/cassadaga/cassadaga.htmlLeckie says: "She wrote a relative, 'A Dr. Howard here tells me that a medium nearby has spoken to the General and that he said to tell me not to grieve and that he is near me constantly because of the several brave survivors of the Seventh who have played for me here in Florida'." (Some of the 7th Cavalry's old bandsmen were living nearby, and had played "Garryowen" for her at a concert.) The slightly odd thing is that Libbie appears to have been perfectly happy to leave it at that; there's no indication that she promptly rushed off for a personal seance of her own. Nor that her visit to Cassadaga was for anything other than normal tourist sightseeing. Yet she doesn't sound sceptical or disdainful about the alleged message. It's almost, dare one say it, as if she's none too keen to get into conversation with the shade of her dear departed ...
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