Lonsome Charlie Reynolds and "Dakota" group?

[grahamew]

According to SIRIS: Portrait of Group of Men, Including "Lonesome Charlie" Reynolds, Scout Who Died at Battle of Little Big Horn, All in Partial Native Dress and with Two Non-Native Men, One Is Capt. Banks ?, Indian Agent n.d.
Can anyone comment on this and maybe fill in some of the blanks?

[Scout]

graham, I've never seen this photo before...the profile looks just like Charley. Are these Crows? An astonishing photograph! What's the story behind it?

[stevewilk]

An interesting photo indeed, and it certainly does look like Charley. In the intro to the Remsburg biography of Reynolds, John Gray mentions Charley working briefly at Grand River agency (Standing Rock reservation) in a trader's store in the fall of 1869. He was 27 then.

Five years later, Reynolds was employed at $5 per day to accompany a detachment of the 7th Cavalry from Ft. Lincoln to Standing Rock to arrest Rain-In-The-Face for his role in the killings of Honzinger and Baliran during the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition. He would have been 32 yrs. old at this time, a more accurate age I think for the man in the photo. Gray mentions Reynolds always appearing clean shaven save for his moustache; the man in the photo appears to be bearded. According to Gray, Rain's arrest occured in December, a cold, cold month in the Dakotas. A beard would not be unusual, even for Reynolds.

But what intrigues me most about this photo is the soldier coats that the two standing Indians wear. I thought this could give a clue as to the date of the photo. But I am somewhat stumped; the coats both appear to be nine button frock style with cuff trim. They do not appear to be the 1872 pleated blouse as no pleats are visible. They could possibly be the 1851 dragoon coats which were nine button and extended to mid thigh and had the "V" trim on the cuff, although I don't know if the trim extended as far up the sleeve as appears. In addition the 1851 coats had stand up collars; these appear to the falling collars. I know of no infantry coat with cuff trim prior to 1872.

[Scout]

Coats may have been government surplus given to the Indians...I don't think this is an improbable scenario although I'm no expert on military coats. I'll leave that to you steve to figure out. Reynolds may have had a seasonal beard...winter only but clean shaven in the summer. Perhaps because of this he is remembered as clean shaven. I compared it to the most well known Charley photo...in profile...and am convinced it is him.

[elisabeth]

It certainly does look very like the usual photo of Reynolds.

He'd have been in and out of Standing Rock quite a bit in the spring of 1876, would he not? Terry gets intelligence reports from him -- "the most reliable scout on the Missouri", or whatever his exact words were ...

Could the photo be dated by identifying who was agent at any given time? I believe that in 1875/6 it was John Burke. If there was indeed a Capt. Banks at an earlier date, that might help. (Of course, "Capt. Banks ?" could easily be a misreading of a handwritten "Burke" ...)


P.S. If anyone has access to this collection:
www.und.nodak.edu/dept/library/Collections/og409.html
there might be some answers there?

[grahamew]

I have to admit the clothing doesn't immediately jump out at me and say 'Crow', but neither does it in some the Gardner photos at Laramie. Normally, when you see Crows in quilled and/or beaded shirts, at least some will be decorated with ermine tails. Nor are there any of the classic Crow necklaces. On the other hand, less formal portraits of Crows at the agency do show them with their hair down, so to speak.

This looks like a fairly formal studio, especially for an early picture.

This is from the James E Taylor collection. I get the impression that a lot of the photos he collected were stuck on larger sheets of paper and then cut out again later, so it's possible that the words, 'Sioux chief' refer to the picture above it.

They could be 'scouts' from more than one tribe who served with Reynolds.

[elisabeth]

Glad you pointed that out, as I was taking it for granted from the "Sioux Chief" annotation that they must be Sioux ... And that the absence of the trademark pompadours would rule out Crows. Good reminder that it doesn't necessarily.

One or two of the faces look strangely familiar. The man second from left in the front row; and even more so, the man with the pipe, second from right. I'm sure someone will be able to identify them.

Could those be ermine tails on the man at far left, standing? At first glance (and especially with the colour re-touching) it looks as if he's suffering from some ghastly deformity, but on closer examination he appears to have tufts of fur of some kind attached to his braids behind either ear.

The big question, perhaps, is when and why a photographer would be present at such a gathering, wherever it was. (The SIRIS caption doesn't specify Standing Rock, apparently.) Something to do with treaty talks, maybe? Or some similarly momentous occasion?

[stevewilk]

I correct myself on the soldier coats; these are the 1857 infantry nine button frock coats with cuff piping as pictured on pg. 10 of McChristian's The US Army in the West 1870-1880

The hairstyles do not say Crow; they wore their hair up in a pompadour like scout Curley. Reynolds did some guide work to Yellowstone NP in summer 1875; where he met Phileus (sp?) T. Norris, park superintendant. He was sent to Ft. Benton with dispatches; any Indians there would likely be Assiniboine, Blackfoot or Gros Ventre. But my money's on Standing Rock, winter 1874-75.

[grahamew]

Here are four Crow chiefs, Poor Elk, Black Foot, Long Ears, and He Shows His Face, also from the Taylor collection (the original has a fifth to the left; for some reason, he's ben cut off), photographed by Jackson in1871. This is what I meant by a more informal look. The hair isn't worn in a pompadour and the usual decoration we associate with Crows is absent. Underneath is a Gardner photo of Crows at Ft Laramie in 1868; again, the expected hairstyle is absent

[grahamew]

I have to admit that the man in the back row with the soldier coat bears a resemblance to Poor Elk.

However, the fringed shirts don't bear a resemblance to the Crow shirts I'm familar with, as they tend to have a rectangular neck piece. If this is Poor Elk, then we may have representatives from more than one tribe. Either that or they're all Utes!

[Dietmar]

If I remember correctly I saved the photo once as "Charlie Reynolds and Utes". In my opinion, they pretty much look like Utes or Jicarilla Apaches by the way they decorated their hair and the fringed shirts.

[grahamew]

The older white guy in the back row looks familiar. I'll have to rummage around!
My initial thought was that they were Snakes, but I'll go with Dietmar.

[grahamew]

Okay, Dietmar's pushed me in the right direction. I checked my one and only book on the Jicarilla (Veronica Verlade Tiller's The Jicarilla Apache Tribe) and there's a photo of a joint Ute and Jicarilla delegation from 1868. I don't see any facial similarities between the Indians in that photo and in the one above, but at the back there is an old guy who does look like the one above - Tomas Chacon, Mexican interpreter. The two white men in the photo don't look like the two above and the backdrop isn't the same. Wish I could scan it, but my scanner's shot. It's not great quality anyhow!

[stevewilk]

Might the man with white beard and black hat be General Wm. Harney? He of course was part of the treaty commission at Ft. Laramie in 1868.

[bc]

I've seen a picture of the guy in the middle in the back row before but can't place it. He kinda resembles Lt. Luther Hare.