History Buffs

[Stillwater]

Stillwater, that was a great post!  I sure envy you your time with your grandfather.  It must have been awe inspiring to walk the Little Bighorn battlefield with a man who was there.  What an opportunity!

Will Ketchum

Thank you for the compliment Will.

It was an education growing up under my grandfathers tutelage. He would tell a story, then repeat it word for word, five years later, which made me believe what he would say.

Walking the Little Big Horn battlefield with him, was an education. I have done that very same thing with my own son.

My grandfather would point out where some of the grave stones weren't in the right places. Some of the sights he related to me were kind of grisley. But, that was what happened and he wouldn't shy away from the telling. This was before political correctness had settled in.

Bill

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

Stillwater Wrote:

I have sought out authors such as Robert M. Utley, Robert I. Wellman and other well respected Western Americana authors. I have nothing but contempt to Dee Brown, who wrote "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."

Stillwater...
I'm curious , why the contempt for Dee Brown?

Bill

[pony express]

Well, for me it's always been a little of both....I was always interested in history, AND into shooting. But never a real historian, just a casual sort of interest. I got into CAS because there wasn't anyplace nearby to shoot all my milsurp bolt actions, but then a CAS club started near me. Looked uver my "collection" and all I needed was a pistol caliber rifle, I already had the other guns I needed. But my western history interest went about as far as movies and Louis La'mour novels(Read almost every one of them). I was always more into military history when I was younger. Then along comes GAF, so I'm getting into that now. I just need to move my collection toward an earlier period, most of it was WW1 and 2.

As far as family history goes, my family has tended to pretty much stay put.I live within about 25 miles of where my great grandparents, and maybe great-great too. All my aunts and uncles live in the same area too. Still own the farm my grandparents bought in 1920. It's next door to a farm that, according to family stories, was given to a relative for his civil war service. Really don't know if there were any famous people in the family, but that next door farm belonged to the Colvin branch of the family. Maybe related to Alvin Colvin of the Hayfield fight? Maybe someday I'll try and research it.

[Advertising]

[DarbyFett]

I am more into the history than shooting. To me the appeal of NCOWS is the camaraderie and TBH the Period Camping. I am more interested in getting a feel for how people lived than shootin smoke. When I can finally make a shoot I will be shooting WC: A. because I only have one revolver and one rifle and B: It makes more sense to me from a historical standpoint. I am still new to this and know very little about the period I wish to portray, so I am starting of with the simple persona of a young criminal. Overused and unimaginative I assume. But as I grow older and mature, I am sure my persona will as well. My library is small but ever growing, and I am learning a lot from folks here. I am a bit hampered in my reading, in that I don't make much money and I hate hate HATE reading for long periods on a computer, bugs the heck out of me and I don't have a printer, so I feel limited to books.

But we all have to start somewhere 

[bear tooth billy]

I remember in high school reading about Tom Horn shooting long range with a Sharps 45/90, wow that
was cool. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up getting hooked up with a group
like NCOWS and having a Sharps 45/90  shooting it out to 1000 yds, winning medals with it, and
putting buffalo meat in the freezer. I really like the history aspect of our sport

[Stillwater]

Stillwater Wrote:
Stillwater...
I'm curious , why the contempt for Dee Brown?

Bill

Hello.

I consider Dee Brown to be a plagurist, of Paul I. Wellman's books. Browns book, on the Wounded knee incident, was highly prejudiced and is what I would consider incomplete, because of facts either unknowingly ignored, or purposefully left out. Books by Paul I Wellman, and Robert M. Utley need to be read to understand why Dee Brown is not respected for his history books. Liberals, and those with an axe to grind, like him, because he says what they want to hear.

On main thing Dee Brown failed to mention was that the Indians, in the person of a Shaman named Yellow Bird, fired the first shots at Wounded Knee. That is easily proven.

The shots were fired when the soldiers were confiscating the Sioux firearms.

The Ghost Dance craze was sweeping the plains. The Ghost Dance was started by a Piaute indian, in Nevada, named Wovoka . The basic tenent of the religion was that if and Indian danced the Ghost Dance, while wearing the Ghost Dance shirt, the Buffalo would come back, and the White mans bullets would never hurt the dancer, and white men would be removed from the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wovoka. Obviously this greatly worried the Army and the particular unit, the Seventh Davalry, who were guarding them. 

When the Indians started shooting, the Seventh Cavalry retaliated, and in tgheir minds, they evened the score for the Little Big Horn battle. Dee brown ignored the fact that the Indians fired first, without provocation, and he ignored the name of the Indian, Yellow Bird that started the shooting.

I dislike Dee Brown because he left commonly available facts, out of the Wounded Knee incident. If I can find them, he should have been able to find them also. He ignored the dynamics of the Wounded Knee accident, allowing his readers to think the Seventh Cavalry started the incident.

When writing about a historical incident the truth should be told, regardless of an authors personal axe to grind. The true facts of the incident should determine the cause and effect of the incident.

Dee Brown is an ultra leftist-liberal, who has always been weeping and wailing about the causative plight of the Indian. It is people like Dee Brown, and his rhetoric, that have caused modern incidents one reservations. Uneducated people, unknowingly, let people like Dee Brown, and his rhetoric, cause continual problems on reservations. Dee Brown is now in his late eighties. His liberal boather won't be heard much longer.

If the Sioux members of the American Indian Movement had not of started shooting at government people, Leonard Pelletier would not be serving a life sentence in prison today.

The American Indians are descendents of invading immigrants that came to American, thousands of years ago, and conquered the country, and claimed it by right of conquest. Which they did, until the Euro-Americans arrived, and in so doing wrested the country from the immigrants identified as the Native American Indians.

Invaders conquering an area, has been going on since the dawn of mankind. So it isn't anything new that the Asiatic immigrants conquered North America, and eventually lost it to a superior force.

When we look at historical incidents with twenty-first century eyes, we fail to be able to look at these historical incidents, in the reality of the era these incidents took place in.

My best friend is a Wenatchee Indian tribe member, and a retired Appellate Court judge, living on the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation, in Nespelem, Washington. Born in southwestern Montana, I grew up on the Colville reservation... This friend of mine and I, have spent some serious money on phone bills discussing western Americana history. We're in agreement on most subjects.

Bill

[JohnR]

Hello.

I consider Dee Brown to be a plagurist, of Paul I. Wellman's books. Browns book, on the Wounded knee incident, was highly prejudiced and is what I would consider incomplete, because of facts either unknowingly ignored, or purposefully left out. Books by Paul I Wellman, and Robert M. Utley need to be read to understand why Dee Brown is not respected for his history books. Liberals, and those with an axe to grind, like him, because he says what they want to hear.

On main thing Dee Brown failed to mention was that the Indians, in the person of a Shaman named Yellow Bird, fired the first shots at Wounded Knee. That is easily proven...............

Bill

The fact is it is very clear in Brown's account of the Wounded Knee Massacre that the first shot was fired by a young Lakota named Black Coyote.  Yellow Bird was a holy man who sang and danced that morning, encouraging the men to put on their ghost shirts and resist.  That account agrees with just about every historically respected reference published.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is well written and thoroughly sourced and footnoted. 

Brown didn't fail to mention anything.  It's all there.  Wounded Knee was a disgrace that didn't need to happen.  Most of the 7th Cav casualties were the result of friendly fire - a fact well documented elsewhere.  The fact that 20 Medals of Honor were awarded for this "action" makes it all the more pathetic.  That is the most ever awarded for any single action in the history of the US Army.

There are many accounts of the massacre, how it started, and how it was carried out, but they all agree in the essentials.  Here is a passage from Wikipedia that references Utley (one of your own sources) that says essentially the same thing:

"According to historian Robert Utley, a medicine man called Yellow Bird began to perform the Ghost Dance, reiterating his assertion to the Lakota that the ghost shirts were bulletproof. As tension mounted, Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle. He was deaf and had not understood the order. Another Indian said: "Black Coyote is deaf." (He did not speak English). When the soldier refused to heed his warning, he said "Stop! He cannot hear your orders!" At that moment, two soldiers seized Black Coyote from behind, and in the struggle (it is believed but not necessarily accurate that), his rifle discharged. At the same moment, Yellow Bird threw some dust into the air, and approximately five young Lakota men with concealed weapons threw aside their blankets and pointed their rifles at Troop K of the 7th. The Lakota opened fire on the soldiers and did damage; however, a massive volley was returned back at the tribe.[14]"

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is just the title of the book, and Wounded Knee is the only final chapter.  The book documents the conquest of the continent from a native perspective, and is just as historically accurate as any other reference.  I have many in my personal library, written by both white and native peoples, and they aren't that different in their accounts of this absurd incident.  Everyone with a brain knows there are two sides to every story, and native peoples are just as entitled to their perspective as you are.

I suggest your contempt for the author is based on something other than your alleged inaccuracy of his account of the Wounded Knee Massacre.  Your alluding to "liberals and those with an ax to grind" would seem to support that suggestion.  It's also evident elsewhere in your post.

[Major 2]

"history is written by the victors"   attributed to Winston Churchill, but of unknown origin.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Major 2,

My favorite quote, along the same ilk, was I believe, by Voltaire;

"History is the lies historians agree upon"

[Forty Rod]

Hello.

I consider Dee Brown to be a plagurist, of Paul I. Wellman's books. Browns book, on the Wounded knee incident, was highly prejudiced and is what I would consider incomplete, because of facts either unknowingly ignored, or purposefully left out. Books by Paul I Wellman, and Robert M. Utley need to be read to understand why Dee Brown is not respected for his history books. Liberals, and those with an axe to grind, like him, because he says what they want to hear.

On main thing Dee Brown failed to mention was that the Indians, in the person of a Shaman named Yellow Bird, fired the first shots at Wounded Knee. That is easily proven.

The shots were fired when the soldiers were confiscating the Sioux firearms.

The Ghost Dance craze was sweeping the plains. The Ghost Dance was started by a Piaute indian, in Nevada, named Wovoka . The basic tenent of the religion was that if and Indian danced the Ghost Dance, while wearing the Ghost Dance shirt, the Buffalo would come back, and the White mans bullets would never hurt the dancer, and white men would be removed from the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wovoka. Obviously this greatly worried the Army and the particular unit, the Seventh Davalry, who were guarding them. 

When the Indians started shooting, the Seventh Cavalry retaliated, and in tgheir minds, they evened the score for the Little Big Horn battle. Dee brown ignored the fact that the Indians fired first, without provocation, and he ignored the name of the Indian, Yellow Bird that started the shooting.

I dislike Dee Brown because he left commonly available facts, out of the Wounded Knee incident. If I can find them, he should have been able to find them also. He ignored the dynamics of the Wounded Knee accident, allowing his readers to think the Seventh Cavalry started the incident.

When writing about a historical incident the truth should be told, regardless of an authors personal axe to grind. The true facts of the incident should determine the cause and effect of the incident.

Dee Brown is an ultra leftist-liberal, who has always been weeping and wailing about the causative plight of the Indian. It is people like Dee Brown, and his rhetoric, that have caused modern incidents one reservations. Uneducated people, unknowingly, let people like Dee Brown, and his rhetoric, cause continual problems on reservations. Dee Brown is now in his late eighties. His liberal boather won't be heard much longer.

If the Sioux members of the American Indian Movement had not of started shooting at government people, Leonard Pelletier would not be serving a life sentence in prison today.

The American Indians are descendents of invading immigrants that came to American, thousands of years ago, and conquered the country, and claimed it by right of conquest. Which they did, until the Euro-Americans arrived, and in so doing wrested the country from the immigrants identified as the Native American Indians.

Invaders conquering an area, has been going on since the dawn of mankind. So it isn't anything new that the Asiatic immigrants conquered North America, and eventually lost it to a superior force.

When we look at historical incidents with twenty-first century eyes, we fail to be able to look at these historical incidents, in the reality of the era these incidents took place in.

My best friend is a Wenatchee Indian tribe member, and a retired Appellate Court judge, living on the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation, in Nespelem, Washington. Born in southwestern Montana, I grew up on the Colville reservation... This friend of mine and I, have spent some serious money on phone bills discussing western Americana history. We're in agreement on most subjects.

Bill

[Forty Rod]

Without provocation?  How about the same provocation that started that shindig with "the shot heard round the world"?  

My family has been on these shores since 1640, just 20 years after the Mayflower landed and many years before immigration laws.  First in Massanutten, VA then across the continent, including the Mormon migrations, several wars, and explorations.  I had people who fought on both sides of every war from the time the first Taylor arrived until WWII when they all got situated and became 100% American.  At one time one of my ancestors wrote that there weren't but two score white men west of him on the entire plains...in what is now SE Missuori.

I was raised in Toppenish, Washington where my 1st and 2nd grade teachers were a Nez Perce and a Yakima and our first sitter was Nez Perce.   My first grade class photo shows me and one girl with our little whitefaces in a group of 9 Asians and 24 Indians.  My dad taught at Toppenish High School and Mom was secretary to both the Superintendent and the Principal.  During the summer, Dad worked at the sugar mill or a local Del Monte cannery...or both.

I later lived in Logan, Utah where my classmates  from 4th grade through 5 years of college were from several tribes through out the Rockies and some east coast tribes, as well.  I had friends named Broadhead, Yazee, Begay, Roanhorse, and Little Sky.  We learned, hunted, played sports, fought, worked on cars, and dated together.  

At one time I taught in Brigham City on the grounds of the BIA Intermountain Indian School.  The school property where I taught was leased by the city for a public grade school.  22 of 36 of my sixth graders were Navajo, Papago, Hopi, Shoshone, and Zuni kids whose brothers and sisters had been taken from their homes and boarded at the school.  Some of the families had moved to Brigham to be closer to their kids and enrolled the youngest ones in public schools.

With all of this I am not an Indian, and can't honestly say I understand them all that well, but my sympathies lie with them for the most part.  Having direct blood ancestry on this continent for 370 years, I do consider myself a 'native'.  I have no roots, contacts, or interest in my European heritage, though I can follow some of it back many hundreds of years.

I read extensively for my own interest and for research for my writing, and find a lot of good in Dee Brown's work, but he certainly isn't perfect.  

As to your charge of plagiarism, there isn't a writer in the last three thousand years who was completely original, I don't care how good the research. Every one has copied ideas, words, phrases, and stories from someone who went before.

[Dr. Bob]

4T Rod,

Man you got it right!!  I'm just a Midwestern suburban fellow that grew up in a 100% white school district [graduated in 1961] and the district is now well integrated.  I have written one book [very small and specialized] and took the theme from another book, by a friend from my youth, and added lots of other research to it.  It is well footnoted and I am proud of what it is, but a lot of what is in it is stuff that I gleaned form what I read while preparing a talk. 

[Roscoe Coles]

The Ghost Dance craze was sweeping the plains. The Ghost Dance was started by a Piaute indian, in Nevada, named Wovoka . The basic tenent of the religion was that if and Indian danced the Ghost Dance, while wearing the Ghost Dance shirt, the Buffalo would come back, and the White mans bullets would never hurt the dancer, and white men would be removed from the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wovoka. Obviously this greatly worried the Army and the particular unit, the Seventh Davalry, who were guarding them. 

Stillwater,

you need to do more reading on the Ghost Dance.  The Ghost shirt was not a central part of the phenomenon anywhere but on the plains.  The Ghost Dance as preached by Wovoka was actually very heavily influenced by Christian teachings, the Christian God was central to Wovoka's vision and the religion was based on the 2nd coming of Christ followed by the rapture and the resurrection of Indians and buffalo (essentially a version of Christian heaven) and the removal of whites from native lands. 

Wovoka had a vision in which he went to heaven where god told him that Indians should to stop drinking, take up farming, work hard, not steal or lie, not go to war and abandon many of the traditional religious ways. As part of the religion, native peoples should purge themselves of harmful ways (most specifically drinking alcohol) and dance and sing in purification rituals that would bring them back into harmony and hasten the second coming.

By definition, the dance shirt, which would turn away bullets, was in contradiction to the basic tenets of the religion, which were peace and pacifism.  This was part of a plains Indian misinterpretation of the religion, that included the forceful eviction of whites from Indian lands.  This misinterpretation played into white fears about Native peoples and led to a large scale crushing of the Ghost Dance religion.  But we have to be clear that the plains version of the ghost dance does not actually reflect Wovoka's vision.   

[MontanaSlick]

Back tracking on some Family history here on my GranPa who was mustered out on June 30, 1865, in Philadelphia

Company K, 88th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry.

Any information you might have on the 88th would be appreciated.

MS

[St. George]

St. George's Notes III - Your Civil War Ancestors...
« on: June 12, 2004, 10:56:21 PM »     

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking at the time frame we represent, it seems that a large number of us would've served on either side during the Civil War.

This is most helpful when developing your impression, since it can give you the background for your own character - plus, you can add the odd military item to your possibles bag to further add a touch of realism.

A good way to do this is to look into your own ancestry and see who fought where, and with whom did they fight?
You can then draw from real experiences.

You're going to need a couple of things in order to get started - an old, old living relative, and maybe the big, old Family Bible.

You need the ancient relative because they may know some of the family's oral history, and the associated names and their ties within the family.

You need the Family Bible because that's what many families used when they chronicled the various births, deaths and other pertinent data that made them "families".

There's also a good book that you can borrow from any well-stocked Town Library, and you'll usually find it in the Geneaology section.
It's titled:
"Tracing Your Civil War Ancestor" - by Groene.

It was printed some time back, and my copy doesn't have web links, but newer ones may, so stop by, check it out and see.

The actual addresses for the agencies involved are good though, and you can go to the 'net and dig from that point on.

There are a few of the things you'll need to do and to know:

1.  Know the actual name of your ancestor.
2.  Know his Date of Birth.
3.  Look for his Discharge or Mustering-Out Certificate.
4.  Know what State/County he lived in.
5.  Know what Unit he may have served in.
6.  Ask first at your County Historical Society.
7.  Look at the record of the war that his State published.
8.  Inquire at the National Archives - (the book explains how) http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/index.html
9.  You want to see his Military Record of Service.
10. You really want to see his Pension Records.

This list will keep you involved, but the hunt can be surprisingly worthwhile.
The Pension Records are important, because each time they changed the laws - those pensions needed to be re-requested, and in order to do that, affidavits needed to be filled out by men who served with him - attesting to actual service and times.

This means that the Pension Records will have more in them about specific duties and actions, while the Military Record will have the bare-bones details pertinent to that soldier up until discharge.

This really isn't as hard as you may think and the folks who deal in these Records are quite helpful with providing details and digging up additional information - so be certain to thank them profusely.

There are organizations that you may join currently, upon being able to prove your Civil War Veteran's connection.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War: www.suvcw.org

The Sons of Confederate Veterans of the Civil War: www.scv.org

These are the two premier outfits that you'll find both interesting as well as useful in your quest.

I'll talk more on these Military Societies, their badges, and the politics of the era at a later date.

Scouts Out!

[Forty Rod]

Dr. Bob, just re-reading some stuff and remembered I meant to ask about the book you wrote.  Is it still available and if so, how can I get a copy (Preferably autographed.)?

[Dr. Bob]

Forty Rod,

I am able to provide the book, with autograph for a modest sum.  I'll e-mule you the details!

[Will Ketchum]

Bob, might I suggest that you bring some to the convention.  I too would love to own something you wrote.

Will Ketchum

[Dr. Bob]

Will,

I Will! 

[Texas Lawdog]

Bro. Bob, I'd like a copy also.