One Equals One 2

(Albert Barnitz, center, shortly after the fight near Fort Wallace, Kansas, June 26, 1867)

For a few moments, the four of us in the car simply stared at this otherwise unremarkable and silent piece of ground. It seemed so strange. Where such drama and excitement has occurred, no matter how long ago, it seems that something should remain; something to illustrate the tremendous energy and emotion let loose that day. A static stone monument simply doesn't cut it for me; for my money, give me a series of colored lasers slicing into the heavens; that suits me for such a place.

"So, this is where the Indians were," asked Deb excitedly, genuinely trying to understand the situation. Don also shifted in his seat to gain a better view. When Cecil had answered, Deb seemed puzzled. "Then the Indians just flat charged forward . . . like Hollywood?"

"According to the accounts, that's the way it happened," nodded Cecil.

"And so what did the soldiers do?" asked Don.

"Well, as you can imagine," said our host, "at this point Barnitz and his men knew that they were in big trouble."

At a glance, we could take in the horror. This was a battle in which the lay of the land had virtually no role in the outcome. There were no gulches or gullies for ambush; there was no high ground to hold and fire from. There were no rocks, no trees, not even any bushes. No, it was simply fight and win or . . . lose and die.

Of course, there was also no time to think. Barnitz and his startled company, with Indians swarming in, over, around, and through them, did the only thing they could. . . . they ran. And thereupon began a desperate, running, hand-to-hand fight for the next two miles. Several times in the long race back to the fort, Barnitz succeeded in halting a number of his men to keep the Indians off his backside. Mostly, the attempts were unsuccessful.

When both reds and whites were too close to fire their weapons, they slashed and hacked at each other as they raced south. Flashing sabers were met by lance thrusts; clubbed pistols were countered by tomahawks. Blood flew in every direction as hideous wounds were opened in both man and beast. Wild screams from Indians, soldiers and dying animals shattered the dust-filled air.

One Cheyenne brave drew up beside Barnitz and began firing from under his pony's neck. Out of ammunition, the captain could do little more than point his pistol at the acrobatic figure, thereby forcing the Indian's shots to go wide. Charles Clarke fell wounded from his horse. Before the bugler could remount, a powerful warrior galloped up, jerked Clarke over his lap, stripped off his clothes, dashed out his brains with a tomahawk, then flung the corpse to the ground, and all the while flying at full speed over the prairie. In a blink, Sergeant Frederick Wyllyams was likewise surrounded, shot full of arrows, then horribly mutilated.

Finally, a rescue force from the fort reached Barnitz's pressed little band and the Cheyenne eventually withdrew to a nearby ridge.

Thus ended, to put it mildly, a very eventful morning at Fort Wallace, Kansas, in June of 1867. As luck would have it, a photographer happened to be at the post that day and as we followed Barnitz's retreat back down through the village of Wallace toward the museum along US 24, I thought in particular of one photo he took that very afternoon. The image is that of Albert Barnitz and several others sitting outside a canvass-covered shack. The sign above the door reads "Adjutant's Office." Normally, this photo would be a nice and valuable, but not especially compelling, image of nineteenth-century Americana. What makes this shot so startling is that it was snapped shortly after Barnitz was engaged in a fight for his very life; a struggle so sharp and terrible that upon capture, a bullet or arrow to the brain would have been the least of a soldier's troubles. Veteran of many a battle as he was, the captain's apparent indifference as he lounges in the chair is almost breathtaking; he seems as concerned as any man might be who is about to have a haircut and shave. The same could be said for those around him. In our modern day and age, when people must have weeks, months, even years, of counseling and therapy if they even SEE a violent event, Barnitz's steely indifference is stunning. Either we have become terribly weak, or our ancestors were wonderfully strong.

Reaching the museum, we at last stepped from the car. Cecil wanted to take us inside the old stage station (left). This simple wooden structure had been moved here from its original site and we did, indeed, want to view the inside of this historic building that was the cause of the battle in the first place.

The air out here at 4000 feet is much thinner than back in Topeka (900 feet) and I noticed that both Deb and Don, like myself, were reaching a bit for the scarce oxygen. Our Western guide seemed not troubled in the least; seemed much more capable than his lowland brothers and sister as he sauntered into the museum to fetch the key. I also noticed that the ferocious wind didn't bother Cecil one jot.

As we stood there waiting for our host to return (it was far too windy to talk), knowing that in a few minutes Deb and I would jump back in the car and begin our four hundred mile trip back to Topeka, I thought about several items I had seen during the research of my book on the Indian Wars, Scalp Dance. Almost as laid back in his writing style after the fight as he had been in the photo, Barnitz described the incident in a long letter to his wife, Jennie. Curiously, the captain had ended the missive by putting a remarkably positive spin on an otherwise bloody affray.

"[T]he Cheyennes had paid dearly in the encounter, and so they were not eager to renew the onset," closed the husband.

As Barnitz knew only too well, the Cheyenne were not the only ones reluctant to "renew the onset." With six dead and as many wounded (Indian losses may have been less), Barnitz, his company, the Seventh Cavalry, indeed, the entire frontier army, had learned a bloody, though valuable, lesson here at Fort Wallace.

"The savages displayed unlooked for daring," admitted a stunned reporter for Harper's Weekly newspaper.

Another civilian witness was even more frank.

"The Indians. . . are more than a match for our cavalry," announced a reporter for the Leavenworth Daily Times. "The idea industriously proclaimed by some persons [in the] East . . . that 'one white soldier is equal to fifty or one hundred Indians' is about 'played out' with all parties at this fort."

Indeed, after this short, sharp fight at Fort Wallace, never again would the boast be heard on the plains that one cavalryman equaled ten, fifty or a hundred Indians. Instead, the U. S. military now fully understood that in the terrible fight to come, one equaled one . . . maybe.

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Remember?

Although Yancy Derringer was only a one-year wonder (1958-59), it left a lasting impression on millions. Each Thursday evening, wedged between the Edsel and Burma Shave commercials, card shark Yancy (left, played by Jock Mahoney) fleeced the sheep, wooed the belles, and sent to the promised land all wrong-doers who stepped over the line. Yancy's weapon of choice? The shotgun? (yeah, right!). An added attraction was Derringer's Indian statue, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah (right), played by some mute fellow named X-Brands (no foolin'). When Yancy needed a thug, crook or sharper tossed from the Texas deck, Pahoo was happy to oblige. In sum, it was a fun half-hour of glitz and glory with a beautiful theme song tossed in for good measure. Listen: http://www.turnipnet.com/tv/yancyderringer.wav

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Cartoon of the Day

One Equals One

(above: Fort Wallace, Kansas, June 26, 1867: First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry, by Jerry Thomas)

There are two Kansases, or Kansi, if you will. There is the state east of the Flint Hills and there is the state west of Flint Hills. The Kansas to the east looks, acts and feels in many places like Missouri or Kentucky. The Kansas to the west in many places looks, acts and feels like Texas or New Mexico. To the east one will find most of our moisture, most of our malls, most of our concrete, and most of our crime. To the west, one will find most of our ranches, most of our sky, most of our heart . . . and all of our soul.

The Flint Hills are, in fact, a geo-divide as sure as if they were a wide river, a waterless desert or the Rocky Mountains. . . . Well, maybe not the Rockies, but what they lack in height, the Flints make up for in width; in many places they are fifty or more miles wide and their impact on movement, history and culture cannot be overstated.

But more to the point: East of the Flint Hills is the Civil War, west of them are the Indian Wars and this day Deb and I were way out west, deep in Indian Country. Our host was Cecil Pearce, a retired Air Force man, now a gentleman rancher near Wallace, Kansas. Stepping down after 24 years with the highest rank possible for a non-commissioned officer--Chief Master Sergeant--Cecil had one of the most interesting and unusual military careers possible--he sang. Traveling with a group known as "Singing Sergeants," Cecil performed around the world at government expense. Cecil also comes by his interest in militariana honestly--his uncle was the highest ranking Marine in the Vietnam War--General Lew Walt.

Joining us on our tour was another military man, Don Fisk of Topeka. We had hooked up with Don and Cecil at an Indian War lecture the night before at nearby Sharon Springs. And so, after piling into our car the following day, we drove from Cecil's home on the bluffs above the South Fork of the Smoky Hill River to a larger section of his brother's land where "the most besieged post in the West" once stood, Fort Wallace.

When Albert Barnitz (right) led a company of troopers into Fort Wallace one summer day back in 1867, little did the captain realize that he would soon be the lead actor in a watershed event. This detachment of the Seventh Cavalry--forty or so men--was providing protection for a party surveying the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

Two days after reaching the fort, on the morning of June 26, Barnitz was startled when the alarm was sounded. For the sturdy captain and his men, the news seemed too good to be true. Like their leader, some of the troopers were veterans of the Civil War. These soldiers were accustomed to stand up fights--"manly combat," they called it--and the only time anyone showed the "white feather" and ran in that war was when they were about to be overwhelmed or surrounded. As these men discovered soon after reaching the plains, Indians ran even before a battle could begin. Indeed, it seemed almost impossible to make them stand and fight. "Cowardice" was the word which first came to mind when describing the "noble red man."

"One white cavalryman is equal to ten, twenty, even forty Indian 'braves,'" was the generally accepted math. Thus, when the shout was raised this morning that red raiders were running off stock from a nearby stage station, Barnitz's men and a handful of others eagerly swung into their saddles, each hoping to chase down the cowards before the slipped away.

I stopped the car at the entrance to the post cemetery. Although it was a warm afternoon, beyond our windows the wind blew furiously across the treeless tract and to challenge it was almost asking to have the life sucked from our lungs. Thus, we three "battlefield stalkers" from the east decided this day to do our stalking from the safety and comfort of the car while our western guide showed us around.

"So, that was where the old fort stood and where Barnitz rode out from?" I was pointing south toward a long belt of grass between us and the Smoky.

"Yes, that's it," said Cecil. "You see where the grass is taller than the rest? That's it, generally. We don't turn that piece of ground. Number one, all the rocks and stones from the ruins would be a problem with our equipment and number two, we don't want to disturb it except for a very good reason."

"Great, that'll work for me!" offered Deb in the backseat. "The stuff in the ground there will be more important in one place where it can be interpreted, not scattered all over hell and gone by people with metal detectors." Beside Deb sat Don, owner of a metal detector. Although terribly interested in Fort Wallace and the Indian Wars, Don remained mostly silent and studious. Don is a retired flight navigator; perhaps that has something to do with his retiring nature. (above: author, Cecil Pearce, Don Fisk)

From where we sat, we could easily see for several miles to the north and west. The land rises so gradually in that direction as to be almost imperceptible.

"Over that way two or so miles," pointed Cecil toward the west, "the men here at the fort could see the dust rising from the livestock the Indians were driving toward the north. Since he was saddled first, Barnitz rode out alone for a half mile or so to reconnoiter. Pretty soon he was joined by his men and those from the fort."

Driving back up the sandy road, retracing Barnitz's movement, we passed through the soon-to-be ghost village of Wallace. Although it had known high times during the heyday of the Kansas Pacific, Wallace, like most of western Kansas, is on the verge of just blowing away with the sand and the tumbleweeds.

"This is where we think most of it took place," said our host. "It's hard to make out but this the high ground. That's still virgin prairie over there."

When his excited men had finally come up, Barnitz ordered the bugler, Charles Clarke, to sound the charge. Setting spurs to his mount, the captain led away at a gallop. Seeing the raiders lashing their ponies toward the north only increased Barnitz's determination to overtake and make short work of them.

Finally, in a cloud of dust, perhaps as many as two hundred Cheyenne warriors reached the rise where we now sat. And then, the Indians did something totally unexpected. They stopped. . . . They stopped and they turned their ponies around. Not only did they stop and turn but they fanned out along the ridge.

Although not mentioned in any of the reports, almost certainly the troopers of the Seventh, like their captain, were surprised by this sudden development. One moment the bugle was blowing loudly, the soldiers were yelling madly, and, as if on a rollicking fox hunt, each man was trying to out do the other as they ran the flying quarry to earth; the next moment. . . .

With horrifying shouts, the Cheyenne sprang forward and galloped straight toward the advancing troopers. (continued tomorrow)

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Babe of the Day






Mrs. General George Armstrong Custer (Libbie)

Dead Cock

(Because so many of you commented on the "what if" blog last week--"History With A Future," 6.27.07--here is another)

"I am doomed to be a vagabond, and shall no longer struggle against my fate. . . . I look on myself as a dead cock in the pit, not worthy of future notice. . . ."

So wrote William Tecumseh Sherman from a cold, cheerless cabin along Indian Creek, a few miles north of Topeka. The despair and despondency in these words are unmistakable. After a life of fruitless struggle, now "adrift seeking employment," the 39-year-old redhead had reached the end of his rope at the end of the world--Kansas Territory.

Sherman began life on a rather harsh note when he was orphaned at the age of nine. Fortunately, the boy was taken in by a family friend, U. S. Senator Thomas Ewing of Lancaster, Ohio. After graduating from West Point in 1840, the young man fought in the war with Mexico. By 1853, however, Sherman felt he could rise faster outside the military than within it and thereupon resigned his captaincy. And thus began a downward spiral of failures in banking and law that finally found the aging ne'er-do-well sitting at a table, scribbling, shivering -- "so cold I can hardly hold my pen" -- in a gloomy Western backwater, contemplating his even gloomier future.

Already considered strange and mercurial-- "eccentric," some said--was Sherman pondering the ultimate escape? Do the above words suggest he was on the verge of terminating his earthly existence? Sherman didn't self-destruct, of course, and instead went on to undying fame and glory in the great American Civil War two years later. But, what if. . . ? What if soon after writing the above words, Sherman laid down the pen, picked up a pistol, placed the cold blue barrel to his forehead, then, with his finger tightening on the trigger. . . ?

If that had happened, would it have altered history? And if so, how?

As most historians now concede, the crucial turning point of the Civil War was Sherman's capture of Atlanta in the autumn of 1864. That feat--tangible proof that, indeed, the war was being won by the Union--came not only during the depths of Northern war weariness, but during the crucial canvass for the presidency. Most students of the period agree that this was the single most important reason why Abraham Lincoln was reelected and why the North continued the war. With Lincoln guaranteed four more years, the South was demoralized and the Union was revitalized. Five months later, the war was over.

Could another Union general have carried it off? Could another man have replicated Sherman's feat and taken Atlanta before the November election? Perhaps. But looking back at the available candidates, this seems problematic. One of the most likely replacements would have been General George Thomas. Although a competent commander as well as a tenacious defender, Thomas was not known for speed--the "Rock" and "Old Slow Trot" were his handles--and the likelihood that he could have taken Atlanta in time to save Lincoln is questionable. Others might have accomplished the feat, of course, but the fact that Sherman was chosen from among all candidates suggests that he was the man most likely to succeed.

Had there been no Sherman (left), had Atlanta not fallen, had Lincoln lost the election, almost certainly there would have been an armistice since the President's opponent, George B. McClellan, ran on a "peace with honor" ticket which, when translated literally, meant "stop the war NOW!" In that event, half the nation today would be drawling Confederate, and the other half would be jabbering Yankee.

And so, with the conclusion of hostilities, a European peace commission went to work at ironing out differences between the angry mother country--the United States--and the uppity daughter nation--the Confederate States. Generally, the treaty favored the North; the Union's large armies, at tremendous sacrifice, had captured huge tracts of Southern territory by 1864 and this hard-won land they were loathe to surrender. The former slave states of Delaware and Maryland, in their entirety, fell to the North, as did West Virginia and the northern third of Virginia. To the west, only the extreme southern and western counties of Kentucky went over to the South.

Missouri, one of the most hotly contested states of the war, was also the biggest loser of the peace. Although a large share of its prewar population sided strongly with the South, this mattered not; only a long sliver of territory that bordered Kansas was ceded to the Confederacy.

Although the border between the USA and the CSA is heavily guarded today, much like that separating North and South Korea, nowhere along this frontier is the flashpoint greater than where it all began--the line dividing Missouri from Kansas. Here, from St. Joseph in the north to Joplin in the south, the same border that ignited the American Civil War in the first place, is now one of the most heavily defended frontiers in the world with thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks on twenty-four hour alert. The huge wall that separates the two Kansas Cities, similar to that which divided Berlin, is a constant source of danger. Clearly, the animosity between the two states has abated little, if any, over the decades and to this day it threatens to reignite the flames that embroiled the two nations in war so long ago.

Some interesting features of Cold War Missouri history:

1) Though vilified during the war by newspapers throughout the North, his popularity was such in the sliver of land that became Missouri, that former guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill, easily out-polled all competition and was elected Missouri governor for not one, but two terms following the peace. "His leadership during those trying years was crucial," wrote a biographer. "Governor Quantrill's hand was as soft and patient in peace as it had been hard and remorseless in war."

2) While few could return to their homes following the war because of the carving up of the state, those residing in far western Missouri were lucky. Some, like former guerrillas Frank and Jesse James, not only returned to their old farms but settled down into lives of much-desired tranquility and respectability. In 1882, the younger of the two, Jesse, ran for public office and was elected sheriff of Clay County by an overwhelming vote of the people. Likewise, the Younger brothers (right; Coleman, James and Robert), went into business together in their old hometown of Harrisonville and all became successful and highly respected bankers.

One interesting historical aspect of Cold War USA:

Abraham Lincoln wasn't shot at Ford's Theatre, of course. Instead, he went down in history as one of the most incompetent and bumbling buffoons in U. S. political history. His abrogation of the Constitution, his arbitrary arrest of thousands, but above all, his tragic weakness, many argue, all but destroyed the Old America. Sadly, beset by creditors because of his wife's pathological spending sprees, assailed physically by the unbalanced woman on a regular basis (hurled knives and cordwood being her favorite missiles), depressed by his own shameful role in history, two years after his retirement to Springfield, the sixteenth President of the United States grabbed a pistol one morning and shot Mary Lincoln dead. A few moments later he turned the weapon on himself. He was fifty-eight.

So, if indeed he contemplated suicide that cold night on Indian Creek, what prevented Tecumseh Sherman from following through? Was it a twist of fickle fate? Did he actually pull the trigger, only to hear the hammer simply click? Did he imagine that his failure to place a cap on the weapon's nipple signified that he was too incompetent even to kill himself? Or, at that very moment when he began to squeeze the trigger, did a crying kitten scratch on his midnight window and in his distracted state, did Sherman, upon opening the door, see the ridiculous little thing zipping in between his feet as a sign? --a sign that no matter how hopeless and depressing the moment might seem, sunshine could always be found in the darkest of dens?

Of course, we will never know what the reasons were but for those of you who are happy that the colorful redhead did not kill himself, perhaps a plaque where the old cabin stood is in order: "On this site, April 15, 1859, William Tecumseh Sherman DID NOT commit suicide. Ad Astra Per Aspera."
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Hi Tom: I see you are headed down the Jim Bridger trail. I am looking for any original photograph of him. If you know of one for sale, let me know. Hope all is well with you. I will be in KC at the end of July for the Arms show.

Rick Mack
Salina, Kansas

TG: Ho, Rick! Off hand, can't think of any original or unpublished images of "Big-Throat" but will keep my ears open and my peepers peeled.

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T-Shirt of the Day