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mm:a troop of cavalry to udvance and having found both officers killed. he voluntarily assumed command and under a heavy fife from the Indians advanced the troop to Its proper position.”Happily for posterity which would know the true old-time cownoy as he was, and not as the movies and fiction writers have misrepresented him, Charles Siringo had written “Riata and Spurs”- before death summoned him on October 19. For in that book he told the story of the boy, borp in Texas February 7, 1855, who took to stirrup and saddle when he was eleven years old and drove cattle north over the old Chisholm trail in 1870, who knew the life in the roaring cow towns of Kansas Jn the heyday of the Texas cattle trailing days, who knew such famous outlaws as Sam Bass and Billy the* Kid, who later hunted other outlaws—Butch Cassidy, Kid Curry and members of the “Wild Bunch” In Montana, Wyoming and Utah—-as a Pinkerton detective, who was an Oklahoma “boomer” and of whom, as a peace officer, it was said, “Wherever crooked trails led, from Texas to Alaska, he followed them skillfully and patiently, usually to bring back with him a man or two who had up until that time outridden the law. Wherever there was trouble, there was Charlie Siringo.”The “great race passes”—-yes, but It is not entirely gone yet. Billy Garnett and “Yellowstone” Kelly, two really great scouts, are dead, but in Columbus, Neb., still lives one other. He is Capt. Luther H. North, brother of Maj. Frank North, organizer of the famous Pawnee Scouts. Captain North served against the Indians in the wars of 1867-68 and of 1876-77, and one of the highest authorities on frontier history, a man who knew most of the famous scouts of that period, says, “Lute North was the greatest of them all.”iii“Taps” have long since sounded for most of the army officers who won their spurs against the wild tribes of the West in the sixties and seventies. But in New Jersey still lives Gen. .Edward S.Godfrey, the only surviving officer of Custer’s ill-fated Seventh cavalry on the day it rode to its death on the Little Big Horn (he was a lieutenant then) and the best authority on the much-discussed Custer battle. And Milwaukee, Wis., honors as one of her greatest citizens a man who, despite his eighty-flve years, still has the soldiery bearing and rides his horse with the same easy cavalryman’s grace as he did when he was adjutant of the old “Fighting Fifth”; in the days when Merritt and Carr led that regiment to fame against the Sioux, Apaches and Utes. He is Gen. Charles King, wearer of the Congressional Medal of Honor for*lgallantry in battle with the Apaches more than half a century ago, historian and author of a number of charming romances.of army life in the Old WestCharlie Siringo is dead—not“with his boots on,” as died so many,of the peace officers of the frontier and so many cowboys who rode north “trailing Texas cattle.” But out In Colorado Springs, Colo., -til! lives Andy Adams, who also rode north over the old Chisholm trail and who long ago gave to the world that epic of the cattle trade—“The Log of a Cowboy.” And down In Arizona stUl lives Col. William Breakenridge, “Billy” Breakenridge they called him in the days when Tombstone was “running wide open and wild” and he was a deputy sheriff.Ont in Berkeley, Calif., lives Dr. V. T. McGllly-cuddy, who had no such spectacular career as some of these others, but who was nevertheless one of the real heroes of the old Wild West days. He is hailed by all historians as the greatest and most fearless of. all Indian agents in the days when It took courage of the highest order to control several thousand turbulent savages fresh from the warpath. The story of what Dr. McGil-lycuddy did with Red Cloud’s Sioux on the Pine Kidge reservation is an epic of heroic achievement. and had he been in charge there when the year 1890 opened, there would have been no Wounded Knee tragedy nor a Ghost Dance “war,” with its useless waste of valuable lives, both red and white.• « I *■ •.1lt; * • ■ * •lt; «“The great race passes’'—but, fortunately for a later generation of Americans, there still remains such men as these, even though they are In the sunset of their lives, to remind “tts of their part in making onr nation and of our debt to these wlldernesa-breakers and pioneers. And so long as one of them lives, “Finis cannot be written to that glamorous chapter In American history.By ELMO 8COTT WATSON§ LOSING days of 1928 witnessed thepassing, within the short space of sixty days, of six men whose lives epitomized the w’hole splendid pageant of the trans-Mississippi frontier, ,lt may be that not ail of these men were historically Important. But the types which they represented were important to the history of the United States, and if a modern race- « *• , i fc * »of Americans have any regard for- m jipii the essential virtues of manhood— courage, endurance, loyalty afcd the like—then it can be said that they were “great” men.These six men of the Old Frontier who have recently gone over the Great Divide need no praise to add to their stature. The facts of their lives speak for themselves and need only to be set down in stark simplicity to justify the statement that their deaths marked another step Uf the passing of a great race.Perhaps the best known of the six was Ezra Meeker, the ninety-eight-year-old pioneer, of the Oregon trail, whose life was devoted to awakening public sentiment and stimulating legislative action in properly marking that historic highway and preserving the memory of those who traveled over it. He made his first trip over the trail, accompanied by his young wife and their seven-weeks-old baby, in 1852. In 1906 Ezra Meeker at the age of seventy-six made the last trip ever’made over the trail in a covered wagon. Thecities through which he passed were filled with those who were passing into an Industrial age and who marveled at the strange sight of the wagon which took twenty-two months on its trip.He proceeded alone over the route to its0termlnus at the Missouri river and thence to New York and Washington and then East. He was met at the capital by President Roosevelt. . S 4 , I , •Later he made the trip across the country several times by train, twice by automobile arid in 3924, as a climax to his trail blazing, ho Journeyed from Seattle to Washington in rin airplane~ln 24 hours. From covered wagon to airplane—this man’s life had spanned the whole history of the Great West!Those who saw William Garnett in his declining years on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota had little Idea of the romance that lay back of this man. For in Billy Garnett’s veins flowed proud blood—that of the F. F. V. and that of those “first-class flghtin’ men,” the Oglala Sioux. He was the son of Col. Richard Garnett, a classmate of General Sheridan at West Point and In they fifties commandant at Fort Laramie where a Sioux woman of Red Cloud’s band became his common law wife. When Colonel Garnett returned to Virginia to cast his lot with the Confederacy at the opening of the Civil' war, the hoy and his mother stayed with her people and Billy grew up as an Indian. During the great Sioux war of *876-77 he served as a scout and Interpreter for the army of Gen. George Crook, and when Dr. V. T. McGIHycuddy, formerly a surgeon with the Second and Third cavalry, was appoinfed agent for the Oglalas on the Pine Ridge reservation, he made Billy his chief interpreter. For seven years Garnett served in that capacity. Several years ago when he applied for a pension, his claims were supported by fils old “chief,” who paid him thiy high tribute s' . V / # • * *During that seven years of service it was largely through Gartoett’s help and Influence that I was able with the assistance of but ten white men In holding the Indians In check with no troops within seventy miles but the original mounted Indian PQltye forqe of fifty-bloods which we organized.In the winter of 1890-91 as a member of the governor’s staff of Dakota. 1 was ordered to Pine Ridge to look after the Interests of the settlers In the pending Messiah or Ghost Dance outbreak ■which terminated .In the disastrous battle of Wounded Knee, and there Garnett, as usual,- was to.€he frottt, serving between his people and the Whites, v^ was. through his energy. Influence and work ,In Die field as a scout largely that the great northern chief, Crasfcy Horse, the^leader of the host lies In the Custer massacre of 1876, was Induced to surrender at Fort Robinson In the spring of 1877 Slid break up Sittfng Bull’s power in the north.. Many a time during my Incumbency as agent, Billy stood by my side in hostile councils, on the side of tkt Great White Father, when our“lt;£ber the lt;reat Utofoe”* •’ * i* B C * •VillUm Garnett, scout and Indian interpreterOctober 16, 1926 Charles Siringo, cowboy and. peace officerOctober 19, 1926 Ezra Meeker, pioneer of the Oregon Trail - . December 2, 1926 r Thompson, survivdr of Battle of Little Big HornDecember 3, 1926 Yellowstone’* Kelly, scout and Indian fighterDecember 17, 1926 Gen. Oscar F. Long, U. S. Indian fighterDecember 23, 1926 *prospects were good for a buffalo hunt on Ghost creek, but he never weakened.He Is about the last survivor of the old scouts and Interpreters. He . had few equals and no superiors.“Yellowstone” Kelly was a great scout. No less authorities than Gen. George A. Forsytli and Gen. Nelson A. Miles, both great Indian fighters, have testified to that. Born in Geneva, N. Y., July 27, 1849, he served in the Civil war and upon his discharge on the Minnesota frontier, he set out to seek adventure along the Missouri river, then the heart of the hostile Sioux country. He became a dispatch bearer between the military posts along that river when no one else would dare to take the risks which that involved. Despite the warnings that he would never return alive, he went on hunting expeditions Into the Yellowstone country, where *he lived a “lone wolf” existence In constant danger of losing his scalp to the Indians. But he became so well acquainted with that country as to make him invaluable to General Miles In his campaign which broke the power of the Sioux and to give to Kelly the sobriquet of “Yellowstone” Kelly.After .his scouting days were over, Kelly was in the general service of the War department from 1892 to 1898 and In the latter year was guide for Captain Glenn’s exploring expedition In Alaska. He was back in Alaska the next year with the Harriman expedition and then became captain of the Fortieth United States volunteers in the Phillipine Insurrection, where he saw service under General Gates.In 1900 he was placed In command of Daputan, Mindanao, and the nexi year was made provincial treasurer of the province of Surlgao. He waff acting governor there when bandits and escaped criminals took possession of the principal towns.Here for eighteen hours Kelly and a few companions stood off d howling rrob of Filipinos.For his conduct In office in this troublesome period, Kelly was commended by President Theodore Roosevelt, who was a personal friend of his.Peter Thompson was horn in Scotland. He came to this country as a youth and worked as a miner. At the age of twenty-six he enlisted in Company O of the Seventh cavalry. C troop was commanded by Capt. Tom Custer, brother of Gen. George A. Custer, the commander of that famous regiment On that historic day (June 25, 1876) on the Little Big Horn in Montana, Thompson did not ride with C troop to its death for the tyason that his horse had played out and he was left behind. After a qarrow escape from falling into the hands of the Sioux he succeeded in* Joining the part of the Seventh, commanded by Major Reno, whioh was beleaguered on the bluffs and while fighting with Reno won the Congressional Medal of Honor which was awarded to him on August 29, 1877, for distinguished gallantry. The citation tells the story: “After having voluntarily brought water to the wounded in which effort he was shot through the hand, he made two more successful trips for the same purpose, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his sergeant.” 1It was In Another famous Indian battle that Brig. Gen. Oscar F. Long, a young New Yorker fresh from West Point and then a second lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry, won his medal of h6nor. This occurred during General Miles’ siege of the stronghold of Chief Joseph and his Perces whom he had cornered In ttie Bear Paw mountains in Montana after their epic dash for freedom from Oregon, toward the Canadian border. On September So young Lieutenant Long (so reads the citation) “having been directed to order
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Moore Independent
Moore, Montana, US
Thu, Feb 07, 1929
Page 6
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NC, USA 14 Jul 2020
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