ROUGH RIDERS: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill by Mark Lee Gardner

REMEMBER THE MAINE!

"The day that Roosevelt can go into battle with [the Rough Riders] will likely be the happiest of his life." -- Chicago Tribune

Mark Gardner writes early in his thoroughly researched and lively account of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, “This war with Spain was no surprise to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. For months, he had been doing everything in his power – not always with the direct knowledge or approval of the secretary – to make the navy ready for the great conflict he was certain was coming. And he also let it be known that he had no intention of observing the war from afar. Crazy as it sounded – and more than a few did think Roosevelt was crazy – this lighting-rod bureaucrat intended to go where the bullets were flying. He had been waiting for a war, any war, his entire adult life, and now that it was here, nothing was going to keep him from the battlefield.” 

Gardner adds, “But Roosevelt’s war fever was actually due to America’s fever for war, or at least its long glorification of all things military.”
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In 1898, the USS Maine was dispatched to Cuba to protect American interests and property due to reported riots by Cuban insurrectionists who were in rebellion against their Spanish rulers. On February 15, the ship exploded in the Havana harbor; two hundred and sixty-six sailors were killed.

A court of inquiry called by President William McKinley ruled that the explosion had been caused by an underwater mine, but did not place the blame on the Spaniards. It didn’t matter. The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers did not hesitate to name the Spaniards as the perpetrators.

McKinley was the last U.S. president to serve during the Civil War. He knew war wasn’t all glory and adventure for he had experienced it firsthand. Reluctant to plunge his nation into another conflict, he hoped to avoid war by negotiating independence for the Cubans. When his efforts failed, Congress declared war on Spain. “Remember the Maine; and to Hell with Spain” became the rallying call for battle.

THE ROUGH RIDERS

Thirty-nine year old Theodore Roosevelt resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and began using personal and political contacts to lobby Russell Alger, the Secretary of War, to allow him to raise a volunteer cavalry regiment. One of the personal contacts he called on was Colonel Leonard Wood, and through their combined efforts they were successful in getting the secretary’s consent.

While Wood was named commander of the regiment, Roosevelt received a commission as lt. colonel and was named second in command. Roosevelt was impressed by the fact that Wood had won a Medal of Honor during the campaign against Geronimo in the American southwest and he fervently desired to win one of his own.

As long as there is a war, Roosevelt wrote his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, “the only thing I want to do is command this regiment and get into all the fighting I can.” 

Since cowboys were regarded as natural born horsemen, the two officers decided to recruit from among their ranks. And it worked. Cowboys from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona readily volunteered to serve in the regiment. Although it was sometimes called the “cowboy regiment,” it also included “Oklahoma Indians, Ivy League football stars, and champion polo players,” -- and more than one fugitive from justice.

The official name of the unit was the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, but it quickly became known by the press and the public as the “Rough Riders,” or more specifically, “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders,” despite the fact that he was second in command.

But Colonel Wood didn’t mind that his subordinate was getting all the attention. And what could he do about it if he had minded? One newspaper observed “this only goes to show that wherever Roosevelt rides is the head of the parade.” It was not meant as a compliment.

The Rough Riders were “riders” in name only. In fact, due to a shortage of transports needed to ship the horses to the island all the cavalry units were dismounted. The only horses to make it to Cuba were pack animals and the horses belonging to the officers. As a result, the natural born horsemen of the American West fought the war on foot as infantrymen.

And it wasn’t long before Roosevelt did command the regiment. It happened when Colonel Wood was given the command of a brigade and Roosevelt received a promotion to full colonel and command of the Rough Riders.

KETTLE AND SAN JUAN HILLS

"I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened." – Theodore Roosevelt

The war’s final decisive battles were fought on two hills located in the San Juan Heights: Kettle and San Juan. Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were in the thick of those battles and were instrumental in the victorious outcome. That is not to say that they didn’t have a lot of support from other cavalry units. But as Gardner writes, “It was no surprise that the news reports gave the Rough Riders much of the glory, even though the First and Tenth Cavalries fought equally as hard.”

Col. Roosevelt and Rough Riders pose for camera atop San Juan Hill

The Tenth Cavalry, it should be noted, was one of two cavalry regiments made up of African American troopers. They were the so-called “Buffalo Soldiers” that fought in the Indian wars in the years following the Civil War. 

"There can be no better soldiers in the world, and yet I used to doubt whether the negro could fight with as much dash as the white man." – Rough Rider

MEDAL OF HONOR?

"I don’t ask this as a favor, I ask it as a right….I am entitled to the Medal of Honor, and I want it." – Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

Theodore Roosevelt was courageous and bold to the point of foolhardiness. Throughout the campaign he exposed himself to enemy fire. Since he was often mounted on horseback he represented an inviting target for enemy bullets. But by some miracle he didn’t receive a scratch even though men who were charging into enemy fire near him were killed or wounded.

In his desire to achieve glory he reminds one of another soldier, George Armstrong Custer. They differed, however, in one important respect. Custer was primarily interested in his own welfare, while Roosevelt never failed to look out for the well-being of his men. His men were fiercely loyal to him and he returned that loyalty by looking out for their interests.

"Our general is poor; he is too unwieldy to get to the front. I commanded my regiment, I think I may say, with honor. We lost a quarter of our men." – Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

Roosevelt’s commanders recommended him for a Medal of Honor, but to no avail. Gardner speculates that Roosevelt’s comments to the press about the conduct of the war and a critical letter that was published by the Associated Press so infuriated Secretary Alger that he personally blocked the award. And though the war was a logistical nightmare and in some respects a comedy of errors, his public criticisms did constitute insubordination. He was fortunate that a president like Harry Truman was not the commander-in-chief or he might have experienced the same fate as General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

Roosevelt and the Rough Riders had become the darlings of the press and the public. And Regulars were justified in resenting the situation, for believing that the Rough Riders – and their commander – had received media attention all out of proportion to their actual contribution to the war effort. This also became a factor militating against Roosevelt and his desire to receive a Medal of Honor.

In fact, the tempest in a teapot that their commander had initiated worked against not only him, but also his regiment. When the final names of the war’s Medal of Honor recipients were named – twenty-five in all – not only was Roosevelt not one of them, no member of the Rough Riders was named.

Two Rough Riders did eventually receive a Medal of Honor at a later date. The first was Captain James Robb Church, who had served as assistant surgeon under Roosevelt. The medal was presented to Church in 1906 by his old commander, and now President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It must have been a bittersweet moment for the president.

In 1996, Congress passed a bill that waived time restrictions for awarding the Medal of Honor. After some debate, Congress voted to award Theodore Roosevelt the medal. On January 16, 2001 President Bill Clinton presented the medal to Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt. Thus, Theodore Roosevelt became the second Rough Rider, and the only president, to win a Medal of Honor.

As Roosevelt would have said: “Bully! Dee-lighted!”

The Colonel

The Author

HUEY LONG by T. Harry Williams

DICTATOR – in politics, a leader who rules a country with absolute power, usually by force

FASCIST – an individual who favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism

DEMAGOGUE – a political leader who gains power by appealing to people’s emotions, instincts, and prejudices in a way that is considered manipulative and dangerous

POPULIST – an advocate of the rights and interests of ordinary people, e.g. in politics or the arts


I don’t know which is more forbidding: T. Harry Williams’ massive biography (994 pages) or the political career of the colorful, charismatic, controversial legend that is its subject. 

Huey Pierce “Kingfish” Long served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932, and represented his state in the U.S. Senate from 1932 to 1935. His term in the Senate was cut short at age forty-two, when he was assassinated in the halls of the state capitol in Baton Rouge, ironically, a building that he made possible. 

At one time or the other, he was branded with all of the political labels mentioned at the beginning of the review, sometimes two or three simultaneously, and in the same breath. And the truth is, he was a little of all of them. However, Williams, in his critically acclaimed and award winning biography, which was published in 1969, leans more toward the populist label. 

T. Harry Williams was born in Illinois and grew up in Wisconsin. He eventually moved south where he taught American history at Louisiana State University (LSU) from 1941 to 1979. Since Long had been dead only six years when Williams took the position and the controversy surrounding him had hardly abated at all in the interim, it is only natural that historians, especially in Louisiana, would still be keenly interested in his legacy, though they might differ on the nature of that legacy.

the author

Williams was also able to interview many of Long’s champions and enemies who were still alive when he was conducting his research and that gives the book an air of immediacy that later biographies would not have. His research also leaned heavily on oral histories that had interviewed people in both camps. 

Williams’ biography is surprisingly sympathetic toward its subject. Although he doesn’t gloss over Long’s many faults or his heavy handed tactics, he does respect what Long attempted to do and, in many cases, did do for the poor people of his state. And he did accomplish a great deal. This is not the place to list all the things that Long did for his state and its people – especially the poor – for it is a long list, but there is no doubt that the populist label does fit.

I do not know any man who has accomplished so much that I approve of in one state in four years, at the same time that he has done so much that I dislike. It is a thoroughly perplexing, paradoxical record.-– Raymond Gram Swing (one of the most influential print and broadcast journalists during the time of Huey Long's heyday)

It is also true that Long was a demagogue and that he did become a virtual dictator in his state, controlling it with an iron hand in a fashion that no state before or since has ever experienced. Furthermore, that control did not let up with his election to the U.S. Senate but, on the contrary, it intensified. In his short tenure in that office he spent more time in Baton Rouge micromanaging the affairs of his state than he did in Washington, D.C. It wasn’t in his personal makeup to leave the state’s business in the hands of the new governor, even though that individual was his handpicked successor and carried out each and every one of his wishes. 


[Huey Long’s] clownish humor and acerbic tongue make Donald Trump look like Michael Dukakis. – Johnathan Alter, Newsweek

(Alter was badly mistaken.)

As a senator, he at first supported FDR and the New Deal, but the two men became estranged because Huey didn’t think that the president’s economic policies went far enough. At the time of his death, he was positioning himself to run for president on a third party ticket.

Huey

He never got that chance, but he did force FDR to propose legislation that he favored. The president did so because, as he privately stated, he wanted to steal some of Huey’s thunder. The result was the so-called “Second New Deal” that was proposed by FDR and passed by Congress in 1935. It included the Social Security Act and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), two programs advocated by Long.

This was my second reading of Williams’ book and each time I was struck by the similarities that I thought Long shared with another politician. Lyndon Johnson grew up under similar circumstances and he possessed the same burning ambition to be somebody and he was also known to be ruthless and to demagogue on occasion, but he also accomplished greatness. Both were bigger than life personalities whose lives read like something out of a Greek tragedy. And as someone once said of LBJ, they both "knew what made the mule plow."

It doesn’t surprise me that upon his retirement from LSU in 1979, T. Harry Williams began immediately to write a biography of Lyndon Johnson. Unfortunately, just two months after his retirement and after completing the first two chapters of the book, Williams died at age seventy.

It is impossible to summarize his biography of Long, but needless to say it is a thorough documentation of the life and times of one of the most fascinating politicians this country has ever produced. And Williams leaves no stone unturned or fact unexamined in making that abundantly clear. There have been a number of Huey Long biographies published since and most have been less sympathetic toward its subject, but they all have to be measured against Williams’ monumental work.

IKE: An American Hero by Michael Korda

“I like Ike!”

Of course, I do; doesn't everybody? But I don’t worship at his altar and I bet you don’t either. However, I can’t say the same thing for Michael Korda. He fell in love with his subject and concluded that his man never made a mistake and that those who disagreed with him were always – well, nine out of ten times anyway -- wrong.


He should have ended the book with Germany’s surrender because while he writes of the Eisenhower presidency in glowing terms, he constantly overstates his case and devotes only 60 pages of a 700 plus page book to Ike’s eight years in the office. It comes off as a sprint to the finish line.

Korda writes in the introductory chapter:

“Of course there is a natural ebb and flow to historical reputations, however exalted. Sometimes a reputation can be revived by a single great book, as David McCullogh did for Harry S. Truman and John Adams….”

It is obvious that Korda set out to rescue Ike from what he perceived to be historical oblivion – just as McCullogh did for Truman and Adams. The truth is, however, that, among historians at least, the reputations of Truman and Adams had been on the ascendency for a good while before McCullogh published either book. Of course, both books were well received by the reading public and were critically-acclaimed best sellers, so there’s no doubt that they did play a role in enhancing the reputation of two presidents whose reputations did take a hit at the time that they held the office and for some time afterwards. But by no means did McCullogh “revive their reputations.”

And what of Eisenhower? When Korda wrote his book (published in 2007), Eisenhower was still one of the most famous generals in American history and one of the most popular presidents to ever hold the office. True, historians did not rate his presidency very high at the time he was in the office, but that changed through the years to the point that he was given credit for accomplishments that were overlooked at the time.

In an interview Korda admitted that he had not held an especially high opinion of Ike before he began doing his research, but that his admiration increased the more that he learned about the man. And it is evident that he did not know much about his subject before he began his research. There’s the problem. Korda is not an historian – or a journalist – but a writer and book editor and biographer with eclectic interests who sometimes writes about historical subjects. He did write a biography of U.S. Grant (which was not well-received by historians) and it was that experience that led him to wanting to write about Ike. Throughout this book he draws parallels between Grant and Ike, some sound and some overdrawn. More recently he wrote a book about Robert E. Lee, but I haven't read it.

The Eisenhower story is truly one that would have been labeled as far-fetched if it had been written as a novel. Born in Texas and raised in Kansas by parents who were both pacifists, he went to West Point. Four years after being promoted to lt. colonel he was a four-star general who held the title of Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe with three million men under his command. In that position he commanded the most complicated combat operation of his time – perhaps all time – when the allies landed on the Normandy beaches.

That is a highly and unprecedented record for a general, especially one who heretofore had never led men in combat.

Historians today give the Eisenhower presidency high marks and they rate him as a good president, but not a great one. But that doesn’t discourage Korda who goes overboard in his assessment:

“No American president had ever exercised power more surely or more deftly, or under greater pressure of time and events….”

Really? Not even Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt? Furthermore, he doesn’t take the time to make the case. He just states it and then moves on.

He also makes the claim that Ike did more for civil rights than either John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. He bases that claim on a single occurrence, that being Ike sending in federal forces to enforce the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. He claims that Ike did it without hesitation because he was a strong supporter of civil rights, which is not true on both counts. He did send in the troops but only after a good deal of hesitation and furthermore he had opposed the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, handed down in 1954. To his credit, however, he felt constitutionally obligated to enforce the court’s opinion and he did. However, he also stated privately that his appointment of Earl Warren, the Chief Justice who led the court that rendered the decision, was the greatest mistake that he had ever made.

Perhaps Korda should write a book on Lyndon Johnson because he apparently is not familiar with that president’s record on civil rights. In the process, he might learn a lot about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1968.

In an interview Korda even claimed that Ike was a better politician than Ronald Reagan. I have to confess that I was a Reagan critic, but I never doubted his political skills which were his greatest gift. Nor does he mention the fact that Eisenhower’s legislative successes were made possible by the co-operation that he received from two Texas Democrats: Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, who served as both Majority Leader and Minority Leader in the Senate during the Eisenhower presidency.

In watching the Korda interview on C-Span’s excellent Booknotes program, I have to admit that I found it entertaining. He is a gifted raconteur who loves to tell stories and he tells them well. But like many storytellers he doesn’t hesitate to add little flourishes that add color to make the stories more entertaining, even if the result is a slight distortion of the facts. But while his sins of commission are notable, it is his sins of omission that I find most deplorable, particularly with regard to the Eisenhower presidency.

Eisenhower is an important historical figure who was one of our greatest military leaders and a good president, but it would have been impossible for him to have lived up to the reputation that Korda has manufactured for him. 

HIGH NOON: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel

This is a review of a book written about the making of the classic western film, HIGH NOON (UA, 1952).  If you wish, and I hope you do, you can read my review of the film here.


HIGH NOON is one of the most famous and popular western movies ever made.  Despite the fact that westerns had never been held in high esteem by the Motion Picture Academy, it was nominated for seven Oscars, and won four.

Practically everybody, even non-western movie fans (surely a small number), is familiar with the plot of a retiring marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who is deserted by his town in his hour of need.  Even his Quaker bride (Grace Kelly), who is of course a pacifist and therefore abhors violence, threatens to leave him on their wedding day if he refuses to leave town with her.

But because he is a man of courage and integrity, he single-handedly, not by choice, takes on a gang of four murderous gunmen who plan to kill him.

The Author

Glenn Frankel combines his love of classic films and American history in a fascinating study of HIGH NOON and its rocky backstory, one that almost prevented the film from even getting off the ground.  

It didn't start out that way.  In fact, the project appeared in its early stages to be one that would have been characterized by little, if any, controversy. Screenwriter Carl Foreman's initial vision was that the film would be an allegory about the necessity of peaceful nations acting multilaterally through the infant United Nations organization to combat the aggressive actions of rogue nations.

Instead of Marshal Kane finding himself in isolated circumstances when the four gunmen come after him, he would be able to count on the people of the town to come to his aid -- just as the UN ideally would come to the aid of a peaceful nation threatened by an aggressor. As it turned out, Foreman's screenplay did become an allegory, but not the one that was originally intended.

During the film's early stages of production, and while the screenplay was still being developed, Foreman was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which was investigating communist influence in the film industry.

Foreman and his wife, like many other Americans, had joined the Communist Party during the '30's.  The Great Depression had thrown the nation -- and the world -- into a state of economic chaos and capitalism, in its perceived inability to solve the twin problems of unemployment and poverty, was viewed by activists on the right and the left as being part of the problem rather than the solution.

While some Americans flirted with fascism, some on the left joined the Communist Party because they saw it as a solution to not only getting a handle on poverty, but also as the best defense against the spread of fascism at home and abroad.

Like many Americans who joined the party, Foreman became disillusioned after World War II with the onset of the Cold War and also when the brutal excesses of the Stalin regime became publicly known.  It was then that the party's membership began to evaporate in the United States.  Among those dropping their membership were Mr. and Mrs. Foreman.  

A happier Carl Foreman, 1961

In his appearance before the committee he testified that he was not then a member of the Communist Party, but took the Fifth when he was asked if he had been a member before 1950 and refused to "name names" as some others had done. Consequently, he was branded an "unfriendly witness," which was not only tantamount to admitting guilt as far as the committee was concerned, but it resulted in the individual's name being placed on a blacklist, which in turn meant that person's career was seriously damaged or even totally destroyed.

At least five hundred people were blacklisted for a decade or more.  There were even several suicides as a result of the blacklist.

It also meant that because of the fear of association that few people, if any, were going to come to the "accused" person's defense.  In fact, producer Stanley Kramer wanted Foreman to be more forthcoming with the committee and when he wasn't, Kramer feared Foreman's association with the film would doom it at the box office. Although Foreman did receive credit for the screenplay, Kramer stripped him of his associate producer credit.

This is why Foreman began to visualize the film as an allegory for the evils of the witch hunt and the blacklist and why he began to reshape the screenplay to reflect his vision.  His life had become exhibit no. 1.  As far as he was concerned, he was Will Kane trying to do what was right, but having to do it alone, because the fears of guilt by association that others felt had the effect of isolating him, just as it did Will Kane.

Ironically, Foreman received an Oscar nomination, his third, for best screenplay, but it is no surprise that he did not win.  By the time the awards were announced he had left the country.  He had gone into self-exile in England where he continued his career with notable success.  As for Stanley Kramer, his treatment of Foreman would forever be a blot on the record of a producer who was noted for movies with a "social message."

By the end of the '50's, the blacklist activity had faded.  HUAC was re-named the House Committee on Internal Security, but was eventually abandoned by 1975.

Frankel's High Noon book is his second in which he skillfully interweaves film-making and American history.

The first was The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend.  That classic Western, starring John Wayne in his greatest performance, was inspired by the real-life kidnapping of young Cynthia Ann Parker from her Texas frontier home by Comanche raiders.

As he does in High Noon, Frankel provides the readers with insights into both the making of the film and the history upon which it is based.  Both books are well-written and thoroughly researched, but then that is what one would expect from a Pulitzer winning journalist.

******
"The real strength of Frankel's account lies in its illustration, in many shades of gray, of the Hollywood blacklist and what it did, in political terms, as it ruined or derailed many, many careers." -- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"Though Frankel began this sumptuous history long before the latest election, he ends up reminding us that 2016 was far from the first time politicians trafficked in lies and fear, and showing us how, nonetheless, people came together to do exemplary work." -- John Domini, The Washington Post

A CREEK CALLED WOUNDED KNEE (1978) by Douglas C. Jones

On December 29, 1890 Custer's old command, the Seventh Cavalry, attempted to disarm a band of 120 Minneconjou Sioux warriors led by Chief Big Foot that had surrendered the day before.  

When one warrior resisted surrendering his rifle and a trooper attempted to wrest it from him, either the rifle or some other weapon fired, and the soldiers began to fire indiscriminately into the group of Sioux, who then began to retrieve their stacked weapons and to fire back.  Since most of them had no weapons they began to flee in an effort to avoid annihilation.  

The Seventh had mounted four Hotchkiss cannons on a nearby knoll and the soldiers manning the guns began to fire into the Sioux encampment located some distance from where the meeting between the Seventh and Big Foot's men had taken place.  It is estimated that 230 women and children were in the camp at the time.  As they and a number of the men attempted to make their escape down a dry ravine, the guns were turned on them and the canister shells from the Hotchkiss guns rained deadly shrapnel up and down the ravine.

Soldiers and Hotchkiss guns at Wounded Knee

On that day, 153 known Sioux, including Big Foot, were killed. Over half of the dead were women and children.  Since many of the captured Sioux later died from wounds and others who were wounded but made their escape probably died as well, some estimates place the total dead as high as 300.

Twenty-five solders were killed and thirty-nine were wounded. However, because the two troops that were charged with the responsibility of disarming the Sioux were formed in an L shape in close proximity to the warriors, there is evidence that most of the Seventh's casualties were the result of friendly fire.

Body of Big Foot frozen into a grotesque shape by a winter blizzard

Monument marking mass grave in Wounded Knee cemetery

A Creek Called Wounded Knee (1978) was the third entry in what became a de facto trilogy on the Indian-white conflict on the northern plains.  The first two were The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer (1976) and Arrest Sitting Bull (1977).  Since the massacre at Wounded Knee occurred exactly two weeks after Sitting Bull's death, the third novel represents a natural progression.

The latter two events are closely related not only in terms of time, but also because it was the Ghost Dance movement that was spreading like a prairie grass fire among the Lakota Sioux that aroused fear among settlers, U.S. Indian Agents, and the U.S. cavalry.  Sensationalist reporting by competing newspapers not only added fuel to the fire, but also fanned the flames of hatred and distrust.  Adding further symmetry to the three novels is the fact that it was George Custer's reconstituted Seventh Cavalry regiment that was responsible for the massacre.

As he did in the first two novels, Jones utilizes both historical and fictional characters to tell the story, but within the plot he makes the story as factual as possible.  I always knew that he was a thorough researcher, but I discovered in rereading this novel that he was even more meticulous than I first imagined.  

I won't give them away, but there are two incidents in the story that just did not ring true for me.  I thought they were cases of a novelist doing what a novelist is supposed to do, in fact is obligated to do.  I assumed he had manufactured a couple of fictional events in order to spice up the story. However, in doing a little further research I discovered that both were documented events.  I also ran across other examples of a similar nature.

For some readers, this story will at first move slowly, but as a reviewer wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[t]he ominous presence of the coming tragedy is on every page."

In the beginning, Jones sets the stage by vividly detailing the fear and distrust that pervaded Big Foot's band as well as the nervous anxiety of the relatively inexperienced raw recruits who comprised a majority of the reconstituted Seventh Calvary, a regiment that had earlier sustained a stunning defeat at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne on the Little Bighorn.  Fourteen years later, near a creek in South Dakota, the Seventh and the Sioux clashed again in what was initially called the battle of Wounded Knee, but today is almost universally known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.






  

THE DOOLIN-DALTON GANG, Part I

They were duelin', Doolin-Dalton

High or low, it was the same

Easy money and faithless women

Red-eye whiskey for the pain

Go down, Bill Dalton, it must be God's will

Two brothers lyin' dead in Coffeyville

Two voices call to you from where they stood

Lay down your law books now, they're no damn good

Better keep on movin' Doolin-Dalton

'Til your shadow sets you free

And if you're fast and if you're lucky

You will never see that hangin' tree

Well, the towns lay out across the dusty plains

Like graveyards filled with tombstones waitin' for the names

And a man could use his back or use his brains

But some just went stir crazy, Lord, 'cause nothin' ever changed

-- THE EAGLES

Songwriters
BROWNE, JACKSON / SOUTHER, J.D. / HENLEY, DON / FREY, GLENN

COFFEYVILLE.
On October 5, 1892 five men rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, a town located in the southeastern corner of the state.  Three of the men were brothers: Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton.  Coffeyville was their hometown.  Riding with them were Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell. They had come to do something that not even the James-Younger Gang had ever attempted to do.  They planned to rob two banks simultaneously.

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled that day four townsmen and four outlaws were dead.  Among the outlaws only Emmett, wounded more than twenty times, was still alive, but just barely.

Rumors persisted that there had been a sixth rider and that he had escaped. The rumors were based on testimony by a farm couple who said they saw six men riding into town just before the hold-up and statements by another person claiming that he saw a rider making a successful getaway during the shoot-out between the outlaws and the townspeople.

Emmett, who did survive, and who was tried and convicted and sent to prison, always maintained that there was no sixth rider.  But the rumor wouldn't go away.  Although nobody came forward to identify who that legendary rider might have been, subsequent events led many to believe that it was Bill Doolin. One theory was that he had been charged with the responsibility of holding the horses and that when all hell broke loose he didn't hang around but made tracks out of town.  Another had it that his horse came up lame before the men reached town and that he went off in search of another horse and missed the whole shebang.

Neither of those scenarios hold up under close scrutiny and it is more than likely that the mythical sixth rider is just that -- a myth.  But Bill Doolin was real.  He may not have been at Coffeyville, but he had been a member of the Dalton Gang.  And after the citizens of that community decimated that gang, Doolin didn't waste any time in organizing a new gang. He was assisted in this effort by Bill Dalton, another of the infamous brothers, and the result is what came to be known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang.

Bill Doolin

Bill Dalton

BILL DALTON (1866-1894).
Bill Dalton was not living in Kansas when his three brothers were riding the outlaw trail in that state and in the Oklahoma Territory to the south.  He had moved to California where he was married and was living a respectable life as a farmer, one who was also studying law.  He had even been elected to the California state legislature on the Populist Party ticket. Of course being a member of the legislature did not in and of itself make one respectable.

The Populist Party was an agrarian movement that blamed big business for the hard times that farmers, ranchers, and small businesses were experiencing in the years before the turn of the century.  And it was the railroads that were identified as being the primary culprits. Bill Dalton hated them with a passion.

But did he hate them enough to rob one?  Well, perhaps.  He had been joined in California by brother Grat who had left his stomping grounds to the east in order to put some distance between him and the U.S. marshals who were keeping a close watch on him.  He may have been accompanied by brothers Bob and Emmett, or they may have joined him later, but it isn't clear that that was the case.

A fireman was killed during a train hold-up in February, 1891, and Bill and Grat were arrested.  There is suspicion that Bob and Emmett were involved as well, but it was never proved for they were never caught.  Bill was tried and acquitted, but Grat was convicted. However, on the way to prison Grat escaped and eventually made his way back home to rejoin Bob and Emmett and other members of the gang in holding up banks and railroads, primarily in the Oklahoma and Indian territories. 

After the death of his two brothers and the capture of another in the Coffeyville fiasco in October, 1892, Bill Dalton came home and met Bill Doolin. 

In 1890, Congress passed the Oklahoma Organic Act which partitioned the Indian Territory by creating a separate territory to be called Oklahoma.  The new territory essentially encompassed everything in the former Indian Territory except the lands belonging to the so-called Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole.  The intent was to eventually combine the two territories into a single state.  In 1907, the state of Oklahoma was admitted into the Union and the Indian Territory ceased to exist.

BILL DOOLIN (1858-1896).
Bill Doolin was born in Johnson County in western Arkansas.  In 1881, he became a cowboy in the Indian Territory where he worked with other men, who, like him, eventually found themselves riding the outlaw trail.  They included the likes of George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce, Bill Powers, Dick Broadwell, Bill "Tulsa Jack" Blake, Dan "Dynamite Dick" Clifton, and Emmett Dalton.

Doolin's first reported run in with the law occurred in Coffeyville, Kansas when an attempt was made by the local authorities to arrest him and his friends for public drunkenness.  Elsewhere such behavior might have been overlooked, but Coffeyville just happened to be located in a dry county.

In the melee that followed two lawmen were wounded while trying to confiscate Doolin and his friends' liquor.

Soon thereafter Doolin joined up with the Daltons.  He was probably too smart to participate in their hare brained scheme to rob the two banks in Coffeyville, despite the rumors that in fact he had been a sixth rider but had successfully vamoosed to fight and rob another day.


THE DOOLIN-DALTON GANG.
After the failed Coffeyville raid and the death of four of the outlaws and the capture of the seriously wounded Emmett Dalton, Bill Doolin began recruiting his own gang, and because one of its members was Bill Dalton, it is commonly known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang, but also as The Wild Bunch (not to be confused with the Butch Cassidy-Sundance Kid Wild Bunch) or the Oklahombres. Comprising the nucleus of the gang were men who, like Doolin, had been members of the Dalton Gang and had not participated in the Coffeyville raid.

In a three year spree, the gang robbed banks and trains in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and the Indian Territory.  After holding up the bank in Spearville, Kansas on November 1, 1892, the gang took refuge near Orlando in Oklahoma Territory at the home of the sister of gang member Ol Yantis.  Later that month a sheriff's posse tracked Yantis to that location and in a shoot-out they killed Yantis, making him the first gang member to be killed.  There would be other gang members -- many others -- that would suffer the same fate.  Of the eleven outlaws who rode with the gang at various times, only two lived into the 20th century, but only because they had been captured and were in prison when the new century began.

In March 1893, despite the fact that several bank and train robberies followed Spearville, Bill Doolin married Edith Ellsworth in Kingfisher, OT.  They would have one son. Not long after his marriage, Doolin was seriously wounded in the foot during a train robbery near Cimarron, Kansas.


THE BATTLE OF INGALLS.
What came to be called the Battle of Ingalls occurred on September 1, 1893. Today practically a ghost town, Ingalls in the 1890's was a wide-open town and a safe haven for fugitives on the run.  It was one of the places that the Doolin-Dalton gang felt secure.

But the territory's newly appointed U.S. marshal, 32-year old E.D. Nix, had different plans for the gang holed up in Ingalls.  Nix sent fourteen deputy marshals to Ingalls in an attempt to clean out the Doolin-Dalton gang.  

U.S. marshal E.D. Nix

In the ensuing gun battle three deputies were killed along with two citizens.  Three outlaws -- Bitter Creek Newcomb, Charlie Pierce, and Dynamite Dick Clifton -- were wounded, but managed to escape.  

Arkansas Tom Jones was captured after being stunned by dynamite that was thrown into the hotel where he had taken cover.  As it turned out, Jones (real name Roy Daugherty) outlived all the other members of the gang.  He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to fifty years in prison. However, he was pardoned in 1910 after serving fewer than twenty years.

Arkansas Tom

In 1917, he was tried and convicted for robbing a bank in Neosho, Missouri.  After being released in 1921, he robbed a bank in Asbury, Missouri that same year.  Tracked to Joplin, Missouri he was killed in 1924 in a gunfight with lawmen.  He outlived all the other gang members, but his life still ended much like the rest of them.


THE THREE GUARDSMEN.
In the wake of the Ingalls shoot-out, Marshal Nix organized an elite group of one hundred deputies whose primary job was to, one way or the other, wipe out the Doolin-Dalton Gang.  The most famous of the deputies were Heck Thomas, Chris Madsen, and Bill Tilghman, who were so successful in the pursuit of the gang that they came to be called "The Three Guardsmen."  

Nix gave the following directions to his deputies: "I have selected you to do this work, placing explicit confidence in your abilities to cope with those desperadoes and bring them in -- live if possible -- dead if necessary."

Heck Thomas (1900)

Bill Tilghman (1912)

Chris Madsen (date unknown)

It was the beginning of the end for the gang.

• In June 1894, Bill Dalton was killed by a posse at his home near Ardmore, OT.

• In April 1895, Tulsa Jack Blake was killed by U.S. marshals near Ames, OT.

• In May 1895, Bitter Creek Newcomb and Charley Pierce were killed near Pawnee, OT by bounty hunters.  

• In September 1895, Little Bill Raidler was captured by Bill Tilghman.  He was sentenced to prison and was paroled in 1903 because of ill health due to severity of the wounds he had received at the time of his capture.  He died the following year.  Like Arkansas Tom before him, he had lived into the new century -- and for the same reason.

• In March 1896, Red Buck Waightman was killed near Arapaho, OT by a posse led by Chris Madsen.

But what of Bill Doolin -- the gang's leader?  What was he doing while his men were being picked off one by one?  Well, as one would imagine, he was hunkering down.

He and Little Dick West hid out in the New Mexico territory during the summer of 1895.  Later that year, he and his wife traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas so that he could use the baths to ease the rheumatism in his foot caused by the bullet wound that he had sustained two years earlier.  Early the following year, he was captured in one of the bathhouses by deputy U.S. marshal Bill Tilghman.

Doolin was arraigned in Stillwater, OT on murder charges stemming from the gunfight at Ingalls in 1893.  He pleaded not guilty.  He was locked up in the Guthrie jail to await trial.  He and Dynamite Dick Clifton and twelve other prisoners were able to break out of the jail.

After his escape, Doolin was hiding out near Lawson, OT., where his wife and small son were staying with her mother.  On August 24, 1896 he was waylaid outside the home by a posse led by deputy U.S. marshal Heck Thomas.  When he refused to obey a command to surrender and began firing at the lawmen he was killed by a shotgun blast fired by Thomas.

As per usual, Doolin's body was placed on display in Guthrie and photographs were taken.  He was buried in the Boot Hill section of Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie.  His widow filed an unlawful death damage suit against the marshals, but it was dismissed.

Bill Doolin

• In November 1897, Dynamite Dick Clifton was tracked down near Checotah, IT and killed by a posse led by deputy marshal Chris Madsen.

• In April 1898, Little Dick West, the gang's last remaining fugitive at large, was tracked down in Logan County, OT by a posse led by deputy U.S. marshal Chris Madsen and was killed in a shoot-out.  He is buried in Guthrie near Bill Doolin.