"The 7th is made up of phantoms"
Posted on 08/02/2016 3:27:43 PM PDT by Bratch
I had no idea. So much for the quartermasters of the time.
It wouldn’t take a West Point grad to figure out that repeaters vs single shots is a losing proposition.
Glory out ranks sense.
"The 7th is made up of phantoms"
I love that episode.
These guys had a tank, and they didn’t want to go down there!
Think they were out of gas, old Twilight Zone episode. Their captain thinks they’re AWOL, but finds their names on the monument.
"The HBO Series begins right after Wild Bill was killed. Good show.
Actually, it begins a few days before, and Keith Carradine does a great job bringing Hickok to life.
The show follows the story rather loosely, but it's close enough to get the flavor of what it must have been like.
My family has a personal connection to Wild Bill. My Great-Great-Great Uncle was Ned Buntline (his pen name). Buntline was the dime novel author who discovered and made famous a man named William Cody. He stumbled across Cody when passing through Fort McPherson on one of his temperance lecture tours. He heard Hickok was in McPherson and wanted to meet him with the hope of writing a story about him (he had read a popular story about Hickok previously that circulated in Harpers Magazine). He surprised Hickok rudely in a saloon. By that time, Hickok had an aversion to surprises and beckoned Buntline to leave at the point of a gun. Buntline still wanted to write his story, and set out looking for Hickok's friends. That's how he met Cody. After spending a few days with Cody and riding with him on a scout, Buntline figured a story about him would be a better one and the rest is history.
The tank and other modern era stuff got buried on site or carted off and officially forgotten if I had to go further with the plot.
Did he originate the Buntline Special revolver? Had a looong barrel, 10” I believe.
Didn’t Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke fame use one?
Nope. Custer’s last words were: “Those Indians look friendly enough!”
Great “Twilight Zone” episode.
Single shot Springfield trapdoor carbines shooting .45-50 rounds.
Shot in the head...holes in the back of the chair...
= = =
Staged by Clinton Campaign as a “Suicide”.
"Did he originate the Buntline Special revolver?
That history is a bit murky. The story goes that Buntline had them commissioned as payment to Wyatt Earp for being able to write so many stories about him and his Western counterparts. Truth is, Buntline didn't write many western tales outside of Buffalo Bill. Although he produced over 800 dime novels, only a tiny number had much to do with the west, and Earp never shows up in any.
More likely, Buntline was looking for some publicity and presented the revolvers to Earp and several other Western characters to gain some notoriety. Buntline was an expert at creating chatter. He was a commensurate liar, a rabble rouser, and a general trouble-maker. He was one of the instigators of the Astor Place riots which killed 23 people, and another riot in St. Louis. He was a founding member of the Know Nothing party and was closely allied with many of the notorious New York gangs. Generally, he was a bad seed to be associated with. But most of his personal exploits were pure fantasy, which made him the great yarn-spinner he turned out to be.
Good tune!
***Repeating rifles.***
Burke, in his book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK mentions the Sioux and Cheyenne were getting belligerent as they now had “magazine rifles”.
In the raid on Crazy Horse’s village, March 1876, the Indians escaped. It was so cold that the Tipis would not burn properly, when suddenly they started exploding due to the stored gunpowder and ammo in the village.
The soldiers took the village, but were defeated by the intense cold.
There is a name on the monument of a person who was NOT killed there. Christopher Madsen was ordered to the 7th, when he was suddenly transferred to the 5th Cavalry. He witnessed Buffalo Bill kill Yellow Hand.
He later became a federal marshal to the Indian territories (Oklahoma) out of Fort Smith Arkansas.
How these characters got their names is rather interesting.
William B Hickok had a protruding upper lip and people made fun of him by calling him “Duck Bill”. So he grew a mustache became good with a pistol and renamed himself Wild Bill.
According to Brummet Echohawk, Pawnee Indian artist, BUFFALO BILL got his name when while young and hunting buffalo for the railroad crews, he shot a bull, the bull then gored his horse and afoot Bill took off running for one skinny tree on the high plains.
Later, when a cavalry patrol found him the bull was still underneath waiting on Bill so they shot the bull and killed it. Then they hoorahed Bill and named him “Buffalo Bill” because he had been buffaloed by a buffalo.
He later took to the name and made a legend out of buffalo hunting, quietly discarding his being buffaloed by a buffalo.
I read an article many years go which stated the bullet that killed Hickok went through his head and lodged in the hand of the man across from him.
A western writer years later mad much of the fact he had the honor of shaking the hand that still held the bullet that killed Wild Bill.
I read way too many western magazines and Old West history books in my youth.
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