Dora Hand For Western Wednesday...!

Not all of the women in the days of the Wild West were considered "soiled doves", but the legend of many was enough to make them famous. That was the case with Dora Hand.

Dora Hand

The smiles of Dora Hand, some pioneers recalled, caused more revolver fights than those of any other woman in the West. A popular singer in Dodge City, Kansas, the beautiful woman was shot and killed in 1878 by a cowhand named James “Spike” Kenedy. A posse was quickly organized to chase the killer down and bring him to justice. Among the members of the posse were Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Charlie Bassett and Bill Tilghman. When they apprehended Kenedy, he was tried for the murder, but acquitted. Legend has it Hand was the only woman to be buried at Boot Hill. – Courtesy Kansas Heritage Center, Dodge City –

She must have had a loyal following considering the names that rode with her posse. Kenedy must have had a very good lawyer...very good!

Coffee out on the patio this morning.

Billy The Kid On Western Wednesday...!

I know we have all heard the name of Billy the Kid, A.K.A William H. Bonney, but here is a little more history about this outlaw.

1881

Billy the Kid convicted of murder

After a one-day trial, Billy the Kid is found guilty of murdering the Lincoln County, New Mexico, sheriff and is sentenced to hang.

There is no doubt that Billy the Kid did indeed shoot the sheriff, though he had done so in the context of the bloody Lincoln County War, a battle between two powerful groups of ranchers and businessmen fighting for economic control of Lincoln County. When his boss, rancher John Tunstall, was murdered before his eyes in February 1878, the hotheaded young Billy swore vengeance. Unfortunately, the leader of the men who murdered Tunstall was the sheriff of Lincoln County, William Brady. When Billy and his partners murdered the sheriff several months later, they became outlaws, regardless of how corrupt Brady may have been.

After three years on the run and several other murders, Pat Garrett finally arrested Billy in early 1881. Garrett, a one-time friend, was the new sheriff of Lincoln County. On this day in 1881, a court took only one day to convict Billy of the murder of Sheriff Brady. Sentenced to hang, Billy was imprisoned in Lincoln’s county jail while Sheriff Garrett gathered the technical information and supplies needed to build an effective gallows.

On April 28, while Garrett was out of town, Billy managed to escape. While one of the jail’s two guards was escorting a group of prisoners across the street to dinner, Billy asked the remaining guard to take him to the jail outhouse. As the guard escorted him back to his cell, Billy somehow managed to slip a wrist through his handcuffs. He slugged the guard and shot him with a pistol either that he took from the guard or that a friend had hidden in the outhouse for him. Hearing the shot, the second guard ran back to the jail, and Billy killed him with a blast from a shotgun he found in Garrett’s office. Reportedly, Billy then smashed the gun and threw it down on the dead guard, yelling, “You won’t follow me any more with that gun!”

After murdering the guards, Billy seemed in no hurry to flee. He armed himself with two pistols and, according to one account, “danced about the balcony, laughed and shouted as though he had not a care on earth.” Apparently, the people of Lincoln were either too fearful or too admiring of the young outlaw to act. After nearly an hour, Billy rode off.

He was not able to ride far enough. Upon his return to Lincoln, Garrett immediately formed a posse and set off to recapture the outlaw. On July 14, 1881, Garrett surprised Billy in a darkened room not far from Lincoln and shot him dead.

Like so many others of that time, Billy was killed at a fairly young age. Long life was not in the cards for too many outlaws of that era.

Coffee on the patio again this morning. Want some fresh ginger snaps with that?

Frank Canton On Western Wednesday...!

Back in the days of the Wild West, it was not uncommon for an outlaw to change his ways and become a lawman. Some earned a pretty good reputation as lawmen, too. Frank Canton was one of those.

Frank M. Canton, was a famous lawman, gunman, cowboy and at one point in his life, an outlaw during the wild days of the Old West.

Canton was actually born as Josiah Horner on September 15, 1849, near Richmond, Virginia. As a child he moved to Texas with his family and while in his teens became a cowboy, herding cattle from North Texas to the Kansas railheads in the 1860s. In 1871 he dropped from sight and made his living as a bank robber and rustler. On October 10, 1874, Horner got into a gunfight with some Buffalo Soldiers, killing one and wounding the other. In 1877, he was jailed for robbing a bank in Comanche, Texas but escaped and returned to cattle herding. After driving a herd to Ogallala, Nebraska, he changed his name to Frank Canton and vowed to uphold law and order.

He was soon hired as the top enforcer of the Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association, a group of powerful cattlemen in Johnson County, Wyoming. He was later elected sheriff of the county. It was here that he made his reputation in the notorious Johnson County War of Wyoming in the 1890s and was involved in the unlawful hanging of James Averell and Cattle Kate.

Afterward, he fled south, becoming a U.S. Deputy Marshal in Indian Territory under Judge Isaac Parker and made a name for himself as a strong and honest lawman. In 1897, Canton went to Alaska to follow the Klondike Gold Rush but instead became a Deputy U.S. Marshal again. After a couple of years, he returned to Oklahoma and once more became a lawman. In 1907, he became adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard, a post he held until his death on September 27, 1927. He was buried at the Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

I reckon even the baddest of the bad can change when they really want to.

Coffee out on the patio this morning!

Sam Bass For Western Wednesday...!

Sometimes we might wonder just what caused the bad guys of the Old West to become bad in the first place. Often the truth is easy to answer...being law abiding can be a lot of work!

Sam Bass

Sam Bass started out an honest man. He had a simple and modest dream of moving to Texas and becoming a cowboy. Eventually he did just that, but decided after one season he didn’t like it. While transitioning from simple farmer to famed outlaw might be a stretch for some, Bass did it seamlessly. He began robbing banks and stagecoaches, and became rather proficient at it. After his 7th stagecoach robbery, Bass and his gang turned their sights on bigger prizes and decided to rob trains. They eventually robbed the Union Pacific gold train from San Francisco, netting over $60,000, which is to this day the largest single robbery of the Union Pacific. He was wounded by Texas Rangers on the way to rob a small bank in Round Rock, and died two days later on his 27th birthday.

I got this information from a site called Thechive. You might want to check it out!

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. Biscuits and honey anyone...?

Sam Kelly On Western Wednesday...!

Not only were things rough and rowdy in the American wild West, but our neighbors to the north had their hands full with bad guys as well. From Listverse, here is a story about one gang called the Nelson-Jones Gang.

Sam Kelly And The Nelson-Jones Gang

Photo credit: The Great Canadian Bucket List

When Sam Kelly and his gang terrorized a town, you had to catch them quick. As soon they’d appeared, the boys would disappear into the Big Muddy Badlands of Saskatchewan: a place full of caves, cliffs, and gullies. In a second, Kelly and his men would disappear into a winding network of tunnels and vanish.

Kelly started his criminal career with a trek down to Montana, where some old friends were being held in prison. With a copy of the jailhouse key given to him by the town’s corrupt deputy sheriff, Kelly was able to walk right into the prison and leave with the prisoners. He even tipped his hat to the sheriff’s wife as he walked out with two convicted felons.

From then on, Kelly was a career criminal. He would steal horses and cattle from Saskatchewan farms or sometimes move south of the border and hijack a train full of gold. He caused so much havoc that the Mounted Police set up a fort in the Big Muddy Badlands to try to stop him, but he disappeared every time.

After years of crime, Kelly had a change of heart. He walked into the police station and turned himself in. Kelly, though, had been so careful that they didn’t have enough evidence to convict him in of a single crime. Even though he’d brought himself in, they had to set him free.

I'm surprised that they didn't hang him just on general principals. After all, they did have his confession, right?

Coffee out on the patio this morning while we still have the chance.

Deacon Miller On Western Wednesday...!

Sometimes the outward appearance of some of the most vicious killers in the old west were deceiving, to say the least. While they might appear to be honest and non-violent publicly, some were in fact serial killers. Here is one such story from Listverse.

James Miller

Photo credit: Legends of America

James Miller, aka Miller the Killer, was a murderer-for-hire. He was also called Deacon Miller because he would regularly attend church and seemingly had no vices; he didn’t smoke or drink. Despite his pious behavior in public, James obviously had a darker professional and private life. He would often kill people he didn’t like. When his sister was engaged to be married to a man whom James despised, the fiance was mysteriously murdered. James are arrested and convicted of the murder, but the charges were overturned on a technicality. James would eventually turn his passion for killing into a profession, charging large sums of money to have someone executed.

Because of James’s pious outward appearance, no one in his community had any idea what he was capable of. He actually had a brief stint as a lawman. James’s downfall ultimately came when he assassinated a former deputy US marshal. This caused an enraged mob to lynch him. Right before he was hanged, he reportedly shouted, “Let her rip!

In some cases, their private activities fooled many people, but his true nature was finally revealed.

Coffee inside due to the cool rain that's falling...OK?

'Longhair Jim' For Western Wednesday...!

Some of the lawmen in the old west were badder than the outlaws they were supposed to protect the townsfolk from. That was the case of 'Longhair Jim' Courtright. Here is his story from Listverse.

‘Longhair Jim’ Courtright

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In addition to his untamed locks, Timothy Isaiah “Longhair Jim” Courtright was known for his skill as a gunman, performing at one time as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Always a controversial character, he was the first elected marshal of Fort Worth, Texas. He also ran protection rackets in the local saloons and gambling houses. He is rumored to have killed several business owners who declined his offers of protection. His enthusiasm for his work often ran away with him. At one point, he was employed to track down cattle rustlers, but he ended up killing both rustlers and homesteaders.

Courtright finally met his end in 1887 in a duel with Luke Short, a saloon owner and former friend of Courtright’s. Short had told Courtright to “go to hell” when the former had offered the latter protection. In the middle of the street, the two men met in one of the very few face-to-face gunfights to have actually taken place in the Wild West. After a tense standoff, both men drew their pistols at the same time. Short fired first, blowing off Courtright’s thumb. Courtright tried to shift his gun to his uninjured hand, but as he did so, Short shot him in the chest.

I reckon that he didn't care if you were friend or foe, his racket came first.

Coffee outside on the patio this morning!

Bill Tilghman For Western Wednesday...!

Ever wonder just what some lawmen did before working for the law? A few had some close with the law themselves. Here is Bill's story, thanks to Listverse.

Bill Tilghman

Photo credit: Robert G. McCubbin Collection

Bill Tilghman was born in Iowa but moved to Kansas. When he was still a young man, Tilghman became a hunter, and he claimed to have killed 12,000 bison in only five years, much to the annoyance of the local Native Americans, for whom this meant food. During an exchange in September 1872, Tilghman is said to have killed seven Cheyenne braves. It wasn’t his only scrape with the law. Two years later, he just barely escaped being lynched after he was accused of murdering a man in Granada, Colorado.

In 1875, he opened a saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, and in 1878, he became the town’s deputy sheriff. He is said to have collected more rewards for bringing in outlaws than anyone else. During his time as sheriff, he was accused of corruption and selling whiskey to the Native Americans. He was also arrested several times for running a brothel and facilitating gambling.

Tilghman was shot on November 1, 1924, while trying to arrest a corrupt Prohibition officer. Karma?

Seems to me that what goes around, comes around...ya know?

Coffee out on the patio again this morning!

Black Jack Ketchum On Western Wednesday...!

In most cases, gunfighters were considered as outlaws and punished accordingly. However, there were a few cases where the public demanded more harsh punishment and, in this case, were awarded just that.

Black Jack Ketchum

Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum, shown here after he was captured and his right arm amputated, and shortly before he was hanged in 1901 for attempted train robbery, had emptied his rifle into the bodies of two posse members chasing him and his brother for robbing a store in Liberty, New Mexico, in 1896, before continuing on his life of crime as a train robber. The citizens of New Mexico Territory were so mad at the daring of train robbers that they made Ketchum pay with his life, marking him as the only person who suffered capital punishment for “felonious assault upon a railway train,” a law later deemed unconstitutional.

Looks like the change in the law didn't come in time for ol' Black Jack. Too bad !

Coffee inside again today. Rain is coming and going again today!

Frank James On Western Wednesday...!

Most of the time when we hear about justice is the Old West, we don't think about trials. This wasn't the case when it came to Frank James, however. Even with the records clearly showing he was guilty of many robberies, he did go to trial with a rather surprising outcome.

1883

Trial of Frank James begins in Missouri

The trial of Frank James begins in Gallatin, Missouri. It was held in the city opera house in order to accommodate the crowds of spectators.

After having robbed dozens of banks and trains over nearly two decades, Frank James finally turned himself in October 1882. Discouraged by the murder of his brother Jesse the previous spring, Frank feared it was only a matter of time before someone also shot him in the back for reward money. He decided to try his chances with the courts, hoping that his considerably public popularity would win him a short sentence.

Frank’s trial went even better than he had hoped. Although Frank and Jesse James and their gang of desperados had killed many people, the majority of Missourians saw them as heroes who took money from ruthless bank and railroad companies and redistributed it to the poor. The state prosecutor had a difficult time finding jurors who were not prejudiced in Frank’s favor. Looking at the panel of potential jurors, he concluded, “The verdict of the jury that is being selected is already written.”

After the trial began, several prominent witnesses testified to Frank’s character. General Joseph O. Shelby, who had known him during his days as a Civil War guerilla, encouraged the jurors to see Frank James as a defender of the South against corrupt big businesses from the North. When asked to identify Frank in the courtroom, the distinguished general exclaimed: “Where is my old friend and comrade in arms? Ah, there I see him! Allow me, I wish to shake hands with my fellow soldier who fought by my side for Southern rights!”

Rural Missourians were unwilling to convict the legendary Frank James. The jury found him not guilty. The states of Alabama and Missouri tried to convict him twice more, on charges of armed robbery, with no success. In late 1883, Frank James became a free man. He lived quietly for 32 more years. The only shots he ever fired again were from starter pistols at county racetracks, one of the handful of odd jobs he took to earn a living. He died at his family home in Missouri in 1915 at the age of 72.

This was probably a wise move on Frank's part, knowing how the general public felt about him. So, despite all the evidence against him, Frank was made a free man and lived a mostly peaceful life afterwards.

Coffee out on the patio again this morning.

Vigilante X For Western Wednesday...!

Today's post is about one of those folks we seldom hear about in our history books. There are a lot of them, so it seems. The thing is, in order to get the whole truth, you have to take the bad with the good.

1831

Montana “Vigilante X” is born

John X. Beidler, one of the best known of the notoriously secretive Montana vigilantes, is born in Pennsylvania.

Beidler, who preferred to be called simply “X,” had little formal education and tried his hand at a variety of trades. Initially a shoemaker, he also worked briefly as a brick maker and then traveled to Kansas where he took up farming. A supporter of John Brown’s radical abolitionist movement, he left Kansas for Texas after Brown was captured and executed for his abortive raid on the Harper’s Ferry armory in Virginia. From Texas, Beidler wandered northward, eventually joining the Gold Rush to Montana Territory in 1863.

When Beidler arrived in Virginia City, the area was plagued by marauding bandits who roamed the isolated roads of the region robbing and killing. The bandits were led by a charming psychopath named Henry Plummer who had managed to con the citizens into electing him sheriff of the nearby town of Bannock. Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the local law enforcement, the citizens of Virginia City and Bannock formed a highly secretive vigilance committee and began systematically hunting down and hanging the road agents, including Sheriff Plummer.

Not long after arriving in Virginia City, Beidler joined the vigilantes and became one of the group’s most active members. Unlike most of the members, who took pains to conceal their identities, Beidler welcomed attention. Numerous legends arose around the so-called “Vigilante X,” and Beidler did little to discourage exaggerations—in fact, much of the Beidler lore was true. He was the principal hangman for at least five of the vigilante’s victims, and he survived several narrow escapes in his relentless pursuit of dangerous men.

After helping rid Montana of crime, Beidler became a stagecoach guard and deputy U.S. Marshall. He appears to have been highly effective in these roles, though he was criticized for sometimes overstepping the bounds of his authority. Apparently, the former vigilante still liked to take the law into his own hands.

As an old man, he fell on hard times and became dependent on the charity of Montanans who remembered his previous service. When he died in Helena, Montana, in 1890, his death certificate listed his occupation as “Public Benefactor.”

Sounds to me as though the PTB did just what I said and took the good and the bad, and gave the old man a little respect for the good he did.

Coffee out on the patio this morning, before the heat sets in.

William Quantrill On Western Wednesday...!

Many of us know of the man because of his name, but little else. Here is a brief history of the the man simply called Quantrill.

1865 William Quantrill killed by Union soldiers

William Quantrill, the man who gave Frank and Jesse James their first education in killing, dies from wounds sustained in a skirmish with Union soldiers in Kentucky.

Born and raised in Ohio, Quantrill was involved in a number of shady enterprises in Utah and Kansas during his teens. In his early 20s, he fled to Missouri, where he became a strong supporter of pro-slavery settlers in their sometimes-violent conflict with their antislavery neighbors. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the 24-year-old Quantrill became the leader of an irregular force of Confederate soldiers that became known as Quantrill’s Raiders.

By 1862, Union forces had established control over Missouri, but Quantrill’s Raiders continued to harass the northern army and unguarded pro-Union towns over the next three years. Quantrill and other guerrilla leaders recruited their soldiers from Confederate sympathizers who resented what they saw as the unfairly harsh Union rule of their state. Among those who joined him was a 20-year-old farm kid named Frank James. His younger brother, Jesse, joined an allied guerrilla force a year later.

In August 1863, Frank James was with Quantrill when he led a savage attack on the largely defenseless town of Lawrence, Kansas. Angered that the townspeople had allowed Lawrence to be used as a sporadic base for Union soldiers, Quantrill and his guerrillas shot every man and boy they saw. After killing at least 150 male civilians, the raiders set the town on fire.

In May 1865, Quantrill was badly wounded in a skirmish with Union forces, and he died on this day in 1865. Since Quantrill’s men were guerillas rather than legitimate soldiers, they were denied the general amnesty given to the Confederate army after the war ended. Some, like Frank and Jesse James, took this as an excuse to become criminals and bank robbers.

Just one more example of how blood-thirsty things could get back in the early days.

Coffee inside this morning. It's too hot outside.

Mari Sandoz On Western Wednesday...!

At a time when most writings about the old West treated the Indians as savages, Sandoz strongly defended them in her writings.

1896

Western writer Mari Sandoz is born

Mari Sandoz, the author of several histories that demonstrated sympathy for Indians that was unusual for the time, is born in Sheridan County, Nebraska.

Sandoz had a difficult childhood on a Nebraska homestead. Her father, Jules, was a bitter, tyrannical man, who took out the frustrations of homesteading on his wife and children. Unusually bright and studious, Sandoz eventually escaped to the University of Nebraska, which she attended irregularly from 1922 to 1930. She never earned her degree–though the school awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1950–but found that she enjoyed the life of the scholar. After working as a schoolteacher for a time, she gradually devoted herself to historical research and freelance writing.

Sandoz authored a number of novels, but today she is remembered for her meticulously researched non-fiction histories. Her 1935 biography of her father, Old Jules, is a bittersweet and moving history of homesteading on the Great Plains. Even more valuable, though, were Sandoz’s histories of the Plains Indians. In 1949, she published Crazy Horse, a biography of the great Sioux warrior who participated in the 1876 defeat of George Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. For decades after Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was usually portrayed as a bloodthirsty savage who helped murder a great American hero. Sandoz’s biography revealed a noble and admirable man dedicated to his people and to resisting white theft of their traditional lands.

Sandoz’s 1953 book, Cheyenne Autumn, was equally unusual for its many appealing and sympathetic portraits of Indians. Painstakingly researched, the book remains valuable to this day for its thorough treatment of Indian history and folkways. Cheyenne Autumn is a moving condemnation of the brutal war waged by the U.S. to deprive the Cheyenne of their lands and traditional ways. The book was also the inspiration behind John Ford’s 1964 movie of the same name. Cheyenne Autumn was one of the first Westerns to abandon the old racist stereotypes of the Indian as a vicious savage and emphasize the tragedy of the Indian experience.

Strong willed, ambitious, and dedicated to providing an accurate history, Sandoz’s work marked the beginning of a movement that greatly revised how Americans viewed the history of western settlement. The Indians were not the villains in this great historical drama, Sandoz suggested, but the victims. Mari Sandoz died in 1966, just as many Americans were starting to embrace her more compassionate view of the Native American.

What I found most interesting about Mari was how dedicated she was about her research and strived to tell the factual truth at a time when it was not at all considered wise.

Coffee out on the patio this morning.

Calamity Jane On Western Wednesday...!

Here is a little history about someone we probably all have heard about...Calamity Jane. Remember her?

She was another one of those folks that the truth and the myth were kinda mixed up. Hard to tell where one left off and the other took over. Well, maybe this will help a little in that regard.

Calamity Jane is born

On this day, (April 1, 1852) the adventurer and performer Calamity Jane is born near Princeton, Missouri.

The myths and fabrications concerning the life of Calamity Jane are so numerous it is difficult to discover her true story. Legend has it that at various times Jane worked as a dishwasher at Fort Bridger, a laborer on the Union Pacific, a scout for General Custer, and a teamster. Some claim that Jane’s parents died when she was only eight years old and the event led to her nickname “Calamity,” but serious historians have never found any solid evidence for any of these legends.

What reliable records do exist indicate that she was born Martha Jane Canary and spent the first 13 years of her life in rural Missouri. In 1865, she and her family moved west to the booming gold rush town of Virginia City, Montana. There she grew into a tall and powerfully built young woman who liked to wear men’s clothing and spend her time in the company of men. Like many young frontier women, Jane learned to ride and shoot at an early age, and she apparently bridled at the narrow limits placed on women in her era.

By the early 1870s, Jane appears to have been out on her own. She was able to find occasional work in Virginia City as a laundress, one of the few occupations that were open to women at the time. In 1875, she joined a scientific expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota, probably working as a laundress and camp follower rather than the teamster of legend. Still, Jane’s participation in the expedition put her in the Black Hills during the height of the subsequent gold rush to the region from 1876 to 1880. She eventually settled in the rugged boomtown of Deadwood, South Dakota.

Given to hard drinking and carousing, she attracted public attention with stunts like riding a bull down the main street of Rapid City. By the 1890s, many Americans were already fascinated with the rapidly fading days of the Wild West, and a wild woman like Jane was extremely interesting. Jane catered to this fascination with boasts of her supposed exploits, claiming to have been a uniformed army scout for General Custer, for example, though there was no evidence this was true. Ultimately, Jane was a performer, providing the public with the appropriately grand and mythic image of the West.

By 1896, Jane’s hard living had begun to take a toll, and she was suffering from the debilitating effects of severe alcoholism. Nonetheless, she accepted an offer to appear on the stage in Minneapolis in her self-created persona of Calamity Jane. In 1901, she was even invited to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Wherever she went, Jane brought along copies of her hopelessly inaccurate autobiography, which she sold to credulous fans for a few pennies.

One of the most persistent legends has been that Jane was married to the famous gunslinger and lawman Wild Bill Hickok, and that she may have given birth to his child. Yet again, biographers have been unable to establish any connection between Jane and Hickok. There is some evidence Jane may have given birth to a daughter, but if the child existed at all, its paternity was uncertain. Mostly likely, Jane simply fabricated the affair with Hickok, although she eventually may have come to believe that this-and other stories about her life–were actually true.

Two years before she died, she seems to have finally have tired of living the self-created persona of Calamity Jane. Found sick and drunk in an African-American bordello in Horr, Montana, she grumbled an uncharacteristic wish that the world would “leave me alone and let me go to hell my own route.” She died at the age of 51 on August 1, 1903, in Terry, South Dakota.

Like many well known folks the fame and all that goes with it finally caught up to her and wore her down. That's a shame really, but it happens to many in the public eye more often than not...even today.

Coffee out on the patio this morning.

General Lee's Chicken...!

For this episode of Western Wednesday, let's talk about battlefield pets.

General Lee had a pet chicken, believe it or not. How he came by the hen is an interesting story in and of itself. Apparently Lee was very fond of his chicken, though, and until the hen made the ultimate sacrifice Lee treated it well.

General Lee’s chicken.

In 1862, a Virginia farmer gave Robert E. Lee a flock of chickens. Confederate General John Bell Hood’s men ate all of them—except for one, who had survived by making her roost in a tree overhanging Lee’s tent. Lee took a liking to the chicken. He named her “Nellie” and raised the flap of his tent so she could come and go as she pleased. She began laying eggs nearly every day under the general’s cot. On the eve of the Battle of the Wilderness, Lee invited a group of generals to dine with him, but his slave cook, William Mack Lee, couldn’t find sufficient food to make a meal. Although he “hated to lose her,” the cook said he “picked her good, and stuffed her with bread stuffing, mixed with butter.” He said it was the only time in four years that Lee scolded him. “It made Marse Robert awful sad to think of anything being killed,” he said, “whether ’twas one of his soldiers or his little black hen.”

Sad that the pet chicken made it's way into the cook pot, but like they say...War is Hell!

Coffee out on the patio again this morning, where the temps are going back up into the 80s.

Another Woman Of The Wild West...!

It has become obvious over the years that women played quite an important part in the history of the wild west.

Some were very contained and some were more flamboyant...but as always the ladies played an important part of our early history.

Lillian Smith

Lillian Smith was the only woman with the potential to eclipse Annie Oakley, but instead she's an often forgotten figure from the Wild West. Smith gained popularity after she joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show at age 15. Like Oakley, she was an incredible shot — but she favored the rifle, instead of Oakley's preferred shotgun. Because of her young age, colorful clothes, and penchant for swearing, Smith was substantially younger than Oakley, and the two were rivals. But while touring in London, Smith shot so badly that she was ridiculed. Soon after, her career ended.

I find it interesting that not many of these strong willed women are mentioned in the history books or in the classes taught today. That is a shame, if you ask me.

Coffee out on the patio again this morning.

Pearl Hart For Western Wednesday...!

In keeping with stories about women in the Wild West, here is another story about one of them. I don't remember if I did a post about her before or not, but here is another look just the same.

Pearl Hart

Born in Lindsay, Canada in 1871, Hart attended an exclusive school. However, she enjoyed adventuring more than school work. At age seventeen, Pearl eloped to Chicago with gambler, Frederick Hart. But, Frederick was abusive and Hart left him at age Twenty-two. She made her way to Arizona where she met miner, Joe Boot. When Boot couldn’t make enough dough from mining, the lovers turned to robbery. They developed a routine where Hart would lure a man into her room, and, once through the door, Boot would whack the unsuspecting gentleman on the head and rob him. However, this play was risky and the couple were almost caught on several occasions. In 1899, Hart developed a plan to rob a stagecoach. More money, less risk.

Hart cut her hair and dressed as a man. Boot held up the driver, while Hart took over $400 from the passengers. After giving a little back to ensure the victims had enough money for food and a hotel, Hart and Boot rode gallantly away into the sunset, only to get lost in the desert. After several days of wandering, they desperately needed sleep, but when they woke the sheriff and his posse had found them. They were caught a mere three miles from the scene of the crime. It was while she was being tried for her crimes that Hart is famous for saying this feminist phrase, "I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making." Unfortunately, the judge didn't care and Hart was tried and convicted anyway.

Being the second woman to rob a stage coach and the first one not to die while doing it, Hart instantly became the most famous woman in Arizona. Journalists came from all over to interview Hart and photograph her with her gun. Hart received a pardon after 18 months. The official reason was that the penitentiary did not have accommodations for women, although rumor had it that Hart was pregnant and the judge didn't want to have to explain how that happened. Hart later had a brief stint in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, but lived the rest of her life low key.

Here is one more woman I don't want to get on the bad side with. Sounds like a tough ol' gal to me.

Coffee outside on the patio, but it might start raining...so be prepared.

Jonathan Davis On Western Wednesday...!

Here is a story of a man that faced what would seem to be impossible odds and came out the winner. That didn't happen often in a gunfight, but this was not an ordinary man.

Davis–Sydney Ducks Shoot-Out

If there is one man you definitely don’t want to face in a gunfight, it’s Captain Jonathan R. Davis. On December 19, 1854, he single-handedly took on a dangerous gang of robbers and killed 11 of them.

Davis was a former army captain turned prospector. On the day in question, he was working with his two partners when they were ambushed by a band of outlaws. Almost half of the men were “Sydney Ducks,” criminal immigrants from Australia. The rest were Mexicans, Americans, Brits, and even a Frenchman, 13 in total. They were thought to be responsible for 10 murders just in the few days prior.

They charged the three prospectors, guns blazing. Davis’s partners were gunned down immediately. One died on the spot, and the other would succumb to his wounds days later. Davis had time to pull out his revolvers and start firing. By the time he ran out of bullets, seven outlaws were on the ground. Four of the survivors decided to approach Davis with blades—three with Bowie knives and one with a sword. Unfortunately for them, Davis had his own knife and was quite adept at using it. He took turns disarming and stabbing each one of his assailants, even cutting the nose off one of them.

The remaining robbers, finally realizing they had no chance, made a run for it. Seven of their comrades lay dead at Davis’s feet, and four more later died of their injuries.

I'd say that this man was one genuine bad-ass! I found this story over on Listverse with other stories of famous gunfights of the Old West.

Coffee out on the patio again this morning!

Mad Anne On Western Wednesday...!

There were many memorable women in the old west. Some were housewives, some were robbers and thieves, and the some were like "Mad Anne" Bailey.

Anne made quite a name for herself by her actions, working as a scout and messenger. Here is part of her story!

‘MAD’ ANNE BAILEY: Frontier Scout and Messenger

A statue of 'Mad Anne' Bailey along the Ohio River. (Credit: Nicole Beckett/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Anne Hennis Trotter Bailey, known as “Mad Anne,” worked as a frontier scout and messenger during the Revolutionary War. Originally from Liverpool, England, Anne sailed to America at the age of 19, after both her parents died. She eventually married a veteran frontiersman and soldier named Richard Trotter and settled in Staunton, Virginia.

Richard, who joined the Virginia militia as tensions between frontiersmen and Native Americans grew, was killed in the Battle of Point Pleasant, West Virginia in late 1774. After learning of her husband’s death, Mad Anne showed her mettle: She dressed in buckskin pants and a petticoat, left her son with neighbors—and sought revenge.

With rifle, hunting knife and tomahawk in hand, Anne became a scout and messenger recruiting volunteers to join the militia and sometimes delivering gunpowder to the soldiers. She couriered messages between Point Pleasant and Lewisburg, West Virginia—a 160-mile journey on horseback.

Her most famous ride took place in 1791. After soldiers at Fort Lee got word that the Native Americans were planning to attack, and discovered that their gunpowder supply was desperately low, Anne galloped to the rescue. She rode the 100 miles to Lewisburg, where she switched horses, loaded up with gunpowder and rode back to Fort Lee. Her journey was memorialized in an epic poem by militiaman Charles Robb, “Anne Bailey’s Ride.”

Anne remarried to John Bailey, a member of the Rangers, a legendary group of frontier scouts, in 1785. As the group worked to defend new settlements from Native American attacks, Mad Anne once again used her skills as a scout and courier. After her second husband’s death, she spent the rest of her days living a solitary life in the woods.

This was probably one of those women you didn't want to mess with.

Coffee outside again. Looks and feels like Spring.

Lottie Deno On Western Wednesday...!

One more notable woman from the wild west was a lady called Lottie Deno. Another tough ol' gal from I could gather.

Not as well known as Belle Star or Annie Oakley, or any other of the famous names we might be familiar with, this woman deserves some mention, in my opinion.

THE GAMBLER

Lottie Deno went by the names Carlotta J. Thompkins, Charlotte Tompkins, Charlotte Thurmond, Mystic Maud, "the Angel of San Antonio," and "Queen of the Pasteboards" at different times in her life. She came by her gambling skills honestly, learning them from her plantation-owner father. After he was killed in the Civil War, young Lottie went to Detroit, where she fell in with Johnny Golden. Golden convinced her to become an itinerant gambler, which led her to San Antonio, Texas, in 1865. That's where Lottie fell for Frank Thurmond, whose family owned the gambling parlor in which she worked.

When Frank went on the lam over another man's death, Lottie followed, leaving Johnny behind. But Johnny followed Lottie as well, and was killed only a day after finding her in Fort Griffin, Texas. Lottie made a reputation for herself as a gambler all over Texas, even playing against professional gambler Doc Holliday. One night, when she was accused of cheating, someone said she should call herself "Lotta Dinero," after which she was known as Lottie Deno. Lottie and Thurmond traveled the Texas circuit, but eventually opened their own gambling room in Kingston, New Mexico, and later a restaurant in Silver City, New Mexico. She and Thurmond were finally married in 1880 and settled in Deming, New Mexico, where Thurmond later became vice president of the town's bank. Lottie gave up gambling and became an upstanding citizen and a founding member of the local Episcopal Church for the next 50 years. Lottie Deno is said to have been the inspiration for the character of Miss Kitty on the TV show Gunsmoke.

I don't think that many women were well known as gamblers back in those days. I could be wrong, though.

Coffee out on the patio where the temps are supposed to be Spring like.