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For those of you who have read my articles in this newsletter before, you may recall that my father (Jon) and I are avid re-enactors / living historians of the American Civil War and Plains Indian War time periods, as well as students of the entire Plains Indian Wars time period in general ourselves. As the re-enactment season winds down for this year, dad and I decided a while back to take a trip with one of our open weekends to visit a part of “Custerlore” that we had not had the opportunity to see yet in our travels. Leaving our wives and families at home and selecting one of the few open weekends we had, we started out this past weekend and headed south to Kansas City, which was to be our campaign headquarters. After traveling the 6 hour trip from our homes in North Central Iowa, we arrived late on Friday at our hotel (no A-frame tents and cooking over the fire for us THIS weekend!). Saturday we woke early and continued our traveling for another good hour until we reached the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Here we were to visit an American icon, the horse that is said to be the lone survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Captain Myles Keogh’s mount Comanche! After being horribly wounded at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Comanche was nursed back to health and lived a good many years as a mascot for the 7th Cavalry until his death in 1891. Upon his death, a professor at the University of Kansas’ Museum of Natural History agreed to preserve Comanche for $400 and the right to display the horse at an upcoming exposition in Chicago. Later, due to the horse’s infamy, Professor Dyche agreed to keep Comanche in lieu of payment. Comanche still stands in the museum today for everyone to view. Dad and I spent about an hour photographing this icon from every angle possible (though the glass case he is in and darkly lit room made it quite difficult to produce a high quality remembrance of him). As we took one last look at Comanche and wondered what exactly those eyes had seen that fateful day, we decided to head on to the main destination of the day, Fort Riley. Fort Riley was established in 1853 originally to protect travelers on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. In 1866 the 7th Cavalry was formed there under the leadership of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. Having never been to an active military fort like this before (but a prominent visitor of dozens of forts such as Fort Rice and Fort Custer, many of which have nothing but a lone marker to be remembered by) I was shocked at what visiting this site would entail! Before we even entered the base we were kindly asked to present photo IDs and proof of car insurance and registration (which they check very carefully). We then were asked to exit the vehicle and open all the doors, trunk and hood for inspection. Once we did this and were situated again we entered the historic icon, soon finding out that this was not simply a place with a few roads and buildings, but instead a thriving metropolis with all of the comforts and amenities of a small city! The sheer mass of the fort was shocking to both Dad and I as we attempted to read our detailed map of the grounds unproductively. Our goal for the day was to see the national cemetery and visit the 7th Cavalry Soldiers’ graves there, see the U.S. Cavalry Museum, walk through the Custer House, view as much of the National Cavalry Competition which was taking place over the weekend there as possible and finally visit the U.S. Cavalry Association’s Cavalry Library in hopes of further researching my alter ego’s (1st Lt. Donald McIntosh) life. As Fort Riley’s annual open house also happened to be this same weekend, there was a plethora of activity on the site, both military and not. This was definitely the weekend to be there! Without going into detail (I’ll let the photos speak for themselves) the Cavalry Museum was far more than I had expected actually, and I had already heard great things about it. It is simply the ultimate for any fan of the cavalry in general, regardless of the time period. The Custer House was interesting as well, much like that at Ft. Lincoln, but on a much smaller scale. This was a self guided walk through attraction with a staff person nearby to answer questions if necessary. Dad and I only got to view the final event of the National Cavalry Competition, which was extremely well attended. I had always heard of the National Cavalry Competition in the “re-enactment world” and I assumed there would be hundreds of competitors with an equal amount of period encampments set up. This was not the case at all. Perhaps as the event was winding down there was much less to see by the time I got there, but all I saw was 12 mounted persons competing and 2-3 tents near the museum. Again, I don’t mean to paint a poor picture of this national event, but had I come to Fort Riley simply to see or take part in the little I saw, I would have been disappointed. Of equal disappointment and yet enlightenment in another sense was the U.S. Cavalry Association’s Cavalry Library. I went there in hopes of finding a thriving research center where I could possibly look up military records on microfilm, etc. This was not the case, very few people were there and those that were there were preparing for the association’s banquet that night and not in the position to help out the one or two visitors there. Though I was disappointed that there were no military records as such, I was delighted (though did not have time to enjoy) to find that the library contained hundreds if not thousands of books, magazines and articles on every aspect of the cavalry. These were card cataloged by author from what I could tell and thus did not help me in my quest for a certain subject in my limited time frame, that being finding research on Donald McIntosh. In short, my impression of the library was amazing, but for a reason other than what I had hoped for. The final event for the day involved visiting the Fort Riley National Cemetery. After another long drive around the base in search of the cemetery we finally found it. Appropriately, the cemetery was a quite different atmosphere than the hustling and bustling crowds we found earlier at the base, in fact only one other car drove though the entire hour we were there. Our only company at that quiet, remote locale was the softly blowing wind and the occasional clinking of the flag’s metal fasteners on the pole as it waved patriotically in quiet reverence. After consulting our copy of “Men with Custer” and the cemetery’s map we were able to find the gravesites of 2 of the 3 members of the 7th Cavalry from 1876: Gustave Korn (Comanche’s keeper after the Little Big Horn until Korn’s death at Wounded Knee, and George Loyd). Richard Corwine, who also died at Wounded Knee, eluded our detection however. I guess this gives us a reason to go back to Fort Riley again in the future! For now however, our day was done and Dad and I headed back to our hotel, having felt we accomplished a great deal (and without having to wear blue wool even!) and ready for another great day on Sunday. Sunday came quite early and Dad and I headed for our main stop of the day, Fort Leavenworth. Fort Leavenworth is the oldest U.S. Army fort in continuous existence west of the Mississippi and was established in 1827 as a frontier post to protect trade on the Santa Fe Trail. During the early Indian Wars, it was one of a number of Kansas forts that were manned by various 7th Cavalry companies. Upon our arrival at the fort, the immense size of the establishment amazed us right away once again. If you didn’t know better from the checkpoints in and out of the base, you would think you were simply in a large town instead of a military base. After visiting a number of monuments including ones dedicated to General (President) Grant and an awe inspiring “goliath of a monument” to the Buffalo Soldiers, we headed to our main goal of the day: the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. Unfortunately since it was Sunday, the Frontier Army Museum was closed (another reason to come back to this fort again as well!). We were initially quite shocked to find out that the cemetery was laid out over dozens of acres, 90% of which had identically shaped tombstones. Our fears of never finding any of the persons we were there to see quickly disappeared however when we found on site a detailed book that told of each and every person’s location in the cemetery. Because of this we were able to practically drive right up to each section we needed and get out and locate each gravesite. Of utmost importance to see were the gravesite’s of the following officers who died at the Battle of the Little Big Horn: James Calhoun, Tom Custer, George Yates and Algernon Smith (all of which played major parts in the battle and prior campaign). These four valiant men are all buried side by side and are fairly easy to find. In addition to them, other veterans of the 1876 7th Cavalry can also be found at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery: Thomas Finnegan and 1st Lt. Henry Jackson (whose graves we personally could not locate) and also Roman Rutten and George Wylie. All in all Dad and I had quite the interesting weekend exploring some different facets of the 7th Cavalry’s history that we had not had the opportunity to do before. From Fort Leavenworth we had two more stops to make before heading home; the birthplace of Jesse James and his gravesite in Kearney, Missouri, both not far from where we were and on our way home. However, that is another story for another day and another audience… |
| Jason E. Heitland's Article Published in the Frontier Army of the Dakota's Newsletter! |
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| The Beginning and the End…
(Tracking the Origin of the 7th Cavalry and the Final Resting Places of its Troopers) by Jason E. Heitland |
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