Bat Masterson

Born in Eastern Canada in 1863 (smack in the middle of the American Civil War timeframe), Bartholomew Masterson, aka William Barclay Masterson, aka "Bat" Masterson grew up with his family moving from Quebec to New York to Illinois before finally settling on a farm in the Wichita, Kansas area.  Both of his parents were Irish.

I remember the TV show, "Bat Masterson," starring Gene Barry.  Barry portrayed Masterson as a right-honorable high-class gambler dude, but the real "Bat" started out with his brothers as a buffalo hunter at the age of 20-ish.

By 1874, Bat had (without his brothers) moseyed down into the Texas panhandle and found himself caught up in the Red River Wars.  Along with about 25 other buffalo hunters, he fought in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls defending the town from Comanches.  (The first battle at Adobe Walls was fought by Kit Carson and 335 soldiers and 70 Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts from New Mexico against 1,000 Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apache.)  The Second battle started on June 27, 1874.

William "Billy" Dixon later recalled, "There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight. In after years I was glad that I had seen it. Hundreds of warriors, the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern Plains tribes, mounted upon their finest horses, armed with guns and lances, and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide, were coming like the wind. Over all was splashed the rich colors of red, vermillion and ochre, on the bodies of the men, on the bodies of the running horses. Scalps dangled from bridles, gorgeous war-bonnets fluttered their plumes, bright feathers dangled from the tails and manes of the horses, and the bronzed, halfnaked bodies of the riders glittered with ornaments of silver and brass. Behind this headlong charging host stretched the Plains, on whose horizon the rising sun was lifting its morning fires. The warriors seemed to emerge from this glowing background." (Dixon, O., Life and Adventures of "Billy" Dixon, 1914, Guthrie: Co-operative Publishing Company

Once the appreciation of the stupendous sight had registered, the men got down to the business of warring.  Less than 30 white men and 1 woman defended the sod-hut settlement of Adobe Walls against an unknown (but estimated from 300 - 1,000) Indian force led by none other than Quanah Parker.  The white men were spread out in three structures:  Bat and Billy were in Hanrahan's Saloon along with seven others, eleven were in Myer's and Leonard's Store, and seven in Rath & Wright's.  The next day a few more men made it to Adobe Walls.

Amazingly, as if 30 to 1,000 odds weren't bad enough, on the second day of the battle, one guy rode off to Dodge City, Kansas 250 miles away for help, and two others went to sound the alarm at other buffalo hunter camps and settlements in the area.  Some of the remaining men darted out and dragged the dead livestock as far away as possible from the dwellings so the besieged didn't have to smell their rotting flesh.

On the third day, a group of Indians went to high ground to check out the attack options.  One of the buffalo hunters suggested Billy Dixon use Hanharan's Sharps .50 caliber rifle to try and pick off one of the group.  The shot had to be at least a mile away.  Billy later said, "I was admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what might be called a 'scratch' shot."  I mean, it wasn't like today's snipers who have their own rifles, have practiced and set the sights, had a spotter to help with wind estimates and distance... At the age of 24, using a borrowed rifle, Billy Dixon, at the distance of one mile (+/-), drops that Indian right off his horse!  Boom!  That was the deciding factor for the Indians.  They packed up their stuff and faded back into the Texas scrub.

In a few days, Masterson, Dixon and Hanharan lit out for Dodge City to get someone to go over to Adobe Walls and bring the woman back along with some of the menfolk.  By August, Masterson and Dixon had led the cavalry back to Adobe Walls where there were still a dozen men forted up.  They joined up with the cavalry and headed south to link up with the main command. Masterson continued as an Army scout during the Plains Indians War.

In 1876 in Sweetwater, Texas, Masterson got crosswise with a soldier (a saloon girl was the reason) and when the dust and smoke settled, the girl was dead, the soldier was dead, and Masterson was seriously wounded.   It was self-defense on Masterson's part, but the episode was enough to make him into a believer that the right side of the law was a better path to walk - so he became a Dodge City sheriff.  His main hangout was the Long Branch Saloon.  After five years of that he became a gambler and drifter for awhile, finally settling into Tombstone with his friend, Wyatt Earp.

Masterson's last gun battle was fought on behalf of his brother.  He heard Jim was in some trouble back in Dodge, hopped a train, stepped down in Dodge, found the men that were givin' Jim grief, called 'em out, announced his intentions, and the gunplay started.  One of the men was shot through the lung and a by-stander wounded by a ricochet, but that's about the size of it.  The sheriff said Bat acted legally (by Dodge City standards in 1882), had him pay a $8 fine, and by sundown Bat was back on the train to Tombstone. From then on his reputation pretty much preceded him, and no others were inclined to pick a fight with him.

A little more traveling and few more stints at sheriff brings Bat to New York City.  There his interest in sports (men never change) leads him into being a sports writer (of all things!)  From 1883 until his death in 1921, Bat Masterson lived and worked there.  Eventually he worked his way up to vice president of the New York Morning Telegraph.

Masterson dropped dead of a heart attack sitting at his desk typing his final column.  Amazing!  From buffalo hunter to typist!  He's buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.

(Just an aside, Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles in 1929, the year of the big stock market crash that ended the Roaring Twenties.)

If you like our blog, you can "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!  On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

Men vs. Women in the 1800's

While the men were out in the streets fighting their battles - this is a drawing of the gunfight at the OK Corral - the women were at home fighting battles of their own.  I'm not certain which had the better deal.

Ladies, this is an original steam iron.  Now picture this in your mind:  she has a wood-burning kitchen stove - so it's hot ALL the time, radiating heat ALL the time.  She fills the reservoir with hot water from the tea kettle that's always on the stove, places the iron on the stove top to get it hot.  She sets her ironing board within arms reach of the hot stove and proceeds to tackle that basket of laundry, one piece at a time.  How long she stood there, between the hot stove and the ironing board, in her floor length dress buttoned up to the neck for modesty, long sleeves, and petticoats, swinging that five pounds of steaming hot iron back and forth is anyone's guess, but I think I'd rather be facing down the Clantons at the OK corral!

If you like our blog, you can "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!  On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

 

Fort Huachuca, Arizona

Fort Huachuca - To Tame the Territory

This is a report today, November 20, 2013, on KVOA News out of Tucson, Arizona.  Fort Huachuca is home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM)/9th Army Signal Command and is in, along with Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona. The Fort originated in 1877 as one in a series of posts established by the U.S. Army to act as a base of operation in the conflict with Apaches - specifically Geronimo's band.  Fort Huachuca was also the headquarters of the famed 10th Cavalry, the "Buffalo Soldiers," one of the Army's elite black cavalry corps. Huachuca has grown from the 110 acres back then to over 70,000 acres today with the old original Fort buildings as museums.
 
I'm enormously interested in history - and I believe we are living in a time of great importance to the history of America. We are living history right this very minute: 


TUCSON - How secure are U.S. military installations? You would think the answer is: very.
But, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncovered, one installation, right here in southern Arizona, continues to face potential outside security risks, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Fort Huachuca is only 15 miles north of our state's border with Mexico.  The Army post covers more than 73,000 acres. In many parts, the terrain is steep and rugged.

Much of the work that goes on at Fort Huachuca is classified but, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators learned, keeping people who don't belong there out, proves to be a difficult mission.

Fort Huachuca is home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command. It's also the site of hundreds of apprehensions of illegal immigrants each year.

Dave Stoddard, a former U.S. Border Patrol supervisor tells the News 4 Tucson Investigators, "I think the average American should be petrified."

Stoddard knows the area well. He grew up in Cochise county, served in the U.S. Army, and has even testified before Congress about illegal immigration.

"That smuggling operation going through there is very, very sophisticated. They've been getting by with it for years. They know the formula. They know the routine," Stoddard says.

The News 4 Tucson Investigators have learned that in fiscal year 2013, there were 331 undocumented immigrants apprehended on Fort Huachuca. In fiscal year 2012, that number was 112. There were 96 undocumented immigrants captured on-post in fiscal 2011.

Stoddard tells the News 4 Tucson Investigators, Fort Huachuca's location in the Huachuca mountains makes it an attractive illegal entry point for border-crossers.

"Once they get into the Huachucas, there is a very worn and established trail though there," Stoddard says.

Stoddard says the problems of illegal immigrants slipping onto the post isn't a new one.

"The military chooses to close its eyes and ignore it," Stoddard says.

In fact, officials at Fort Huachuca refused the News 4 Tucson Investigator's request for an on-camera interview on the issue, saying "apprehending undocumented immigrants is a Department of Homeland Security mission and not a D.o.D. one."

Stoddard says he worries about the possibility that weapons could also be coming across the border, and through Fort Huachuca.

"When you look at the photographs of these aliens coming through the border, and some coming through Fort Huachuca, with backpacks weighing 30 to 50 pounds, who knows what's in there really?" Stoddard says.

For his part, Stoddard tells the News 4 Tucson Investigators, he believes the solution is simple.
"Our immigration laws work, they're just not enforced, and therein is the problem," Stoddard says.
The News 4 Tucson Investigators also asked Representative Ron Barber about the problem of undocumented immigrants on Fort Huachuca.

"I feel very strongly that the fort has good security, and the numbers are not huge, when you consider the large number of people that are apprehended across the border. But, anytime we have an incursion we have to be concerned about it," Barber says.

Barber holds a key leadership position on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"I've been there many many times, and I know that nobody's going to get near any of those secure buildings or assets. The military is well equipped to protect them, and I know they do," Barber says.
If you have something you would like us to investigate, email the News 4 Tucson Investigators at investigators@kvoa.com, or call our tipline at (520) 955-4444.

If you like our blog, you can "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!  On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

 

Cochise and The Pony Express

Since I was a little girl watching "Broken Arrow" on TV, I've  been fascinated by the relationship between Cochise and Tom Jeffers.  (I suppose you know by now that I'm fascinated with history in general...)  I also love information about the Pony Express. ( http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-pony-express-and-split-rock-wyoming.html )

Well, these two interests come together with the story of Cochise and Tom Jeffers. 

Thomas Jonathan Jeffers was born in Chautauqua County, New York on New Year's Day, 1832.  In 1862, he came west to be a scout for the Army.  This was right after Cochise had been accused of kidnapping that 10 year old boy.  Then Jeffers won the contract for carrying mail across Apache lands to California - a contract that later evolved into a portion of the Pony Express route.

Jeffers found that keeping his riders alive in their run across Apache territory was, to say the least, not an easy thing.  Accepting personal responsibility for their deaths, Jeffers boldly rode, all by his boy lonesome, into Cochise's camp for a pow-wow.  He so impressed the Indians with this bold move and their perception of his honesty and trustworthiness that the meeting resulted in Cochise granting Jeffer's riders safe passage.  Thus began probably the closest relationship between an Indian and a white man to exist in America.  They are said to have sealed that relationship by becoming "blood brothers," cutting each of their thumbs and pressing the cuts together in order to mingle their blood, and professing eternal loyalty to each other.

It was this relationship that ultimately gave peace to the Arizona Territory.  In 1871, when President Grant sent General Oliver Howard out to work out a treaty, Howard tapped Jeffers as his go-between.  Jeffers knew Howard was the kind of man Cochise would respect and after laying the proper groundwork, Jeffers took Howard to Cochise's camp.  When Howard and Jeffers agreed to Cochise's requirements - that his people be allowed to remain in the Chiricahua Mountains and that Jeffords be made Indian agent for the region - the treaty was signed.  

A year or so later, Cochise died, Jeffers was removed as Agent because the miners wanted onto Apache lands for gold and silver mining, and the Apache were forced to relocate to the San Carlos Reservation.

Jeffers did a stint as a stagecoach driver and later as a deputy sheriff of Tombstone.  The final two decades of his life were spent prospecting from his homestead near the Owlhead Buttes in the Tortolita Mountain north of Tucson.   He lived into his 80's, dying on February 21, 1914, and is buried in Tucson's Evergreen Cemetery.

If you like our blog, you can "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!  On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!