Journal Notes

The Elizabeth Custer book Howard Kazanjian and I wrote entitled None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead will be in bookstores everywhere in May. In preparation for the release of this title I am going to chronicle what George and Elizabeth Custer were doing at this time in 1864. Fortunately, Elizabeth kept a journal and the letters George wrote survived the years, so keeping track of what they were doing some 147 years ago is easy to find out. The two were married on February 9, 1864. Elizabeth’s father wasn’t sure at first that George was the perfect man for his daughter, but as time went on he grew to appreciate the brash, young Civil War hero. Judge Bacon, Elizabeth’s father, wrote a friend about the ceremony and how he was dealing with losing his only child. “On Tuesday evening Libbie was married. All went off remarkably well, and no mistake made. It was said to be the most splendid wedding ever seen in the State. From one to two hundred more in the church than ever before and as many unable to enter for want of room. The number at our house afterwards estimated at three-hundred. I did not act the babe as I had feared I might at parting, for I had schooled myself beforehand. None of us slept that first night, fearing burglars, by yesterday I placed the silver in the Bank, and we went to bed at seven to make up for lost sleep. My wife looks well. Everybody said the house and fixings were all right, and the entertainment elegant.” Judge Bacon and his wife gave the newlyweds a Bible as a wedding gift. I believe that Bible is on display at the museum in Elizabeth’s home town of Monroe, Michigan. Elizabeth had two nieces that she was particular fond of and who helped take care of her in her old age. She was quite proud of them. Reading about their dedication to her made me think of my own nieces and how special they are to me. My niece Melissa suggested I write about the five of them instead of focusing on the sadness and loss in life. I think she’s right. It doesn’t seem possible that my nieces Melissa, Naomi, and Amanda could have children of their own now. My twin nieces, Taylor and Jordan are now Juniors in high school. I am proud of all of them and love them deeply. Elizabeth bragged that her nieces were “extraordinary women who far and away exceeded her dreams for them.” I look forward to saying the same about my girls.

It wasn’t until I began working on the book about Elizabeth Custer that I knew how much she and George wanted a child. Elizabeth often wrote her husband about her desire to have a son or daughter. She reproached herself for not being able to get pregnant. George was sweet and reassured her that in time, they would be parents, but it never happened. As years past they grew to think that it was a blessing they couldn’t have children. The discomforts associated with childbirth and raising a baby in army life in the 1800s, and the many separations they endured helped to convince Elizabeth it was for the best. The couple was married for more than 12 years before George was killed at the Little Bighorn and although they were devoted to one another, I can’t help but wonder if their marriage might have been stronger if they’d been able to have a child. George had a bit of a roving eye – who knows if having an heir might have made him see things differently. Times were different in the Old West, but the desire to have a child at one time or another hasn’t seemed to dissipate as the centuries have rolled on. People long for a sense of family. I lost a child years ago and could never have any again after that. I always wonder how that would have changed my life and how it would have changed my ex-husband’s life if he had known. It doesn’t necessarily follow that your child will love you or be devoted to you I don’t suppose. I’ve seen enough of that in my lifetime to know that’s true. I never imagined children would make false accusation that would send a good man to his death. However, it happens all the time and recent news stories bear that out. It doesn’t stand to reason that those children will be quality individuals at all and not manipulate relatives with proclamations of “I love you and care about you” then announce “they are done trying to have a relationship with you.”  Given all the horrible things, those children have done how could I have believed that anyway?  (By the way, one of those grown children check this website daily).  It doesn’t necessarily mean that people who have children are going to love their child either. My biological father left when I was seven and never looked back. He had a roving eye too and like George Custer, rumors that he had children with women other then his wife continue to swirl about. George’s nieces helped to take care of her in her old age. They were a great comfort to her and she remembered their faithfulness in her will. No matter how she reasoned the desire away, I believe Elizabeth would have preferred to have her own children around her. A physical presence to remind her of the love her and George shared. She spent a lifetime defending his reputation. It would have been nice to look on the faces of their offspring and see George in their eyes. I think that would have made her immensely happy.

The Yuma Territorial Prison was a brutal place for criminals to be sent. The first seven inmates entered the Territorial prison at Yuma, Arizona on July 1, 1876. They were locked into cells that they had constructed with their own hands. In the coming 33 years, a total of 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, lived in the prison. Their crimes ranged from murder to polygamy, with grand larceny being the most common. During that time, 111 of the prisoners died, mostly from tuberculosis, but even so, the stories indicate that some of them never left this place, even in death. Prison officials considered the punishments they imposed on the prisoners to be very humane for the time and mostly consisted of the “dark cell”, a place of isolation for the rule breakers, and a ball and chain for those who tried to escape. By 1907, the prison was severely overcrowded. The convicts constructed a new facility in Florence and the last of them were transferred away from Yuma by September 1909. Because of the situation with my brother, I’ve been a frequent visitor of prisons around the United States. The federal facility in Beaumont, Texas was only slightly worse than the prison in Leavenworth, Kansas and both places are worse than any Old West prison I’ve researched and that includes the Yuma Territorial Prison. It has been seven years now and I still cannot come to terms with what has happened to Rick. Over the last two years, I’ve prayed that I would die rather than endure anymore of the heartache. Nevertheless, here I am. I work nonstop on a series of western books and have found at times it’s the only thing that keeps me going. Today I’ll focus again on the book about Sam Sixkiller and outlaw Jack Powers. Justice comes a lot more swiftly to the people I write about than it does to the bad in real life.

With rare exception (Bill Tilghman, Nellie Cashman, Sam Sixkiller), writing about outlaws is much more interesting to me than writing about the good guys. Perhaps it’s because finding a truly good guy to write about is a bit more difficult. At the beginning of his career in law enforcement, Sheriff Henry Plummer struck people as being a good guy, but he quickly dispelled that notion. In January 1864, a gang of holdup men and murderers known as ‘road agents,’ led by Sheriff Plummer, were preying on traveling miners who had found gold near Bannack and Virginia City, in eastern Idaho Territory. A Committee of Vigilance was quickly formed in haste and the gang was destroyed, as more than two dozen outlaws were hanged in accordance with ‘hemp justice.’ It seems to me that catching up with the true bad guy was much more simpler back then and dealing with them much more swift. Now of days the worst of the bad guys hide behind a computer screen. The internet has spawn so many cowards. I think about the cowards that posted threats on my website a few years back, leaving behind false names. A sophisticated tracking device led authorities to the coward, but the point is the threats were still made and left by a coward with a false name for all the world to see. They sit out there in the dark writing their vile emails and leave no way for the person they sent them to to respond. At least when Henry Plummer struck there was no mistake it was him. Toward the end of his career he admitted what he had done. Of course that confession came at the end of a rope, but he did confess. If the Old West teaches anything it’s that justice comes to outlaws, thugs, manipulators, cheats, and liars. It may take awhile, but justice does come. After doing an interview this morning for the Chronicle of the Old West radio program, I’ll go back to writing about a good guy who made sure criminals of all kinds were introduced to justice. Sam Sixkiller was a lawman who didn’t tolerate duplicity. How satisfying it must have been to see a coward get what was coming to him.

There have been many frauds perpetrated on face book. Not too long ago, a friend of mine in Texas had a video posted to her site and a message under the video that read, “Chris, what are you doing in this video?” If you clicked on the video, you were quickly led to a site where someone tried to sell you life insurance. My friend from Texas didn’t think anything of it at first because the initial posting was in keeping with her interests. I’m sure she received all kinds of irritated response for reasons she could not immediately understand. I had something similar to that happen yesterday. The post hacked into my site brought up no initial flares because it was a posting in keeping with my interest anyway. Anyone who has read the face book posting about supporting my brother Rick would have known that. At first, I was devastated by the response I received from an angry, self-righteous individual. I took a long look at the article associated with the post and decided it was wrongly placed on the face book page – it really belongs on this site. It is an amazing news story. Since I deleted the post on face book I can’t remember the address for the link, but the story itself was fascinating. “A young mother who falsely cried rape, sending an innocent man to prison for nearly four years, will experience firsthand what he suffered — she’ll spend one to three years behind bars for perjury. “I wish her the best of luck,” said William McCaffrey last night of Biurny Peguero Gonzalez. “Jail isn’t easy.” McCaffrey, 33, of The Bronx, was locked up after Gonzalez accused him of raping her at knifepoint on a Bronx street back in 2005. It was a lie she repeated to doctors, cops, prosecutors, a grand jury and the jury that convicted McCaffrey. Steven Hirsch THE PRICE OF DECEIT: Biurny Peguero Gonzalez gets slapped into cuffs yesterday in Manhattan court for concocting a “rape” that ruined a man’s life — all to cover herself for ditching her girlfriends. “What happened in this case is one of the worst things that can possibly happen in our criminal-justice system,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said as he pronounced sentence. McCaffrey said he has some sympathy for Gonzalez and hopes she “doesn’t go through what I went though. “I was an accused rapist in prison,” he said, adding that in prison, “rape is the worst crime possible.” All is clearly not forgiven. A person who would “lie and paint somebody as a rapist is worse than a real rapist or a real murderer,” McCaffrey said. He also blamed “the arresting officers, the prosecution.” Everyone, he said, “wanted to believe the lie, the ADA [assistant district attorney] first and foremost.” Judge Solomon said, “It’s hard to imagine why anyone could have done this.” It turned out Gonzalez robbed McCaffrey of four years of his life for the most trivial of reasons. She’d been hanging out with a group of girlfriends when she accepted an invitation to get into his car. After she returned, her pals were furious that she’d ditched them — so she made up the rape story to gain their sympathy. She will be eligible for parole in a year — after serving a one-quarter of the time her victim was imprisoned. Gonzalez was taken away after making a tearful apology to McCaffrey, who was not in court. She also begged for mercy on behalf of her two sons, ages 3 months and 7 years. “To Mr. McCaffrey, I am aware that nothing I do or say to him can bring back the years he spent in jail,” she said. “I want him to know I will carry this guilt for the rest of my life.” Given everything that’s gone on with my brother, I can see why this article would not raise any initial flags with me. I am sorry for anyone who might have been bothered by insurance sales representatives and then thought to email me to tell me “They were through trying to have a relationship with me.” Maybe what bothered them had nothing to do with the insurance angle at all. Either way, what is done is done. From what understand that’s the mantra of the person who emailed me anyway.

The “coming soon” section of this website contains the new cover for the Elizabeth Custer book along with a description of the soon-to-be released tome. The launch party for the book will be held on May 20 & 21 in Dodge City, Kansas. I am very much looking forward to returning to the area. Dodge City was listed as one of the top ten Wild West towns to visit by True West Magazine and I can tell you from personal experience it’s well worth the trip. There are many people in Dodge who help to preserve the history of the town, but no one does it better there than Brent Harris. Brent maintains historic Front Street and is the face you see in all the advertisements and billboards touting the benefits of the famous place. Hope all who read this can be at the event in May. I’ll post more details about the book and the celebration in weeks to come. And speaking of Dodge City, on this day in 1880, Mysterious Dave Mather killed Joe Castello in a street brawl in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Mather was a constable in New Mexico and had been a lawmen in Dodge City. He was a frequent associate of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. The date and circumstances of Mather’s death are not known with any certain facts. However, the most plausible account is that he was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, in 1886 and left on the tracks of a railroad. The body found matched his description, and the bondsman holding a $3,000 bond on him was released of the obligation that same year on the pretense that the client had died.  Not a great deal is known of Mather’s life. The gaps in his life and his taciturn manner may have been what earned him the sobriquet “Mysterious Dave”.

For several months, I’ve been working on a sequel to the book Outlaw Tales of California. The research I have done has led me to realize that one of the strongest human emotions is vengeance – a feeling I can all too well identify. In many instances, wanting to get back at the bad guys is what turned an ordinary western citizen into an outlaw. For example, a friend of Billy the Kid’s named George Coe swore vengeance against Sheriff Brady of Lincoln County, New Mexico, for cruel treatment at the time of his arrest upon a charge of which he was innocent. Sheriff Brady was a Murphy partisan in the Murphy-McSween feud and had just cooked up some excuse to jail Coe, who he knew was sympathetic with McSween. About this incident, Coe wrote in his memoirs, Frontier Fighter: “I groaned in agony at the thought. They took horse hobble and tied my feet together under the horse’s belly (a common method of preventing escape). At the same time, they bound Scurlock’s feet in the same manner. Then, with bed-cord, they tied my hands together after circling my arms about Scurlock’s waist. Talk about suffering! That was the most horrible three hours that anyone ever had to endure. I know, for I’ve been shot twice, had my leg broken in two places, and could say more, but that’s enough. A slow, drizzling rain had begun to fall, making the night more hideous. The cords on my wrists tightened up as they wet through, adding to my misery-if that were possible. That ride was hell!” Coe swore to get revenge upon Sheriff Brady and his cohorts because of this treatment if it was the last thing he did. This ride was the chief thing that induced Coe actually to join up with Billy the Kid and fight the Murphy-Riley-Dolan faction of the Lincoln County War. I don’t think Coe was right in killing anyone, but the desire to want to get back at someone for the bad they’ve done is overwhelming. Everyday I deal with the situation someone else created. I see my brother handcuffed and shackled and think about the people who lied to bring about this heartache. I don’t know how someone sleeps at night knowing they manufactured evidence to frame an innocent man. Like Coe, I’m fighting back against such horrors, but it’s being done legally and I won’t stop until at least one of the bad guys goes to jail. I’ve waited a long time for this. I’ve seen many bad things dealing with the prison system and I have become vengeful. As Coe wrote, “That ride was hell.”

Latin author Valerius Maximus once said, “The divine wrath is slow indeed in vengeance, but it makes up for its tardiness by the severity of the punishment” I’ve been waiting a long time…for not so much vengeance, but for my brother to be avenged. I suppose the two go hand in hand. He’s been sick for more than two years and I’ve prayed that he would go peacefully, but he’s still here. It breaks my heart everyday to know of his suffering. I guess it breaks the heart of the folks using the HCA Midwest Division computer system too. They spent a lot of time on my site last night reading the daily journal about him. Oh, how I want the bad people in this scenario to finally be exposed and get what they’ve been giving. I don’t know how Wyatt Earp hung in there so long. I’m fascinated with the year long vendetta ride he took. After the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October, 1881, and Morgan Earp’s murder on March 18, 1882, in a Tombstone, Arizona pool hall, Wyatt and Warren Earp, along with Doc Holliday, “Turkey Creek” Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters escorted the Earp family out of Tombstone to Tucson, Arizona on March 20th. There, Wyatt spied Frank Stillwell, who he suspected of having been involved in the killing of Morgan and heard, was now seeking revenge on Virgil. The next morning a very dead, bullet-ridden Frank Stillwell was found on the tracks next to the depot. This was the first death in what would become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. The entire Earp party, including Mattie, (Wyatt’s live-in girlfriend) accompanied Morgan’s body. However, in Tucson, Wyatt, Warren and Doc Holliday hopped off the train in search of Frank Stillwell, who supposedly worked in the railroad yards. The train went on to California without them. Spotting Stillwell, Wyatt chased him down the track, filling him full of bullet holes. A Coroner’s Jury named Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and two other men named “Texas Jack” Johnson and Sherman McMasters, as those men who had killed Stillwell and warrants were issued for their arrest. Earp sought vengeance on the men who shot Virgil and killed Morgan. Killing Stillwell was just his first step. Along with Doc Holliday, and others, Wyatt began what is known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. Wyatt heard that Pete Spence was at his wood camp in the Dragoons and on March 11, 1882, he and his men quickly headed out, finding not Pete Spence, but Florentino Cruz. The frightened Cruz named all the men who had murdered Morgan, himself included. Earp and his men filled Cruz with bullet holes. The Earp “posse” rode out once again and on March 24, 1882, they ran into Curly Bill Brocius and eight of his men near Iron Springs. A gunfight ensued where Curly Bill was killed and Johnny Barnes received a wound from which he eventually died. In just over a year, the Earp “posse” along with Doc Holliday eliminated “Old Man” Clanton, Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Dixie Gray, Florentino Cruz, Johnny Barnes, Jim Crane, Harry Head, Bill Leonard, Joe Hill, Luther King, Charley Snow, Billy Lang, Zwing Hunt, Billy Grounds and Hank Swilling. Pete Spence turned himself in to the authorities where he could “hide” in the penitentiary. Things are a bit more civilized now of days, but righting a series of wrongs still takes a long time. No matter how saddle sore I get, I am not stopping this ride.

One hundred and thirty years ago today, citizens in Charleston, Arizona were up in arms over the shooting death of W.P. Schneider. Schneider was the chief engineer of the Corbin Mill. He was well-liked and considered an honorable man, but not great at poker. A miner and card-shark named Michael O’Rourke ended Schneider’s life prematurely. O’Rourke had been working around the Tucson area when news of a great silver strike in the Tombstone bluffs reached the town. O’Rourke and hundreds of others headed for the silver boom in quest of fortune. There, O’Rourke labored as a miner for four dollars a day in the excavations of the Tough Nut and Lucky Cuss among others. O’Rourke began visiting the gambling halls and became a tinhorn gambler. Because of his habit of betting heavily when he held a no more than a deuce as his hole-card, he earned his everlasting pseudonym: Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. Sometime in 1880, he pulled up stakes and crossed the San Pedro River into Charleston, an untamed boom town where the day-to-day routine consisted of gambling, visiting “houses of ill fame,” fighting, swearing and drinking. The Deuce made no specific impression upon the denizens of Charleston—that is, not until Friday, January 14, 1881. That day, Quinn’s Saloon was crammed with miners and cattlemen and with soldiers from nearby Fort Huachuca, when W. P. Schneider, the chief engineer of the Corbin Mill, decided to cash in, after losing a fortune in an all night poker game. As he left the table he made a disdainful remark about the winner cheating, directing his attention to Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. One word led to another. Both men went for their pistols. When the smoke cleared, Schneider lay sprawled on the floor, blood oozing from a hole in his chest. The event would provide newspaper fodder, and it would stamp Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce as something more than a tinhorn gambler. Irate miners, most of them employees of the late Schneider, began drinking and talking about a lynching. As a result of their wheedling, a wrathful crowd, led by a man named Johnny Ringo, gathered at Quinn’s Saloon. Someone brought a rope. Men with six-shooters felt satisfied that they could overwhelm the local police force, which consisted of only one man, George McKelvey. On the other hand, McKelvey, with visions of an angry mob stringing up the hapless gambler to the nearest cottonwood, was too good a lawman to knuckle under to a bunch of drunks. He hitched up a team of mules to a springboard, loaded Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce into the vehicle, and galloped for the distant mountains of Tombstone, the mob in pursuit. Although McKelvey utilized the whip vigorously, the mob gained on him. About two miles outside Tombstone, the mob pulled into rifle range. Bullets whizzed around McKelvey and the Deuce all the way into the silver camp. By the time they reached  Jack McCann’s Last Chance Saloon, the exhausted mules collapsed. McKelvey, with the Deuce in tow, crashed through the batwing doors of the nearby Oriental Saloon, where none other than Wyatt Earp, the famed Tombstone lawman and gunman, was playing poker. McKelvey yelled that an angry lynch mob of two hundred was on his heels. “Take the prisoner to Jim Vogan’s bowling alley,” Wyatt told his two brothers, Morg and James Earp. “If they get past me, give him a gun and turn him loose.” The angry mob surged up to the Vogan’s adobe bowling alley with its high walls. Wyatt Earp, cradling a scatter gun, stepped in front of the men. They stopped in their tracks. “Drag him out!” someone yelled, anxious for the Deuce’s blood. “Don’t make any fool plays, boys,” Wyatt replied coolly. “The price you’ll have to pay won’t be worth that tinhorn inside.” “Earp can’t stop us all!” a man urged from the rear ranks. Wyatt cocked both hammers of his shotgun. The wide bores made an impression on the men in the front ranks. Two barrels of buckshot would cut quite a swath through the tightly packed mob. According to Tombstone legend, Earp turned away the maddened lynch mob while Marshal Ben Sippy, Virgil Earp and Johnny Behan loaded Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce into another springboard. There was no one quite like Wyatt Earp.

Juan Soto and outlaw known as “The Human Wildcat” hated the Americans who were slowly establishing law and order in California. He terrified settlers in the southern portion of the state during the 1870s. He got away with his crimes because few witnesses were every left alive and those that were allowed to live were too scared to say anything. But all it takes is one brave soul to stop the bad guys. On January 10, 1871, Soto and his gang planned and executed a crime they believed would demonstrate the depth of their resentment toward the determined westward settlers they referred to as “piggish gringos.” A Sunol store clerk, known throughout the tiny village in Alameda County as Otto Ludovici, tidied the shelves and swept the floor of the business after a long day’s work. The store owner’s wife, Mrs. Thomas Scott, and her three children were assisting in the routine of closing the business by refilling candy jars, folding bolts of fabric, an restacking blankets. Otto weaved past his helpers, walked over to the door and locked it. As he turned the key a large rock shattered the front window. The door suddenly flew open and Juan Soto and several of his rough associates stepped inside. Mrs. Scott gathered her terrified children close to her. Otto slowly backed away from the bandits unsure of what to do next. “I’m afraid we’re closed now,” the petrified clerk stammered. “We’ll open again in the morning. “Soto laughed a little at how frightened the man appeared. I don’t plan to buy anything, senor…today or tomorrow,” the desperado said coldly. “But take…that I will do.” Otto cast a glance at a rifle on the counter next to him, but before he could make a move Soto pulled out his six-gun and shot the clerk in the chest. The man fell to the floor in a heap. Mrs. Scott hurried her children out of the room and down the hall and quickly disappeared with them into a storage area. A sly smile of content spread across Soto’s face as he watched them flee. While his outlaw group looted the store, Soto cocked his gun and fired several volleys in the direction of the place where Mrs. Soto and her brood was hiding. Their screams filled the air, and they could be heard crying. Soto then reloaded his weapon and assisted the bandits in looting the store. The crooks were so preoccupied with the robbery they did not notice Mrs. Scott run out of the back door with her youngsters in tow. Mrs. Scott served to be a fearless witness against the bandit. Soto was hunted down and shot to death. A witness can make all the difference in the world. Two witnesses have come forward for my brother over the last month. When the time is right, what they’ll testify to will be as life altering as the bullet that took down Soto.