The fires burning in Brazil’s Amazon forest attracted a good deal of attention that brought some shame-fingers pointed at that country’s president for not doing anything to stop them. The latest mass killings with an AR-15 rifle, a hurricane, Hong Kong riots, Britain’s Brexit, plus whatever else creates headlines has displaced it, so the fires burn on.
Competing cable news organizations along with internet sites deal with events as a 24 hour news cycle, work the devil out of all the angles, and then move on to the next exciting story. Bigwigs and fatcats recognize this fact and sometimes make controversial announcements on a late Friday afternoon when people want to get away for the weekend.
Most news of the day depresses me, even though it can be addictive. News junkies revel in it, but personally I enjoy reading history where news travelled at the speed of oxen or maybe saddle horses. I’ve come on a story I’d like to relate that is set in those slow days. The countryside where some of my early ancestors settled is dotted with small cemeteries. In the Owego Lutheran Church cemetery lies the grave of one of my great-grandfathers.
We like to pay respects to our ancestors and occasionally visit this graveyard, among others.
Not many headstones are here, maybe a couple dozen, but a solitary white marble marker on the west side attracted me to walk over and read the inscription: “James M. Kinney. Wagoner. Co. B. 10 Minn. Inf.” The stone mason did not carve the years of birth and death, leaving questions my inquisitive nature wanted answered.
History books tell us that the 10th Minnesota Infantry led by General H.H. Sibley marched across what is now North Dakota in 1863 in search of Indians who had attacked and killed many white settlers in Minnesota. I remembered reading once in an old hometown newspaper the headline, “Remarkable Feat Performed by Seventy-seven Year Old Man,” and thought I’d read mention of his marching with Sibley. When I dug it up, it was an aha moment because this was the one and same James M. Kinney.
The editor related some of Kinney’s biography. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was driving a stagecoach in Minnesota but wanting adventure joined the 10th Minnesota Infantry as a wagoner. In other words, he would be a teamster driving mules pulling supply wagons for the army. The “remarkable feat” the editor wrote about was Kinney’s walking into Sheldon through snow for sixteen miles. He spent the night in Sheldon and next morning boarded the train to Lisbon where he’d spend that winter of 1911at the Veteran’s Home. He died in 1917.
It’s fun to continue hunting for information. How many soldiers, how many wagons, teamsters, horses, mules, butcher beef were included on Sibley’s march into North Dakota? Stephen E. Osman, a historian with the Minnesota Historical Society, tells us. A manpower total of 4,075 included 400 teamsters who marched with 225 six-mule teams pulling the supply wagons. That means 1350 mules were in harness, with an unknown number of replacement draft animals accompanying them. When on the move wagons rolled four abreast to shorten the line, mainly for protection by the outriders and rear guards.
A massive effort of rounding up men, equipment, and supplies took place before Sibley’s army could even move. Remember our man Kinney was involved in all of this. Massive purchases of animals were needed and manpower shortages due to the Civil War existed. Men, many of them freed slaves, came north on the Mississippi River from St. Louis to join and hundreds of unbroke Missouri mules were shipped north by riverboat. Twenty-three pounds of grain and hay per animal per day needed to be gathered.
Besides Kinney marching through with Sibley, Ransom County lays claim to hosting this army with two campsites established in July. Many stories like Kinney’s were experienced by area residents, but sadly, were never recorded or even talked about much over supper tables. Their stories have followed them into the grave. An old proverb states, “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”
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