HOW ABOUT ANOTHER LIMERICK...
It was a good Christmas even though we did not sit down at a table for the usual feast. That newfangled “Zoom” let us all interact and worked well enough for the kind of year it is. Mary and I send this picture out to Facebook land to wish you the best for the holiday season. The other picture shows me with two gifts, my brand new navy blue blazer and holding up a book she gave me - Saving Freedom: Truman, The Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization.
I remember Truman as I entered the age of remembering. Not thought of very highly then, but now elevated in history’s eyes, Truman became very consequential. Joe Scarborough put together a nice book about his administration’s coping with a muscular Russia at this time. I’ve already learned one thing in reading. President Herbert Hoover came away from the presidency as a vilified man, but Truman hired him to help with the European refugee crisis in which he did a fine job. I’m looking forward to getting deeper into the book.
A couple other books came my way, but I’ve not gotten into them yet - His Very Best: Jimmy Carter a Life by Johnathan Alter and The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge. I’ll be busy reading. Plus I’ve got a large 350 page PDF from the Univ of Nevada Press to read for a Western Writers review - Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens: The Endless War over the West’s Public Lands. Whew.
The Season’s Limerick
Once you start writing Limericks, it’s hard to stop. A few days ago I posted the one about the new Secretary of Interior and her being half Norwegian. It’s not as if I made that up. A Washington Post article of December 17, 2020 states “Born in Arizona to a Native American mother who served in the Navy and a Norwegian American father who was an active duty Marine…”
This pandemic controls much of our daily life and the following piece stems from it.
Thirteen million on unemployment.
With this pandemic the jobs all went.
Global disaster -
Help can’t come faster,
It’s a dark hour before dawn lament.
A Limerick written since Biden chose a Native American for Secretary of the Interior.
I’ve always had a fondness for the Limerick form of poetry. It’s quite simple to do in five lines with usually an AABBA rhyme scheme. Often times they are raunchy, (like the one beginning, “There once was a man from Nantucket…) but for a family forum, they certainly don’t have to be.
Such a year 2020 has been,
A lot of tempers worn mighty thin
We had an election,
One suffered ejection,
And now the Russians have gone and hacked in!
ANTI-VAXXERS ARE NOTHING NEW!
The major benefit of writing these articles shows me how little I know and how much I need to learn about a subject before putting pen to paper. I remember well how I started writing them. The book titled WARHORSE was popular a few years back along with a movie of the same name. What about all these horses on the battlefield and where did they come from? Further reading into the subject revealed that European farmers could no longer furnish the necessary number of animals for the battlefields, so buyers came to the United States to purchase them. They covered the countryside and found a goodly supply of them in the Dakotas, including right here in our home area.
The creative juices started flowing enough to compose a story about it and follow a whim to send it to this paper’s editor. When the next edition arrived, I could’ve fallen out of my chair. She had placed it on the front page! Well, one article has followed another, and several years and and nearly three hundred stories later an active curiosity still tells me to continue researching and writing.
Lately my topic concerns different landforms in Ransom County. As a youth the drifts and depressions of the sand hills east of Sheldon became familiar. My mother’s family went there each year to pick chokecherries, and I would climb and slide on those hills until we went home with my shoes filled with sand. Four cemeteries in that area hold the final resting place for many departed relatives which results in our regular visits.
Curiosity about those hills led to finding historical material. People had settled there and tried to farm it, but dry years proved much of the land unsuitable for cultivation. An interesting character named Rexford Tugwell, aka Rex the Red, entered the scene as a member of FDR’s administration. To make the long story short, he saw to those farmers being offered incentives to move off the land and free it up to become the Sheyenne National Grassland.
The Sheyenne River flows with gusto through our county, and many times I have crossed and recrossed its deep channel and driven through its beautiful valley. What about it, I wondered. One man has traced its beginning at the headwaters and driven along its length while recounting geology, history, and stories of natives and settlers who comprise its culture. Titled “STEPPING TWICE INTO THE RIVER: Following Dakota Waters,” Robert King took a year to leisurely drive along its span of miles and make comments.
When King came to the area where General Sibley’s Camp Hayes, Dead Colt Creek, and Okiedan Butte sat directly across the river from each other, I especially took note. From there upriver to the not-quite-successful gold fields near Lisbon, a wealth of information makes one want to write about it. All the while being interested, I’d completely forgotten a book on my shelves, the new in 2016 NORTH DAKOTA’S GEOLOGIC LEGACY by John P. Bluemle. It holds information galore about our state’s landscape including Ransom County.
Over his career as the state geologist, Bluemle worked in every corner of the state which makes him the top expert in our landforms. In speaking about the sand hills, he writes, “The Ransom County dunes are beautiful places to enjoy undisturbed native prairie in the Sheyenne National Grasslands, the only National Grasslands in the tallgrass prairie region of the United States.” He gives an apt description of how the wind works on and reshapes those hills.
He informs us about the Standing Rock and its makeup of metamorphic gneiss, a combination of quartz, feldspar, and mica. He may have been the one who wrote the signs located at the site because the wording looks very familiar. The rock was brought to North Dakota from Ontario by glaciers. The hill itself was pushed by a glacier a distance of about three miles and stands 110 feet above the surrounding area. The whole site stood as a place for Indian ceremonials and offerings.
In 1970 Bluemle studied the geology of Ransom County long enough for one of his children to be born in Lisbon. He formed some conclusions about the gold strike near Lisbon. Referring to the preglacial period, he thinks any gold here probably came northeastward in a stream flowing from the Black Hills three million years ago.
Going back to the stated premise of this article, there exists many things that I know little or nothing about, but if I can identify it, it is fun to explore and add knowledge to my world. Joan Baez, the folksinger, says it well, “As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.”
I recently came upon a Bill Moyers interview with the author, poet, and activist Wendell Berry. I like Berry’s soft spoken yet powerful message about conservation and preservation of what is good. He once said, “The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee deep in its absence.” The coal mining companies in his home area of Kentucky caused toxic runoff that poisoned the river running by his farm, resulting in killing the trees that used to flourish along the river bank.
Each fall we see large flights of geese heading south. Their brains are tiny, but they know where they’re going. I’ve often thought about such things like wondering where I’d be without a map if I were to head south for the winter. Before the early surveyors applied their grids to the land and outlined states, counties, and townships, I would’ve needed a primitive method, maybe steering by the north star, following a path someone else had cut, or heading towards some landmark on the horizon.
A great example of an early survey, maybe the first, can be found in Ransom County at the Standing Rock Hill Historical Site located east of the Little Yellowstone Park just off Highway 46. A passable two-track trail takes a vehicle to the top where the view of the countryside is remarkable. Geologists took an interest in the hill because of the way it was created approximately 14,000 years ago. The rock itself rode a glacier from Ontario, Canada, and the dirt in the hill was pushed over three miles by the same wall of ice. It left lakes and sloughs in its path and when you look to the northeast from atop the hill, you can see a sizable amount of water shining in the sunlight.
As for the survey, it occurred about 1839 when two explorers, Nicollet and Fremont, accompanied with about twenty men, came through this part of the country. Joseph Nicollet was a Frenchman with skills in astronomy, mathematics, and cartography whose goal was to explore and map the upper Mississippi area. His partners were a botanist named Charles Geyer, and John C. Fremont, a seasoned scout.
Nicollet made accurate maps most likely with the use of a sextant and aided by a barometer he determined altitude. These explorers noted the Standing Rock site on their maps which Indians called Inyan Bosndata. The hill on which it stands is the highest around and stands at 1490 feet which is about 25-30 higher than Bears Den Hillock near the fort. The stone itself sits upright on another level higher yet. State historical accounts assert that the top level is man-made, probably by those Indians who used it for their ceremonials and offerings.
Little thought was given at the time to matters of conservation. Nicollet marveled at the huge herds of buffalo, but when trains started opening the country, passengers were thrilled to shoot them as they passed by. It wasn’t until the beasts were almost eradicated that efforts sprang up to save them.
The first accounts of explorers describing what is now Yellowstone Park weren’t believed. John Colter had accompanied Lewis and Clark when they passed through this territory in 1804. He had an innate sense of exploration and in 1807–1808 became the first known person of European descent to enter Yellowstone region. His unbelievable descriptions of geysers, bubbling mudpots, and steaming pools of water were not taken seriously. Colter’s the one when captured by Indians was stripped naked and told to run for his life. He successfully evaded recapture.
The skeptical public started believing stories about the scenery when artists entered the area and painted its beauty and wonders. Thomas Moran’s paintings captured the nation's attention and helped inspire Congress to establish the Yellowstone region as the first national park in 1872.
The other day I saw a reference to a new book by David Gessner, an author whose previous book, ALL THE WILD THAT REMAINS, looked at two American conservationists: Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner. The new book, LEAVE IT AS IT IS, considers conservation from Theodore Roosevelt’s viewpoint. In writing the two books, Gessner traveled through the west camping, visiting with locals, studying history, all the while trying to determine some answers for himself about the state of American conservation efforts. Stegner was the more academic and well-reasoned of the two while Abbey was of the “monkey wrench” mentality.
We’ve heard much of Roosevelt and his conservation efforts. He took action by creating five national parks, eighteen national monuments, fifty-one federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, created the U. S. Forest Service, plus one hundred and fifty national forests. Whew! He did have critics for his actions, though, something which I’ve learned in my personal life. Gessner said, “If you take a stand, half the people will be standing against you.”
Readers can argue this ends pretty far afield from where I started with the Standing Rock Hill Historic Site. I argue it exists today because someone recognized its worth for the future place in our local history. There really is quite a bit of history out there; it just needs to be found and remembered.
I looked at my bookshelves for something to read, but couldn’t find anything that interested me. Then, who better to ask for a book recommendation than Wife Mary who has collected a rather nice collection of good solid books. The first one she pulled out was one by Marie Benedict - The Only Woman in the Room. She said it’s about a movie star named Hedy Lamarr who happened to be an inventor. I remembered something about her good looks on screen but also how she’d invented something concerning guidance systems for naval torpedoes.
The book proved to be a good one. Lamarr, born and raised in Austria, started working on stage plays and drew admirers, one of whom was an Austrian industrialist making weapons. She couldn’t resist his constant attention and married him. The marriage wasn’t happy for soon after the wedding his possessive, abusive nature revealed itself and kept her in out of circulation except for the frequent dinners he held. Those dinner guests included the Mussolini and Hitler crowd. Some of those conversations dealt with weapon systems, and Lamarr being of high intelligence understood and processed some of that information.
She escaped to America and became a Hollywood movie star, but in her spare time as a hobbyist, she devoted her energy to inventions. Out of that came a better system to radio-control torpedoes with a concept she called frequency-hopping that couldn’t be jammed to throw the torpedo off course. She educated Howard Hughes about better airplane designs to improve aerodynamics. Her developments have led to Bluetooth, Wi-fi, and more modern concepts at use today.
My wife always goes for books with a solid story. She also handed me The Other Einstein about Einstein’s first wife who was a genius in her own right and Lady Clementine, the woman behind the huge historical figure of Winston Churchill. I’ll have to continue raiding Mary’s bookshelves.
Maybe those county sheriffs who defy the governor’s mandate regarding Covid-19 could approach it with a bit of artful subtlety instead of making divisive pronouncements. I’m reminded of one of my great-grandfathers who liked to “cook” a little batch now and again. When Bill Langer took office as the attorney general, he ordered sheriffs to start enforcing alcohol prohibition laws, something which met the favor of the WCTU. The sheriff of great-grandpa’s county chose some artful subtlety and called the people he’d targeted saying he had to come out and inspect for evidence of a still. With that warning, grandpa and his partner-in-crime had time to dismantle their still and hide it in the cupola of a barn. I suspect the sheriff was a popular law enforcement officer who satisfied everyone.
Many families can relate in some way to Veterans Day, November 11. World War One ended on the easy to remember eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, and one of my grandfathers, Andrew Sandvig, fought there, primarily in the Battle of Meuse-Argonne. I have been able to flesh out the following story of his participation in it.
An immigrant from Norway who’d not yet gained U. S. citizenship, he only needed to renounce allegiance to King Haakon VII of Norway and was inducted into the army on May 24, 1918. After a short training stint at Fort Lewis, WA, his division left for Europe already by July 6, arriving in Liverpool, England on July 17.
While in Europe he wrote some notes in the margins of a pocket-sized New Testament which gave basis for finding more information. He belonged to the 91st Division, 362nd Regiment made up of midwesterners from farms and ranches, which took on the nickname Wild West Division with the battle cry, “Powder River, let ‘er buck.”
Whether or not he was aboard the tragic train wreck in LeHavre isn’t known but when a loaded troop train sat on a siding at midnight, a freight train plowed into its rear end killing 32 men and injuring another 63. They were crowded into the small French boxcars.
Rain plagued the men to the point where their coats shrunk to better fit a 12 year old. They spent some days training and waiting and waiting some more. They finally marched 20 kilometers toward the front and heard the big guns booming. Still they waited and sat in reserve while other American forces straightened out the St. Mihiel Salient.
The 362nd Regiment kept moving closer to the action whereupon Grandpa made his first entry in the blank end pages of the Bible, “Today we are just a few miles from Hun lines.” Who knows what the waiting did to the men as they sat idle and listened to the nearby sounds of battle. Late in the afternoon of September 25th orders came telling them to attack and go “over the top” at 5:30 the next morning.
He wrote this the next day, “Sept. 26th 1918 5 in the morning We started the drive about 20 K. M. West of Verdun and we were in 17 days and we lost half [our men]. I’ve filled in his blank, but historical accounts validate my insert.
Historians tell us more of what they encountered. Big artillery guns opened up at 5 a. m., thousands of them, all aimed at German trenches but German artillery answered. During this shelling, the 362nd sat safely on the reverse slope of a hill. As they walked across “No Mans Land,” not a shot rang out, giving the men a false sense of security. But as they entered the woods, German machine guns and snipers opened up and inflicted the first significant casualties on them.
Epinonville loomed as the target for the 362nd. Supporting artillery fell short as they advanced and killed a number of them before they got word to the gunners to raise their trajectories. The Germans now realized the huge size of the American attack and shifted more men and equipment to meet them. After heavy fighting the regiment took the town and revelled in their victory which would not last long, however. Regiments on their flanks had not kept up, thereby leaving the 362nd exposed which necessitated their withdrawal.
With every foot of ground directly under the observation of the Germans, the 362nd suffered many casualties. Then their regimental commander received the order that the advance must be continued at all costs. He thought the order was suicidal and said he would join the men in the slaughter that was sure to occur. Someone has written, “A wild charge out across the open through a seething inferno began.” The regimental historian went on to write, “With shouts of ‘Powder River,’ they raced forward in thinning numbers through the storm of bullets, shrapnel, high explosives and gas shells, like wild men.” Their charge caused the Germans to retreat, but hundreds of dead and wounded were strewn across the battlefield.
The morning after their retreat, the count of casualties astounded them. One company of 179 men had only 18 men left. Finally, rolling kitchens caught up to them, and the first warm food in five days was served to them. They stayed in the Argonne four more days until Spanish flu struck and raged through their ranks. While Grandpa never said it, I believe he contracted the flu because he wrote in his Bible, “Oct 17 I went to the hospital. Was there about two weeks and one week in Concourt.”
In part that is Grandpa’s story. There is more, but this hits some of the high points. My mother said he would never talk about his wartime experience, something which seems to be a common thread running through the ranks of veterans. Someone like me can only read about these battles. Unfortunately Veterans Day gets skipped over and not taken seriously by everyone. Those veterans who were there certainly deserve remembrance.
Born and raised in rural Ransom County, North Dakota, I’ve never lost the sense of belonging there. I no longer live in the county, but the ground feels good under foot whenever I visit. Families, farmsteads, businesses, groves of trees, even the brush of a summer breeze blowing across my face revive memories from the years I lived there. On that ground I developed some of the good and the bad that define my life today. I am 78 years old and can remember people, places, and events for about 75 of those years, but before that, nothing.
While wanting to know history of the early days of the county before the reach of my memory, I need to rely on written accounts. Unfortunately, those former times can’t be discovered by going to any single volume but must be rummaged from bits and pieces found here and there. While searching about, I came upon the “nuts and bolts” of the county’s birth and turned up the fact of an unmistakable “quid pro quo. ” Set in motion by two men it resulted in the county we know today.
The History of the Red River Valley, 1909, carries an account, the best I’ve seen, relating how the city’s founder Joseph L. Colton wanted to see his financial concerns there grow and be protected. For that to happen, Colton felt the N.P.R.R. must route itself through the tiny town. After preliminary surveys, it had become common knowledge that the railroad was eyeing a slightly different path. To prevent their bypass, he was steered to Major Buttz, a friend of the territorial governor Nehemiah Ordway. Buttz and Colton entered into an agreement whereby Buttz would influence the N.P. to build through Lisbon. Additionally, he would influence Ordway to establish Ransom County and designate Lisbon as the county seat. In return, Colton was obligated to deed 60 acres of land he owned in the city limits to Buttz.
Major Buttz got it done. On March 7, 1881, Ordway’s pen signed the county into existence with Lisbon as county seat. Not done yet, two months later Ordway appointed the first county commissioners, which, of course, consisted of men Colton had recommended. Moving fast, they held their first commissioner meeting on April 4, 1881. Without Buttz and Colton’s agreement, Fort Ransom might’ve become the county seat, but like they say, that’s all water under the bridge. My map of 1889 clearly shows the railroad route bending to enter Lisbon. Later on Colton and Buttz came to a parting of the ways because of business disagreements.
Fascinating history this all is, and if ever wondering where the ghost town of Buttzville got its name, think of Major C. W. Buttz. He proudly wore the title of major from his days of exemplary service during the Civil War. He joined the Union Army in 1861 as a lieutenant and quickly climbed ranks. As a captain, he was commended “for gallant and meritorious conduct in capturing from the enemy a full rocket battery,” and another for leading a scouting expedition where 25 of his men engaged 300 Confederates with a “dashing cavalry charge” and captured 67 of them.
After arriving in North Dakota, he proceeded to accumulate quite a large land holding of several thousand acres. Amounts vary but it was sizable enough to consider it a bonanza farm.
His brother David lived at Buttzville, too, and it is unclear if they worked in partnership. A retired college professor with whom I’ve become acquainted is presently researching the Homestead era in Ransom County and has found on the BLM website that most of the Buttz acreage was in the major’s name.
The website “Ghosts of North Dakota” includes Buttzville and includes a few pictures. On another time we can discuss Major Buttz and his involvement in politics and how the publisher of The Sheldon Enterprise expressed his dislike of the major on different dates.
Mary said I don't get any pie until we find some tapioca. For some reason there's been a shortage of it, and we haven't been able to find any. But yesterday I was roaming around, lost, in a grocery story and saw some on the shelf. You've never seen a man's hand reach so fast as I snatched a package of it and threw it in my cart. Good for her word, here is a beautiful blueberry pie cooling on the countertop.
When calming words are needed, I like to turn to this poem:
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Anyone who might come to this blog regularly might notice a lack of postings of late. I'm writing more to a book I hope to finish before the lights go out and haven't been writing essays for the newspaper. I'll probably offer something to it in the future, but this will be "number one" task for awhile. I hope it turns out well. I'll keep adding little ditties to this site once in awhile, so keep tuned.
I enjoy searching for stories originating in the place I call home, which in many cases means Ransom County. Unfortunately, not much in the way of textbook history exists; fortunately a scattered group of historians preserved some of it piecemeal. In addition, interesting and valuable community and church histories have been compiled to which we can refer.
A couple historians I return to time and again are A. H. Laughlin and Dana Wright. Laughlin wrote a chapter titled “History of Ransom County,” included in the History of the Red River Valley, 1909, while Wright wrote a small book titled “Historic Ransom County.” Both publications are filled with fodder that feeds my search for local history. Snorri Thorfinnson’s concise book titled Ransom County History can be mentioned here, too.
It’s extra rewarding to walk on a site where events occurred. So it was on a recent Saturday that my wife and I drove to the historical site near the Dead Colt Creek park southeast of Lisbon. I’ve misplaced references for the creek’s name but as I remember, it honors some Indian’s favorite pony who died when struck by lightning.
While that name suggests a certain sentimental glamour worthy of Western stories, it wasn’t what lured us to the site. What fascinates is the name of the nearby Okiedan Butte. Old maps show it on the south side of the Sheyenne River near there, but one has to dig deep to find satisfactory information. I wanted to talk to someone with knowledge of it, so while driving through the park I stopped to ask a camper if he was familiar with the name Okiedan Butte. Yes, he was familiar with the area, but no he’d never heard of it. Next we asked a young family man who had brought his kids to the park playground. He had no knowledge of it either, even though he lived only a mile away where his or his neighbor’s cattle might graze on the grass growing there.
Many years have passed since events mentioning the Okiedan Butte first appear, and the significance has faded. What about the butte? I imagined when first coming across the name that it named a high promontory in that area looking like the buttes west of the Missouri River, but now I see where the written sources mostly agree it is a manmade mound. None of the natural landscape seemed much higher than others to warrant calling it a butte. We needed to go home and look for more information. As it turned out there was something I’d been overlooking.
We’d read once that a small army detachment from Fort Wadsworth, now Sisseton, was stranded at Okiedan Butte on what Laughlin termed “a noted high mound” in the early 1860s. They were completely surrounded by an immense herd of buffalo and had to wait several hours for them to pass. The commander, Colonel Creel, estimated the herd at several hundred thousand.
The name Okiedan translates as “the place where they rushed together,” something which marks a fierce battle fought here, thought to be around 1842, which occurred between a party of about thirty Arikara hunters who had wandered into the area from the west. The Sisseton Sioux claimed the area as theirs and wanted them expelled. In the end they did more than that because none of the intruders survived to return home. All were killed and beheaded.
The young farmer told us about the small bridge nearby that crosses the river that might have some significance to us. When we returned home we zeroed in on a plat map to study that small area. Something revealed itself then that I had missed all along. There, on the banks of the Sheyenne River just opposite of Okeidan Butte was Camp Hayes, the site of General Sibley’s encampment of several days commencing July 4, 1863 where they stopped while waiting for a supply train from Fort Abercrombie.
Diaries written by several members of the expedition paint a sketchy picture of the time spent in camp and their experiences on the trail. It will be a future project to sift through all the material I’ve gathered from people on the expedition and will be doing that as the next project.
Mishaps occurred, one teamster fell off his mule, was run over by the wagon which broke his leg badly. They suffered from heat and thirst, sometimes not finding good water to drink, such as that at Skunk Lake. Men fell retching from drinking impure water. In places they dug wells in their search for good water, often to no avail. Frequently, smoke hung in the air, thought to be from Indians burning the prairie as a weapon.
Their stop at Camp Hayes proved a good one, however, because they found spring water, shade trees, firewood, fish, and good grazing for their animals. I want to learn more about Sibley’s expedition and Ransom County’s Camp Hayes.
If history is written by the victors, it was the case at one battleground site in North Dakota. For all the years I’ve lived in North Dakota, I’d never visited the Whitestone Hill State Historic Site near Kulm. We went yesterday (09-14-20) for the expressed purpose of seeing it. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day as far as weather - 60s, sunny, breezy, no bugs. Right beside the site is a nice blue water lake and we sat eating our picnic lunch under cottonwood trees where we liked listening to the rustling of the leaves in the breeze.
And sometimes it’s good to be where there are no other people, which was the case here. Except for a friendly, young site supervisor named Stewart, no one else was there. We asked him if there are many visitors, to which he replied, “Some days there might be three cars.”
At the top of the hill a tall monument stands and around it there are 20 stones, each listing the name of one of the troopers killed. This is where history being written by the victors comes into play. Very little indicates the death of hundreds of Indians or 150 taken prisoner or the tons of winter supplies destroyed. I asked Stewart about the near-absence of Indian commemoration, and he said there was a small one. I didn’t go back up there to see if he meant the one made with a couple rocks, but there is a small bronze plaque at the base of the hill. Bronze weathers and the inscription on this one could hardly be read. He said there are plans for some updating of the site, which of course it needs to bring it more into line with modern proclivity.
Stewart told of a group of Indians who’d come on horseback in a ceremonial gesture of forgiving, and he thought they planned to return in the future. I presume it was them who’d tied the medicine bundles to the flagpole. The site will be open yet through October and a trip to it could prove satisfying for the historically curious, as it did for us.
I confess to never traveling in that little region of the state so seeing everything was a bit of an education. The little town of Merricourt stood on County Highway 2 and was included as a ghost town in the interesting website, “Ghosts of North Dakota.” Whether or not anyone lives there couldn’t be determined with our brief stop, but at one time it did command a little business.
A brick-fronted building on which a weathered sign told us it was once a bank had cashed in, its roof collapsed. Across the highway two large grain elevators stood and at first glance still looked serviceable, but no, they weren’t. A large community hall looks quite good, but doesn’t seem to host gatherings any longer we decided by seeing the weeds grown around it.
I looked online for a little of its history. About the only event was a robbery and a shooting one time. A wannabee prize fighter came to town and became friends with the local moon shiners. This gang decided to rob the store but were soon apprehended. When the sheriff was taking the boxer to the Ellendale jail a fight ensued inside the car, and the sheriff shot and killed the prisoner.
We drove on passing through LaMoure on Highway 13 where some community beautifiers had worked hard at creating a wow factor lining the street with large planter pots filled with petunias. They were the biggest planters I’ve seen. Well, we kept rolling and wanted to drive through Sheldon before the day was done.
The town fathers had set about demolishing the old bank building since it too had cashed in, a fact which further shrunk the length of main street. Now only two old brick buildings stand. They are both still in use, but more than likely will meet the fate of the bank someday. I inherited an old picture of Sheldon’s main street that shows many businesses lining both sides of the street. Now so little remains. The brick schoolhouse met demolition not long ago, so its familiar face no longer greets the old students passing by. It’s like the author of the Wizard of Oz said, “Everything has to come to an end, sometime.”
Four counties in North Dakota - Ransom, Logan, Grant, and Sheridan - bear the names of Civil War generals, names that no one gives much thought to as they go about their daily lives. Each one of these leaders led their men into the heat of battle where one of them, wounded in four battles, died from his wound in the fourth battle. The others survived to rise in political ranks or fight in the Indian wars.
Logan County carries the name of John A. Logan, the man considered the best of the Union Army’s political generals since he rose from the volunteer ranks instead of coming through West Point. He led with distinction in different battles, especially so at the Battle of Vicksburg. Grant awarded Logan the honor of leading the first Union troops into the captured city on July 4 at the end of the campaign. General Sherman noticed how Logan was disappointed when he was passed over for promotion and made it up by giving him the honor of leading the Grand Review in Washington after the war ended.
Logan might best be remembered as the first commander of the veterans group Grand
Army of the Republic and issued his directive in 1868 to establish an annual Memorial Day on May 30 to honor those who have died in service. The date was chosen because flowers for decorations were in full bloom in the North.
A reminder of the Civil War’s General Phillip H. Sheridan can be found in the central North Dakota county named for him, Sheridan County. The fact that Sheridan maintained a close relationship with General U. S. Grant certainly helped to prop up his battle accomplishments. Known as an aggressive leader, he became the Union’s cavalry commander after Grant was named overall commander.
He willingly employed a so-called “Scorched Earth” policy and ordered the destruction of crops, railroads, farm buildings, towns, anything that might provide sustenance and protection for residents of the South, including the women and children. One pundit remarked that Sheridan’s army left nothing but chimneys standing without houses, leaving the Shenandoah Valley a barren waste. At the conclusion of the Civil War he received orders to head west and participate in the Indian Wars where he led a successful yet brutal conquest of the Indians.
Ransom County, named for General T.E.G. Ransom who received four wounds in four different battles died after lingering awhile from the last one. And those four battles were not the only ones he fought in since there were several more. Fort Ransom in the same county rose in its humble structures in 1867 and remained in operation for five years.
What was it about the memory of General Ransom that caused General Grant to weep upon hearing of Ransom’s death and General Sherman to keep a picture of Ransom hanging on his wall? In Sherman’s eyes he said of Ransom, “Looking death in the face, far from home, he was content to die, because he had done a man’s full work on earth, and because every motive and instinct of his nature had impelled him to the duties of a soldier and patriot.”
The name of Ulysses S. Grant identifies Grant County which is located on the west side of the Missouri River. Much can be said about the man because of both his army career and his later life as a U. S. president, but it is his army career that receives the attention here. Not everyone liked his abilities as a military leader and here is the answer one man received from Lincoln after entreating the president to fire him: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”Another time Lincoln said of Grant, “Where he is, things move.”
One historian drew up a list of seven attributes that made Grant a good leader. Among them were his being fearless, ability to see the whole picture, and the fact that he didn’t let up.
A biographer, Jean Edward Smith, commented about the team of Lincoln and Grant by writing, “One could not have succeeded without the other. And while Lincoln set the course, it was Grant who sailed the ship.” While still wearing the uniform, he attained the distinction of being the first four-star general in the history of the United States.
Skipping past other events, consider Grant at the end of his life. He smoked twenty cigars a day which led to throat cancer. He found himself broke at this time and fretted over the fact that he had no wealth to leave his wife and family after he died. The one thing he possessed of value was his life story, something for which he was offered money. Luckily, the writer Mark Twain had taken a liking to Grant and saw where the general had agreed to a poorly paying contract for writing his autobiography.
Twain negotiated a lucrative new contract for him and even while Grant was in constant pain, he hurried to finish his book. Today the book is considered by many critics as being the best of any presidential autobiographies. He died shortly after writing, “The End.”
And sometimes it’s good to be where there are no other people, which was the case here. Except for a friendly, young site supervisor named Stewart, no one else was there. We asked him if there are many visitors, to which he replied, “Some days there might be three cars.”
At the top of the hill a tall monument stands and around it there are 20 stones, each listing the name of one of the troopers killed. This is where history being written by the victors comes into play. Very little indicates the death of hundreds of Indians or 150 taken prisoner or the tons of winter supplies destroyed. I
After the blustering and ranting that marked its formation, the business of running a territorial government from Yankton brought some sense of normalcy. No longer did the attorney general need to empty the slop bucket in the cabin he shared with the governor, no record exists of a speaker of the house being thrown out a saloon window for a second time, and it’s not recorded where another fistfight featuring “hair-pulling, choking, striking, blood spitting and pugilistic exercises” occurs between the governor and the director of the land office. For me, while imagining myself as an amateur historian, I especially like this period in our state’s birth and development.
That first tumultuous session did manage to pass some bills confirming the territory’s legitimacy. They established eighteen counties, a militia to protect settlers, the illegality of prostitution, a ban on stallions roaming about the range, a university at Vermillion, plus a few other items.
For those who like General Custer stories, here is one connected to Yankton during this period. Various accounts tell us that the 7th Cavalry regiment became blizzard-stalled in Yankton during the winter of 1873. On their way to Fort Lincoln, they were being stationed there to deal with the Indian threat in the West. As many as 900 men with as many or more horses and mules had arrived at the end of the tracks in several trains and set up a tent city outside of town. The men pitched tents and Custer and his wife stayed in a partially finished cabin. Unexpectedly an April blizzard developed to make life miserable since the tents started blowing down and Custer’s cabin didn’t keep the weather out.
Men got sick, including Custer who came down with a high fever. His wife Libbie Custer wrote this account in Boots and Saddles: “Knowing the scarcity of fuel and the danger to the horses from exposure to the rigor of such weather after their removal from a warm climate, the general ordered the breaking of camp. All the soldiers were directed to take their horses and go into Yankton, and ask the citizens to give them shelter in their homes, cow-sheds, and stables. In a short time the camp was nearly deserted, only the laundresses, two or three officers, and a few dismounted soldiers remaining. The towns-people, true to the unvarying western hospitality, gave everything they could to the use of the regiment; the officers found places in the hotels.”
Some of the men already suffered from frozen feet and did not make it into town, but instead stopped at Custer’s cabin for shelter about which Libby wrote, “It was almost unbearable to hear the groans of the soldiers over their swollen and painful feet, and know that we could do nothing to ease them.” She went on to say, “We did not soon forget our introduction to Dakota.”
Her book left me with one image I’d like to have seen first-hand. After leaving Yankton and marching along, she said, “When the stream was narrow, the hundreds of horses had to be ranged along its banks to be watered.” Nine hundred animals wanting water would have been quite a sight and not a place for me to drink downstream.
Remembering the territory’s official formation in 1862 affairs moved along for a number of years until the political winds blew in a change. Loud voices tired of the outside control U. S. presidents exercised in appointing their governors and other officials for them. One of those voices said, “We feel very much as the thirteen colonies felt when they flung away their dependent condition.”
The seventh territorial governor was Nehemiah G. Ordway who took office in 1880; his term in office proved to be a turning point. Ordway initiated the process to move the state capital in 1883 by appointing a nine-man commission to study the matter. Of course, to make things easier, he loaded the commission with three members associated with the Northern Pacific Railroad. One of them was a familiar figure, Alexander McKenzie. The railroad had their sights set on building west and had reached Bismarck in 1873, the place they wanted for the capital.
The capital was indeed moved in 1883. Try as they did, Yankton leaders could not stop it from happening. As part of the process that Ordway wanted for moving the capital, he stated a meeting must be held in Yankton, and Yankton planned to fight hard for it to stay. McKenzie showed his cunning ability to sidestep the matter.
On the day of the meeting, Yankton people crowded the site of the meeting and waited for the train to pull into the station with the commissioners on board. While still rolling, a meeting convened in the city limits, a vote was taken in favor of Bismarck, and the train never stopped. That was a bit too far for people in the southern part of the territory because they began to call for statehood for South Dakota. In 1889, after six years, North Dakota and South Dakota became separate entities.
