A Hollow Mound Mountain
In the last 6 years or so in my efforts to research the Book nicknamed The Black Book or its given name, Jesse James Was One Of His Names, and for the purpose of proving or disproving the contents of the book, I found myself reading a section of the book once again regarding the Battle of Little Bighorn. Keep in mind; to this day I still have yet to prove anything as invalid, other than some conflicting statements interjected by the author himself, Del Schrader. My thoughts on the authenticity of the stories told within, is still weighing in as mostly factual as incredible as some of the claims may seam.
Reading the statements/claims contained within I decided to go have a good read of what the famed WIKI writers had to say Concerning Little Bighorn… Once again I found a write up based upon a pile of the regurgitation of 238 references no less and numerous opinions based upon them. Books listed as references written just a few years ago with few exceptions, again quoting former authors of even more books regurgitating even more content of books written not to long before those. I decided to check one source… It’s all I could handle that day… only to find it was B.S.
Many of the writers made no bones about discrediting claims made by many claiming some aspect of the war they having been of some part.. but they vaguely tell the side of the claimant and then insert the opinion of some former writer whom I must remind some, were certainly not there… One such incident I find humorous,
“Theodore Goldin, a battle participant who later became a controversial historian on the event, wrote (in regards to Charles Hayward's claim to have been with Custer and taken prisoner):”
The Indians always insisted that they took no prisoners. If they did—a
thing I firmly believe—they were tortured and killed the night of the 25th. As
an evidence of this I recall the three charred and burned heads we picked up in
the village near the scene of the big war dance, when we visited the village with
Capt. Benteen and Lieut. Wallace on the morning of the 27th... I'm sorely
afraid, Tony, that we will have to class
I think his assessment is B. S…. but that’s just me…
Interestingly enough, they use Mr. Goldin’s testimony as evidence and then in an article about Mr. Goldin himslef, WIKI writers then discredit him….
As the years
went by, Goldin embellished his role in the battle more and more. The height of
embellishment is found in a chapter in the book Northwestern fights and
fighters by Cyrus Townsend Brady. In addition to his claims of
carrying Custer's last dispatch, Goldin claimed he joined the Seventh Cavalry
in 1873, witnessed the death of Lt. Benjamin Hodgson, and was present for
a discussion of strategy between Captain Myles Keogh and General
Custer.[14] When others challenged his claims, Goldin claimed that Brady
had distorted his letter.[1] [The
footnotes leading to recent authors expressing their opinion]
And were suppose to accept this hypocritical writing? It is claimed by WIKI that nearly 120 people came forward claiming they were the last survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn, and then… no source is given…
Well, after reading this WIKI write up on the Battle of Little Bighorn, clearly written by Narcissists only concerned with choices of correct words, flair and style with visions of work of genius being viewed as with intellect, and no doubt reading their own write up many many times over, envisioning all the time, as if there was a counter showing them the millions of people who have viewed and awed over their masterpiece who were left speechless…. Yet… all it really is, is the regurgitation of recent former writers opinions…
The point to the foregoing is, reading what history has fed us since the occurrence of the Little Bighorn Battle, is no more valid… in fact less than the story told in the Black Book.
OK… lets move on…. Now I would like to share one of
these many claims of which WIKI is either oblivious to, or is ignored by them.
The following account has much more validity than anything that the academics
have used or considered.
From the Black Book
The Fateful
Summer of '76
Jesse Woodson
James liked to tell his wide-eyed grandchildren, "the history of the Old
West has never been told because the men who made our nation grow didn't have time
to stop, record or tell about everything they did, things moved too fast.” But
as an old man, Jesse had lots of time to talk and look back. He never forgot
what was crammed into the summer of 1876.
From June 25
to September 7, a span of less than two and a half months, Gen. George A.
Custer and 277 of his troopers died at the Little Bighorn, James Butler (Wild
Bill) Hickock was killed in a Deadwood bar, and a massive raid on a
During the
winter of 1959 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, two old-timers, Timothy Ardell
Capps, 88, and Frank Curtis, an illiterate Negro gifted with an agile mind,
discussed the U.S. 7th Cavalry's fate at the Battle of the Little Big Horn and signed a series of sworn statements.
Curtis had been a teenage bullwhacker there that fateful day at Little Big Horn
along with his father and older brother. Capps' father, Timothy Leonard Capps,
and his uncle, Carl Capps, were eyewitnesses, too; Tim had grown up learning
the history of the Old West from their mouths.
Although the
Civil War had been over more than a decade when Custer made his foolish foray
into Indian country, former Confederate soldiers hadn't forgotten the
North-South conflict. Jesse W. James was an unreconstructed Southerner and he
remembered the 15 bullet holes he received fighting for the Stars and Bars. To Jesse,
Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph and other chiefs were Confederate allies because
General Custer, a damn yankee who'd fought at
By 1876 the
32-year-old James owned a thriving freight line business, and long before
Custer’s demise, he had been running guns to Indians on the Northern Plains.
Curtis, who worked for Jesse James, recalled how easy it had been. In late
winter, 1876, 150 heavy wagons were loaded at Camp Worth (now Fort Worth),
Texas, with food, cloth, canned goods, saddles, blankets, etc. - but mostly
with the latest 44-40 Winchester repeating rifles and ammunition. The new
rifles had been purchased by Jesse through "regular channels."
Capps said
his father told him there were 10 wagons to a crew and the two Cappses and the
three Curtises were teamsters in one of the 15 crews. Some of Colonel James'
wagons were so heavy they had to be pulled by eight teams of horses. As the
wagons groaned northward no one, particularly the military, paid much heed.
Trade with the Indians was growing and profitable. Besides, the rifles, 10 to a
wooden case, and shells, were cleverly hidden. Each wagon carried a small gold and white flag, Jesse James' secret
safe conduct pass known throughout the Indian nations.
Months before
the wagon train left Camp Worth, Jesse and other former Confederate officers
had trained the Sioux in the use of the new Winchester repeating rifle, a gun
far superior to what the U.S. 7th Cavalry had. More than a dozen Winchesters
and half a dozen Gatling guns had been stolen from the
The early-day
machine gun had been invented by Richard Jordan Gatling of
What would
primitive Plains Indians, use to riding their ponies bareback, do with a Gatling
gun? Colonel James imported a dozen large, gentle
Equally
important, the former Confederate experts convinced their willing Indian pupils
that their old practice of playing ring-around-the-rosie with the white man's
wagon train was obsolete. They were trained to fight like Morgan's Raiders and Quantrill's
Curtis
remembered that about noon on the fateful Sun- day of June 25 Custer and his men
rode up over the hill east of the river toward the vast Indian encampment
situated on the west side of the Little Big Horn. Custer found a peaceful camp with only women, children and older Indians.
No doubt the Indians were surprised. They had expected their confrontation with
the
Capps said
that Colonel James broke open wagon after wagon where they'd halted a safe
distance from the actual battlefield and passed out about 2,000 repeating
rifles and ammunition as the Indian warriors rode by. The Indians tossed away
an assortment of old muzzle-loaders, spears, tomahawks and bows and arrows when
the new repeaters were thrust into their hands. Then they raced their ponies to
the battlefield and opened fire on Custer's men.
Because of
the timing, the Indians had been able to get only two of their mounted Gatling guns
into action, but these were coupled with repeating rifles. General Custer had never
faced such awesome firepower. Capps said, "The battle was over in not too many
minutes. It was a one-sided slaughter, my father told me."
Eyewitness
Curtis didn't mention it, but Tim Capps' father told him, "I know Custer, the
fighting general, didn't show much bravery when face to face with a blaze of
hatred that day, so he up and shot himself on the last go-around."
Fifty years
after the battle, Colonel James verified Custer's suicide, saying. "The
Indians had him disarmed and captured. He asked for the return of his pistol so
he could 'die like a soldier'. After a brief pow-wow, the Indians gave it back
to him and he shot himself in the heart."
Jesse and a
former Confederate general who had been training the Indians, ordered the main
3,000-man victorious force to divide, scatter and vanish from the battlefield; Sitting
Bull called off the other, Indians who surrounded Major Reno's troopers on a
nearby hill. Some historians have long insisted there were some survivors of
the Custer massacre and they are right. Golden Circle accounts say 17 ex-Rebel
troopers brought out their diagonal gold-white flags and escaped.
Capps testified, "Dad
told me that all dead troopers were mutilated, scalped and stripped, but not
the body of General Custer. His corpse was left where it fell.” Colonel James
passed the word to his teamsters to "get the hell out real fast." The
150 wagons broke into units of 10 each, circled the nearby hills and headed
east to Deadwood, Dakota Territory, where the feverish
Where is the one thousand new repeating rifles, five-hundred pistols and a quantity of ammunition not to mention the Gatling guns that were used at Little Bighorn and cached away afterwards?
Not to many years ago a friend sent me a copy of what has been nicknamed as the Montana Ghost Town Map at the time, an internet search yielding no results of the map making any appearance on the internet. Today if you search really hard, you might find one incident where in someone felt the need to make it public. However, NO ONE seems to know where this town was or what it may have to do with the Little Bighorn massacre. I would love to tell the story of how I found the Ghost Town in question; in fact, I can’t really take credit because even though I did find it, I could not confirm it with the presence of a railroad. The credit goes to another who dug much deeper than I… Unfortunately for reasons I cannot explain yet, all we can do is sit back and look at the hill where in the cavern exists, knowing without doubt what lies under it… it could drive a sane man crazy… this is the kind of thing that occurs more often than I care for… finding something of this magnitude, and because of existing unforeseen circumstances, you can’t touch it, but circumstances can be changed, with time, money and patients…
It is believed that Jesse’s Grandson, Lee
Howk drew this map after Jesse had passed away. Oh how I would love to see the
Gatling guns, the 44-40
On the upper portion of the Ghost town map, minus instructions… is inscribed:
J. W. James
used this town as his own bailiwick.
During bad
years he stored thousands of tons of excess copper bars to help keep the copper
price up to 15 cents to 17 cents per pound on the market. He hoped to store
copper until the prices increased. He also hoarded placer gold and gold bars
plus some lead bars and silver bars along with sacks of canned milk, canned
meat, Beans and pork in cans just in case. A lot of guns and supplies went
through this town to General Poncho Villa
And inscribed on the top right:
…. A hollow
mound mountain
200 repeating
rifles an ammunition, 5 or 6 Gatling guns and 300 Pistols. 10,000 to 12,000
tons of copper bars, 500 to 700 tons of silver bars, 16 tons of placer gold,
saddles, blankets, canned goods
In case you were wondering, the contents is valued at over 1 Billion,
Writing about it alleviates the stress… time, money
and… patients…
