Custer

[catnthehatt]

I recall as a youngster my old man telling me 'a Mason will never hang' (he was a Mason). Years later I read a big biography on Custer that said Custer was a Mason. At one point in the Civil War, Custer and 7 other Union soldiers were captured and were to be hung the next morning. It happened that one of the Confederate guards was a Mason and during the night Custer alone escaped. The other 7 were hung in the morning.

I think that the rumour of Custer being a mason is nothing but that - rumour, along the same lines as Crazy Horse being a free Mason!
Cat

 

[Ol' Flinter]

...so what do the historians say about Custer's fate as in how many bullet holes, arrows or whatever finally brought him down? Did his blonde flowing locks end up adorning someones teepee?

 

[Bowie]

I read his left arm was wounded, he was shot on the left side of the chest, and there was a bullet hole in the left side of the skull which apparently did not bleed, indicating Custer already being dead at that time.

 

[dan belisle]

He had shorn his head before the battle, both to lessen the scalping threat and to hide the fact that he was going bald. Also according to some reports, he had an arrow shoved up his #####. The rest of his men were so mutilated that most of them were unrecognisable. - dan

 

[Cowboy Shootist]

I too remember that day very well, a sad day in Canadian firearmes collecting history. One of the Cooke familly (a young fellow without much for assets, still remember the tears in his eyes as the gun was sold) wanted to keep the gun but couln't afford to buy the other familly members out.

An added fact that Linda mentioned at the time of sale was that the after the gun was confiscated (seems to be a continuing theme here) by the NWMP and it made its way thru it's journy back to the Cooke familly in Ont. and then was handed down thru the familly until it ended up as you said in Watrous which was less than 15 miles from where it was originally confiscated.

At the time of the sale it was thought that the price realized would have doubled or even trippled if provinance could be proven that the gun was actually used at LBH. The thought a the time was that Cooke surely would have been issued a modern SAA that he would have been using during the battle. Sinse the gun was a Civil war cap & ball it was probably a spare that the Sioux obtained by rumaging thru his pack.

The Army on the western frontier were issued the 1873 SAA by late 1874 making Lt. Cooke using it for less than two years. Cooke's Remington cap and ball was what they called a "saddle bag gun". A spare if you will. I have corresponded with the new owner, of Hicksville, NY (yes, there is really a town called Hicksville ) and he is currently going through a divorce. He hopes that he doesn't have to sell it to pay a divorce settlement.

 

[smellie]

It has always been my understanding that the coming of the new 1873 Colt revolver rendered the conversions which the Cav were carrying as surplus, and that these conversion revolvers were sold to any of the men carrying them who wanted the things.

Colt's 1873 revolver Number 8048 was in my possession for some time, in our family for the past 50 years. It has definitely been ID'd as an LBH gun, tracked to Company by serial. It came from a Sioux reservation in Canada, along with a second revolver. The Colt was in pretty rough condition, although restorable. Interesting, though, it had had the grip and triggerguard replaced with "US"-stamped parts from an 1860. This would make sense, as many of the old-timers felt that brass was "warmer" to hold in the cold weather.

I still have the second revolver, a conversion to cartridge from an 1858 Remington, 1863 manufacture. It is in NRA Ugly condition although the bore is not bad. Despite the fact that these were converted about 1868, the Registry insists that it is a .44-40..... even though .44-40 rounds do not fit into the cylinder.... and that it makes no sense at all for an army to convert its arms to handle a cartridge that won't be invented for another 5 years. Actual calibre likely is the original 44/100 Colt; it needs a straight case and a heel bullet to work properly. Still, it's an interesting old thing to have.

I have also run into an LBH Springfield Carbine, definitely an Indian gun for some time. The rear sight, interestingly, had been smashed off the rifle. I am told by a good friend (a direct descendant of High Eagle) that this was standard among the Indians at that time ecause they didn't use the rear sight and found it just another Wasicu nuisance. They hunted with these guns, using them like a big pistol as they rode alongside the buffalo they had picked.

Bumper sticker on a Cadillac at the Canupawakpa Wacipe (Pow-wow): "Custer had it coming!"
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[dan belisle]

"Custer died for your sins", another favorite. - dan

 

[buffdog]

Cooke's Remington

When Bud Haines auctioned off the Remington and the knife, I told him that I was going to own it. He looked at me a bit funny, because I collected more modern military rifles.

Then I told him I was going to make one bid, and own it for a short time. I did, somewhere about $32,000 and owned it for 29 seconds, until someone bid more. Bud was also of the opinion that the knife was worth about the same as the Remington, due to the scarcity and provenance.

When a fire swept through the Custer Battlefield many years ago, National Geographic did an article on an archelogical survey done. The progress of individual indian fighters could be traced due to the ejected cartridge cases with their unique firing pin imprints. In fact, the Indians were better armed than the Cavalry.

The U.S. Military never got the word on the Brass cases until the Spanish-American War. I once bought a box of 45-70 military cartridges with an 1888 headstamp on them, still with copper cases.
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