Curley Appears

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From the book "Conquest of the Missouri" by Joseph Mills Hanson

The smoke columns noticed along the southern horizon on the two previous days had disappeared now, and the general opinion was that Custer and Terry had met the enemy and routed them, so little fear was felt of an Indian surprise. Nevertheless, as they sat there fishing, George Foulk noticed how close they were to the dense willows on the main shore and remarked to the others that it would be very easy for Indians to creep up and fire on them. They were still idly discussing the suggestion when, without the least warning, the green thickets at which they were looking parted, and a mounted Indian warrior, of magnificent physique and stark naked save for a breech-clout, burst through and jerked up his sweating pony at the brink of the water. The fisherman leaped to their feet with startled exclamations, but before they could run back to the steamship the Indian held aloft his carbine in sign of peace. They then paused and, upon scrutinizing him more closely recognized from his erect scalp-lock that he was a Crow, and then, to their surprise that he was Curley, one of the three Crow scouts that had gone with Custer. They had expected to hear from Terry and Gibbon, but not from Custer. Motioning him to come to the boat they hurried there themselves while he forded the stream and joined them.

 Curley

As soon as he was onboard the steamship, the Far West he gave way to the most violent demonstrations of his grief. Throwing himself down upon a medicine chest on deck he began rocking to and fro, groaning and crying. For some time it was impossible to calm him. When at length he had to some extent regained his self -control, the question arose as to how to communicate with him, for no one on board could understand the Crow language, while he spoke no English, so that all efforts at conversation failed. Finally Captain Baker produced a piece of paper and a pencil and showed the Indian how to use them. Curley drew a map of the battle called by the Indians "Greasy Grass." We know it as The Battle of the Little Big Horn. We know today that the map was very accurate. Some historians do not believe he escaped the battle but some do.

There is a possibility that he watched it unfold from a distance. My thought is if the two other Crow scouts stayed with Custer so did Curley. He did escape partly because he was dressed as an Indian and not as a soldier. He also had the famous "Custer's Luck" which Custer had finally lost.

The book continues . . .

The sketch drawn by Curley on a piece of paper with Captain Baker’s pencil showing how Custer and his men were surrounded and killed by the Sioux, was extremely crude. But it presented the crucial features of the battle accurately, and predated by more than eighteen years the drawing made by Rain-in-the-Face , a Sioux warrior, on the back of a hunting shirt, in August, 1894, which has been frequently heralded as the first and only map of the field of the Little Big Horn ever drawn by an Indian participant.

 Rain-in-the-Face   

        

Later in his life Rain-in-the-Face attended the World’s Fair in Paris.

There are so many fascinating sections to this part of the story. Boston Custer was talked out of riding with his brother by Captain Marsh. The twenty eight year old was writing from a steam ship cabin to his Mother when Captain Marsh talked him into staying with the stern wheeler. He later changed his mind and died with his brother on the hill. George as well as his brother Tom Custer died there. Tom was also famous during the Civil War and won the Medal of Honor.

Elizabeth Bacon Custer actually asked Captain Marsh if she and a few of the other officers wives could come along on the trip aboard the Far West. I guess it was like First Manassas during the Civil War where citizens actually packed lunches to watch the battle out side of Washington D.C. Captain Marsh said no.

Then there was the part at Fort Abraham Lincoln where the twenty eight widows would be notified of the tragic deaths of their husbands. Only two officers lived from the two battles but they were not in Custer’s unit. The second battle being with Reno east of the village.

You can see Custer’s trumpeters bugle at Little Big Horn. He was from Italy. Remember the New England Patriots’ place kicker Adam Vinatieri? The bugler was his Great Great Grandfather. YCMUSLT

Two Crow scouts died with Custer. White Swan and Half Yellow Face. I did not know that.

Also at Greasy Grass were Crow King, Gall, and Two Moons.

Crow King

 Gall

 Two Moons

Low Dog

Comes Out Holy

The men in the photographs above were with Sitting Bull, who was there but did not participate.

Low Dog was a Minicauju chief. He was twenty four years old when he fought at Little Big Horn. His brother was killed during the battle. His account of the fight is one of the best known.

Gall weighed three hundred pounds. Two of his wives and several of his children were killed at the start of the battle. He sought revenge and the 7th Calvary paid dearly. Libby Custer met Gall years later and commented on how handsome he was. YCMTU either

Two Moons was a Arikara captive who married into the Cheyenne tribe. He was the model for the buffalo nickel. He traveled to Washington D.C. many times, even meeting with President Woodrow Wilson.

Crow King was a Hunkpapa Sioux chief. He led his band of eighty warriors against Custer's 7th.

To see many more photos of Indians who fought at Greasy Grass check out my blog "Como se llama," November 28, 2008

No photograph exists of Crazy Horse.

Nathaniel Philbrick who wrote “The Last Stand” read sixteen books to research and write his book. “Conquest of the Missouri” was not among them. I actually sent him an e- mail asking if he has read this terrific book. How would you know, with that title, that it would have so much Custer history? More later if he responds.

Have you ever been to Montana Territory? The battlefield is actually now on Crow land. The Sioux being an enemy. When you go, be prepared for the intense quiet of the place. You have the feeling that some thing big happened here. It is the same feeling you get at Gettysburg.

Curley retired from the United States Army. His log cabin is at Old Trail Town in Wyoming. Someone made a theme park by buying up old historic buildings and setting them up as a town at Old Trail Town outside of the east gate of Yellowstone. Right down the street is Cody, Wyoming. You could even stay at the hotel that Bill built. It is still called The Irma, after one of his daughters. You will also find at Old Trail Town the Hole in the Wall gang’s cabin. There is a saloon that Butch and Sundance drank at.

 Did you know that there actually was a trapper / scout with the name of Yellowstone Kelly?

If you sleep at the Irma, tell them Tocino sent you, and ask where you can meet the tour that takes you to see the wild mustangs still roaming the plains.

 

You are not going?  Well on your way back from Samoa, stop in and see some of these United States.

General Gibson has recorded that he said to Custer as the latter left him, "Now Custer, don't be greedy, but wait for us."

Custer called back, "No I will not," -- an ambiguous answer, which might have been intended to apply to either part of Gibbons caution.

Suleyman The Magnificent

I just wanted to catch your interest. This is all about BOOKS. Sandy and I heard about Suleyman while in Turkey so I thought that I would learn something about Turkish history. I have not started it yet. It's sitting in a pile in my closet with eleven others. That pile is diverse to say the least. From Sissy Spacek to President Garfield to Hadrian.

But the one I started just last night in the casita is called "The Conquest of the Missouri." Stirs your blood, doesn't it? I know, I know. It could have gone either way, but it grabbed me and here is why. The following is copied from ONLY page Viii in the introduction.

Slowly and with compassion, the wounded 7th cavalrymen were borne by comrades from Custer's field to the Far West. Forewarned, Marsh bedecked his boat with fresh cut grass covered with tarpaulins and soon fifty-two men were carefully laid out on the main deck under the watchful care of the expeditions doctors. One, Henry Porter himself a heroic participant in the Little Bighorn affair and it's only surviving doctor, was designated to accompany the victims to Fort Abraham Lincoln. Aboard, too was the badly wounded horse Comanche, Capt. Myles Keogh's mount and the only surviving horse having any prospects of recovery.

I am still in the introduction, mind you, and already my mind is blown.

As you know, Comanche recovered and no one was ever allowed to ride him ever again. How did you know that?

Captain Grant Marsh was the captain of the steam ship "Far West." He went to work on the river when he was twelve years old. This book is about his life. He kept at it until he was in his eighties. It was written by Joseph Mills Stanton. I know you are falling asleep, but listen to this. Stanton's last employ was at Manassas National Battlefield Park, as the parks supervisor, until they forced him to retire at age seventy four.

Stanton interviewed many people for this book including Nelson Miles, Samuel Clemens and even Buffalo Bill Cody. Then he went and married a women from Seekonk, Massachusetts. YCMTSU

OK, OK enough already. I know.

This month alone I have finished two books on walking the camino in Spain, as well as a book that I bought Sandy for her birthday called "My Two Polish Grandfathers." If you read a book on Francis Sinatra, you will no longer like the man. I tried Errol Flynn's book but put it on hold for now.

I order my books from a company in Connecticut. Right now I have the order form filled out for thirty-one more books. I was going to wait, but at this rate I think I'd better place the order now.

Tom Egan is chomping at the bit, trying to hold off sending me my Christmas book. He felt the same way about the last two, which were spectacular. They were "Mayflower" and "In the Heart of the Sea." The latter being about the famous voyage of the ship Essex. Have you ever heard the tale of Moby Dick? Both books from Tom were written by Nathaniel Philbrick.

I am heading for the casita with book in hand.  Good night.

post script

How did I forget Empire of the Summer Moon?  Also a find by Dr. Tee Pee Egan. It is about Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comaches. The most powerful tribe in American history.

The Way of Saint James

My daughter Marnie and I are considering very seriously of walking the Camino de Santiago next fall in northern Spain. It starts in a French town in the Pyrenees called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Then you travel west to Santiago de Compostela, the cathedral where the apostle James the Greater's bones are.

The walk is also referred to as The Way. I thought that the movie was awful but I like the whole idea of the distance. The walking, the food, the cold beer, the coffee, the wine of Rioja, the fountains in the town squares, the other  pilgrims from all over the world, the weight of our mochilas (backpacks), the hostels or refugios, the Roman-built bridges, the sights, the Gothic and Roman stone churches along the full length, the sunflowers and the wheat fields, the air -- but especially the stars.

When I was still on Facebook, Marnie posted that she was trying to talk me into it. She said that I had run 54,000 miles and asked if I had another 500 left in my tank.

I just finished reading a book, "The Field of Stars," about an American Roman Catholic priest who did it in 35 days. It was very well written, very interesting, and easy to read. Marnie is finishing another on El Camino and we will trade later today. But we are both already hooked.

Perhaps there will be a blog of the experience.      

It will be our very first pilgrimage.

Buen Camino, Vayan con Dios            
Tocino

Happy Father's Day / Still Cruisin' Around

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Still Just Cruising Around

Seems as though I have been driving the roads and highways my whole life.

My Studebaker.

Skipping school to work for fifteen hours, but bringing in $15 in 1959. Gasoline was 35 cents a gallon. Falling asleep in Chemistry. Three times a week the Comeau Trucking rig would stop for me right at Mom's on Route 8, always in the summer at midnight. Exactly midnight.

Mom got me the job because she was a truck stop waitress at Eileen's and she had a nice figure. Why do you always question what I say? I would NEVER lie to you, mi amore. Gulping hot coffee at diners along the way down to stay awake. Sassy waitresses. "Do you want to come to my place and have a cup of coffee on the couch?" Even to this day, four gulps and the coffee is gone.

Riding with the window down, with the diesel smokestack getting redder the closer we got to the great state of New York. Today when I smell that run-over skunk smell, my mind goes right back to those good ol’ days. Why is that?

I rode as a helper. The tractor trailer drivers went to NYC to deliver 100-lb bags of New England lime to the piers that faced the Statue of Liberty. My job was to unload.

Well my diesel is wound up tight,

I don't see a cop in sight.

Six days on the road

and I'm a gonna make it home tonight.

Thought you would enjoy a break with truckin’ music. Roy Sludge played at Johnny D’s recently and sang his big hit, "Too Drunk to Truck." YCMTSup. But I guess you can if your name is Roy Sludge.  

One day on a pier in NYC, a black guy driving a tow motor, the first one I ever saw, I mean the black guy, said, "What you boys got in them bags? Cee-ment?”

My whole family worked at New England Lime Company, soon to be eaten up by a company with the name of Pfizer. The Bongiolottis ran it when I was a teenager. Ippol (Hipe) ran the quarry section and his brother ran the rest of the show. Hipe treated me like his son. I can't think of what the other brother’s name was. Oh Yah! Mr. Bongiolatti. Louis was his name. Do you know those marble open pit mines north of Lucca? John Cerri, who was born in Lucca, says, "The Alpe Apuane are the marble mountains north of Lucca. Seeing them from the coast they look snow covered in July."

When worked slowed, those crews came to Adams, Massachusetts and with the rest of their families founded the Zylonite section, the Ee-talian section. Smachetti,  Balardini, Maleoni, Tomasini, Monchecci, Volpe, Carnazzola, Chiccetti, Sondrini, Dellagelfa, Delmolino, and Bianchi. First names were Aldino, Reno, Alvin, Elio, Ugo, Emilio, Carmen, Giovanni and Santino.

How do I know this you QUESTION? I grew up with Louis's son Dave, and he told me. Actually it was thirty years later when he told me. When you are living the dream you don't think about how you got there.

I worked the open pit quarry for three summers during high school. Drilling with jackhammers all morning and then blasting the limestone in the afternoon into Volkswagen size pieces that Dad's crusher could easily handle. It was freezing at the bottom of the quarries in the early morning but when the sun came up and bounced off those almost pure white walls, you felt as thought you had snow blindness. The impact would knock cans and boxes off Santino & Rosa Carnazolla's Grocery Store shelves. We rocked that valley ever day around three.

You never gave the blasting a second thought. It was life in the Zylonite Ee-talian section of Adams. Did a siren go off to tell that we were about to explode a section of mountain. No! You just stayed away from the Lime Company at that hour. Stupid question, by the way.

Did we have fun? As the quaint Adams people would say, "You bet your ass we had fun." At the end of the day of work, we would all go to an air compressor to blow all the white lime dust off of us. But everyone knew where you worked because you never got all the dust off.

Everyone carried a metal lunch box to work in the morning. Keeping your car clean was next to impossible. Dad once said to me, "When you are married with a family you won't be able to keep your car up as you do now, Also.” Mom's windows were so full of lime dust that Dad would have to jar the windows open with crow bars in the spring. That is when I started to question God. What the heck were all those fish doing inland that settled and made limestone and up 3,491 feet above sea level? At times we would find fossils in the rock.

The French Canadien "aye" Bacons were working people. Actually our original name was Bachand. My grandson certainly has that work ethic. When everyone around you is a worker bee, you don't realize that you can -- or should -- be any different. As well as Sandy and both our daughters, everyone here is a worker bee. Along with Dad's work ethic, Abel has Dad's blue eyes.

I learned a lot more on those trips to NY than I learned in high school. All of Adams were strictly Yankee fans. Screw Boston. They still think the state ends at Springfield. If I'm lying, I'm dying. Everyone from the Hoosac Valley believes that. Even to this day.

Highway miles, first as a teenager, then 44 years as a traveling salesman so far. I ran 54 ,000 miles during my crazy running days, but I have no idea how many highway miles I have driven. In Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula, we once logged 1,500 miles with Eileen and Tom or Elena and Tomas. An ancient hombre along the way asked us if it was true that in los Estados Unidos we have roads where 4 or 5 cars can drive in the same direction.

Tom and Kezia got me iPods so I ONLY listen to music that I really like while I am driving. I hate talk radio and NEVER listen to any music on the radio. Stuck in my ways? You bet. Lovin it? As they say out west, “You bet.”

“Where you from?  Massachusetts? You’re a long way from home.”

“You bet.”

My BMW 635csi.

Cajun / Zydeco band Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. Never heard of them? They recently played in Russia at the embassy and at the Jazz Festival. We visited in Connecticut just last weekend. Steve said, "As long as the Democrats are in office, the State Department keeps sending us on these goodwill missions. What a great connector music is. We get these ‘make the world friendlier’ gigs.”

More singers /musicians on my iPod. Jesse Lege, Magnolia from Rhode Island, and Beau Jocque. The manager of Johnny D's said that the best show he EVER saw there was Beau Jocque. 

Boozoo, Queen Ida, Clifton Chenier, Gino Delafose for sure. Boz, Bob Seger, Simon and Garfunkel, Elvis, Neil Young, Bob Marley, Andrea Bochelli, Marvin Gaye, the Delfonics. Jerry Lee and Roy. Spanish classical guitar, or even a CD I bought on Highway 40 near Gallup at a truck stop, called Fiddlin Johnny.

Linda Ronstadt, Cesaria Evora, yup. L. Cohen, all the time. Texas Tornados with Flaco and the late Freddy Fender. I am really entranced by Texas Border musica. Sandy and I love to dance to it. Unlike Cajun, you dance belly to belly, but it's all the same steps. It probably comes quite naturally, having grown up in a poor mill town in western Massachusetts. What? The Polka, you fool. 

Country music, not at all. Nada. Never. Although cowboy musica with Michael Martin Murphy makes me smile. 

His hat was throwed back 

and his spurs were a jingling 

and as he was ridin’ 

he was singing this song. 

Whoopi ti yi yo, 

get along little doggies, 

it's your misfortune 

and none of my own. 

Lo siento, sorry. I just had a cowboy moment. Do you have them too?  Well, we grew up with Hoppy, Gene and Roy. Every Saturday afternoon spent at the Adams Movie Theatre on Park Street. 

Oh and also in the iPod, Van Morrison. Carly and J.T. forever. “So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.” No, I did not forget Arlo. I figured you assumed that. Arlo lives in Washington, Mass.

Today while cruising between jobs in my pickup, John Stewart of the Kingston Trio came on with, "July You’re A Woman." What a great sense of humor he had. And could he pick -- banjo or guitar. So as the locals do in Italy and Mexico as they pass churches or missions, I did the sign of the cross and sent it skyward. Where that came from I do not know. Although a doctor recently put me on steroids -- really -- and not only am I flush with energy, my mind is so very clear. One more day and I am back to my 67 year old life, but it certainly was nice being seventeen again. 

As for the Catholic thing, it has been a while. Could be my old age. Who do I think I am to bless someone?  It simply felt like the right thing to do at the time. So I did the sign of the cross or I blessed myself. What ever you call it. I meant well. But I did not mean it for me.  

Hi Mom. Still love you. Thanks for all the love and freedom you gave Mike and me.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

Your good son,           

Bobby

More Mexillant

Only four hours earlier you boarded a plane in Febrero in a grey and freezing Boston. Your luggage is brought from the harbor by bicycle probably by Fidel who also sells the island newspaper, Por Esto.

(These bicicletas are used as taxis in rural Mexico.)


This is the first thing you see walking onto the property.

The second thing you see is Clara and Margarita bringing me my welcoming salted margarita. HEY! It is my story and my dream, and nothing is perfect except my marriage.

Roberto Francisco Tocino
but you may call me Patron or El Presidente. I am partial to both.

MEXILLANT