This Inglorious Indian War
On November 17, 1890, Major Guy V. Henry of the 9th Cavalry, commander of Ft. McKinney, Wyoming, received a telegram ordering him to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Two days later, Henry and D Troop of the 9th Cavalry, commanded by my great-great-grandfather Cpt. John S. Loud, set off on the roughly 300-mile journey to the lands of the Lakota people. The 9th Cavalry’s D Troop were not the only soldiers ordered to proceed to South Dakota at that time.
The Last of the Post Traders
Several of the photographs in the Loud family scrapbook that covers their years at Ft. Washakie, Wyoming, depict James K. Moore, the long-time post trader. Moore had come to the West as a young man and worked in various mercantile operations. He became the post trader for Ft. Washakie (then called Camp Auger) in 1871, before the actual fort was built, and he remained there until 1907, only two years before the fort was decommissioned.
Lost on the Lady Elgin
On September 8, 1860, the steamship Lady Elgin, overloaded with passengers on a fundraising excursion, sank on Lake Michigan, an incident which remains the deadliest wreck on the open waters of the Great Lakes
The Grimké Brothers
It’s impossible to spend much time reading about the abolition and women’s suffrage movements in early 19th century America without running across the Grimké sisters. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were among the leading lights of both those civil rights movements prior to the Civil War, and I have long admired their courage and dedication to promoting social equality. It was only recently, however, that I learned that Sarah’s and Angelina’s nephews—the Grimké brothers—were among the leading lights of late 19th century and early 20th century intellectual and civil rights movements.