Today is Independence Day.
1776 Congress passed a declaration of independence from the United Kingdom, which stated:
On this date in 1776 the Continental Congress acted to pass The Declaration of Independence.
By
this act, the Continental Congress radically altered the nature of the
ongoing war against the United Kingdom, no matter what prospective the
war is viewed from. The American colonies had been at war with the
United Kingdom since 1774, when militiamen and British troops first
engaged each other in combat at Lexington and Concord.
While it
seems difficult to understand it now, the war was not at first for the
stated war aim of achieving a complete separation from the United
Kingdom. The various Colonial governments viewed their association with
the United Kingdom in different ways, some of which would seem quite
foreign to Americans today. At first the concept of completely severing
a political association with the United Kingdom seemed so extremely
radical as to be beyond consideration for many. However, by the second
year of the war, the section of the population which wished for Congress
to declare the colonies to be independent from the United Kingdom
(which was a concept that some Colonist had before the war, and already
believed to be a type of reality) had grown to the point where a
majority in Congress favored it. On this day, Congress declared the
separation to be a permanent and self evident fact.
The text of the Declaration reads:
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When
in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and
to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station
to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of
these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present
King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He
has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the
right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them
and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together
legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He
has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured
to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing
the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new
Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He
has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to
their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For
protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For
abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its
Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He
is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He
has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He
has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions
We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is
unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting
in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to
time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable
jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our
emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common
kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice
of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We,
therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority
of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That
these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and
Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that
as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War,
conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
1803 The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
1830 William Sublette names "Rock Independence" as his Wind River bound party spent the 4th of July there. The name would shortly be changed to
Independence Rock.
1836 Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Eliza Hart Spaulding, the first Euroepan Ameirican women to cross the continent, made a marker at
South Pass. Attribution: On This Day.
1845 The Texas Constitutional Convention voted to accept United States
annexation and to submit the decision to the voters of Texas. Attribution: On This Day.
1864 Congress passed the Immigration Act allowing for the immigration of Chinese laborers. The act was brought about due to Civil War educed labor shortages.
1866 Fort Halleck was abandoned.Attribution: On This Day.
1867 Cheyenne named that. On the same day, it was platted (and hence named) by Gen. Grenville Dodge.
1874
The Bates Battle, July 4, 1874
We were fortunately recently to be able to tour one of Wyoming's little known battlefields recently, thanks due to the local landowner who controls the road access letting us on. We very much appreciate their generosity in letting us do so.
Our Jeep, which should have some clever nickname, but which does not. Wrecked twice, and reassembled both times, it gets us where we want to go. But we only go so far. We stopped after awhile and walked in.
The battlefield is the Bates Battlefield, which is on the National Registry of Historic landmarks, but which is little viewed. There's nothing there to tell you that you are at a battlefield. There are no markers or the like, like there is at Little Big Horn. You have to have researched the area before you arrive, to know what happened on July 4, 1874, when the battle was fought. And even at that, accounts are confusing.
Fortunately for the researcher, a really good write up of what is known was done when Historic Site status was applied for. Rather than try to rewrite what was put in that work, we're going to post it here. So we start with the background.
And on to the confusion in the accounts, which we'd note is common even for the best known of Indian battles. Indeed, maybe all of them.
The text goes on to note that the Arapaho raided into country that what was withing the recently established Shoshone Reservation, which we know as the Wind River Indian Reservation. It also notes that this was because territories which the various tribes regarded as their own were fluid, and it suggest that a culture of raiding also played a potential part in that. In any event, the Shoshone found their reservation domains raided by other tribes. Complaints from the Shoshone lead, respectively, to Camp Augur and Camp Brown being established, where are respectively near the modern towns of Lander and Ft. Washakie (which Camp Brown was renamed).
The immediate cause of the raid was the presence of Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and Sioux parties in the area in June and July 1874 that had an apparent intent to raid onto the Reservation. Ironically, the Arapaho, who were involved in this battle, had separated themselves from the Cheyenne and the Sioux and had no apparent intent to participate in any such raids. They thereafter placed themselves in the Nowood River area. Indian bands were known to be in the area that summer, and they were outside of those areas designated to them by the treaties of 1868.
Given this, Cpt. Alfred E. Bates, at Camp Brown, had sent scouts, including Shoshone scouts, into the field that summer to attempt to locate the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands. On June 29, Shoshone scouts reported at Camp Brown that they'd sited an Arapaho village. We here pick back up from the text:
The expedition took to the field on July 1, 1874, and remarkably, it traveled at night.
A few days later, they found what they were looking for.
Let's take a look at some of what Bates was seeing:
This is the valley which was below the ridge that Bates was traveling up, the night he found the Arapaho village when he passed it by. It's not clear to me if he backtracked all the way back past this point and came back up this valley, or if he came from another direction. Based upon the description, I suspect he rode all the way back and came up from this direction, but from the high ground, not down here in the valley.
Here's the spot that Bates referenced as being the area where two ravines joined. Not surprisingly, in this wet year, the spot is fairly wet. But to add to that, this area features a spring, known today, and probably dating back to the events of this battle, as Dead Indian Springs. The "gentle slope" from which Cpt. Bates made his survey, is in the background.
And here we look up that second ravine, with its current denizens in view.
And here we see the prominent bluff opposite of where Cpt. Bates reconnoitered. It was prominent indeed.
Bates chose to attack down the slope of the hill he was on, described above, with thirty troopers and twenty Shoshones. At the same time, Lt. Young, meanwhile, attached down the valley from above it on the watercourse, in an apparent effort to cut the village off and achieve a flanking movement.
The slope down which Bates and his detail attacked, and the draw down which Young attacked.
The draw down which Young attacked.
The slope down which Bates attacked is depicted above.
The fighting was fierce and the Arapaho were surprised. They put up a good account, however, and were even able to at least partially get mounted. Chief Black Coal was wounded in the fighting and lost several fingers when shot while mounted. The Arapaho defended the draw and the attack, quite frankly, rapidly lost the element of surprise and became a close quarters melee.
The slope down which Bates attacked.
The valley down which Young attacked.
High ground opposite from the slope down which Bates attacked.
Fairly quickly, the Arapaho began to execute the very move that Bates feared, and they retrated across the draw and started to move up the high ground opposite the direction that Bates had attacked from. Young's flanking movement had failed.
The high ground.
The opposing bluff.
The opposing bluff.
Bates then withdrew.
Bates' command suffered four dead and five or six wounded, including Lt. Young. His estimates for Arapaho losses were 25 Arapaho dead, but as he abandoned the field of battle, that can't be really verified. Estimates for total Arapaho casualties were 10 to 125. They definitely sustained some losses and, as noted, Chief Black Coal was wounded in the battle.
Bates was upset with the results of the engagement and placed the blame largely on the Shoshone, whom he felt were too noisy in the assault in the Indian fashion. He also felt that they had not carried out his flanking instructions properly, although it was noted that the Shoshone interpreter had a hard time translating Bates English as he spoke so rapidly. Adding to his problems, moreover, the soldiers fired nearly all 80 of their carried .45-70 rifle cartridges during the engagement and were not able to resupply during the battle as the mules were unable to bring ammunition up. This meant that even if they had not disengaged for other reasons, they were at the point where a lock of ammunition would have hampered any further efforts on their part in any event (and of course they would have been attacking uphill).
After the battle the Arapaho returned to the Red Cloud Agency. Seeing how things were going after Little Big Horn, they came onto the Wind River Reservation in 1877 for the winter on what was supposed to be a temporary basis, and they remain there today. They were hoping for their own reservation in Wyoming, but they never received it. Black Coal went on the reservation with him, and portraits of him show him missing two fingers on his right hand. His people soon served on the Reservation as its policemen. He himself lived until 1893.
Alfred E. Bates, who had entered the Army as a private at the start of the Civil War at age 20. Enlisting in the Michigan state forces, he soon attracted the attention of a politician who secured for him an enrollment at West Point, where he graduated in the Class of 1865. He missed service in the Civil War but soon went on to service on the plains. His name appears on two Wyoming geographic localities. He rose to the rank of Major General and became Paymaster of the Army, dying in 1909 of a stroke.
[b]1874 The 2nd Cavalry engaged Sioux/Cheyenne at Bad Water.[/b]
1890 Medicine Bow Station burned. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt officially ended the
Philippine-American War. It really wasn't, but he saw the value in
declaring it to be so.
1908
The monument at the Fetterman battleground dedicated.
1911 The aviation age arrives at Wyoming, with the first recorded flight in the state taking place in Gillette.
Revolutionary War themed poster from World War One.
1920 Veterans memorial to World War One veterans dedicated in Hanna, Wyoming.
The Hanna Museum's website has an article about the dedication
here.
The monument is still present, and it looked like this 2012 when I photographed it. However, since that time the actual plaque on the monument was stolen in 2015. It was found damaged in a nearby ditch. The town was working to raise funds to repair the monument and buy a new plaque, which was apparently still the case at least as of 2019.
This is a memorial in Hanna Wyoming dedicated to all from the region who served in World War One. Hanna is a very small town today, and the number of names on this memorial is evidence of the town once being significantly more substantially sized than it presently is.
The memorial is located on what was the Lincoln Highway at the time, but which is now a Carbon County Highway. This was likely a central town location at the time the memorial was placed.
Hanna also is the location of the
Carbon County Veterans Park which contains a substantial number of additional monuments.
1924 The statue of William F. Cody by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was dedicated in Cody. Attribution: On This Day.
1941 Hot Springs County Museum opens.
1954 An earthquake occurs in the Yellowstone region.
1956 Actress Judy Tyler and her husband, actor Greg Lafayette, were killed in an automobile accident near Rock River. Attribution: On This Day.
1976 Nici Self Museum, dedicated to railroad history, dedicated in Centennial.
