Battle of the Rosebud Battlefield, Montana.

The Battle of the Rosebud was an important June 1876 battle that came, on June 17, just days prior to the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Fought by the same Native American combatants, who crossed from their Little Big Horn encampment to counter 993 cavalrymen and mule mounted infantrymen who had marched north from Ft. Fetterman, Wyoming, at the same time troops under Gen. Terry, including Custer's command, were proceeding west from Ft. Abraham Lincoln.  Crook's command included, like Terry's, Crow scouts, and he additionally was augmented soon after leaving Ft. Fetterman by Shoshoni combatants.

The battlefield today is nearly untouched.

Called the Battle Where the Sister Saved Her Brother, or the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, like Little Big Horn, it was a Sioux and Arapaho victory, although it did not turn into an outright disaster like Little Big Horn. Caught in a valley and attacked, rather than attacking into a valley like Custer, the Army took some ground and held its positions, and then withdrew.  Crook was effectively knocked out of action for the rest of the year and retreated into the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming.

 

The Powder River and the Red Trail, Montana

These are admittedly not Wyoming photographs, but from southeastern Montana.  When I stopped at this location one afternoon in February I didn't know what the historical marker would entail.

I'm glad that I did. While my sign photos are oddly not quite in focus, it's an interesting looking area.

And while this doesn't depict Wyoming, its a region connected with the state, and on a river which runs through  much of Wyoming at that.

Camp Devin, Montana/Wyoming

These are rather wintery photographs of a place that was only occupied until late summer in 1878. So the pictures are unfair by their very nature, however, like a lot of photographs here, I take them when I go by them.

If you click on these photos you'll get the full, albeit short, story of Camp Devin.  It was a post Little Big Horn camp established just off (and I mean just off) the northern boundary of the Black Hills in 1878 in order to guard the construction of a telegraph line.

I don't know the reasoning behind the location of the post, but it was likely because the Black Hills themselves remained a real threat and, in terms of locating a camp ground, assuming that there's water near by, you couldn't ask for a flatter location.

The post location is likely slightly approximate.  The sign is a State of Wyoming sign, but the location is literally right on the Wyoming Montana border.

TR at Billings, Montana [1918]

Some Gave All: The Powder River Country, Braodus Montana

Some Gave All: The Powder River Country, Braodus Montana:

A lot of history in this region of Montana, and in the adjoining part of Wyoming.

December 10

Today is Wyoming Day

1838  Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar inaugurated the second president of the Republic of Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1869  Territorial Governor John Campbell signed a bill giving full suffrage and public rights to women in Wyoming.  This was the first law passed in the US explicitly granting to women the franchise.  The bill provided that:  ""Every woman of the age of eighteen years residing in this territory, may, at every election cast her vote; and her right to the elective franchise and to hold office under the election laws of the territory shall be the same of electors."  Gov. Campbell's comment, in signing the bill into law, was:  "I have the honor to inform the Council that I have approved 'An act to grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the right of Suffrage and to hold office.'" 


Critics, or perhaps rather cynics, have sometimes claimed that this served no other purpose other than to raise the number of citizens eligible to vote, and thereby increase the likelihood of early admission as a state, but that view doesn't reflect the early reality of this move.  In fact, Wyoming's politicians were notably egalitarian for the time and too women as members of the body politic seriously.  During the Territorial period women even served on juries, something that was very unusual in the United States at the time, although they lost this right for a time after statehood.

1869  Territorial school laws goes into effect requiring public schools to be funded by taxation.

1898  The Treaty of Paris was signed concluding an agreement to end the Spanish American War.

1906  President Theodore Roosevelt awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

1909     Red Cloud, (Maȟpíya Lúta) Oglala Sioux warrior and chief, and the only Indian leader to have won a war with the United States in the post 1860 time frame which resulted in a favorable treaty from the Indian prospective, died at the Pine Ridge Reservation.  He was 87 years old, and his fairly long life was not uncommon for Indians of this time frame who were not killed by injuries or disease, showing that the often cited assumption that people who lived in a state of nature lived short lives is in error.  After winning Red Cloud's War, a war waged over the Powder River Basin and the Big Horns, he declined to participate in further wars against the United States, which seems to have been motivated by a visit to Washington D.C in which he became aware of the odds against the Plains Indians.  He did not become passive, and warned the United States that its treatment of Indians on the Reservation would lead to further armed conflict, which of course was correct.

While his most famous actions are associated with Wyoming, Red Cloud was born in Nebrasaka which inducted him in recent years into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

1916 Sunday State Leader for December 10, 1916: Osborne resigns as Assistant Secretary of State, Carranza will sign protocol, Funston explains ban of rivals.
 

December 10, 1916, was a peculiar newspaper day as the Cheyenne State Leader published three editions, only one of which was regular news. The others were holiday features.

In this one, the straight news one, we are told that Carranza will sign the protocol with the US. But will he really?

We also learn that Assistant Secretary of State Osborne resigned that position in order to return to Wyoming.

The news also featured a story on why U.S. Commander in the Southwest, Frederick Funston, banned religious revivals in his region of authority.

And girls from Chicago were looking for husbands.

1918  December 10, 1918. Watering in the Rhine, Welcoming the Troops Home, Massacre in Palestine, Bolsheviks worry about Russians.

Cpt. M. W. Lanham, 2nd Bde, 1st Div, waters his horse "Von Hindenburg", in the Rhine.  Ostensibly Von Hindenburg was the first American horse to drink from the Rhine.

Back home, Casperites were learning what locals and friends of locals had done during the war. . . and a big party was being planned for the returning troops.

Note making the news, a terrible massacre was perpetrated by New Zealand troops, and a few Australians, in the town of Surafend Palestine in reprisal for the murder of a New Zealander soldier.  At least 40 male villagers of that town were killed in the event.

And the Bolsheviks, a movement that had long depended upon revolutionary citizenry, made its fear of that citizenry plain when it ordered that civilians turn in their arms.  Even edged weapons were included in the decree, although shotguns were not.

1919 

December 10, 1919. Air First and a Coal Day

The prize posted by the Australian government of 10,000 Australian pounds (then the unit of currency in Australia) for the first aircraft piloted by Australians to fly from England to the Australia was claimed by the crew of a Vickers Vimy bomber, entered into the contest by Vickers.

The plane was crewed by pilots Cpt. Ross Macpherson Smith and his brother Lt. Keith Macpherson Smith, with mechanics Sgt. W. H. Shiers and J.M. Bennett.  The plane made the trip from Hounslow Heath to Australian starting on November 12, 1919.

Cpt. Smith was killed test piloting a Vickers Viking seaplane in 1922.  Lt. Smith became a Vickers executive and an airline industry figure, dying of natural causes in 1955 at age 64.

Elsewhere, questions began to come up about the nature of diplomatic officer Jenkin's kidnapping even as Republicans continued to press for action of some sort against Mexico.  And as the mine strike ended, kids in Casper were let out of school due to lack of coal for heat.

1920 Woodrow Wilson receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

1941 Guam surrenders to a Japanese landing force after a two day battle. Japanese aircraft sink HMSs Prince of Wales and Repulse, South China Sea. Japanese naval aircraft bomb Cavite Navy Yard, Manila Bay. Japanese troops begin landings in northern Luzon. USS Enterprise aircraft sink sub I-70..

2010  Sothebys auctions a flag attributed to the Seventh Cavalry and used at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

2011 Wyoming experiences a total eclipse of the moon.

November 23

1888 The Casper Weekly Mail newspaper established.

1903  Colorado Gov. Peabody calls up the Colorado National Guard and sends them to Cripple Creek on strike breaking duty, one of the duties most detested by the National Guard of this era.

1914  The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.  The crisis in Mexico would continue, and spill over the border early the following year, an event which would cause the Federalization of the National Guard, including Wyoming's.

1918  November 23, 1918. Marching into turmoil

American troops entering Metz by truck.

American troops marching into Thionville on foot.

Opening of  an American Red Cross canteen in Paris.

Army Air Service School, Rockwell Field, San Diego.  Trained pilots who wouldn't be going to Europe.

1921  An earthquake shook Sheridan County.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Wednesday, November 23, 1921. Geology in Sheridan County, Welfare in the United States, Murder in Ukraine

Charles Russell illustrated letter of today's date.

On this date, we're reminded that Wyoming is tectonically active:

Today In Wyoming's History: November 23, 1921:

1921  An earthquake shook Sheridan County.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Earthquakes in Wyoming are not at all uncommon.

The Sheppard-Towner Act, which we dealt with earlier, that provided funding for maternity and child care, as signed into law by Republican President, Warren G. Harding.

Harding knew a little about childcare. At this point his illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ann Britton was a little over two years old.  She was not acknowledged, and the public had no idea.

In Bazar, Ukraine, the Red Army executed 359 Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered to them.

1925   The USS Wyoming commences an overhaul at the New York Navy Yard.

1934  Moderate earthquake felt in Lander, Atlantic City, Riverton and Rock Springs.

1936  Work began on Wheatland Reservoir #1.  Dam construction was a popular Depression Era activity across the Western United States not only because of the work it provided, and the benefit to agriculture, but because of a belief that projects of this type would help directly beneficially impact the climate.

1939  President Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at Warm Springs in the first of several Thanksgivings that were celebrated on two separate dates, this date being a week earlier than the traditional date. It had been moved up to increase the shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the hopes of boosting sales during the Depression.  The move was unpopular and Congress restored the traditional date in 1941.

1945     World War Two meat and butter rationing ends in US.

1947   The southwestern portion of Montana was struck by a magnitude 6 1/4 earthquake whcih was also felt in northwestern Wyoming.

2000 Buffalo records its coldest Thanksgiving Day Temperature, 12F.  It's been colder than that this year (2011), so perhaps we'll break the record.