October 3

1842   Sam Houston ordered Alexander Somervell to organize the militia and invade Mexico.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1863  President Lincoln declared that the last Thursday of November would be recognized as Thanksgiving Day.

1866  The Regular Army arrives at Ft. Casper with  troops from Company E, 2nd U.S. Cavalry arriving as reinforcements.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1879  9th Cavalry reenforced Ute besieged infantry from Ft. Fred Steele, Wyoming and cavalry from Ft. D. A. Russell, Wyoming, at Milk Creek, Colorado.

1890  The US Secretary of the Interior approved the sum of $20,000 for the survey of public lands in  Wyoming.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1895  Uinta County's Sheriff John Ward arrested Bannock Indian Race Horse for "the unlawful and wanton killing of seven elk in said county on the first day of July, 1895." Race Horse was exonerated when the United States Circuit Court held that the "provisions of the state statute were inconsistent with the treaty" of July 3, 1868.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1900 Tom Horn shot rustler  Isom Dart in the head in an ambush at his gang's Routt County Colorado hideout.  Dart's companions retreated to their cabin and Horn mounted up and rode off.

1901  The Victor Talking Machine Company incorporated.

 A Victrola.

1918  Wool Shortages, the Germans retreat, the Flu is Everywhere and a Casper policeman runs amuck. The news of October 3, 1918.

Among the other grim news that Cheyenne readers of this paper learned is that wool was in such short supply, clothes were going to no longer be offered to civilians in it.

That, quite frankly, is nearly unimaginable for the time.  Most people, at least outside of the hot regions and the hot months, wore some wool everyday.

Readers of Laramie's Boomerang learned that Americans had advanced in the Argonne and the Spanish Flu had advanced into 36 states.

Or maybe it was 43 states.  It claimed, Cheyenne readers learned, a university student at Colorado State University.

One of the Casper papers had a more optimistic report on the flu.  It was wrong.

And in the other Casper paper, readers learned that a Casper policeman had gone berserk while drunk.

1941  The Wyoming Labor Journal advertised for skilled defense workers to work on Pacific Islands. . . probably not the best opportunity in retrospect.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2014  I was remiss in timely noting it, but October 3 saw the 50th anniversary of the Oil Bowl. This Oil Bowl.(it's not the only one nationwide) is the cross town football match between rivals Natrona County High School and Kelly Walsh High School, both of which are undergoing massive renovation at the present time.

In this context, it's a very odd thing to realize that the last time I saw an Oil Bowl is while I was a student at NCHS, which would have been the 16th Oil Bowl.  I would have been a student there when the 17th Oil Bowl was held as well, but I didn't see that one.

 

 Photo from 16th Oil Bowl.

October 2

1835   The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place as Texans defeated a Mexican cavalry near the Guadalupe River.

1874  President Grant visited Cheyenne.

1909  It is announced that a coyote proof fence had been invented.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1919     President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.  He had only recently been in Cheyenne.

October 2, 1919. Woodrow Wilson suffers a severe stroke. Red Summer in the News. The White Sox throw, barely, a second game.

On this day, Woodrow Wilson, who had collapsed during a speech given in Pueblo Colorado as part of his grueling transcontinental speaking tour in support of the Versailles Treaty suffered a debilitating severe stroke.  This may have in fact simply been a followup stroke to one that had occurred in Pueblo, as his symptoms on the train ride back to Washington D. C. strongly suggest that in fact is what had occurred.

Somewhat ironically, Wilson was a  hypochondriac, but one whose health fears turned out to be somewhat correct. The stroke wasn't Wilson's first.  He'd first suffered a stroke in 1896.  That stroke was "mild" and his doctor didn't regard the matter as a serious one even though he did not regain the use of his right hand for four months.  In 1906 he suffered a second serious stroke that nearly left him blind in his left eye.  Prescribed rest by his physicians, he returned to work after a trip to Europe.  He was afflicted again in 1913.  In 1915 he was finally diagnosed with high blood pressure and was at that time likely warned that his condition was serious.

In 1914 Woodrow Wilson's first wife, Ellen, died of Bright's Disease in the White House.  Woodrow Wilson remarried the following year to Edith Galt, with that wedding occurring in December (they'd met in May).  She was fifteen years younger than he was.

Woodrow Wilson with Edith Wilson in the President's first official photograph following his stroke on this day.  This photograph was taken in June, 1920, and what it portrays is quite accurate.  Edith is overlooking his shoulder and guiding his actions.

Following the stroke Edith Wilson and Woodrow Wilson's doctors at first kept his condition secret from his cabinet and himself, although Wilson had experience with strokes and was likely aware of his situation soon enough.  Quite soon the President's inner cabinet conspired to keep it a secret from anyone but themselves and Edith took over routine details of the Presidency making her the nation's first, if unofficial, female chief executive.  Edith also acted to control access and communications with the President.  She would later assert that she never made any decisions on her own, although she certainly influenced decision making, and termed her role of that of "steward".

In spite of the secrecy, some news of the President's general condition was leaking out and it was generally not good. Therefore, while the public never knew how grave the President's condition was, it had reason to suspect he wasn't doing well, even as early as this very day.

The Casper Herald, a morning newspaper, which reported that the President had not rested well the night prior on its front page.

Woodrow Wilson never did recover from his stroke fully and in the current age he likely would have been removed from office under that special constitutional provision allow for that to occur in certain emergencies. That provision did not exist at the time.  The nation proved to be lucky that Edith Wilson was a capable steward, whatever that may have meant, as a less capable one would have caused a disaster and a Constitutional Crisis.  Nonetheless there's good reason to believe that a better result would have been for Wilson to have resigned and Vice President Thomas Marshall to have taken over.  Marshall already had experience running the government due to Wilson's absence from the country during the Paris Peace Treaty sessions and he would have been more likely at that point to have brought the country into the Versailles Treaty, which Wilson's stroke doomed.

Edith Wilson lived until December 1961, long outliving her husband who would die three years following his stroke.  Marshall died in 1925 at age 71.

The news on October 2 was dominated by the results of the second game of the fixed World Series and race riots, both the ones in Arkansas that had started yesterday and the ones in Omaha which were now over.  

In terms of race riots, the papers were tending to take a position to blacks in a way that's not only biased, but shocking.  Blacks had to feel that they were under siege everywhere in the U.S. in 1919, and indeed they were.

In the second game of the World Series the fix brought about the insider anticipated results.

A problem was setting in, however, in that Cicotte was the only conspirator who had been paid to date.  In the second game, the players in the conspiracy carried on with the plot, but the White Sox pitcher Lefty Williams actually pitched a fairly good game.  The game was not a runaway.  Partial payment came after the game, but full payment was yet to come.

Of course, as always, other things were going on elsewhere.

Great Falls, Va., site of historic mill built by George Washington.  October 2, 1919

Rheims France, October 2, 1919.

Coal and Oil, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  October 2, 1919.

Life Magazine, in its issue that came out on this day, ran a cartoon that's hardly intelligible to us a century later:

"Sensations of the young man who thought "quite informal" meant a dinner coat"

1924  Governor William B. Ross died while in office .  His wife, Nellie Tayloe Ross, would become the US's first women governor the month thereafter when she won in a special election in spite of not campaigning.  She would serve only until 1926, however, when she would loose a subsequent election.

1937         David McCullough, historian, biographer born.   One of his fine biographies is Mornings On Horseback, which deals with the early years of Theodore Roosevelt.

1950     The comic strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schulz was first published.

1998  Major General Dennis K. Jackson becomes Chief of Ordinance for the Army.  He is a University of Wyoming graduate.

October 1

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

(Linked in from Lex Anteinternet on October 1, 2017).

Helene Ethel Fairbanks (nee Cassidy) (1882-1944), wife of Warren Charles Fairbanks and daughter-in-law of Charles Warren Fairbanks, Vice President of the United States to Woodrow Wilson.  No, this photograph doesn't have a direct relationship to this topic, but then again it does.

Normally Sundays are a slow day here on Lex Anteinternet, but we've posted a bunch this morning.  It's just one of those days, I guess.

One thing we'd note, having noted it in the Casper Star Tribune this morning, is that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Coming at the start of a week in which the past week saw the death of Hugh Hefner, ossified creep, who pretty much seems to have thought of women as nothing more than a set of breasts and one other organ, perhaps his death can serve to at least emphasize the terrible nature of this deadly killer.  I wonder how many of his young female subjects who prostituted their images in his slick print journal came down this this?  You know that some did.  That has to be the case as it strikes a massive number of women. The figures are staggering.

So here's hoping that perhaps this awful disease can be stopped, and here's to hoping that women pay attention to it, and I'm sure most do, so that they don't fall victim to it.  For folks who don't bother with their local paper anymore, on a day like today, it's worth picking up.

 

 Depression era WPA poster.

1800         Spain cedes Louisiana to France in return for Tuscany. Spain retained, however the right of first refusal on the territory.

1886  242 town lots were sold in Douglas.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T automobile to the market at $825 a piece.  The start of the revolution of rural transportation had begun.

1901  Casper businessman Louis T. Holscher born in Dyersville, Iowa.  Holscher was from a large German American family in Dyersville that had been in commercial activities in that state since the family had immigrated from Westphalia in the 1840s.  Leaving home, with his parents permission, at age 13 he traveled to San Francisco, where he worked for awhile for the Cunard ship line as an office boy.  Making his way back west to Colorado, he went to work for the Swift Meat Packing company where he worked for many years, both in Denver and in Scottsbluff, rising to the managerial level.  In the early 1940s he purchased a meat packing plant in Casper which he operated, together with a creamery, until is death in the late 1940s.

1916   Sunday State Leader for October 1, 1916: Guard arrives at border and placed under command of a Regular
 

The news broke that the Wyoming National Guard made it to the border; Deming New Mexico to be exact.

And UW went down to defeat against the Colorado Aggies in football.

Wilson apparently warned that voting in the GOP risked war, an ironic statement, given what we knew would happen in a few short monts.

Europe, 1916

 

From the October 1916 edition of The Masses.

1917   The Laramie Boomerang for October 1, 1917. Liberty loans and a shakeup in the officer corps.
 

The Monday, October 1, 1917 edition of the Laramie Boomerang presented a grim cartoon for Monday morning readers as well as news on the first big Liberty Loan campaign that was kicking off.

Chances are, however, that men and women with sons in the National Guard were more interested in the article indicating that the Army was culling the officer corps of the Federalized Guard, which it was..

This is a story that's well known to students of the Guard in World War One and World War Two, but perhaps less so to others.  Having just run an item here on the Guard during the Vietnam War in which I sought to correct something that's a bit of a slight to the National Guard it might seem here that I'm doing something that's a bit of the opposite, but history is what it is.

Truth be known, while the Guard had been reforming itself and drawing closer to the Army since the passage of the Dick Act early in the 20th Century, which made it an official component and reserve of the Army, old aspects of the more independent state militia system lingered on in a couple of forms.  One was the existence of "Champagne Units" which were nearly fraternal military organizations for the very well heeled.  These units were not necessarily bad, we should note and indeed at least one of them was very good. But that was truly an oddity. Often over subscribed these units, typically cavalry, were hard to get into and saw men who were millionaires serving as privates.  Again, having said that, they weren't bad units.

More problematic is that the officer corps of the National Guard could be inconsistent.  The degree to which this was truly a problem remains debated, but that there was some problem can't be doubted.  Some men were simply unsuited to be officers and others were not fit enough to be officers.

Having said that, that wasn't completely untrue in the Regular Army, although it was much less true, and it would also be true of the Army raised to fight the war.  All in all, most men were suited and indeed sometimes highly suited for their wartime roles and the National Guard gave a good account of itself.  The war couldn't have been fought, from the American prospective, without the Guard.  The lingering Regular Army resentment over the Dick Act, which had not been universally popular with the Army, played a role in what would occur with National Guard officers as well, and that would continue on in to World War Two.

By World War Two, however, the National Guard would be closer yet to the Regular Army. That war would draw it much closer and by the time of the Korean War it was much more like it is today in those regards.  Today, it's very close.

As an aide in this paper, it's odd to see the headline about a "star athlete" opting to attend the university.  With a big war breaking out, that's not a headline we expect to see.

September 30

1877 The 7th Cavalry, 2nd Cavalry and 5th Infantry engage the Nez Perce at Bear Paw Mountain, Montana.

1889  Constitutional Convention adopted the Wyoming Constitution.  This constitution, with amendments, remains in effect, which is unusual for state constitutions.  Unlike the US constitutions, state constitutions have tended to be replaced over time fairly frequently.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1897 The Granddaddy of Them All, Cheyenne Frontier Days, is held for the first time.

1911. The Virginian Hotel opened in Medicine Bow.

 1916  Wyoming National Guardsmen arrive at Deming New Mexico: September 30, 1916
 

The 1st Wyoming Infantry arrived at Camp Cody, New Mexico, just outside of Deming, where it would be stationed for the next five months.

1918  Bulgaria quits, Wilson Speaks (the Senate says no), Oil work continues in spite of winter, and Basin region residents draw unfair connections. Casper Daily Tribune, September 30, 1918.

Lots going on in this Monday afternoon edition of the Casper Daily Tribune, with the most shocking being that residents of the Big Horn Basin were drawing connections between events on the Mexican border and local Mexican immigrants.

The Basin had a fair number of Mexican immigrants due to it being a farming region, even back then a century ago. How they had any connection with border violence is truly a mystery, but some of the residents there were drawing that connection.

President Wilson Addresses the Senate In Support of the Nineteenth Amendment

On this day in 1918, President Wilson addressed the U.S. Senate in favor of passing the Nineteenth Amendment, granting the franchise to women (where states had not already done so).  His support would fail to enduce the Senate to vote in favor of the Amendment.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

The unusual circumstances of a world war in which we stand and are judged in the view not only of our own people and our own consciences but also in the view of all nations and peoples will, I hope, justify in your thought, as it does in mine, the message I have come to bring to you. I regard the concurrence of the Senate in the constitutional amendment proposing the extension of the suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged. I have come to urge upon you the considerations which have led me to that conclusion. It is not only my privilege, it is also my duty to apprise you of every circumstance and element involved in this momentous struggle which seems to me to affect its very processes and outcome. It is my duty to win the war and to ask you to remove every obstacle that stands in the way of winning it.

I had assumed that the Senate would concur in the amendment because no disputable principle is involved but only a question of the method by which the suffrage is to be extended to women. There is and can be no party issue involved in it. Both of our great national parties are pledged, explicitly pledged, to equality of suffrage for the women of the country. Neither party, therefore, it seems to me, can justify hesitation as to the method of obtaining it, can rightfully hesitate to substitute federal initiative for state initiative, if the early adoption of the measure is necessary to the successful persecution of the war and if the method of state action proposed in the party platforms of 1916 is impracticable within any reasonable length of time, if practicable at all. And its adoption is, in my judgment, clearly necessary to the successful prosecution of the war and the successful realization of the objects for which the war is being fought.

That judgment I take the liberty of urging upon you with solemn earnestness for reasons which I shall state very frankly and which I shall hope will seem as conclusive to you as they seem to me.

This is a peoples' war and the peoples' thinking constitutes its atmosphere and morale, not the predilections of the drawing room or the political considerations of the caucus. If we be indeed democrats and wish to lead the world to democracy, we can ask other peoples to accept in proof of our sincerity and our ability to lead them whither they wish to be led nothing less persuasive and convincing than our actions. Our professions will not suffice. Verification must be forthcoming when verification is asked for. And in this case verification is asked for—asked for in this particular matter. You ask by whom? Not through diplomatic channels; not by Foreign Ministers. Not by the intimations of parliaments. It is asked for by the anxious, expectant, suffering peoples with whom we are dealing and who are willing to put their destinies in some measure in our hands, if they are sure that we wish the same things that they do. I do not speak by conjecture. It is not alone the voices of statesmen and of newspapers that reach me, and the voices of foolish and intemperate agitators do not reach me at all. Through many, many channels I have been made aware what the plain, struggling, workaday folk are thinking upon whom the chief terror and suffering of this tragic war falls. They are looking to the great, powerful, famous Democracy of the West to lead them to the new day for which they have so long waited; and they think, in their logical simplicity, that democracy means that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men and upon an equal footing with them. If we reject measures like this, in ignorance or defiance of what a new age has brought forth, of what they have seen but we have not, they will cease to believe in us; they will cease to follow or to trust us. They have seen their own governments accept this interpretation of democracy—seen old governments like that of Great Britain, which did not profess to be democratic, promise readily and as of course this justice to women, though they had long before refused it, the strange revelations of this war having made many things new and plain, to governments as well as to peoples.

Are we alone to refuse to learn the lesson? Are we alone to ask and take the utmost that our women can give—service and sacrifice of every kind—and still say we do not see what title that gives them to stand by our sides in the guidance of the affairs of their nation and ours? We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right? This war could not have been fought, either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had not been for the services of the women—services rendered in every sphere—not merely in the fields of effort in which we have been accustomed to see them work, but wherever men have worked and upon the very skirts and edges of the battle itself. We shall not only be distrusted but shall deserve to be distrusted if we do not enfranchise them with the fullest possible enfranchisement, as it is now certain that the other great free nations will enfranchise them. We cannot isolate our thought or our action in such a matter from the thought of the rest of the world. We must either conform or deliberately reject what they propose and resign the leadership of liberal minds to others.

The women of America are too noble and too intelligent and too devoted to be slackers whether you give or withhold this thing that is mere justice; but I know the magic it will work in their thoughts and spirits if you give it them. I propose it as I would propose to admit soldiers to the suffrage, the men fighting in the field for our liberties and the liberties of the world, were they excluded. The tasks of the women lie at the very heart of the war, and I know how much stronger that heart will beat if you do this just thing and show our women that you trust them as much as you in fact and of necessity depend upon them.

Have I said that the passage of this amendment is a vitally necessary war measure, and do you need further proof? Do you stand in need of the trust of other peoples and of the trust of our own women? Is that trust an asset or is it not? I tell you plainly, as the commander-in-chief of our armies and of the gallant men in our fleets, as the present spokesman of the people in our dealings with the men and women throughout the world who are now our partners, as the responsible head of a great government which stands and is questioned day by day as to its purposes, its principles, its hopes, whether they be serviceable to men everywhere or only to itself, and who must himself answer these questionings or be shamed, as the guide and director of forces caught in the grip of war and by the same token in need of every material and spiritual resource this great nation possesses—I tell you plainly that this measure which I urge upon you is vital to the winning of the war and to the energies alike of preparation and of battle.

And not to the winning of the war only. It is vital to the right solution of the great problems which we must settle, and settle immediately, when the war is over. We shall need them in our vision of affairs, as we have never needed them before, the sympathy and insight and clear moral instinct of the women of the world. The problems of that time will strike to the roots of many things that we have not hitherto questioned, and I for one believe that our safety in those questioning days, as well as our comprehension of matters that touch society to the quick, will depend upon the direct and authoritative participation of women in our counsels. We shall need their moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that ought to be purified and reformed. Without their counsellings we shall be only half wise.
That is my case. This is my appeal. Many may deny its validity, if they choose, but no one can brush aside or answer the arguments upon which it is based. The executive tasks of this war rest upon me. I ask that you lighten them and place in my hands instruments, spiritual instruments, which I do not now possess, which I sorely need, and which I have daily to apologize for not being able to employ.

September 29

Today is International Coffee Day.

1857  Nate Champion, made famous due to the Johnson County War, born in Texas.

 

Statue of Nate Champion in Buffalo Wyoming.

1879  Dissatisfied Ute Indians killed Agent Nathan Meeker and nine others in the "Meeker Massacre" in Colorado.  The dispute had arisen as Meeker was a proponent of cooperative farming, which was a popular position with Indian Agents at the time, and the Utes were upset with his position and rose up against them.  As is typical for battles of the period won by Indians, the battle was referred to as a "Massacre", a term less frequently applied to battles lost by Indians.  Troops dispatched from Ft. Steele Wyoming had been kept some distance away from the events under a Ute demand that they be allowed to speak with Meeker without their being immediately present, a demand which resulted due to Ute recollections of the Sand Creek Massacre.

1882 Ft. Sanders, south of Laramie, sold at public auction.

1899 Veterans of Foreign Wars established.

1900  The Wild Bunch robbed a Union Pacific train near Tipton.

1917  Electric lights installed in Cokeville businesses.

2008 The Dow Jones industrial average fell a record 777.68 points after the House defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue plan for the nation's financial system.

September 28

490 BC Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

1066 William the Conqueror, the duke of Normandy, invades England. The Saxon forces, haveing recently fought Harald Haadraada at Stamford Bridge, were located a considerable distance to the north.

1769   Captain Rafael Martínez Pacheco post as commander of San Agustín de Ahumada Presidio.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1891   Paul Ranous Greever born in Lansing Kansas.  He was a graduate of the University of Kansas law school and came to Wyoming after serving as an officer in World War One.  He was Wyoming's Congressman from 1935 to 1939.

1901   At Balangiga on Samar Island, Philippine villagers surprised a the US military Company C, 9th Infantry Regiment. Church bells, allegedly used to signal the attack, were taken by the Americans as prizes.  Thirty-eight  of Seventy-four US soldiers were killed and all the rest but six were wounded. Philippine casualties were estimated at 50-250.  The bells were installed at Ft. D. A. Russell Wyoming upon the 9th Infantry's return, where they remain today on the now F. E. Warren AFB.  The Philippines still seek their return, and the presence of the bells remains an ongoing controversy.  A few years ago a member of the Wyoming Veterans Commission lost his seat by stating that he supported their return.  The Philiipinno representatives maintain that the bells in some cases reflect that they were taken from churches other than those near the battle.

1909  Sheridan accepted plans for a new town hall. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916   Two battalions of the Wyoming National Guard left for the Mexican border.  Attribution:  On This Day.

The Punitive Expedition: Addtional Wyoming National Guard units leave for the border, maybe. September 28, 1916.
 

 New York (not Wyoming) Guardsmen entraining, June 1916.  Similar scenes, however, would have taken place near Cheyenne.  These troops, by the way, have a real mix of gear, as photos of Wyoming's troops do as well, as more modern canteens hadn't caught up with them yet and they were still using bedrolls, frontier campaign style, rather than backpacks.  In terms of the scene, we see Guardsmen caught in the moment between the style of Frontier campaigning and modern warfar.

When I originally posted this item it read:

Two additional battalions of the Wyoming National Guard depart for the Mexican border.

These units had been under orders since June.

This might be right, but frankly what I think is may be the case is that the historians who suggest this have the departure dates confused.  But maybe not.

It's possible that the entraining took place on the 27th and 28th, but it seems possible that it took place all late in the night of  the 27th.  Still, the "two additional" battalions items does raise some questions and its not impossible that the Guard entrained over two days.

Raising more questions, 642 Wyoming National Guardsmen were mobilized in the Punitive Expedition.   The first newspaper reports on their departure only indicated that a little under 150 left on the night of the 27th. Assuming that's correct, the bulk of the men were still encamped near Cheyenne.  And if that's right, and it may well be, that means that is perfectly possible that more left over the next two days on additional trains, or at least that more left on a separate train on the 28th.

If you know, let us know.

The Wyoming Tribune for September 28, 1916: Guard leaves on 26 trailroad cars, revolt in Greece, and we're a sick soft nation in 1916, apparently

 

The always more dramatic Wyoming Tribune noted that the Guard was "finally" off for the Mexican border, but its the other headlines that really drew attention.

I'd hardly regard the US of 1916 as sick, soft and fat, but apparently somebody did.

Cheyenne State Leader for September 28, 1916: The troops have left

In today's edition of the Cheyenne State Leader we learn that the Wyoming Guard departed the prior night, after an apparently long day of delays.

The bottom entry, I'd note, reminds us to be careful out there.

1918 

Col. J. W. Cavendar, a Casualty of the Great War. Who was he?

The September 28, 1918 Casper Daily Press in which we learn a fair amount about Joseph J. Cavendar.  What we don't actually learn from this paper is the true circumstances of his death.

From the Wyoming newspapers of September 27, 1918, we learned that Col. J. W. Cavendar had become a casualty of the fighting on the Meuse Argonne.  He was the commander of the 148th Field Artillery, one of the units formed out of Wyoming National Guard infantrymen (as well as the Guardsmen of other regional states, or at least the state of Utah.

But who was he?

It's pretty hard to tell.

What we know, or thought we knew, from the Cheyenne papers of the day is that he was an attorney, and they report him as a local attorney, and hence the problem.

Lawyers may rise to the heights of great fame during their lifetimes, and certainly the ascendancy to high positions has been common, including in a prior era to the command of Federalized National Guard units.  But after they are dead, they are almost always completely forgotten.  The fame of lawyers follows them into the grave.

From what we can tell, the Cheyenne papers that reported him as "local" were a bit in error.  He was a Georgia born attorney who had originally apparently been a shopkeeper. According to the Casper paper set out above, he came to Wyoming at first to enter ranching, but that must not have worked otu as he returned to Georgia and entered the law. After that, he came back to Wyoming, was admitted to the bar here, and then practiced for a time in Carbon County before relocating to Park County.  In 1912, as the newspaper above notes, he was elected as Park County Attorney.

The old part of the Park County Courthouse, which was built in 1912, the year Cavendar became the Park County Attorney.

A little additional digging reveals that he'd been in the National Guard for awhile.  In 1911 he'd been elected, as that's how they did it, as the Captain of the infantry unit in  Cody.  His wife was asked to speak for Spanish American War pensioners as late as 1921, in hopes they'd claim their pensions, so his memory remained that strong at least to that point.  Perhaps more interestingly, given that he was born in 1878, that raises some question of whether he'd served in the Army during the Spanish American War.  He would have been old enough to do so.

He was in command, at least for a time, of the Wyoming National Guard troops that were mobilized for the crisis on the Mexican Border and was a Major in the National Guard by that time.

So we know that Col. Joseph W. Cavendar was a Georgia born lawyer who had relocated to Wyoming twice.  He'd started life as a merchant, and then switched to ranching, then went back to Georgia and became a lawyer.  After that, he came back to Wyoming and ultimately ended up the Park County Attorney.  At some point he'd entered the Wyoming National Guard.  Given his age, he was old enough to have been a Spanish American War veteran and it would be somewhat odd, given his obvious affinity for military life, if he had not been.

At the time of his death he was fifty years old.  Not a young man.  And there's a ting, maybe, of failure to his life.  It's subtle, but it's sort of there.  The law was his third career and Wyoming was his second state of practice.

But perhaps that's emphasized by what we later learn.

Cavendar killed himself.

Indeed, what we learn is that on the very first day of the Meuse Argonne Offensive the Army found the fifty year old Park County Attorney, former rancher, former merchant, wanting and informed him that it was relieving him of his command and giving him the choice of returning to the United States to be mustered out of service or to be reduced in rank to Captain and return to service in that capacity.  Instead he walked over to the hotel where he was staying and killed himself with a pistol.  The Army, no doubt wanting to save his reputation, or perhaps worried that the relief of a National Guard officer (from a state in which powerful U.S. Senator F. E. Warren was. . . Gen. Pershing's father in law, was from) reported him killed in action.

Cavendar had been in front of a board that was reviewing National Guard officers and finding more than a few of them wanting.  Some were higher ranking that Cavendar.  By the time the true story broke, following the war, the sympathies were clearly on the relieved National Guard officers side and the action regarded as an outrage.

Was it?  That's pretty hard to say. Cavendar had been in command of his unit for a good five months at the time he was relieved. But that doesn't mean that his service had been perfect or that there weren't better officers, and potentially younger ones, coming up behind him.  On the other hand, the Regular Army was legendary for containing officer that had a strong, largely unwarranted, animosity towards the National Guard.  Indeed, elements of the Army had openly opposed making the Guard the official reserve of the Army in 1903, an action which if they had been successful in would have lead to absolute disaster during World War One.  Nonetheless, as late as World War Two the Army seemed to retain a strong animosity in some quarters towards National Guard officers and relieved many of them with no clear indication as to why.  No doubt some, perhaps many, warranted removal, but the Army seemed more zealous in its actions than facts warranted.

Whatever happened, apparently Cavendar couldn't bare what he regarded as the shame of it, or perhaps other things combined to push him over the edge. Whatever it was, he shouldn't have done what he did.  Indeed, followers of the blog on Canadian colones in the Great War would note that many of them were relieved and went on to be highly regarded.  Relieving officers in wartime isn't unusual, it's part of the service.  

Well, anyhow, now we know more about Cavendar than we did, sad story though it is.

1918  Villa rides again and the Spanish Flu marches through American camps. The Cheyenne State Leader, September 28, 1918

Death in various forms figured prominently on the front page of the Cheyenne State Leader for September 28, 1918.

Including in that was the resurgent Pancho Villa. . . whom only two years prior was the prim military concern of the United States.

1930  Union Pacific towns  Cumberland No. 1 and No. 2 dismantled.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1930  S. H. Knight took photographs of the Centennial Valley and of this lodge in southern Wyoming.

September 27

1821  Mexico obtains independence from Spain.

1886  Cornerstone of Old Main placed at the University of Wyoming.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   The Wyoming National Guard, what was it doing and where was it going?

I posted this item two years ago on the Mid Week at Work Thread.  It occurs to me that it may very well be appropriate for the Wyoming National Guard was going through in Cheyenne these few days, a century ago:

Mid-Week at Work: U.S. Troops in Mexico.

All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said "If you got money, boy, I'll see that you don't walk
I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum" and slammed the boxcar door

He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above
Nobody seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco, going back to Dixieland
My pocket book is empty and my heart is full of pain
I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train.

Jimmy Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train".

As can be seen from my entry yesterday, there's some indication the Guard entrained on September 26, 1916.  And I've reported that elsewhere, years ago.  And maybe some did leave on September 26, but I now doubt it.

Rather, in looking at it more fully, the typical Army hurry up and wait seems to have been at work.  The Guard was supposed to entrain on September 26, but the cars didn't show up or didn't in adequate numbers.  It appears, also, that the Colorado National Guard was entraining at the same time, and that may have played a role in this.  Be that as it may, I now think the September 26 date that I have used, and others do use, in in error.

What seems to have happened is that most of the Guardsmen entrained on the night of September 27, late.

But where were they going?

That will play out here as well, but original reports in these papers said they were going to San Antonio. Then it was reported that nobody knew where they were going.

Well, they went to Deming New Mexico, which isn't far from where this all started off, in Columbus.

Rodgers didn't record Waiting For A Train until 1928, and he wasn't recording in 1916.  Too bad, this would have been a popular song with those troops.

The Cheyenne State Leader for September 27, 1916: Best laid plans?
 

The past couple of days the papers were reporting that the Guard would leave on September 26, but here the Cheyenne State Leader indicates that there's been some sort of delay, and the Guard was going to be leaving that day.

Did anyone leave?  Frankly, I"m not sure. The few sources I have aren't consistent.  Some report the first contingent did leave on September 26.  But this would suggest otherwise.

Elsewhere workers were discontent, and Greece appeared ready to enter World War One.

1918  The Meuse Argonne, the Sacrifice of Col. Cavendar and the Spanish Flu. The news of September 27, 1918.

Death in various forms had front and center position on the newspapers of September 27.

Of course, the big offensive on the Meuse Argonne, the second really major American offensive and the one that would carry the American effort through to the end of the war, took front and center position.  In that readers of the various major Wyoming newspapers learned that a Col. J. W. Cavendar, a Wyoming attorney in peacetime life, had been reported killed in action while leading the 148th Field Artillery, which was a unit made up of Wyoming National Guardsmen in part, together with other National Guardsmen from the Rocky Mountain Region.

Col Cavendar's loss also appeared on the front page of the Laramie Boomerang.

Manpower shortages also did with the news that the government wanted men out of jobs that women could do.

So much for the claim that Rosey the Riveter first appeared in World War Two.

The more sedate Cheyenne State Leader apparently didn't have the news about Col Cavendar when it went to press.  It featured the largest headline on the looming flu crisis, which really says something about it given that this was day two of the largest American offensive of the war.  The Leader also informed readers that if they died, they better not expect a fancy casket.

In Casper, readers of the Casper Daily Press received a lot of war news, and other news, on its busy front page, but it also learned that the flu was now in New Mexico's military camps, contrary to the news that generally had it only on the East Coast.  And it received the most prominent position on front page here as well.

The Casper Daily Tribune didn't worry about being sedate, and apparently it wasn't as worried as the other Casper paper about the flu.  The advance of the American effort, which in truth was already meeting with problems, brought out banner headlines.

Readers were also informed that Chile was getting into action against the Huns, rather late in the day frankly, which is how such things tend to go.  And the pipe dream of a return of the Russians to the Allied side also showed up in large form.

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

 

It was a horrific event.

Flooding had taken out the railroad bridge over Cole Creek near Casper, Wyoming, which was unknown to the railroad.   The night train to Denver approached the bridge on a blind curve, and the headlights detected its absence too late to stop the train.  Half of the people on the train were killed.

It's the worst disaster in Wyoming's railroad history.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

1954  The 300th AFA returned to State control, although the Wyoming Guardsmen had mostly returned quite some time ago, having served their full tour of duty.

1991   Quintin Blair House in Cody added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution:  On This Day.

1998  Google starts operation.

2001  A magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred 80 miles from Lander.