Sergeant Emanuel Hennessee and Private Frank Mahoney, G Troop, 7th Cavalry, Conspicuous Bravery

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Sam Russell

For conspicuous bravery and good conduct in front of the skirmish line in action against hostile Sioux Indians at
White Clay Creek, S.D.

Not all recommendations for Medals of Honor from the Pine Ridge Campaign of 1890-1891 were approved. Lieutenant Hale was one such example of a recommendation for a Medal of Honor that was disapproved. In the case of Captain Fechét, the recommendation for his actions to rescue the Indian police besieged in Sitting Bull’s camp following that chief’s death was viewed by the Commanding General of the Army as not worthy even of honorable mention in general orders. In the 7th Cavalry Regiment, there were at least two recommendations for Medals of Honor that ultimately were approved for lesser recognition.

During the fight on 30 December 1890 near the Catholic Mission on White Clay Creek, Captain W. S. Edgerly and his troop were in a precarious position while his battalion was attempting to withdraw from the field. Lieutenant W. W. Robinson several years later described the situation, in which G Troop suffered that day’s only fatality among the U.S. troops.

It seems now that the retirement of the 1st Battalion encouraged the Indians in the belief of their strength, and caused them as the 2nd was about to retire, to make quite a vigorous attack upon its left flank. Just as I mounted my horse to retire with the line, I found myself quite fully exposed to the fire of, as I judged, about a dozen Indians on the hills to our left and front, and by one of these shots, Private Clette [sic: Franceschetti] of troop G was killed about ten feet from me.[1]

It likely was during this stage of the engagement that two troopers took the initiative. G Troop was apparently in a defilade position, somewhat protected from the Indians’ direct small arms fire. This also meant the troopers could not put direct fire on the Indians. Sergeant Emanuel “Gus” Hennessee and Private Frank Mahoney moved up in front of the skirmish line to the crest of the ridge covering the unit, exposing themselves to the shots of the Sioux Indians firing on the retiring formations. The two soldiers remained in that exposed position for at least ten minutes, each man “doing good service with his carbine,” according to their commander. It was the sergeant’s twenty-seventh birthday. Continue reading →

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Sting of the Bee: A Day-By-Day Account of Wounded Knee and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 – 1891 as Recorded in the Omaha Bee

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Sam Russell

Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.
—Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs, 1732

BookCoverKindle

Sting of the Bee is available now on  Amazon in both print and Kindle editions. Click the photograph for purchase details.

I am proud to introduce my first publication, Sting of the Bee: A Day-By-Day Account of Wounded Knee and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 – 1891 as Recorded in the Omaha Bee, from Russell Martial Research.

Following is the back cover description and an abridged version of my introduction to the compilation.

Wounded Knee, as it was first reported, and, as you’ve never read it.
A sensational contemporary view of the events surrounding the Sioux outbreak of 1890 and 1891 that violently climaxed at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
These articles from the Omaha Bee represent some of the most widely read and published correspondence of that sanguinary winter. Until now, Will Cressey’s on-scene dispatches have never appeared under a single cover.
Step back 125 years into the past and experience the exhilaration and anguish that was the sting of the Bee.

The language of the day was harsh and reflects the strong views that many Americans held of the native tribes following more than two and a half centuries of persistent conflict with the indigenous communities that first occupied the continent. To our twenty-first century sensibilities, the articles and commentary are replete with racist and visceral remarks that provide an unvarnished perspective of life in the Midwest at the closing chapter of conflict with the American Indian. These news reports are provided to the western historian, Americana scholar, and Indian wars enthusiast as an unfiltered glimpse into an American tragedy that unfolded on the front pages of papers from the Atlantic to the Pacific a century and a quarter ago. Continue reading →

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Campaign Letters of Sergeant Michael Conners, D Troop, 7th Cavalry

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Sam Russell

I cannot describe in language the battle
but bullets sang home sweet home around our ears,
but I always said that Indian bullets were not made to kill me.

Sergt Michael Conners in Barracks at Ft Riley

(Click to enlarge) Sergt Michael Conners in barracks at Fort Riley, Kas. Photograph courtesy of Mrs. Joy Skinner.

During the course of the Pine Ridge campaign, Sergeant Michael Conners of Captain Godfrey’s D Troop wrote seven letters to a young seventeen-year-old woman, Lillie Carlyon, from Junction City, Kansas, the town adjacent to Fort Riley. Like the campaign letters of Sergeant John B. Turney and Private Thomas McGuire, Conners’s letters provide an enlisted soldier’s unique perspective of that winter’s events.

At about twenty-six years of age, Sergeant Conners was nearing the end of this first five-year enlistment when the 7th Cavalry was ordered to Pine Ridge toward the end of November 1890. Writing on letterhead from The Northwestern Hotel, Conners wrote his first letter from Rushville, Nebraska, on 26 November.

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My Dear Lillie,
I have just had time to write to you and let you know how we got along on the trip. We arrived here today at noon and unloaded and started for the Pine Ridge Agency at once so I had no time to write then, but I was sent back at 10 o’clock tonight for some mules and wagons that were to come in from Colorado, and I leave here for the Agency about four o’clock in the morning. So that gives me about one hour sleep, and it is the first, that is the first sleep, I had since I left Riley.
Well, Lillie, we may have fun tomorrow or next day. All the people here are wild over the Indian scare, but I guess we will wind up their game when we turn loose. It is just my luck to have all the night riding, just as I told you before I left. Well, don’t be alarmed as there are enough soldiers here to do up all the Indians here.
I will close now, and when I get settled down I will write you all the news. When you write, address:

Sergt. M. Conners
Troop D 7th Cav.
Pine Ridge Agency
South Dakota

Let me know all the news.

Goodbye dear for the present,
Yours forever,
Conners[1]

Continue reading →

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