Tuesday, April 2, 2024

April Fool's Day - or Custer on his 1st bison hunt


 Salvete Omnes,


April has come and we should rejoice the return of warm seasons, but for the fact that the world is in turmoil and full of mayhem- eg the Central Kitchen food aid workers massacre in  Gaza. Let us pray for peace to return everywhere.

April Fool's Day was yesterday - and in the spirit of that day I would like to bring to your attention and curiosity a little funnier and tragic event from rather more heroic life of G. A. Custer.


In 1867 American Army brevet general and actual  colonel G.A. Custer, cavalryman and hero of the Civil War, started his  Great Plains military service against the Plains Indian people, that would eventually lead to his death in battle in 1876.
This event - a buffalo hunting - took place during general Hancock's Southern Plains campaign in Kansas and Colorado in the Spring of  1867. 
Custer, pursing fleeing Indians,  decided to seek some bison or buffalo, as he had not hunted them yet, using his trusted army revolvers and his to hound dogs. 

So here is his tale of his 1st hunt, in his own words (My Life on the Plains):




so, our hero lost his valued and trusted thoroughbred steed, survived unscathed and his hounds too,while he was exceedingly lucky that there were no Cheyenne nor Lakotas of Pawnee Killer to finish him off. He finished his Spring-Summer marching in July 1867
Nota bene Custer wrote about his hunting mishap in his letters to a hunting magazine titled :'Turf, Field and Farm' (1867) - you can borrow the edited letters - Nomad, George A. Custer in Turf, Field and Farm - from Archive world Library. (this letter  was written and sent on Sept. 9, 1867, being published in the magazine on Sept 21, 1867)
Valete

1 comment:

Dario T. W. said...

https://remington.centerofthewest.org/artworks/view/107 Remington's Custer on his 1st hunt