Tableaux vivants were
popular forms of entertainment on the American frontier.In a tableau, participants make still images with their bodies to
represent a scene. Because there is no movement, or speaking, a tableau is
easier to produce than a play, yet can easily lead into extended drama
activities with one tableau succeeding another to tell a story.Tableaux continue today in the form of “living statues”,
where street performers often appear in costume as historical characters.
In the summer of 1875,
George Armstrong Custer appeared in a series of tableaux with Miss Agnes Bates
of Monroe Michigan depicting a Sioux Chief and his bride.Miss Bates was a guest of Mrs. Elizabeth
Custer at Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota in 1874-1875.
In 1873, the 7th
Cavalry had moved into the fort to ensure the expansion of the Northern
Pacific Railway.The first post
commander of the expanded fort was Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, who held
the position until his death in 1876.
Since his death along the bluffs
overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876, over five
hundred books have been written about the life and career of George Armstrong
Custer. Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has
been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war
criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. For almost one hundred and fifty
years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values.
Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the
twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history.
This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as
they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process
demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.
“Mr. Custer” was a
chart busting song in 1960.Written by
Al De Lory, Fred Darian, and Joseph Van Winkle, and sung by Larry Verne this
historical novelty song became the number one song in America on October 10,
1960.It stayed at the top of the charts
for an impressive one week.This soldier’s
song about the Battle of the Little Bighorn also reached the top spot on the
Canadian charts on September 12, 1960.
The year 1931 saw one of the best known, best
publicized and most investigated deaths in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains,
the death of Adolph Ruth.Adolph Ruth was
a sixty-seven year old retired government employee and amateur treasure hunter. Adolph
Ruth’s story began not in the Superstition Mountains but in Mexico.His son Erwin, a veterinarian, who was a
cattle inspector in Mexico, helped eradicate the cattle tick problem plaguing
Mexican ranchers.He helped the Gonzales
family who were so grateful that they gave Erwin Ruth some old mining
maps.These maps had been in the
Gonzales family for many generations, and showed the exact location of a number
of gold mines in the United States.Erwin who had no interest in the maps passed them along to his father
Adolph.One of these maps showed the
location of an old mine in the Superstition Mountains.
Adolph
Ruth was familiar with the hardships of prospecting in the desert.He had previously looked for the Lost Peg Leg
Mine in California.In 1931, he came to
the Superstition Mountains to look for what he believed to be the Lost
Dutchman’s Mine.It should be noted that
Ruth was talkative.He showed his map to
any and all who were interested, and talked authoritatively about how HE was
about to find the Dutchman’s Mine.Ruth
hired guides and horses and was packed into the mountains around June 14 by two
cowboys.He set up camp at Willow
Springs in West Boulder Canyon.This was
the last time anyone saw Adolph Ruth alive.
After six days, the cowboys’ boss, Tex Barkley, went
looking for Ruth. Upon arriving at Ruth’s camp, Tex Barkley could tell that no
one had been there for at least a day and reported Ruth missing. A reward
was posted and search parties combed the mountain fruitlessly for the next
month.
In December, a skull with two holes in it was
discovered near the three Red Hills by an archaeological expedition. It was the
skull of Adolph Ruth.The story of Ruth’s death was
headlined by the Arizona Republic and
went national.Sensational
stories alleged that Ruth had been killed for his map.Ruth’s son, Erwin,
was convinced that his father had been murdered.
The rest of Ruth’s body
was found the next month, in a small tributary on the east slope of Black Top
Mesa. Ruth’s treasure notebook was also found at his original campsite.In this notebook, were written these cryptic
words, “Veni, Vedi, Vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”).Did Adolph Ruth discover the Dutchman’s mine?
There is a huge body of circumstantial evidence of
battlefield hauntings stretching back to ancient times, when ghosts were seen
and heard to engage on the plains of Marathon after the battle (the Battle of
Marathon was fought in 490 BC).In the
1930s visitors to this region of Greece were still claiming to have heard the
sound of metal clashes and screams coming from the battlefield. In Vita Isiclori, Damascius tells us that
after a battle outside the walls of Rome against the Huns in 452AD, ghosts were
reported to still be fighting for three days and nights after the battle, the
clash of their weapons being heard all over the city.The first major battle of the English Civil
War (1662) produced a well-documented case of ghost armies fighting as reliable
witnesses reported the phantom soldiers engaged in battle.King Charles I was so intrigued by the
stories that he sent a Royal Commission to investigate.The trusted officers of the Commission
reported back that they too had seen the ghastly spectacle and even recognized
the ghosts of some of their fallen friends.The phenomenon continued for some time, gradually lessening over time,
until now there are only occasional reports of people hearing the sounds of
battle at Edgehill.
How do we account for such stories?The two most often reported types of
hauntings are categorized as residual hauntings and intelligent hauntings.Residual hauntings are the most common form
of hauntings and may eventually be found to be natural phenomena.A residual haunting is similar to a DVD that
is played over and over again.In a
residual American Civil War battlefield haunting, for example, the sights,
sounds, and even smells of battle are continually replayed and are always the
same. Apparitions may be seen, but they will not notice living people around
them.The theory here is that energy
created by the strong emotions created in battle imprints itself on a physical
place and that an individual sensitive enough to pick up this embedded energy sees
and hears ghostly events while those who lack such sensitivity do not. Since
current science has no instruments to measure such embedded energy or test for
individual psychic sensitivity to that energy, such hauntings are dismissed out
of hand, even though they may actually exist. Paula Ann Kirby, author of A Yankee Roams at Dusk, describes two types of hauntings that may be occurring at
Manassas, (1) residual hauntings, which are a manifestation of stored up energy
replaying endlessly like an old movie, and (2) intelligent hauntings, which are
rare instances in which ghosts try to interact with the living.
A brief but fascinating look at humor in the
Civil War including: (1) Stories Around the Campfire, (2) Parody, (3) the
Irish, (4) Humorous Incidents, (5) Civil War Humorists, and (6) Lincoln.
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