October 12, 2024

Dispatch from the Smokey Hill


My great great grandfather enlisted in the 7th Iowa Cavalry during the Civil Wsr. Instead of heading east to fight the Rebels, he was ordered west to guard the western travel routes against the godless heathen red-skinned devils. According to the regimental history his company patrolled along the Smoky Hill River across Kansas and up into Nebraska and Eastern Colorado. He was finally discharged in 1866 as a corporal. His pension records say he was wounded in the arm at some point. 

I have no idea what he thought of the Great Plains. Did he love or loathe the windswept prairie? He did not stay in the west after the war. For an unknown reason he made his way east, settling in central Indiana, an area equally as flat, if not more so, than west Kansas. 

Perhaps it is a passed on gene from my distant grandfather, but I love the Great Plains. For me there is hidden beauty in the open vistas and distant horizon. Maybe it is my youth spent reading Louis L’Amour westerns that inspires my admiration. Perhaps it is the histories of the plains wars and Native American biographies I devoured that inspires my admiration of the prairie? Can I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder? The names of forgotten cow towns and army posts ring nostalgic in my soul: Forts Riley, Lawrence, and Hays. The cow towns of Abilene, Wichita, and Dodge conjure dusty trails and smokey saloons I never knew. 

I guess I’m a romantic at heart. 

80 mph view from my car window

But why in the heck did my great great grandpa go from Ohio to western Missouri to Iowa and then end up in Indiana? That is opposite the migration after the war. 


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6 comments:

  1. Fuzzy Curmudgeon10/12/2024 08:44:00 AM

    Likely he preferred civilization.

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  2. Anonymous10/12/2024 02:56:00 PM

    My Great Grandfather was in the Iowa Calvary - he chased Poncho Villa back into Mexico. I miss the Midwest living in Texas.

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  3. Anonymous10/12/2024 04:42:00 PM

    Hi, Joe!

    This is your standard "I've read your blog for years, but this is my first time posting . . . " comment.

    Joe, would you like to make a quick trip to the St. Louis, Missouri, area?!!

    I ask because my FLIERS group is having a used book sale at our local library. We've had a recent new-to-us donation of books having to do with the old West, Native Americans, forts, ghost towns, etc.--all the sorts of topics you mentioned! Many of the books are in *pristine* condition. The gentleman who owned them took excellent care of them.

    The sale is this coming week. For details, go to booksalefinder.com. When the map of the U.S.A. comes up, click on MO. Then, scroll down the October listings to the listing for Ferguson, MO.

    You can contact me at jkbnorberg@gmail.com.

    P. S. I'm from Hope, Indiana, originally!

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  4. Anonymous10/12/2024 05:05:00 PM

    Thanks JKB! I know Hope well. I lived in Shelbyville for 24 years!

    Strangely I also know Ferguson, one of my biggest customers is located there on the old Emerson campus!

    Joe

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  5. Anonymous10/12/2024 05:48:00 PM

    Small world, isn't it Joe?!!

    JKB

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  6. Anonymous10/13/2024 06:13:00 PM

    I once traced my paternal grandmother back to the Civil War, to a man named Andrew Jackson [family name], who had one of his fingers shot off by a Yankee while sitting on a log over a creek.

    And I'm fairly certain that on my mother's side of the family were a fair number of Yankees.

    I imagine there are many American families with this type of history.

    Fred

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