United States Cavalry

It is being closed by smallpox, by the systematic slaughter of the buffalo to starve the plains tribes, and by the relentless advance of the US Army.

The book culminates with the Marias Massacre of eighteen seventy, where the US Cavalry attacked a peaceful camp of Pikuni, killing nearly two hundred people, mostly women, children, and the elderly.

When you frame the central conflict of the West around an event like that, it completely obliterates the idea of a negotiation over property rights.

Absolutely.

He was aggressive, flamboyant, and willing to take enormous risks.

After the Civil War, Custer remained in the Army, and in 1866 he became Lieutenant Colonel of the newly formed 7th United States Cavalry.

He would soon become one of the most recognizable officers on the American frontier.

In November 1868, Custer rode south under the command of General Philip Sheridan.

The post-surgeon dismissed it as the wind rattling the old foundations.

But when Sergeant Elias Thorne, a hardened veteran of the U.S. Cavalry, arrived decades later in the spring of 1890...

the past refused to stay buried.

Driven by sleepless nights and a smudged post-mortality ledger bearing a damning question mark, Thorne forced his way into the abandoned hospital's deadhouse.

So bolt the doors, stoke the fire, and listen closely.

Because on the frontier, the dead don't always stay where you put them.

In the spring of 1890, Sergeant Elias Thorne, late of the U.S. Cavalry, arrived at what would be his final station.

It was not the wind-scoured edge of Apache country, nor a garrison bracing for a Sioux raid, but a place of unsettling calm, the new Kansas Soldiers Home.

They rep- Yeah.

So the story is, like, he, you know, the, the US Cavalry, which does invade-

Yeah

... like, the Northern California Modoc people-

Crawford's parents.

His father, George Goldsby, was a sergeant in the 10th United States Cavalry.

The Buffalo Soldiers, black men the army sent west to enforce the expansion that was destroying the same native sovereignty his mother belonged to.

His mother, Ellen Beck Goldsby, was granted Cherokee citizenship by the Treaty of 1866.

"Yes, sir, Captain Brittles.

No, sir, Captain Brittles." Of all the officers in the United States Cavalry, why did they have to assign me to him? A handbook soldier, over age and grade.

A bitter failure of a soldier, marking time out here on the plains until he retires, taking up space in the table of organization, standing in the way of younger and more aggressive and, yes, more capable officers.

My father wouldn't be guessing.

Yes, Mr. Cohill.

Excuse me, sir, but can't we go after the Indians who did this? Can't we try to-

Mr. Cohill, the United States Cavalry is not out here to fight Indians.

We're here to watch them and report on them for the Indian Bureau.

The Irish were...

I use the term backbone a lot, but they were the backbone of the US Cavalry that fought the Indian Wars.

Of course, we'll talk about prohibition and the Irish mafia.

We'll talk about pub culture.

Fort Laramie was written by John Meston with music by Rex Corey and was produced by Norman MacDonald.

Join us next week for another drama of the early frontier and of the brave men who fought under Captain Lee Quince, United States Cavalry.

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He's an amazing writer.

But it's about the end of the Nez Perce, the, really the final battles between our US Cavalry and, uh, Nez Perce.

But they regularly have a quote in there where they hated the Blue Coats nearly as much as Sitting Bull.

Even with all the things the cavalry were doing to get the Indians, they didn't hate them quite as much as Sitting Bull, their rival Indian tribe who they'd been murdering each other for years.