Cabinet photograph
Indian War 13th US Infantry Soldiers
D. Rodocker, Winfield, Kansas, ca. 1885
Photographic Study Collection, 2005.228
Two forage-capped, U.S. infantrymen, both wearing
Mills-pattern woven cartridge belts with U.S. closure
plated, hold Springfield trapdoor rifles. The soldier
on the right wears a non-regulation tie and carries
a non-regulation Colt lightning revolver.
"The food supplied to soldiers," writes
historian Don Rickey, Jr., "largely determines
their efficiency, health, and psychological well-being...From
1865 through the early 1890's, the mainstays of
soldier menus were hash, stew (slumgullion), baked
beans, hardtack, salt bacon, coffee, coarse bread,
contract-supplied range beef, and some condiments,
such as brown sugar, salt, vinegar, and molasses."
These "mainstays" were supplemented when
and where possible by commissary department foods
such as flour, beans, and salt pork. They were also
supplemented by game hunting and post and company
gardens that supplied fresh produce.
|
|
Drawing
for Harper's Weekly between 1859 and 1860
and 1862 until 1886, Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was a
caricaturist and political cartoonist of national
renown. In 1873, following his successful campaign
against New York City's Tweed Ring, Boss Tweed and
Tammany Hall, he was billed as "The Prince of
Caricaturists" for a lecture tour that lasted
seven months. He popularized the elephant to symbolize
the Republican Party and the donkey as the symbol
for the Democratic Party, and created the "modern"
image of Santa Claus. Following his death he was attributed
the moniker, "Father of American Caricature."
Through these cartoons, Nast, a Republican and supporter
of the military, ridiculed and condemned the Democratic
Congress for even the suggestion of reducing the U.S.
Army during an era of Indian warfare on the frontier.
More specifically, these cartoons lampoon the House
of Representatives bill, H. R. 2546, which provided
for the gradual reduction of the Army of the United
States. On May 23, 1874, Republican Indiana Representative
John Coburn from the Committee on Military Affairs
reported the bill. On June 1 the House passed the
bill and requested the concurrence of the Senate.
The bill was referred back to the Committee on Military
Affairs.
|
 |
Engraving
The Mere Shadow Has Still Some Backbone
Thomas Nast,
Harper's Weekly, August 8, 1874
Arthur & Shifra Silberman Native American
Art Collection,
1996.027.1461.026-1 |
|
| |
Engraving
Our Living Skeleton Standing Army
Thomas Nast,
Harper's Weekly, June 27, 1874
Arthur & Shifra Silberman Native American
Art Collection,
1996.027.1461.037 |
|
|
 |
Engraving
The Horse and His Rider
Thomas Nast,
Harper's Weekly, June 27, 1874
Arthur & Shifra Silberman Native American
Art Collection,
1996.027.1461.203 |
|
 Lithograph
Our Indian Policy
Joseph Ferdinand Keppler,
Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper,
September 18, 1875
Arthur & Shifra Silberman Native American
Art Collection,
1996.027.1461.142-1
Caricaturist Joseph Ferdinand Keppler
(1838-1894) was hired by Frank Leslie
about 1873 and by 1875 he was in charge
of drawing most of the cover cartoons
for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
He left in 1876 to found the newspaper,
Puck. Specializing in cartoons that attacked
President Ulysses S. Grant and political
graft, Keppler here ridicules the U.S.
Indian policy through the caricature of
alleged frauds in Indian supplies from
peace commissioners. He shows a man offering
Indians torn ("ventilated")
blankets, an empty rifle case, and ("50
sides of") spoiled beef.
As an English traveler through the Rockies
in 1873, Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904)
in her 1879 book, A Lady's Life in
the Rocky Mountains, wrote with prejudice
about this policy, "The Americans
will never solve the Indian problem till
the Indian is extinct. They have treated
them after a fashion which has intensified
their treachery and 'devilry' as enemies,
and as friends reduces them to a degraded
pauperism, devoid of the very first elements
of civilisation. The only difference between
the savage and the civilised Indian is
that the latter carries firearms and gets
drunk on whisky. The Indian Agency has
been a sinkof fraud and corruption; it
is said that barely thirty per cent of
the allowance ever reaches those for whom
it is voted; and the complaints of shoddy
blankets, damaged flour, and worthless
firearms are universal. 'To get rid of
the Injuns' is the phrase used everywhere.
Even their 'reservations' do not escape
seizure practically; for if gold 'breaks
out' on them they are 'rushed,' and their
possessors are either compelled to accept
land farther west or are shot off and
driven off." |
|
| |
|
 |
Photograph
Gibhart, Scout with the 8th U.S. Cavalry,
Fort Sill, OK, 1901
Unknown, 1901
Photographic Study Collection, 2003.041.3
Except for the gauntlets, Gibhart is wearing
all non-regulation clothing and arms. Dressed
in a frontiersman outfit of tailored and fringed
buckskin, this military scout sports a Colt
single action Army revolver in a civilian holster
with a money/cartridge belt. He holds a Marlin
rifle. Troop F of the 8th Cavalry served at
Fort Meade, South Dakota, before being transferred
to Fort Sill, Oklahoma on April 24, 1898.
Born in 1845, Theodore Baughman in his circa
1886 autobiographical book entitled The
Oklahoma Scout, offers an insight into
the mind of a government scout. "My business
in hunting and driving cattle, locating ranches,
etc., threw me constantly in contact with the
United States troops stationed at the various
posts. My accurate and extensive knowledge of
the country, as well as a natural aptitude for
finding my way anywhere, soon became known to
the officers commanding, so that my services
were in demand to pilot detachments of troops
in their expeditions. I may remark here that
from early boyhood the bump of locality, as
the phrenologists would say, was strongly developed
on my cranium. I never experienced the feeling
of being lost. I have read somewhere that a
poet is born, not made, and I think the same
is true of a successful scout. Going through
a country for the first time I make mental note
of all its leading features, and they remain
so indelibly impressed upon my memory that on
a second visit it seems familiar ground. This
is not the case with the majority. I know plenty
of men who have been through a country time
and again who would confess themselves incompetent
to act as a guide to anyone else through the
same region. And, after all, in every enterprise
of life, is it not true that only the few can
find their way unaided, while the many must
be content to follow as they are guided?" |
|
|
|
