My great-grandfather was a dispatch carrier for General Crook and he tells his impressions of Custer and many other historical figures. He had a colorful life as a plainsman and Indian guide.
He is the subject of the
book "Rekindling Camp Fires" Crawford (1926).
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Ben Arnold (Connor) epitomized the restless frontiersman. Through Arnold's recollections, the reader can experience life in the post-Civil War West. "Arnold was a soldier in the Civil War, deserted on his second enlistment, and re-enlisted under an assumed name for service on the western Indian Frontier. On his way west, he helped to chase the guerrilla Quantrill, saw the smoke of burning Lawrence, traversed the Oregon Trail, and tarried by the way at Fort Kearney, Doby Town, Julesburg, and Fort Laramie. Stationed as a military guard on the telegraph line west of Laramie, Arnold herded horses, hunted bear, became acquainted with Joe Slade and other notorious plainsmen, and saw something of Brigham Young's Destroying Angels. Deserting again, Arnold went to the Snake River, across which he helped to ferry the ceaseless western-bound horde. Stampeding to Virginia City, he described the great Montana gold rush. He visited every trading post along the Missouri and became acquainted with all the characters of note, both white and Indian. Married to an Indian woman, he became skilled in Indian language and customs, took part as interpreter in the making of several treaties, and served as dispatch bearer in the Crook campaign."--Horace Bagley, North Dakota Historical Quarterly Volume 64 in the Western Frontier Library Ben Arnold (Connor) was married to a Hunkpapa Sioux Indian, Itatewin. Her daughter from a second marriage, Josephine Waggoner, originally recorded Arnold's story. Lewis F. Crawford was Superintendent of the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the author of Badlands and Broncho Trails. Paul L. Hedren, who wrote the foreword, is National Park Service Superintendent at Niobrara/Missouri National Scenic Riverways, O'Neill, Nebraska, and the author of Fort Laramie and the Great Sioux War (University of Oklahoma Press). |
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Rekindling Camp Fires has been republished under it's sub-title: |
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