DEATH AMONG THE SNOWS OF WOUNDED KNEE

12/29/1890 - A seemingly inevitable tragedy years in the making, and a grotesque wart on the history of the United States that still resonates with the racism of cultures clashing over the "civilizing" of the American West takes place in the snows of South Dakota near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, when units of the United States Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment (losers at the Battle of the Little Bighorn fourteen years before) attempt to disarm a group of over 300 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux led by Chief Spotted Eagle (his nickname is Big Foot), someone fires a first shot, others on both sides about the Indian camp begin firing too, and the barbarous Wounded Knee Massacre occurs. 

Chief Spotted Eagle

Ghost Dance Drum

Still boogiemen to Western authorities and settlers, over a decade after Union Civil War hero, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer has most of his command wiped out along the Montana shores of the Greasy Grass River (aka the Little Bighorn), the summer of 1890 sees tensions once again rising after the teachings of the Paiute prophet, Wovoka (also known as Jack Wilson), featuring a belief in Ghost Dancing being used as a call-to-arms for recently departed Sioux warriors to return from the dead and for clothing rituals that will deflect enemy bullets, the new Indian religion terrifies government authorities with worries of a new war against the native Americans as the religion moves from reservation to reservation.  The major worry at the Standing Rock Agency (encompassing 9,251.2 square miles of both North and South Dakota and roughly 275 miles north of Wounded Knee) is that it's most famous (or infamous if you choose) resident, the Hunkpapa spiritual leader, Sitting Bull (recently returned to the West after having paling around with Annie Oakley and entertaining eastern America as a member of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West show), will become a Ghost Dancer and start new hostilities against the local white population.  Gasoline poured on an already burning fire, U.S. Indian Agent, 48-year-old James McLaughlin, a man who has butted heads frequently with the Lakota leader, orders Sitting Bull arrested and brought to the reservation's Fort Yates for failing to stop the Hunkpapa's from dancing.  On December 15, 1890, at around 5:30 in the morning, 39 Indian police officers and 4 volunteers (one is Sitting Bull's brother-in-law, Gray Eagle), under the command of Lieutenant Henry Bullhead, arrive at the Indian leader's small cabin on North Dakota's Grand River to take Sitting Bull into custody.  House surrounded, Bullhead knocks on the door, enters the home, and tells Sitting Bull he is under arrest and must accompany the Indian police to the fort.  Stalling for time, as the Indian camp around the cabin awakens, Sitting Bull refuses to mount his horse to talk to McLaughlin at agency headquarters, causing Bullhead to resort to force to get the recalcitrant Indian on his mount.  A big mistake, one of Sitting Bull's enraged followers, Catch-the-Bear, shoulders his rifle and as the 59-year-old Indian leader screams to be rescued, shoots Bullhead in the right side, an action that causes the police officer to discharge his revolver into Sitting Bull's left side between his tenth and eleventh ribs.  More weapons pulled and fired, while standing on the other side of the prisoner, 1st Sergeant Charles Shave Head is struck in the belly by a bullet from the gun of Strike the Kettle, while positioned behind the medicine man, Sergeant Marcellus Red Tomahawk plugs his former friend in the left side again, then to make sure Sitting Bull causes no further problems, puts a slug into the back of the medicine man's neck.  Indian police versus over more than a hundred of Sitting Bull's followers, a general melee of knives, bullets, rocks, and fists breaks out among the Hunkpapa that lasts roughly thirty minutes and causes the deaths of Sitting Bull, Lieutenant Bullhead (he dies 82 hours after being shot), Sergeant Charles Shave Head (he dies 25 hours after catching his fatal slug), Sergeant James Little Eagle, Private Paul Afraid-of-Soldiers, Special Policeman John Armstrong, Special Policeman David Hawkman, Crow Foot (Sitting Bull's 17-year-old son), Black Bird, Cath the Bear, Spotted Horn Bull, Brave Thunder, Little Assiniboine, Chase Wounded, along with the wounding of Private Alexander Middle, Bull Ghost, Brave Thunder, and Strike the Kettle.     

Ghost Dancers

McLaughlin & Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull's Cabin

The Death Of Sitting Bull

Word of Sitting Bull's death soon spreads through the region and tensions among the Indians ratchets up as groups of Miniconjou and Hunkpapa try to not become the next target of the authorities ... followers of Sitting Bull move to join his half-brother, Spotted Elk, at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation (a reservation of 4,266,987 square miles solely in South Dakota) to the south, while Spotted Elk himself moves to accept the offer of Chief Red Cloud, the Oglala chief responsible for forcing the United States Army to close a series of forts on the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming and Montana, to join his people at the Pine Ridge Agency (they are egged on by a local named John Dunn, who tells the Indians that the Army is prepping to slaughter any ghost dancers it gets its hands on).  On December 23, 1890, Spotted Elk and his band begin their journey over the wintery grasslands of South Dakota, but are almost immediately slowed when Spotted Elk develops a bad case of pneumonia due the harsh conditions he and his people are exposed to.  Hunkpapa and Miniconjou married together as they make their way towards Red Cloud and the chimera of shelter, with Army units patrolling the region, the group is met by a detachment of 7th Cavalry troopers under the command of Major Samuel M. Whitside, a Civil War veteran with military experience at posts in Texas, Missouri, Kansas, the Arizona Territory, Colorado, and the Dakota Territory.  Deciding to wait until the next morning to disarm the Sioux before escorting them on to Pine Ridge (the recommendation of half-Lakota scout and interpreter, John Shangreau, who worries, correctly, that there will be violence if the troopers try to harvest the weaponry of Spotted Elk's group), Whitside moves Spotted Elk's people five miles to the west where they can camp for the evening near Wounded Knee Creek.  After darkness falls, Colonel James W. Forsyth arrives with the rest of the 7th Cavalry (not in the field, troops in the region are under the command of Civil War Medal-of-Honor winner and renowned Indian Fighter, Major General Nelson Appleton Miles), and sets up defensive positions around the Indian camp, positions that include four rapid-fire Hotchkiss M1875 mountain guns.  In a small patch of South Dakota territory there are now 500 fully armed soldiers confronting about 350 very nervous Sioux, the majority of which are women and children.

Civil War - 1862 - Whitside Is Seated At The Table

Forsyth

Spotted Elk

As a cold Monday dawn arrives on December 29, 1890, Forsyth orders that the Indians immediately be disarmed and then moved to trains to return them to Cheyenne River Agency, a seemingly simple task that quickly turns into a nightmare.  A search of the camp uncovers 38 hidden rifles for confiscation and more weapons are found as soldiers begin examining everyone in the camp.  Nothing found on any of the old men, trouble begins when a medicine man named Yellow Bird starts haranguing the warriors for being weaklings for allowing their weapons to be taken and begins a ghost dance as a hard of hearing (there is still debate among historians as to whether the man was fully deaf and never heard the soldiers tell him disarm) Miniconjou named Black Coyote refuses to give up his brand new Winchester rifle.  Struggling with soldiers trying to relieve him of the weapon, a shot takes place, as at the same moment, Yellow Bird throws a handful of dust in the air that five warriors take as a signal, and dropping their blankets, they fire rifles they've concealed at troopers of the 7th's K Troop, and seconds later, general firing breaks out all over the camp as Spotted Elk's people grab rifles off the confiscated pile or from places of hiding and open up on Forsyth's command, a command which responds by firing on anything moving that isn't dressed in military blue.  Hate, revenge (some of the soldiers are heard yelling, "Remember the Little Bighorn" as they fire on their targets), and racism vented like an exploding volcano, in the chaos of carnage that ensues, men, women, children, dogs, and horses are all targeted as the four Hotchkiss guns open up on the teepees of the village (some of the soldiers are killed by fire from their own side).  Point blank firing making missing hitting something almost impossible, scattering in all directions seeking some form of shelter, individual groups of Indians are hunted down and slaughtered, some chased for miles over the frozen plains before being shot, clubbed or sabered to death (some bodies will.be found over five miles away from the camp).  Most of the warriors killed in the first few moments of gunfire, women and children are struck down in the shadow of the camp's white truce flag, survivors are coaxed out of their hiding places with promises of good treatment and then murdered, waving his arms signaling "I surrender" and "Stop," Spotted Elk goes to his ancestor's "Happy Hunting Grounds" decidedly very unhappily, and a nearby ravine becomes an outdoor abattoir.  In less than an hour, over half of the camp has been slaughtered, while Army losses are made up of 31 soldiers killed and 33 more troopers wounded.  Additionally, twenty soldiers are awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions at Wounded Knee (by comparison, in the month long bloodbath that takes place in 1945 at the Battle of Iwo Jima, Naval and Marine personnel win 27 Medals of Honor ... though the South Dakota Senate unanimously calls upon the U.S. Congress in 2021 to negate the awards, and three Democrats introduce a bill to take back the commendations <one is of course fake native politician, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Mass.>, attempts to rescind the Wounded Knee awards have thus far failed).

Three Of The Four Hotchkiss Guns

Remington's Take On The Fight

Newspaper Illustration

Death At Close Quarters

The massacre a magnet for angry Lakota, as the area fills with Sioux warriors, and an intense blizzard hits the region, the troopers of the 7th load their wounded and dead on wagons, along with some of the Indian wounded, and make the trek back to Pine Ridge headquarters, where they find support in the defensive positions members of the 9th Cavalry have dug in their absence (and with cause, the 9th's supply wagon is set upon by 50 Lakota warriors on Cheyenne Creek, about two miles from the agency, and Company K of the 7th, soldiers not involved in the massacre, has to be rescued by members of the 9th after they become trapped in a valley by members of the Brule tribe of the Rosebud Reservation at a small clash of arms that will be called the Drexel Mission fight by historians).  The barbaric winter chill of a three day blizzard brings the heat level between the warring parties down considerably, and on the second day of the new year of 1891, a burial party of civilians, protected by soldiers, returns to Wounded Knee to police the field.  Hacking a trench out of the frozen ground the party places 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children (the rest of the Indian dead are carried away by surviving family members or become a winter's feast for the region's animal predators) into a mass grave (on a hill just behind the grave, St. John's Episcopal Mission Church will arise) that will one day feature a memorial at the site that reads: "This monument is erected by surviving relatives and other Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux Indians in memory of the Chief Big Foot massacre December 29, 1890. Col. Forsyth in command of U.S. troops. Big Foot was a great chief of the Sioux Indians. He often said, 'I will stand in peace till my last day comes.' He did many good and brave deeds for the white man and the red man. Many innocent women and children who knew no wrong died here."  Though no final count will ever be completely correct, the butcher's bill for the massacre results in between 250 and 300 Indian deaths, consisting mostly of women and children (amazingly, a handful of babies are later found alive on the battlefield, suckled by dead Indian mothers).  It is a sad day for the United States of America.

Retreat To Pine Ridge

After

Yellow Beard And Others

Bodies In The Snow

Into The Trench

Almost immediately after the tragedy, the finger pointing begins among the Army's command structure.  In command of the Military Division of the Missouri, Civil War hero (and Medal of Honor winner for his actions Chancellorsville) and veteran victor of actions (and he also moves up the chain of command through his marriage to the niece of the Commanding General of the United States Army, William Tecumseh Sherman) against the Lakota after Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn, cutting off the Nez Pierce of Chief Joseph from fleeing into Canada at the conclusion of the Nez Pierce War of 1877, and coordinating the efforts of the American and Indian scouts that capture of Chiricahua Apache leader, Geronimo, Major General Nelson Miles denounces Forsyth for his actions (he believes his orders have deliberately been disobeyed so Forsyth can gain revenge for Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn) and relieves him of command.  Convened by General Miles, an exhaustive army court of inquiry takes up the matter and decides that Forsyth made numerous tactical errors, but exonerates him of responsibility for the tragedy, and that is that since the investigation is not a formal court martial.  Concurring with the results of the inquiry, the Secretary of War, former governor of Vermont, Republican Redfield Proctor, reinstates Forsyth to command of the 7th Cavalry, and despite continuing efforts by Miles to destroy the man's career, the colonel will continue on with his service in the army and will retire in 1897 as a Major General.

The Heady Cavalry Days Of The Civil War - Sheridan (L)

And His Generals (L To Right) - John Forsyth, Wesley Merritt,

Thomas Casimer Devin And George Armstrong Custer

Battlefield Examination - On Far Left White Horse

Is Buffalo Bill Cody, Front Black Horses L-R Are Captain

Baldwin, General Miles And Captain Moss

Proctor

Wounded Knee Memorial

Though there will be a handful of further minor clashes, the massacre at Wounded Knee ends the battle between Western civilization and the many Native American peoples scattered from the East and West coasts for control of the American portion of the North American continent in a year in which the United States Census Bureau announces the closing of the American frontier.  Unsurprisingly, over three centuries of tragic encounters between Indians and Westerners that began in 1609 with the Iroquois fighting the French and their Algonquians allies during the Beaver Wars, ends with one more tragedy known as the Wounded Knee Massacre ... but for many, the conflict never really ends and in the early part of 1973, Wounded Knee will once again enter the consciousness of the American public when about 200 members of the Oglala tribe and supporters of the American Indian Movement (AIM), led by Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and Leonard Peltier, protesting the leadership of Indian tribal president Richard Wilson, seize and occupy the small village on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for 71 days (with an exchange of gun fire taking place between both sides almost nightly) while the United States Marshal Service, the F.B.I. (over 1,000 members of the two agencies), other local law enforcement agencies, and the National Guard from five states circle and cordon off the area while seeking a peaceful solution to the situation (their tactics also include the authorities turning off the town's electricity and water, and cutting off food supplies).  Too late for the casualties of the occupation (two dead Indians, another missing and believed murdered, and 16 more people wounded, including U.S. Marshal Lloyd Grimm who is hit by a bullet that turns him into a paraplegic from the waist down), the two sides negotiate a peace which eventually results in a judge ordering the acquittal of the leadership of AIM.

Banks

Means

Peltier

Wilson

Tensions hardly resolved by the acquittals, the reservation explodes again in 1975, when F.B.I. Special Agents Jack R. Coler (28) and Ronald A. Williams (28) drive on to agency grounds (they are in separate, unmarked Federal vehicles) seeking to question Jimmy Eagle, a suspect in a recent assault and robbery of two local ranch hands.  Instead of gaining access to their suspect, the two agents are fired upon by a group of Indians that kill both men (outnumbered, running out of ammo, and both men wounded, Williams takes wounds to his body and foot, before being shot in the head at point-blank range by a bullet that first goes through the protesting agent's right hand, while Coler is murdered by two bullets fired into his head ... then the weapons, four in all, are stolen by the culprits ... the gunfight lasts between five and ten minutes, during which time, the cars of the two agents are struck over 125 times).  Fleeing retribution they know is coming, the culprits vacate the reservation as a massive manhunt begins in both the United States and Canada that results in Leonard Peltier becoming the chief suspect in the deaths.  Placed on the F.B.I.'s Ten Most Wanted List at the close of 1975, Peltier is caught in Canada at an Indian camp on the Brazeau River in Alberta on February 6, 1976 and extradited to the United States in the same year.  At trial in Fargo, North Dakota on April 18, 1977, after five-weeks of proceedings in which both sides accuse each other of malfeasance, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa is found guilty of both counts of murder (damning evidence comes in the form of Peltier being found in possession of Coler's handgun) and sentenced to back-to-back life terms for the agent's deaths (tried for the same crimes before Peltier is brought back from Canada, found in possession of Coler's .308 rifle, Robert Eugene Robideau and Darrelle "Dino" Butler are acquitted of the killings on the grounds of self defense by a Cedar Rapids, Iowa jury).  Briefly a flavor of the month cause-celebre for human rights activists around the world (the list includes Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Jesse Jackson, and the 14th Dalai Lama), American politicians, and entertainers from Robert Redford to Jackson Brown, after his conviction Peltier is sent to the Federal Correctional Institution at Lompoc, California, escapes for three days before being captured again in Santa Maria, California in July of 1979, from his cell, he runs for President of the United States in 2004 and as Vic-President to Gloria La Riva in 2020, moves to the federal prisons at the cities of Lewisburg and Canaan, survives a beating by a group of prisoners at Canaan, and is declined clemency pleas by Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump.  He is currently serving out his double life incarcerations at the Federal Correction Complex located at Coleman, Florida.

Coler & Williams

Agent Williams' Car

Wanted Poster

12/29/1890 ... the western frontier of the United States unofficially closes with a tragedy known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Collecting Frozen Corpses

                           

 

   

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ARKANSAS RAMPAGE

12/28/1987 - The week long murderous rampage of sexual lunatic, Ronald Gene Simmons Sr., ends with the monster's arrest for sixteen killings (all but two members of his own family, the youngest a grandson of 20 months named William H. "Trae" Simmons III, the oldest, his 46-year-old wife, Bersabe Rebecca "Becky" Ulibarri Simmons) by local police at the Russellville, Arkansas offices of the Woodline Motor Freight Company.

Not Kris Kringle!

Born on July 15, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois to William and Loretta Simmons, the life of Ronald Simmons Sr. goes off the rails for the first time when less than three years later his natural father has a massive stroke and dies.  Looking for a provider, in less than a year Simmons' mother marries a civilian engineer in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, William Davenport Griffen, and Simmons begins manifesting narcissistic and controlling behaviors that are red flags for the future ... hitting his younger siblings, manipulating his parents, erupting in fits of rage and never admitting he is wrong about anything (his younger brother will describe him as a tyrant and bully).  Beginning a decade of transfers to new locations, on orders from the U.S. Army, the family pulls up stakes in 1946 and moves to Little Rock, Arkansas.  Tiring of his situation obeying the declarations of Griffen, at seventeen Simmons drops out of high school and joins the U.S. Navy.  Assigned to duties at the Bremerton, Washington Naval Station, at a USO dance Simmons meets the woman he will love, abuse, and murder, "Becky" Simmons (a USO volunteer from the small town of Walsenburg, Colorado).  The couple will be wed in New Mexico in 1960, and over the course of the next 18 years, the pair will have seven children.  Thinking his military talents could be better used in the sky, in 1963 he quits the Navy and enlists in the United States Air Force (there is also a brief interlude in San Francisco in which Simmons works for a bank before leaving when his "know-it-all" attitude prevents promotions from coming his way).  Structure over chaos, discipline in place of disorder, for twenty-two years, service in the military keeps Simmons from giving in to the darkness whispering inside his head, and he will be awarded a bronze star for bravery during 1968's Tet Offensive, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross for his service as an airman, and an Airforce Ribbon for Excellent Marksmanship (while Simmons is in Vietnam working for the Office of Special Investigations, he gets to live in civilian quarters in Saigon where he has maid service, a cook, and laundry delivered to the front door, meanwhile back in the States, his bride and three young children live in a tiny travel trailer on her parents' property on the small stipend of $40 a month) .  He retires from military service in November of 1979 as a Master Sergeant.

Bremerton

"Becky" Simmons

In The Military

After getting out of the service, Simmons puts down roots in New Mexico, near the small mountain village of Cloudcroft (working for the Air Force's Computer Science Division as a civil servant employee), and it is there that he begins embracing the monster inside him.  Ruling a fiefdom that consists solely of his own wife and children, King Ronald refuses to let his wife learn how to drive, schedules are rigidly set and followed for doing the laundry, eating meals, and cleaning, no one is allowed to answer the front door without permission from Simmons, Simmons opens the letters of his family going in or coming out, and commands the allocation of postage stamps, he takes care of all the finances, he spends most of time in a darkened room watching TV, and when any outsider sees him, he seems to always be glaring and holding a half drunk beer in his hand ... and his meek wife is beaten when she doesn't go along with her husband's commands.  Real trouble begins though when after seven children and numerous arguments over the matter, Becky talks Ronald into allowing her to have a tubal ligation to prevent any future pregnancies.  The unforeseeable result of the operation though is that Simmons stops having sex with his wife and begins grooming his daughter, Sheila Marie, to replace her mother.  Duped by gifts of clothing, jewelry, money and the attention of being called her father's "little princess" and "ladybug," the youngest Simmons is being molested by King Ronald by the time she is fifteen, and by her seventeenth year, she is pregnant with a baby that will be both her daughter and sister.  And of course, the local authorities eventually find out (not hard when Daddy is seen French kissing his daughter when he drops her off for school, and with the daughter admitting who the father of her child is when she is questioned) and the Department of Human Services for New Mexico begin proceedings against Simmons, who in 1981, suddenly vanishes from the community, along with his family.

Sheila Simmons

Simmons And Some Of His Family

Hiding from New Mexico justice, Simmons and his family move to the town of Ward located in Arkansas' Lonoke County, and then, wanting even more security, he takes the family to the state's Pope County and the small town of Dover (a community of approximately 529 households), where the clan puts down stakes on 13 acres of land 6.5 miles north of town, at a densely wooded site that will become known as Mockingbird Hill.  Using his family as slave labor, the family builds King Ronald a "palace" at the end of rutted red clay road (which Simmons names "Little Princess Lane" after his favorite daughter) that consists of two mobile homes jury-rigged together into one structure that has eight rooms, no indoor plumbing (there are two outhouses and a well to take care of the family's bathing, drinking, and bathroom business), no telephone, and is surrounded by a barrier wall, in some places ten feet tall, studded with homemade "NO TRESPASSING" signs, that is made of bricks, concrete blocks, and lots and lots of barbed wire.  Inside the complex there are piles of junk Simmons calls "building materials" that includes abandoned broken bicycles and numerous rusty Schlitz beer cans, a small chicken coop and occupants (beneath a hand written sign that proclaims the location to be a "Snake Pit"), and there are several derelict automobiles up on blocks about the property filled with yellow buckets of firewood and soiled clothing; a dump patrolled by two mutts named Bo and Duke operating out of a makeshift wooden crate doghouses.  Reigning over his small kingdom, trying to make ends meet, Simmons takes jobs as a file clerk for the Veteran's Administration Medical Center of Little Rock, in a recruiting office, at a Sinclair Mini-Mart in the nearby town of Russellville, as a clerk at Russellville's Woodline Motor Freight, and a host of menial jobs in the area.  Moving back to Arkansas to recreate the favorite part of his childhood, by 1987, Simmons is ruling a kingdom that is getting smaller and smaller and seemingly more rebellious with every passing day as Sheila (no longer Senior's favorite, on her leaving she is told by her father that he will see her in hell), Ronald Junior, and William II, all move out and start families of their own, 17-year-old daughter Loretta refuses to be her father's next bed buddy, and 46-year-old Becky calls her husband names behind his back ("fatso" is the kindest moniker), and backed by her older children, plots to leave King Ronald after the Christmas holidays are over, while threatening to tell the authorities about what her husband has been doing with his eldest daughter.  Almost human at Christmas time, the family decides to get together for one final celebration before their mother departs Mockingbird Hill.  Unbeknownst to the family, the King is making plans of his own for the season which begin with ordering his children to dig a large four-foot deep hole about 75 yards away from their home that he says is to serve as a third outhouse.     

Sheila And Husband Dennis McNulty

On December 18, 1987, King Ronald quits his job at the Russellville Sinclair Mini Mart, goes home and starts adding out assignments to his family for getting Mockingbird Hill ready for the holidays; despite his personality disorders, Simmons loves Christmas, and the home gets a Christmas tree, decorations, and an assortment of shiny wrapped gifts.  Four days later and three days before Christmas, the monster begins celebrating the holiday early with the seven members of his family living at the Dover complex.  Wearing normal as a mask, King Ronald oversees the Tuesday morning rituals of sending members of his family off to school ... Loretta (17), Eddy (14), Marianne (11), and Rebecca (8).  When the bus the youngsters ride is gone, Simmons drives to the local Walmart, buys a .22 handgun, and then with his purchase in hand (though he already has three guns at home), lets his mask drop, and with the new gun and an old crowbar, starts the winnowing of his family he has decided upon.  First to go is his oldest child and his namesake, there while separated from his wife while trying to protect his mother until she can leave King Ronald, 29-year-old Ronald Gene Simmons, Jr. ... Junior is hit upon the head and shoulders with the crowbar, tries to fight back (in his struggle to survive, the young man leaves bloody palm prints on one wall of the home), and for his efforts, is shot to death five times, once in the chest and then four more times in the face and head.  First murder completed, Simmons then gives his long suffering 46-year-old wife the same treatment, bludgeoning and then shooting his wife to death in her bedroom.  Adults gone, the monster then strangles his 3-year-old granddaughter, Barbara, to death using a ligature of fishing line.  First wave of killings completed, the maniac father then treats himself to a beer before dragging the corpses outside, placing them in a wheelbarrow and depositing them in the pit his children had recently dug.  At the pit the bodies have kerosene poured on them to mask the smells of decay, then they are wrapped in green garbage bags tied with rope, before being covered by a sheet of corrugated tin and barbed wire, along with a thin layer of dirt.  Then Simmons waits for the four children he sent off to school earlier in the day.  Excited to begin their holiday season, when the school bus drops the children off, Simmons gathers them together and tells them he has "special" gifts for each of them that he wants to bestow to them privately.  Lie accepted, in order of their births and ability to upset his plans, Simmons then strangles and drowns in a rain barrel Loretta, Eddy, Marianne, and Rebecca, then they too are moved into the pit.

Downtown - Russellville

First murders completed, Simmons spends the time leading up to Christmas watching TV, drinking beer at the death house, and goes into town to pickup some of the items he has purchased for his family for the holiday ... two girl's watches, a woman's hair styling machine, a box of 24 children's books, and an assortment of board games.  On the day after Christmas, more members of the Simmons clan show up for a holiday visit and family dinner.  Over from the small town of Fordyce in Arkansas' Dallas County, the first group of relatives to arrive at Mockingbird Hill on Saturday at midday are the threesome of William "Billy" Simmons II (22), his wife, Renata Simmons (21), and their son, youngster, William H. "Trae" Simmons III (20 months old).  Shortly after entering his father's home, as they are removing their coats, the two adults are shot and killed (Billy is shot once in the head, while Renata gets five bullets in her head and two in her neck), and then Trae gets King Ronald's strangle and drown treatment.  Within the hour, the final batch of family members arrives after driving up from their home in Texas ... Dennis McNulty (33), his wife and former father play toy, Sheila Simmons McNulty (24), the daughter and granddaughter of Senior, Sylvia Gail McNulty (6), and the McNulty's son of 21 months, Michael McNulty.  First into the house is Sheila, who sees the bodies of her brother and his family laying on the living room floor near the home's twinkling Christmas tree, screams, and is shot in the head by her father.  Hearing the scream, McNulty rushes into the house and he also gets shot in the head, then the monster father strangles and drowns Sylvia and the infant.  Seven more murders added to the maniacs tally and family slaughtered, Simmons puts both infants in plastic and then places their corpses in the trunks of two of the derelict cars on the property.  That task completed, he then lays the bodies remaining in the house, except for Sheila, in a neat row in the living room, and puts coats over the dead.  As in life, only Sheila is treated differently.  Taken into her former room, Sheila is placed on the room's bed and then wrapped in her mother's favorite tablecloth.  Murders over for the moment, Simmons then spends the rest of the weekend drinking beer (he also goes out to a local saloon for a taste of hard liquor), watching television, and thinking about other people he believes have done him wrong, deciding that they should also pay.

"Love" Child, Sylvia Gail

Family Memorial

Up to take care of his last holiday errands, on Monday morning, Simmons drives into town in his dead son's brown Toyoda Corolla.  First stop is the local Walmart, where Simmons buys and walks out of the store with another .22 pistol.  From the Walmart, Simmons drives to the law offices of Peel, Eddy and Gibbons, walks in and shoots to death the firm's 24-year-old secretary/receptionist, Kathleen "Kathy" Cribbins Kendrick, a woman on Simmons death list for spurning, and reporting, King Ronald's' sexual advances while the pair worked at Woodline Motor Freight (survived by a husband and infant son, she is shot four times in the head).  It is 10:17 in the morning and his visit to the law firm lasts all of 45 seconds.  Returning to his ride, Simmons then drives to the Taylor Oil Company seeking to gift retribution on 38-year-old Russell "Rusty" Taylor, the owner of the Sinclair Mini-Mart the monster once worked for (Taylor's sin has been not paying Simmons enough).  At the oil company, Simmons finds Taylor and shoots the man in the face (he will live), pivots, and kills 34-year-old James David Chaffin as the married father of four enters the business (an off-duty firefighter, there trying to make extra money at a second holiday job).  Then, Simmons turns his weapon on the last occupant of the office, bookkeeper Juli Money (a mother of two children, a boy of 8 and a girl of 15, she has just begun her second hour of her first day on her new job), returning to the area from taking a bathroom break in the company's warehouse.  Grazed in the head by a Simmons' slug, she crashes into a stack of crates, where, when she pops up only wounded, she points her fingers at the killer and scares him out of the office with her 'pretend" gun.  The attack lasts less than a minute, with police being called at 10:27.  Not yet done, seeking his next victim, Simmons drives three miles up US 64 to the mini-mart he once worked at, looking for the place's proprietor, 38-year-old David Salyer.  Entering the store looking for his old boss, Simmons first comes upon 46-year-old Roberta Woolery at the store's front cash register, pulls one of his pistols and shoots her twice without saying a word (she will survive her facial and shoulder injuries).  Drawn by the shot from where he is drinking a cup of coffee, Salyer sees the gunman turn his way, and trying to defend himself, throws a chair at Simmons, who rewards the effort by firing two rounds at the man (one of which wounds Salyer in the head), but fails to kill him when a customer and friend of the proprietor takes up a position behind a stack of groceries and begins throwing cans of Coke at Simmons' head, forcing the killer to flee the business.  Already frantically driving from crime scene to crime scene in Russellville, as many businesses respond to the lights and sirens by locking their doors, the call to come to the mini-mart is received by police at 10:39.  

Kendrick's Grave

Chaffin's Grave

Three malicious paybacks given, Simmons finally drives to the Woodline Motor's office to shoot his former supervisor and the woman that chastised him for his harassment of Kathy Kendrick, Joyce Butts.  Seeing Butts drop to the floor after Simmons shoots her twice (she will survive, but never fully recover from being wounded in the chest and head), the maniac locks himself in the computer room of the prison, where he tries to surrender to terrified employee, Vicky Jackson.  Refusing to take the gun Simmons offers her, she instead calls the police after her former co-worker tells her, "I just wanted to kill Joyce.  Just Joyce.  I've come to do what I wanted to do.  It's all over now.  I've gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me."  Call from Jackson received at by the local authorities at 10:48, the rampage ends a few minutes (Simmons has been in town roughly an hour) later when police finally catch up with Simmons and he peacefully surrenders his two weapons ... an H&R .22 with a 3-inch barrel commonly known as a Saturday Night Special, and a Ruger .22 with a 9 1/2-inch barrel.  Trying to figure out what has happened and knowing there is no phone at Mockingbird Hill, police drive out to the compound to talk to Mrs. Simmons and discover an even ghastlier crime scene then back in town; fourteen bodies of the Simmons Clan scattered about the property; the largest familicide in United States history.

Under Arrest

Refusing to talk about anything, Simmons is sent to the Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock for evaluation of whether he is sane enough to stand trial.  Competency test given by staff psychiatrist, Dr. Irving Kuo, passed, Simmons goes on trial before Judge John Samuel Patterson in the spring of 1988 for the murders of Kendrick and Chaffin; he is prosecuted by John Bynum and handling the dubious defense of the maniac are court appointed attorneys, Robert E. "Doc" Irwin and John Harris.  Jury chosen in six hours, Simmons only participation in the trial is to ask the court to give him the death penalty.  Wish granted, after a jury of his peers finds Simmons guilty of the two deaths, Patterson sentences him to death by legal injection, and just in case the monster proves to be some kind of magician and somehow survives his execution, he is also given 147 yeas behind bars.  At Simmons' second trial, for the massacre of his family, events in the courthouse get a little more lively ... protesting the use of a note documenting the love/hate relationship between Senior and Sheila, the killer flies into a rage and punches Bynum in the face when the prosecutor uses the document to explain a possible motive for the deaths, then struggles with court personnel while grasping for a bailiff's weapon and is taken back to his cell in chains.  Found guilty of fourteen more murders, Simmons is again given the death sentence for his crimes, and refuses to appeal.  Execution scheduled for 1989, despite Simmons not appealing the sentence, a priest (Reverend Louis Franz) and a fellow death sentence convict (Jonas Whitmore) appeal as "friends" of the defendant (believing the move damages other convict's appeals, Simmons is kept away from other inmate at the Arkansas state prison) the actual execution slips into a new decade.  Appeal shot down (the Arkansas Supreme Court votes 7-2 to reject the appeal), Simmons execution warrant is signed by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (yeah, that clown) on May 31, 1990.  Refusing to have any visitors, including lawyers and members of the clergy, Simmons is watched 24/7 by guards, does a little reading, watches some TV, stares at the walls of his cell, and seems to only enjoy slaughtering the cockroaches that infest the prison.  Last meal a supper of medium rare filet mignon, two raw onions, tomato slices, a banana, six dinner rolls and a 7-Up, the killer is strapped to the death table in the Cummins Unit, and on the Monday night of June 25, 1990, the first of three lethal chemicals is shot into Simmons at 9:07, with the killer pronounced dead at 9:24, 17 minutes later.  The monster's last words are, "Justice delayed finally be done is justifiable homicide."  It is the first execution in Arkansas since 1976 and the first in the state to take place by way of lethal injection.  Body unclaimed by any surviving members of Simmons' family, the killer is buried in a pauper's grave at the Lincoln Memorial Lawn Cemetery in Varner, Arkansas.          

Arriving For His Psych Evaluation

Death House

The News

AN ARMY DIES AT NASHVILLE

12/16/1864 - Foolishly positioned before the fortified city of Nashville containing the 55,000 fully equipped and rested soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by 47-year-old Union Major General George Henry Thomas, the fighter from Virginia who has become known as "The Rock of Chickamauga," best the 25,000 Confederates of 47-year-old Lieutenant General John Bell Hood at the Battle of Nashville ... a two day wintery clash that effectively removes the once powerful Army of Tennessee from the American Civil War. 

Minnesota Troops Attack Shy's Hill

A hopeful response to losing the city of Atlanta meant to draw Major General William Tecumseh Sherman away from his just beginning "March to the Sea," Lt. General John Bell Hood (an outstanding brigade and division commander recently returned to duty after his left arm is crippled at Gettysburg and his right leg is amputated after the Battle of Chickamauga) starts a campaign in Tennessee with the intent of engaging the 30,000 soldiers of Major General John Schofield (Hood's roommate at West Point), and then hitting the troops of Thomas at Nashville, moves that might change the course of the war in the west.  Unfortunately for the southerners, Hood shows that while he might have been an outstanding combat leader, he does not have the mind or personality to handle the operations of an entire army during a winter campaign.  Upset believing that not following his orders to the letter has allowed Schofield's command to escape an ambush at Spring Hill as they retreat towards Nashville, on November 30, 1864, Hood sends his troops forward over two miles of open ground into prepared Union defensive positions without artillery support in a bloody clash of eighteen separate charges that will be known as the Battle of Franklin, and cost the Army of Tennessee 6,252 men, gain the nickname of the "Pickett's Charge of the West" among historians, and cost the southerners the services of fourteen generals (among the dead is one of the Confederacy's finest leaders, Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, known as the "Stonewall of the West") and and fifty-five regimental commanders.  Locked in to his mission, instead of retreating after the debacle, Hood crosses the Harpeth River the next day and arrays his men before Nashville, one of the most fortified cities in America (with a population of 100,000), where they find themselves confronted by a numerically superior Union force, unable to limp away due to the pounding taken at Franklin and the horrible winter weather that hits the area with freezing temperatures, snow, ice, mud, and rain.

John Bell Hood

Franklin

Schofield

Commanding the Union forces inside Nashville's fort is George Henry Thomas.  Born in Virginia, at Newsom's Depot (five miles away from the state's border with North Carolina) on July 31, 1816.  A member of a well-to-do family of three girls and three boys on a plantation of 685 acres worked by fifteen slaves.  As a youth, Thomas hides from the minions of Nat Turner during the preacher's slave rebellion of 1831.  Appointed to West Point in 1836, Thomas rooms with future Union generals     Stewart Van Vilet and William T. Sherman, and by the time he is a senior, graduates 12th (out of 42) in the Class of 1840.  Appointed a second lieutenant in Company D of the 3rd U.S. Artillery, Thomas will spend the years leading up to the Civil War, fighting in Florida during the state's Second Seminole War, serve at posts in New Orleans, Charleston, and Baltimore, and as part of General Zachary Taylor's army, during the Mexican-American War, earns three brevet promotions while fighting at Fort Brown, Resaca de la Palma, Monterrey, and Buena Vista.  After the war and another posting to Florida, Thomas becomes an instructor at West Point specializing in horse riding (two of his students will be cavalrymen, J.E.B. Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee) and artillery, while under the supervision of the Academy's superintendent, future Confederate general and fellow Virginian, Robert Edward Lee.  Teaching assignment completed, in 1854, Thomas leads two companies of cavalry to California by way of a march over the dangerous Isthmus of Panama, becomes a major in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry where he renews his friendship with his former boss Robert E. Lee, and takes over command of the regiment for over two years, suffering the only wound of his long military career when a Comanche arrow passes through the flesh of his chin and hits the major in the chest (a tough one, Thomas pulls the arrow out of his wound and continues to lead the regiment on its patrol of the Brazos River in Texas.  Experienced leading infantry, artillery, and cavalry, Thomas is expected to join the South when states begin leaving the Union following Abraham Lincoln's election to president in 1860, but, influenced by his New York wife and early experiences with plantation slaves, decides to support the Union cause instead, much to the chagrin of family (reacting to the decision, Thomas will have his family turn his picture to the wall, destroy his letters, and will never speak to George again), friends, and many former colleagues (J.E.B. Stuart will write his wife that Thomas is a traitor to Virginia and should be hung).  Promoted to lieutenant colonel replacing Robert E. Lee, and then colonel replacing Albert Sidney Johnston, when the two officers leave to fight for the Confederacy, Thomas is made a brigadier general of volunteers in August of 1861.

Second Seminole War

Battle Of Buena Vista

Major George Thomas

    His first command of the war is leading a brigade in the Shenandoah Valley for Union Major General Robert Patterson, before he is transferred to the soldiers operating under Major General Robert Anderson in Kentucky.  On January 18, 1862, Thomas defeats Confederate Brigadier Generals George B. Crittenden and Felix Zollicoffer at the Battle of Mill Springs, giving the Union their first major victory of the war, a triumph that breaks Confederate strength in eastern Kentucky.  In the reorganization of the Department of the Mississippi following Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh, in April of 1862, Thomas is promoted to Major General and given command of the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee consisting of five divisions of soldiers, which participate in, and help Grant win the siege of Corinth.  Leadership changed from Grant to Union Major General Don Carlos Buell, as second-in-command of the Army of the Tennessee, Thomas participates in the Battle of Perryville, where Confederate General Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky is halted (first meeting Bragg when the officer is a Captain of Artillery fighting in Mexico, it is Bragg who recommends Thomas for the position of instructor at West Point, and later, for a promotion to major when Thomas is a member of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry).  Top commander changed again, this time the position is given to Union Major General William Rosecrans, Thomas is given command of the Department of Mississippi's "center wing," now known as the Army of the Cumberland, and prevents Bragg from gaining decisive victory at the Battle of Stone's River, when his soldiers hold the center of the retreating Union troops, is in charge of the most important maneuvering during Rosecrans' Tullahoma Campaign in the summer of 1863, and as commander of XIV Corps in September of 1863, prevents Rosecrans' army from being destroyed (moving units about on the first day of battle to reinforce his line, Rosecrans instead mistakenly opens up a breach in his defensives that the Confederates immediately exploit) by Bragg when he rallies his men and fleeing soldiers against over twenty Confederate attacks upon his position atop Snodgrass Hill during the Battle of Chickamauga (a defense that will win Thomas the moniker of the "Rock of Chickamauga) as northern soldiers retreat into Chattanooga.  Replacing Rosecrans, Thomas is part of the command structure that reports to Grant when the general takes over the defense of Chattanooga, and is in charge of the troops that go beyond their orders and storm through the Confederate positions outside the city at the Battle of Missionary Ridge.  Under Sherman when Grant is given the Eastern Theater of the war to fix, Thomas is in on the taking of Atlanta, making the victory possible when he prevents the southerners of Hood from breaking the siege of the city at the Battle of Peachtree Creek in July of 1864.  When Hood moves away from Atlanta and Sherman starts his march to the sea, Thomas is ordered to keep Tennessee free of Confederates, and takes the Army of the Cumberland to Knoxville.

Bragg

Rosecrans

The Rock Of Chickamauga

Recognizing the sublime opportunity Hood's stupidity has provided him, Thomas readies his plans to attack the Army of Tennessee, but realizing extra mobility and pursuit veterans might be required to defeat the Confederates, he postpones sallying out of his Nashville defenses until his cavalry chief, Union Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson (one of the few men to best the horsemen of Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest during the war) can rest and remount his troopers.  For the delay (and egged on by the secret reports of Schofield, an officer who has borne Thomas a malicious grudge since instructor Thomas almost had him expelled from West Point over not discipling other cadets in the classroom where Schofield is serving as teaching assistant), Thomas is soon receiving daily telegrams from Lincoln, Grant, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and Major General Henry Wager Halleck telling him not to lose his chance and to attack as quickly as is possible.  Ready to go, Thomas holds back next due to the weather when a major winter storm hits the area on the 8th and lasts until the 12th ... the attack will go forward as soon as any kind of a thaw takes place.  Meanwhile, already aggravated by the situation out west, Grant orders Union Major General John Alexander "Black Jack" Logan, a veteran of Bull Run, Belmont (an early Grant victory), Fort Donelson, the siege of Corinth, Grant's Vicksburg campaign (Logan's command will be the first to enter the captured Mississippi River hub), and the taking of Atlanta, to go to Nashville and take over command there if Thomas has not started his attack before Logan arrives (he is in Louisville when Thomas begins his operation) ... and anxious about the outcome, Grant leaves the siege of Petersburg to personally supervise the change in field commanders (he makes it to Washington D.C. before he receives the news that Thomas has sallied out of Nashville.  And unlike other moments of the war, the delay proves fortuitous, as Hood weakens his force even more by sending off three brigades of men to attack the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, and an additional two brigades of infantry and two of cavalry to reinforce Forrest's command that are sent on a feint to draw troops away from the Tennessee capital (Thomas does not take the bait).  Rested, well equipped troops (the men come from various units of the Army of the Cumberland, the Army of the Ohio, the Army of the Tennessee, the District of Etowah, and the Post of Nashville), attacking from behind twelve miles of fortifications that cover each of eight roads leading into the city versus a demoralized southern command that is outnumbered by Thomas, poorly clothed (uniforms in tatters and not made for winter operations, many of the men will go into battle wearing no shoes), defending four miles of makeshift fortifications (among them are five small detached redoubts of two to four artillery pieces and about 150 soldiers each) that only covers four of the roads leading into or out of Nashville ... everything is in place for what becomes known as the Battle of Nashville on December 15, 1864.

Wilson

Logan

Forrest

Thomas' plan of battle is simple, on the Confederate right he will launch a diversionary attack by two brigades of colored troops pulled from the command of Union Major General John B. Steedman (the men have no combat experience and have previously only served as garrison troops and railroad guards) and a brigade of rear echelon white soldiers (described by their commander as being "new conscripts, convalescents, and bounty jumpers") ... 7.600 men accompanied by two batteries of artillery.  On the Confederate left, the attack will consist of a large wheeling movement of roughly 12,000 men commanded by Wilson and 12,000 soldiers under Union Major General Andrew Jackson "Whiskey" Smith that will fall on a weak spot in the Confederate line.  Officers given their orders the night before at Nashville's St. Cloud Hotel, Thomas puts on a brand new uniform, checks out of the hotel and rides to the front though the grey dawn light of an extremely foggy morning.  The diversion on the Confederate right, into a white mist begins at about 6:00 in the morning and will be stopped when Steedman's troops run into close range enfilading cannon fire from a four gun lunette of Texans.  By 11:00 in the morning the attack peters out, but for the entire day, as planned, Steedman's troops keep pressure on the southerners.  Fog burnt off by 9:00 (the northern soldiers are amazed that hundreds of Nashville's citizens have taken up positions on the city's hills to watch the show), Wilson's command begins their attack on what proves to eventually be a warm and sunny day.  Maneuvering to fall on the flank of the Confederates, at 2:30 Wilson's men fall on the five redoubts guarding Hood's army.  One after the other fall to the northerners, with #1 being swamped by troops attacking it from the north, south, and west.  But the suppression of the redoubts is not without costs ... leading his men as they capture Redoubt #3, 44-year-old Colonel Sylvester G. Hill, is killed by a shell fired his way from Redoubt #2, the highest ranking northern officer to be killed in the battle.  Now able to hit the left end of the main Confederate line, Thomas' soldiers move down Granny White and Hillsboro Pikes and over Montgomery Hill, pressing Hood's men backwards, but before a victory completed, early night falls and the Confederates are able to put together a defensive line about two mile to the south as reinforcements from Lieutenant General Stephen Dill Lee are able to keep the retreat from becoming a rout (already exhausted from the previous day's battle, the southerners will spend most of the night digging into the tough, frozen Tennessee turf).

Battle Map

Steedman

Smith

Hill's Death

Union Troops At Nashville

The second day of battle finds the Confederates along a shorter (the line is now less than two miles long and covers only two of the eight Nashville turnpikes)), stronger and more compact line than the previous day that anchors on Shy's Hill (formerly known as Compton's Hill, after the battle, it is forever known as Shy's Hill, for 26-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William Mabry Shy, who dies defending the location when he is hit in the head by a Union bullet) on the Confederate left, and on Peach Orchard Hill on the southern right.  A cold rain begins falling at noon.  Repeating the same movements as on the first day, Thomas launches a diversionary attack on right, hoping to pull troops away from the center and left that the Union man hopes to roll up with the men of Wilson's, Schofield's, and Smith's commands.  At Peach Orchard Hill, a stronger Union force than the day before begins its attacks at about 3:00 in the afternoon, but is forced back down the hill by the massed fire of men from Stephen Lee's command (achieving its purpose, Hood moves troops from his left to the threatened Confederate right, but its effectiveness comes at a terrible cost, attacking last and alone, the colored troops of Steedman's 2nd Colored Brigade gain the Confederate parapets, but suffer casualties to 221 officers and men in the process (along with one of the unit's battle flags), reducing the unit's effectiveness by 40%.  Pushing forward on the left side of the Confederate line as Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham bends his troops backwards to prevent his flank from being turned, Schofield is daunted.by the prospect of charging up Shy's Hill, and doesn't attack despite receiving the extra men he requested from Smith's command.  Worried that an early evening will once again prevent the Union soldiers from obtaining victory (there is only an hour of daylight left), Union Brigadier General John McArthur, a division leader in Smith's command, takes matters into his own hands and sends his troops up Shy's Hill.  Confederates holding, as both sides and the citizens of Nashville watch, McArthur's men (three brigades worth) swarm up and over the hill ... and the Confederate line suddenly disintegrates, with the southern line being rolled up from west to east, with Wilson's cavalry now blocking movement down Granny White Pike.  Just trying to survive, Hood's men flee to the south, moving along Franklin Pike and then trough a gap in the Overton Hills that takes them along Otter Creek, their movements protected as best they can by members of Lee's Corps and Colonel Edmund Winchester Rucker cavalry (Rucker will be wounded, captured, and sent to the Union prison at Johnson's Island in Ohio, where he has his left arm amputated ... exchanged for a Union officer in 1865, the brave horseman passes away in Birmingham, Alabama on April 13, 1924 at the age of 88).  Lacking a pontoon bridge that has been sent in the direction of Murfreesboro (Thomas can't move his supplies and artillery over the Harpeth River), the pursuit of Hood moves along in fits and starts as Forrest's two divisions of cavalry (along with an infantry division commanded by Brigadier General Edward C. Walthall) finally arrives to fight rearguard actions at Richard Creek, Anthony's Hill, and Sugar Creek, and burn the bridge over the Duck River, while low water prevents Union gunboats from interdicting the Confederates crossing the Tennessee River.  Safe on the other side of the wet, by the 30th of the month, Thomas' pursuit comes to an end.

Colored Troops Atop Peach Orchard Hill

Shy

Cheatham

McArthur    

Rucker

Thomas Triumphant

Only four more months left in the war, the bloody battle is the last major clash of the conflict, and the the Army of Tennessee is so badly mauled at first Franklin, and then at Nashville, that effectively it is eliminated from the Western Theater as a fighting force (the cost of the final big battle is 3,061 Union casualties against Confederate losses of over 6,000 men) ... campaigning through Tennessee since September of 1864, Hood's command by December is reduced from 38,000 men to a beaten rabble of about 15,000 soldiers (there are also about 2,000 desertions).  Although Hood blames his subordinates for the defeat and takes no responsibility for the loss, at Tupelo, Mississippi on January 13, 1865, Hood offers to resign his command, and ten days later Confederate President Jefferson Davis complies with the general's request, replacing the bitter cripple with Lieutenant General Richard Taylor (after the war, Hood moves to Louisiana, becomes a cotton broker, president of insurance company, marries Anna Marie Hennen of New Orleans and becomes a father of 11 children over 10 years, writes a memoir of the war called "Advance and Retreat," and dies on August 30, 1879 in New Orleans from yellow fever at the age only 48 (the epidemic also takes Hood's wife and eldest daughter, while the other children are taken care of by members of the Texas Brigade Association before eventually being adopted by families in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, and New York.

Hood

Thomas, the victor at Nashville, ends the war as a major hero of Union arms (along with Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan).  After the conflict, he has commands in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama.  During the Reconstruction period, Thomas plays an integral role in protecting freedmen from the abuses of their white former owners and the depredations of the Klu Klux Klan (a racist organization started by the illustrious "Wizard of the Saddle," Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest) and sets up military commissions to enforce labor contracts.  With the intent of eventually replacing Grant with Thomas as general-in-chief, President Andrew Johnson offers to promote "The Rock of Chickamauga" to the rank of Lieutenant General, but unwilling to get involved in politics, Thomas asks the Senate to withdraw his nomination, which that body does.  In 1869, Thomas is assigned to command the Military Division of the Pacific, with his headquarters at the Presidio in San Francisco, California.  There, while answering an article written by Schofield criticizing his generalship during the war, Thomas suffers a fatal stroke on March 28, 1870 and dies at the age of 53.  Family refusing to attend his funeral, he is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery of Troy, New York.  Known as "The Rock of Chickamauga," "Slow Trot Thomas," "Old Slow Trot," and "Pap," "The Sledge of Nashville" now rests in white marble sarcophagus with an eagle sitting atop, sculpted by artist Robert E. Launitz.

Thomas In The Field

Thomas

   

         

     

       

             

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