The Sand Creek, Errol Flynn, Ned Wynkoop & Louis Kraft connection

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Louis Kraft

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs

I thought that for the third time my next major blog would deal with race and racism in my life, as this has always been a major piece of my world and always will be.

Actually on other social media it had been advertised as the next blog
as an introduction to dealing with some of the explosive comments
that my blogs had garnered that were both hateful and
threatening. Those who responded, and almost as
a total group, uplifted me from the dark swirl
of what amounted to threats.

I have no intention of shortchanging my world but
at the moment I need time, … and want to keep focused on
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

I have a major announcement to make in regards to
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
(It will appear at the end of this blog).

Who am I?

I’m a pirate, a duelist, an explorer, a frontiersman. More important I’m a person who has walked between race in my world and in past worlds that I never experienced but know intimately (the last half of the 16th century, the 1860s and 1880s, and the 1930s through the 1950s and into the 1970s and beyond).

LK leaning against Ned Wynkoop’s restored home/U.S. Indian agency just outside the perimeter of Fort Larned in Kansas on 22sept2012. I represented Wynkoop that evening when the Santa Fe Trail Association inducted him into their Hall of Fame. Photo by Fort Larned NHS chief historian and my great friend George Elmore. (image © Louis Kraft 2012 & 2015)

My books all deal with the human experience (regardless if they are nonfiction or fiction). They deal with time and place while none of them are in the present. For the record, the only book I’ll ever write that deals with the here and now will be my memoir (and I had better be dead at least one day before it is published). Trust me that my research on this fact is on target and that there can be no room for deviation from what must happen before this book is published, … and you’ve seen a hint of what is to come in these blogs

These are not dark words. Rather they are truths in our modern world. Most people who write about their lives (or have someone else write about their lives for them) steer clear of truth. The reason is probably twofold: 1) They don’t want to be sued for telling the truth, and 2) They do not want to present themselves as less than an exemplary person. Unfortunately fully ninety percent of the autobiographies or memoirs that I have read fall into this category. These books are glossed-over bores that quickly put me to sleep, only to flip the travesty into a box that I’ll give to the Vietnam Vets when I awake. This must be good for I certainly need to sleep, perchance to dream.

Of course this book has an LK story. It was distributed to book sellers early in 1960. As said Flynn had seen the galleys but he did not live to see publication (he died on 14oct1959). … At the time of publication I was in my first year of high school, and I had a job that I created—I collected bottles and cans to cash in at stores—that I worked almost daily. When the book was published I purchased it. My mother was upset and asked where I got the book. “I bought it.” “The book store sold it to you?” she asked incredulously. “Yes.” My mother knew that Errol Flynn meant a lot to me, even at that early age. “Okay,” she said, “as long as you don’t tell anyone you have the book or what is inside it.” I readily agreed. … Flynn wrote a book that contained a lot of truth—(and to repeat myself) so much so that for the second printing a lot was removed as some people didn’t like what he had written about them. They couldn’t sue Flynn for telling the truth for he was dead, but they made their anger known to the publisher. … Many people have since spread the word that a lot of the book was fiction (certainly in the early portion of the book; Tasmania and New Guinea, that a book I own but don’t totally agree with documented). … I have a lot to say about this. Mainly 1) Flynn changed names and facts to protect friends and himself (trust me, this is not strange in memoir); and 2) I write nonfiction (Custer, Gatewood, Geronimo, Wynkoop, and Flynn, and that includes Olivia de Havilland as she plays a large role in my first book on Mr. Flynn). Guess what: All of these people never documented their past accurately. Why? I’ll tell you why—I can’t document my past accurately. Reason: My memory has changed; it has forgotten or it has evolved into a new view of my life over time (thus I keep boxes upon boxes of documentation for my memoir). … Ditto Custer, Gatewood, Geronimo, Wynkoop, Flynn, and de Havilland. And there is what I said above about Flynn: Protecting himself and friends. … If I have learned a major thing from Flynn’s memoir (and this is my favorite book of all time), it is that when my memoir is ready for publication that it must be published after I am dead for this will be the only way I’ll be able to tell the truth.

The one autobiography that I have read that has forever stayed front and center in my life is Errol Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959). Mr. Flynn had magnificent help from writer Earl Conrad, who spent prime time with him in Jamaica when the actor-writer had trouble completing his memoir. Of course, Flynn’s story raised eyebrows. Certain personages were misnamed. Read: To protect friends (or Flynn himself), but not Koets/Erben for this was not EF’s doing, but other people Flynn spoke too truthfully about. Read: You pick them (but you had better have a first edition of MWWW, for if not a lot of the swashbuckler’s truths vanished in subsequent printings). Although Flynn knew he was dying (something that he had known for quite some time) he didn’t know that he wouldn’t see the publication of his memoir (although he did see the final galleys and approved them), … and he knew what he could possibly face (and thusly ignored the last love of his life in the book; he simply dedicated the book “to a small companion”).

Relax, my life doesn’t come close to the life that Mr. Flynn lived and shared with the world. But that said I have stories to tell that will result in people pounding on my front door with knives, sabres, Colt revolvers, and other instruments of destruction. I’ve had knives at my throat, guns pointed at me, but perhaps the worst was a surprise package in a plain white envelope with bold red letters that proclaimed: SHAME! This was from an editor in the software world that I worked well with and liked, and the contents were long dark hair. You won’t believe what her voice evolved into on voicemail messages—It was unnerving and chilled me to the bone. Luckily she lived and worked on the East Coast and I lived in SoCal, for otherwise I would have spent my days with my back to a wall while holding a brace of Colts in my hands as I waited for the front door to be bashed open. Are these words extreme? You bet! Are they the truth? Yes. Can I write about this lady and not get sued? Now that is the million-dollar question! … Yes, Mr. Flynn changed names and altered some facts but believe me he did some of this to protect himself (and some of it may have been because his memory had faded, but trust me for he never forgot the name of his friend Hermann Erben).

We have a lot of homeless people in Los Angeles and some I know on a
first-name basis—but I don’t want to join their ranks

I do walk the streets, but not as a hunter seeking prey. No! Absolutely not. I walk to be able
to walk, I walk for exercise, I walk for my health, and I walk so that I can survive. During these times (almost daily) I’m wary of my surroundings. At the same time I’m open to a human connection, and some of these people are homeless. I enjoy meeting and knowing
them (while knowing that I can’t offer them much). There is a lady named Sandy who shaves her head (the royal Egyptians of Nefertiti’s time shaved all their hair for cleanliness). She has a bicycle, is friendly, unfortunately has cancer, and we have talked on numerous occasions. I always carry a phone but I have never asked if I could take her picture (and I have never taken a photo of a homeless person, for they have a right to their privacy). This said she is a delight to know and I pray God every day that soon the tax leveled on Los Angeles home owners in the 8nov2016 election and which goes into effect today (1jan2017) will build housing for these unfortunate people (and not end up in politicians’ pockets).

What the hell?

… and how do I illustrate this section?

Perhaps I can use the artwork that I created of the Los Angeles 405 freeway
for my upcoming blog on race, as it is a nightmare. … Don’t think so.

Cheyenne Dog Man Chief Bull Bear (left) and Cheyenne Peace Chief Black Kettle. (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Just this; we all have lives and all of my subjects (except for Olivia de Havilland and less than a handful of people that I love) have moved on to the next world. … I must treat their lives with the same respect and accuracy as I would Livvie (Ms. de Havilland), Pailin, and everyone else in my life. I can’t treat them with anything less than the truth as my research defines it. Ladies and gents, this also includes my Sand Creek manuscript (Left Hand; John Chivington; John Evans; Charley Bent, BTW I think his brother George almost but not exclusively referred to him as “Charles”; Black Kettle; Bull Bear; George Bent; John Smith; Silas Soule; Ned Wynkoop; Little Raven; Scott Anthony; William Bent and everyone else I’m writing about.

This 1980 book sold a lot of copies, and it is well-written. Unfortunately Higham wrote a lot that wasn’t true (and his major fictions have been debunked). Years later all some people know about Flynn is that he was a Nazi. Nothing printed about him has been farther from the truth. … Ah, the power of words! For the record, when I spoke with Olivia de Havilland about Higham’s biography about her and her sister, Joan Fontaine, all she shared with me was that Higham never contacted her and that he was “an unscrupulous man.”

Unfortunately you can defame the dead in the USA. In my opinion this is a massive crime and should be punished. It isn’t, but just because it isn’t writers and historians like me shouldn’t be able to have an open door and write untruths about people who can no longer defend themselves (and in many cases prove their innocence). … Anyone who writes about the past and calls someone a Nazi supporter or a rapist or a racist or child molester or a butcher of innocent people should be held accountable if he or she cannot provide proof for their statements. Writers who sell books and articles while destroying an historical person’s reputation should be called upon to prove what he or she has written or face a civil trial.

I can’t begin to tell you how many untruths I have seen in print (and unfortunately have heard verbally) about people that I write about and of which I know the facts from decades of study. Often I get pinged (and I’m being kind to me here) for taking so long to complete a manuscript. Put simply, I’m asked time and again why can’t I complete a 125,000-word or (in the case of Sand Creek) a 135,000-word manuscript in a year when writers for New York publishers can write a 400-500 page book in a year or two. You don’t want to hear this answer. … All I’ll say here is: Use your brain and think about it. My comments in the following paragraphs are a slam dunk reason why. You connect the dots.

I bought a book on George Armstrong Custer (2016) that won a major award, and immediately went to the index, and checked two pages that dealt with an historical figure that I know intimately. Guess what? Both pages had major errors (it’s on you to recognize them). The author cited a piss-poor so-called “autobiography” of Edward Wynkoop that was assembled by someone who’s research was horrendous (by the way, this “autobiography” was little more than an incomplete first rough draft that was less than half completed). 1868. If you know your history; enough said! … If not, reverse the dates. No! Not enough said, for it gets worse. The compiler-editor states that the great Peace Chief Black Kettle was born in 1841, became one of the four principle chiefs of the Cheyenne Council of Forty-four in 1853 (at twelve years of age?). … For the record I have written about Wynkoop and Black Kettle for decades, and these types of errors should never see print.

fromcochise_togeronimo_bookcover2_ws

* The above-mentioned Custer book had Wynkoop resign as U.S. Indian agent prior to Custer’s attack on Black Kettle’s village.

An Apache wars book that also saw print in 2016 listed (in my opinion) the best Apache wars book of all time, Edwin R. Sweeney’s From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches 1874-1886 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), in its bibliography. For the record, Sweeney’s book proved without a doubt that an Apache woman named Lozen was not with Geronimo and Naiche when they told Lt. Charles Gatewood that they would surrender and end the 1886 Apache war in Sonora, Mexico (August 1886). This book (and again I’m not naming it) totally ignores what Mr. Sweeney’s work proved for the simple reason that it didn’t agree with what that writer chose to stuff down a clueless public’s throat. As this book has sold a lot of copies it has yet again reintroduced a proven error as historical fact.

Shame on this cretin.

My friends, this type of supposed historical writing is little more than fiction perpetrated by authors who have preconceived premises that are set in stone and to hell with facts or truth. Is it lazy research? Maybe, and maybe no; at least I hope not. But it matters not, for they have set back real history by a number of decades.

I know, the above is something that I should shun and ignore.
I cannot! Two upcoming blogs will deal with Indian wars and Errol Flynn
errors, fictions, and lies, and everything will be totally documented.
But first my Sand Creek manuscript must be in production with OU Press.

Finally
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
and the winding road to today

LK the December after working for VISTA. (photo © Louis Kraft 1970)

In case you don’t know, I never studied to become a writer. Simply put, and even though the late 1960s started this process, it was the decade of the 1970s that set me in motion to realize a future I never dreamed possible for it set me on course to walk my own road of decision and discovery. … If it wasn’t for the pure hell that I experienced while acting in Texas in 1976 I never would have become a writer. The events that I saw and lived through that summer placed an exclamation point on what I experienced in Austin (Texas) and Sapulpa and Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) in 1970. The year 1970 made me realize who I was while 1976 set me on course to become a writer. Both years put me at risk and yet pushed me to reach beyond anything I had yet imagined.

Over the years a lot of people have been in my corner. They have done many things to help me survive in the real world. This certainly began with my father (who always had my back) but then took off in 1970 when Cheetah Gates, my Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) supervisor, told me that if I wanted to live I had better ditch the cowboy boots. I did. He then taught me how to survive while walking the streets of Oklahoma City at night (and this was after I had saved myself from having my throat slit in the wee hours of an Austin morn). It was during that long muggy summer where I found myself dead center in a racist storm. Oh, I should state that I was living and working with African Americans.

Six years later I again maneuvered through a Texas hotbed of racism and other nasty things. Richard Steele-Reed had cast me in What Did We Do Wrong and he almost had a heart attack when I threatened to quit when my salary was reduced after the seven days of rehearsals ended and the play opened.

LK as Charlie, a struggling actor, in Eat Your Heart Out (Hayloft Dinner Theatre, Lubbock, Texas). I was on stage throughout the entire play. The Lubbock theater was in the round (the audience was on all four sides of the stage), and I have always loved performing this way. I also love breaking the fourth wall and speaking to the audience (which I again did with Cheyenne Blood and the Wynkoop plays in this century). (photo © Louis Kraft 1976)

Steele-Reed insisted that I behave (I said that I would as long as I received all my contracted salary for the run of the current play and that the next play included a hefty raise). He directed me in the following play, Eat Your Heart Out. The part of Charlie would be the best role that I ever played (actually twice; also in SoCal in 1977). But the key to that summer was that it led me to write a screenplay about this experience, and it landed my first literary agent, Ed Mernerth. Over eight years he not only taught me how to write character, dialog, and plot but did everything possible to sell and option my screenplays.

But the times were changing. By the mind 1980s I quit acting cold turkey and started selling freelance articles and talks. The learning process continued, but from this time forward it was on me. In 1986 I landed my first job using a computer without ever touching one. There was one catch, I had one week to learn how to use a computer. I did, and within a year I brought desktop publishing into the company. This landed me a publishing position with a “how to succeed in business” company. I then used this publishing experience combined with my freelance writing to land a technical writing job in 1990. When I asked the manager for training, he laughed and said: “I hired you as a technical writer; you’re on your own pal.” Soon after Jackie Johnson, a New York editor, bought my first novel, and for the next 20 or so years I combined freelance and software writing (and let me tell you that the days and nights and weeks were long).

Enter Chuck Rankin

Charles (Chuck) Rankin has been the editor-in-chief at the University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press), the top Indian wars publisher in the world, for many years. Chuck befriended me years back and did what he could to improve my writing. This was during the time after I walked away from an absurd second Charles Gatewood/Apaches book contract with the University of New Mexico Press but before the University of Nebraska Press turned Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir into my best selling book to date. During this time of short-lived uncertainty before Nebraska jumped on the Gatewood manuscript, Chuck and I began a long off-and-on discussion about Ned Wynkoop and his journey from being a racist to someone who became a hated white man when he dared to stand up for Indians (and in particular the Cheyennes and Arapahos).

Mr. Rankin & the OU Press staff

The following reviews (see below) would not have happened if not for Chuck Rankin’s patience and guidance.

LK at the Western History Association convention in Newport Beach, California, on 17oct2014. On this day I introduced Pailin to Chuck Rankin, and spent good time great friends John Monnett and Durwood Ball (who, as then editor-in-chief at the University of New Mexico Press, jumped on Gatewood & Geronimo as soon as he read the manuscript in 1999), and Clark Whitehorn (currently executive editor at the University of New Mexico Press). (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

For years Chuck hung close with me as we worked on the Wynkoop contract. After it was signed he stood firmly behind the manuscript. During this time he did everything possible to make the book as good as possible. Without Chuck and the entire OU Press staff, and this certainly includes production manager Steven Baker and copyeditor Beth Hadas, I’d probably still be wandering alone through a blazing SoCal desert without the possibility of publication. … For the record (and I touched upon this in my previous Sand Creek blog, John Smith, Chief Gordon Yellowman, and the Sand Creek Massacre) I am demanding. Chuck and the entire OU Press production staff, and this definitely included the art director Tony Roberts, dealt with me without revolting and insisting that I walk a pirate’s plank and drop into the Great White shark-infested waters off the coast of Los Angeles. Without OU Press’s entire staff Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek would not have been what it became. I am forever grateful to everyone involved.

A few Ned Wynkoop reviews

Editor Greg Lalire (Wild West, April 2012): “Kraft . . . has produced the first full biography of an unusual fellow whose humanitarian stance toward Indians, empathy and ‘brave act of conscience’ made him, in the eyes of many, a villain or a traitor. … Certainly Wynkoop’s stance against the Sand Creek attack not only changed his life forever but also defines how he is remembered today. He had stepped beyond the accepted mores of the day and kept speaking his mind. Kraft compares Wynkoop to screen legend Errol Flynn, but Wynkoop’s life did not play out according to a Hollywood script. ‘Of course,’ writes Kraft, ‘Flynn’s humanity and his stand for justice always won out by the final reel of the film, whereas Wynkoop walked away from the pinnacle of this life knowing that he had failed.’”

Novelist and Editor Johnny Boggs (Roundup, April 2012): “Before he earned fame (or infamy among Indian-hating people in Colorado and Kansas) for speaking out against John Chivington’s massacre of Cheyennes at Sand Creek, Wynkoop led a colorful life … What’s the best way to fix the ‘Indian problem?’ Wynkoop was asked in 1868. ‘[T]o extend American citizenship to the Indians, and allow their representatives seats in Congress,’ he answered. No wonder he carried a gun [Boggs proclaimed]. This engaging, intelligent and well-researched biography is also even-handed, showing the dark side of an early champion of Indian rights. One of the best biographies of a Western figure to come out in years.”

Historian R. Eli Paul (writing for True West, December 2011): “Louis Kraft’s special skill as a biographer is taking a figure from Western history—one whom the general public should know but does not—and telling the story of a meaningful, significant life. He did this expertly with Lt. Charles Gatewood of the Apache wars and now has repeated the feat with frontiersman Edward Wynkoop. In an American history that trumpets great ‘last stands,’ Wynkoop spoke out against the mistreatment of the Plains Indians and made his own stand of conscience, one to be studied, remembered and admired.”

Historian and novelist Thomas McNulty (writing for Dispatches from the Last Outlaw): “This is the third of Louis Kraft’s books that I have enjoyed, and I believe this book is a masterpiece. I am selective in my non-fiction reading choices, and for good reason. There is so much available that is unreadable, if not incomprehensible, and from all of the New York publishers. History sells, and it has always outsold fiction ten to one. This is a historical fact. But the market is glutted with unreadable biographies. What really matters is a love for the topic. That, my friends, is a rarity among historians and biographers these days. Louis Kraft does not fall into that category. He cares very much about Ned Wynkoop, and his passion for his subject is evident on every page. … Although I have studied American western history at leisure, I had only a smidgen of knowledge about Ned Wynkoop. Thanks to Mr. Kraft, I am now enlightened, and immediately grateful. Wynkoop is fascinating, his story compelling, his era unlike anything we had seen before or since.”

Working as a biographer to create the Sand Creek manuscript

I have no clue what your current views are of what will perhaps be the most important book that I ever write, Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. … I am deeply connected with my book projects and the focus is always on people and their actions. This does not mean that I research or write with a preconceived bias for I don’t. As I have written in the past: I think that just about everyone I know, have known, or have written about think that they were right when they did what they did. This view will never change.

Louis Kraft coming in from the light. Photo by Glen Williams (Image © Williams & Kraft 2012)

This image shows what I’m trying to say here. Mainly that until I have found what I need to propel the story of Sand Creek to conclusion it is a lonely path as I struggle to find and assemble the actions and facts that will allow me to complete the manuscript. Photo by Glen Williams. (image © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2012)

Our actions define us, and actions can and at times do include what we say. Documenting only the good in a person’s life makes them one-dimensional and unrealistic. Everyone does things that they later regret. Certainly I have. I know that I’ve hurt people, and I have been hurt by people. This doesn’t make me bad or them bad. It simply means that something happened. It adds dimension to a life and gives it color. Without color—that is the ups and downs, the good and the bad—a life becomes boring. Making a life worth knowing (and perhaps studying) requires multiple shades of color.

This photo by Glen Williams also deals with the search for a nugget that can perhaps become a piece of the puzzle. (image © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2012)

Do not doubt that the 1860s were a time of aggression and war, a time of hatred and butchery, and a time of fear. The Sand Creek manuscript is about people whose color, race, and religions were different. It is about people in conflict as they deal with the events that led up to an attack on a Cheyenne-Arapaho village populated by people that thought the U.S. military promised their safety until the U.S. government decided their future. It is also about the attack and the aftermath. If I do my job as a writer-historian you will walk with the leading players as they did what they thought right. What happened on November 29, 1864, affected a lot of people at that time, it has affected a lot of people since 1864, and it has affected me for decades. A writer-historian should never judge the people he or she writes about for this is for the reader to decide.

Chuck Rankin and a major announcement

I want to say something and I also want to make it absolutely clear by repeating myself. Chuck Rankin became my friend long before I ever became attached to the University of Oklahoma Press. Back in time when I wrote for publishers other than OU Press he didn’t shun me. No. Instead he talked with me, shared information with me, befriended me. He did what he could to aid my second Gatewood/Apache book see publication even though it would not be with OU Press. His kindness went far beyond friendship.

This is Chuck Rankin, my good friend and great editor. All I can say here is that without Chuck my writing life and world would have suffered. I’m lucky to know him and look forward to our relationship as it moves into our future. (art © Louis Kraft 2016)

Our working relationship began in the early part of this century and over time led to the Ned Wynkoop and then the Sand Creek contracts. Chuck has supported my work and effort every step of the way.

But … BUT …

Years pass and life changes. Several months ago Chuck Rankin retired as editor-in-chief at OU Press (effective 31dec2016).

When I heard the news I was shocked and concerned, as he has been the driving force behind my Sand Creek manuscript. This began years back when he pitched me to write the book about the 1864 attack on the Sand Creek village. I had said no, that I don’t write about battles. Chuck immediately made it clear that the book would not focus on the battle; rather it should focus on the lead-up to the attack, the attack, and the aftermath. I hesitated, thinking that this wasn’t a project for me. … Our conversation continued, and a year and then another passed. FinalIy I pushed for writing a manuscript driven by peoples’ actions. Eventually Chuck and I agreed on a storyline. Next came the written proposal and this in itself was a project (the final draft was 37 pages long) but it defined what I needed to do to create a manuscript that had value.

When I spoke to Chuck about his retirement he let me know that he had worked out a deal with the press that would allow him to continue working with selected projects. Best, he made it clear that he was behind Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway one hundred percent and would see it through to completion.

I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am. Thank you Chuck from the bottom of my heart.

The Louis Kraft writing world differs from other writers’ worlds

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Louis Kraft

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs

On July 8 Pailin and I went to a dinner party with two friends who date back to my college days in Los Angeles just east of the 405 freeway. I believe that Saul Saladow has lived in his split-level townhouse for 20 years (and I don’t blame him, for it is nice). I believe that he joined me in the theatre department for the four years I attended college. He went on to a very successful career as a film editor. Veronica Morra became the girlfriend and future wife of a very good actor-singer in the theatre department. We met in college and the relationship continued after those years ended. Eventually they moved to the East Coast to be near their son and his family. At that point (or before) I lost contact with Vee (as Veronica prefers to be called) until she found me on social media several years back. Our friendship has grown.

Taken at Saul’s townhouse in Los Angeles on 8jul2015. From left Vee Morra, Pailin, and Saul Saladow. Photo by Louis Kraft, and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Veronica Morra, Saul Saladow, and Louis Kraft 2015)

Pailin met both Vee and Saul when they visited us for dinner at Tujunga House in December 2013. Vee had traveled to Los Angeles to see Saul (who is a lifelong friend of hers) and other friends from long-gone days. Luckily they had one afternoon and evening free to visit us. Good times.

Nearing the end of our visit to Saul’s home Vee told me about a writer that she not only knows but likes the lady’s writing. She told me that this person spends nine months researching a book and then writes it in three months. Although I have continued to work on the Thai blog, which continues to grow, this writing schedule grabbed my interest. It is something that I want to discuss for although it is related to my writing life it is in stark contrast to my writing world.

This means one thing—lucky you—for this blog should be relatively short by my standards. At least I hope so. … Fat chance.

Not too long back in the past …

Over the course of my life I have met and known many writers, editors, agents, and other talented people that have played small and large roles in my writing world. Some have taken me under their wing and nurtured me and have done everything to further my career (and that includes in the software world). Others have been less open or friendly. I’ve always rolled with the punches.

In 1987 I learned of a Western Writers of America convention in San Diego, California, and contacted one of the hosts of the event. He made it possible for me to know exactly what I needed to do to attend the event. By this time I had been selling articles and giving talks about the American Indian wars since the mid-1980s. I had also had some eight or nine intense screenwriting years with an agent and a writer-producer between 1976 and 1984, both of whom marked up my manuscripts and then discussed them in detail. These two fellows played a huge role in my future. The agent and I came close to optioning or selling on several occasions without success and this included me pitching my film contacts, which were numerous back then. The writer-producer loved a screenplay that was about the destruction of Germany in WW II as seen through the eyes of a U-boat commander and his Jewish girlfriend (yep, I was dealing with racial content way back then), but he wanted me to rewrite it and take out the genocide on Jews and change the war to WW I. If I did this he said that he’d produce the film. You can guess my answer: “No,” as he wanted to remove the entire reason why I wrote the screenplay. By 1987 I had also taken a ten-week fiction class at UCLA and had continued private lessons in Westwood, California, with the writer that taught it. I had a completed and polished novel called The Null State, which dealt with bootlegging on the modern-day Navajo Reservation. It was a thriller that also dealt with race, and my research marked the first time that I would spend an extended time on the Diné (as the Navajos call themselves) reservation.

LK doesn’t have many images from the years 1987 through 1989 (and none of the writer I’m talking about—later in our years of friendship I have a lot of images but decided that none would be featured on this blog). This 1989 image was taken at Encino House (the first house I owned with my first wife). Dejah Thoris, named after Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Princess of Mars (Burroughs first novel in his John Carter of Mars series) was the most affectionate and kindest animal I have ever known. Yep, she’s giving me a big kiss. I loved her with all my heart and have never owned another animal after her death in 1992. When fully grown she was 55 pounds. My brother Lee had two Doberman Pinschers and they were both about 110 pounds. They were kind animals too, and they always greeted me by leaping up on me—this meant that I would back up a couple of feet as I tried to regain my balance. That said they were kind and loving dogs. Certainly animals can be trained to hurt and maim but that’s on the owner and not the animal. … That is my father to my left. BTW that’s not straight juice that I’m drinking, as I don’t think that I drank straight juice at that time. It was probably a Screwdriver. (photo © Louis Kraft 1989)

At the San Diego convention I met an Apache expert (Danny Aranda and his beautiful sister, who would have a short life—when I learned of this decades later it destroyed me but luckily I kept control of my emotions) that would become a long-time long-distance friend to this day. I would also meet a woman that would soon become my agent. She tried to sell The Null State but couldn’t. In 1989 she would sell an unwritten story that I pitched with her one night to an editor. I hadn’t written a word of my proposed The Moon of the Changing Season, which focused on race relations during the lead up to the October 1867 peace council at Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas between the whites and the five major plains tribes on the central and southern plains. The “moon of the changing season” was what the Cheyennes called October. Walker and Company published my manuscript as The Final Showdown in April 1992. She and I also sold a follow-up western that dealt with Kit Carson, a Navajo warrior, and his granddaughter (but that contract ended when the publisher decided to drop their western line).

The writer that had helped me attend the 1987 WWA convention became a friend. He had sold a lot of novels, but most were hack genre fiction that if I remember correctly he wrote them in one or two months and did one review pass after he competed his draft. These stories became part of a number of genre series of books of which one was published each month under pseudonyms that represented four or five or maybe six writers creating the 12 books published each year for the various titles. I didn’t spend much time discussing this business with him as I really didn’t want to write fiction that I didn’t like reading. … To be honest, I don’t like reading clichéd crap and I certainly didn’t want to write it.

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In 1980 after our mother died on January 4 my brother Lee and I decided, with a group of friends, to create a baseball team. For the next 10 years Lee and I won a lot of trophies with our team the Cool-Aid Kids. During those years he and I played illegally or legally for other teams. A team had to have enough players to compete on any given day or night. If not they forfeited the game. Often brother Lee and I played for the Warriors (and we didn’t pay to play but were legal members of the team). They called us when they needed extra players. On this day in 1989 I played third base for the Warriors. I’m right handed (with the sword, in tennis, and certainly when writing with a pen), but I learned early in life that I was a better hitter left-handed. Over the years I didn’t bat right-handed often, but when playing for other teams I would practice my right-hand swing in a game situation. On this day I had rolled a couple of ground balls to the third baseman or shortstop. Easy outs. I wanted a hit. In the softball that I played there were four outfielders and this opposing team had a left-center fielder. He moved in, and I hoped for an outside pitch. I got it and drilled hook to left center field and as he raced back it sliced away from him. An easy home run. (photo © Louis Kraft 1989)

But this novel writer I met in 1987 always had to be right. He was light on research, but knew everything. Worse, whenever he decided to tear into my family or people close to me he would lead off with, “I’ve got to tell the truth.” He would then get to his point, which ran along the lines of “I never liked her,” “She was too negative,” “Your sister has no right to say what she did about religion” (I believe that he had told me that he was an agnostic). Ouch! Sometimes I can only stomach so much of this kind of bullshit. … In 2014 I had offered to visit him for the umpteenth time to introduce him to the lady who would become my wife (both phone messages and email). No reply (I should add that whenever he visited SoCal he refused to visit me—he was only passing through and always too busy; I was always passing through Arizona on the I-40 and I always made the time to visit him.

Oh yeah, an explosion was a comin’.

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This art of Pailin and LK is based upon a photo taken by our great friend Glen Williams in Texas on 13oct2014.

In 2014 a chief historian in the National Park Service asked me to review a document on Ned Wynkoop that the park service was preparing for the Sand Creek Massacre, Fort Larned, and Washita Battlefield National Historic Sites. I did and it was constructive … and ignored (If you ever see the document and know something about Wynkoop you would cringe). I sent him a link to a blog that took the National Park Service to task (see https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2014/08/30/national-park-service-ned-wynkoop-a-bad-taste/). His reply, and this is a paraphrase: Why would they read an unsolicited review? He then blasted me for being an expert on Wynkoop and not writing about anything else. Hello? Charles Gatewood, Geronimo, and the Apaches don’t count? Two books, and I had given him both of them (my guess is that he never read them). I had just delivered a major talk in Arizona on Gatewood and Geronimo and was working on the October 2015 Wild West Geronimo article (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude”), both of which have been publicized on my blogs and elsewhere on social media. Or George Armstrong Custer; one book, a fair amount of talks, and numerous articles (some of which had been requested by editors). Hell, there have been Errol Flynn talks in five states, numerous articles, and plenty of publicity on social media not to mention two additional books on Flynn (documented on these blogs). I’ve been pushing The Discovery since I moved away from being a consultant (which began in 2010, but ended in 2011) and became a partner at the end of 2014.

Yes, this relationship has ended as he didn’t like my reply.
For the record, I have been advertising a future blog that deals
with this writer but as of the posting of this blog that is now history.
End of him and end of subject.

Not quite, even though he had met Pailin and I had informed him of our marriage, his last comment to me before I went ballistic was, “Whatever happened to your girlfriend?” Yeah, F—him. His name was Gary McCarthy, and I unloaded all eight or ten of his books that I had at a local used book dealer (they made me three bucks richer).

Michael Blake, a special person and writer

I met Michael Blake, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Dances With Wolves (1990) in 1991. On 2dec2006 when we both spoke at an Upton and Sons Publishers Symposium in El Segundo, California (“Voices of the West”). On that day I spoke about Errol Flynn and George Armstrong Custer, and he spoke about the Bison. Michael loved the horse, but on this day he shared his love for the buffalo and the natural world. Afterwards we hung out on the hotel’s balcony and talked and got to know each other—where we’ve been and where we hoped to go.

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Michael Blake talking at Southwestern Oklahoma State University on 8nov2006. This is pretty much the Michael Blake that I met in El Segundo, California, in December of that same year.

We had previously known each other when Michael initiated the relationship by phone when he was writing Indian Yell: The Heart of an American Insurgency (Northland, 2006). He had asked me to review his chapter dealing with Custer’s November 1868 attack on Black Kettle’s Washita village. He had read my Custer and the Cheyenne while recovering from an operation and had contacted publisher Dick Upton to obtain my phone number. This began our relationship, which was confirmed at Dick’s symposium when we got to hang out together.

One thing that we compared over the years were our operations. I have had a lot, but Michael’s count made me sound like an “also ran” or “rookie.” My good friend Dick Upton let me know that Michael had unfortunately died on 2may2015. On Michael’s Facebook page his wife Marianne wrote: “We miss him very much but take strength in the fact that he is at peace now, reunited with his heroes — animals and humans alike.” I never knew his wife or children, but we continued to communicate mainly through letters and the phone. He was a survivor who had a clear focus on his life, what was important to him, and what he wrote.

He kindly gave me some of his published writing and I gave him some of mine. Michael wrote two autobiographical nonfiction works that I am aware of, and they were magnificent. In my humble opinion they were his best nonfiction books. You’ve got to realize that when I read a book I’m paying attention and taking notes of why or why not I like the book. This was and is a learning process that continues to this day. Whenever I coach or hire out to novice writers or wannabe writers I always tell them to think about books they’ve read and decide why they like or don’t like the book. … I have no comments on Michael’s Like A Running Dog, Vol. 1: Los Angeles, 1970-1972 (Hrymfaxe LLC, 2002) and his follow-up book Like A Running Dog, Volume II—Los Angeles 1979-1982, other than that they were great reads.

As I said in the flow of the text I couldn’t find Michael’s memoirs, but time is short and I couldn’t tear the house apart for I have too much on my plate at the moment. Put mildly I’m not pleased with myself. I decided to grab an image from my talk on the day that Michael and I met in person that December of 2006. It was slightly out of focus but I could have fixed that. Instead I decided to play around with color and turn it into art. What you are looking at here fits my life quite well. Mainly that I cherish a lot of people who are writers or artists or directors or artistic people or just normal folks that I love. I love their creativity, I love their thought process, I love their friendship, but most important I love knowing them. That said I can’t tell you how often I have missed out because I didn’t call, didn’t visit, didn’t take that extra step to spend time with special people. (I saw my brother Lee Kraft three, four, five times a week but his sudden death has torn me apart to this day and destroyed our father; Dale Schuler, my father’s best friend and partner who was like a father to me; Mark Hendrickson, an actor and magician who grew up next door to me; and Doug McGirr, my ex-wife’s brother and my friend since I met him in 1967—his death has shocked my daughter Marissa and awakened her to how precious life really is. These were sudden deaths, but there have been friends who didn’t live close that fought for their lives that I called once but waited too long to call again; Tony Graham and Doug Matheson are just two.) … I don’t walk with the devil but red is the color that represents the end to me. This image is to remind me not to pass off until tomorrow calls, emails, or visits that I could do today. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have both in hardbound editions but it looks like only Volume I was published (but the two books Michael sent me look close, and certainly my Volume I looks like the printed book). I have an admission to make; I have books and research in every room except for the bathroom. I know, a sad state of affairs and Pailin reminds me of this. I can’t find these two books, but I have them and they are mine. They “ain’t” going nowhere, unless you gut me with your Bowie knife (I should add that I’ll nail you first, so don’t even think about it). Let’s take that “great reads” comment to the next level, if you are going to write an autobiographical piece do yourself a favor and read Michael’s two books. I don’t care if you are a novice writer, a bad writer, or a good writer, you’ll learn content flow, word usage, and composition from Michael’s text. You’ll also see a damned good way to write an autobiography or memoir.

I really should mention Michael’s Marching to Valhalla (Villard Books, Westminster, Maryland, 1996). I read this book when it was published, and this happened before Michael and I met via phone. At the time I saw at least one review that stated that Michael pulled his storyline from Errol Flynn’s film, They Died With Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). Flynn’s film is one of my favorite films of all time (see Wild West, August 2014 for “Must See, Must Read” by LK), and as far as I was concerned that review was pure bullshit. By that I mean that I don’t think that Michael’s book and Flynn’s film were similar. I liked Michael’s novel about George Armstrong Custer. I wasn’t crazy about it but I liked it, and more important I thought that it would translate to the screen. Years later, in one of my better articles in a national magazine, (“Custer: The Truth Behind the Silver Screen Myth,” American History, February 2008) I pitched Michael’s quest to get his book onto the screen. If memory serves me back in those days he had a few big-name actors attached to the possibility but alas nothing happened. A shame, for it could have been a good film.

Michael Blake as he appears in his DVD The American West: On the road with Michael Blake (image © Wolf Creek Productions, 2008)

Moving forward Michael sent me a “Screener Copy” of a great filmed nonfiction documentary series idea that he shot with director John Carver (Wolf Creek Productions, 2008) titled The American West: On the road with Michael Blake. It was slow and meandering—perfect for this type of Indian wars documentary as Michael, on horseback—a place he loved—talked about the end of the Apache wars as he took you to various historic sites.

Michael wanted me to write a comment for the DVD label. I did, and it appeared on his website for years (don’t think that it is there now), and he never sent me a DVD that he sent to potential backers.

Bottom line: Michael was a great human being who cared about people; living in our past; animals (he loved horses and had a great respect for the American Bison); and when he wrote he did so from the heart. Every writer should do this. … We have lost a great writer and I have lost a good long-distance friend. If you read his works he’ll be with you, and more important for me is that he’ll always be with me.

Teaming up with Tom Eubanks for a pitch

Several years after Michael’s The American West: On the road with Michael Blake DVD was completed my great friend writer-director Tom Eubanks and I teamed and tried to sell a Ned Wynkoop/Southern Cheyennes five-episode documentary. I lined up top-notch Indian wars historians and Southern Cheyennes to take part in the project.

The image at right is based upon a photo that writer Johnny Boggs took at the final dress rehearsal for the Wynkoop one-man shows contracted by the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (Cheyenne, Oklahoma) in December 2008. That’s director Tom Eubanks on his knees begging LK to remember his lines. I like that sentence but it’s not true. We’re discussing the prayer at the end of the play, and as you can see my nose was red. Yep, LK was doing some crying. Tom was showing me how I could improve the scene.

I made sure that Tom saw Michael’s DVD and he loved it. I added Michael’s horseback riding to the storyline to bring the viewers into the location and land that played a major role in what happened. Like Michael, we struck out. Probably in both Michael and our proposals the cost of location production killed us. As in the past, I have learned to “never say ‘never.'” If the chance arrives I will again toss Tom and myself into the ring.

Helping other writers + LK books & plays

One thing I’ve become quite good at over the years is not ripping another person’s writing (this said, my apologies for the above on McCarthy). When asked to review I’ve generously given my time and constructively marked up manuscripts. In the past I had done a fair amount of free reviews with comments of what the writer should focus on when improving his or her manuscript.

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My daughter Marissa (left in image) would meet and spend quality time with writer/historian Eric Niderost (right in image) over the years. On 15mar2003 it poured rain in Los Angeles. This used to happen in the past but during recent years Los Angeles and all of California has fallen upon hard times, actually the worst drought in over 100 years. On this day we went to see the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and then visited magazine publisher and collector of science fiction film art and collectables Forrest J. Ackerman (center in image). Eric had set up our appointment with Forrest and his open welcome to unknown people into his Hollywood home that was really a museum became a major film history highlight. I am not a fan of horror or science fiction films, but let me tell you Mr. Ackerman had major framed posters of the key films from the silent era and into the golden age of cinema. He also had major artifacts such as Bella Lugosi’s original Dracula cape and the miniatures from the film The War of the Worlds (1953). (photo by Louis Kraft and © Marissa & Louis Kraft and Eric Niderost 2003)

One was a 100-page draft of a period thriller that took place in 1930s Shanghai by professor, historian, and author Eric Niderost, who has been my friend since 1995. It took me over a month to mark up the 100 pages (and I not only worked 40-50 hours I also had a roughly 10-hour drive weekly, and I worked on my writing usually between 20 and 40 hours every week when writing for companies). Eric had/has I think a great story idea and I hope that he pursues selling it, as he now has a completed manuscript.

I also completed a full review of Tom Eubanks’ PK (“PK” stands for “Preacher’s Kid”), which took place on a Caribbean Island (if memory serves me). Tom has been a good friend since we met at a Ventura County Writers Club weekly readings in 1990. Although we were at odds at times I saw his writing talent immediately. The group didn’t end, but I dropped out when a divorce removed me from Ventura County. I had then lived in a great house with a pool (swimming is my favorite exercise sport) a half block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains in Thousand Oaks, California. The divorce moved me back into Los Angeles County, but the end of my marriage did not mean the end of my friendship with Tom. He is one of the few people I know that whenever I see him it is just like we saw each other the previous week.

Pailin and my great friend Tom Eubanks at his Elite Theatre complex on the Pacific Ocean in Oxnard, California, on 24apr14. That night we saw the final dress rehearsal of a play that Tom wrote and directed called The Art of Something. Over the years Tom and his wife Judy have played a major part in my life. On that evening Pailin met Tom, Judy, and their youngest daughter, Hannah (whom I’ve known since before she was born). A good night. (photo by LK, and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Tom Eubanks, and Louis Kraft 2014)

Tom is perhaps the most talented person I have ever known, and his energy blows me away. He’s also a wiz with words and the copy I reviewed of PK was polished. Many pages (somewhere between four and five hundred), but I completed my review of his preacher’s kid story draft in about two+ weeks. Upon my suggestion Tom changed his book title but I don’t remember what he changed it to as I never saw the printed book.

Beginning in 2002 he became my director for all the Wynkoop one-man shows and Cheyenne Blood (2009).

This art is of LK in 2002 at Fort Larned, Kansas. I worked on it as I hope to turn it into art of Wynkoop for the Sand Creek book epilogue. I think that this is doable, and it is certainly a good start. …. BTW the goal of all writers is to create a manuscript/book that earns money. University presses are by far the best nonfiction publishers in the USA, and I consider myself lucky to write for the best Indian wars publisher in the world (University of Oklahoma Press). (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

To date he hasn’t commented on an Errol Flynn play with perhaps five or seven actors but hope burns eternal that someday I’ll catch him at a weak moment. And I still haven’t given up hope of getting Johnny Boggs’ great novel East of the Border on the stage. Yeah, I want to play Flynn and Wild Bill Hickok while I still walk this earth.

I don’t edit for free any longer. I just don’t have the time unless I work as a contractor for a reasonable salary which is usually more than most writers or would-be writers want to pay. … The offers come, but usually with attempts to reduce my salary. Bottom line: I don’t write for companies any longer and my writing focus is now my books, let me repeat that—my books, and although I could use the money, if I work as a contractor I will receive an acceptable salary and the contract will be juggled with my book projects. … For the record, my partnership with Bob Goodman on The Discovery began as a contract, but changed to a partnership upon Bob’s request and my realization that I knew that I could bring his story idea and characters to life.

Simple, and there will be no arguments or major negotiations.

LK as a minister

For almost 10 years my girlfriend was Japanese (born in Hawaii). Her name was Cindy Tengan, and I’m proud to have known her, for she was a major part of my life (and will always remain a special person who I loved with all my heart). She was gorgeous and oh-so sexy (just thinking about her brings back sensual memories of our intimacy). I can’t begin to tell how wonderful it was to hold her naked body next to me. At the time I met her, her two girls were adults. One had dropped out of college and would soon move back to Hawaii while the other was just beginning her college career. I did my best to befriend both of them. The younger daughter and I connected, and her boyfriend and I became buddies. This relationship began in late 1994.

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LK marrying Chelsea Tengan & John Fortuna at Balboa Park in San Diego, California, on 9Aug2003.

By 2003 my health was in great distress and there were two major operations that year (without checking I believe that my operation count is currently at 14). Between those operations (which cost me 4 1/2 months of downtime and learning to walk again) my lady’s daughter asked me to marry her to her boyfriend. I read her draft of the ceremony and said that I would if I could rewrite the words that I would say (she and I reviewed the draft numerous times until we mutually agreed on the text). I then laid it on her: It would be an acting performance. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I won’t read a word.” As far as I was concerned I would be playing a minister, and as such I would be performing a ceremony that I had previously performed hundreds of times. Oh yeah, Kraft was about to step onto the stage one more time. A three-person ceremony with one performance. She agreed, and we were off to the races.

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You are looking at Cindy Tengan on the day of her daughter’s wedding on 9aug2003. She was a special lady and I’m lucky to have known her for almost 10 years. She was never more beautiful, alive, or happy than I saw her on the day and night of Chelsea’s wedding. She didn’t think much of her body, which I could never understand for she was absolutely beautiful. (photo © Cindy Tengan & Louis Kraft 2003)

I had one hell of a great time marrying Chelsea to her boyfriend. I was front and center and watched the tears of joy up close. Good stuff, and one of the highlights of my life. Afterwards a lot of people commented, and they wanted to know how many marriages I had performed.

“One.”

“Get out of here!”

“And it is my last one.” This scattered most of them. Others pushed, and I pushed back just as hard: “There will be no more weddings performed by me!” The reason was simple: I didn’t and don’t have the time.

My writing world and welcome to it

My writing world is mine. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. What other writers do is part of their writing world and it has no connection with my world. I take years and years and years to research a book, and then years and more years to write the book. For example research on Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek and Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway began in 1985. The Wynkoop book was published in 2011 and the first draft of the Sand Creek manuscript is due on 1oct2016 (both books were/are contracted). If someone can research a major nonfiction work and write it in a year, kudos to them. All I’m saying here is that I will never create any of my books in a year.

I haven’t read a lot of the nonfiction or fiction that is published each year (actually this is a major understatement). I can count all of the novelists that I respect over my entire life on my two hands. There are a lot of nonfiction writers whose work I respect. The above said, it would take me two or three hundred pages to discuss nonfiction and fiction writers that I don’t think are very good.

Yep, this is my world, and I have no intention of agreeing to bullshit, lies, and errors. I don’t care if the writer has a big name or comes from a major publication house, for the simple reason that poor research or intended errors to deceive the reading public are heinous (and from my point of view criminal acts). END OF SUBJECT.

Researching and writing a book in a year …

I’m certain that good novelists can do this. However, knowing my track record and how long it takes me to uncover the truth I don’t think that nonfiction writers can do this unless they have a huge staff performing their research for them. A recent book has done quite well, and the writer’s prose dealing with the here and now with the tragedy of Sand Creek seems to be right on the money. However, the writer’s historical research into 1864 and 1965 is error-riddled.

I say the above, as people shouldn’t take popular nonfiction as gospel for more often than not it perpetuates errors that have been in place for decades …. or worse creates new errors that will now be repeated ad nauseam.

Back to Vee’s comments on her writer-friend, … I thought she was talking about nonfiction but she had said something that her friend told her: “Characters drive plot.” This sounds like fiction to me, and if yes, I totally agree with her writer friend. The characters move the plot, and a writer must allow them to do this. … Again I haven’t read this lady’s books, so I cannot say anything about them. Going with the above, perhaps I should read one of her books, for she is right on here. … Nine months of research seems reasonable for a novel, however I believe that research for fiction (or nonfiction) should continue until the copyediting has ended for one never knows when new information that wasn’t known is found or what was thought to be factual was in fact wrong.

My problem remains with writing and delivering a polished 125,000-word fiction manuscript in three months. That’s a mouthful—no more comments.

Other than to say that I can’t and will never be able to do this.

But that’s just me.

Let’s deal with the research

Research for writers vary, but unfortunately way too many writers write books that are based upon secondary books that may or may not have faulty information. This perhaps can work in fiction, but not always and especially not when it is an historical novel or a medical thriller that require facts. Today I’m going to stick with historical fiction, which often presents itself as being based upon fact when often just the reverse is true. That is the writer didn’t perform decent research and the story is loaded with factual errors. Often I have read a novel and went “Wow! This is good stuff.” Unfortunately when I read novels that are based upon historic or modern subjects that I know intimately I am bent over in agony and screaming at the gods for the pitiful research that now unwary readers think is factual. I’m going to provide two examples here with the caveat that I don’t know how long it took the writers to research or write their books:

Cahill’s paperback novel cover.

Sand Creek by Kevin Cahill (Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2005): Mr. Cahill has a good website that Northwestern University used when they explored John Evans’s actions at the time of the Sand Creek tragedy (see Report of the John Evans Study Committee, May 2014). BTW, I do believe that Mr. Cahill’s site (Kevin Cahill’s Lone Wolf Sand Creek website) is well done and of value to researchers as it offers valid links to historical documents that are available online. Evans was governor of Colorado Territory at that time. Back to Mr. Cahill’s book. He even uses historical images in his novel, and the total presentation is that his book is factual. No! The reason is simple: His research is incomplete, but not for his lack of research for I believe he was diligent. There is so much primary source material on the subject that obscure pieces can be missed. I’m not blaming Mr. Cahill at all, for I think that he created a damned good novel. … I know Ned Wynkoop and his life like the back of my hand. My study of him began in the mid-1980s and it continues to this day. … It has oft been stated that Wynkoop fell off his horse during Captain Silas Soule’s funeral procession in Denver in 1865 and that this injury would affect him for the rest of his life. True, the injury would affect him and it would worsen with time. However the year of 1865 is totally wrong, for the event happened in 1861 (Don’t believe me? Check the Rocky Mountain News in 1863 and 1865. The answer will be before your eyes.).

Wynkoop’s fall from his horse happened and the horse covering him on the ground in Denver in 1865 first saw print in secondary books, but it has been around for decades. Writers that don’t perform good research grab this 1865 horse incident and run with it. Hell, if it is in print it must be true. No!

Many of you have seen this Wynkoop portrait that documents him confronting the Cheyenne and Arapaho battle line on 10sept1864 near a tributary of the Smoky Hill River is western Kansas. It originally saw print in the August 2014 issue of Wild West magazine in an article entitled “Wynkoop’s Gamble to End War.” It is totally copyrighted and protected, and as a grayscale image will be used in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (University of Oklahoma Press). Some of my articles have won awards. My opinion: This is the best published article that I have written.

There are three major pieces of primary source material that show that Cahill is wrong (as are nonfiction writers that have repeated this piece of fiction). They are:

Newspaper accounts that document a funeral procession in Denver in 1863 wherein Wynkoop’s horse was spooked, reared up, and when he was not able to control the animal it fell backward and onto him (not one but many articles).
Wynkoop’s military file. For the record Wynkoop was at Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory, during the entire month of April 1865 and not in Denver—thus he couldn’t have attended Soule’s funeral.
Newspaper accounts for the entire Denver area for the month of April 1865, which contain absolutely no mention of Wynkoop being in the city at that time, attending Soule’s funeral, or having a horse mishap.

I’m picking on Mr. Cahill’s novel and I shouldn’t be. The reason is simple: There was a lot of “supposed” decent nonfiction books that confirmed what he used in his novel. Unfortunately the nonfiction books repeated what was never true. He trusted the history books he read, and I almost did, but luckily stumbled upon the truth. That’s it. If I didn’t know anything about Sand Creek story I might have loved his novel.

Ladies and gentlemen I can’t tell you how often I have been shocked by errors that are not only caused by improper or incomplete research, but worse—and here I’m talking about nonfiction—the creation of facts (that’s right, creating facts that are fiction to dupe the reader); the misrepresentation of facts on purpose or because the nonfiction writer didn’t bother to complete his or her research (Read: They read one or two or three secondary books); inadequate documentation (that is their cited notes are so obscure or vague or inaccurate that the reader cannot find them to view them). There will be two upcoming blogs that will discuss this in detail and they won’t be vague.

Another book is, believe it or not, a young readers book, Edward Wynkoop: Soldier and Indian Agent (Palmer Lake, Colorado, LLC, 2014). The author, Nancy Oswald, kindly said the following in her Acknowledgments: “I would like to acknowledge Louis Kraft, biographer and author of Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Without his book and his in-depth research and knowledge, my own understanding of Wynkoop’s life would have been far less complete.”

Wow!!! The above is more than kind. Moreover her Wynkoop book won the Western Writers of America Spur award for best juvenile nonfiction for the year 2014 (SEE BELOW: For this in itself is reason enough for me to drop my membership to this organization as I have been totally embarrassed—anyone who reads her acknowledgment and knows anything about Wynkoop will think that my book is a total piece of crap … say what?).

There’s only one problem, and it is major.

I don’t think that author Oswald read my Wynkoop book, for if she did she decided to ignore many of the known facts documented in my book and replace them with often-repeated errors that are prevalent in popular nonfiction. For example:

Wynkoop worked as a bartender in the Criterion Saloon in Denver to earn extra money. This isn’t mentioned; instead it is replaced with the oft repeated error that Wynkoop earned money as an actor on the stage (page 12). For the record Wynkoop acted on the Denver stage but as an amateur, and he never earned a penny as an actor.
Wynkoop resigned his commission as U.S. Indian agent while still en route to Fort Cobb, Indian Territory, on November 29, 1868. Although he didn’t know it and would not learn of it until he returned to civilization, Black Kettle’s village on the Washita River in Indian Territory was attacked and destroyed on November 27, 1868. Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, died that day. On page 53 writer Oswald states: “When Wynkoop learned of Black Kettle’s death, he wrote a letter of resignation.” This statement is absolutely incorrect!

There’s more, much more but not for this blog.

Nancy Oswald’s writing flows nicely and her book is a page turner. Unfortunately she included major errors about Wynkoop. With her kind words about me she implies that these errors came from me. They did not. Web pages that profess the truth aren’t always accurate and primary information should be consulted to confirm everything on these websites. This takes time—lots of time and many writers prefer to take short cuts when researching. Many nonfiction books are error-riddled, especially popular nonfiction which doesn’t bother with notes (and believe it or not even more so with some of the major pieces of popular nonfiction that have notes).

What can I say other than I’m embarrassed by Osward’s award-winning book for it is little more than a poorly written piece of trash (Yeah, I’m repeating myself—but damn it to hell I am!), and I wish that she never said a word about my book.

Believe it or not I am considering dropping my membership in Western Writers of America (My apologies, for I’m again repeating myself.) for the simple reason that when judges are selected to review nonfiction they should make an attempt to confirm what they are reading before casting their votes. Obviously some of the members of the WWA have their fingers stuck where the sun doesn’t shine. SHAME on them!

People are my life & my writing world

People from times long gone, people from the more recent past, and people in the here and now are with me every day. I care about people, and their lives. Everyone’s life is unique and it shouldn’t be treated cavalierly nor should their lives be forgotten because they weren’t a king or president or sports hero or a soldier that was responsible for the death of innocent people or just an evil person that rapes, steals, and murders.

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My ex-wife’s and my gift to my sister, Linda, was that I would shoot her wedding to Greg Morgon on 3dec1988 at their church in Long Beach, California (others shot some photos but they were catch as catch can) and give them prints. My ex-wife worked for a number of years as a professional photographer. I learned from her, directors of photography on films and TV, and from fashion photographers that I worked with over the years. Here I’m trying to get a little too “artsy-fartsy,” but I liked my attempt (even though it is out of focus). My ex-wife, Marissa, and my father participated in the wedding ceremony. My brother Lee refused to attend (no matter what my father or I said to him), and his reasoning was valid (but this is for the memoir). I was present, but there are no photos proving this. My sister was radiant and beautiful, but then she was always beautiful. This image is full frame as I captured her in the mirror of the bride’s dressing room before the ceremony. (photo © Louis Kraft 1988)

I grew up with two parents that accepted people regardless of their race. But in those times during my school years and for decades after I saw a lot of racial prejudice. Sometimes I closed my ears. At other times I didn’t but depending upon the person I might have just scratched them off. My sister, Linda, served as a deputy sheriff in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then as an investigator for the Los Angeles District Attorney. When she knew that the end had arrived she gave me both of her badges, and I cherish them. I saw racial attitudes in her at times but placed them on her career path. Strangely she kept her distance from our family for most of her adult life (and my ex-wife has suggested a reason that I think may be correct).

Doris & Louis Kraft Sr. at their home in Reseda, California, in 1972. Photo by Joan McGirr.

During the last two years of our mother’s life, my brother Lee who then lived at home gave our mother multiple shots every day and our father drove her to San Diego for experimental cancer treatments monthly. Our mother went into a hospital three weeks before Christmas 1979. On a Saturday morning I took a day off and flew home from San Diego where I worked on a film shooting at sea. She was released that day and I spent almost two days with her before returning to the location. Linda wasn’t around. I had one more week at sea and then a couple of days at the studio for pick up shots. My work ended three days before Christmas. Linda, who’s birthday was December 24, arrived. Mom wasn’t good, and the day after Christmas she returned to the hospital for the last 10 days of her life. I spent those 10 days and deep into the nights with my father, and this cemented our relationship for all time. On New Year’s Eve after he and I left the hospital we returned to his and my mother’s home and drank and smoked and and talked deep into the wee hours. I finished my last cigarette just before the midnight hour and have never smoked since.

Lee, who was 23 was distraught, placed the blame on himself for the inevitable, which happened on January 4, 1980. Linda wasn’t around. When I asked her about this later, she said: “I didn’t know Mom was dying.”

Our father died 19 years later. I had been taking care of him for years, and just before the end he said to me, “If I knew that I’d live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” I called Linda on a Friday night and told her that dad wouldn’t make it through the weekend. He died two days later on Valentine’s Day. On that day I left over 40 voice mails on her home and cell phones updating our father’s status. Early on Monday morning she finally called me. “Where were you?” I asked. “It was Valentine’s Day,” she replied. “Besides I didn’t believe you.” My sister was AWOL for our mother, our father, Lee, and myself her entire life. She was about her, and we didn’t exist. Over the years I had tried to love her, but couldn’t, but now I knew why. The upcoming days would confirm what I already suspected. She not only lied to us, she stole from us. Certainly from me, for after dad was gone she stole over $250,000 from me by selling his house without letting me know. Her reason: she needed a downpayment so she could buy a third house. She sold dad’s house for $139,000. Five months later his house sold for $510,000. When I told her this she snarled at me: “Why did you tell me this.?” “Because I wanted you to know how much money you F—ed me out of because of your greed.”

leeKraft&robinFried_xmas1988_EncinoHouse_ws

Lee Kraft and his girlfriend Robin Fried at the first house that my ex-wife and I owned in Encino, California, on Christmas day 1988. He was a good looking fellow and the best athlete I ever played with or against. He had a great smile. Robin was a lady that I always liked, and even more so after Lee’s death in a little over a year for she was absolutely terrific with my dad. Luckily she found me on social media and we have reconnected (after a long separation that I had nothing to do with and didn’t know about until long after my father died in 1999). Again, my loving sister (and I am sarcastic here) did everything possible to destroy everyone connected with our family, and this included Robin who my father loved like a daughter. I took at least one other photo of Lee on that day, and that photo is my favorite of my brother. (photo © Louis Kraft 1988).

Although Lee was nine and a half years younger than I was we were always close. We shared a bedroom during the entire time I lived at home. One night when he was still young our mother caught me climbing out the window with him my arms. “What are you doing?” “The Martians are coming. We’ve got to get out now!” (I never did well with horror and science fiction films.) When he was about 10 or 11 I told my mother that he was stealing my clothes. She questioned him. “No,” Lee said. We lived on half an acre in a rural area of Reseda, California. One day I was going out the back door and Lee was stuffing one of my coats into an old washing machine that our father hadn’t gotten rid of yet. Oops!

Our relationship grew even stronger once he reached 18 or so. But Lee also had some racial tendencies (which I saw when we played sports, and this I found surprising for our ball team had players of various races and they were his friends). And you know how it is; brothers would be brothers and they would fight and this grew as he also became an adult. When a friend of Lee’s, Ron Powell (who I liked), was redoing my roof in Encino with Lee and I was assisting he didn’t finish the job and when I had to hire another roofer to finish the work I kept Powell’s tools. This angered Lee and we didn’t speak for quite a number of months (eventually I returned the tools). On another occasion we had a ball practice on a holiday before Lee and his wife Teresa or his long-time girlfriend Robin (who adored our dad until his death) and Tony and Cindy Graham were coming over for a barbecue. After the practice Tony (who I believe was Lee’s best friend of all time) told me he decided to do something else. We got into a fight and then suddenly it was Lee and I wrestling around on the ground with Tony trying to drag us apart. Another string of months with no communication. But then it was over and was just like nothing had happened.

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Pailin asked to take a picture of me as I cooked dinner for four good friends that visited Tujunga House on the Fourth of July 2015. The front of the house faces east but it was a sunny day and sunshine still blasted through the dinning room windows. We had good lighting but for some reason her phone camera messed up big time. I liked the image for it both told a story and gave a good rendition of what I currently looked like. Some people cringe (I can see it in their eyes); others like this look. Me? It’s my shaggy dog look. Sudeshna Ghosh, Robin Fried, and Pailin all like it. When I growl at Pailin and ask her opinion about getting my hair cut, she refuses to answer. Silence is golden. To use the image I used my paintbrush and healing brush tool in Photoshop. I decided to use this image here as shows you how close Lee and I looked. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Lee was always there for me.

The memoir is coming. The question is, how do I write it? I know the answer. Truthfully. I haven’t read many autobiographies or memoirs that are truthful; many are gloss overs or sometimes attacks. There is good and there is bad. There are good times and there are bad times. Certainly for me. Relationships begin and unfortunately many end. Why? What happened? Why did I get that acting job? Why didn’t I get those 50 acting jobs? Before he died Edward G. Robinson, a big star from the golden age of film, said that he wished that he had a nickel for every time one of his films played on TV (actors didn’t receive residuals in those days). I wish I had fifty bucks for every job interview and writing pitch or query that I’ve made over the years. … I’ve been knocked cold; I’ve taken a motorcycle over a cliff; I’ve had a knife at my throat in Austin, Texas, in 1970; six years later I was lucky to get out of Lubbock, Texas, without being tarred and feathered; I had a revolver pointed at me while driving Marissa to school (I told her to get off the seat and onto the floorboard); I took a fast car into a freeway center divider at high speed after it hydroplaned and spun out at about 65 mph. After hitting the center divider it spun two more times and took out the passenger side and then the rear end of the car. Surprisingly I walked away from the crash with my spine still functioning (my Vette died but it saved my life).

They say that the good die young, … but I don’t look at myself as evil.

This is my lady, wife, and best friend Pailin in the front of Tujunga House on 24oct2013. … A little over a week ago she asked if we’d do a research trip this year. Alas, this isn’t in our timeline as she has continued schooling for her California Massage Therapy Council certification and I have major writing work staring at me. She experienced a research trip for the first time in fall 2014, loved it, and she is ready to go when I need to do another research trip. This is a first for LK!!!! (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft 2013)

I’m not telling you anything that you haven’t seen or experienced personally. My goal is to tell this story truthfully, and by the way this memoir has been in the works for years. You would be floored if you saw how much research I have. That said I haven’t written a word (but that’s not true for you’re seeing a fair amount of it in these blogs). … That’s right, I use the blogs as a research tool for myself.

All of the words in this section are here for one reason. I must know as much as possible before I develop a talk, write an article or a book, and the research never ends. There are answers out there and I want to know them. This has been in place since the Custer/Cheyenne book, for both of the Gatewood/Geronimo/Apache books, the Wynkoop/Cheyenne book, the Flynn and de Havilland book (which is on hold at the moment), and so it will be for the Sand Creek book (Cheyennes and Arapahos and their lifeways, whites who want to develop a great new land, whites who married Indian women, their mixed-blood children, and the whites that spoke out against the killing of Cheyennes and Arapahos who were told that they were under the protection of the military when they were attacked and in many cases sexually hacked to pieces at Sand Creek in Colorado Territory on November 29, 1864). These books are hard to write for I want the people to come to life, and to do this I must find what made them tick, what made them do what they did. Actions and not words define who people are.

A lot of research, a lot of edits, and a lot of rewrites went into the creation of this blog. Writing is what I do. It is work and it takes time to get it right.

National Park Service, Ned Wynkoop, & a bad taste

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Louis Kraft

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog

Warning: This blog is different than previous blogs

LK (right) reciting a poem per the organizer’s request at the beginning of a symposium in El Segundo, Ca., on 24mar2001. A so-called Little Bighorn battle expert had contacted in the mid-1990s and read a part of his review of my Custer/Stone Forehead book. It was good and he duped me big time. I answered his questions. If a reviewer ever again contacts me with questions I will hang up or delete the email. This man was full of deceit; a hard lesson to learn. This blowhard would speak with me at this symposium. I told the man who organized it to keep him quiet or i would attack him with words. There was no confrontation. This was the beginning of me realizing that what I wrote about would sometimes garner a hostile response. Oh, I spoke about the Custer-Stone Forehead confrontation in March 1869. (photo © Louis Kraft 2001)

Although I get along with people I’m not the biggest joiner. Actually I’m a loner. I’m good all by myself, and I never get bored. Ask anyone who knows me in Los Angeles or anyone I know in the Indian wars world: Writer/historian/speakers, editors, the people that live these tumultuous times today working in museums and at National Historic Sites (NHS) or are what might be considered re-enactors.

Let’s not forget the multitude of fabulous organizations that deal with this time period. They range from professional organizations such as Western Writers of America and the Western History Association to smaller groups that are more focused on specifics of the Indian wars such as the Fort Larned Old Guard, Order of the Indian Wars, and the Little Big Horn Associates (I’ve named a few; there are many-many more similar organizations).

I often help friends and people I don’t know when I can. That is, when I have knowledge of something, or access to someone, that might help their research and writing. See, I’m not a total mercenary. That said, I need to earn money. The reason is simple: My earning power is now about 25 percent of what it once was. Besides I like to eat once in awhile, and my car loves to gulp gasoline.

For those of you that don’t know how I choose my freelance writing subjects, it’s quite simple. Race relations is the joining thread. Certainly with my Indian wars writing (although Errol Flynn seems a strange choice to be one of my subjects, he was the most un-racial person I have ever written and spoken about—no one comes close to him, no one). In case you don’t know, I basically write biographies while moving easily into other writing formats when I feel like it.

This is Ivan Hankla. He is a Southern Cheyenne who opened his lodge and heart to me in 2004 when I spoke at a two- or three-day event at Fort Larned NHS, Kans. Other than time required for my participation in the event I spent all my time with Ivan and James Coverdale, a Kiowa. This cemented a lasting relationship with Ivan (who, unfortunately, died a few years back). His tepee was a fully functional lodge as it would have been in the 1860s. He allowed me to photograph it and him over these days. My talk was on the last day and it dealt with George Armstrong Custer riding into the still warring Cheyenne village on Sweetwater Creek in the Texas panhandle in March 1869. More specifically it dealt with Custer’s meeting with Stone Forehead, the Southern Cheyenne chief, mystic, and keeper of the Cheyenne medicine (or sacred) arrows. Custer had an adjutant with him. At any time the Cheyennes could have killed him (and perhaps they might have died for doing it, but I don’t think so for the soldiers’ horses were as jaded as the Southern People’s mounts). I invited Ivan and James to the talk. Ivan told me that they weren’t paid participants of the event. I told him not to worry, that he and James were my guests. If they weren’t admitted to the talks and I couldn’t fix the problem that I wouldn’t speak (oh boy, there’s black mark against the Kraft name). There were no problems and they attended in full regalia. A good day for LK to be alive. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

I think I should mention the images in this blog. There will be three types:

Cheyennes and Indian wars people: Friends, acquaintances, but with one ongoing link and that is our connection started with and/or continues because of what I write about the 1860s Cheyenne wars.
Collages that hopefully present background that I know a fair amount about Ned Wynkoop, Cheyennes, the 1860s, and the Wynkoop/Cheyenne connection.
Publicity for my writing (sorry).

The goal of these images is simply to show with as little words as possible who I am and my connection to Wynkoop and the Cheyenne people.

Before moving forward I want to make the following clear.
Two national historic sites have been good to me over the years:
The Washita Battlefield NHS (Okla.) and the Fort Larned NHS (Kans.). What
follows has nothing to do with them. I’m proud to have spent hours walking
their grounds and hanging out with their staffs (some of whom have
become good friends). They have been responsible for bringing me
to Oklahoma and Kansas over and over again.
Good times; some of the best in my life.

Dr. Henrietta Mann is the founding president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College in Weatherford, Okla. Her resume is amazing and it covers the entire spectrum of education, including lecturing throughout the United States and the world. In 1991 the magazine Rolling Stone named her one of the top 10 professors in the U.S. She has served as technical consultant on numerous documentaries and a film I like: Last of the Dogmen (1995), which had the premise of Cheyenne Dog Men surviving the Sand Creek Massacre and living as they had in 1864 undiscovered into the 20th century. On 6dec2008, Henri listened to a talk I gave on Wynkoop and his relationship with the Cheyennes. She told me that I was her hero (let me tell you that after I heard her talk that night about the Cheyennes she became my heroine). Anyway, after I spoke on that December 6 morning we spent a lot of time together (and it cemented a friendship that continues to this day). We posed for this image right after we finished our lunch. I had met Henri the previous day (5dec2008) when she saw a performance of my Wynkoop one-man show at the three-day Washita Battlefield NHS symposium. (Photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

Early April 2014 and a request

A friend sent me a draft of a National Park Service (NPS) two-page Ned Wynkoop brochure and asked if I’d review it. Wow, what a great idea: a Wynkoop brochure specifically created for the Sand Creek Massacre NHS and the Fort Larned NHS. I jumped at the chance with the hope that I could offer assistance to help the brochure shine.

Boy, was that ever a lofty ambition. Poof! Gone, long-time gone in a matter of minutes.

After reading only a handful of sentences I realized that the people who wrote the Wynkoop brochure didn’t do any real research (although I heard that the person who drafted the “Final Years” section did research Mr. Wynkoop). My guess is that the other writer(s) got most of their information off the internet (Oh nooooooo!!!). Put kindly the two pages were little more than error-riddled prose that would be lucky to receive a passing grade in a high school English class. And those leading the project put it out for review! What were they thinking? … Oh, and if I didn’t mention it, I assume that the purpose of the brochure was and is to introduce Wynkoop and his relationship with Cheyennes and Arapahos to the general public. If yes, this brochure has failed terribly. Other than needing facts that are accurate, it needs focus. From my point of view (POV) the writers, the editor (was there an editor?), and those leading the effort didn’t put much time into the project. The draft sent to me showed little interest in the subject. Did the people assigned the project care? From my POV … No!

Let me tell you a little secret about earning a living as a writer in the
software industry: You had better deliver accurate and readable prose
on deadline. If you don’t you are in deep “caca.” Let me say that another
way: Hell hath no fury like program and product management
with upper management serving as executioner.

I worked on the Wynkoop brochure for three solid weeks. I had 30 pages but they were not to my satisfaction. Even though I think I had been given a June deadline, that didn’t matter for I had run out of my time. Ready or not I submitted my last draft on May 1.

At this late date I can only assume that my 30-page review went directly to the circular file. There was no response. Nada. Not even, “We read it and we disagree with everything you wrote.” … So much for working for free. Yes, there is a bad taste in my mouth.

A change of focus

I accepted the assignment to review the Wynkoop brochure sight unseen. Once I had read it I wanted to improve the less-than-sparkling prose and the alarming number of errors presented on the two pages.

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The Wynkoop talk focused on his relationship with the Cheyennes. For the first time I used descriptive words in a talk to describe how the Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and men were sexually hacked to pieces at Sand Creek. I had previously used descriptive words in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). When talks have value and I like the subject matter they change and grow as they see life in my future. This was one of those talks.

Those of you that know my writing, know that I live with my projects for what might seem like forever and that over the years the people and projects I write about grow and expand as time passes. I prefer to know a lot about a little (by that I mean a lot about only a few people and the events in their lives) as opposed to a little about a lot. My delivery to the NPS included:

LK w/Principle Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman (he is one of four principle chiefs). We met in 1999, when he and I spoke at a convention at Fort Larned NHS, and he and Cheyenne Chief Lawrence Hart blessed the Cheyenne-Lakota village site on the Pawnee Fork west of the fort. Since then we have talked at least twice at other events. This photo was taken at the end of a Washita Battlefield NHS two-day symposium on 12dec2011. Gordon, like Dr. Mann, has an impressive resume, which includes teaching art as an adjunct professor at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College, and as the language director for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ Department of Education. It is always good times when I am in the presence of this gentleman. I have a poster based upon artwork he created prior to our meeting in 1999 that represents the Sand Creek village before and after that fatal 29nov1864 attack upon people that thought that they were at peace. I framed his art and I treasure it. I hope to use it on the cover and inside the Sand Creek book. This will depend upon Chief Yellowman, OU Press editor-in-chief Chuck Rankin and his art director. (photo © Washita Battlefield NPS 2011)

Kraft qualifications: This was probably overkill, but I have been writing articles, talks, plays, and books about Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyenne Indians (and that includes when they weren’t in the same article, talk, or book) since the mid-1980s. Reason: I figured that those working on the Wynkoop brochure had no idea who I am.
Reading suggestions:
Totally distraught at the less than pristine research, I suggested a number of places to learn about Wynkoop and his relationship with the Cheyennes and Arapahos.
Review of the two-page Wynkoop brochure:
I’m certain that teeth clamped tightly (and perhaps tore flesh inside their mouths) and curses directed at me flowed loudly in a blue-tainted color when my documented words were read.
A suggested brochure rewrite:
At first I began offering rewriting suggestions in the various sections. It didn’t take me long to realize that these suggestions would be ignored, not read, or discarded (probably all). I rewrote the entire two-page draft and submitted it with the review (probably a major mistake).
Suggested brochure images:
I also had a big problem with the images in the brochure draft sent me. Again, the NPS is selling Ned Wynkoop in two pages, but the park service drifts so far away from Wynkoop in most of their images that I almost fell asleep when looking at them. I placed my suggestions in the brochure rewrite section, and the images include the reasons why I suggested them over the images in the draft I reviewed.

Unfortunately my optimism blinded me from governmental reality (which I don’t know much about, but what little I do know dips alarmingly close to the dark side).

lk_jackieJohnson_FinalShowdownCollage_ws

Most of the characters in the novel lived, including Ned Wynkoop, Black Kettle, Stone Forehead, Bull Bear, and on and on. At this point in time (1992) it looked as if I would be a novelist (even though I had nonfiction articles published since the mid-1980s and I had been talking about my subjects at events in the western U.S.A. since the end of the 1980s. My next contracted novel dealt with Kit Carson and the Navajos. But—damn do I hate that word “but”—but the publisher decided to drop their “Western” line. I had an agent and she almost had a heart attack when I stated that I’d sue. She talked me out of it by insisting that I would be blacklisted (I know all about the blacklisting in the film industry). She was probably right, but I know that her main concern was her literary agency. Still I bought into what she said, but we soon parted company. Believe it or not, this opened the door for me to work out a deal with Dick Upton (Upton and Sons, Publishers) and begin writing nonfiction books. Bottom line: LK was one lucky frontiersman.

Those in power had plenty of time to read and digest the Wynkoop brochure review I submitted.

That’s it. End of story. As I said above I heard nothing. I still haven’t heard anything, and at this late date (and approaching September 2014) I don’t expect to hear anything …

… until I make an appearance on a National Historic Site and am recognized. If the review didn’t end my relationship with the NPS, this blog will. I’m certain that I’ll be escorted off the property by armed guards and told never to return (John Monnett, do you realize what’s in your future?).

In June a friend who was aware of my Wynkoop brochure review, and who offered suggestions, asked what had happened to the review. Heck, folks, The X-Files still lives (BTW, it, and Michael Parks’ Then Came Bronson, are the only TV shows I have ever liked), for I am certain that the review I submitted was shredded or locked in a vault.

Regardless what people think of me and my writing, and there are people that have actually turned their back to me at conventions and symposiums after I have spoken about Ned Wynkoop and/or the Cheyennes. I guess they consider Wynkoop a traitor to his race and hell, man, the Cheyennes are Indians. You know, the villains of the American story of conquest. I must be a cretin—an un-American—that refuses to go away and die. Regardless of this anger by me directed at a backlash propagated by people that walk through life wearing blinders, my plays, articles, talks, and books that deal with Wynkoop and/or the Cheyennes speak for themselves.

There are two sides to every story

A fellow and gal fall in love, marry, and later divorce.
Two westerners packing revolvers draw on each other.
An army invades a foreign land and the people that call this land home fight back.

Another story

A few years back I appeared as the lone guest on one of the many LA talk radio shows. This station actually has two shows airing concurrently. I arrived early and while chatting with the radio host that would interview me I met the other radio host (a talkative fellow). After the hour interview ended (the interview focused on Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland) the host who interviewed me asked if I’d join him to eat a late dinner at a restaurant (it was now 10:00 PM). I agreed.

Before we got out the door the other radio host caught up to us and asked if he could join us. At the restaurant the radio host sat across from me while the other host sat next to him. The other host (vagueness is important here) never shut up while we ate. The host that interviewed me remained mostly quiet. This meant that I had to respond to an ongoing diatribe against the Germans during WWII. How the hell did this subject come up?

Against All Flags (Universal, 1952). The publicity for the film looked great, especially the American posters, but alas, the film didn’t. This is an Argentina one sheet.

Of course it moved to the genocide of the Jewish people (this genocide happened and it was heinous, but I didn’t want to talk about it). Was this fellow trying to bait me (you know, the false allegations against Errol Flynn). I’ll never know for I didn’t bite. Without warning the other host moved to the actress Maureen O’Hara. I’m not a fan of her films; actually I’ve never seen one of them that I liked (realize that there are many that I haven’t seen). I will say this, the pirate film she did with Flynn (Against All Flags, 1952) is the only swashbuckler of the nine he made that I have nothing positive to say. That said, I read her autobiography, which is a whitewash of her life and a waste of time. Why do people write this clichéd crap that means nothing, and if they didn’t write it why do they allow their name to appear below the title?

That said, I know a fair amount about Ms. O’Hara as I have done a fair amount of study of John Wayne and John Ford and she pops up often.

Whew!!! This SOB other host tore into Ms. O’Hara as a heinous Nazi supporter.

This image of my daughter Marissa and I was taken on 25jun2011 after a Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association symposium in Hardin, Mont., where I talked about Errol Flynn’s Custer and the real Custer (not my best talk on the subject). After the event ended Marissa and I traveled to the LBH Battlefield National Monument with good friends Bob Williams and Linda Andreu Wald. Rain had pounded Montana before our arrival and the Yellowstone River had overflowed. But everything was green. A great time with Marissa, who has traveled extensively with me and knows my view on racism. This image was out of focus and has never had enough bytes for me to fix it, …. thus this line art quick fix (which is still lacking). That’s life; so be it.

Let me tell you racism has played a big part in most of my life. Give me five minutes with a person and I can tell you without batting an eye if they’re a racist or not. What he said about Maureen O’Hara I had never read or heard.

On September 22, 2012, I spoke about Wynkoop’s efforts to prevent Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock from destroying the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork, about 35 miles (40 by auto) west of the Fort Larned NHS. Leo Oliva, who spoke on the village site with me on that day, had asked me to represent Wynkoop when he was inducted into the Santa Fe Trail Association Hall of Fame. The induction of Wynkoop and others took place during a huge dinner on the 21st. My friend George Elmore, chief ranger at Fort Larned, loaned me the buckskin coat for the three-day rendezvous jointly hosted by the Santa Fe Trail Association, Fort Larned NHS, and the Santa Fe Trail Center. He also took this image of me leaning against Wynkoop’s home and Indian agency at Fort Larned on the 22nd. My film was black & white and I colorized the image. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012 & 2014)

I smiled. The other host continued, eventually asking me to comment.

“I know a fair amount about this lady and I have never seen anything close to what you say.”

He refused to shut up, even though my eyes relaxed into my coolest Clint Eastwood glare. … The other host rattled onward.

My smile grew.

“What’s your problem?” he almost screamed.

Violence is violence and it should never happen. I have learned a lot over the years. One is of major importance: If you are going to be in a fight, you have two choices—win or run like hell. This man was a blowhard; actually a bully with words. This man was short and it didn’t look like he exercised. I said nothing. He stood and repeated the question.

I turned on my charm. “You. You’re a racist.”

“I’m not a racist!” My smile grew bigger yet. It unnerved him and he sat down. … After we paid the bill at the table he leaped up but kept his distance from me as he ran for the exit.

I was never invited back to this radio station, even though the host claimed over and over again that he would do a follow-up interview when Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek was published. No comment.

A July 25 email and the response

One of my best friends for many-many years is someone I met in the technical world in 1990. We’ve done a lot together and there is a bond between us that is special. He is quarter Cheyenne, although that has had nothing to do with our relationship. I trust him and often he offers me more than support and friendship for he gives me opinion, review, and advice. Alas, a couple of years back he left SoCal to return to his homeland.

Although not stated in the collage, Stone Forehead plays a leading role in Custer and the Cheyenne (Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995). As noted above, he played a role in The Final Showdown. He had a smaller role in the Wynkoop book, but he will have as large a role as possible in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (contracted with OU Press).

On July 25, 2014, I sent a long email to a business associate who has become my friend over the years.

One of the paragraphs read: “In the spring I reviewed a proposed two-page brochure on Wynkoop for the National Park Service. The two pages were a joke. Often a sentence contained one or more errors and I don’t think any of the paragraphs were error free. It took three weeks to submit a 30-page document that pointed out the errors with citations that backed up the commentary along with documented facts and suggested rewrites. The response: Zero. Not even a ‘we received it.’ Recently a friend asked what happened, and I told him nothing. ‘Hell, if they trashed what you sent, some of what you submitted would make good copy for one or more blogs.’ (He was privy to what I submitted.) Good idea, and I’m considering it.”

The friend’s response: “Yes, why not post your neglected response to the NPS?“

What to do?

Ahhh, for there’s the rub. Obviously this blog will make me public enemy No. 1 to the NPS. Just like the racist radio host, I’ve gotten to that age in life where I’m not going to be a good boy and “Yes sir” people to death with views to which I don’t agree. The reason: I don’t care what they think of me, I don’t care if they hire me again, but more important I need to be true to me.

LK the thinker (left). Yeah, I hate to say it, but this is the real me and it is totally focused on my writing projects. I don’t want to say 24/7 but it’s close.

“What to do?’ … yeah I sometimes vacillate

What I can’t or won’t do: Give you my background, post the NPS two-page Wynkoop brochure, and I’m not going to give you the cited documentation to my critique. That leaves me two choices: Drag my rewrite of the two-page brochure into this blog or mimic their draft with my words and image suggestions in place. The second idea is easily doable but it will cost me many hours to duplicate the NPS design. Why waste my time for an organization—the NPS—that doesn’t give a bleep in the first place? I will provide my rewrite of the NPS draft along with a discussion of some the NPS statements, omissions, and errors that bothered me. I’m going to include my image suggestions to the NPS document in the section of the blog that contains my suggested rewrite to the NPS embarrassment.

NPS Wynkoop brochure errors & omissions

Errors are errors and the blatant ones directly related to Wynkoop shouldn’t be repeated ad nauseam in print. They should be pointed out. Also, the NPS also lost focus of their topic and because of this (or perhaps because the writers had no clue what Wynkoop did and/or way-too often omitted what Wynkoop did). Some of these omissions are as large and glaring as the errors. Fear not, for I have no intention of pointing out the NPS’s poor English or spelling errors in this blog (at least I hope not). The brochure headings are listed as in the original NPS Wynkoop brochure draft supplied me.

LK with Leo Oliva (left) and George Elmore at Fort Larned NHS in April 2012. These two fellows over many years have been responsible for bringing me back to Kansas time and again. A good relationship that has led to friendship.

Early Years (1836-1861)

LK note: I had a lot of problems with this section, but most of them dealt with writing and focus.

I asked that the statement that Wynkoop was good with a Bowie knife be removed. Reason: There is only one quote that I have seen that stated he carried a Bowie knife. This does not mean that he was “good” with this weapon. There are images of Wynkoop with firearms but none with a Bowie knife. There is documentation that backs the premise that Wynkoop was “good” firing guns, but other than that one sentence that says he carried a Bowie knife, there is nothing.

ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t move to the “small mining settlement of Denver” for the simple reason that it didn’t exist yet.

He had no duties to perform as sheriff as there was no town or city, no laws, and no jail. Wynkoop’s title of “sheriff” meant nothing; it consisted of words on a piece of paper that the men in the area refused to accept. Of interest: Wynkoop might have named the proposed city that would someday occupy the land that he and other members of the Denver City Town Company, including William Larimer, claim-jumped from the St. Charles Town Company in November 1858: “Denver.”

I met Deb Goodrich Bisel in 2008 when she invited me to give a couple of Wynkoop-Cheyenne talks in Kansas in May of that year. During the week that I stayed with her and her family, which also included her interviewing me on her radio show in Topeka, we became friends. Good friends. Whenever I see this talented person it is just like the last time was the previous week. She is a bright, funny, and caring writer-historian. This image was taken by Frank Bodden at the Centennial, Co., Order of the Indian Wars symposium hotel on the evening after I talked about Wynkoop lashing in to the U.S. government for what he considered the murder of innocent people in April 2013 (sorry Frank, but I didn’t have enough bytes and played around with the image). I call this my snow trip as I spent eleven days in Colorado and on at least six or seven of them I was snowbound and grounded.

ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t perform any “duties” as sheriff until after he returned to Denver City in late1859.

At that time the budding Denver City still had no jail, he reported to no one, and actually his position dealt with criminal events that happened outside the city limits. No real law existed in Denver or the surroundings and most of the rough and tumble crowd that then occupied the area ignored Wynkoop’s assignment as “sheriff,” which only paid upon arrest and conviction by a “people’s” court (that’s right, no judicial system existed in 1859-1860). This meant that Wynkoop went hungry more often than he feasted. It also meant that he had a lot of free time to figure out other ways to earn money.

Wynkoop did sell some property (mostly within Denver City limits) that he owned as he had been one of the founding members of the Denver City Town Company. He earned extra and much-needed money tending bar in Charlie Harrison’s Criterion Saloon in Denver beginning in1860.

ERROR: Wynkoop never earned money as an actor.

Almost all (if not all) professional actors arrived in Denver as members of acting troupes. Usually there might only be one, two, or three professional actors performing in a play. The rest of the actors that performed on the Denver stage at this time were “amateurs” and they acted without pay. Beginning in late 1859 and extending through 1860 and into pre-Civil War 1861 most of the acting was performed in drinking and gambling houses. During the winter months often many of the men had nothing to do as harsh weather prevented mining. Wynkoop went on the stage simply as he wanted to meet and woo Louise Matilda Brown Wakely.

LK comment: I think you should totally drop all references to Wynkoop’s acting career to create additional room for Wynkoop’s relationship and interactions with the Cheyennes.

ERROR: Major misspelling of Wynkoop’s future wife’s first name plus an erroneous middle initial.

Currently her name is listed as LOUIS B. WAKELY. “Louis” is a man’s name; her name was “Louise” with an “e.” Also, using a “B” as her middle initial is WRONG. If you want to use a middle initial, use “M” for “Matilda” as that was her middle name. “B” stands for “Brown,” which was the name of her mother’s first husband and her father.

LK suggestion: List Louise as “Louise Wakely” (my preference) or as “Louise M. Wakely.” BTW, “Wakely,” the name that Louise used at the time she met Wynkoop was her stepfather’s last name.

ERROR: Louise Wynkoop was not a singer and didn’t sing on stage. This comment should be deleted.

LK comment: I have seen nothing that states that Louise sang on the stage. However, since one of her sisters sang on the stage (yes, there were three sisters) and she constantly was recognized as a singer while there were no mentions of Louise singing, this seems like a no-brainer. Check the index in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011) for Flora Wakely, Louise’s youngest sister, or do your own research.

Civil War Years (1861-1865)

Although this section is listed as “Civil War Years (1861-1865)” it is totally mislabeled for Wynkoop’s involvement with the Civil War basically ended in fall 1862 when he returned to Colorado Territory, and perhaps you can extend it to 1863 (as the Colorado military continued to watch for another invasion). When this section moves to 1864 (and even though the Civil War was still in progress, the focus has moved to the Cheyennes and Arapahos. More importantly it has moved to the lead-up to the tragic attack on the Sand Creek village in November 1864. As currently labeled the Sand Creek section should be part of this section and as currently listed the “Sand Creek” heading should be removed and the text from that section should be moved into this section.

I totally disagree with what I said above. The Sand Creek section (as you originally created it) needs to remain standalone. That said, portions of this section should move into the Sand Creek section and this section should be re-dated.

Charge this section to: “Civil War Years (1861-1862)” or perhaps “(1861-1863),” for this can be justified as Wynkoop remained on the alert for a second Confederate invasion (but I don’t think this should be discussed as it would take up precious space in your document).

Glen Williams & LK at Mission San Xavier del Bac on 15jan2012, which is west of Tucson, Ariz. I needed this trip with my good friend (really a brother whom I met shortly after my brother died in 1990). Our relationship grew slowly but over the years he has become a great friend who is an adventurer with a great interest in the world we live in and in our Indian wars past. If you have paid close attention to some my experiences in the blogs you are aware that at times I am capable of getting myself into trouble. Glen is a calming influence as we explore the present and our American heritage. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

We will obviously miss Wynkoop’s 1863 Ute Indian campaign (thus a gap in your heading dates, unless you use the second dating, which is my choice in the previous paragraph). You have two pages (front and back of one piece of paper) to state what is important and the focus must remain true to what you want to sell: Wynkoop’s relationship with Cheyennes (and to a lesser degree his relationship with Arapahos). This has got to be the focus, and I don’t think you should deviate from it.

The above is editorial opinion, and I sincerely hope you are
not offended by it but agree with it.

ERROR: Wynkoop became a 2nd lieutenant on July 31, 1861, and not in August.

ERROR: “The Coloradans joined New Mexico’s Union forces and defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Glorieta Pass…” No. There were no New Mexican forces at this battle. However, there were troops from the 1st and 3rd U.S. Cavalries present.

ERROR: As currently written, the regiment returned to Colorado and then Chivington and Wynkoop were promoted and the regiment became a cavalry regiment. NO! The Glorieta victory didn’t stop the Confederate threat and the invasion hadn’t ended. This didn’t happen until the Battle of Peralta near Los Lunas, New Mexico Territory, in April 1862. Also, that April, and while still in New Mexico Territory Chivington became colonel of the regiment, which then had a “name change” and not a reorganization (that came probably in November). The 1st Regiment of Colorado Infantry became the 1st Regiment of Colorado Cavalry (I’ve also seen 1st Colorado Cavalry Volunteer Regiment), perhaps as early as April but certainly by November 1862 (as you state). Wynkoop received his promotion to major on April 14, 1862. The next day, April 15, the Battle of Peralta ended the Confederate invasion as the Rebels now hustled to get out of New Mexico Territory. There were New Mexican Union soldiers at this battle.

LK comment: I have seen many names for the newly named 1st Colorado Cavalry, and I’m probably good with whichever name you decide upon.

LK comment: Move the third and fourth paragraphs to the “Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865) section.

Sand Creek Massacre

I like this image of my daughter Marissa. It hangs on a wall at Tujunga House. Using it here is mainly a reminder to me that I have a lot of research images on 35mm slides but no projector and need to get the slides digitized. We had been tracking Custer when Jerry Russell’s Order of the Indian Wars 1987 tour would end at the supposed Sand Creek Massacre site on private property. I called Jerry and asked if we could join the trip to Sand Creek and following banquet. He graciously said yes. This actually turned into an article on modern-day historians for True West (1990). While the tour assembled on the bluffs, Marissa and I explored the land below. (photo © Louis & Marissa Kraft 1987)

LK comment: This section has no dates. I suggest adding “(1864-1865)” to the title of the section to retain consistency with the rest of the document: “Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865).”

LK comment: I moved paragraphs three and four from the Civil War section to this section and these paragraphs are now paragraphs one and two in this section (see the suggested LK draft, below). BTW, I had problems with both paragraphs and commented upon the NPS text within the paragraphs (this you won’t see in the blog).

LK question: Was Left Hand’s band part of Little Raven’s band? If not, I believe that you should feature Left Hand as he and a small number of Arapahos were at Sand Creek and Little Raven wasn’t at the time of the November 29 attack.

LK request: I’ve recently heard (without seeing documentation) that Left Hand is being removed from the Sand Creek Massacre NHS. If so, why? If Left Hand wasn’t at Sand Creek and didn’t receive wounds that ended his life there I would like to see proof. This is a major request from me for if true it needs to be in the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript that I’m currently writing.

wRichardWestJr_rick_Moses Starr_11nov2011

After the speakers and music completed at the Washita Battlefield NHS overlook on 11nov2011 I captured this image of Moses Starr of the Red Moon Signers & Drum Group (left) and W. Richard (Rick) West. I met Rick for the first time before the event began and then spent a lot of time with him on the 12th, when we lunched together. We had plenty of time to talk. Rick is a Cheyenne peace chief. He is also the founding director and director emeritus of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Recently he became president and CEO of the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, Calif. (I believe in December 2012). (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

LK comment: You have repeated Black Kettle’s quote, “This white man is not here to laugh at us…but, on the contrary, unlike the rest of his race, he comes with a confidence in the pledges given by the red man,” which is in the subtitle of the brochure, and quoting it a second time is redundant. To save space I suggest cutting it here.

BTW, the George Bent quote in the subtitle is not redundant at the end of the document as he sums up what Wynkoop meant to the Cheyennes and Arapahos.

As you know I take photos and create art. The reason is twofold: 1) Often there are not enough historical images to tell a story (and publishers rightly don’t like to keep printing the same images over and over again), and 2) They can bring in much-needed money. I created this portrait of Wynkoop in 2007. Since then it has appeared in two anthologies and two magazines. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

ERROR: You called John Evans a “new” territorial governor, which implies that he was a novice and didn’t know what his duties were. By late summer/early fall 1864, Evans, who was the second territorial governor of Colorado Territory, had served as governor longer than William Gilpin had during his entire tenure as the first territorial governor.

ERROR: You state that the Cheyennes and Arapahos that moved to the Big Sandy and were involved in the Sand Creek Massacre made the move in mid-October 1864.

The Cheyennes and Arapahos that were attacked at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, didn’t make the move until after Anthony replaced Wynkoop as commander of Fort Lyon in November (at least Black Kettle, Little Raven, and Left Hand didn’t; for Left Hand and Little Raven met with Anthony and Wynkoop in November, and later Left Hand and Black Kettle met with Anthony and Wynkoop. Anthony reached Fort Lyon on November 2 but didn’t inform Wynkoop that he was replacing him as commander until November 5 (see below for the reason why Anthony replaced Wynkoop). After being replaced by Anthony, Wynkoop and Anthony met with Little Raven and Left Hand (their village, which was about a mile from the post consisted of 113 lodges and 652 people.). At this meeting, Left Hand said that he “was willing to submit to anything; that the whites might place him in irons, or kill him, but that he would not fight them.” A short while later, Anthony, Wynkoop, Capt. Silas Soule, Lt. Joseph Cramer, and Lt. William Minton (Minton was a member of the First New Mexico Volunteers) met with Black Kettle and Left Hand at the commissary on the hill above Fort Lyon (this was the former Bent’s New Fort, which William Bent had sold to the military). It was at this meeting that Anthony told the Indians that if they moved to Sand Creek that they would be under the protection of the military. And, AND they didn’t move away from the post until Anthony insisted that they move away. According to Anthony, Black Kettle and his band reached Sand Creek on about November 17, as he placed it 12 days before Chivington attacked the Sand Creek village on November 29.

Wynkoop’s home & Indian agency was located just outside the perimeter of Fort Larned, and southwest of officer’s row on the western side of the post and just south of the bend in the Pawnee Fork (this view is from the east/slightly northeast). The southern wall of the Wynkoop agency/residence (photo left, and not seen in this image) had two wooden walls with stones between the walls to protect against ride-by shootings. When Cheyennes (such as Black Kettle, Tall Bull, Stone Forehead, and Roman Nose) visited Wynkoop at the agency they and the people that then traveled with them camped to the south and west of the building. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

MISSTATEMENT, and as Stated, an ERROR: Wynkoop set out for Kansas to assume command of Fort Riley (although he would command it for a few days in December 1864).

Wynkoop had been removed from command at Fort Lyon for being absent from his post in time of war and had disobeyed orders, risked his command, and met with warring Indians in September 1864, and it looked as if he would face a court-martial. Anthony informed Wynkoop that his orders were to investigate officers (meaning Wynkoop) that fed hostile Indians in violation of orders. The military wanted to get rid of Wynkoop, and as quickly as possible as it viewed him as little more than an embarrassment. Hell, a war was going on; you don’t try to make peace and end it and that is exactly what Wynkoop attempted to do.

ERROR: You state that Col. John Chivington and his combined First and Third Volunteer Cavalries departed Fort Lyon on November 29. Actually Chivington’s command left Fort Lyon on the evening of November 28 at 8:00 PM.

MAJOR ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t visit the Sand Creek village site before he wrote his January 15, 1864, Sand Creek report on the massacre. Although he might have traveled to the site before June 1865 when he took Joint Special Committee members Senators James Rood Doolittle, Lafayette S. Foster, Edmund G. Ross, and Gen. A. McDowell McCook to see the bloody ground, this isn’t confirmed. We know that Wynkoop visited the site with Doolittle in June 1865. FYI: They saw the skeletal heads of small children with bullet holes through the top of their sculls showing how they might have died.

Leo Oliva speaking about the events that led up to the April 1867 destruction of the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork by Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock on 22sept2012. This three-day rendezvous co-sponsored by the Fort Larned NHS, Santa Fe Trail Center, and Santa Fe Trail Association was a marvelous affair. It included talks, re-enactors, book signings, and historic personages being inducted into the Santa Fe Trail Association Hall of Fame. Leo gave his talk from the east side of the Cheyenne village site. As you can see, I was to his left and slightly behind him. The crowd also circled to his right, with some behind and above him where the main portion of the village had been located. Leo and I were the only two speakers at the village site on that day. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

Timeline for Wynkoop’s Sand Creek report: Wynkoop arrived at Fort Lyon on the evening of January 14, 1865, assumed command the next day, interviewed participants and non-participants of the attack, and on that same January 15th day submitted his Sand Creek report.

LK comment: The investigations into the attack on the Sand Creek village were exploratory for information on the tragic event; they never were investigations that would lead to a trial as Chivington had mustered out of the military before the investigations began, which placed the colonel beyond military court-martial.

Indian Agent (1866-1868)

ERROR: Wynkoop was not an Indian agent at the Little Arkansas River peace council in fall 1865. He commanded the military escort for the peace commissioners.

pawneeFork_Hart&YellowmanBlessing_24apr1999_tight_ws

The day is April 24, 1999, and it was a special day, for on this day Cheyenne chiefs Lawrence Hart and Gordon Yellowman blessed the Cheyenne-Lakota village site that Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock destroyed in April 1867. Cheyenne Chief Lawrence Hart stands just right of center with his hands folded. Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman is praying at the right of the image. About four people to the left of Chief Hart (as we look at the image) is Connie Yellowman with the robe wrapped around her, Gordon’s wife. I met her early on the first day of the Fort Larned Old Guard event when both of us went to the office of our lodging to get coffee. She had read Custer and the Cheyenne, knew I’d be present, and brought her copy of the book for me to sign. Ladies and gents, in case you don’t know it I have written extensively about the Southern Cheyennes and have always been true to my view that people are people and that there are always two sides to a story. Connie loved what I had written about the Cheyennes. The sergeant at the far left of the image is George Elmore. At this time he was chief historian at Fort Larned NHS (he is now chief ranger at my favorite destination, which always includes the Pawnee Fork village site). I met George in 1990 or 1991 when I researched the novel The Final Showdown. He gave my daughter Marissa and I a private tour of the fort. I have photos, but unfortunately they are slides and were never printed and now reside in boxes and long unseen—I need to do something about this, and soon, as I have many images dealing with my research that are on slides. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

OMISSION: Wynkoop renegotiated the 1865 treaty agreement in spring 1866 with Cheyennes, Dog Men, and Arapahos that had mostly avoided the peace council. Wynkoop was on detached duty from the military at the time. Wynkoop arrived at the Bluff Creek, Kans., camp on February 25. Black Kettle was present, as was Stone Forehead, Keeper of the Sacred Arrows (a coup for Wynkoop). The next morning Dog Men waited for Wynkoop outside his tent, and they weren’t friendly. On February 28 Wynkoop held an initial meeting with Cheyenne and Dog Men leaders. That night he learned that Dog Man Porcupine Bear threatened to kill him if any Cheyennes or Dog Men touched the treaty paper. Nevertheless a nervous Wynkoop held his main council with the Cheyennes and Dog Men on March 1. Bull Bear and Black Kettle helped Wynkoop, who kept calm and got most of the Indians to agree to the changed treaty. However, Dog Men threatened Black Kettle if he touched the updated treaty paper and the chief didn’t make his mark on the paper. And there’s more. Wynkoop spoke with Little Raven’s Arapahos on March 2, and later yet had a second meeting with other Dog Men. Wynkoop also received a young woman whose freedom had been purchased while he was still at the first council site.

This is one of my favorite photos of all time (so much so that it is the header for my website/blog). I took this image on 23apr1999 when Leo & Bonita Oliva and George Elmore took me (and my then girlfriend) on a private tour to the Pawnee Fork village site and then an exploration of the site. Some of the Cheyenne re-enactors had set up their lodges on the Cheyenne portion of the village site. One of them invited us to spend time in his lodge. During our visit with him and other Cheyenne re-enactors he boiled buffalo tongue over the open flame at the center of the tepee. For me this was a very cool experience. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

OMISSION: In 1867 you attempt to deal with Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s destruction of the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork but you have totally missed Wynkoop’s participation in the events that led up to the destruction of a peaceful village, which started yet another Indian war as Wynkoop warned.

OMISSION: What happened at the meeting at Fort Larned, with Cheyenne leaders including Dog Man Chief Tall Bull? Wynkoop was present and mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier interpreted when Hancock threatened the Indians with war. What about Tall Bull asking Wynkoop to stop Hancock from moving toward the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village as the Indians feared another Sand Creek? I’m afraid you are missing a major point here.

I had created this montage before I began to piece together this blog. In Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek I used the word “Sioux” to represent the people I was writing about, mainly because the primary source quotes called these people Sioux. Words that represent people have changed as language usage has changed. In the blog I chose to call these people “Lakotas.” I don’t know which word I’ll use in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. However, I know that the primary source quotes will still say “Sioux.” This is a problem that I’ll think about right up until I deliver my polished manuscript. That said, I should say something else here. I use Cheyenne words in my writing whenever possible, and believe me the spelling of these words has matured and changed quite a bit since the 1980s. That said, this is an ongoing quest for me for I want to know the Tsistsistas’ words, I want to know how to pronounce them. and believe me I use the spoken words in talks and plays. It is a living language, and it must never die. I’m sorry, “Tsistsistas” means “Cheyennes” (a white word); it means “The People.” There is much more to the Tsistsistas’ name, much more. Simply, it represents the Northern and the Southern Cheyennes, and the Dog Men military society (remember, “Dog Soldiers” is a white man word) that for all intensive purposes functioned as a third segment of the tribe by the 1850s. There is much more I can say here. I have said a lot in past books and in some articles, and will say more in the Sand Creek book.

OMISSION: The fear of another Sand Creek attack was already in place long before Hancock reached the village (and as pointed out above, Tall Bull told Wynkoop of this fear after the meeting with Hancock). … You’ve missed another dramatic situation. Why not highlight the Indian battle line that confronted Hancock’s army miles before it reached the Pawnee Fork village? Wynkoop rode between the lines and prevented a battle that day. This is well documented.

ERROR: The Pawnee Fork village was occupied when Hancock’s army set up camp near it. This is well documented.

OMISSION: What about Wynkoop’s massive efforts to save the village from destruction after the Indians fled their village in fear of their lives? You’re writing about Wynkoop and yet you ignore this. Unbelievable.

LK suggestion: Read the chapter on “Hancock’s War” in Kraft, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), 178-201, and William Y. Chalfant, Hancock’s War: Conflict on the Southern Plains (Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2010) for information on what happened at the Pawnee Fork in April 1867.

LK comment: Obviously I have major problems with the Hancock 1867 expedition to confront the Cheyennes and Wynkoop’s participation in the events. You miss what happened, you miss the dramatics of what happened, and you exclude Wynkoop from the events, even though you are supposedly featuring him in this brochure.

Principle Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman (left) and traditional Cheyenne Peace Chief Harvey Pratt (who I met for the first time) on 11nov2011 at a Washita Battlefield NHS two-day symposium. On this day Gordon blessed the Washita village site and Harvey spoke about Cheyenne warriors of the past and today. On the 12th Gordon talked about what it is like to be a Cheyenne chief. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

LK comment: The NPS allowed three paragraphs for this section, and here is the final paragraph: “In September 1868, after a series of Cheyenne raids in Kansas, Major General William T. Sherman declared war on the Southern Cheyenne. Sherman’s winter campaign punished all Indians, both friendly and hostile. When Wynkoop realized that he could no longer protect the peaceful Indians, he resigned as Indian Agent in protest. He wanted no part in the murdering of innocent Indians.”

LK comment: Yikes!!! The above paragraph is true. But you have missed Wynkoop’s attempt to end the war, and worse Custer’s destruction of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on the Washita River on November 27, 1868, is ignored. In case you didn’t know it Wynkoop spoke before a standing room only audience at the Cooper Union in New York City damning what he considered the murder of innocent people. This is a very short paragraph and room must be made to rewrite and increase the word count.

Craig Moore leads a group of people on a tour of the upper Washita Battlefield NHS trail. Moore is a ranger at the Sand Creek Massacre NHS and helped out on this last day of the three-day event (December 4-6, 2008); I gave two performances as Wynkoop on the first two days and on the third spoke about his relationship with the Cheyennes. When Moore passed Custer Hill, the location from which Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer observed the battle of the Washita (27nov1868), a tragic day for on it Cheyenne Council Chief Black Kettle, his wife Medicine Woman Later (Voh-is-ta), Cheyenne Council Chief Little Rock, and others who did everything possible to remain at peace with the United States died. It was here that Custer learned that soldiers shot at women and children. He rushed to stop the outrage. Ben Clarke (yes, that is correct for I have seen over 500 pages in Clarke’s handwriting including signed letters and he always signed his last name with an “e”), Custer’s chief of scouts confirmed this, and Clarke was no friend of Custer. Three years later Moore spoke of Cheyenne lineage as related to the Sand Creek Massacre in November 2011. I spoke on Wynkoop’s outrage on that day, but he wanted nothing to do with me. Perhaps because I inserted a running commentary during his 2008 tour of the upper Washita, including comments about Stone Forehead. He allowed me to do it, but I don’t think he was pleased. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008, and he gave me full permission to use this image)

LK comment: Wynkoop will forever be remembered for his attempt to end the 1864 Cheyenne war, but the Wynkoop that should forever be remembered is the Wynkoop that did everything he could to prevent innocent people from being killed for the actions of the guilty in 1868. Although this won’t be in the brochure, it should be a highlight in the brochure.

Later Life (1869-1891)

LK note: The below paragraph is in response to this final section in the NPS brochure.

Ivan Hankla had set up his tepee at the Washita Battlefield NHS three-day symposium in December 2008. Ivan is at the left in his lodge. The fellow on the right is his nephew, Jake, who helped him at the event. The day was 6dec2008, and it was the last time I saw my friend on this earth. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

LK comment: This paragraph discusses information in detail that drifts far from Wynkoop’s Indian years, and although nicely written doesn’t add value to the brochure. John Chivington didn’t become Wynkoop’s “nemesis,” for Wynkoop simply ignored the man after Sand Creek. Chivington had become a symbol to Wynkoop, the man responsible for the butchery of people that had been guaranteed safety. For the rest of his life Wynkoop refused to acknowledge Chivington other than in relation to the attack at Sand Creek, which he considered a criminal act. Yes, Chivington played a key role in getting Louise Wynkoop Ned’s pension after his death, and he said kind words about Ned.

There’s always a damned “but.” … But your words have redeemed Chivington at the end of the brochure and leaves the reader with a positive final view of him. It’s good that Wynkoop was “honest and always a gentleman,” but I think here if you are going to use a quote by far the best choice is to repeat George Bent’s quote about Wynkoop. Reason: Not many white men tried to help American Indians. Wynkoop was one of the few whites that truly worked for American Indians, and Bent’s handful of words recognize this. I firmly believe that you should eliminate all reference to Chivington in the final section and go with Bent’s quote.

LK sitting near the bay window in the living room of Tujunga House (8may2004). Ivan Hankla made and gave me the parfleche above my head that April. It is a treasured gift. (photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

LK suggested rewrite of NPS Wynkoop brochure

The following is the suggested LK rewrite of the NPS Wynkoop brochure

This brochure is about Wynkoop. Often—way too often—the focus ignores this. If you want to bring his name to the fore of the Cheyenne Indian wars and point out what he did to walk between the races and work for Cheyennes and Arapahos you must maintain focus throughout the entire brochure. This can be done.

What follows isn’t egotistical. Rather it is an attempt to help you create a brochure that is not only true to who Ned Wynkoop was but will give the public that read the brochure a solid vision of who this man was and what he meant to the Cheyennes and Arapahos. … I am submitting a rewrite for this brochure (below). I hope you look at the words and decide if they present to the public who Ned Wynkoop was and why he was important to our Indian wars past.

LK note: I listed both my word count and the NPS brochure draft word count below each paragraph.

Wynkoop brochure heading

Edward W. (Ned) Wynkoop

Wynkoop brochure subheadings

“Best friend [the] Cheyennes and Arapahos ever had.”
– Mixed-blood Cheyenne George Bent

“This white man is not here to laugh at us…but on the contrary, unlike the rest of his race, he comes with a confidence in the pledges given by the red man.”
– Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle

Early Years (1836-1860)

While growing up in Philadelphia Edward “Ned” Wynkoop (born June 19, 1836) acquired a strong sense of duty, loyalty to country, and racial tolerance from his mother and older siblings. Intelligent, Wynkoop excelled at school and possessed a sound understanding of politics and diplomacy.
(LK paragraph word count, 44; NPS paragraph word count, 45)

The NPS chose the 1861 standing portrait of Wynkoop by his father-in-law that was created shortly after he became a captain in the 1st Colorado Volunteer Regiment as their leading image in the brochure. Wonderful choice! My editor at OU Press, Chuck Rankin, wanted to use the great image of Wynkoop, Capt. Silas Soule, Black Kettle, Bull Bear, John Smith, and others that was taken after the September 28, 1864, Camp Weld conference ended. I spent days trying to crop the image and make it work on a dust jacket and failed. I told Chuck that I wanted the 1861 portrait on the Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek dust jacket. I also said that I wanted it colorized. The art director didn’t colorize, but did do duotones. I couldn’t have been happier (even though he might have a different opinion). I’m certain that when I finally deliver the Sand Creek manuscript that he will begin to have heart palpitations, and cry out: “Oh Lord, no more Kraft!” That’s right, I have a sparkling reputation with production teams.

In 1856 Wynkoop followed his sister Emily and her husband to Lecompton, Kansas Territory, to seek his fortune. At this time violence predominated as Free-Staters and pro-slavery Border Ruffians battled for supremacy. To survive Wynkoop became skilled with weapons.
(LK paragraph word count, 39; NPS paragraph word count, 50)

LK note: This shortened paragraph may allow the Wynkoop portrait to move up slightly on the page.

Two years later Wynkoop migrated to the gold region to the east of the Rocky Mountains that would eventually become the city of Denver. At this time there was no town, law, or government. Although Denver began to thrive by spring 1860, Wynkoop, like many, struggled to survive as he worked as miner, land speculator, sheriff (which paid only upon conviction), and bartender. On the wild side, Wynkoop hung out with a rough crowd and became known as a “bad man from Kansas.” A professional actress named Louise Wakely caught his eye and he wooed her.
(LK paragraph word count, 96; NPS paragraph word count, 97)

Civil War Years (1861-1863)

An Act of Congress created Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. Less than two months later the Civil War began. Rumors swirled of a Confederate invasion of the Southwest. With the gold region threatened, in June the first territorial governor, William Gilpin, created the 1st Regiment of Colorado Volunteers even though he had no War Department authorization and no funds. Although Wynkoop still fluctuated between law and lawlessness Louise had calmed him down. He enlisted, and on July 31 received a commission as second lieutenant of Company A. On August 21 Wynkoop married Louise, and before month’s end a promotion made him captain and reporting to Major John M. Chivington.
(LK paragraph word count, 109; NPS paragraph word count, 110)

In January 1862 a Confederate brigade entered New Mexico Territory and defeated Union forces at the Battle of Valverde. Orders sent Wynkoop and the 1st Regiment south to confront the invasion. The Coloradans defeated the Confederates at what has since been known as the Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26-28). When the regiment’s commanding officer resigned in April promotions made Chivington colonel and Wynkoop major. On April 15 Chivington, Wynkoop, and the Coloradans, along with New Mexico Volunteers, defeated Rebel forces at the Battle of Peralta, near Las Lunas, and ended the Southern invasion. By November 1862 the regiment became the 1st Regiment of Colorado Cavalry. (LK paragraph word count, 106; NPS paragraph word count, 101)

Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865)

The second NPS image in the brochure is the done-to-death line art of Black Kettle by John Metcalf (without giving the artist credit). It is a poor choice as dramatic events confronted Wynkoop at this time, including facing the Cheyenne and Arapaho battle line on September 10, 1864 (this image represents Wynkoop seeing the battle line). He not only kept his cool but he maneuvered through potential death without violence that day. This art appeared in Wild West magazine (August 2014) and I will use it in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. I offered this art free of charge to the National Park Service to use in the Wynkoop brochure for the Fort Larned and Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Sites with the stipulation that it uses this credit: (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Wynkoop assumed command of Fort Lyon on the Santa Fe Trail in early May 1864. On September 3 he saw two letters from Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, who wanted to end the war that raged all summer. Wynkoop led 127 officers and men toward a large Cheyenne-Arapaho encampment on the Smoky Hill in Kansas to discuss peace. On the morning of September 10 Wynkoop faced a massive Indian battle line. He thought he and his command would die, but instead Black Kettle prevented violence, and he met Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal leaders in council. Although threatened with violence by Dog Man Chief Bull Bear Wynkoop remained calm (Dog Soldiers is a white-man term). Wynkoop received four white children and seven chiefs accompanied him to Camp Weld, below Denver, to discuss peace with second Territorial Governor John Evans. During the council Wynkoop and the chiefs thought that war had ended pending the decision of the U.S. government.
(LK paragraph word count, 156; NPS paragraph word count, 155)

The NPS’s third image is on page 2 in the Indian Agent section. It is an “Image of a typical Cheyenne village in the 1860s.” I might as well say this here: This is a brochure on Wynkoop. It has four images and only one is of Wynkoop, and it was taken long before Wynkoop met or worked with Cheyennes and Arapahos. Hello???? I don’t think I need to say anything else about the poor choice of images. This image appeared on page 124 of Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011). As it has many of the leading participants in the events that led up to Sand Creek, the attack, and the aftermath it is a major image and belongs in Wynkoop’s brochure. Partial caption from the Wynkoop book: “Kneeling in the foreground are Maj. Edward Wynkoop (left) and Capt. Silas Soule. Sitting (from left) are White Antelope (Southern Cheyenne), Bull Bear (Dog Soldier), Black Kettle (Southern Cheyenne), Neva (Arapaho), and No-ta-nee (Arapaho). Standing (from left) are unidentified, Trader Dexter Colley, Trader/Interpreter John Smith, Heap of Buffalo (Arapaho), Bosse (Arapaho), Secretary of Colorado Territory Samuel Elbert, unidentified soldier. Note that Neva has sometimes been identified as One-Eye (Southern Cheyenne), Heap of Buffalo has sometimes been identified as White Wolf (Kiowa), and that Bull Bear has sometimes been identified as the fourth sitting from the left, which is incorrect as a close examination of the many images of him in later life conclusively prove.” Courtesy: History Colorado (Scan #10025492)

On November 5, 1864, Maj. Scott Anthony relieved Wynkoop of command at Fort Lyon for acting without authority and feeding warring Indians. Wynkoop set up meetings and introduced Anthony to Black Kettle and Arapaho Chief Left Hand. Anthony demanded that they move away from the fort but promised military protection. By November 17 Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village camped on a bend of the Big Sandy. A small band of Left Hand’s people also camped there. Expecting to be court-martialed Wynkoop set out for Kansas on November 26.
(LK paragraph word count, 87; NPS paragraph word count, 88)

On the morning of November 29, 1864, Chivington and approximately 675 soldiers of mostly the 1st and 3rd Colorado Volunteer Cavalries attacked the Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Big Sandy Creek. The soldiers showed no mercy and killed women, children, and old people. Many horribly. Almost all the bodies were scalped and mutilated. Somewhere between 160 and 200 Cheyennes and Arapahos died in what has become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
(LK paragraph word count, 72; NPS paragraph word count, 80)

This is a detail of a woodcut that shows the chiefs that traveled to Denver and Camp Weld with Wynkoop in September 1864. It was created in the 19th century and is part of my collection. I colorized this image and offered it to the NPS as an alternate to the Camp Weld photo (the Camp Weld photo belongs in the Wynkoop brochure much more than the 1861 Wynkoop portrait). This image shows Bull Bear (left) and Black Kettle, both of whom played large roles in Wynkoop’s relationship with the Cheyennes. (Colorization © Louis Kraft 2013)

When Wynkoop learned of the attack his shock gave way to rage. He demanded an interview with Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis, who commanded the Department of Kansas. Curtis listened to Wynkoop, who damned Chivington for the murder innocent people. Exonerated for his actions, in late December Wynkoop received orders to resume command of Fort Lyon and report upon the attack. He interviewed participants and leaned that “three-fourths of [the dead] were women and children, among whom many were infants.” Wynkoop’s report along with other reports of the massacre resulted in two Congressional investigations and launched a U.S. Army Commission investigation. Chivington’s attack was officially condemned, but as he had previously resigned his military commission he was never court-martialed.
(LK paragraph word count, 118; NPS paragraph word count, 118)

The Sand Creek Massacre resulted in an Indian war of revenge that began in January 1865. Hoping to end the war peace commissioners met with tribal leaders on the Little Arkansas River in Kansas in fall 1865. Wynkoop commanded the military escort. Instead an arrow in the back as Wynkoop expected, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders asked he be named their agent.
(LK paragraph word count, 61; NPS paragraph word count, 58)

Indian Agent (1866-1868)

While on detached duty from the military in 1866 Wynkoop met Cheyenne and Dog Men leaders in council at Bluff Creek, Kansas (February 28-March 1) to get them to agree to railroad tracks crossing prime buffalo hunting grounds. Although threatened if Cheyennes touched the changed-1865 treaty paper Wynkoop, with Black Kettle and Bull Bear’s help, obtained needed signatures. In June Wynkoop, who now considered Indians human beings, resigned his military commission and applied to become an Indian agent. As a special agent Wynkoop fed hungry Cheyennes before President Andrew Johnson appointed him U.S. Indian agent in September 1866.
(LK paragraph word count, 97; NPS paragraph word count, 100)

The fourth and final NPS image is a long-distance image of Fort Larned, Ks. Who cares! The Fort Larned NHS brochure features a magnificent color artistic rendering of the fort. What value does a long shot of the fort provide to the Wynkoop brochure? Nothing, absolutely nothing. This image shows U.S. Indian agent Ned Wynkoop (left) with interpreter Dick Curtis, one of the interpreters accompanying Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s massive army as it approached the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork (about 35 miles due west of Fort Larned, Kans., in mid-April 1867). Wynkoop, with mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier, whom Wynkoop often used as an interpreter, rode between the lines and prevented violence between perhaps 400 Tsistsistas, Dog Men, and Lakotas and about 1400 soldiers under the command of Hancock. Later, after Hancock’s army camped close to the Indian village, the Indians deserted it in fear that they were about to be butchered. Wynkoop fought with Hancock for days to protect the deserted village as these people had done nothing wrong, other than fleeing in fear that they would be sexually murdered and desecrated as the Cheyennes and Arapahos had been at Sand Creek. Theodore R. Davis artwork. (Restoration © Louis Kraft 2009; in author’s personal collection)

Wynkoop established his agency near traditional Cheyenne hunting lands at Fort Larned in southwestern Kansas. The fort’s isolated location afforded an opportunity to protect his wards that desired peace. In spring 1867 Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock, with 1400 soldiers, threatened perhaps 12 leaders of the “Dog band,” as Wynkoop called the Dog Men, during a night meeting at Fort Larned on April 12. After the council Dog Man Chief Tall Bull told Wynkoop he feared another Sand Creek. Late that night Wynkoop tried but couldn’t stop Hancock from marching toward a Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork on the next day. When an Indian battle line confronted Hancock’s army Wynkoop rode between the lines and prevented violence. Soon after Hancock’s arrival at the village the Indians fled in fear of their lives. Wynkoop fought to save the Indians’ lodges and property, but Hancock refused to listen to him, destroyed the village, and as Wynkoop predicted started what has been called “Hancock’s War.”
(LK paragraph word count, 162; NPS paragraph word count, 163)

In August 1868 a Cheyenne-led war party killed settlers in central Kansas and started another war. Wynkoop could not stop it and resigned his commission in protest. After his friend Black Kettle (whom he called “Make-tava-tah”) died in a dawn attack on November 27, Wynkoop lashed out at U.S. government policy for what he considered wanton murder of innocent people in New York City on December 23.¹(LK paragraph word count, 67; NPS paragraph word count, 61)

¹ See Kraft, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), for variations of Black Kettle’s name including what Wynkoop called him, 111.

Later Life (1869-1891)

In 1869 Wynkoop applied to become Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but because he spoke out against government policy and dared to suggest that Indians become U.S. citizens his application was denied. Wynkoop lived another 22 years and more than once attempted to again work with Indians but the U.S. government refused each request. During these years Wynkoop performed numerous jobs as he provided for his family. He died in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, on September 11, 1891. George Bent, who as a Cheyenne mixed-blood, lived through the violent 1860s and beyond, called Wynkoop “the best friend [the] Cheyennes and Arapahos ever had.”
(LK paragraph word count, 103; NPS paragraph word count, 103)

LK note: Wynkoop suggested making Indians U.S. citizens at the Cooper Union in New York City on December 23, 1868. See “Indian Affairs,” New York Times (December 24, 1868), 1. When Johnny D. Boggs reviewed Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek, he wrote (in reference to Indians becoming citizens), “No wonder Wynkoop wore a gun.”

Obviously when LK next appears at a national historic site
he will be escorted off the premises by an armed guard.
Hell, that’s not so bad for he’ll soon have another life
experience that will be a first. The future is out there
and I can’t wait to walk into it.

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs

Who am I?

What the hell?

Finally Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and the winding road to today

Enter Chuck Rankin

Mr. Rankin & the OU Press staff

A few Ned Wynkoop reviews

Working as a biographer to create the Sand Creek manuscript

Chuck Rankin and a major announcement

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs

Not too long back in the past …

Helping other writers + LK books & plays

My writing world and welcome to it

Researching and writing a book in a year …

Let’s deal with the research

People are my life & my writing world

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog

A change of focus

There are two sides to every story

Another story

A July 25 email and the response

What to do?

“What to do?’ … yeah I sometimes vacillate

NPS Wynkoop brochure errors & omissions

Early Years (1836-1861)

Civil War Years (1861-1865)

The above is editorial opinion, and I sincerely hope you are not offended by it but agree with it.

Sand Creek Massacre

Indian Agent (1866-1868)

Later Life (1869-1891)

LK suggested rewrite of NPS Wynkoop brochure

Wynkoop brochure heading

Wynkoop brochure subheadings

Early Years (1836-1860)

Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865)

Later Life (1869-1891)

Finally
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
and the winding road to today

The above is editorial opinion, and I sincerely hope you are
not offended by it but agree with it.