THE COWBOY PRESIDENT

by Michael F. Blake

  The book review, which had hurt Theodore’s feelings, sparked a long friendship between the two men, who shared a deep interest in conservation, especially saving wildlife. “He was always fond of natural history, having begun, as so many boys have done, with birds; but as he saw more and more of outdoor life his interest in the subject broadened, and later it became a passion with him,” Grinnell commented.3

  The release of his book coincided with Theodore’s move into his new home at Oyster Bay. Designed by the Manhattan architectural firm of Lamb and Rich, the construction cost was estimated to be $16,975. (Theodore purchased the 155 acres for $30,000.) A massive three-story Queen Anne–style home, it boasted twenty-two rooms, including thirteen bedrooms, and three bathrooms. It was large enough to hold his growing collection of hunting trophies and books, although, in 1905, Theodore added the North Room. In the autumn of 1885, Theodore changed the name of the home from Leeholm to Sagamore Hill. The new name ( Sagamore translates to “chief ” or “head of tribe”) was chosen because the area had been frequented by the Algonquin tribe. It was also another way for Theodore to erase the memory of Alice from his life. He spent many days hiking, swimming, and playing with Baby Lee on the large lawn. Friends and family members came for extended visits, including Eleanor, the youngest daughter of his brother Elliott. It was an idyllic time for Theodore, even if many thought the home was terribly large for just a widower and his baby daughter.

  As much as he loved his new home, Theodore returned to Medora on August 25. Once in town, he placed an announcement on behalf of the Little Missouri Stockmen’s Association in the Bad Lands Cow Boy for a September 5 meeting. This meeting would require members to choose the time and location for the fall roundup, as well as hold elections for officers. (Despite Theodore’s suggestion that the chairman’s position be appointed to someone who lived year-round in the Badlands, he was reelected.)

  While at the newspaper office, Theodore learned that the Marquis de Morès, who had been indicted by a grand jury in Mandan for the killing of Riley Luffsey, was being held in the town’s jail until his trial.4 Theodore and the Marquis maintained a cordial association, dining together on several occasions, including a dinner at Bamie’s home in New York. Only once had the two men had a disagreement, when, in the spring of 1885, the Marquis had agreed to purchase nearly one hundred cattle from Theodore at the price of six cents a pound. Upon delivery of the herd, the Marquis stated he was reducing the purchase price by half a cent due to a price drop in the Chicago beef market. Insisting a deal was a deal, Theodore took back his cattle, refusing to ever do business with the Marquis again.5

  Frank B. Allen, the Marquis’s lawyer, successfully petitioned to have the trial moved to Bismarck, as a lynch mob was making threats around the Mandan jail.6 Sitting in his jail cell gave the Marquis plenty of time to contemplate who was behind this latest judicial action. He suspected Joe Ferris was paying witnesses to testify against him, including Dutch Wannegan, one of two survivors of the 1883 ambush. In reality, Ferris, who owned a general store, acted as an informal banker for many residents of Medora, holding their money until they requested the funds. Those who went to Bismarck to testify had simply used their funds, held by Ferris, for train fare. The Marquis also began to question Theodore’s motives because he was a close friend of Joe Ferris, and had recently hired Wannegan as a ranch hand.

  This could explain, no matter how dubious the reasoning, why the Marquis sent a letter to Theodore from his cell on September 3, 1885.

  My Dear Roosevelt,

  My principle is to take the bull by the horns. Joe Ferris is very active against me and has been instrumental in getting me indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up. The papers also publish very stupid accounts of our quarreling—I sent you the paper to N.Y. Is this done by your orders? I thought you my friend. If you are my enemy I want to know it. I am always on hand as you know, and between gentlemen it is easy to settle matters of that sort directly.

  Yours very truly,

  Morès

  I hear the people want to organize the county. I am opposed to it for one year more at least.7

  Theodore, in dramatic fashion, assumed the Marquis was challenging him to a duel. As the challenged party, he could choose the weapons. Since he wasn’t as handy with a pistol, Theodore decided he would pick a rifle if it came to a duel. Three days later, Theodore sent his reply.

  Most emphatically I am not your enemy; if I were, you would know it, for I would be an open one, and would not have asked you to my house nor gone to yours. As your final words, however, seem to imply a threat, it is due to myself to say that the statement is not made through any fear of possible consequences to me; I, too, as you know, am always on hand, and ever ready to hold myself accountable in any way for anything I have said or done.

  Yours very truly,

  Theodore Roosevelt8

  Many years after the fact, Bill Sewall and Frank Roberts claimed that Theodore stated the Marquis sent him a second note (which no longer exists), saying they could settle their differences without trouble.9 It was highly unlikely that the Marquis was seeking a duel; it sounded more like wounded feelings, as he believed that Theodore was a friend. Reading the note the first time, Theodore likely jumped to the impression he was being challenged, and overexaggerated the intent of the letter. Also, Theodore paid the Marquis a visit on September 16 while he sat in the Bismarck jail, awaiting trial10—hardly the action of a man expecting a duel.

  The trial began on September 12, and thirteen days later, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict within a few minutes. However, a more serious matter awaited the Marquis: His business ventures were failing. The Medora and Black Hills Stage and Forwarding Company, announced with the typical flourish one would expect from the Marquis, was a prime example. Deadwood, the gold town best known for being where Wild Bill Hickok had cashed in his chips in August 1876 after Jack McCall shot him in the Number 10 Saloon, was still thriving as a mining town. However, it lacked any direct transportation from the north. The Marquis quickly seized on the idea of running a stage from Medora to Deadwood, promptly hiring A. T. Packard to supervise the stage line, in addition to his editorial duties with Medora’s newspaper. The Marquis was banking heavily on obtaining a government contract to deliver mail to Deadwood, which would provide his venture with welcome and needed capital. A single ticket for the thirty-five-and-a-half-hour ride, which began operation in October 1884, was $21.50. The stage would make a thrice-weekly run, leaving Medora at eight-thirty in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, arriving in Deadwood at six in the evening on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Among the many headaches for the infant stage line were half-broken horses that had no desire to be hooked up to harnesses, providing passengers with a wild ride many were not expecting. Failing to obtain the government contract to carry mail doomed the stage line. Commenting on the stage’s last run on May 19, 1885, the Dickinson Press noted “the Medora Stage and Forwarding Company is a total wreck.”11

  In addition to the stage line’s failure, the Marquis’s cattle-dressing operation was severely in need of more cattle to process through his slaughterhouse. By June 1885, the Marquis’s abattoir was processing only 40 to 80 cattle a day, when he needed at least 400 to 500 a day to make a profit. He tried bringing in sheep and pigs during November and December of 1884, with little success.12 Aside from the high costs of running his business, the Eastern beef trust was his biggest opponent. They did everything to damage his chances of success, including not having ice for the refrigerated cars at certain stops along the way to New York. Another problem was with the public, who preferred the taste of corn-fed beef to the Marquis’s grass-fed herds. Despite the setbacks, the Marquis maintained a brave front.13

  The Elkhorn Ranch had some of its roughness smoothed over that summer with the arrival of Bill Sewall’s wife, Mary, and daughter, Kittie, along with Wilmot Dow’s new bride, Lizzie.14 The cabin windows sported curtains, and meals were supplemented
with bread, cakes, and wild-berry jam. It took the two women a while to adjust to ranch life, because they had no neighbors nearby as they’d had in their Maine village. The vegetable garden plants withered and died in the heat of that summer, while the water contained so much alkaline, it made Kittie sick. The only way to make it potable was to buy lemons from a grocer in Medora and mix their juice into the water.15 Mary Sewall saw the beauty in the area, but Bill remained skeptical about raising cattle in this territory.

  Grass fires broke out that summer near the Elkhorn, which many ranchers suspected were started by a small group of Indians. Prairie-grass fires, like any blaze, are dangerous, and these had plenty of fuel to feed upon. Most grass fires in the Badlands area were caused by lightning strikes, embers from a passing train, a piece of burning coal from a nearby vein, or by cattle thieves covering their tracks.16 Theodore said the quickest way to fight such a blaze was to kill a steer, splitting “it in two length-wise, and then have two riders drag each half-steer, the rope of one running from his saddle-horn to the front leg, and that of the other to the hind leg . . . the two would then ride forward, dragging the steer bloody side downward along the line of flame.”17 Other men on foot would follow with wet blankets to beat out any remaining flames. Although Theodore said it was exciting work, he also noted that it was very exhausting.

  Even though the tribes of the Northern Plains had been defeated and removed to various reservations, ranchers in the Badlands area still had to deal occasionally with some young men who left the reservation in hopes of stealing cattle or horses to prove their manhood. Most white settlers failed to understand that for a male Indian, fighting was a way of life. It was their way of proving themselves, advancing into manhood. Another way that these men distinguished themselves was in their display of valor and bravery by riding alone to an enemy, either alive or dead, and touching him with their hand or a stick. The warrior would then cry out that he had vanquished his opponent; his fellow tribe members were witnesses. Among many tribes this was known as “counting coup.” Those who performed such acts were given the right to wear an eagle feather in their hair, a prized honor. Warriors well known for their acts of counting coup were highly regarded within their tribe.

  Raiding a different tribe, or ranch, and taking as many horses or cattle as possible was another identification of a brave fighter, not to mention that this made him a strong provider for his family and tribe. As the farmers and ranchers settled in the Western lands, their stock became prime targets for Indians desiring to increase their standing within their tribe. (During the fur trade era, it was not uncommon for Indians and mountain men to engage in a running game of stealing mounts, stealing them back, and then getting them stolen once again.)

  Young males on the various reservations felt the need to prove themselves to their elders, whether by counting coup, stealing livestock, or simply hunting to provide for family members. Life on a reservation was not what a young male was accustomed to, and simply sneaking off without the reservation agent knowing about it was a successful step. Ranchers in the Little Missouri River area, however, had minimal, if any, dealings with the Indians. Their experience was generally confined to losing some stock, although most thefts were the acts of cattle rustlers. Some Indians came by various ranches looking for food; as Lincoln Lang noted, “they were always hungry.”18

  Theodore said he got along particularly well with the Indians that visited his ranch, commenting that he treated them as fairly as any white man. However, he once came across a band of young braves out to prove themselves. Describing such young braves as “truculent, insolent, and reckless,” he said any man that met such a party ran the “risk of losing his horse, his rifle, and all else he has.”19 Theodore’s encounter happened in September when he was on the range, north and east from the Elkhorn, with the Killdeer Mountains in the distance. He said it was close to the noon hour when he topped a small rise and moved out onto a plateau. There, he stated, he spotted four or five Indians abruptly coming up over the edge in front of him.

  “The second they saw me they whipped their guns out of their slings, started their horses into a dead run, and came on at full tilt, whooping and brandishing their weapons,” Theodore recalled. Quickly dismounting and using his horse, Manitou, as a shield, he realized the level plain where he stood was the best of all terrain on which to make a stand, instead of broken country, because “a white man is at a great disadvantage if pitted against such adepts in the art of hiding as Indians.” Unlike other horses that would run off from a running Indian charge, complete with whoops, Manitou stood his ground, “steady as a rock.” Waiting until the band was about a hundred yards off, Theodore threw up his rifle and took aim on the leader. His actions caused the group to scatter, forcing them to double back, “bending over alongside their horses.”20 Gathering a distance away from him, the Indians briefly talked among themselves before one came riding up. He dropped his rifle and waved his blanket over his head.

  When he came within fifty yards I stopped him, and he pulled out a piece of paper—all Indians, when absent from their reservations, are supposed to carry passes—and called out, “How! Me good Indian!” I answered, “How,” and assured him most sincerely I was very glad he was a good Indian, but I would not let him come closer; and when his companions began to draw near, I covered him with the rifle and made him move off, which he did with a sudden lapse into the most canonical Anglo-Saxon profanity.21

  Theodore led Manitou out onto the prairie, while the band of Indians lingered, watching him. He headed in one direction, the Indians, in another. “It had passed all too quickly for me to have time to get frightened,” he wrote, but during the rest of his ride, he was uneasy, and “pushed tough, speedy old Manitou along at a rapid rate.” He never saw the Indians again and admitted that they may not have intended any mischief, but he was not about to give them an opportunity. Later that night, he met two riders who told him the Indians he had encountered were young Sioux “bucks,” and had stolen two of their horses earlier in the day.22

  Like other men of his time, Theodore’s opinions about Indians were very direct and likely leave today’s readers uncomfortable. He distributed the blame equally for depredations, with neither side free of criticism. “I could recite a dozen instances of white outrages which, if told alone, would seem to justify all the outcry raised on behalf of the Indian; and I could also tell of as many Indian atrocities which make one almost feel that not a single one of the race should be left alive,” he once stated.23 Theodore felt that the main trouble derived from each side holding “the race, and not the individual, responsible for the deeds of the latter.” He noted that whites or Indians that did not commit any outrages were also quick not to prevent his fellow men from stealing or attacking a rival race. To Theodore’s way of thinking, it was not the entire race that was the problem but the individual, or groups of individuals, that were the root of the problem. Yet he was also keen to point out others who either simply stood by and did nothing or eventually took part in the action.

  In his Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, Theodore cited two instances that backed up his opinion. The first story was of a German-born ranch hand who had once worked for him. In Minnesota, this man’s family grew up around many Sioux, two of whom became very close friends to his family. When the 1862 Sioux uprising took place over unfair annuity payments by the Indian agents, many settlers were killed or taken prisoner. The two friendly Sioux tried their best to rescue this man’s family, and pleaded that their lives be spared. The chief killed the boy’s mother, and the two friendly Indians killed the other family members, except for the boy.

  In Theodore’s second narrative, a cowboy related how a small group of Indians had spent a winter near the ranch that employed him. The chief of this group owned two fine horses that the cowboy admired. He took such a liking to them that he drove the two horses off, hiding them in a location where the Indians would not find them. The chief was upset at the loss of his two fine animals
and searched for them in vain. A few weeks later, one of the cowboy’s horses strayed and could not be found. With the spring thaw, the Indians moved on. The chief returned to the ranch a few days later with the cowboy’s stray mount. Feeling guilty, the cowboy led the chief to where he had hidden the leader’s two horses.24

  However, when it came to the claim that white settlers had taken the Indians’ land, Theodore was unapologetic. Calling it “sentimental nonsense,” he was quick to note that “gross wrong” was committed by the government and individuals over and over. “The government makes promises impossible to perform, and then fails to do even what it might toward their fulfilment,” he commented.25 Theodore also noted that when one combines “brutal and reckless” frontiersmen with “treacherous, revengeful, and fiendishly cruel” Indians, a “long series of outrages” from both sides will follow. When it came to the claims that the Native Americans’ land had been taken by whites, Theodore flatly stated that, at least as far as the Western Indians were concerned, “the simple truth is that the latter never had any real ownership in it at all. Where the game was plenty, there they hunted; they followed it when it moved away to new hunting-grounds, unless they were prevented by stronger rivals; and to most of the land on which we found them they had no stronger claim than that of having a few years previously butchered the original occupants.”26