Posers at Little Big Horn
BinhTuy66 sends us a link which is a few years old at “Little Big Horn History” which says that more than 200 men claimed to be the lone survivor at the famous battle. We tend to think that being a military phony is a recent phenomenon of the last century, but apparently not;
The newspapers of the day ran hundreds of such stories. Most of the accounts are complete flights of fantasy and offer no documentation to support their claim. Some of the men and their fanciful tales have believers to this day and have entered the realm of Little Big Horn folklore.
So, journalists have been regularly enablers of these posers, more interested in the story than the fact. Here are some examples;
Joe Blonger- Blonger (Belonger) (1847-1933) Claimed he missed the Battle of the Little Big Horn because there weren’t enough horses to go around. He said he arrived on the battlefield after the massacre and questioned the Indian children about what really happened. The Indian children also told him who killed Custer, a secret he only shared with family members. Blonger was good friends with Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Cochise and Wild Bill Hickock. He also scouted with Buffalo Bill. The Apaches called Blonger “Joe straight tongue.” Died 1933 Seattle, WA.
William Theodore Dugard- (1864-1937) Dugard claimed to be one of Custer’s ‘Mississippi Scouts.” Unfortunately Dugard was only twelve years old at the time of the battle and Custer had no “Mississippi Scouts.” During his lifetime Dugard was somewhat of a celebrity in his hometown of Tupelo, Miss., and played organ from the back of a wagon during parades. Buried Tupelo, Miss. In 2001 Mississippi erected a military tombstone with the inscription- “Custer Co. -Mississippi Scouts- Battle of the Little Bighorn .”
Curly Hicks- Sent to Gen. Terry for reinforcements, Hicks escaped the battlefield by using two dead Indians as a shield. Hicks claimed he was the famed scout for Custer known as Curly.
You can see similarities to modern days phonies’ stories. But, it seems to me that if there were this many survivors at the battle, the Indians might have noticed a crowd of 200 phonies getting their stories straight.
Category: Historical
“We tend to think that being a military phony is a recent phenomenon of the last century, but apparently not” – John
Soon after I started reading on phonies, I read about phony vets/embellishers from the early to mid 20th centuries. Then there was an article either on this site, or elsewhere, about guys claiming to be the last living confederate soldier.
When I look at pictures of Civil War Veteran get-togethers, I start wondering… which of those faces belongs to someone that didn’t serve on either side during the Civil War?
I’d say they had phonies for thousands of years. During the Roman times, in many places involving social gatherings to include the public bathrooms, someone that didn’t serve regaled others with these stories of daring dos and of having served for one Roman general or another at some campaign.
Oh, it probably goes back further then that.
“Yeah, I managed to escape the Sack of Troy and the enslavement of the Trojan women by those damned Spartans. I helped them find the escape tunnel to Mount Ida. Buried the family jewels in one of the walls.’
Honest Injun, it was *ME*!!
😉
ChipNASA! Thanks for the spew warning. Now I gotta get a rag to clean my keyboard. 😀
Kinda makes you wonder how many Sioux might have spun their own bullshit yarns about the same battle. Fakery knows no race or creed.
I wonder if one of them was name Monkress?
But wait, Commander Phil Monkress at All-Points Logistics is a Native American!
So what side was his relative on?
This sounds like a good question to ask him!
Commander Phil Monkress the First at Some-Points Logistics was in charge of the wagons for supplies and being a sniper against the Indians, was busy working on a government contract for sides of bacon and pickled eggs when the battle went down. He did manage to get one sniper round off. However, it was a miss and hit the last trooper defending Custer. Left standing alone…Custer gave one look over the ridge at his supposed, expert sniper, flipped Monkress the bird and then the arrows began to hit him. Brings a tear to my eye. In the end, Monkress survived and his family went on to stolen valor claims through the decades to come and also lucrative government contracts. Today they are know as All-Points Logistics, Indian and veteran owned and operated with experience and ineptitude dating back to the Indian Wars.
Awesome. Just simply awesome.
And do not forget Paul (of the Ballsack)’s ancestors were right along side Commander Monkress stealing the gear in the rear while Custer was on the line!
Green Thumb: is that about when they Anglicized the family name from “de Balzac”? (smile)
200? That’s nothing. I heard that over 10,000 Indians claimed they were there. (What’s that? There were 10,000 Indians there?) Oh. Never mind.
*snerk*….golf clap…..
May still be a problem, 2/17 Air Cav. Best estimates I’ve seen ranged from 900-2,500 on the Lakota side. If there were 10,000 claiming to have been there, well . . . . (smile)
Yep 2/17 Air Cav…you can hear it told on reservations everywhere. My great, great, great grandfather scalped Custer. He was Little Man Cumsalot and Ten Bears, Geronimo and Sitting Bull gave him the honor. It wasn’t his kill but he was small so they let him take the scalp of “Yellow Hair”. It took him three tries because he was a general fuck up and finally the others said “fuckum you Cumsalot, you’um heap big ass hole” and did it themselves. Still told around campfires everywhere.
Yer on a roll today, Sparks. (smile)
kinda like Brushy Bill Roberts claiming till he died that he was Billy the Kid. (Still people today who believe that and “Young Guns”, despite DNA testing which proved otherwise.)
There are all kinds of fakers out there, usually faking for the same reasons: Either to try and sell something, or to boost their reputation in the eyes of others.
Military faking is probably the easiest kind, because before WWII records were not well kept and the transient nature of military service (especially in wartime) makes it difficult to prove someone was NOT at such-and-such battle.
Reminds me of what some people said about the French Resistance in WWII. During the war, it was difficult to find the resistance but after the war it seemed like everybody you met in every village was in the “maquis”. Makes you wonder how the Germans were able to get anything done with those hundreds of thousands of “French resistance” fighters out there!
To be fair, in french, the term resistance translates roughly into rolling one’s eyes with a hint of irritation…so lots of them figure they were qualified….
French Resistance during WWII-the waiters were even slower and ruder to the Germans. “Your soup is cold. Take THAT filthy Boche.”
Think I read once there were actually about 2-4000 actual Resistance members during the war, and ten times that many claimed it after the war.
Technically there were scores of white survivors of Little big horn from the 7th Cavalry, Just not any from the 5 companies that rode with Custer.
The”battalions” under Reno and Benteen Survived.
Posers and bullshitters have been around forever.
What about Frank Finkel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Finkel
Hey, I think I found the “boats” used by all the folks who claimed to be with George Washington when he crossed the Delaware:
http://maritime-connector.com/worlds-largest-ships/
I have grown interested in a local man who had a key, though backstage, role in the beginning of the Civil War (he was later killed in a skirmish in 1864 and had two other brothers killed in battle-one fairly famously). So I went to his gravesite behind a local church and found his stone and read what it said about him. Then I looked at some of the other old gravestones and found one that was inscribed “Col.” so-and-so. Now, this man lived from like 1780-1840 and I sincerely doubt that he had any sort of commend in the war of 1812 or any of the Indian conflicts so I figure the title was either an honorific from the state government or reflects his standing in the local militia (which at the time was often organized-such as it was-by local panjandrum’s for their own purposes).
Anyway-it was almost certainly a sign of his status (the cemetery at the time would have been where the local hoi polloi were entombed) and probably reflected no actual military service. It’s a very old thing for high status people to have some sort of title (and for lower status people to both resent and envy that). The U.S. cannot grant any titles of nobility, but those with connections probably substituted military rank for at least part of our history.
TLDR-this has been going on for a long time and plenty of people have claimed status that they really didn’t earn for their own purposes.
One thing that was very common was for Veteran’s groups following the civil war to bestow ranks on the members of each chapter. I had a distant relative who was a teenage Private in the 49th Alabama. He moved to Houston and was a successful merchant. Later he became very active in the Confederate Veteran’s organizations and helped organize reunions. He Attended the 50th Anniversary of Gettysburg even though he fought in the “Western” Theatre. He was known throughout the community as Brigadier General, and wore a VETERAN’S orginization uniform of that rank. He was actually a private. His best friend in his later years was Edwin Shearer, A Brigadier General in the Grand Army of the Republic who was also a Wartime Private (Union).
It was pretty common for veterans as they got older to be referred to as “Captain” or “Colonel” sometimes because of veterans titles, or sometimes from respect.
Then there were those that were bullshitters. One of the worst had to be a female Loretta Vasquez, who wrote a book in which she claimed to has been disguised as a male Lt “Harry Buford” and served on the Confederate General Staff at both Bull Run and Wilson’s Creek.
Yeah, I understand that by 2 A.D. there were something in the order of 1,500 claiming to have been at the Last Supper.
@ Mike,
After reading your above post “Frank Finkle” lone survivor? I had to reflect upon this.
I rode out to the “greasy grass” and lay on my back upon a knoll. I stared to the skies and asked my ancestors above, “did you really let some dude named Frank Finkle escape?”
A thundercloud appeared above. I saw many horses running and in a vision I heard my ancestors speak to me. “Not really, we stopped Finkle at the Medicine Bow Checkpoint. After we determined he was a Bat Shit Crazy Certified Poser, we kicked him loose. You know, it’s that Geneva Convention thing.”
Now you have the true story of Frank Finkle.
LOL!!! 🙂