 Hello, everyone. I'm Chris Wimmer, author of the Summer of 1876. Thank you all for tuning in, whoever is tuning in and wherever you are live on YouTube. Or if you happen to watch this video down the road on the National Archives YouTube channel, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And of course, a huge thank you to everyone at the National Archives for the invitation to do this presentation. It certainly was not something I ever dreamed of being able to do when I wrote the book. It's a huge honor to be able to do this. So thank you to everyone behind the scenes. A huge thank you to the tech folks, the technology folks at National Archives who has helped me get this thing all set up. I'm not the world's greatest technology person. So thank you everyone for helping me get this set up. I really appreciate it. Hopefully this will be a decent and fun presentation. The basics of what I want to try to do here today are to do, I guess, what I've been thinking of as the Sports Center highlight version of the book. Well, I'm going to cherry pick some of the interesting highlights from the book, which are also of course in that critical summer of 1876. I'm going to walk through the timeline of those to show you how close they happen to each other and sometimes happened on top of each other or overlapped in long periods of time. That's going to be the basic context here the basic point of the presentation but before we get started with any of that. I want to give you a little bit of information about myself explained to you who I am where I came from I promise I will go through that stuff quickly. So I'm not boring anyone to death that is certainly the worst possible outcome of this presentation. So we're going to start with that. I want to give you a little bit of the genesis of the book to. I'm the type of person who always really likes that stuff I'm the guy who bought the DVDs of the movies and watched all the behind the scenes special features so I could see how the movie was made and how it got written. I always like that stuff. I hope you do too so I'm going to share a little bit of that. So let's start with basically myself I'm Chris Wimmer as I just said, I was born and raised into more in Iowa, I went to the University of Iowa for college so yes I am a long suffering Iowa Hawkeye fan. If anyone's in the comments right now and they want to insert their jokes about how boring Iowa football is, I completely understand and I agree with all of them don't worry. That's who that's what I grew up with I was there during some really tough years at Iowa football. But after that I went out to Hollywood and worked in the film industry for 14 years. It was always my dream to be a movie director I was that kid with the big dream we thought he could be a movie director from Des Moines, Iowa. And I went out to Hollywood and I was fortunate enough to be able to work out there for 14 years which was an incredible experience. And I had a lot of those dream come true moments of standing in Hollywood and going through some of these experiences thing I can't believe I'm here this is incredible. But ultimately I was never able to get to that director's chair and do what I wanted to do. But over the course of those 14 years I spent the last six, focusing exclusively on writing screenplays I worked with a screenplay partner. And he and I wrote lots of different screenplays and we came very close to selling several of them. And then we had that story that ends in the way so many do where we just couldn't get over the hump. We couldn't sell any of the screenplays and eventually I just got burned out with the whole process and decided, if I'm going to do anything else with my life, it would be to write about college football, I decided I'm going to go into a career of sports journalism. So I came here to Phoenix, Arizona where I am now and went to Arizona State University to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and got a master's degree from journalism and embarked on a career to become a college football writer. That was the next career path. And during that whole transitional period, I was becoming addicted to podcasts. And I think like many people I think it's probably the obvious first step when you decide you want to test out this thing called a podcast and figure out what they are and how you're going to get out there and what you're going to like, you open up a podcast app and you type in whatever subject you're interested in listening to. And so of course I did that, I listened to all kinds of college football podcasts. And naturally, one of the things that I tried to find was a podcast dedicated to true stories of the Old West. And at the time this is back in 2016-2017. There were four, five, six podcasts that told stories about the Old West, but none of them produced episodes regularly. And none of them produced episodes the way I really wanted to hear them I had heard podcasts that were really creative when they would tell long form stories over multiple episodes with music and sound effects, just like a TV shows like an audio TV show like the old time radio plays or radio dramas from the 30s and 40s. And so that's the style that I wanted to hear and so I thought man I think I can actually do this this is a really interesting creative medium here. I could take some of the stuff I was doing in Hollywood and transfer it to the podcast world. So I started a podcast called Legends of the Old West, which I apologize there we go. I'll take my screen sharing is technology glitch number one. So I started a podcast called Legends of the Old West, which is exactly that. It tells the true stories of some of the biggest and some of the most underrated or under told stories of the Old West era. And we tried to do it in a long form series. So you get enough detail you get a lot of detail but also hopefully a very entertaining fun fast package. And it was through this podcast the creation of this podcast while I was still working at a small town in Brenham, Texas so shout out to Brenham, Texas if anyone's ever heard of Brenham, Texas. It's about an hour outside Houston, and that is where blue bell ice cream is from so if you've ever eaten blue bell ice cream you know what blue bell ice cream is. That's how you probably know of the town of Brenham, Texas. I was working there as a small town newspaper reporter, and I was becoming addicted to podcasts and I decided I wanted to start my own podcast. And this was this was the result Legends of the Old West and it was through this podcast that the book happened. It was a direct result of this podcast. So I knew in the very beginning when I was starting a podcast that I'd never done one of these things before I had to teach myself how you made one of these things and then of course how you get it out into the world and how you tell the world that it's there and it exists. So, one of the early marketing efforts I did was like an indirect marketing effort which was basically, I knew I had to start with the biggest most prominent stories of the Old West era. Name recognition was probably what was going to interest. Most people who just found the podcast randomly on their own so I started with the story of tombstone and the gunfight at the okay corral and I quickly did stories of why it happened in tombstone and the gunfight at the okay corral and Jesse James and Deadwood and Wild Bill Hickok and Red Clouds war, the first major Native American campaign versus the US Army on the northern plains in the late 1860s. And I was doing all these stories and doing all this individual research on these on these ideas because they were really prominent and really popular and I really wanted to tell those stories first. So, that was where that was what ended up leading me to have the epiphany that I had in 2019, and I'll get to that in just a second but the next step on top of that was it at the same time. I started another podcast called infamous America. And season two of that podcast was the amazing story of the 1919 World Series baseball scandal, the black sock scandal. And as a part of that really heavy research process for the black sock scandal. I laid down a rabbit hole of reading the entire history of early baseball and went all the way back to the beginning and traced its roots. And as a part of that process I learned that the National League started in 1876. So along came the summer of 2019. And I had done all this research for legends of the old west of all these stories individually that all had some component that happened in 1876. I had also done the baseball story the black sock scandal, which had a component for 1876. And it was in the summer of 2019 that it hit me. So many of these stories have so much overlap, and there is about a 90 day period of time, when all of these huge events happen and that's a really interesting story that I had never seen and into the other books I had read. Of course, each book individually focuses on the career of Jesse James, as it's supposed to, but it doesn't tell you that just a couple hundred miles away. White Earp and Bat Masterson are working in Dodge City at the same time that Jesse James is doing a lot of the things he's doing in that specific year of 1876 and so the context and the overlap of all these major story lines really intrigued me. And so a year later, I decided I was on a phone call with a guy at Apple podcast who ended up becoming a really good friend and really critical to our launch of our small podcast business and I just randomly mentioned to him. Hey, I've got this book idea, and here's what it is and I told him about the book idea really quickly. And he said, Oh, you know who you should talk to is the woman who runs the Macmillan publishers podcast division. She might be really interested in this story so he connected me to her. I did a quick pitch for her about the book. She liked the idea she connected me to a vice president and say Martin's press I did a quick pitch for her. The two of them did a quick pitch for an executive editor at St. Martin's press. He liked the quick pitch idea. He asked for a proposal. I wrote the proposal. And then we were off to the races, March 2021. The book was green lit and now here we are two years later, it has actually been published. And it's out there in the world and it's still a little bit hard to believe that this is actually happened and it of course at the time it sounded like two years, you know, May of 2023 was an e on the way. It was incredibly quickly of course so that was that's a little bit about me and that's the genesis of the book that's how this thing actually happened it came straight out of the podcast and understanding that I had done all this separate research but I had never seen a book to put all of these storylines together in one narrative. So that became what I wanted to try to do. I wanted to write a book that focused more on the overlap and the context, and was not necessarily a deep dive into any one subject because of course, you can go buy incredible stories about each of those subjects individually. So I wanted to do one that was about the context. So here was the, the bay here the five basic storylines that I put into the book so obviously the biggest one is the US Army campaign on the northern planes, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer sitting bull, crazy horse, all of that culminates in the battle of the little big horn. Next is the Deadwood storyline, the rise of this raucous boom town in Dakota territory. There was an illegal mining camp that grew into the richest boom town in American history and of course was the setting for the end of Wild Bill Hickox life. And then there was Dodge City down on the Kansas Plains, where Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson teamed up as lawmen for the first time. And then there was the Jesse James storyline he robs a train in July of 1876, which then helps lead him a little bit to this big disaster that happens in September 1876. And then the first season of National League Baseball started and the first season of National League Baseball is playing its games on the East Coast and what we would now call the Midwest, all during that whole time frame of the summer of 1876 and then of course the spring and into the fall. And then in the background, while all of that is happening there's also the first World's Fair in American history happening in Philadelphia for six months so that's also operating in the background as well as what ended up being at least at the time, the most chaotic presidential campaign in American history, the summer of 76 was the, the campaign or the the conventions for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The election in November, which had a totally chaotic outcome that we're not really going to get into in this time around but these were the major storylines that all had overlap in that summer of 1876 and specifically in the 90 day period of time that I referenced earlier so what I'm we're going to do is walk through some of the highlights of those I'm going to show you an amazing timeline this is this is the peak of PowerPoint skills that you're about to see right now so we're going to get into the I'm going to show you some of the events so first up on the list is a slide that apparently I missed I apologize. First up on the list is the battle of the of the Rosebud that happened in June 17, June 17 1876. That was the first major engagement of this campaign of a whole long campaign so what happened was. And again something I really enjoy and really enjoy looking at so that I put a lot of this in the book but I'm not going to go through all of it right now but I always like to know how things happen. Nothing happens in a vacuum, of course nothing happens in isolation, the battle of the Rosebud and the battle of the little big horn didn't just drop out of the sky, and suddenly materialize there was a long build up to them. The build up really starts for our purposes here today in about February of 1876. This gentleman on the right side of your screen is General Phil Sheridan. He was the commander of the military division of the Missouri this area and read that you can see on your screen, everything from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. That's his domain and everything from the Canadian border to the to the Mexican border down south. That's his domain he supervises everything there now of course in that domain up in that Montana Wyoming area, and what was then called Dakota territory north and South Dakota. That was the domain of the Northern Cheyenne and the Lakota. At the time, they were supposed to have been supposed to have had all that land up there in perpetuity, but at the end of 1875 and leading into 1876. President Ulysses grant green light a plant green lit a plan to allow General Phil Sheridan to send the US Army on to the Northern Plains and round up all the last free roaming Native Americans who were there and force them on to reservations. What Sheridan wanted to do was to send three army columns out onto the Northern Plains in February of 1876, which made a lot of sense militarily, because that's when the Native American tribes would be scattered in their their camps their winter camps small camps spread out around the landscape. It'd be deep in the winter so they're probably starting to run out of food a little bit. The horses are at the at the weakest generally the camps the villages are at their most vulnerable. But of course it's a very obvious problem with starting a military campaign on the high plains in February 1876. There's a very obvious reason why nobody ever did that. The weather was brutal. It was bitterly cold there were feet of snow on the ground a blizzard can come around at any time. The wind is always whipping it's a terrible time of year to attempt a major army campaign with three different army columns in the field at the same time, all somewhat trying to work together toward a common goal, but Sheridan wanted to do it anyway. And the only thing that was able to happen in that spring was one strike by General George crooks column the Wyoming column. And I think if I advance further I can give you a little bit of a, of a viewpoint of this so here are the three columns that Sheridan wanted to go out into the field. The Montana column from Fort Ellis near Bozeman Montana, the Dakota column from Fort Lincoln near Bismarck in today's North Dakota, and then General George crooks Wyoming column coming up from Fort what Fort Fetterman. So the only thing that was able to happen was crook was able to get into Southern Wyoming and make a strike against one village in March of 1876 the other two columns were hopelessly delayed and they were not able to get out into the field. Crook went up and made his one strike, then came back down, and then there was just delay after delay after delay, until the main campaign really got started in May of 1876. And that's where we really start running into problems that by then, that's exactly what General Phil Sheridan wanted to avoid as the weather warmed, and the grass started growing. The battered winter camps on the high plains of the Native American tribes started merging and combining and growing and eventually grew into one huge village that was probably the largest village in recorded history on the northern plains. So we, what ended up happening was exactly what Sheridan wanted to avoid, though there was probably very little hope that it was actually going to work out in the first place the way he had planned. So what he is, there we go, the Battle of the Rosebug happens on June 17. That is, once again, General George crook, writing up into, I'll go back one slide, writing up into Southern Montana with his column, and then engaging with about 700 warriors from the Lakota and Cheyenne so on, on about on the beginning of June 17. Crook gets into Southern Wyoming he's got about 1300 soldiers with him about 700 warriors have spent all night writing from the village to engage crook they know where he is they know he's there. And what ends up happening is what we now call the Battle of the Rosebud. It's about a six hour battle in Southern Montana. And there were a couple different things that crook learned from this battle and this becomes really critical to what happens next. A six hour battle between the US Army and Native American forces was virtually unheard of anywhere. The vast majority of Native American action versus the US Army were short lightning strikes there are certainly some exceptions, but generally Native American the Native American philosophy was to go in quickly, hit hard to do as much damage as you can, as fast as you can, and then get out and live to fight another day. This long sustained battle that was flowing over the hills and waves, and it happening in different places. That was very, very rare, especially on the northern plains, but that's what happened on June 17 at the Battle of the Rosebud crooks 1300 men, crashed into 700 warriors, and they battled for about six hours, until both sides pulled back and they could essentially each claim victory because neither had crushed the other. So the warriors were able to ride back home, singing songs of victory crooks force was able to come back down into Wyoming near the town of present day Sheridan, and say that he repelled this force he was attacked, his men fought valiantly and they repelled this force. Now here's a couple of the issues that happened number one that was exactly what Phil Sheridan wanted to avoid all of these warriors being able to team up and fight against an army column in one big force. Number two, a sustained battle with something that was brand new. Number three, crook now knew, at least some sense of the size and strength of the Native American army that was supposed to be somewhere out in the hills. And one of the three columns had even had a glimpse of this, what was assumed to be a huge Native American village. So no one really knew where the village was, it moved all the times it was really hard to pin it down. And no one knew how fast it was growing, how fast it was growing, and therefore how many warriors would be there. But now on June 17 crook knows at least some of that he has a really good idea of where the village is he's pretty confident that is somewhere into the hills and canyons and they're somewhere he's pretty sure he knows, at least a rough idea of where it is. He knows roughly the size and strength, and he knows that the warriors are willing to engage in a sustained campaign. So when he comes back down to Wyoming, he doesn't say any of that to the other two army columns that are in the field. He doesn't say anything to the Montana column, isn't saying anything to the Dakota column, which by that point have now merged into one giant column. But he doesn't say anything to the two commanders of those columns on the Montana side. It's Colonel John Gibbon on the Dakota side, even though I have Custer listed here he's the most recognizable name, the man who was actually in charge of the Dakota column, and then took overall control of the those two columns was Alfred Terry. So crook didn't say anything to either of those two gentlemen who could really have used that information, but he did communicate it to his superiors General Phil Sheridan, and General William to come, we have to come to Sherman apologies about that. So, he says all that to them to make sure that he's on record in stating what happened, but he doesn't communicate to the other two commanders in the field. So lo and behold, eight days later, June 25. The Battle of the Little Big Horn happens by that point in eight days in the eight days between the Battle of the Rosebud in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Terry and Gibbon and the officers of the now merged Montana and Dakota columns have been doing kind of concentric circles up from the Yellowstone River and trying to find the location of the village. And by that point, they're pretty sure that they have a rough idea of where it is they're getting closer and closer, and Custer has taken a detachment of about 600 men between 600 and 700 soldiers to go out and really figure out where the village is and maybe he had, you know, as these are very classic orders. So he, he technically has orders to find the village and then communicate with the rest of these soldiers or in the field. So they can organize one big attack on the village because more than more than likely it's going to be too much for Custer's detachment to between 600 and 700 guys to handle. But he also has a little bit of freedom to attack if he feels the conditions are right. So it's a very much of a weird kind of plausible deniability situation that happens with Custer. So eight days after the Battle of the Rosebud, having no idea that the Battle of the Rosebud happened, Custer's detachment finds the village and ends up leading to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. And I'm not going to go into the entire details, all the details of the Little Big Horn, but that's what ends up happening. It's eight days later, Custer finds out everything that Crook somewhat thought he knew. He discovers just how enormous the village is. He learns about all the different tactics that the Native Americans are using at the time. They are masters of guerrilla warfare and they really took it to the Army column and it had a devastating effect. Probably about half of the 600 men ended up dying in the engagement. Everyone who was under direct command of Custer during the engagement ended up dying around the area of what we now call Last Stand Hill in Montana. And so that was what ended up happening. So we had the Rosebud, the Little Big Horn within eight days of each other. Here, I want to show you a couple amazing photos. There's a gentleman in Ireland who does wonders with taking old black and white photos and turning them into color and he created these images, they're fantastic. Here's a couple pictures of my recent trip to the Little Big Horn. So this is Last Stand Hill. For anyone who's never been there, this is part of what is now a kind of cemetery at Last Stand Hill where Custer and his and the men who are with him fell. In the background, if you can see a line of trees and about the upper third or the middle of the photograph, that is the Little Big Horn River. Anyone who knows this story and again I won't get too deep into it but you certainly have read about the story of Captain Miles Keough. He was killed with a small group of his soldiers a little ways away from where Custer died. And this is his, this is his small almost little cluster of gravestones where he fell. And part of the reason I really like this is that you can see a little bit of how the hills looked, how it actually looked there. If you can imagine a small group of soldiers at this position, almost encircled and surrounded by Native American warriors. It must have been one of the most terrifying spectacles you could ever dream of. So this is what happened here. So then 11 days later is when the world finally starts to learn about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. And it was about that long. Excuse me. So what happens after the battle is one of the two steamboats that was supplying the army columns out in the field. It rushed back to Bismarck in Dakota territory to the home of the Dakota column and the seventh cavalry Custer's unit. It brings the wounded back to base. And it of course brings all the information of everything that just happened. When the soldiers, the captain of the boat, and a couple other officers are on the boat. They wake up the newspaper publisher of the Bismarck Tribune. And they dump onto his desk essentially this mountain of information, official dispatches reports, writings from various soldiers, and the publisher of the Bismarck Tribune, a gentleman named Clement Loundsbury has the first has the job of writing the first draft of history. It's a great phrase this guy, Clement Loundsbury is the man who wrote the first draft of history about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. He wrote the first major story that would get out into the world. So he spends all night on July 5. So on July 5 he's working all night long, trying to compile all this information and figure out how how this battle happened, and figure out how to write it into a story. He writes a 10,000 word epic story that he then sends to the New York Herald via telegraph the next day. So on July 6. When the telegraph line opened in Bismarck, sometime between six and 7am, the telegraph operator a guy named J. M. Carnahan starts tapping out this 10,000 word article word by word phrase by phrase, and sending it to the New York Herald in New York. So he spends 22 hours for him to send this story. And this anyone who's read this story, anyone who's read about this and read about the Little Big Horn knows that this is an incredible story I first found this little nugget about the newspaper dispatches in James Donovan's amazing book A Terrible Glory so I would highly recommend anyone who wants to read a book about the Battle of the Little Big Horn check out Jim Donovan's book. And that's why I found this story and I started cross checking it with a bunch of other sources to try to add some more into it and is phenomenal. So this is what happened all night on July 5. Lowndesbury writes this article, it gets transmitted to the New York Herald. And then Lowndesbury after he's done writing that story and passing it off to Carnahan. He writes down and writes a 2000 words special edition for his own newspaper the Bismarck Tribune. And this is one of the little things that I was able to find during my research process that I had never seen in any other book. So I was really excited to discover this. Here is the actual story that he wrote. Here's a this is like the top half of the one sheet the broad sheet that Lowndesbury produced. You can see a little bit of the headlines on the left hand side I'll leave this up for a little bit so everybody can try to get a quick look at it. It's you know it deals to detail some of the killed and some of the wounded. This was I thought it really interesting fine because it's one thing to read a story like this. In for instance Jim Donovan's book find this great story. And then to actually see it. This to me is what really has the impact this makes it real. It's something you can almost reach out and touch me somebody could this is a digital version of the actual newspaper article. So this is the story in the Bismarck Tribune that really started the the dominoes falling and then from July 6 to July 7. All the other newspapers in the country started picking up the news and started printing it like crazy and the story of Custer and the little big horn and what was generally called a massacre at that time you can see it right here. That was the headline story of the day, but the very next day or the same day that a lot of people were reading this down in Missouri and this is again my my my amazing PowerPoint skills you're going to see some pretty sweet color coding here is I hope you'll appreciate it. Down in Missouri, the James gang robs a train outside or at a place called what they generally called the rocky cut excavation is kind of isolated area of a railroad line. The James gang robs a train, the very next day or the same day that all of this information is that all this news is breaking I believe I've got it here yes. So here's another newspaper article so if you were in Missouri on this came out in July 9 so if you're in Missouri on July 9. The still the biggest story you're reading about in the newspapers is the story of the customer massacre more details are coming out more reports are coming out that's still the big story but if you're also in Missouri. In the city time specifically, you're also reading this story about an organized gang of outlaws they don't name them here in this article but everybody knows. This is the James younger gang that has been the most the premier outlaw gang in the land for 10 years. The James gang probably started its run back in 1866. There was a robbery a bank robbery in 1866 is generally the accepted point at which the gang began its operations. And here in the summer of 1876 is when the gang ultimately experiences its downfall, and so we'll get to that in a second but that's what happens right afterwards you had the battle of the rosebud eight days later the battle of big horn 11 days later the news breaks wide. One day after that Jesse James, Rob's Rob's a train, and then taint is after that let's work in a little baseball. The first no hitter in National League history which is of course now the first no hitter in major league history. That happened again in Missouri. So in St. Louis, Missouri, the there was a three game series between I believe is the St. Louis Browns and what we're called the Hartford dark blues from Hartford, Connecticut. They squared off in a three game series. The St. Louis Browns crushed the Hartford's, or sometimes the blues or the dark blues depending on which articles you read. But here's another little nugget I want to show you because I found this particular interesting so this is the first no hitter in major league history slash National League history. So no one has ever they didn't have the term no hitter yet. No one had come up with that little two word label for what happens when one team doesn't get a base hit during a game. So here's how the newspaper writers had to phrase it to make sure their readers can understand what just happened. So for the, you can see it right here in the middle for the first time in the annals of the league, nine innings were played without a single base hit being placed to the credit of one of the teams. That's how they had to describe it. The Hartford's utterly failed to do anything whatever with Bradley's twisters. Bradley was of course the pitcher for the St. Louis Browns. Twisters was a common term for, you know, a pitch, basically. So this is how they had to describe the first no hitter in National League history. Also, of course, being the first no hitter in major league history. So that happened 10 days after the news of the little big horn breaks and the on the battle of the, or the sorry the rocky cut robbery. Two weeks later, moving up to Deadwood in Dakota Territory. Anyone who knows the story knows how the story of James Butler Hickok, Wild Bill Hickok ends. Hickok is killed in the number 10 Sloan in Deadwood on August 2. He spent the entire previous day playing poker. He played all night on August 1 and August 2 was the end of the story. His story was in its last throws for that spring and summer, as we led into August. He was 39 years old, though he had felt like he had lived the lives of 10 men if you have never read the story of Wild Bill Hickok. It is really hard to believe that a person crammed so much life into just 39 years, but he did a lot of different things and by the time he's 39 in the spring and early summer of 1876. He's really feeling weary. His eyesight is failing. He's feeling beaten down, but at the same time he's just gotten married and he wants to provide a steak for his wife who really doesn't need it. She was a very successful circus operator who had her own money and lived very well off, but Hickok had it in his mind that he wanted to go to Deadwood, the site of the newest boom town in America, which at that time, of course, was still an illegal gold mining camp, but he wanted to go to Deadwood and ostensibly make his fortune in the mines or through gold, but of course he had no intention of ever actually panning for gold or digging for gold. He certainly had no intention of spending his time digging in a mine or standing in a creek for hours on end. What he really wanted to do was gamble. That's what how he'd been making a living for the last few months and you could say the last couple of years of his life. So he went to Deadwood and spent a few weeks gambling and finally on August 2nd, that was the end of the line. Here's a quick image. So of course, the TV show Deadwood is one of my favorites of all time. This is an image taken from that movie of that fateful moment when Hickok is killed in the TV show Deadwood. And on the left, the larger image there is a recreation in the location of the number 10 saloon. So anyone has ever been to Deadwood and if you haven't, I would highly recommend going. The location of the number 10 saloon is still exactly where it was in 1876. The actual business inside it has slightly changed, but in the basement they've recreated what they think the saloon probably look like at least a decent facsimile of how it probably looked when Hickok was playing poker there on that day on August 2nd. Next, moving back down to Missouri. So after the Rocky Cut robbery in July, in mid to late August, the James gang leaves Missouri for one of the very few times most of their work was in Missouri. But there seems to be some evidence to say they were already planning to leave the state to go rob something elsewhere a bank, a train, more than likely a bank, but they were going to go somewhere else. And, and rob something basically, but then the there was a lot of fallout from the Rocky Cut robbery, which is explained in the book which I thought was fascinating. They could have helped propel them along on their journey that they had so much heat on them after the Rocky Cut robbery that they probably felt compelled to leave anyway, even if they hadn't already planned on it. But sometime in mid to late August, they traveled from Zuri up to Minnesota. No one knows exactly when they left, and no one knows exactly how they got to Minnesota. But common logic says they probably took a series of trains they probably didn't ride their horses all the way there because they got there fairly quickly. What we do know is that by late August, they were checked into hotels in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and they started scouting the area for a bank to rob. The biggest criteria was they wanted a relatively small town that had one bank. They wanted all the money to be in one place. So they could hopefully get a big stash. Again, like we talked about with the Native American battles get in, get out, get as much as you can as quick as you can and leave and say well small town would hopefully have less law enforcement. All the money would be in one place. And so that was the plan. So September 7. That's the day of the most notorious most infamous robbery in the James gang history and essentially the end of the James gang. The James gang picked Northfield Minnesota that had one bank, the first national bank, and it was supposedly it should have been a pretty easy robbery. The concept was this. This is a view of Northfield taken in 1877 so one year after the robbery so this is exactly how it looked. This is looking into the town that there's a river that runs right in the right through the middle of that photograph and this is the bridge that leads across the river and into what would have essentially been the town square just beyond the bridge. So the plan is this three groups of horsemen, three groups of robbers are going to ride across this bridge. And when they basically when they hit those buildings in the background, they're going to turn right and ride down division street. And here is a look at division street. Again, this was taken in 1877. It's a composite photo. So there's a bit of a weird, you know, overlap in the middle there. But this is a great view of actually what division street looked like and exactly what the James gang would have seen when they rode into town. So I've highlighted the first national bank it's this tall two story skinny building on the right. And then on the far right of your frame you can see the Lee and Hitchcock general store. And you can I want to highlight also this. Well, I'll hold on to that for a second. So the Lee and Hitchcock general stores there on your right behind it right budding up against the back of the general store is the first national bank. And then over here on the left on the far left in the upper left hand corner there is the hotel that's a three story hotel with two balconies there on the second and third floor. So what happened was three groups of horsemen, three, three waves of riders with three different responsibilities. The first three riders ride into town. They, they stopped their horses in front of the bank they hitch their horses in front of the bank. And they are the guys are going to go in and actually conduct the robbery. They go in and they start the robbery. Then group number two, two guys ride in and station themselves outside the bank. They hitch their horses. They hang out outside the bank they are on crowd control to make sure nothing goes wrong outside while the robberies happening inside. The third group is supposed to ride in a couple minutes later and essentially cover the escape. They're supposed to ride in whooping and hollering and firing their guns in the air and just scare everyone away so that the other five guys can jump on their horses and everybody can ride out of town at one time. So they're going to be seen easy quick. They've done it a whole bunch of times they know exactly what they're doing. This should not be a big deal. The problems begin inside the bank. This is a great view again from 1877 of the inside of the bank. This is exactly what it looked like and so this is going to be interesting here so we've got typically on any given day, there are four guys inside the bank. One of the things there is the senior bookkeeper and you can see that white, you know, probably looks like a rectangle to anyone watching on the screen that's a ledger. That's where Joseph Haywood works that's his worst workstation. Next to him is Frank Wilcox assistant bookkeeper. Next to the two of them is Alonzo bunker the teller who works in that open area. That's where customers would step up and do their business just like in a bank today. On the right would be George Phillips the cashier who's sitting right in front of the vault that door behind him is the vault that leads into the safe deposit box area and then there would be a safe at the back of the vault. So there's a vault with a safe inside the vault. The problem was George Phillips was gone on this day. George Phillips had taken his family to Philadelphia to go see the World's Fair. So senior bookkeeper Joseph Haywood had moved from his normal station down to the cashier station and that's where he's working covering for Phillips on September 7. So when the first three robbers run into the bank. They jump over the teller's window. They push bunker and Wilcox to the ground and put their guns on them. And then another robber points his gun at Joseph Haywood and basically asked who's the cashier. Now Haywood is in the cashier's position. So there was probably an assumption that Haywood was the cashier. But when Haywood says he's not the cashier the cashier isn't there. That's when things start to spiral out of control. The robbers don't understand they become frustrated as Haywood puts up more and more of a fight and becomes more and more stubborn and refuses to do what they ask and refuses to give them the answers they want. The robbery starts taking longer than it should. And the outlaws becoming more frustrated and more angry. And they're searching whatever they can find to try to grab money one of them eventually finds basically a handful of cash in a little box under the teller's window. But they're not able to get any money out of the safe. So as Haywood's putting up a fight and stalling this thing out and being really courageous, far more courageous than most people would be in his in his place. The downward spiral is happening. So then out on the street, the two guys who are on crowd control are starting to get nervous, because townspeople are starting to wonder what's going on they've seen five people right into town. Three of them went into the bank. They're all kind of dressed the same in these long linen dusters. They're looking a little bit suspicious. Two of them are now hovering outside the bank. People start to begin to understand these guys are robbing the bank. So the alarm starts spreading through town people start yelling it they start saying to each other. They started grabbing their guns. And now there's going to be a serious confrontation in the middle of the street. So the townsfolk start firing at the two outlaws in the street. So what ends up happening is a gunfight in the middle of the street, a little miniature war between two outlaws and various towns people who have grabbed their guns. Initially, the outlaws are just firing over people's heads and firing at buildings trying to scare people away, but it's going to quickly escalate into a seriously violent conflict. And at about that time, the last wave of outlaws rides into town the last three guys right in who think that they're going to be covering the escape but what they run into is an escalating gun battle. So now they're right in the middle of a gunfight that's raging across the street. It goes even bigger and louder when the next the next three guys get in. And so one of the outlaws who's on the street starts screaming at the three guys were in the bank to get out we've got to go this is all gone bad. So eventually the three guys who are inside run outside and now they run into a gunfight. And now it is an all out battle on the middle of division street, and the outlaws are taking fire from other directions. Two of them end up falling, almost all of the rest of them are injured in this in this serious battle. And the part of the reason I wanted to highlight that hotel on the left is that probably the most important person on the citizen side of the action is a 22 year old I believe he's 22 years old student from the University of Michigan who has grabbed a gun out of that hotel lobby, gone up into a third floor window, and is firing down on the outlaws and he does a lot of damage. And so they're taking fire from elevated positions from ground level from this staircase over on the right this wooden staircase that runs up along the side of the Lee and Hitchcock general store. There's guys leaning around there and firing with shotguns and rifles, it is utter chaos. Until finally the citizens of Northfield have done so much damage to the outlaw gang that the outlaws are able to get themselves up onto their horses with all their wounded men, and ride out of town and when they wrote out of town they would have written away from the perspective of this photo so deep into the background down division street, and then they escape into southern into southern Minnesota almost said Montana there for a second. To me, one of the most interesting things that happens I think almost the thing that happens next which I won't get into too terribly much is the saga it's kind of an epic journey of survival that happens for the next two weeks. The survivors of the James younger gang are on the run through southern Minnesota. They have hundreds of people looking for them. There are huge policies coming down from Minneapolis and St. Paul of law men versus and of course any local sheriffs, any local people are trying to find them. They're on the run in some of the worst conditions you could imagine this is, you know, almost like a crude version of modern day special warfare training where these guys have no resources. They're all injured. It's pouring down rain, almost every day they have nothing to eat they're surviving on whatever they can find on the land. They have to keep moving, they cannot stay still. It is just, it is, is a crazy story of survival of how they get to where they do, and ultimately leads the to the breakup of the most famous outlaw gang probably in American history if you were going to talk about outlaw gangs. The James younger gang is probably the most famous in American history, maybe the most famous individual outlaw you could probably say would be Billy the kid. You could make a case for Billy versus Jesse versus maybe butch and or Sundance. But as far as outlaw gangs were concerned that James gang was the premier gang. And this event essentially ended the gang and hopefully read at least some of this if you have never read this story before. It's fascinating and I constantly have people coming up to me and telling me how much they really enjoyed that part of the book, because it's, if you haven't read that specific story. It's one that often gets overlooked when you hear about the story of Jesse James somehow. There's never really been a really good movie version of this story and I have no idea why. If you're going to do something about the James gang. This is the story you would want to do. But it's it seems to get neglected so it seems to be a surprise to a lot of people. So I found it fascinating I really hope everyone else does too. And so what we have next is the last big thing that happens, the battle of slim beauts. So over the course of this summer. So after the battle of the little big horn, the army columns certainly the Dakota column, which lost Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and hundreds of its soldiers. It retreated back up toward the Yellowstone River. Everybody rested and recuperated they had to rest regroup get reinforcements resupply and and general crooks column down in Wyoming was doing basically the same thing so for weeks both army columns were static just resting and trying to wait for resupply. So here in the summer, they went back out and tried to find the village that they couldn't find previously so by the time they actually get back out on the trail to try to find the Native American village of sitting bull and crazy horse. That huge village has split into two villages. Sitting bull leads his half of the village up to Canada, crazy horse leads his half of the village over toward Dakota territory he basically stays in that same geography the whole time. So the soldiers that the the two major columns combine and they still can't find either village there and have a total inability to track down either of the two men they were really trying to find. But finally, by mid September, General George crooks column is able to attack one village led by Chief American horse, and essentially exact a measure of revenge for the battle of the little big horn he's able to claim that they have retaliated with revenge for the loss of Custer. And that basically ends the campaign that ends the big summer campaign of 1876, though there were other engagements that happened later in the fall, but this marks the bookend. If you want to bookend with the battle of the rosebud and the battle of slim beauts. That is essentially your 90 day period, where all of these things happened in in short order in close proximity, sometimes almost on top of each other. General George co key of the amazing whiskers. And of course, while this is happening. That entire summer, I didn't even talk about why it up and about Masterson that a whole summer. While all those other things are happening, why it and batter in Dodge City working as lawmen for the first time together that tag team partnership will happen for the next two to three years. I'm setting records for the number of arrests that happened during that first season in Dodge City. Their first season in Dodge City I want to specify that 1876 was the first major cattle season in Dodge 1874 and 75 were the earliest inklings that the Dodge City would be the next cattle hub. In 1876, the railroad is there, they are the new destination for Texas cattle, and there are hundreds of thousands of cattle making their way up the trail, which of course bring with them, thousands of Texas cowboys who want a rowdy good time in dodge. And even just those first two years of 1874 and 1875, the people of Dodge City knew that they needed, they needed more. They had a pretty bad track record of lawmen up to that point. And so they had hired this kind of all star team to take over, led by Wyatt and bat. And so why didn't that went to work, and immediately started, started almost literally cracking heads and throwing people in jail and they set a rest for for that summer. And they really helped clean up the town they brought a level of law and order that no one had seen before. So they did exactly what they hope to do so we, if we quickly recap here. Maybe even have a little chat coming up. Potentially a question coming up but here's the major storylines again, just got to Wyatt and bat at the very end so they're operating underneath everything. Jesse in the Northfield raid, National League Baseball there are lots more baseball highlights in the book. I just cherry picked that one no hitters that that was really fun. And of course we didn't even get into something that I wasn't really going to share a whole lot about, but all the crazy inventions and everything that was being shown off at the World's Fair during that whole six months from May 1876 to November 1876. It was incredible and of course the presidential election. That wraps up man I feel like I was talking lightning faster I can't believe it's already almost been an hour hopefully you were able to digest all that. And I will exit out of my screen share mode so that I can see the chat and see if we have a question. It doesn't look like it doesn't look like we have any at the moment so I guess I could just wrap it up there. So my God, that was, hopefully that was hopefully you could follow it all hopefully that works for everyone. Again thank you, everyone who watches this everyone who watched in the future. Thank you to the National Archives. Thanks for being here. Hopefully you enjoy the book if you check it out. I appreciate it.