Famous Last Words: Captain William Fetterman

William Fetterman, Capt., U.S. Army

(For an updated, more detailed version of this post, visit Sweethearts of the West, where I blog on the 12th of each month.)

“Give me eighty men and I'll ride through the whole Sioux Nation.”

So said Captain William Fetterman as he assumed command of a U.S. Army detail tasked with escorting a wood-cutting expedition through the northern Wyoming Territory in 1866. A fellow officer had declined the command after mounting, and failing to sustain, a similar effort two days earlier.

On the morning of Dec. 21, within minutes of their departure from Fort Phil Kearney, Fetterman, 79 infantry and cavalry troops, and two civilian scouts encountered a small band of Oglala led by Crazy Horse. Despite orders not to engage "hostiles," the detail gave chase … right into an ambush. A force of about 2,300 Lakota and Northern Cheyenne led by Red Cloud killed the entire detachment, then scalped, beheaded, dismembered, disemboweled, and/or castrated the dead soldiers.

Native casualties: 63.

Whether Fetterman deliberately disobeyed his commanding officer’s order or the commander massaged the truth in his official report remains the subject of debate.

Among the Sioux and Cheyenne, the event is known as the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Whites know it better as the Fetterman Massacre.

Ten years later, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer would make a similar mistake at Little Big Horn in Montana.

Lone Stars: Llano, Texas

The Llano County courthouse, built in 1893 and still in use.

Llano (pronounced LAN-oh) is located in the Texas Hill Country about an hour north of Austin, very near the geographic center of Texas. Founded in response to a legislative act creating Llano County in February 1856, the town was established June 14 of the same year. A public vote under a live oak tree on the south side of the Llano River chose the town's location: a tract of 250 acres donated by a local rancher.

The area boomed from 1886-1893 after iron ore deposits were discovered in nearby Iron Mountain. With high hopes for the future, the Llano Improvement and Furnace Company embarked upon a mission to build an iron furnace and foundry. Land speculators from Dallas and northern states poured into the area with investment money, wanting to be part of "the Pittsburgh of the West." The population soared to 7,000 in 1890, encouraging the Austin and Northwestern Railroad to extend its line to a terminal on the north side of what promised to be a thriving metropolis. Increased access to transportation attracted granite quarying and finishing companies intent on profiting from the abundance of granite in the surrounding hills.

Then the bubble burst: The iron ore deposits proved insufficient for commercial exploitation, and the Llano Improvement and Furnace Company abandoned its project. The company's withdrawal threw the town's big plans into disarray. Although charters had been sold to construct a dam, an electric power plant, a streetcar system, and electric streetlights, only a small dam and the streetlights were completed. Speculators and local businesses lost fortunes as a result.

A wagon hauls a slab of granite through the streets
of Llano in this undated postcard photo.

A series of fires in the early 1890s, probably set to collect insurance money, destroyed much of the town; consequently, insurance companies refused to provide any coverage in the area for a number of years.

The granite processors remained. Today, Llano's primary industries are farming, ranching, and granite quarying and finishing. The town's population is roughly 3,000 people except during November and December, when the undisputed "Deer Capital of Texas" overflows with hunters.

Famous Last Words: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

As the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence dawned on July 4, 1826, only three of fifty-six signatories of the noble document still lived: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the U.S.), and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. By the end of the day, only Carroll remained.

Thomas Jefferson
(portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 1800)

Jefferson, whose health had been deteriorating since July the previous year, was confined to his bed at Monticello in June 1826, felled by a combination of kidney failure and penumonia. In the evening on July 3, he spoke his last words: "Is it the fourth yet?" His grandson and his doctor assured him the fourth was only hours away. Seventeen hours later, at 1 p.m. July 4, 1826, Jefferson passed away at the age of 83.

John Adams
(portrait by Asher B. Durand, c. 1800)

Adams, who maintained a close friendship with Jefferson until the vicious politics of the 1800 presidential election drove a wedge between them, had reconciled with Jefferson in 1812. The two men corresponded frequently and were well aware of one another's ill health. On July 4, 1826, at his home in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams gave a toast to the country he helped found: "Independence forever." Later that evening, after suffering a heart attack and unaware his friend had died several hours earlier, 91-year-old Adams breathed his last words: "Thomas Jefferson survives."

The nearly concurrent deaths of two political giants on such a momentous day seemed preordained and fitting. Carroll survived for another six years, closing the book on an extraordinary chapter in history with his death on Nov. 14, 1832.