Post by deadwoodgultch on Nov 28, 2016 23:32:42 GMT
All,
Responses should be submitted directly to Mr. Lewis at mike@cambrian-news.co.uk. We would, however, appreciate being copied.
The Men With Custer UK website (http://menwithcuster.co.uk/) includes an updated profile of Sergeant William B. James (biography no. 30) in addition to that published in the Fall 2004 Battlefield Dispatch. Please also refer to the recent article posted on the Billings Gazette website:
billingsgazette.com/news/local/wanted-a-photo-of-the-only-welshman-killed-during-the/article_512077e5-c29f-59c1-adb8-e25e077a2c13.html
This message may be forwarded or otherwise distributed to all interested persons and parties.
Lee & Michele Noyes, Past Editors
CBHMA Battlefield Dispatch
(518) 561-2528 (home ET)
CLeeNoyes@aol.com
www.custerbattlefield.org
The rank and file of the frontier Regular Army were men of widely diverse backgrounds. In the years from 1865 through the 1890’s many recruits were recent immigrants [who] came chiefly from Ireland, Germany, or England. Many had seen service in European armies. For these men, enlistment in the Regular Army offered a familiar haven in a strange country. Don Rickey, Jr.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike <mike@cambrian-news.co.uk>
To: CLeeNoyes <CLeeNoyes@aol.com>
Sent: Mon, Nov 28, 2016 4:08 am
Subject: Re: The lone Welshman who died at Custer's Last Stand
I am a British newspaper reporter seeking a photo of the only Welshman killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Sgt. William Batine James, of Dinas, left his Pembrokeshire home to emigrate to the US in 1871. Enlisting in the US Cavalry (E Company – the Gray Horse Troop) the following year, he was among 263 officers, troopers, Indian scouts and civilians who were wiped out on June 25, 1876.
Last year I discovered previously unknown letters written by James (two date-marked Fort Abraham Lincoln) to his younger brother back in Wales.
In October my wife and myself travelled out to Montana to donate copies to the Little Bighorn National Monument Museum. We have subsequently also dispatched copies to the North Dakota Historical Society in Bismarck, North Dakota.
The real reason for our trip was to trace a photo of Sgt. James, which has been missing for 140 years. I believe he remains the only sergeant who died that day of whom a verifiable photo does not exist.
I suspect his picture is languishing among the 'unidentifieds' within the LBH Museum archives. His letters reveal that James enclosed his carte de visite (almost certainly taken at Fort Abraham Lincoln) in one of his letters home but all searches on this side of the Atlantic have drawn a blank.
Encouragingly, however, new material is always coming to light. Only recently Peter Russell, who runs the Men With Custer UK website, received a couple of previously unknown photos of C Company troopers from a private collector.
Obviously, I am hoping that a photo of Sgt. James is also out there somewhere.
I know so much about “Yr Unig Cymro” (That's Welsh for 'The Sole Welshman'), his tragic family history, his arrival in Toronto, his subsequent enlistment into the Seventh, his homesickness (which comes across in the letters) – as well as having a fairly good idea of where and how he met his gruesome fate on the battlefield.
A photo would be the missing piece of the jigsaw...
Yours sincerely,
Mike Lewis
“Foinavon”
Cae Dolwen
Aberporth
Ceredigion
SA43 2DD
United Kingdom
email: mike@cambrian-news.co.uk
--
Mike Lewis
Reporter
Cambrian News
Responses should be submitted directly to Mr. Lewis at mike@cambrian-news.co.uk. We would, however, appreciate being copied.
The Men With Custer UK website (http://menwithcuster.co.uk/) includes an updated profile of Sergeant William B. James (biography no. 30) in addition to that published in the Fall 2004 Battlefield Dispatch. Please also refer to the recent article posted on the Billings Gazette website:
billingsgazette.com/news/local/wanted-a-photo-of-the-only-welshman-killed-during-the/article_512077e5-c29f-59c1-adb8-e25e077a2c13.html
This message may be forwarded or otherwise distributed to all interested persons and parties.
Lee & Michele Noyes, Past Editors
CBHMA Battlefield Dispatch
(518) 561-2528 (home ET)
CLeeNoyes@aol.com
www.custerbattlefield.org
The rank and file of the frontier Regular Army were men of widely diverse backgrounds. In the years from 1865 through the 1890’s many recruits were recent immigrants [who] came chiefly from Ireland, Germany, or England. Many had seen service in European armies. For these men, enlistment in the Regular Army offered a familiar haven in a strange country. Don Rickey, Jr.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike <mike@cambrian-news.co.uk>
To: CLeeNoyes <CLeeNoyes@aol.com>
Sent: Mon, Nov 28, 2016 4:08 am
Subject: Re: The lone Welshman who died at Custer's Last Stand
I am a British newspaper reporter seeking a photo of the only Welshman killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Sgt. William Batine James, of Dinas, left his Pembrokeshire home to emigrate to the US in 1871. Enlisting in the US Cavalry (E Company – the Gray Horse Troop) the following year, he was among 263 officers, troopers, Indian scouts and civilians who were wiped out on June 25, 1876.
Last year I discovered previously unknown letters written by James (two date-marked Fort Abraham Lincoln) to his younger brother back in Wales.
In October my wife and myself travelled out to Montana to donate copies to the Little Bighorn National Monument Museum. We have subsequently also dispatched copies to the North Dakota Historical Society in Bismarck, North Dakota.
The real reason for our trip was to trace a photo of Sgt. James, which has been missing for 140 years. I believe he remains the only sergeant who died that day of whom a verifiable photo does not exist.
I suspect his picture is languishing among the 'unidentifieds' within the LBH Museum archives. His letters reveal that James enclosed his carte de visite (almost certainly taken at Fort Abraham Lincoln) in one of his letters home but all searches on this side of the Atlantic have drawn a blank.
Encouragingly, however, new material is always coming to light. Only recently Peter Russell, who runs the Men With Custer UK website, received a couple of previously unknown photos of C Company troopers from a private collector.
Obviously, I am hoping that a photo of Sgt. James is also out there somewhere.
I know so much about “Yr Unig Cymro” (That's Welsh for 'The Sole Welshman'), his tragic family history, his arrival in Toronto, his subsequent enlistment into the Seventh, his homesickness (which comes across in the letters) – as well as having a fairly good idea of where and how he met his gruesome fate on the battlefield.
A photo would be the missing piece of the jigsaw...
Yours sincerely,
Mike Lewis
“Foinavon”
Cae Dolwen
Aberporth
Ceredigion
SA43 2DD
United Kingdom
email: mike@cambrian-news.co.uk
--
Mike Lewis
Reporter
Cambrian News