Picture yourself in a covered wagon, travelling the harsh trails of 1868 Kansas, where the dusty winds whisper tales of hope and dread. That's where we're headed in this compelling episode, as we delve into the captivating story of Clara Blyn, her husband Richard, and their perilous journey westward, with award-winning author Shabon Fallon as our guide.
Through the shimmering lens of Fallon's meticulous research, we'll retrace Clara's footsteps - from her youthful marriage to Richard to the shocking attack on their wagon train amidst the Indian Wars. We'll expose the very marrow of life in those tumultuous times - the motivations, fears, and hopes that spurred them on their journey, the brutal challenges faced on the wagon trails, and the haunting echoes of inter-tribal warfare.
Fallon ignites the past, bringing it to life with a raw intimacy that will challenge every preconception you've ever had about the Indian Wars. So buckle up, it's time to hit the trail! Wild West Podcast proudly presents the Trails to the Washita; The Clara Blinn story with special guest Siobhan Fallon. Watch Video White Captive at the Washita
Also Read The Blinn Diary
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
Picture yourself in a covered wagon, travelling the harsh trails of 1868 Kansas, where the dusty winds whisper tales of hope and dread. That's where we're headed in this compelling episode, as we delve into the captivating story of Clara Blyn, her husband Richard, and their perilous journey westward, with award-winning author Shabon Fallon as our guide.
Through the shimmering lens of Fallon's meticulous research, we'll retrace Clara's footsteps - from her youthful marriage to Richard to the shocking attack on their wagon train amidst the Indian Wars. We'll expose the very marrow of life in those tumultuous times - the motivations, fears, and hopes that spurred them on their journey, the brutal challenges faced on the wagon trails, and the haunting echoes of inter-tribal warfare.
Fallon ignites the past, bringing it to life with a raw intimacy that will challenge every preconception you've ever had about the Indian Wars. So buckle up, it's time to hit the trail! Wild West Podcast proudly presents the Trails to the Washita; The Clara Blinn story with special guest Siobhan Fallon. Watch Video White Captive at the Washita
Also Read The Blinn Diary
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
With the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, thousands of displaced Native Americans from the Great Lakes, forced out west 25 years before, were once again forced to relocate from the newly created state of Kansas. The troaching settlers greatly upset many Indians, particularly young men of the Cheyenne tribe. Some bands of the Cheyenne vehemently opposed the deals their chiefs and the US government continued to make and they began forming their own militias as early as the 1840s, with the most famous of these militias being the dog soldiers. Their name is derived from the French word for dog Cheyne, since the word sounds similar to Cheyenne. From 1864 to 1868, the dog soldiers created multiple atrocities across Kansas and many of these stories remain to be told.
Speaker 1:Wild West Podcast proudly presents the Trails to the Washita, the Clara Blynn Story, with special guest Shabon Fallon. Shabon Fallon is the author of the award-winning short story collection you Know when the Men Are Gone and the novel the Confusion of Languages. Her essays and stories have been featured in the New York Times, washington Post Magazine, npr Stars and Stripes and the anthology Fire and Forget short stories from the Long War. Shabon is the wife of active-duty Army officer and her writing often focuses on military life, past and present. Her current work in progress is a novel about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Shabon is also writing and researching a series that includes White Captive at the Washita. Welcome, shabon, it's very wonderful to have you here's a guest on the show.
Speaker 2:No, no, thanks, Brad, I really appreciate being here.
Speaker 1:Well, can you tell us about what got you started on writing and researching the topic of the Indian Wars from 1868 to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which took place between June 25th and 26th 1876.?
Speaker 2:Sure, as you mentioned, I'm an Army spouse and I usually write about military life and I happened upon Elizabeth or Libby Custer and just she seized my brain. I don't really understand what happened, but that subject just lit me up and I have been researching her story and that of the personalities of the Seventh Cavalry for about five years now and working on a novel about the Little Bighorn and sort of the repercussions leading out afterwards, and I can understand why there are thousands of books and articles written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, just so many mysteries and contradictions and unanswered questions, and so many of those things are still being debated today. And I just love it. I've been learning a lot about the time period and the people who lived it, so Well Shabon.
Speaker 1:on a personal note, I gotta say I'm very excited about that. I've read a couple of works about Libby Custer herself. I agree she's very fascinating, but it's very exciting to hear something on her coming from the perspective of another military spouse. That's pretty awesome. I don't know if that's ever been done before. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:I hope that.
Speaker 1:In our podcast series on Trails to the Washitawe we will talk about the many characters backstory. A backstory is a set of events, in our case, that happened during the main story's main theme. These events can be alluded to, described by one or more characters or shown in flashbacks. In part one of our series on Trails to the Washitawe, which is about Sheridan's winter campaign against the tribes on the southern plains of 1868, we provide our listeners with multiple backstories of individuals who suffered from the many clashes brought about by the white intrusion on the Indian hunting grounds. Today we'd like to offer some insights to our listeners about Clara Blyn. So we would like to begin with the early story of Clara Isabel Harrington. Can you tell our listeners about her background and marriage to Richard Blyn?
Speaker 2:Sure. Clara and Richard were raised in the town of Perisburg, ohio. Richard had been an enlisted soldier during the Civil War. He fought for the Union. He rose to the rank of Sergeant with the Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. He was shot in the right arm in a skirmish in Munfordville, kentucky, in September 1862. And this war wound never fully healed. He had trouble just rotating and flexing his arm and his Army paperwork said he was a farmer. So you can only imagine how severely limiting this war injury would have on his livelihood. So he was discharged and he returned to Perisburg and that's where he met young Clara.
Speaker 2:Isabel Harrington, clara's grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the neighboring town of Elmore, ohio. Her family owned the Bard House Hotel in Perisburg and supposedly the Harringtons did not think Richard's Lynn was good enough for Clara. But the two were married and Clara was only 17 at the time and Richard was 23. Clara's been described as tiny and beautiful, with dark hair, freckles and a dimpled chin, and she also sang soprano at her Perisburg Methodist Church. Richard's Army discharge papers say he was 5'7", he had a ready complexion, black hair and black eyes, and a year after their wedding they had a son, william or, whom they called Willie Blinn.
Speaker 1:I would also like to add for those listening to this podcast, we highly recommend that you follow up on the history of the Blinn family travels and experiences by watching Clara Blinn White, captive at the Wachitaugh video produced by author Shabon Fallon. The link to the video is posted at the end of the description text of this podcast, so, shabon. Another question that comes to mind then is when did Clara and Richard decide to move out west and what was their motivation?
Speaker 2:Well, in the spring of 1868, clara's parents and a bunch of other members of her extended family, the Harrington family, decided to go west and they all moved to Kansas Very soon after. Clara and Richard packed up and moved west as well with Richard's siblings, so that Blinn party left Perisburg, ohio, on March 15, 1868. And in terms of motivation, I mean it just sounds like it was this family enterprise where everybody was caught up in the spirit of seeking their fortunes in the territories. I haven't found anything specific but the fact that it seems like sort of a mass exodus of the family. You can just imagine the excitement of everybody heading out and thinking they have so much ahead.
Speaker 2:And also there's some evidence that Richard, in addition to his war wound and his right arm, he had tuberculosis. And at the time of course, there was no reliable treatment for TB or what they call consumption, and doctors I don't know they just sort of recommended rest, fresh air, exercise, and in the 1860s Colorado was becoming known as a consumption sanctuary because of its climate. So you have a young, wounded veteran with his very young family that he has to support and you can see that he just would pin his hopes and his future on this great move.
Speaker 1:So what then prompted the family to move to Kansas after arriving at Fort Lyon or Boggs Ranch in Colorado?
Speaker 2:I'd seem like the blends didn't really manage to settle down in Colorado territory. Richard tried his hands at a couple of different business ventures. Larysburg historian and author, Judith Justice, who's been really helpful to me learning about Clara's life. She has been researching Clara for years and been in touch with Clara's descendants and she says that Clara was really homestick in the end for her own family and that she was really afraid of the Native Americans in the area.
Speaker 2:And you can read Richard's diary that he was writing during this long journey back and forth and you can pick up on sort of these undercurrents of fear throughout. He's always kind of on watch. Like just even in March when they're still heading out to Colorado, he writes that they passed through Selena and Solomon City. We've got four men to travel with us, so we feel safer than we did before. And then later in April he writes had a big scare. Today Saw our first Indians. They were about four miles off. They did not notice us at all but went about their business.
Speaker 2:And then there's this letter in 1868 written by one of Richard's relatives, and she says that they relocated to Kansas because Richard wanted to get land and at the time all discharge soldiers were entitled to a certain amount of land there, and the Blins traveled the way they did because it was the cheapest way to travel at the time, rather than taking a train or whatever, and they wanted to save every penny they had so that they could start off when they settled yet again. So you just get the sense that there was still a people in their life and they were searching for a home.
Speaker 1:Well, on the topic of travel, then, since you brought that up, we know, of course, that the wagon trails were rough and full of holes and rocks, so riding in a wagon was bumpy and certainly uncomfortable. Most travelers walked alongside instead, unless they were ill. Many settlers walked the full 2,000 miles of the trail. Wagon trains typically traveled 15 to 20 miles daily, less if they had to cross a mountain or a river. What was it like to travel along the trails in 1868, and what kinds of provisions did they take with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's incredible to me. I can't even comprehend how somebody could pull it off. I mean, my goodness, you had to pack everything you needed for survival, everything you needed to start over Clothing utensils, barrels of flour and coffee and tea, I mean hunting knife and rifle, the mattresses alone and blankets, and then, of course, your farming tools or carpentry tools. It just I don't know. In Richard's diary, entry after entry, he's always talking about how miserable and cold it is and how muddy or rocky the road is, or the difficulties in having to shoot down your dinner. I feel like they're searching for prairie chickens every other day so that they can eat. As you said, brad, they do seem to travel about 20 miles a day, but one day they travel 40 miles.
Speaker 2:On that day, richard writes, the mules look pretty tired, which has got to be the most incredible understatement those poor mules. At another point he writes how, he quote, got our wagon fixed and started on our way at a hard road, got lost and had to let down a fence and drive through a field camped. About four o'clock it rained and we had a hard time pitching the tent. So just these details. It must have been such a brutal trip for all of these people, although of course I'm sure there was tremendous beauty and really great moments too. Richard also jot some of those down. There's a day that Clara's baking bread, and on April Fool's Day she plays a trick on everybody and they punish Richard for Clara's trick and he has to jump off the back of the wagon. Another night they have popcorn and stewed peaches and they tell each other their fortunes. There's just so much there, I think, that we sort of forget in our modern life.
Speaker 1:Those diaries are pretty wonderful resources for just really getting inside their minds, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what was the attitude then as they traveled through this open country? What was the attitude of the Plains tribes during the time the Blynne family departed from Colorado in the fall of 1868?
Speaker 2:Well, as you mentioned in your earlier excellent Wash Uta segment and in the intro, things were definitely beginning to heat up in the area at this time. The recent inter-tribal warfare was starting to spill over into attacks against the White Sublars and there had been a sort of uneasy truth made at the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, but the Cheyenne in particular disagreed about the promised annuities. The US military was trying to avoid giving the Cheyenne arms and ammunition with the food rations, and this angered the Cheyenne, of course, especially the dominant military society that you mentioned, the dog soldiers or dogmen. In mid-August, what had begun as a war party setting out against their traditional enemies, the Pawnee, ended up escalating into a slew of island attacks against the White living in the Saline and Solomon settlements. General Sheridan would later say that there were over a hundred civilians killed.
Speaker 2:Women and children were brutally assaulted and kidnapped. Farms, homesteads, wagon frames were burned to the ground, livestock and horses were run off, and these acts, rather than being a deterrent, which was surely part of the motivation behind them, I'm sure the raiders were trying to drive people out, but instead it was having this opposite effect of drawing massive attention, and the United States military was called or demanded to act quickly and decisively to end these depredations. And meanwhile you have Clara who is living in this area and she just must have been hearing about all of the different attacks and they surely contributed to her being really frightened and wanting to leave and move closer to her parents and extended family and sort of feel a sense of safety with people she trusted.
Speaker 1:From your research and others. The Blyn family departed from Boggs Ranch in Colorado in a train of eight wagons heading east along the Arkansas River to Fort Dodge, kansas. The attack occurred on October 7, 1868, along the Arkansas River, about ten miles east of the mouth of Sand Creek, when a force of about 75 Indians attacked a wagon train. What happened during and after the attack?
Speaker 2:It's ironic that Richard and Clara were actually leaving Colorado. They had been driven out, you know, and they were heading back east to their family in Kansas, and that's when their wagon train was attacked. So yes, on October 7, 1868, they were with ten men, traveling with their wagon train, and Clara was driving the lead supply wagon and her two-year-old son, willie, was sleeping next to her. Clara had all of the money about $800, on her person and they had just stopped for dinner. They decided to move on for just a few more miles before setting up camp for the night, and suddenly the warriors came riding down and the first thing they did was stampede all of the cattle. Then they cut Clara's wagon off from the rest and Richard at the time he was on foot and he was trying desperately to shoot the oxen out from Clara's wagon, but he was struck down by the stampede and cattle and he just couldn't save her. Some of the warriors drove Clara's wagon over the river while the rest surrounded the men, and they set the remaining wagons on fire. The ten men stayed together in the center, they dug some kind of hole or something and they had one horse alive and they fought the warriors off for about five days and finally one of them escaped and rode to Fort Lyon and the seventh cavalry.
Speaker 2:Ten members of the seventh cavalry rode out from Fort Lyon in an attempt to rescue them and they sort of regrouped. They immediately started searching for Clara and Willie, but they found no trace of them except, amazingly enough, clara managed to leave a note on a bush about four miles from the attack site and it said Dear Dick, willie and I are prisoners. They're going to keep us, save us if you can. We are with them, clara Blend. And then written on the back of that note and this just had to have haunted Richard forever she wrote If you love us, baby.
Speaker 1:I that that is an incredible note. We do have reference of another one that has surfaced as well. Historical records show us that on November 7th 1868. Cheyenne Jack noticed a white woman at Yellow Bears Arapaho camp while trading with the Indians. He gave this woman a pencil and paper to write a note he carried back to Fort Cobb. It was given to Dutch Bill on November 25th.
Speaker 1:This note read Kind friend, whoever you may be, I thank you for your kindness to my child and me. If only you could buy us from the Indians with ponies or anything and let me come and stay with you until I could get word to my friends. They would pay you and I would work and do all that I could for you. If it is not too far from the camp and you are not afraid to come, I pray that you will try. If you can do nothing, right.
Speaker 1:Doug W T Harrington, my father in Ottawa, franklin County, kansas. Tell him we are with the Cheyenne and they say that when white men make peace we can go home. Tell him to write to the governor of Kansas about it and for them to make peace. My name is Mrs Clara Blinn, my little boy, willie Blinn. He is two years old. Do all you can for me. Why is this letter so controversial when it alludes to the possible rescue of Clara Blinn and her son, especially when we know that Clara was in Black Kettle's camp when Black Kettle went to Fort Cobb and was refused refuge on November 20th?
Speaker 2:It is rather controversial. On the one hand you have southern Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle who had freed white captives in the past and who had consistently attended peace talks with the whites in 1861, 1864, 1865 and 1867. At that medicine lodge treaty in 1867, the Cheyenne dog soldiers did not want to sign any treaty with the whites and one of them demanded that Black Kettle explain to the rest of the dog soldiers why they should even do such a thing. And then he threatened to shoot all of Black Kettle's horses. But in the end the dog soldiers did sign the treaty and it probably was because of chiefs Black Kettle's persuasion. So we know again and again that Black Kettle was genuinely trying to arrive at a peaceful solution for his people. But we also know from multiple Cheyenne eyewitness testimonies, including Black Kettle himself, that warriors from Black Kettle's band played a role in the depredations in the salient and Solomon settlement. Black Kettle said I've always done my best to keep my young men quiet, but some will not listen.
Speaker 2:And as you point out, rad, there's evidence that Clara could have been in Black Kettle's village at some point before the wash to fight. Like so much of the story, we just don't know exactly. But Dutch Bill, the traitor you mentioned, sent Black Kettle a message and the messenger comes back to Dutch Bill with news that he had seen a white woman and her baby there. And so Dutch Bill sent another messenger. Cheyenne checked with pencil and paper to give to Clara if she could write the kind friend note that you just read, and Clara dates that note herself at November 7th 1868., and that's just a couple of weeks away from the Wachita flight.
Speaker 1:Most of you are at this point probably wondering about what happens next to Clara Blinn. Unfortunately, you will need to wait until episodes five and six to discover Clara's continuing story up to her captive's location and the tragic results of the Battle of the Wachita, the raid on Blackheadle's camp Shabon. I can't tell you what a joy it has been to interview you on this podcast. Actually, I can tell you it has been an absolute joy. This is we don't often do these sort of interviews with you know the professional authors and researchers and writers, so this is very exciting for us. Thank you very much for agreeing to come on with us.
Speaker 2:Oh, I loved it. Thank you so much, Brad. I love your series. I'm so excited to listen to the rest of them Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm super excited for your new book and to hopefully track down some of your other writings as well. You definitely sound like you know what you're talking about and it's a subject near and dear to our hearts.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's it for now. Remember to check out our Wild West podcast shows on iTunes or Wild West podcast dot bus sprout dot com. You can also catch us on Facebook at facebookcom slash Wild West podcast or on our YouTube channel and Wild West podcast Mike King YouTube. So make sure you subscribe to our shows listed at the end of the description text of this podcast to receive notifications on all new episodes. Thanks for listening to our podcast. If you have any questions or want to add to our series, please write us at Wild West podcast at gmailcom. We will share your thoughts as they apply to future episodes. Stay tuned next time as we will bring you part two. Trails to the Washtar major cars skirmish on Beaver Creek.