Wukkin' on the RR

The Civil War hindered railroad construction, but in July 1865, workers laid down Union Pacific track in mud flats near Omaha. 

Construction crawled. At the end of 1865, Union Pacific tracks totaled just 40 miles. But by October 1866, the rails reached the 100th meridian, 247 miles west of Omaha.

Union Pacific celebrated. 

Two trains chugged down the track to the 100th meridian. Red, white, and blue streamers billowed alongside the cars, and festive antlers perched on top of locomotives. 

The first train lugged supplies for a party, Western style, including tents, buffalo robes and cases of champagne. The second train brought 140 party goers—the guest list loaded with influential capitalists and Congressional dignitaries. 

They whooped it up for three days, dancing around a huge bonfire, peering at a prairie dog town, applauding Pawnee war dancers, and eating fresh-killed antelope for dinner.

Find out soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS: 

A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Bullets Cascade

One day in 1864, William Parker Carr drove an Overland Stage along the Little Blue River Trail. With Carr rode three passengers (two men and a woman) plus two guards protecting the U.S. mail. 

Then with no warning, two dozen Indians on swift ponies attacked the stagecoach, firing hard upon it. 

One guard, a fourteen-year-old, leaped on top of the coach and rode there, shooting again and again.

Bullets surged around Carr as he lashed his four horses into a dead run.

One bullet lodged in the seat behind him, and another shattered the lamp beside him. Still another bullet struck the bridle of his horse and brought it to its knees. 

Did Carr and his passengers survive?

Find out soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS: 

A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Hornet's Nest

Benjamin "Ben" Holladay hired William Parker Carr, the teamster. When they met, Holladay, forty-four, retained a Kentucky accent from his childhood. As a lad, he helped his Pap lead wagon trains through the Cumberland Gap, so it's not surprising that he now owned the largest stagecoach line in the world, the Overland Stage Company. 

But the Stagecoach King, as some called him, didn't hire Carr to drive. Instead, Holladay wanted Carr to shoot deer, elk, and buffalo to feed the stage line that ran from Atchison, Kansas, to San Francisco.

"Locate yourself in the Republican River valley," Holladay said. "It's a world-class place to find game." And so it was.

Carr had excellent timing. He saw the idyllic valley just before it became a hornet's nest of Indian raiders: Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

Coming soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS: 

A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Who's to Know?

President Lincoln asked all Northern governors to provide troops for the Civil War. But Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, refused.

 

Instead, he called up the Missouri State Militia and commanded it himself, making him the first sitting governor to lead troops into battle and the first to lead them against his own Union.

July 5 William Parker Carr fought Governor Jackson's men in the Battle of Carthage, the Civil War's first major on-land battle. It pitted 1,100 Union volunteers, armed and well-drilled, against the governor's force of 6,000. Two-thirds bore arms; the rest were raw recruits, hurriedly gathered, barely trained.

The fight featured fluttering battle flags, cannons booming, and a bayonet charge. As Union forces retreated, Carr saw Governor Jackson's 2,000 weaponless recruits, unable to fight, hanging about in the woods, moving like deer among the trees.

Carr heard gunfire, a voice shouted from the woods, "For God's sake, stop! You're shooting your own men!" 

Who's to know? Recruits, who had no Confederate uniforms, wore whatever they could.

Coming soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS: 

A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War 

by Marilyn June Coffey

"Dixie"

When Fort Sumter kicked off the American Civil War, William Parker Carr joined the Union army. He and his unit traveled from Nebraska to Missouri singing--would you believe this?--"I Wish I Was in Dixie." The bright tune made for good marching, but their enemies, the Confederates, those Southerners, claimed "Dixie" as their anthem. Why was the song so popular? That was Lincoln's doing. He made that song all the rage, in the north as well as the south, the moment he named "Dixie" as his favorite song.

Coming soon in 

Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: 

A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Bleeding Kansas

In March 1855 at a Kansas election, 6,000 Southerners dropped by from Missouri to stuff ballot boxes. They had no right to vote, but they voted anyway, waving pistols to "prove their rights." 

Only 2,000 Kansas settlers voted, so the winning legislators lived mostly in Missouri and favored slavery, which genial President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, did not, but he recognized those Missouri ruffians anyway.

Scholars often list Pierce as one of our worst presidents--along with Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush.

Coming soon 

in Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: A Saucy History of a Nebraska County Seat War by Marilyn June Coffey

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Wild Jim

His name was Jim Lane, but folks called him Wild Jim. Ruffians looting his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, drove him wild.

Although a Free State leader, Wild Jim was odd and poorly educated. He wore a fancy jacket that hung open to reveal his trademark calfskin vest, his hair stood up every which way and his mouth geysered obscenities.

But he possessed amazing energy. Wanted for treason, he fled Kansas to return with an army of a thousand men. They walloped Ruffians, tit for tat.

Time passed. When Kansas became a free state, its voters promptly elected Wild Jim Lane, no longer wanted for treason, to the U.S. Senate.