Copyright 2022 by Hershel
Parker
Ch. 16 of AN OKIE’S RACIAL
RECKONINGS
Dick Costner--Amid the Massacre, Gallantry at
Wounded Knee
In 2012 I wrote several articles
defending Elizabeth Warren, candidate for Senator in Massachusetts, from those
saying she was falsely claiming Indian ancestry. The articles were printed and
reprinted as far away as Australia, where they won her few votes but some favorable
attention. Now she is in the news along with Senators Merkley and Wyden seeking
to revoke medals of gallantry awarded for the slaughter of Sioux (men, women,
and children) at Wounded Knee on 29 December 1890. I hope they succeed--but I
want Richard Costner to keep his medal. At least this chapter will be a
memorial for Dick, a ruddy faced blond New Jersey guy, five feet four and a
half, twenty-nine years old, who really was gallant in 1890, I will show.
First I want to look anew about how the
honest General Nelson A. Miles (1839-1925) was mistreated by officials from President
Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) on down, how the reckless, arrogant, murderous James
W. Forsyth (1834 or 1835-1906) was publicly vindicated and celebrated for the
massacre, and how behind Forsyth stood William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891). I
have been saying that if you are a Southerner who got to Virginia early enough
you are kin to everyone--to Virginia, or else to Philadelphia, Baltimore, or
South Carolina. I am a very distant
cousin of Forsyth through the Bells and Knoxes, a nearer cousin of Sherman
through the Hills and Clarkes, a still nearer cousin of Miles through the
Tindalls and Gilmores, and a cousin of Harrison in a most unexpected way,
almost straight through one family, men named Sims then Symes running down the generations.
But it is young Dick Costner I want to vindicate, in advance of a sweeping
rescinding of medals. After Cousin Kevin’s Dances
with Wolves, we want gallantry to be acknowledged.
General Miles told the truth about
Forsyth’s slaughter of men, women, and children at Wounded Knee. Learning by
telegraph of the massacre on the day it happened, General Schofield in
Washington wanted to publicly congratulate the 7th cavalry for
“splendid conduct.” Miles warned him to hold off, and (by telegraph) described
what had happened. At first, President Harrison was appalled: “He hopes that
the report of killing women and children in the affair at Wounded Knee is
unfounded and directs that you cause an immediate inquiry to be made and report
the result to the department. If there was any unsoldierly conduct you will
relieve the responsible officer and so use the troops engaged there as to avoid
its repetition.” That was what Schofield relayed, and Miles did just that,
suspending Col. Forsyth. Documents laid out in the Topeka, Kansas Democrat on 7 January 1891 show how quickly
the President decided he did not want
to hear any more from Miles. Washington made the decision to cover up all the
slaughter, and that meant sidelining Miles, who resisted being silenced.
The Detroit Free Press on 3 February had the official line: “The Seventh
Cavalry and the officer in command of the brave troopers at the battle of
Wounded Knee and the engagement at the Drexel Mission, which occurred on the
following day, have been warmly commended by Gen. Merritt, commanding the
Department of the Missouri. As the smoke has blown from the field those best
fitted to judge have found ample reason for praise and none for blame. Col.
Forsyth seems to have found a vindication more prompt than comes to some who
are misrepresented under strong excitement.” People were to believe that in his
shock or bewilderment General Miles had misunderstood just how brave and
resourceful Forsyth had been.
Before the middle of February 1891, not
only nationally read newspapers all over the country but important regional
ones had long stories. The Kansas City, Missouri, Times on 13 February had three articles on the same front page. First
was the biggest story, Sherman’s sinking toward death. This was the first obsessive
national death-watch since that of U. S. Grant (1822-1885)--and yes, Grant was
a moderately distant cousin of mine through the Sims and Speke families. Second
were stories about Forsyth’s vindication and reinstatement in his command,
sometimes accompanied by a picture of the hero. Third were raucously gleeful
articles about the repudiation of General Miles after his treatment of Forsyth.
Later, after a look at Sherman, I review and expand upon the previous
paragraphs.
Sherman, who sank quickly and died, was
honored by a presidential order for lowering of flags to half mast, and Harrison
quickly offered to have the body moved to rest in the Rotunda of the Capitol. This
Sherman was a remarkably kind man, to read the newspapers. The Los Angeles Herald on 15 February 1891 quoted
Harrison, who had marched with him across Georgia: “His genial nature made him
liked by every soldier in the great union army. No presence was so welcome and
inspiring at the camp fire or commandery as his.”
How Sherman treated the women and
children of the South foreshadowed his attitude toward the Sioux at Wounded
Knee. The story of what he did in Marietta, Georgia, was cautiously told by the
Civil War correspondent of the Times
of London, who wrote from Niagara Falls about a reliable witness to the
spectacle at the railway station in Louisville--“800 to 1000 persons,
principally women,” whom Sherman had banished “en masse.” First Sherman had burnt factories and other buildings in
Marietta, reducing this crowd of nearly “1000 people, mostly women, to
destitution.” They could not remain in burnt-out Marietta, and Sherman would
not let them go within Confederate lines. He had a solution: “he sent them in a
body, packed as close as cattle, in the railway cars to Louisville, thence to
be conveyed across the Ohio into Indiana, to shift for themselves as best they
might.” The witness continued: “Among the number was one old lady of 92, the
grandmother of one of the factory girls, who sat with the rest at the station
without food or shelter, under a broiling sun, waiting for the conveyances that
were to take them over the river, and there pitch them among strangers on an
alien soil, as if they had been of no more account than so many cartloads of
refuse and rubbish. Many of the women were sick and ill, and one was
prematurely delivered of a still-born while in the train. My informant thinks
that there were at least 150 young children in this unhappy multitude, and, as
far as he knows, not a word of their fate was allowed to appear in any of the
Kentucky newspapers.” Several British papers reprinted this article, but
censorship was so strong that it never appeared, as far as I know, in any
American paper. My quotation is from the Glasgow (Scotland) Herald of 3 September 1864, which uses
only the section it calls “Sharp Measures in Kentucky.” They were packed as
closely as cattle, but they were apparently not in actual cattle cars (such as
the ones in which Confederate Zebulon Vance stuffed northwestern North Carolina
Union sympathizers).
Chicago Tribune 24 July 1864 picked up a Louisville story from the day
before: “Rebel Civilians Sent to Seek their Rights”: “On Wednesday about 200
rebel men, women and children, arrived here on the Nashville train. They are
all ardent admirers of Jeff. Davis and the Southern cause. They were picked up
‘way down in Georgia,’ by order of Major General Sherman, and forwarded to this
city to be sent north of the Ohio River to remain during the war. Another
installment of fifty rebel women from Georgia arrived here last night. Three
hundred and fifty more are reported at Nashville, and will be forwarded here on
Tuesday next. They are to be sent out of the limits of the United States.” This
is an under-reported, almost totally suppressed story of Sherman’s inhumanity.
What “Rights” could these people seek in Canada? Even the Yankee reporters were
incredulous, as in this from the Coshocton Ohio Democrat (27 July 1864): “A dispatch from Louisville, Ky.
says---Another installment of 50 rebel women arrived here to-night. Three
hundred and fifty more are reported at Nashville, and will be forwarded here on
Tuesday. They are to be sent out of the limits of the United States. Where
to--Canada or Siberia? Under what law does Lincoln thus persecute these women.”
This was a question almost never raised, and never answered.
Marietta was a foretaste of Sherman’s
policy for dealing with displaced persons. The Boston Herald on 15 February 1891 recalled Sherman’s great kindness to the
conquered Atlantans, whom he moved out of what was left of the town. He let
them choose whether to go south or north. The emptying of Atlanta “was quietly
and humanely effected.” The 446 families (2035 persons) going south were
“transported in wagons at the national cost, with their furniture and clothes,
averaging 1651 pounds per family,” while those going north “were brought, at
government cost, by railroad to Chattanooga.” The emptying of the town “was not
only right in itself, but was effected with considerate tenderness.” In fact,
the burning, emptying, and final burning of Atlanta was conducted with such
“considerate tenderness” that, one may assume, Pittypat Hamilton was allowed to
bring her smelling salts and several paintings of her ancestors which slaves
had removed from their frames and rolled up for her. Why did Margaret Mitchell not
tell us about this considerate tenderness?
The Union General Henry Warner Slocum remembered
the aftermath of the emptying of Atlanta, the march across Georgia, as
"one great picnic from beginning to end” with "just enough fighting
and danger of fighting to give zest to the experience." He may also have
remembered the pleasure he experienced burning newspaper building and archives,
as in Fayetteville, North Carolina. General Edward Follansbee Noyes remembered
a zestful party also: in "this rollicking picnic expedition there was just
enough of fighting for variety, enough of hardship to give zest to the repose
which followed it, and enough of ludicrous adventure to make its memory a
constant source of gratification."
“Yusef” in the Detroit Free Press (16 February 1891) recalled General Sherman’s pleasure
whenever reminded of that blithesome walk across Georgia: “The writer has on
several notable occasions been with Gen. Sherman when band after band would
play ‘Marching Through Georgia.” The spirited cadence of the air always seemed
to give pleasure. He probably reflected that it was a musical tribute that
would help to preserve his name and fame. Like the Marseillaise it appeals
spontaneously to the heart, and will probably survive in this country at least
as long as the French revolutionary hymn, always retaining its triumphal
allusions to Sherman’s march to the sea.” Yusef also recorded Sherman at a
parade taking pleasure in recalling his Bummers (the looters)): “He smiled,
too, at the facetiousness of the squad of ‘Sherman’s Bummers,’ with their poultry
and other forage,” and “commented approvingly on what he saw.”
In the March across Georgia no local men
were hanged until they were unconscious to make them disclose where they had
hidden a bushel of corn or a woman’s sewing-kit, no men died from being hanged to
death by over-enthusiastic or inattentive bummers, no handsome or
ordinary-looking or even dumpy grandmothers were raped by two or more bummers,
no ten-year-old lads were battered with rifle-butts and buggered, no food-stuffs
were commandeered from any already hungry family, no dwellings were ransacked
for molasses or silver pitchers (and none burned down afterwards), and only a
very narrow band of vegetation (was it even 200 feet wide? 100 feet?) was necessarily
trampled by the feet of 60,000 or so men with various sorts of artillery which
was mercifully not used even as the army approached Savannah. Not one Georgia family
that had never owned slaves was plunged into beggary and homelessness from
which they did not arise until after World War II, if then. If any of this
had happened, the papers North, South, and West would have remembered it in
February 1891. No wonder Sherman looked benignly on the actors impersonating
bummers with their plunder. Happy memories!
As a
historian I came to despise William T. Sherman first because he or his
delegated arsonists set fire to any newspaper building he encountered in the
South. He knew he was not merely burning buildings and newspaper archives: he
was destroying the history of the South, one town at a time, waging total war
on one locality after another by arson as well as slaughter. Life in the most
insignificant town in New Hampshire would be preserved in one or two local
newspaper archives. The history of comparable towns Sherman encountered in the
South was utterly destroyed except for pieces that occasionally had already been
copied in towns not in his path. There were some exceptions, old newspaper
files stored where Sherman did not see them, but very often I have looked for
an event, a name, and a year and cursed him for destroying the evidence I knew
had been there, once. Bummers were comic in Sherman’s later life, parading all decked
out with plunder: but oh, the loss from the burning of the great archive of
American historical and literary documents at Woodlands, the home near
Charleston of William Gilmore Simms. (A Gilmore and a Sims myself, I am directly
kin through the McGehees.)
A
Tucker and doubly a Glenn, I despise Sherman for what he did to destroy Indian languages.
As a member of the ironically titled “Peace Commission” in 1868 he raged that
the “barbarous dialects” of the Indians “should be blotted out.” President Cleveland
named Johnathan
Atkins Commissioner of Indian Affairs early in 1885, and he served over three
years. As commissioner, following Sherman, he forbade the use of Native
languages in reservation schools, saying in 1887 that "instruction of the
Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them but it is detrimental
to the cause of their education and civilization.” Sherman’s influence was
long-lasting.
Most of all, I despise Sherman for his
willingness to exterminate all Indians, at least those west of the Mississippi
and north of Indian Territory, and for the influence he had in shaping public
opinion to his view. There is one remarkable piece by George W. Manypenny which
I quote from the Columbus, Ohio Statesman
(14 June 1867):
“The fact is . . . there is a
systematic, deliberate and devilish plan on foot to essay to exterminate the
Indians. That plan was officially promulgated on the 28th of
December, 1866, by Gen. W. T. Sherman. In an official letter of that date to
Gen. Grant, and which was afterward laid before Congress, he utters this
infamous and atrocious sentiment: ‘We
must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux even to their
extermination, men, women, and children. Nothing else will reach the root of
the case;’ and I infer that the Administration are committed to the
sentiment expressed in this note. It was laid before Congress. Every department
had knowledge of it. Neither the President nor Secretary of the Interior, as I
have learned, dissented. Ex-Commissioner [Lewis V.] Bogy did, and he was
rejected. Congress took no steps to check the matter and put a stop to the
vigorous efforts immediately commenced by the War Department in preparing a
large force by early spring to enter the field on an exterminating war, and
General Hancock was in such a hurry to get about it that he did not wait until
the grass grew.”
In
“all the various religious assemblies,” Manypenny said, there was not “one word
of condemnation” exposing Sherman’s words as a “great crime against humanity
and justice.” On the contrary, Sherman’s words were widely reprinted, and
agreed with.
The Salt Lake Telegraph of 2 April 1867 copied the
Colorado Transcript on what Sherman said
about the extermination of “men, women, and children” then commented, “If he
will carry out this little programme he will have the everlasting prayers and
benedictions of all the people of the plains and mountains.” The War over,
whites were thronging into the Louisiana Purchase, and wanted protection. In
the next decades most of the army remained under the power of what Sherman had
said in 1867.
And what he said had reverberated afar
in civilian life. The London Morning Post
on 1 September 1874 said that Sherman had “not hesitated to declare, over and
over again, that the extermination of the Indians was necessary and desirable;
and it is not long ago that the officer next in command to General Sherman, General Sheridan, having surprised and captured an Indian village,
allowed his soldiers to massacre the women and children who were found in its
wigwams. The two Indian wars now being waged in the United States are wanton
wars of extermination, and unless a change in the administration of Indian
affairs is wrought the desire of General Sherman
will in time be fully gratified.”
In the twenty-first century almost
unknown or all but forgotten massacres of Indians are finally being
documented--Patrick E. Connor’s massacre of children, women, and male Shoshones
at Bear River, Idaho in 1863; Chivington’s massacre of Arapaho children, women,
and men at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864; George Custer’s massacre of children,
women, and male Cheyennes and members of other tribes camped with Black Kettle
on the Washita, in 1868, in present-day Oklahoma. In a biography, Chief Left Hand (1881), Margaret Cole
has dealt with Chivington and in Killing Custer (2013) with Custer's character; Sheldon Russell has dealt with Custer in A Forgotten Evil (2019); and in 2022 James
Lee Burke in Every Cloak Rolled in Blood
brings back Colonel Eugene Baker, who massacred a sleeping camp of Blackfeet children,
women, and men in 1870. Perhaps none is so well known now as the story of the
massacre at Wounded Knee. Here I do not try to tell it in any detail.
On 29 December 1890 Colonel James W.
Forsyth disobeyed General Miles’s order to keep a safe distance from the
Indians at Wounded Knee. Instead, he slaughtered hundreds of “bucks,” “squaws,”
and children--including babies in their mothers’ arms. Some mothers with babies
were chased down for a mile or more and shot there. Others were able to crawl many
miles away before dying of wounds or freezing to death. Miles wrote his wife (a
niece of General Sherman) that Forsyth’s actions were “about the worse I have
ever known.” For him, Wounded Knee was "the most abominable criminal
military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children."
Miles suspended Forsyth and wrote a strong
condemnation of his behavior: “I can partially account for the singular apathy
and neglect of Colonel Forsyth upon the theory of his indifference to and
contempt for the repeated and urgent warnings and orders received by him from
the division commander, or by his incompetence and entire inexperience in the
responsibility of exercising command where judgement and discretion are
required.” (This from the Galena KS Times,
20 February 1891.) At first, as I reviewed, President Benjamin Harrison,
shocked, demanded full details. Miles promptly supplied that information, with
diagrams and maps included. Then at once Harrison refused to hear such details,
and political, military, and public opinion all repudiated Miles, often using
ridicule and slander. General Sherman on 7 January 1891 wrote to his niece to
tell her husband (Miles) that the more Sioux he kills now, “the less he will
have to do later.”
L. Frank Baum (the same who died in
Hollywood) in the Aberdeen, SD Saturday
Pioneer for 3 January 1891 responded to the news from Wounded Knee and
Drexel Mission with this editorial in the Saturday
Pioneer: “The
Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination
of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to
protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed
and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety
for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands.
Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the
redskins as those have been in the past.”
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs
telegraphed Elaine Goodale, the supervisor of education at Pine Ridge, on 7
January asking for a report. He had probably read her 2 January appeal in a
message to Herbert Welsh of the Indians Rights Association: “My Dear Mr. Welsh:
We have our hand more than full in caring for the wounded Indians taken in the
battle of Monday. Mr. Cook’s church is a hospital, and there are several tents
full beside. We need money for food, clothing, bedding and everything else. Can
you not get some help for us?” (This in the Philadelphia Inquirer of the
8th.) The Commissioner of Indian Affairs released her letter to him
on the 16th but was careful to identify it as hearsay, since she had
not witnessed the battle. Papers over the north and west took up the report on
the 17th, paraphrasing it and identifying it as an “interesting
account” but “her version” (the Davenport Iowa Democrat on the 17th).
The Pittsburgh Post quoted details of her letter that got lost
elsewhere: When the Indians “met the troops they anticipated no trouble. There
was constant friendly intercourse between the soldiers and the Indians, even
the women shaking hands with the officers and men. The demand for their arms
was a surprise to the Indians, but the great majority of them chose to submit
quietly.” The Omaha Daily Bee of 17 January 1891 (and
many other papers) quoted her insistence that the firing of the military was
“indiscriminate” for “the fact that the dead Indian bucks were found lying
together, while the dead squaws and children were found scattered for a
distance of two miles tends to show that it was wilful.” She was clear: “‘There
is no doubt,’ she says, ‘that the majority of the women and children had no
thought of anything but flight. They were pursued up the ravines and shot down
indiscriminately by the soldiers.’” What she saw was “a general and
indiscriminate slaughter of the unarmed and helpless.” The War Department did
its best to bury her account.
A week and a half after the massacre,
Sherman’s 1866 position was remembered in the St. Joseph MO Herald (9 January 1891): “A militia
colonel in Kansas has tendered ‘himself’ and his regiment to the secretary of
war, to ‘exterminate’ the Indians in South Dakota.” Miles held his ground, but
the Buffalo Commercial on 20 January
1891 reported his worsening reputation: “A number of complaints daily reach
camp criticising General Miles, because he does not move upon and annihilate
the Indians. The answer made to these from headquarters is that the force in
the field is composed of soldiers and not butchers, that even the commander is
under orders, and that those orders are that the war must be brought to a close
without bloodshed.”
The Salt Lake Herald on 13 February 1891 was much more caustic: “The findings of
the President and the war secretary must be accepted as a direct rebuke of Miles, declaring him guilty of bad
judgment or convicting him of being guided in his action by personal malice
towards Forsyth. In either case he
is censurable, and the censure should come direct rather than by implication,
as in the official disapproval of his course with his inferior officer. . . .
We are disposed to believe that General Miles
set out to ‘cut a dash,’ his object being something more than a brush with the
almost helpless Indians. He was ready to do or undertake anything which would
cause him to be talked about, even to the extent of blasting a brother officer.
He imagined he heard the gentle buzzing of the Presidential bee, and hoped to
encourage the incent until the buzzing be loud enough to be heard by others.
This is our opinion of Miles, and this is why we think he
encouraged if he did not force the Indians into assuming an attitude suggestive
of war, and why he kicked General Forsyth.”
If there had ever been serious buzz about Miles as a candidate for the
Presidency or other high public office, this sort of malignant defamation put a
quick end to it.
Now, far into the second new century,
Elizabeth Warren and Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden are attempting
to to right the wrong: “‘While we
can’t change history, we can change who we as a nation recognize as heroes,’
Senator Wyden said. ‘The soldiers who attacked and killed indigenous peoples at
Wounded Knee were no heroes, and they did not deserve to be awarded Medals of
Honor. Revoking these medals is the least Congress can do to recognize the
irreparable harm that the U.S. government caused to indigenous peoples.’”
One medal I hope we do not rescind.
Here is a headline in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat
for 3 April 1891: “For Gallantry at Wounded Knee,” dated Washington. D. C., the
day before. The item is brief: “For gallantry in the Wounded Knee affair the
President has awarded certificates of merit to Nathan Telman, Richard Costner
and William Girdwood, Privates of the 7th Cavalry. He has also
directed that the pay of these men be increased $2 per month.” They may have
been gallant on 29 December, but more likely the praise was due to what
happened the next day at the nearby ruins of
“Drexel Mission.” As Miles pointed out in his supplement to what he said
of Forsyth’s conduct on the 29th, Forsythe had let himself be pinned
down in a valley, a “pocket.” On 9 February 1891 the Kansas City, Missouri Times printed “Incidents and anecdotes
of the Wounded Knee and Mission fights.” One of the oldest soldiers told this
of Captain John Van R. Hoff (a “Van Renssalear,” he was kin to Herman
Melville). The old soldier testified that “assistant surgeons” Hoff and
Lieutenant Glennan, “did everything they could to alleviate the sufferings of
the men, and both exposed themselves to a storm of bullets while looking over
the field for the wounded.” He added, “I have been in many a hard fight but
never saw doctors who performed their duty with as much zeal as these two did.”
Hoff and Lieutenant Clark had extracted a bullet from Sergeant Bagnee’s foot:
“The delay in extracting the bullet was on account of his feeble condition. The
operation was successfully performed, and he feels much better after getting
the Indian lead from his foot.” (This news someone signing himself “w” reported
to the 26 March 1891 Junction City, KS Tribune.)
Hoff located the treatment of Bagnee as about a hundred yards from where
Lieutenant Mann was shot, as he visualized the action of “Dick Costner, one of
the hospital corps,” at the site of the Catholic mission on 30 December, the
day after the massacre at Wounded Knee: “When Lieutenant Mann was wounded at
the mission it was learned that the ambulance driver had deserted his team and
left [for?] a place of safety. Costner, who never drove a team of mules in his
life, jumped up on the box and drove to where the wounded officer was lying.
Arriving at the place he dropped the lines picked up the wounded officer and
returned amid a storm of bullets to the agency.” Captain Hoff and Private
Costner had both been brave.
Here is the draft of the commendation for
Costner and Girdwood.
Back at Fort Riley, in Northeastern
Kansas, Costner and Girdwood “of the hospital” had earned the little vacation
to Eureka Lake for some shooting. “They returned with 23 ducks and 11 geese,” said
the Junction City KS Republican, 13
March 1891. Post Surgeon Hoff was still lamenting the loss of Hospital Steward
Pollock. Aware that he (and Costner and Girdwood) could also have been killed,
Hoff sent the War Department “a battle marked relic of the late war with the
Sioux in South Dakota,” an “ambulance guidon, which has upon its field of white
the sign of the Red Cross.” The War Department publicized it in a way that
damaged the Indians. An article in the Elizabeth, NC North Carolinian (12 August 1891) was headlined: “RELIC OF INDIAN
BUTCHERY. The Sign of the Red Cross is not Recognized by the Red Warriors.” The
text went on: “According to the terms of the Geneva Convention this cross, when
property displayed, is respected by all combatants in civilized warfare. There
are more than a dozen holes in the guidon, made by the shots from the Indians’
weapons, and Major Hoff, in his letter accompanying it, expresses the opinion
that the Geneva Convention cuts no figure in Indian warfare. The guidon was one
of those displayed in the Wounded Knee fight, when Hospital Steward Pollo[c]k was
killed while going to the relief of a wounded man. Privates Richard Costner and
William Girdwood were granted certificates of merit for gallantry displayed in
this fight, as well as in the fight at White Clay Creek” (the next day, known
as the Drexel Mission fight). Hoff and his men had all been brave. Forsyth, of
course, had never heard of the Geneva Convention.
The Junction City Kansas Republican on 6 November 1891 reported
that the 7th Cavalry joined the Junction City Baptists in a night of
“evening song services.” Six members were named, with this slightly cryptic
addition: “Dick Costner will sing with this choir at all future engagements.”
He may have sung until his discharge on 23 May 1892. Back to New Jersey, he
married Emma F. Lewis on the last day of 1894, according to the record in the
Trenton-United Methodist Church. Thereafter Costner lived out his life as a laborer,
a man of moderate income, a renter rather than a homeowner, who died in 1919
knowing that his son William was still in France, but at last word, alive. He had
different jobs. His marriage license says he was an “iron worker.” In 1900 he
was a local expressman. In 1901 he took a job at Roeblings, the wire rope manufacturer. The 1910 census showed him as an iron worker in a foundry.
Without a great deal of money Costner
was an extremely active social man, regularly attending parties with dozens of
people including a good many Costners and kin. Trenton was no Manhattan or
Philadelphia, but the papers treated its middle class citizens as if they were
extraordinary. The papers were going out of their way to celebrate the
citizens. “The World of Society” was a three column heading for the Sunday Advertiser on the day in 1907 when
it noticed Richard’s wife’s birthday and many other items. Early, on 17 October
1893 the Trenton Evening Times listed
Richard and a “lady” as guest at the “In and Out Social Club,” which
entertained “their guests with music, dancing, and speechmaking.” The hosts
were imaginative rather than extravagant, decorating “with evergreens, palms,
ferns and the American colors, while pots of choice flowers added beauty to the
surroundings.” A large group of friends and family, according to the Trenton Evening Times (8 March 1906) left
Richard Costner “agreeably surprised” on his 35th birthday, when he
“was presented with a handsome gold watch.” Like
many thousands of fellow male Americans, Costner sought out fraternities. The
Trenton Evening News on 15 March 1896
had a big section: “OUR SECRET SOCIETIES--NEWS AND GOSSIP CONCERNING
VARIOUS FRATERNITIES” Some of the
Southern ones costumed themselves eerily like KKK members, and however they
dressed in Trenton Costner and his lodge brothers were not sensitive to the
sufferings of American Indians. Under the head “Improved Order of Red Men” new
members were welcomed: “Two palefaces were found astray in the forest and were
captured by the braves while on the hunt. They were instructed in the unwritten
work of the adoption degree in a very creditable manner.” The
man who had shown such bravery at the Bloody Pocket in South Dakota now, in the
Uncas Tribe No. 102 Dick along with his brother Holmes, “helped to initiate
Paleface Judson Bloom into the mysteries of the tribe.” Obliviousness to moral
issues is a recurrent theme in this book.
“Married Six Years” in the 8 January
1901 Trenton Times told the story: “Games, vocal and instrumental music and
dancing afforded pleasure for all. A full course supper was served and Mr and
Mrs Costner received many handsome gifts. About fifty guests were present.”
Later that year (the Trenton Times,
29 July) Dick was sick with rheumatism for three weeks but then was able to
return to his new job at Roeblings.” On 21 September 1902 the Trenton Sunday Advertiser said that “Mr. and
Mrs. B. Costner” had entertained more than a dozen couples at which a “musical
program was rendered” and refreshments “were served at a late hour.” Dick and
Emma along with other Costners were guests.
The Trenton Evening News on 28 August 1904 described a notable meeting of the
Navajo Club. There was lively bidding on a “pig-in-a-bag” furnished by Brother
Costner (William, not Dick) then the close of the formal part of the meeting by
all singing “Navajo,” accompanied by Miss Haas on the piano. Then the social
department took charge, “at which games, dancing, phonograph selections, etc.,
were indulged in until interrupted by the host and hostess for the serving of
ice cream and cake. Brother William Costner, the silver-tongued, who bears a
very striking resemblance to [William Jennings] Bryan, and his brother, Richard
Costner, had a contest as to who would eat three plates of cream in the
shortest time. The club does not expect to have another contest like that soon
again, as hardly anyone present could regain their composure for the balance of
the evening. William won, eating three plates to his brother’s two.”
The
Costners regularly celebrated occasions in their lives. For Emma’s 37th
birthday (according to the Trenton Sunday
Advertiser on 1 September 1907) they had (hired) “Pierce’s orchestra.” They
perhaps did not spend much on the decorations “in the national colors and
lavender and white,” or the “floral decorations,” and the supper was “catered”
by one of the guests with help of others, including family. Emma received beautiful and valuable presents but
especially “a postal shower from friends from Philadelphia, Long Island City”
and Trenton. Someone organized that postal shower.
William
and Richard both became trustees of a “New Lodge,” the “Order of Independent
Americans” (10 July 1909, the Evening Times). At the Richard Costner house the
“national color” decorations were brought out for daughter Thelma’s fifth
birthday where a large crowd, including many Costners, ate a “tasteful supper”
at 5 o’clock. (27 September 1914, the Evening
Times.) Any member of the family was worthy of recognition in the local
press.
I
save the best for last. Remember that Richard Costner in the hospital corps had
been cited “for bravery in actions against hostile Sioux Indians at Wounded
Knee Creek, S. D., December 29, 1890, and near the Catholic Mission, on White
Clay Creek, S. D., December 30, 1890, especially on the latter date, in taking
the ambulance, abandoned by its civilian teamster, and rescuing a wounded
officer under fire, on the battle field.” He had never driven a team of mules
before that 30th of December, but he saved an officer’s life. The
Trenton Evening
Times 26 Dec 1915 carried a big local
story: “FARMER IS NEARLY DROWNED IN BASIN.” The sub-heading was “Richard
Costner Hauls Berkholzer From Water, Saving His Life.” It was cold, on this
anniversary of Washington’s crossing the Delaware. A quarter century after
driving a team of mules under fire, again in miserable winter, Dick once again
acted spontaneously: “John E. Berkholzer, a Ewing Township farmer, narrowly
escaped death by drowning when he fell into the icy waters of the basin of the
Trenton Transportation Company, near State Street. Had it not been for the
timely arrival of Richard Costner, of 48
Commerce Street, who heard his cries for help, Berkholzer would have probably
drowned. Patrolman Hillman took Berkholzer to the police station. When Judge
Geraghty opened court yesterday the man was brought before him wrapped in a
horse blanket, as his clothing had not dried. He explained to the court that he
was on a Christmas party with a friend and had drank a little, becoming
bewildered as he neared the canal. He was told to go home and enjoy his Christmas
dinner.” Perhaps Costner merely extended an iron worker’s hard hand to the man
struggling in the icy (and filthy) water rather than diving in to rescue him,
but if responding fast at the risk of his life was required, Dick was still
your man.
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