Apache Kid (1860–01 January 1930?), Indian scout, was born in Aravaipa Canyon, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Carlos Agency in southeast Arizona Territory. The names of his father and mother do not appear in the San Carlos census and remain unknown. As a member of what the U.S. government called the SI band, Kid developed important skills as a youth and learned his scouting and tracking techniques from Togodechuz, his grandfather. Kid married one of the daughters of SL band chief Eskiminzin, possibly Nahthledeztelth. Kid's legitimate Apache name remains a mystery. U.S. Army records simply listed this remarkable scout as Kid, with no other designation. Sayes, a member of Kid's band, claimed that his Indian name was Shisininty. During Kid's court-martial, Tony, an Apache scout, testified that his name was Hahouantell. Various writers have provided other names that include Eskibinadel, Gonteee, Haskaybaynayntal, Ohyessonna, Oskabennantelz, Skibenanted, and Zenogolache. Kid received the added title “Apache” when he became a renegade. That title provided a way to label him as being especially infamous and dangerous....
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Apache Kid (1860–01 January 1930?), Indian scout
Clare V. McKanna Jr.
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Bailey, Ann Hennis Trotter (1742-1825), revolutionary war scout
Hedda Lautenschlager
Bailey, Ann Hennis Trotter (1742–22 November 1825), revolutionary war scout, was born in Liverpool, England. Little is known about her parents, although it is believed that her father had been a soldier under the duke of Marlborough’s command. As Bailey was literate, she received an education in Liverpool, although details of it are not recorded. Orphaned as a young adult, she immigrated to America in the wake of relatives named Bell. She arrived in Staunton, Virginia, at the Bells’ home, in 1761. In 1765 she married Richard Trotter, a frontiersman and Indian fighter, and they had a son in 1767. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, recruited men in 1774 to fight the marauding Indians who were disrupting the settlers on or near the Scioto River. Richard Trotter volunteered and followed Colonel Charles Lewis to the point where the Kanawha and Ohio rivers meet, known as Point Pleasant. He was killed in the battle there on 10 October 1774....
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Baker, James (1818-1898), trapper, army scout, and early settler of Colorado and Wyoming
Douglas D. Martin
Baker, James (19 December 1818–15 May 1898), trapper, army scout, and early settler of Colorado and Wyoming, was born in Belleville, Illinois, and grew up near Springfield. His parents were of Scots-Irish ancestry from South Carolina. With little formal schooling but adept with a rifle, Jim Baker left home for St. Louis in 1838 and signed an eighteen-month contract with the American Fur Company. On 25 May 1838 the Rocky Mountain–bound party, led by ...
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Barnwell, John (1671-1724), frontier settler and Indian fighter
Lawrence S. Rowland
Barnwell, John (1671– June 1724), frontier settler and Indian fighter, was the son of Alderman Matthew Barnwell of Dublin, Ireland, and Margaret Carberry. The elder Barnwell was killed in the siege of Derry in 1690 as a captain in James II’s Irish army, which attempted to restore the last Stuart king after the revolution of 1688. The family seat, Archerstown in County Meath, was forfeited as a result of this support of James II against William and Mary....
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Boyd, John Parker (1764-1830), army officer and soldier of fortune
William B. Skelton
Boyd, John Parker (21 December 1764–04 October 1830), army officer and soldier of fortune, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the son of James Boyd and Susanna (maiden name unknown). He developed military interests as a boy, and in 1786 he was appointed ensign in a Massachusetts infantry regiment suppressing Shays’s Rebellion (see ...
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Bradburn, Juan Davis (1787-1842), military adventurer and officer of the Republic of Mexico
Margaret Swett Henson
Bradburn, Juan Davis (1787–20 April 1842), military adventurer and officer of the Republic of Mexico, was born John Davis Bradburn in Virginia. Bradburn was known as Juan from 1817 until his death. Details about his early life are few, and his only child became a priest, leaving no direct descendants....
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Bridger, James (1804-1881), fur trapper and trader, explorer, and scout
Robert L. Gale
Bridger, James (17 March 1804–17 July 1881), fur trapper and trader, explorer, and scout, was born in a tavern near Richmond, Virginia, the son of James Bridger, a surveyor and innkeeper, and Chloe Tyler, a barmaid. Bridger and his family moved in about 1812 to a farm near St. Louis, where, on being orphaned five years later, he became a blacksmith’s apprentice. In 1822 he responded to an advertisement calling for a hundred able-bodied young men to join a fur-trapping expedition, lasting from one to three years, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River. The organizers of the expedition were ...
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Burnham, Frederick Russell (1861-1947), explorer, scout, and miner
Samuel Willard Crompton
Burnham, Frederick Russell (11 May 1861–01 September 1947), explorer, scout, and miner, was born in Tivoli, Minnesota, the son of Reverend Otway Burnham, a Congregational minister and missionary, and Rebecca Russell. One family story has it that his mother left him among corn stalks for an entire day while their settlement was under an Indian attack during the 1862 war with the Sioux. Certainly not proven, this story has an interesting ring to it, since Burnham was to spend much of his life hiding or escaping from American Indians or South African peoples during his career as a scout....
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California Joe (1829-1876), plainsman and army scout
E. D. Lloyd-Kimbrel
California Joe (08 May 1829–29 October 1876), plainsman and army scout, was born Moses Embree Milner in Standford, Kentucky, the son of Sarah Ann and Embree Armstead Milner, planters. Plantation life in the Kentucky wilderness was hardly genteel; the Milner home was a log cabin, as was the schoolhouse where the young Milner was an able student. Along with “book learning,” Milner excelled in tracking and hunting, which meant his family always had fresh meat to eat. Even as a boy he was known for his skill in shooting his father’s long-barreled rifle, a talent his family regarded as wholly in keeping with his father’s past military experiences in ...
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Carson, Kit (1809-1868)
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Carson, Kit (1809-1868), mountain man, army officer, and Indian agent
Richard H. Dillon
Carson, Kit (24 December 1809–23 May 1868), mountain man, army officer, and Indian agent, was born Christopher Houston Carson in Madison County, Kentucky, the son of Lindsey Carson, a farmer and revolutionary war veteran, and Rebecca Robinson. In 1811 Lindsey Carson moved his family to Howard County, Missouri, to find “elbow room.” He died in 1818, hit by a falling limb while clearing timber from his land. Christopher enjoyed no schooling and never learned to read or write, other than signing his name to documents. In 1825 his mother and stepfather apprenticed him to David Workman, a Franklin, Missouri, saddler whom Kit described as a kind and good man. Nevertheless, he ran away because he found saddlemaking tedious and distasteful work and yearned to travel. Following in the footsteps of a brother and a half-brother who were in the Santa Fe trade, Carson joined a caravan as a “cavvy boy” (an assistant to the wrangler in charge of the horse and mule herd). Though not unsympathetic, Workman was obliged by law to advertise for his runaway. But he misleadingly suggested to readers of the ...
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Clay, Green (1757-1828), pioneer and soldier
Harry M. Ward
Clay, Green (14 August 1757–31 October 1828), pioneer and soldier, was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, the son of Charles Clay and Martha Green, farmers. Green Clay had little formal education but at an early age mastered the techniques of surveying. Born poor, he realized that a fortune could be made by acquiring land and accompanied a surveying party to Kentucky in 1777. He was with ...
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Cody, William Frederick (1846-1917), frontiersman and entertainer
Rick Ewig
Cody, William Frederick (26 February 1846–10 January 1917), frontiersman and entertainer, better known as “Buffalo Bill,” was born in Scott County, Iowa, the son of Isaac Cody and Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock. Cody’s father managed several farms and operated a state business in Iowa. In 1854 the family moved to the Salt Creek Valley in Kansas, where Cody’s father received a government contract to provide hay to Fort Leavenworth. After his father died in 1857, Cody went to work as an ox-team driver for fifty cents a day. Shortly thereafter, the firm of Majors and Russell hired him as an express boy. Cody attended school periodically, although his formal education ended in 1859 when he joined a party heading to Denver to search for gold. He prospected for two months without any luck. He arrived back in Kansas in March 1860 after a trapping expedition. He rode for a time for the Pony Express during its short lifetime (Apr. 1860–Nov. 1861). After the start of the Civil War he joined a group of antislavery guerrillas based in Kansas. Later the Ninth Kansas Volunteers hired him as a scout and guide. On 16 February 1864 Cody enlisted into Company F of the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. He saw quite a bit of action in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas during his one year and seven months of duty. He was mustered out of the army as a private on 29 September 1865....
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Cody, William Frederick (1846-1917)
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Cortina, Juan Nepomuceno (1824-1892), revolutionary, politician, Mexican governor, and rancher
Zaragosa Vargas
Cortina, Juan Nepomuceno (16 May 1824–30 October 1892), revolutionary, politician, Mexican governor, and rancher, was born in Camargo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, the son of Trinidad Cortina, the town mayor and an important landowner, and María Estéfana Goseascochea. Little is known of Juan Cortina’s early life and education. Upon the death of his father in the early 1840s, his family moved to the Espíritu Santo grant, part of the area between the Nueces and Río Grande claimed by both Mexico and Texas and the future site of the city of Brownsville, Texas. This land belonged to Cortina’s mother. Cortina associated with ...
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Crawford, John Wallace (1847-1917), army scout and playwright
Paul T. Nolan
Crawford, John Wallace (04 March 1847–28 February 1917), army scout and playwright, known as “Captain Jack, the Poet Scout,” was born in Donegal, Ireland, the son of John Austin Crawford, a tailor, and Susie Wallace. In 1854 his father moved to the United States and found work in the coal mines of Minersville, Pennsylvania. He was joined by his wife in 1858 and by his children in 1860. Three weeks after their arrival he enlisted in the Union army, and his boys had to go to work in the coal mines....
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Croghan, George (1791-1849), inspector general of the U.S. Army
Samuel W. Thomas
Croghan, George (15 November 1791–08 January 1849), inspector general of the U.S. Army, was born at the family’s country seat, “Locust Grove,” on the Ohio River east of Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Major William Croghan, a surveyor and entrepreneur, and Lucy Clark. His mother was the sister of both the explorer ...
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Crowder, Enoch Herbert (1859-1932), soldier, diplomat, and jurist
Patrick G. Williams
Crowder, Enoch Herbert (11 April 1859–07 May 1932), soldier, diplomat, and jurist, was born in Grundy County, Missouri, the son of John Herbert Crowder and Mary Weller, farmers. Crowder graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1881 in the bottom half of his class. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Eighth Cavalry, he was stationed at Fort Brown in Texas. While there he read law in Brownsville, and by 1884 he was admitted to practice in Texas, Missouri, and federal courts. That year Crowder was transferred to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. Between 1885 and 1889 he served as a professor of military science and commandant of the cadet corps at the University of Missouri. He also continued to study law both at the university and with a Kansas City law firm and earned his LL.B. in 1886. That summer he played a bit part in the campaign against ...
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Emmons, Delos C. (1889-1965), United States Army general, airman, and military governor of Hawaii in the early years of America's involvement in World War II
Mark F. Leep
Emmons, Delos C. (17 January 1889–04 October 1965), United States Army general, airman, and military governor of Hawaii in the early years of America's involvement in World War II, was born Delos Carleton Emmons in the Ohio River town of Huntington, West Virginia, the son of Carleton Delos Emmons, a prosperous hardware business owner, and Minnie Gibson, the daughter of one of Huntington's first newspaper editors. Emmons enjoyed the life of an active boy growing up in a small river town, with the popular sport of baseball as his chief activity and love outside of school. By the time Emmons entered his senior year of high school in 1904, his athletic and leadership skills earned him the captaincy of both the baseball and football teams. Coveting an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Emmons spent the year following graduation at the Werntz Preparatory School in Annapolis, Maryland, to prepare for the academy's entrance examinations. His hard work proved successful, earning Emmons a spot in the Class of 1905 on June 15, 1905. Four years later, on June 11, 1909, he graduated in the middle of his class as a second lieutenant of infantry, with fellow graduates and future generals George S. Patton and Jacob L. Devers....
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Fagen, David (1875–01 December 1901?), captain in the Filipino nationalist army
Scot Ngozi-Brown
Fagen, David (1875–01 December 1901?), captain in the Filipino nationalist army, was born in Tampa, Florida. Little is known about either his parents or his early life. In the summer of 1899, just after the United States ended the war with Spain, Fagen was a corporal in the Twenty-fourth Infantry of Company I. He was among the black soldiers of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth infantries and the Ninth and Tenth cavalries dispatched to the Philippines in the U.S. effort to enforce territorial concessions granted by Spain in a peace treaty signed in February 1899. Emilio Aguinaldo, an ardent Filipino nationalist, led a guerrilla war resisting what he considered the United States replacing Spain as colonizer....
