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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.06.08 05:30l 84 Lines 4132 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jun 12
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To : TODAY@ALLUS
June 12, 1876
Journalist headed for Little Big Horn files dispatch
Marcus Kellogg, a journalist traveling with Custer's 7th Cavalry,
files one of his last dispatches before being killed at the
Battle of the Little Big Horn.
A native of Ontario, Canada, Kellogg migrated with his family to
New York in 1835. As a young man he mastered the art of the
telegraph and went to work for the Pacific Telegraphy Company in
Wisconsin. Sometime during the Civil War, Kellogg abandoned his
career in telegraphy in favor of becoming a newspaperman. In
1873, he moved west to the frontier town of Bismarck in Dakota
Territory and became the assistant editor of the Bismarck
Tribune.
A chance event in the winter of 1876 began Kellogg's unexpected
path toward the Little Big Horn. While returning from a trip to
the East, Kellogg was on the same train as George Custer and his
wife, Elizabeth. Custer was on his way to Fort Abraham Lincoln,
near Bismarck, where he was going to lead the 7th Cavalry in a
planned assault on several bands of Indians who had refused to be
confined to reservations. After an unusually heavy winter storm,
the train became snowbound. Kellogg improvised a crude telegraph
key, connected it to the wires running alongside the track, and
sent a message ahead to the fort asking for help. Custer's
brother, Tom, arrived soon after with a sleigh to rescue them.
Ever since his days as a Civil War hero, Custer had enjoyed being
lionized in the nation's newspapers. Now, as he prepared for what
he hoped would be his greatest victory ever, Custer wanted to
make sure his glorious deeds would be adequately covered in the
press. Initially, Custer had planned to take his old friend
Clement Lounsberry, who was Kellogg's employer at the Tribune,
with him into the field with the 7th Cavalry. At the last minute,
Kellogg was picked to go instead-perhaps because Custer had been
impressed by his resourcefulness with a telegraph key.
When Custer led his soldiers out of Fort Abraham Lincoln and
headed west for Montana on May 31, Kellogg rode with him. During
the next few weeks, Kellogg filed three dispatches from the field
to the Bismarck Tribune, which in turn passed the stories on to
the New York Herald. (Leaving nothing to chance, Custer himself
also sent three anonymous reports on his progress to the Herald.)
Kellogg's first dispatches, dated May 31 and June 12, recorded
the progress of the expedition westward. His final report, dated
June 21, came from the army's camp along the Rosebud River in
southern Montana, not far from the Little Big Horn River. "We
leave the Rosebud tomorrow," Kellogg wrote, "and by the time this
reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what
result remains to be seen."
The results, of course, were disastrous. Four days later, Sioux
and Cheyenne warriors wiped out Custer and his men along the
Little Big Horn River. Kellogg was the only journalist to witness
the final moments of Custer's 7th Cavalry. Had he been able to
file a story he surely would have become a national celebrity.
Unfortunately, Kellogg did not live to tell the tale and died
alongside Custer's soldiers.
On July 6, the Bismarck Tribune printed a special extra edition
with a top headline reading: "Massacred: Gen. Custer and 261 Men
the Victims." Further down in the column, in substantially
smaller type, a sub-headline reported: "The Bismarck Tribune's
Special Correspondent Slain." The article went on to report, "The
body of Kellogg alone remained unstripped of its clothing, and
was not mutilated." The reporter speculated that this might have
been a result of the Indian's "respect [for] this humble shover
of the lead pencil."
That the Sioux and Cheyenne respected Kellogg for his
journalistic skills is highly doubtful. However, his spectacular
death in one of the most notorious events in the nation's history
did make him something of an honored martyr among newspapermen.
The New York Herald later erected a monument to the fallen
journalist over the supposed site of his grave on the Little Big
Horn battlefield.
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