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A Two Gun Man vs a Four Gun Man

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Napoleon once said that God’s on the side with the most guns. We know that’s not fully correct, as there are lots of examples of the battle being won by the smaller army. Victory goes to the side that that can keep the most metal flying at the enemy while exposing it self to the least amount of fire in return.
The Constitution was a forty four gun frigate, most of the time it had sixty on board. It’s two big victories came over thirty eight gun frigates, that had forty four on board.
Firefights between irregulars were often fast and deadly. Seconds could count. Numbers were few, and there were not enough men around to cover for you while you reloaded.
 
Interesting link.

Although it's picking fly feces out of the pepper, there were a couple of minor errors in it though.

The newspaper in 1899 was the Arizona Republican. It was not named the Arizona Republic until 1930.

Also, 5 1/2 miles Northeast of the center of Phoenix is not in the area of Northern and 7th Street.

Actually it would be in the Arcadia area around 44th Street and Indian School Road just Southwest of Camelback mountain.
That is close to my backyard.

I know. Picky, picky, picky. :grin:
 
Good catch, Zonie! I think there are a lot of errors in the article, that being two of them. The author seems to have gotten all his information from the obituaries in Arizona papers. I doubt they ever really researched obituaries, so there are probably historical errors as well

I knew, and still know some remaining descendants of Capt. Poole. I went to high school with three of his g-grandchildren and have been lifelong friends ever since. I was shown a newspaper clipping about Poole from the time period, and he was listed as being a resident of Orangedale, AZ. Doing a bit of research, I discovered that was the original name of Scottsdale, for a few years prior to 1896.

My father, who attended school in Scottsdale before WWII, knew of the family and where they lived at that time in Scottsdale, but I don't know if that was the same location, as it was a generation later. If I remember correctly, he told me they had a farm East of downtown Scottsdale, between Thomas and Indian School, or there about. Where his descendants lived, may or may not be where he lived, though.

I can paraphrase the old clipping I saw. It was like an "about town" gossip column and said that "the old Quantrill Raider, Capt. Dave Poole, was beastly drunk again last night."

I imagine a lot of those in the uncivil war stayed "beastly drunk" as much as possible to try and live with the resulting demons. That was the common treatment for PTSD, it's just that nobody knew it then.
 
My friends didn't know any more about their ancestor than what was in the obituaries.

I did some research on the Capt. Poole for them a few years ago and found he was the fellow that the character "Fletcher" in the movie Outlaw Josie Wales, was based on. He was about the last surviving Missouri guerrilla officer, and brought in a large number of men under him to surrender after the war had ended. He referred others to do the same, and at least one of those he referred, that came in later, was killed, which is far less than the Hollywood version, but you know Hollywood.

One source listed his occupation after the war as Law Enforcement, though I never found out what his title was, or what entity he worked for.
 
I can't say. I don't get the magazine. I just found this article and picture in an online search. I don't know if it is included in the magazine of that month or not.
 
Here is one version of the massacre of Confederate Guerrillas, as portrayed near the beginning of the movie Outlaw Josie Wales:

'Noted Guerrillas,' John N. Edwards, 1877, Pp. 365-367:
"Gen. Bacon Montgomery has been accused by some of the Guerrillas, and unjustly accused, of the murder of Arch Clements. It is true that he was in command of the militia at Lexington at the time he was killed, but he was in no manner responsible for his death, and would have saved him if he could have done so. It was Montgomery's fortune to have to do with a desperate following.
The militia commanded by him were bad men, uncontrollable men, ex-Federals and ex-rebels, and totally without honor or civilized impulses. The bulk of them were the dregs of the civil war-the Thenardiers of a struggle that had its Austerlitz as well as its Waterloo. He was a brave, generous, liberal-minded man, individually, and he strove with might and main to protect private property and save human life. That he was not always successful was because almost unsupported in a band which carried into peace times the very worst of the passions of the strife, he could not in every instance enforce obedience or punish the viciousness of his desperadoes. Yet he did what he could energetically and fearlessly. Others in his place would have been monsters.
Montgomery saved many a life that even the people among whom he was stationed knew nothing of, and many a house from destruction that the owners to this day do not know were ever threatened. Dave Poole had been into Lexington with his Guerrillas and had gone out soberly and in order, Arch Clements marching with him. Outside of the city he met a comrade, Young Hicklin, who was going in, and Clements turned about and returned with him to the City Hotel. While drinking at the bar they were fired upon, and each made a rush for his horse, fighting as they ran. Probably two hundred shots were fired at them, and Clements was killed, Hicklin making his escape by sheer desperate fighting and running. Montgomery knew nothing even of the cause of this firing until the deadly work had been done. He deplored it, but he neither counselled it nor approved of it. A lot of drunken cut-throats did the work upon two isolated men, cut off from their comrades, which- man to man--they would not have attempted for the county of Lafayette.
Montgomery was too brave a man for such devil's doings. He felt that the war was over, and he was anxious that the Guerrillas should come back into peaceful life and become again a part of the peaceful economy of the local administration. In such mood he treated with Poole, and in such mood he would have treated with Clements if it had been permitted for him to have encountered Clements. It was not to be, however, and this young, superb, almost invincible Guerrilla, died as he had lived, one of the most desperate men the country ever produced."

So, no gatling guns, no disarming of the men beforehand. A dirty deal, yes, but not like the one in the movie.

John N. Edwards, was a former Confederate officer that served as a doctor under Gen. Joe Shelby, so his view may be slanted to appeal to former Confederates, and at the same time help to heal the wounds caused by the war. There are other accounts of Clements death provided by Union sources at the time, that Clements was killed by gallant soldiers while he was trying to illegally occupy Lexington with a large force of over 100 combatants. This was obviously written to appeal to a different crowd. Other wildly differing accounts also exist. None of the stories sounds anything like the one shown in the movie.
 
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