Transcripts For CSPAN3 Post-Civil War Cattle Trade 20240714

Evening, its very encouraging and exciting for us here at the museum to have folks come in for our events. We really appreciate it. And i know that the staff of the raven bookstore appreciates it as well. So now ill introduce tonights guest speaker. James e. Sherow is a professor in the department of history at kansas state university. He specializes in researching and teaching environmental history, kansas history, and the history of the american west. Professor sherow has written six books and numerous articles, including Railroad Empire across the heartland, rephotographing Alexander Gardners westward journey, which is a familiar resource for the staff and volunteers at the watkins. I know we have that book on our shelves and weve used it. And the grasslands of the United States. Tonight, professor sherow will discuss his latest work, and copies will be available for purchase and signing thanks to our partners at the raven bookstore right here in lawrence, kansas. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming james e. Sherow. [ applause ] well, thank you, will. That was a generous introduction. I appreciate that. And thank you for hosting me here at the watkins tonight. I really, really am honored by this. And also, the raven bookstore, thank you for hosting as well. This is quite the privilege. So ill start with a question that came to my mind as i started researching this book because why in the world would anybody want to do another book on the chisholm trail . Its been in so many movies and novels. So my approach to this was to take it and ask some different questions than had been asked before and do this within an environmental historical context. So the main things i was looking at, i wanted to follow joseph mccoys life because his life really encompasses everything that this trail system was about. So when i look at his life and the opening of the chisholm trail, im asking, why the trail . Why was this important in the first place . And why was the trail done at this particular moment in time . And more importantly, why joseph mccoy . Why this particular individual . And what was his legacy . And as i came to an overarching conclusion about what all this meant, i said it all has to do with one word, connections. So in the brief two decades that this trail system was in place, you see a really remarkable transformation of the american grasslands. Its and ecological tr transformation that the trail system, in many ways, made possible. Two individuals understood that transformation. One was james r. Mead. He was a fur trapper, indian trader, later helped put together wichita. He was involved in the cattle trade. He saw a lot, experienced a lot. The other fellow is colonel john p. Hatch, a Civil War Veteran who was a commander at ft. Sill. Be both of these individuals witnessed, in meads case, the destruction of the bison he actually helped create because he was a fur trader. But he lamented that later in his life. And as cattle came into play across the grasslands, replacing bison, he longed for that older grasslands, that older prairie system of wild animals. Throughout his life, he lamented that transformation, which he was a part of in the first place. Hatch, the commander at ft. Sill, was there working. He was also observing what was happening as a result of the disappearance of bison, the grazing of cattle, and the influx of farming and how that was transforming the ecology of the grasslands around ft. Sill, going from a mixed grass, tall grass system down to a short sparse grass system covered by brush. What caused that kind of ecological transformation . And hatch is important for another reason as well. He was there in his mind to help go from bison hunting to becoming pastoralists, raising cattle, and eventually reaching that higher realm of civilization as he thought about it, becoming farmers. So this was these two individuals really saw what was going on. The people who always seemed to be on the losing end of this whole grand story were the indian peoples who occupied the grasslands prior to the cattle trades. Some of these individuals were in part responsible for it. And some of them wanted to be involved in it. Black beaver was involved in the fur trade across the american west, but when he came back to present day oklahoma, called the indian territory at the time, he took up ranching. He had a sizable cattle herd himself. He was a wealthy individual, had a sizable farm. A very interesting individual who also did trading, and he went up and down what later became the chisholm trail. The principal chief of the cherokees later on in the 1880s, 1890s was trying also to control the cattle trade that the cherokees controlled in what was called the cherokee strip. He wanted to regulate and tax the cattlemen who were grazing their herds on indian land. And he had his own herds. Before the civil war, its amazing the cherokees had their own brand of cattle. In fact, in indian territory, among the five civilized tribes, it was estimated prior to the civil war collectively these five nations had over 250,000 cattle. Some of the ranchers, indian ranchers, had as many as 10,000 in their herds. So we need to rethink how we think about indian peoples in the cattle trade. General pleasant porter, a creek. He was a general in the civil war with the confederacy. Some of the indian peoples did fight with the confederacy, and he was one. But after the civil war, he took up ranching again, and he was very concerned about whose right it was to control leasing on creek land. The creeks were well known for being cattle racers. So was it going to be the federal government who controlled how they did the leasing, or were indians actually sovereign nations . He said by treaty, were sovereign nations, and we ought to be able to control what we do. But they werent able to. Eventually all of these individuals lose out completely. Theyre the ones who bore the brunt of this, as well as the landscapes that they once occupied and maintained. Well, when i think about this, then im thinking, well, how do i tell this story . This individual, joseph mccoy, is a good person to follow in doing this. The story can be told by following his life and what he did. His great gamble on the chisholm, the legacy of that gamble, and what was this . Well, in 1889, he was attending the Second Annual meeting of the Livestock Association in denver, colorado. These were stockmen. We need to understand the distinction between stockmen and cowboys. Stockmen owned the herds. They owned the land. They were the ones who controlled the trade from top to bottom. So on this grand setting here, this stage, mccoy is going to be honored and given a lifetime membership for in this organization for what he meant to developing the modern cattle trade that was on the cusp of beginning in the 20th century. When they talked about him, they talked about his work being a mission. Now, thats an interesting statement to say in the cattle trade im pursuing a mission. But it was con tetemplating the benefits to mankind at large, particularly mccoy wanted to produce enough beef to feed the working class people of the United States, who before this time were unable to afford it. But they also talked about ecological changes that were coming about as well. To make the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose, thats how he was introduced as being a person who did this. And mccoy, when he thought about himself, and when he thought about stockmen altogether, its interesting to note how he framed this. He said, they are the best of fathers, the most ardent of lovers. Thats an interesting comment. Affectionate husbands, the best men. Now, here is where he goes in a different direction than we think a lot of other people might go. They are gods noblemen. Now, hes using that word noblemen very precisely. And stockmen thought of themselves as knight errants. They werent the jeffersonian agrarian farmer just doing a little patch of 160 acres of wheat. These were men on a grand scale who lived in very large homes, large ranches, employed hundreds of individuals. In some cases, maybe had herds ranging up to 100,000 animals. These were men who thought on a large scale. And in this respect, when they talk about being gods chosen, this doesnt kind of fit into that american ideal of the landowning farmer being the backbone of the republic, does it . These are men of a different caste. Theyre pursuing something quite grand, as he did. So where do i want to begin the story . Well, where everyone began a cattle trail story about particularly texas cattle, you begin on the streets of new york city. And this is where i began this work. In the post civil war era, new york city was the largest city in the United States. Over a million people. And there were people coming in to it constantly. When you considered the south at the end of the civil war, all of its cities were devastated. Some of them in complete ruin. New york city was growing throughout the entire civil war and amassing riches and amassing lots of people and lots of hungry people. I cannot imagine what new york city was like in 1866. I tried to explain it a little bit. Not only were there people crowded in the streets, but there were horses and Draft Animals constantly running through the streets. We all know what those animals leave behind. And not only were the streets covered with the manure of these Draft Animals, were wild hogs running through the streets of the city as well, as well as domestic hogs shepherded to the various butchers. And then there were wild dogs as well as domesticated dogs running the streets. There were herds of sheep driven through the streets of the city every day. But more interestingly, from my perspective, and this came out of leslies illustrated, there were cattle driven down the streets of new york city every single day. Thousands of cattle. It boggles my mind to think about cattle driven up 5th avenue, but that was the case during this time. And if you look at the island of manhattan and from 40th street to battery park, down to the southern tip of the island, thats called the slaughter House District. Well, theres a reason for that. There were, in this area, around 200 slaughter houses working daily. Taking the animals, doing live slaughtering in that district, and throwing about 55 of the animal back into these barrels that the wild hogs would come and eat out of. It must have been an amazing scene altogether. This is where the large markets were. This is the new jersey shore here, and this is washington market. So the quarters of the beef would be butchered. Then some of them would be hung on aisles. People at the time reporters talked about these crimson curtains lining the aisles of the market here. Those were the quarters of beef hanging there for people to come around and buy. Now, in 1866, whats amazing to me about this as well, there was an individual walking these streets also selling cattle. He was from illinois. His name was william mccoy. He had an office there. He had two younger brothers back in springfield, joseph and james. In whats going to be their understanding of the new york market that was going to drive them into eventually creating what we know now as the chisholm trail. See, there were changing tastes and dining at this time, particularly motivated by restaurants like delmonicos in new york. One of abraham lincolns favorite treats when he went to dine at delmonicos was their delmonico steak, about a 20ounce cut of sirloin. It still amazes me that lincoln could eat that and still not put on much weight. But the dining at delmonicos was amazing and very elaborate, many courses. But beef was starting to replace other cuts, particularly lamb, but also seafood, as beef became more popular. Well, mccoy also realized that with all the poorer people in the city, that this was also potential market for cheap meat, if you could get it into that market. These were the stock trains that came into the city on a daily basis, bringing cattle from particularly one state altogether, and that was illinois. Thats where most of the cattle well into the whole trail driving years, those 20 years, most of the cattle coming in to new york city was from the state of illinois. Very seldom were texas cattle themselves driven directly to new york city. This would have been a disastrous thing for anybody involved in the trade financially, that is. Ill explain this in just a little bit. But these were the trains that were bringing the cattle in, like i said, on a daily basis. And cattle were coming from all over the place. They were coming from kentucky, ohio. They were coming down from canada in the province of ontario, supplied a lot of cattle to the new york markets. This is because there was no way that the farmers in the state of new york could supply enough food to feed all the people just simply in new york city. Thats not saying anything else about all the other cities that are along the east coast and growing large at the same time. If youre wondering how strong those markets are and what prompted the mccoy brothers to think maybe we can make a good killing in this business, so to speak, and so if you look at this, ive traced the cattle trade from 1866 through 1884. The blue line here is the cattle that were driven north out of texas each season. The orangish line here is the cattle that was received into new york city. So if you look at this, theres only a couple years where even all the cattle driven out of texas would have supplied the city of new york. Only two years. Thats how strong just one citys market was for beef. And so knowing this, boy, if you could just start getting your cattle into that, especially if theyre cheap cattle in texas, then you can make a lot of money by the time it gets into this heated market here in new york city. And thats the whole goal. One of the people who realized this very early on was a fellow by the name of samuel allerton. Allerton realized a couple things. One, city streets were really getting messy no matter where you went in the United States. Chicago was a mess for the same reasons that new york city streets were. St. Louis had the same problems. So allerton pittsburgh had the same problems. So allerton decided, ill put together what are called Union Stockyards. Now, he was the first to do this, and the first one was in pittsburgh. What a Union Stockyard does, it takes railroad lines, connects them to stockyards, connects them to a slaughter house, connects it all in the same setting with maybe a hotel and business facility for the people who are engaged in the trade. A Union Stockyard where all of this is done in one setting, and you take all that mess out of the city streets. Boy, that was something people were looking forward to in a big kind of way. His Second Venture was creating the chicago Union Stockyards, which are famous in history for, you know, being the meat market, the hog city of the world. And this he opened in december 25th, 1865. A very big gift to the city of chicago. The second one was in jersey. So here is the whole thing being done in jersey. Then ferries would take the slaughtered animals, the slaughtered meat to the new york shore. So the trains would arrive into the stockyards, into the holding pens, into the slaughter house, and all the business was conducted right here. All of this in one great union where everything is brought together in one setting. So this was a great advance on this. So this started the mccoy brothers thinking, maybe we can put together Something Like this in kansas and capture the trade from texas. Now, john Tracy Alexander was an individual in illinois who the mccoy brothers knew very well. He ran an operation of about 80,000 acres where he raised corn and then over winter, beef, put weight on them and put them into the new york markets. He was probably the largest operator in all of illinois. So what the mccoy brothers wanted to do was channel texas cattle, which were very cheap because they had nowhere to go during the civil war, and get them into a Transportation System and then take them to buyers like alexander in illinois who would buy them and fatten them up. So the mccoy brothers were interested in being middlemen in this whole system. They werent interested in being cowboys themselves. They werent interested in the buying and selling of livestock. In essence, so was alexander. He kept them over the winter, get them fat on hay, get them fat on corn, and then get them into that new york market. Because each extra pound is more money that you make. So this is the result in that wonderful thriving me ttropolisf abilene in 1867, all of about two huts. One run by an interesting fellow by the name of josiah jones. Prior to prohibition in kansas, he had a little whisky shop there in abilene. There used to be a stage route that ran through here. He would give people a little whisky to help them get on their way to denver. He was also known as the mayor of prairie dog town. Thats because he would capture prairie dogs and sell them to the people on the stagecoach after they had enough to drink, presumably. Then off they would go. That was a thriving business in abilene, before the mccoy brothers got there. So the mccoy brothers put together what they called the Great Western stockyards. Now, i dont know about you, but when i think about the stockyards in chicago, i think about the stockyards in new jersey. Something is lacking here in the word great. But you cant see it really well, but Alexander Gardner, who took this photograph in 1867, a very wellknown photographer, caught the signs up here. Great western stockyards. Right above there. I tend to think, given the stature of this individual, that that may have been joseph mccoy standing up there taking all this in. So what motivated him and his brothers to put in this tens of thousands of dollars into this operation . Well, it was this. Eventually theyre going to put a hotel there as part of the great Union Stockyards. Its called the drovers got taj. Thats where the businessmen came. Thats where the main stockmen came. Not the cowboys. Thats where they did their business. They had a nice billiard hall, a nice saloon. Things were very comfortably set up for them. So this is where the cattle were loaded. But why in the world abilene . Well, theres a reason for this, and im going to get to it in a little bit, but it had to do with something called texas fever. In 1866, the texas cattlemen finally got their act together enough to recover from the civil war to drive cattle into illinois. And what happened when they started doing this is thats something that happened as early as 1860 in cast. This is whenever the texas cattle got close to any domestic short horns, those short horns died. Now, think about this if youre a kansas farmer and you have a couple dairy cows and thats basically what you have. Maybe you have a calf or maybe you have a bull. Then this texas herd goes by, and a week later your herd is dead. Youre not too thrilled with the presence of texas cattlemen. So the eastern part of the state was settled by farmers like this, and they were tough on these texas cattlemen. They killed the herds if they could or stampeded them back into indian territory or they would take and on some occasions they actually took a drover, tied him to a tree, and whipped his back until it was a bloody pulp and said dont come this way again. They were very serious. It always kind of tickles me a little bit to see westerns where its always these vicious texas cattlemen and cowboys who raise terror with these poor defenseless farmers. It was much the opposite way. So mccoy had to find some place out of range where heck drive cattle and not interfere with those farmers because that was creating havoc. So it was serendipitous that you had these railroads across the state. Its building on farther west. So this creates that first link into these eastern markets. So the texas cattlemen could drive their cattle up to here. They could do their business in here. Then the cattle would be put on to the stock cars then eventually reach illinois, over winter put on additional weight, then maybe get into the new york or east coast cities. This all looked very good on paper. And mccoy was more than willing and he and his brothers were more than willing to invest in getting that going. There were other routes, too, that were very important at this time too. There were other markets that were pulling cattle out of texas and into other places, as far as savannah but also london. American cattle were put live on transatlantic boats and taken to london because just like new york city, london far the population far exceeded the about of even english farmers to supply the city. Eventually, there were changes in Technology Like the steamship victoria that had refrigerated holds, and so now you could even pack more carcasses in this and get them into london than you could shipping live cattle because, obviously, shipping live cattle like this, youre going to have a few problems. Theyre going to be beaten up by the time they get there. And this, it doesnt matter because theyre packed tight in refrigerated holds, and very low loss on the ship, and everybody was pretty happy once that technology was finally put together. Cattle were also taken up the mississippi river. This shows cattle being loaded onto a steam boat, probably at the red river where the red river enters the mississippi. That was a popular place for texas cattlemen to drive cattle. And then they would be packed so tightly on the decks of these boats that the cattle couldnt move, and theyd have to stand there for as long as it took for this steamboat to get up to cairo, illinois, and offload there. Joseph mccoy talked about the conditions of the cattle. They were packed so tightly that the crew would throw hay on their backs, and the cattle would eat the hay off the backs of other cattle. They would be watered by having a hose and then just fed by hose to get the water that they needed. This was a pretty brutal Transportation System altogether, but it was it shows you the dynamics of the trade. And here, here is the thing that shaped the trade more than anything else altogether. This tick, a lovely little creature, and then it harbored a three micron large protozoan, a tiny Little Critter inside the belly of this tick. Now, this tick tloohrived in th southern regions of the United States, in the southern portions of texas but also in miss aissii and louisiana, georgia, florida, and what this tick would do, it latches on to the cattle. It would latch onto deer and horses as well, almost and then would release this protozoan into the bloodstream of the cattle. In the south, the long horns and the cherokee cattle both developed immunities to this tick. The mothers milk gave those calves enough immunity where they could survive. They would be they would be touched by this disease, but they would survive it and grow into adulthood. This protozoan, when it got into the bloodstream of an animal that wasnt protected by the antibodies that its mother had given it, it would directly attack the red blood cells and just drill through them and utterly destroy them. This was a pretty gruesome death for any of those animals. Now then, in the north this tick dies in the winter, and so the short horn herds in the north never had any encounter with this tick, not until the texas cattle were driven up during the summers, and then the texas cattle oftentimes their whole hides would be covered with these ticks to the point where sometimes the hides almost looked gray from being covered with the ticks. Well, the ticks would drop off, of course, all the way up the trail, and any time they get near the domestic herds, these ticks would latch onto domestic animals. These animals had no immunity and within a week or two they were dead. This caused havoc throughout the entire industry, and nobody understood or even figured out how to treat this until 1890, thereabout. So well after all the cattle trail driving was done and over in the United States, this tick was an active player in the whole game of those markets. In 1868, so mccoy gets his cattle operation really going in 67. Thats the first time cattle are shipped to the east out of his out of this place. So he thinks, man, 68 is going to be even better. Well, this is what happened in 68. This fever broke out everywhere all across the east. It broke out in canada because cattle were shipped up through canada. It broke out in new york. It broke out in new jersey. It broke out in ohio. It broke out in missouri, and short horn cattle all across the nation were dying, and the governors of these states said were embargoing any cattle coming up from texas, and this created chaos through the whole markets. You can imagine what mccoy thought after investing all of this money in abilene and now having no place to sell cattle. It was it was a devastating thing that eventually all of these cattlemen decided to have a conference in springfield, illinois, where they worked out arrangements where any cattle that were over wintered because they knew for some reason any cattle that were over wintered were safe to put with short horns because the ticks would die. And but they didnt understand why. They didnt understand why this was happening. And so any of them that were certified to be over wintered then could be put into the markets the following year. Mccoy noted that it was with a nice little bribe, a lot of cattle could get certified for being over wintered, but that was that was the compromise that everybody had to make. All these delegates from all across the United States and canada met in springfield to try to work out this situation to keep this cattle business alive. So that was one aspect of this that you wi was looking at that an Environmental Impact on disease. What effects it had on the markets, policies, governors and then consumers. Consumers didnt want to eat any of these animals that died from a disease like this, and so all of these things were coming together. It was the connections here that i was looking for in trying to understand. You can see other connections as well. Try to give this a little lighter touch. Rainfall, and not only was rainfall a dangerous situation for cattlemen on the trail, you didnt want to be caught out like this, but oftentimes you were. And i cant imagine what it was like for the herds to be caught in these rain storms and lightning and then theyre stampeding and you got to go out there and bring those cattle back into the herd, and its hailing. If youve been in a hailstorm without any coverage, you know thats not a fun event. And so but these were the kind of conditions these people endured. But there were other things that were interesting to me about more than just these rain storms, and part of this was, okay, what what were the rainfall amounts during growing seasons . And so i tracked this down each year. This happens to be the growing season rainfall in 1867. Done and recorded by Different Army posts across the grasslands, and so the blue line is from fort bliss. Thats in texas, fort arbuckle is in the southern portion of present day oklahoma, fort riley and fort leonard are up in kansas. What happened, its interesting to note that here is the fort riley line here, so this is the one thats probably closest to abilene. And so for some reason in that particular year, you have an extraordinary amount of rainfall in september but also in july and particularly in june. Now, this affects grass conditions, and it creates something that a lot of cattlemen call washy grass. Its a grass that doesnt put on a whole lot of weight onto the cattle. They can eat lots and lots of it. It looks green. It looks healthy, and yet its not going to produce the kind of beef cattle that fetch a good market price. And so these kind of variations here in terms of rainfall affect Market Conditions across the entire United States. Once again, the connections, what are they . Some of the connections and im sure texas cowboys around the campfire never thought about, oh, i wonder how strong the el ninos are this way, jake. I dont know, it could be a messy summer for us if theyre strong. Well, el ninos in this blue line, if we look at 1877, this is a particularly very strong el nino, and what el ninos produce across the grasslands is a higher rate of rainfall, and so in 1877, if you look at this, fort riley, you have very high rainfall. And so the cattle trade business is connected to more than just sump sumply t simply the marks in new york city. Its connected with whats happening in pacific currents that are driven by changes in solar radiation. I dont know that cowboys thought about that kind of connection to what was happening to them on the trails. But to me this was fascinating to chart out over time, and i looked at la ninos, those years if you have a strong one that rainfall dips. And some what you can see oftentimes, where these orangish lines are, you can see a dip in rainfall. So all of these connections far out of sight are affecting what happens to the cattle trade. The most interesting thing is overwintering, something thats not been given a whole lot of attention to as far as im concerned. If you think about overwintering, remember if the cattle were certified as overwintered, then they could go freely into the eastern markets. So if you drive your cattle up to abilene, thats the thing to do, take them out onto the mixed grass prairies, and then set up a nice operation, and then by springtime theyre ready to go. You feed them quickly on the emerging grass, and get them into the markets as soon as they put on a little bit of weight. You know, theyre even before the drives from texas get up to this point. Hows overwintering work . It must have been a delightful experience for cowboys because they got to live in a dugout, usually by a live stream. Youve got to be by water all the time for cattle, and its got to be living water. It cant be frozen up or cattle are going to die from dehydration. And cowboys also got to spend their spare time putting up a few tons of hay for each cattle that they were milling out here on the prairies. And remember, the grasses are dormant, so each day that they graze off that grass, that herds got to go a little farther out, and then they got to bring it back in to the water. And so obviously living in a dugout in the winter in kansas, i mean, think about this winter. How many of you would like to spend a cozy winter in a dugout right by wakaroosa creek, it would not have been very pleasant, i dont think. Well, this particular winter was really bad. The markets were really full in the east coast, so a lot of stockmen said well just well just overburwinter, but t had to go farther west because in this particular year and the fall of 1871 the prairies were burned off, and so the only place where they had grass was on the shorter grass farther out like around hayes. So they take the cattle out there, and november is looking not too bad. This is freezing, and these temperatures are derived from army post surgeons at fort larnart and fort riley and fort hayes. The post surgeons took to readings three times a day, in the morning, in the afternoon, early evening. And so thats what this graph shows is those combined readings through the month of november the. Well, i think any of you can see what happens here by about the 17th. The highs in the day, one, two, three, only three days do the highs get above freezing. Now, if youre one of those cowboys stuck with the herd out around somewhere around hayes or between celina and hayes, youre starting to get a little anxious about how this winter is starting to turn out. This is december. It doesnt get much better, and the line across here once again freezing. Christmas wasnt worth celebrating once because the high on Christmas Day in fort riley got up to about five degrees below zero. Now, during that burwinter too, this was accompanied by high winds and snow, so not only freezing temperatures. Kind of makes me think this last february was pretty mild, and this was january, and it just doesnt get much better. By the time spring came, the texas cattlemen who had herds out there, they had lost anywhere from 70 to 90 of their herds, and about the only thing that they were able to harvest were the hides. The newspaper accounts here in lawrence record shipments of just cars filled with cattle hides going back to the tanneries. That was all that was left that the cattlemen could salvage out of this particular winter. So once again, what are the connections between ticks, protozoa, winter, and these are the kind of things that i was trying to figure out and how that affected markets. The way cattle were being driven, they were often time driven on the trails, this is the other connection, they had to be driven up a place where you have grass. In this unterritorial survey map theres no indication of trees. This is in southern kansas. There are live creeks on either side so youre on a ridge here. You can see what is coming at you from either side. Youre always close to water, youre always close to grass. That is the key component to making that work. But the thing thats going to finally disturb all of this is getting back to that jeffersonian ideal of the e grar yan republic. Chopping up the land into sections, quarter sections and so forth. This is a federal surveying outfit in present day sedgwick county, starting to cordon off the land into neat little squares. This is something that will put an end to texas cattle driving because the two systems cannotc coexist. Once this is put into squares and that becomes my property, and im growing weed on it instead of having this in the short grass or the mixed grass that you see here, then i dont want texas cattle coming up through it, and so this represents that transformation from this grassland system that you see here to a fullfledged agricultural system and the ecological changes that accompany that. When you look at this from photographs from 1867. This is a gardner photograph that John Charlton who lives here in town was a former photographer for the Kansas Geological survey, and he to took he studied these photos from Alexander Gardner he took in 1867. This is just a little bit to the west of hays, kansas. And you can see the sparse short grass prairie, kind of bare sides of the hill here, no trees and here here you see prairie grass. You see crop lands, trees, streets, elevators, homes, a completely different landscape is in place by 2000. This what the cattle trade did, it kind of created a pathway for this to come into play replacing this, and thats one of the connections i look at. How did that tran formation occur, and what were the ecological forces that made this possible . So basically, you can have different kinds of ecosystems in the same place. Think about this as a wild grassland system and this one being a dmomesticated grassland system. Thats what weed is, its a grasds. Thats what corn is. Its a grass. Thats what alfalfa is, its a grass. They both thrive there. They both do okay there most of the time. And but you have two different very two very distinct ecosystems occupying the same space. So this is this i think was the importance of the cattle trade is that it made this transformation possible. When i look at how mccoy was lionized on his death in 1915, in october 1915, marshal mourdock, the Wichita Eagle had this to say that mccoy graced into mirage of the plains with the soft and dreamy eye of a poet. The prairies went long ago, but joseph mccoy went on dreaming of them and of their tomorrow. And what was that dream . Well, marshal mourdock said it was prairies full of glistening cities, crisscrossing it with giant highways, peopling it with teaming millions. So when we think about what we should think about the legacy of mccoy, well, how much of that did mourdock get right . Well, obviously what we have here is an ecologically transformed grasslands as a result of the cattle trade. Also, we have an Industrial Transformation of the cattle trade, the creation of the Union Stockyards, the creation of refrigeration, the creation of different forms of transportation to get cattle into these markets. Indian peoples hunts cultures and their roles in the cattle trade were cleompletely destroy. They never had a place in it by 1890 they lost control of all their leasing ability. Most of them were unable to maintain their own herds. The experiment came to complete disaster, the same with the southern cheyennes, and this is because texas cattlemen had kind of a habit of going onto the reservations and stealing cattle from the kiowas and from the cheyenne and going back home again, and the army oftentimes was charged with going back and getting these cattle, which was never a fun experience for them because think about the texas men who were stealing these cattle. A lot of them were former confederates, and then the soldiers who were stationed at fort sill and other places, they were former union veterans, and then to complicate matters a little ql n÷bit, sometimes the seventh calvary was put into place, also the buffalo soldiers, the africanamerican cavalry men, always that created a rather rough time when they met with former confederates. And so indian peoples didnt have a lot of resources to combat that, and they were unable to protect their cattle trade. The cherokees, eventually lost their ability to control leases, and not only that they had other land sold off in allotments, and that completely destroyed their ability to even do ranching on the large scale that they had once done. And then the rise of a new western mythology. In mccoys eyes he gave us the myth of the stockmen. We oftentimes think of him giving the myth of the cowboy, but understand, remember, mccoy really didnt have much truck with cowboys. They were just the workers. In fact, when newspapers talked about cowboys early on in the cattle trade business, the new york times, new york herald, referred to them as herders. Didnt even refer to them as cowboys. That was the place of the cowboy at the beginning of this trade. The real people working it were the stockmen, and mccoy gave us the myth of the stockmen, but that hasnt prevailed into modern culture, popular culture, has it . Its been the myth of the cowboy that has prevailed, which is sort of an irony that mccoy giving us the myth of the stockmen was not able to tap down the myth of the cowboy. But these are some of the things, some of the major things that i have come to understand about the trade that kind of opened my eyes to see it in a different kind of way in looking at a whole different set of connections that made it work or in some cases not made it work. So i thank you for your time, and id be happy to take any questions that you might have. [ applause ] so does anyone have a question . Yes. Professor sherow, i think about like how our like americans bodies in particular have changed in the 20th and 21st centuries because of our diets, quite drastically. Im curious, it sounds like beef became a staple of the american diet after the civil war thanks to people like mccoy. Im wondering have you in your research, have you uncovered any indicators or any evidence that like American Culture or americans health, way of life changed in that time period because of beef consumption . Yes, thats an excellent question, and yes, it did. The texas cattle coming up always fetched lower prices than the short horns raised in canada or illinois or kentucky or ohio. And mccoy understood this, and so did texas cattlemen, and the idea was to get the men to some of the other markets in new york city. There were the fulton market, katherine market. This is oftentimes where People Living in the tenements, very poor people went to buy their food, and so a great meal for them was when they could afford to buy beef, and beef became more prominent in their diets, especially after advances in creating the ash twars or the slaughter houses like allerton did, mass produced more beef than had ever been done before by like those 200 butcher shops that one time that populated the slaughter House District of manhattan. So yes, the poorer working class people started being able to buy beef on a more regular lazbasis but the cuts were cheaper. Texas longhorn beef was never sold in delmonico restaurant. That never would have happened. It never would have had the fat, the marbling or anything else that went along with it. The longhorn at best seldom weighed over 900 pounds, and so it was a pretty small animal. And so the cuts were also leaner, even though the illinois stockmen tried to put on a little more fat and weight on them by overwintering them before putting them into the eastern markets. Yes, sir. The trade with abilene, if im correct was 1867 to 71, is that correct roughly . 72. Was most of those herds or which years of those herds were overwintered as a result of this conference in springfield in 68 . And second, did that result in a twophase drive where they had to drive up. We think of the drive as one where they went straight through, et cetera. If at all possible, they were overwintered in illinois. Thats because you had better grass conditions. You had the corn, so the idea was to get them to a transfer spot like abilene and get them into the railcars and get them to illinois as quickly as possible. Thats where those people like alexander were so important in this trade because they they kind of bundled everything, and then after the winter, after hopefully getting them fattened up enough, then moved them into those new york markets. But the overwinter was done there. None along the trail . No, none along the trail. Now, if the markets became glutted, if you were one of the unfortunate drovers who took his herd up last in the season, your possibilities of selling cattle were pretty slim, so you would go west. Herds were overwintered between salina and hays. Once the rail heads were shifted to places like wuichita they wee overwintered around great bend today. And so there were places in kansas where they were overwintered. Yeah. I have two historical questions, and one is about where the trail was. Is are there verified maps of where the trail went through kansas, and where do we find them, and how wide was it . It wasnt like 50 feet. I mean, was it two miles wide or obviously the cows varied on the path . No, thats a great question. There were surveys done of the trail, and these surveys are housed in the Kansas Historical society. I think in one of the earlier issues of the Kansas Historical quarterly, it shows the complete layout of the trail through kansas. In the in oklahoma and the historical archives there, also a very similar map of the trail. Now, theres a lot of questions about where exactly that trail ran, and let me see. Just give you an idea where the trail is. I meant to do this. So there i am on the trail. But, you know, don nagley and i went out tracing looking for spots on the old trail not too long ago. But the trail itself should never be imagined as just a narrow ribbon because in the first place, you had to be grazing cattle. If youre one of the first herds going up, then its pretty fine. You can keep to a pretty narrow route. If youre the second or third, you got to go a little farther out when you get to the grazing grounds, and sometimes that can be miles and miles and miles apart or sometimes you may take little shortcuts or side cuts to the main trail because you always have to be close to water. You always have to be close to grass. Those are two conditions that you can never waiver from because the herds were usually watered at least twice a day, three times a day really in the morning to get them up and going at, take a break, and then in the evening. And so that was a very serious considerati consideration. So if the grazing grounds around a water source were grazed off, then the cattle had to go far out to graze, and pretty soon youre in a losing situation because they graze far out, and then they lose the weight that they may have gained by coming back in to water. And so getting up the trail early or finding those side paths to get up and sometimes those could be many, many miles apart. My second question was about the lay of the land in new york city. I recently discovered i had a r relative that owned something called the bulls head tavern, which i believe was on chatham square. Is that close to the washington market . Its north of it. North of it. Okay. As i understand it. That was one of the favorite spots for right, to hang out and do their discussions and whatever. Yes, the whatever that drove people there. [ laughter ] okay. Thanks. Okay. Two questions also, did the trail exist prior to this period for any reasonable commerce, and then secondly, the name, chisholm trail, where did that come from . There are people who have written scores about where the name chisholm came from. I think most people agree it had to do with jesse chisholm. Prior to the civil war, there were trade routes radiatiing al throughout the grasslands. Indian peoples knew them. Black beaver knew them. He knew them very well. You had to be able to find water and grass all the time. Thats how people got around. Think about grass as i discuss it in my book as stored solar energy, and that feeds the animals. Thats what powers them. Just like stored solar energy in the form of petroleum powers our cars. Its just a different form, but thats the key to making it work, solar energy, and so you got to have that, and so that was very important. I think i drifted off, and your question again . The name chisholm. Oh, yeah, the name chisholm. These people knew this route. They knew a route from the trading post that the osages would go to many times around where the Little Arkansas River meets the large arkansas river. The plains people, this was the trading area. People knew this area. And to go from there to the red river south or any other rivers through present day indian territory, there were certain routes that people took. Black beaver knew this, so at the beginning of the Civil War Union officers were vacating their posts very quickly, and they needed they could not go south or they couldnt go east into arkansas. That was a silly move. It was too far to go to california. What they wanted to do is get back to the north, and so they black beaver took them and 1861 took them up what later would become the krchis holm tr. It was already a wellknown route to people. Black beaver led these Union Army Officers and their families to this trading post area around where wichita is today, they ran a little farther north, caught the santa fe trail and then got themselves into kansas city and beyond. So and then when black beaver came back to his ranch, it had all been destroyed by texas confederates. So he lost everything, and then had to move back. Jesse chisholm was in his operation in present day indian territory and, you know, he was part cherokee, part scots, and so when he also at that time moved his Trading Operations up to the same spot where wichita is today, and after the civil war, then he was going back and forth between present day el reno and the trading post there. Thats where he wasx vz workingo with mead who was in the town of tawanda, present day taw wanda. These people all knew each other, radiating out of kansas city and the santa fe trail. That was the connection to the east. So they knew this route. Jesse chisholm was following that same route downtown reno where he died early on. So for some time the trail in kansas, when mccoy created it from present day wichita to present day abilene, sometimes that portion of the trail was called mccoys trail. It wasnt even called chisholms trail. And then then there was debate about whether to call it holt mccoy trail or not. And eventually the whole trail system landed on the name chisholm trail, and probably because of the death of jesse chisholm. But just as easily it could be called black beavers trail. Yeah. Any other questions . Yes, maam. When you refer to the cowboy mythology, what exactly do you mean by that . Is it that there werent many cowboys, they were different characters . Oh, they were characters. A lot of them a lot of the cowboys that mccoy talks about were former confederates. They were young men. When he talked about them coming into abilene, he said they were still wearing their gray shirts from their time being in the confederacy. The reason i ask that is that my great, great grandfather familys story is he was a drover on the chisholm trail, and i was a horse hair bridle that was made by him at campfires. That was my great grandmothers story. Right, and drovers were a little different than cowboys. Drovers oftentimes were in control, managing the herds. Cowboys worked for drovers. He was probably a cowboy then. He was probably a cowboy then. [ laughter ] maybe he wanted to be a drover . No, i think he left missouri, went down into the civil war area, and then over into texas. Okay. There were a lot of young men, primarily young men. If you were leading the herd, the trail boss or the drover, you were a wellrespected individual, and because you were in charge of maintaining a herd that was put together by who knows how many other ranchers, and so when the herds were put together, each rancher had its own brand, right . And then when the herd the herd that was going to be driven north was a combination of all these different herds, so they were given a trail brand. So there were two brands on the cattle, one identifying the owner, and one identifying the herd that was driven north. And then this way, you know, there were times when in stampedes and other things that the cattle would get all messed up from the different herds, and cowboys had the task of separating those herds out and then getting them back on the trail. So there were lots of different herds comingled in the same one, and the drovers were responsible for maintaining that order. Thats a lot. Thats a lot of responsibility. When cattle were being driven up by the trail, they were going through native american territory, can you talk a little bit about the interactions between the cowboys, the drovers, and the native people . Okay. Native peoples, they werent stupid about what was happening to them. They understood. It was akin to oewning a lot of filling stations up the interstate and nobody paying for the gas. They had the filling stations. It was called the grass, and they wanted the grass for their own horses. They wanted the grass for the animals that they hunted, and so if youre going to drive the herds up, then they want tolls. They want tolls paid. Some of some of the tribes demanded money per head, and others, which is kind of would say i would like this one, this one, this one and this one. Were going to have a barbecue. And a good texas cattleman would say fine. I dont know about those, but heres this one. Im sorry, it has a broken leg, but you can have it, and then theres this one and this one, and so they would make these arrangements. Sometimes it went swimmingly well. Sometimes it didnt, and we get a misconception about this, about sometimes the interactions. One of my favorite stories is about this one herd being driven north, and its crossing one of the rivers in indian territory, i think maybe it may have been the washuta. And then as the comanches come on the scene, and as the comanches come on the scene, they decide well help you drive the herd across the river. Its swollen and you guys are having some trouble, so well help you do this. And so and so they knew they were going to get a couple beefs out of the whole thing. So they helped the texas cattlemen drive the herds across the river so then they thought we still havent stopped having fun. I dont know how much fun it is driving cattle across the river, but they had some fun at it. So it was a game of rope the speeding warrior. So a comanche brave would ride his horse in front of the texas cattleman who had a lasso, and the idea was to rope the brave off of his horse. Now, no comanche in his right mind thought he was going to get roped, but one unfortunate fellow, maybe he was on a slow horse. I dont know, but anyway, he got roped off his horse and fell flat on his back, and so the texans were going oh, my god. Were in trouble now. Whats going to happen to us . We roped this guy off. He doesnt look very good. So they all raced to him, and the rope was tied around his chest, and they cut the rope, and then slowly the brave comes back to life and sits up, and i think everybody cheered, yay, and then and then his own comanche cohort who was with him just broke out in laughter. They thought it was the funniest thing theyd ever seen, and i dont know what the guy who got roped off the horse thought. But and how he got along with everybody after that, but the texans were very happy to get back on the trail again after having this little bit of sport with the comanches. So there were all these kind of stories, and when indian peoples were treated fairly, things went smoothly. When they werent treated fairly, things went poorly. And there were probably too many stories of things going poorly than things going well. This is three questions in one. What was the average size of the herd on the drive . How many cowboys did that require, and how many days did it take . Okay. All those were variables. The herds could be as small as several hundred to a herd size of several thousand, and so then it varies about how many crew people you need to do a herd that size. If you had a herd of a couple thousand, probably you need a few people on the side, maybe two or three, and then there was always somebody who got the fun job of eating dust in the back, and then there was always the person who had to go front and scout out the grasses, scout out the water sources. They knew where they were primarily, but where were the places that were most a advantageous to graze, and so that had to be done. And then there was the ramada in the back a few miles back and so the horses were changed out every day, and so you had to have a large herd of horses in the back and so it took up a few cowboys also to do that, and then you also had the wagon with all the supplies later becoming a chuck wagon. These were pretty large operations, and the average wage was probably about 15 a month for the cattlemen i mean for the cowcowboys. The drover took a cut of the proceeds and then the idea was to bring the money back and distribute it to the ranchers back in texas. How long would that drive take . Well, if the driving conditions were good, you could get up in a couple months. If they were poor, you ran into poor grazing conditions or rainfall, storms, stampedes it could take a lot longer, and some of the some of the stories of the stampedes are just incredible. On one occasion, the cattle were thirsty, and the drovers, when they when the trail hands got to this one watering hole, there wasnt any water, and so they had to go to the next one, and then there was an indian encampment, and the cattle, they smelled the water, they could sense it, and they broke into a stampede and ran right through that village, and so all the indian horses and everything were just all scattered and the lodges were all run over. The cattle were just going everywhere. You can imagine what kind of mayhem that was. So you didnt want to encounter troubles like that. One more question, if someone died along the trail, were they paid and how howd they get back to texas . I dont know that they got back to texas. And you know, i dont know how the pay worked. I dont know if the probably the drovers knew who the family was, but maybe some of those guys didnt even have families, so i dont know. Maybe the drover at that point said, well, that saved me some money. So i mean, it was kind of there wasnt much foolishness or tolerance on those trail drives, and or sentimentality because it was hard, grueling work every single day, and which its interesting, too. One thing that i note about this, they if you were caught drinking while driving while being on the trail, you were fired immediately. There was no toleration for a drunk cowboy on the trail because it caused more trouble than they were worth. And so no matter where they were, they were sent packing, and that that could be a very dangerous situation when youre just a lone individual in the middle of indian territory, and they say good luck, buddy. How do we even know what happened . Did the cowboys sit there at night and write a journal . I mean, how do we know this . Okay. People like mccoy did. Mccoy wrote about his experiences in the cattle trade, but in the 1920s, with the passing of a great many of these cowboys, there was a group of individuals in texas who put together interviews of all the cowboys who had gone up the trail, and this has been published. Its called the trail drivers of texas. And those stories are fascinating. Some and youve got to be careful about reading them because youre reading peoples memories of things that happened 20, 30 years earlier, in some cases 40, and so occasionally you detect some embellishment. And but some of the stories check out very well in terms of you can cross reference when they say, well, we were driving this one herd up through indian territory, and we had all this trouble with with the northerner, in other words, a storm coming out of the north. So i can look at the post records and say, okay, they said they were here on this date. What was happening at the post, and the post surgeon notes, and then once they correlate. So you know that that storys accurate. Or maybe the one about the drivers who came up to abilene in 68. They couldnt sell their animals because of the plague, remember that . And so they sent most of the crew back to texas and kept part of the herd out, and mccoy said why dont you help me catch some bison. Im going to advertise abilene by advertising bison in the cities of st. Louis, chicago, and then im going to get them to the bronx zoo. So it was kind of an early form of a wild west show because they were going to go into these stadiums and rope antelope and bison that they had captured and show people what the wild west was all about. This is 1868. So they didnt get any farther, though, than chicago. The chicago papers reported about what happened, and it was a debacle. The bison already were are pretty crippled up by the time they got there, and the cowboys were pretty rough on the bison in this stadium, and the newspapers reported on the viciousness of them all, and the next two nights showings were canceled. Mccoy didnt do so well with that. So those are just interesting side things that happened with what youre talking about there. Yeah. Is there an estimate on how many head traversed the trail during its activity, number one . Number two is when did chicago become the slaughter house of the world . I mean, you talked about the cattle going directly to new jersey. Was chicago developing at this same time, and did it depend upon refrigeration cars basically . Yeah, that was let me deal with that question first because i dont have a good firm answer for you on the first. I dont know exactly how many individuals went up and down the trail. It would just be a wild guess on my part, and i dont want to do that. The but to your second question, chicago really starts dominating the whole slaughter house shipping, stockyard trade by 1900. There were a lot of big firms prior to this, and they were in kansas city. They were in omaha, lamar, colorado. Refrigeration helped. Theres no question about that, and the consolidating of the slaughter house and shipping and the stockyards all together is what let those chicago people to really come to dominate it. And this is then when you get the stories like Upton Sinclairs the jungle about the conditions of working in the slaughter houses of chicago. Chicago came to dominate it by 1900, but that was through a series of ruthless consolidations. And so eventually those stockyard facilities like the ones in new jersey, theyre closed down. The ones in pittsburgh, i mean, eventually in those eastern cities they get closed down. We see that happening across kansas over the last 50 years, too. I mean, theres no stockyards in wichita anymore or in kansas city. So and all the slaughter houses are moved primarily to the western portion of the state. So i mean, you see this kind of shifting occurring even during this time period it was just in a little different manner given [ applause ] i want to thank you all. Youve been an attentive audience, and those were excellent questions. Once again, thank you for coming out tonight. American history tv is on social media. Follow us cspanhistory. My name is jared frederick. Im an instructor of history at penn state altoona, and im also a reenactor with the furious fourth world war ii living history fwr history group, and we are here at Army Heritage days at the u. S. Army and Heritage Center in carl lisle, pennsylvania. At this event it is a major complex. Were here on the Army Heritage trail, and one can find reenactors or living histns