Washita

[drouth]

I was in a Federal Cemetery located near my home today and notice this Grave marker which said; COL EDWARD MYERS 7 US CAVALRY JULY 11 1871? So when I came home I found this site and was reading some of the gathered info which I presume is then Captain Edward Myers? Does anyone have any supporting information about this Officer and is it the same Officer you all have mentioned. The grave site is in Wilmington, NC, National Cemetery. If anyone has any information, please call me at 910-880-4898

Thanks Del

[tbw]

Thanks for the information Del. Because the date on his grave was before the LBH battle, it would be interesting to know what battles he was involved in, if any, and what his background info was. I'll see what I can find and get back to you.

[tbw]

He served as a Captain in the Battle of the Washita under Custer. He took Co's. E and I and charged the village from the west. He later then was (sent by Custer?) to find Elliot and his men. Relevant files on this can be found here:


thecusterfiles.proboards.com/thread/104?page=1

[tbw]

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One can find a couple of photos of him in the book: "Life in Custer's Cavalry", where according to the caption it says "Myers is (kneeling/sitting - forget which) next to and on Barnitz's left" while in the following photo Myers is the one with his hat brim pinned up.

Myers was appointed to fill a vacancy(? need verification as the 7th was organized in Aug. of same year.) in July of 1866. The records indicate that he was born in 1830 in Germany. Had served as 1st lt in the 1st Cavalry, was brevited Lt. Col. Reg. army, and had enlisted in the 1st dragoons in 1857 where he served until 1862.

Quite a number of the 7th Cavalry's officers had served as enlisted men during the Civil War. But only Myers, Moylan, Berry and West served as RA enlisted men before the war. He died while on duty with his troop in South Carolina. In the Civil War he served as an enlisted man and ended the war as a 1st Lt and receiving 3 brevets up to Lt. Col.

In Nov 1866 Co. E was on duty at Fort Hays, Ks. Its CO was Captain Albert P. Morrow and second in command was LT David W. Wallingford. June 1 of 1867 the regiment was on the move and E company left Ft. Hays and marched to the Platte where Captain Morrow left E company and was replaced by Captain Edward Myers.

He was one of the original 12 appointed Captains of the 7th Cav and one of 3 1st lt's appointed from the RA along with Fitzhugh and Hamilton. The date on the Presidents Myers nomination letter to the Senate was March 2, 1867.

Myers died of "dysentery and phthisis pulmonalis" July 11, 1871 in Spartanburg, SC while on duty there. Records note that 1st Lt Thomas McDougal took over commanding the company at that time. But, there was mention that after Capt. Myers death that an officer named Ilsley took over and might have served with the company, don't know, still checking, because he, Ilsley was and Aide De Camp to a superior officer assigned somewhere else, and that it was highly likely that McDougall had commanded the company from Myer's death, as is recoreded in the other record as noted above.

Myers the man:

Klockner:"Although a competent and capable officer, he was often troublesome and difficult to get along with. Sometimes insufferable to subordinates, he was referred to as the 'crotchety Prussian' who on numerous occasions found himself under arrest for drunkeness. In August 1867, he was placed under arrest for disobedience of orders from acting regimental commander Maj. Elliot, in which he refused to submit and then broke arrest...he was court marshaled in December and sentenced to be cashiered." But this was overturned by a higher court, and he went on to Washita, but then later became sickened and died.'

According to Utley/Barnitz pg. 270, Myers was pretty hot tempered, and given to drawing his gun upon the slightest provocation. Haven't done all the research on this yet, but fully intend to because evidently that hot temper got him into some how water, because... He was sentenced to be cashiered in December 1867 and only remained with the regiment because the Judge overturned the ruling on the grounds of "undue prejudice".

Might have been the Wycliffe Cooper incident that occurred in 1867, where one of the 7ths first Majors, Wycliffe Cooper was "found dead due to a gunshot wound". Custer - "The officers of the 7th, the entire camp is wrapped in deep gloom since the suicide of Col. Cooper while in a fit of delirium tremens... I had just risen from the dinner table where I had been discussing with Tom, Col. Coopers actions, when Col. Myers came rushing in... Custer in a letter to his wife June 8, 1867. Of course there were rumours that it had been Myers who had shot him because of some kind of argument, of course all the cover-up, and again "keeping it from Libby" etc. 'reports of AWOL' and on the story goes....

Utley wrote: "..he had exhausted his supply of liquor and in a fit of delirum tremens shot himself in the head. Cooper's brief bio concludes with his widow's eventually successful efforts to have his cause of death changed to "died by hand of person or persons unknown," thereby securing her pension, money that had been denied with suicide being the official cause of death."

The Army Career of Captain Frederick William Benteen 1834-1898, pp. 143-144.

On 8 June in camp near Medicine Lake Creek, Nebraska, a shot rang out in the tent of Major Wickliffe Cooper. The unfortunate
Cooper was found shot in the head and the general assessment has been that he committed suicide because of delirium tremens
and despondency. Benteen (who was not there) asserted that Cooper "shot himself - suicide - because the damned fool Dr.
[Lippincott] acting under orders from Custer, wouldn't give him even a drink of whisky to 'straighten out' on." It took
Cooper's widow (who had been pregnant at the time) almost twenty years to get the "official" verdict of suicide changed to
death by hands of persons unknown. Chroniclers of the event have usually attributed the Congressional action of 1885 to
sympathy for Mrs. Cooper, being the only way that could clear her application for a pension. (As a widow of a suicide, Sarah
Cooper was not entitled to a pension.) Yet, on closer inspection, it seems pretty clear that the Congressmen were not so
much moved by sympathy for Sarah Cooper's plight as they were by certain discrepancies found upon investigation of the
circumstances surrounding Cooper's death. An unknown party was seen fleeing from Cooper's tent just after the shot was
heard. Cooper, who expected to visit his pregnant wife soon, had only about $20 on his person despite the fact that he had
drawn two months of his major's pay a week before. His friend, Captain Edward Myers of E Company, reported that Cooper's
life had been threatened by an unknown party. Finally, there were no powder burns on Cooper's face or head.

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