b'Jews in the Old WestPART 6 By Alan RockmanT herein lays a tale of three American soldiers. One born in the then AustroHungarian empire immigrated to America, enlisted, and fought like a lion at the bloody battle of Beecher Island, the second born in Germany who became a hero at Gettysburg, and later, was appointed to be the governor of Washington Territory by U.S. Grant, and the third, who was born in Russia (Latvia), but who by escaping the Czar\'s pogroms and forced induction of Jews into a very antiSemitic Russian Army ended up making the ultimate sacrifice as a soldier in the 7th Cavalry under Custer at the Little Big Horn.Their names were Sigmund Schlesinger, Edward Salomon, and Ignatz Stungewitzall Jews, and asFrom left to right: Sigmund Schlesinger, Edward Salomon, and Chief Roman Nosesoldiers and in their own small way showed how Jewish American soldiers, clad in blue and buckskin, helped to pacify, and in the case of Salomon, govern thecertainly knew much less about being a scout.Still,1000 Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux warriors had been American Plains. Schlesinger like Otto Mears was a quick study, and heshadowing Forsyth and on the morning of September caught on fast to the pitfalls, whys, and wherefores of17, 1868, while Forsyth and his men were waking up It is also the story of several other men, a famed Baron,frontier scouting. to breakfast at their encampment the gathered tribes whose generosity brought thousands of Russian andstruck, hundreds of screaming warriors descending other European Jews to Montana, Wyoming, and theMajor George Sandy Forsyth, a decorated Uniondown upon the initially surprised soldiers. Forysth, Dakotas where, as they did in the old country, builtArmy veteran and a former aidedecamp to Generalwho had surveyed the perimeter before the night closed farms and ranches; about a soontobefamous CowboyPhilip Sheridan during the Shenandoah Campaign wasand had taken precautions to fortify the island was painter who, after the terrible blizzards of 1886 1887ordered by his former commanding officer to form anonetheless hit, once in both legs and a third time when could not convey in words to the foreman of his Jewish"commando style" unit of 50 handpicked scouts anda bullet grazed his head and fractured his skull, leaving ranch owner of the extent of the disaster, but whose firstsoldiers to ferret out the warring tribes, and emulatinghim barely conscious. When the Cheyenne charged a famous painting, done on a postcard, compartmentalizedtheir tactics, drive them off and away from the railroadssecond time, it was Lieutenant Beecher who was shot the disaster with a simple painting showing an emaciatedbeing built along the KansasColorado frontier.and mortally wounded, crying out, "I have my death cow about to collapse in the snow while hungry wolvesAccordingly Sandy Forsyth picked his troopers togetherwound, general (Forsyth\'s Civil War brevet rank), I circle him. with his executive officer Lieutenant Fredrick Beecher.am shot in the side and dying." All around scouts and Beecher was a Gettysburg veteran and apparently asoldiers were falling, critically wounded, or dead. But the It is also the story of a Jewish merchant in Deadwood,nephew of the renowned preacher Henry Ward Beechersurviving soldiers quickly regained their wits, and began who, arriving in town just prior to the murder of Wild Billand one of his aunts was one of Ward Beecher\'s sisters,a steady fire back at the Indians, those charging down on Hickok, would, with his Canadian born partner, establishHarriet Beecher Stowe, yes, that famous author ofhorseback or sneaking steadily through the long grasses a lively general store establishment, and whose popularity"Uncle Tom\'s Cabin," and, according to Abrahamof the island to snipe at the soldiers.would eventually make him the mayor of Deadwood.Lincoln, "that little lady who caused the Civil War."Schlesinger and the rest of the scouts then set out fromAnd among the first to respond to the Indian onslaught And it is the story of a Jewish saloon keeper, befriendedFort Wallace on the morning of September 10, 1868,was the diminutive Hungarian Jewish soldierscout by one of Montana\'s earliest pioneers, a man who wouldproceeding northwest into Colorado where reports ofSigmund Schlesinger. To quote the author Terry Mort be shot to death in his friend\'s saloon by the most viciousIndian sightings and raids had been an almost dailyin his recent work, Cheyenne Summer: The Battle of member of Butch and Sundance\'s Wild Bunch. occurrence. After several days of riding and checkingBeecher Island a History, "At one of the trenches Forsyth tracks, the combined force of scouts and soldiers camecame across Sig Schlesinger, the Jewish immigrant These Jews were at the forefront of the settlement of to rest on a small "island" just barely detached from thefrom Hungary who had signed on because he needed a the Great Plains and the mountains of Montana and land in the middle of the tributary of the Arikaree Riverjob and was accepted for no particular reason; he was the Dakotas. where the borders of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraskanot prepossessing in any way and had no particular came together and settled down to sleep. Schlesingerexperience of the Plains. But when the fighting started he THE THREE SOLDIERSSIGMUNDlater wrote, "On September 16, 1868, Colonel Forsythpulled his weight. Afterward, Forsyth referred to him as SCHLESINGER, EDWARD SALOMON AND decided to camp on a spot that (had) good grazing,"that brave and active young Israelite." Nor was Forsyth IGNATZ STUNGEWITZ much earlier in the afternoon than usual. (This) provedsurprised by Schlesinger\'s performance, for he said, "My Hungarian born Sigmund Schlesinger (sometimesto be an act of providence. Had we traveled about aexperience with men of his race during the Civil War, spelled Schlessinger or Shlesinger) was a recenthalf mile further we would have fallen into an ambush,with a single exception had strongly impressed me in immigrant to America, having arrived in Philadelphiaingeniously prepared . . . so that had we passed that waytheir favor as being brave men and good soldiers" (Mort, in 1865, at Civil War\'s end. 19 and ablebodied, thenot a mother\'s son would have escaped alive, but wereTerry, Cheyenne Summer: The Battle of Beecher Island a young immigrant couldn\'t find a job in the post Civilignorant of the fact at the time" (Schlesinger quotedHistory, Pegasus Books, New York, 2021, p. 228).War America so, seeking employment and perhaps ain, Heinzman, George M., Don\'t Let Them Ride Over bit of adventure, he journeyed west, at first signing upUs, The American Heritage Book of Great Adventures ofSchlesinger, who had taken cover and was firing back with the railroads, working as a common laborer, layingthe Old West, Editors of American Heritage Magazine,and steadily, later commented, "My plan of observation tracks, driving in spikes, setting ties in the hot sun butAmerican Heritage Press, New York, 1968, p. 268). was the work the barrel of my carbine in saw fashion, that employment quickly ended because of Sioux andthrough the sand from the edges on top of my hole Cheyenne depredations on the Kansas frontier, so heHow right he was proven to be. Unbeknownst todownward, obtaining by these means a sort of loophole decided to enlist as a scout in the U.S. Army even thoughForsyth\'s small but elite force was that the famedthrough which I could see quite a distance; also taking he had never served a day of his life in the military andCheyenne War Chief Roman Nose with a force of 600a general observation by suddenly jumping up and 18 December 2023'