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Battlefield Archaeology with Ray Sumner - Ep 87
446 Plays4 years ago
In this episode we are joined by Ray Sumner, a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at Colorado State University. Ray was a career U.S. Army officer prior to pursuing his Ph.D. in Anthropology, he reflects on his military experience and how it has shaped his research on Plains Indian Warfare during the late 19th century. Ray and Carlton find out they share a collegiate organization, we discuss the significance of Ray, and we conclude the episode with a conversation about Ray's continuing work for the Department of Defense's POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Links
@The Julesburg Project on Facebook
@CampRankin1865 on Facebook
CSU Department of Anthropology and Geography and the Center for Mountain and Plains Archaeology (CMPA) Facebook sites
Literature Recommendations
- Battlespace 1865: Archaeology of the Landscapes, Strategies, and Tactics of the North Platte Campaign, Nebraska (American Landscapes) by Doug Scott, Peter Bleed, and Amanda Renner.
- Archaeological Insights into the Custer Battle: An Assessment of the 1984 Field Season by Doug Scott and Richard Fox, Jr.
- A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation” and “A Sovereign People: Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation by Leo Killsback.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 87
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to episode 87 of a life and ruins podcast to reinvestigate the careers of those living life and ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover and I'm joined by my co-host Connor John. And David got lost on Long Island. Did I say that right? Long Island. I don't know how to do the New England Yankee accent. So he will not be joining us today, but sooner he will return soon enough.
Ray Sumner's Background and Research Focus
00:00:34
Speaker
Today though, we are joined by Ray Sumner, who is a PhD candidate at Colorado State University. Go Buffs.
00:00:42
Speaker
Ray, have you recovered from a plane's anthropologist all right? I'm pretty much recovered. It was a rough time down there, a little bit hanging out in Boulder, but now it was a great time. It's good to see everybody obviously after the year break from COVID last year. So it's good to get back out, talk with the rest of the plane's archeologists, anthropologists, and see the other students from different programs around the country that work in the planes.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, man. We had a decent amount of students this year, a whole crew from like Wichita state. I thought LaBelle would have brought the CSU crowd out again, but it was just grad students this year. Yeah. We had a couple of undergrads, but it snuck in for just a few, few sessions. But yeah, for the most part, it wasn't as robust as we've had. I think COVID we're still all recovering from COVID getting the new undergrads involved. It's been a little more challenging than it used to be.
00:01:32
Speaker
Absolutely. So I've known about you, Ray, since Plains Bloomington. And I was blown away by your student paper presentation because I'd never heard someone talk about your research in a light that gave Plains Indians credence to military intelligence. And so I've been I've been fascinated with your work and following it closely. And it's awesome to have you just up the road. We run in very similar circles here in the state. So we're really excited to have you have you on tonight.
00:02:02
Speaker
So, Connor, you didn't overlap with Ray at CSU at all, right? I don't think so. I think I ended in 2014. So, I don't know. When did you start? I started my MA in 2016 in history. So, it would have been a couple years after. So, I'll move back to the states in 2014.
00:02:24
Speaker
But it's nice to have a fellow Ram on here because we have to deal with Mr. Buff over here all the time. It's just absurd. It's good to have another CSU Ram on. Well, at least fortunately, at least your neither of us can talk about our football team. No, Boulder never can talk about its football team. We're not good at all. But anyway, so like Ray, you
00:02:45
Speaker
You're an archeologist, you're a PhD candidate in
Influences on Ray's Historical Interests
00:02:47
Speaker
know,
00:02:47
Speaker
anthropology. So what were your first experiences in anthropology growing up? Like were you a dinosaur kid, history buff, or a nature nerd? I'd probably say history out of those. I mean, I probably played with dinosaurs. That was a kid that really interest-wise was probably history. Went to a lot of historical sites as a kid. My first probably anthropology, archeology memory or experience is probably going to the effigy mounds in Iowa.
00:03:11
Speaker
probably had to be when I was six or seven at a very young age. I vaguely have a recollection of being there, but not obviously remembering much of the history or the information about the Native peoples, but just that memory at a very early age going to that national historic site and when I grew up in Iowa and then going other places, history sites. My interest in history probably was driven a lot just by through kind of a genealogical research
00:03:39
Speaker
and my parents had done a lot of research into our family history which goes back on my mom's side to the Mayflower and then my dad's side came over to Boston in early 1630s and then in Pennsylvania with William Penn. So a lot of early American colonial history and then very much a family kept migrating westward on the frontier. So got a lot of interest into history that way through that familial connection.
00:04:06
Speaker
Gotcha. Are you a member of the Sons of the American Revolution for any chance? I am a member of the Sons of American Revolution. I think the War of 1812 Society and the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and what's the other one when I joined the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
Military Career and Transition to Academia
00:04:25
Speaker
to kind of try to research again and keep those organizations that are focused on historical and commemorating historical sites and viable
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, I got deep ties to Virginia. So we're part of that, the Jamestown organization, Sons of the American Revolution and Sons of the Union one as well. And I'm not like, I just know I have the memberships for it, but I'm not very involved. Kind of with that said though, your first
00:04:51
Speaker
Like your undergraduate degrees in political science from Drake University. What was the original goal, man? I guess when I went to college, I was returning to academia after a career in the military. I think when I originally went to college, I went to Drake, I really wasn't even planning on joining the military. I didn't really ever talk to a recruiter or anything.
00:05:13
Speaker
I had planned to go get a law degree and Drake University had a program that you could do your senior year as your first year of law school so basically in six years, you know, you could condense the normal seven year law school pipeline and then I had taken.
00:05:30
Speaker
Taking summer school classes and taking sixteen or eighteen credit hours each semester and so i was basically to try to do a lot of green five years was on track to do that so i joined a fraternity and. Couple of guys in the house were in r o t c and they're like hey we have these entries
00:05:47
Speaker
freshman, sophomore classes that you can take for one or two credit hours, you know, no obligation. You don't really have to do anything but go to class once a week for a couple hours, you know, pretty easy A's. So I was like, oh credit hours, you know, let me do that. Took those, enjoyed it. I was actually going to school when the first golf war took place, 1990-91, and got involved with it then and enjoyed the initial stuff. One second year did some more classes and they had me apply for a scholarship and
00:06:15
Speaker
I ended up getting a two-year scholarship, still wasn't sure I was going to take it and go after even just a few years in the Army and the Commission. I came back at my winter break, my sophomore year, and I'm like, hey, we'll pay for your full third year, your sophomore year also, if you contract. And so I had a couple of weeks over winter break to the side, and I've generally gone with just usually taking opportunities that they present themselves. I don't know if it's a...
00:06:43
Speaker
believe in a higher power or whatever, but it just kind of gone with the opportunities when things arise, even if it's not necessarily the course I thought it was on. And I did it, figured I'd do four years on active duty at most and go back and pursue a law degree or whatever else came up. And the next thing
00:07:00
Speaker
Next thing I knew, I was commissioned and 22 years later, I retired from the Army. And as I said, what I thought was going to be a few years at best and obviously a great experience and don't regret any of it. And I'm glad I made that course change. Now I got to ask, what fraternity were you in in undergrad? Sigma Phi Epsilon.
00:07:21
Speaker
You're a signup, dude. I didn't know that. I am. Man, I'm a signup. I'm so excited right now. Yeah, dude. I know it's small coincidence. I was like, Drake, I know there's a signup chapter there. And I was like, well, good stuff. Excellent. Yeah. My chapter, we still have a lot of ROTC kids back home in Virginia. Like a lot of our guys are either soccer players or ROTC.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, I've been working with the trying to re charter the chapter here at CSU. And so I've been working a little bit as time I can with the effort here that SIGEP and the alumni board here has on recolonizing. They've got a colony now. So approval in the next year to reach out charter.
00:08:03
Speaker
I did a little bit of help with the Colorado gammas when I got to Wyoming for a little bit. You didn't go to Conclave, did you? No, I did not. It's called Conclave? To call it is Conclave. Do you, is there some white smoke involved in a dead old person? No, if there's a laser light show, we send awards. It's great.
00:08:29
Speaker
of all the names you could choose. Yeah, it's a whole, it's a whole. It's left over from like 1900 when that's what you called conventions. Oh, gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. Our fraternity was founded by like seven kids giving out at Southern Baptist University in Richmond, Virginia. Like it's, you know. Where did you do basic training at? Well, I did, uh, for ROTC since I was in the ROTC, I went to an advanced camp in the summer at, uh,
00:08:58
Speaker
My junior year, you go for about six or seven weeks, and it was at Fort Lewis, Washington. My training as, when I got commissioned, I spent my initial training at, as an officer basic course at, Fort Bliss, Texas. And then later on for my infantry officer advanced course, I went to, at Fort Benning. So I've been on this scenic tour of the army. Not so nice post. I'll use that word.
00:09:24
Speaker
My really
Significant Military Deployments and Experiences
00:09:26
Speaker
good friend went to Fort Benning and did not have a lot of nice things to say about that area and the summers there. Definitely the summers and if you're a trainee at Fort Benning, especially in basic training or AIT, it's not a very fun time. I spent a summer there for airborne school when I was in ROTC. July and August at Fort Benning are not a nice experience.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, between the humidity bugs and just, oh gosh. So you spent 22 years in the military. What kind of made you want to stay in it and kind of continue enlisting and extending that?
00:10:10
Speaker
Mostly, probably twofold. One, the jobs I had, I spent my first six or seven years as a short ranger defense officer, Stinger Missiles. And I was in a unit that was initially worked at Corps, so it was very much kind of an independent operations and working with other units. And it wasn't, so I like enjoyed that. And also kind of the strategic look that we had at that level that I was working in.
00:10:38
Speaker
Deployed a lot of places spent six months in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh after they blew up cool car towers in the nineties we went over security force did that and then i would be two years in korea ninety nine two thousand one is a.
00:10:54
Speaker
company commander of a about a 220 man air defense senior missile unit in korea that was great experience again it was a divisional asset so i was pretty much my own boss working with other people obviously i was a captain but at lieutenant colonel it was my boss but i was on my base by myself he was they were at a different base so i like that
00:11:17
Speaker
level of independence and kind of flexibility was nice. Being overseas is probably what kept me in and being over places where even before the war post 9-11, but being in places where there were real world kind of focus and missions when you're worrying about
00:11:33
Speaker
North Koreans a lot easier to put up with some of the hardships Versus if you're sitting back and you know somewhere in this El Paso or Fort Benning or Fort Bragg doing all the training without that real-world enemy on on the horizon so I like that and then after I did my company's manicure I went to back to Fort Bragg to John F Kenny special warfare centered chemical psychological operations officer basically a propagandist and
00:12:01
Speaker
Really enjoyed that. And then again, I went back to Korea and spent another 12 years in Korea, living in Korea, working with the Korean psychological operations units, the Korean military, and again, very much in a independent, working in higher levels, working with the Korean government, Korean military, and very much enjoyed that. And it's really what kept me in. And again, that mission focus of being over there worried about, you know, what was coming up, could come down from the North. I was there when the
00:12:30
Speaker
A lot of the missile tests occurred, the first nuke test that was working as the SIOP officer for the four-star commander. So being in a lot of that world was very interesting and kept me in. Yeah. I mean, you were definitely a creator in some very interesting times. The death of Kim Jong Il, or Kim, what was the latter? Was Kim Jong Il? Kim Jong Il was the father.
00:12:53
Speaker
Kim Jong-un is the current quote unquote leader. Yeah. And then granddad is Kim Il-sung, right? Yeah. Kim Il-sung, who died in the mid 90s, early 90s.
00:13:04
Speaker
Well, good stuff. So after 22 years, what made you pursue a master's degree? Because you ended up going for two masters at the same time, right? Like one at, is it American university, a history at American? American military university. So when I was getting ready to retire, became clear retiring out of Korea was going to be too complicated. Just some of the processes I've been overseas and had stuff.
00:13:28
Speaker
storage back at Bragg for like 10 years in some Army contracted warehouse and just getting everything and there are some jobs you're limited some government job benefits are limited if you're hired overseas if there's a break between when you retire and and when you're hired. So I was looking initially at retiring and doing an international relations program because I spent so much time and career my wife's
00:13:52
Speaker
Korean, my son was born in Wuzongbu, just north of Seoul. So I went back to Fort Riley for a couple years to retire, do all the kind of process. And I started doing some online master's classes. I tried a couple times during my career and just never really got the classes started. Finished something last time I tried and it was right when Kim started the new tests and I got a little occupied and some other things.
00:14:18
Speaker
doing grad classes. So I ended up getting a C5 C6 neck fusion right before I retired. That was my parting gift. I went to find the gold watch and somehow got in the wrong line and they stuck metal in my neck instead. And so
00:14:33
Speaker
I literally couldn't lift anything over like 10 pounds for four to six months and so I just had a lot of free time and the Army gave me a lot of time obviously being retiring. I didn't have a lot to do in the States. I had a lot of time at my hands recuperating and even after I retired so I started taking classes.
00:14:50
Speaker
And I ended up taking so many that, uh, classes that I couldn't transfer all the credits and just came easier to do a, finish the online
PhD Research on Sand Creek Massacre Aftermath
00:15:00
Speaker
thesis track at American military university. And then I, when I came to CSU, then instead of doing a thesis track here at CSU in history, I did a public history, which also had a pretty strong interest in.
00:15:13
Speaker
doing historic preservation and museum studies kind of broadening my skill set and really what led me kind of the archaeology as well as looking at, you know, what can I learn and broaden the skill set versus just getting another history degree which would if you've taken
00:15:29
Speaker
36 credit hours of graduate history classes, another 36, you're really not learning new skills, you're just diving into more of the same. And I'd taken a historic archaeology class and that kind of led me to the CSU PhD program, which happened again, kind of those opportunities popping up when you don't expect them. CSU, right as I was graduating from the MA program and Jason LaBelle was on my committee for my master's and I'd taken a class from Mary and she was the grad coordinator
00:15:59
Speaker
at that time started their phd program in twenty eighteen right as i was coming out of my ma program and so it kind of seemed like another fortuitous opportunity and i jumped at that and
00:16:12
Speaker
Now, I guess four years later, here we are. Very interesting. And I think we'll end right there, and we'll come back in that next segment and talk about some of your research and what you're studying up there at CSU. So this is episode 87 of a Life in Ruins podcast, and we will catch you in the second segment. And welcome back to episode 87. We're here with Ray Sumner. So, Ray, why did you end up choosing Colorado State University for that PhD?
00:16:37
Speaker
I really ended up in Colorado State initially in my MA program because my thesis research was on the Powell Expeditions. John Wesley Powell came up to Colorado in 1867-68 on his first two expeditions and then in 1869 went down the Colorado Green River from Green River, Wyoming down the Colorado River, down what became the Colorado River at the time was the Grand River and then became the Colorado River.
00:17:05
Speaker
as I went through the Grand Canyon and made the first quote unquote, at least in hyphens, at least intentional descent of the Grand Canyon on an exploration. So I had gotten back to family research. My great-grandfather, second-grade grandfather had been Powell's lead guide in 67, 68, and then had been his lead boatman and guide in 69 down the Colorado River. And so when I was doing research on where to go and do a history program, Colorado State had a good Western history program.
00:17:34
Speaker
So that led me here because it was close to doing research in Colorado, spent a lot of time in Grant County, doing work throughout the state on topics of Western history. And then again, kind of when CSU started the anthropology PhD program, and it was also very spatially based, which I had done a lot of work in and looking at things spatially and how they related. It seemed like a natural fit. Initially I had started to plan on doing my PhD research
00:18:03
Speaker
in related topics of the 1860s, 1870s period in western Colorado on the western slope. As I started doing research and going into the program, looking at topics in the summer of 2018, even before really starting classes, that summer I volunteered with Dr. LaBelle and the field school and went out to Rangely, visited a lot of the museums, talking to people, seeing what assets were
00:18:27
Speaker
available in private collections, museum collections, and then also talking to the land federal land managers and got in retrospect some sage advice, the topics and how many different entities you want involved in your timelines. And that
00:18:42
Speaker
coordinating on the Western Slope from Colorado State, where you've got it takes out about three to five months of the year when you can get to the Western Slope to do research and to do work. And then on the Western Slope, almost all of the land you'd be working on would be federal.
00:18:58
Speaker
land, and so it would take obviously the federal coordination process on top of them coordinating with mostly the Northern Yew tribe. And of course, they're now located in Fort DeShanes in Utah, seven, eight hours. So just kind of looking at the logistical challenges that that might present. So started looking at other possibilities. And Dr. LaBelle and I took a trip to the 150th anniversary of Beecher Island, the Battle of Beecher Island.
00:19:26
Speaker
in September 2018 on the way back we swung by Julesburg kind of making it a plane's conflict kind of tour and drove past the battlefield and they have some uh interpretive markers and then stopped at their museum it's really a pretty uh
00:19:42
Speaker
fascinating little museum for a town of 1600 that they have related to the history of the town but also the battle and that kind of got me down looking at, hey, nobody's really worked on Julesburg, not really even professional archaeologists, whether it's commercial or academic and same for historians, it's all been avocational types and that kind of led me to that and staying in CSU and going through the PhD program.
00:20:07
Speaker
Excellent. I'm fascinated with your dissertation. I mentioned that in segment one. So could you for the audience, tell us what your dissertation topic is about? Yeah, I started referring to it, I guess it was probably 2819 as the days after Colorado's darkest day. And that came out of we, I ended up did a poster at a
00:20:27
Speaker
graduate student showcase here at CSU on something completely unrelated, but out of that got into the three minute challenge selection group of about 30 to five to 40 people every year, grad students for the vice president research fellows program and you basically give a three minute pitch with one slide on your topic and in that so I was trying to think of somehow stumbled across
00:20:51
Speaker
calling my research the days after Colorado's darkest day. And it's that because Sand Creek obviously is one of the darkest days in the state's history, territorial history. And so to make the distinction that
00:21:03
Speaker
What you don't hear about is what happened after the Sand Creek massacre and actually it's rather fortuitous for talking about this as today is the anniversary of November 29, 1864 and obviously the darkest day in the state's history with the massacre of Black Kettle and the other Cheyenne and Arapaho that were at the village of Sand Creek at that time. But to make the distinction that I'm not
00:21:28
Speaker
looking at Sand Creek but researching what happened in the aftermath. What happened starting November 30th and in the pursuing weeks and months and if you visit Sand Creek even what really fascinated me is that even down there they'll talk about how things related from Sand Creek you get the little bighorn but there's almost no mention of the events of
00:21:51
Speaker
1865, especially January and February in Nebraska, Kansas, and Wyoming in the early months, which is really sad because the Cheyenne and Arapaho go and join with the Lakota Premier, the Ogallala, and the Sinkangu, if I'm pronouncing my pronunciation today, of the Lakota
00:22:11
Speaker
Two, and they joined together and go on a military campaign, which I would argue against the targets up and down the North and South Platte, primarily in Colorado. And to me, it's really fascinating. And one, it shows that, A, they weren't completely destroyed. You know, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe didn't disappear after Sand Creek. Shimmington and the Colorado militia attacked a primarily just village of elders,
00:22:39
Speaker
Obviously there were people with weapons there that fought back, rightfully so. But it was not the main warrior societies of the Cheyenne. So all Shippington, beyond the moral and ethical, obviously atrocities and ethical issues with the whole attack in itself, it was a complete military blunder.
00:22:57
Speaker
And one thing I recently stumbled across a few years ago was a telegram from General Conner from Utah, who had been tasked by DC to come out and take over the Overland Trail stage route in Nebraska and Colorado and into Wyoming as an area defense to stop the raids and the attacks that had been going on in 1864, primarily in eastern Nebraska.
00:23:22
Speaker
Bob O'Connor on the 21st of November sent a telegram back to the War Department at the time and basically said, there's not enough troops here. We don't need to try to persecute any military campaign against the Plains Indians at this time. All that'll do is stir up problems that we can't control.
00:23:42
Speaker
And it sends that back and says, my calvary got stuck at Bridger because of early snows. I'll be back in the spring and lays out basically exactly what will happen if you do what shipping did at Sand Creek. And of course,
00:23:58
Speaker
right after Sand Creek, exactly what Connor foretold happening is what happened on the plains throughout really not just 1865, really goes on until Little Bighorn. And so my research is looking into that period after Sand Creek and primarily starts with what I call the first battle of Jewelsburg. And so after Sand Creek, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe meet up with various bands of the Lakota and they have a war council in western Kansas.
00:24:26
Speaker
near saint francis on cherry creek and decided to have a military act reaction to the sand creek massacre and they really choose joulesburg and this is where i think i kind of view that as obviously i'm not trying to present that i am a native china rapo or lakota that and
00:24:43
Speaker
account for things exactly as they would have in their mindset. But I do think in a lot of ways coming at it from a military planner who planned campaigns for the US military, joint operations, looking at how you fight wars, regardless of whether you're an American or Russian, there is somewhat of a military science to that in a way of how I see the world
00:25:05
Speaker
Having spent twenty seven twenty eight years from the time in r.o.t.c. viewing military operations where you look at things through a military lens. And so when I started to look at how the Cheyenne and the raffle and what they were doing it normally got kind of.
00:25:22
Speaker
in the little bit of history when you do see it talked about is viewed as basically, you know, they went out and killed every white man they could see on the trail. I'm sure there was no love lost for after Sand Creek and the other atrocities that had taken place and, you know, fighting for resources between the settlers, the military.
00:25:40
Speaker
the tribes but when they were selecting things as you look at it through a military planners lands they're doing things for very specific reasons not simply going out and attacking and killing every single person that they can find in julesburg one the first attack in julesburg on january seventh eighteen sixty five is a great example.
00:26:02
Speaker
And what they're doing is they're trying to conduct what I would call from a military perspective a raid. They're going and attacking the overland stage warehouses at Julesburg because they need the supplies that are in the warehouses. They need the corn. They need the cattle that they're taking on the trail.
00:26:18
Speaker
they need cloth for clothing they need material canvas to make teepees and tents because they have those four to five hundred survivors of the sand creek massacre who now have nothing in january they have no food stores they don't they don't have blankets chairs robes cooking utensils
00:26:36
Speaker
So they're attacking these ranches and stage stations, gaining supplies to provision those survivors for the remainder of the winter of 1865 until they can get into the summer hunting seasons where they can go through their more traditional supply routes. Obviously, there's not a lot of buffalo that you can obtain in the winter time. You're also then, if you're killing buffalo in the winter, you risk killing off calves from the next season. So being aware of that, they're attacking Julesburg.
00:27:06
Speaker
For that reason and the close proximity of the army for camp rank in the later becomes ford Sedgwick is a prime example They attack the stage station and wagon trains. They harass the fort
00:27:18
Speaker
But they never try to overrun the fort itself because they have no interest in killing every single soldier inside the fort because it doesn't serve any of their military objectives and the reasons they're conducting the operations. Then they go on for about six weeks raiding different stage stations and ranches up and down the trail, burning virtually every one between Fort Morgan and almost North Platte in Nebraska.
00:27:44
Speaker
But when they come back to Julesburg for the second time in 1865 on February 2nd, they this time attack the stage station, harass the fort, the cavalry doesn't come out, but they go back, raid the warehouses, they raid Walmart again, as I jokingly say, because it's been resupplied, but this time they know they're going north into the Nebraska
00:28:04
Speaker
eventually up towards cotas and over into the powder river region this time they know they're not coming back so they actually burn the warehouses completely at joulesburg because again it doesn't serve a future military purpose
00:28:18
Speaker
And then in showing in a larger context, I hope to kind of, I'm doing a lot of archeology there to locate sites in the specific battle locations, Julesburg area for the two battles, but also trying to contextualize it and what they're doing at the operational and strategic level. It's kind of a levels of war analysis that Doug Scott has done some work on at the battles at Mud Springs that come right after and Rush Creek that happened the week after the second battle of Julesburg. But then really to look at
00:28:48
Speaker
as the whole entire period of 1865.
00:28:52
Speaker
from not as an American military planner or a native military planner, but looking at the actions and how they relate together. And again, normally they're viewed as independent actions based on what the U.S. military is doing. U.S. military attacks Sand Creek, U.S. military was attacked at Julesburg, Connor attacks into the Powder River. But I think when you look at all of the things and look at who the different players are on the U.S. cavalry, military side, as well as then on the Native American, Cheyenne, Lakota,
00:29:21
Speaker
and Arapahoe side, it's the vast majority of many of the same players throughout. So I think it's really, in the end, I'm arguing that it's really an interrelated campaign throughout 1865, where Sand Creek is the initial action by the US military. The reaction is what the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Lakota do throughout 1865, January, often to September, August, September, when General Connor then has the counter reaction.
00:29:51
Speaker
which is the Powder River Expedition in 1865, which basically is a draw for both sides. So in kind of a nutshell, that's what I'm looking at as a conflict and a historical archaeology. So I am aware that in the spring of 1865, the Pawnee Scouts were back in action, especially in the Powder River Campaign. And this is a point where at least my nation gets involved in what's going on in the West being enlisted by the United States military to serve as
00:30:21
Speaker
Scouts, and then also we kind of just got involved ourselves. We weren't supposed to, but you couldn't stop us. Well, yeah, and on that, this is where another thing, there's so much early history, and it probably would take a couple more PhDs by some historians and others that I think it raises a lot of interesting questions. You know, when does the Civil War end? These are all Civil War soldiers.
00:30:40
Speaker
I don't think a lot of the tension on the planes happened without the Civil War. I think things would have probably progressed differently, probably if career military had been here versus mobilized and different resources available. But yeah, it's really the conflict in 1864 gives birth to the Pawnee Scouts. They come out with General Mitchell on some of the early expeditions in the immediate aftermath of some of the hostilities in 1864 and then are at Julesburg in response to the battle in January and February.
00:31:10
Speaker
and all that's glossed over and when you dig into the ethnography of the various bands that are involved many of the later leaders of the conflict in the mid 1870s are involved in the conflict at Julesburg as younger warriors not as of shirt wearers or what other titles people might give them war leaders but they're the the soldiers at those battles and I think a lot of that's where they learn some of the tactics that work and some of the tactics that don't and get that first
00:31:39
Speaker
realization that they can stand up to the US military. Of course, unfortunately, on their side that the Civil War ends in April and all of a sudden you have battle-hardened troops in the thousands being sent west, which changes that dynamic greatly as well as the supply. But I think all of those relations have just been kind of
00:31:58
Speaker
glossed over and not looked at the really the integral role this early period plays in setting the conditions for what happens later and a lot of ways how the U.S. decides to handle its Indian policy in its aftermath.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, my family name, Shield Chief, comes from a Pawnee scout that we traced a tendency from. And I don't remember if he was in the Cheyenne, I think he was in the Cheyenne War in 1866 when they had the most amount of scouts, when they had the Pawnee battalion in play. Part of the reason I'm so fascinated by your research is what you're looking at is a very much, as you said, glossed over
00:32:32
Speaker
All the details in between the big highlights, quote unquote, highlights of this time period, but everything in between is not really looked at. Everyone wants to talk about Sand Creek and Little Bighorn, the skirmishes and raids that happened between which are important to what's going on in Western politics are completely just not really mentioned. As you considered, right, like a lot of people will think of these actions as random.
00:33:02
Speaker
and just out for blood for the purpose of blood and not actual military intelligence taking place on behalf of so-called, you know, plain savages. But these people actually knew what they were doing and knew how to do it. Yeah. And Julesberg, I mean, the army had about
00:33:19
Speaker
60, 55, 60 soldiers at best at Julesburg that day, about 40, 45 go out in the first battle. And it was a very complex military operation that the Cheyenne Arapahoe and the Lakota ran, that they started in a tactile mail coach coming in at like three, 4 a.m., about four miles out. It didn't get the cavalry to come out there like, thanks, I'm not going out in the middle of the night, you know, trying to find people in the dark. The stage got to the stage station and was safe.
00:33:48
Speaker
Next, they moved in a couple more miles. They attacked a wagon train that was camped at a ranch about two miles from the Ford, a mile from the stage station that got the cavalry to come out. They start chasing off 60 or 70 of the various members of the bands. They follow them up four miles into the sand hills, at which time George Ben talks about it in his book with Hyde, that a couple of the young Braves come out early and all of a sudden the cavalry sees them and stops.
00:34:13
Speaker
And the next thing then, of course, the group of China Rapo and Lakota come out and there's almost 1,500, 12 to 1,500 estimated warriors, which literally, when I'm looking at the terrain to hide that, it would have to be over about five or six mile length. I mean, it would just, you'd have to spread those guys out basically from
00:34:35
Speaker
Ovid Colorado where the exit is almost to the Julesburg exit just to hide those people that amount of people in the bluffs and not get seen and so they know that's where the 15 majority of the 15 soldiers get killed that day fighting their way back to get to the Back to the ranch and back to the stage station and back to the fort and they actually bring out some Artillery finally to kind of a drive off the natives Americans far enough to get the retreat because obviously again the Native Americans weren't looking to kill
00:35:04
Speaker
every soldier. So they had no interest in trying to overpower and suffered 25 dead guys to take him out in Howitzer. So they just let him go back to the fort. They hung out in the fort and they ransacked the stage station. That's super interesting and very cool. And being from Colorado and around there, it's
00:35:22
Speaker
Like you mentioned, we don't learn about this in school or anything like that. So, super interesting. And on that note, we are going to end this segment and we'll catch you in the third segment.
Collaborations with Department of Defense
00:35:32
Speaker
This is episode 87 of Life in Ruins Podcast. Chris Webster is about to soothe you with some awesome ads. Welcome back to episode 87 of Life in Ruins Podcast. We are here with Ray Sumner.
00:35:46
Speaker
We had talked a little bit about this on Dr. Alex Garcia Putnam's episode, but there is this program where archaeologists work with the Department of Defense to help, not repatriate, but to recover remains of people who have died in foreign wars and
00:36:08
Speaker
and things like that. At CSU, they have a close relationship with the DOD through the Center for Environmental Management and Military Lands, where they employ archaeologists to do survey stuff, as well as this program. Ray, you were a part of this during this last summer, or was it the summer before?
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was this past summer. And so yeah, Semmel was an organization that was created I think about 35 years ago, mid to late 80s at CSU to work with the Department of Defense on cultural resources, but also all the biological sciences, other environmental science type issues to help DOD meet their regulatory and legal requirements.
Mission to France: Recovering WWII Pilot Remains
00:36:45
Speaker
for projects and so one of the I worked with them since I was in my MA program on some historical preservation and I've also then started working some archaeology cultural resource projects with them over the years and their director Tony Chapa is a
00:37:02
Speaker
former combat veteran, he's a combat veteran, a former member of the US military. And so he's always had an interest in being involved in helping DPA, the remains recovery, obviously being retired military, helping reunite the missing in action, finding them and bringing them home and keeping that sacred trust is something that we both had a great interest in.
00:37:22
Speaker
And so DOD has, for many years, we're probably one of the only countries in the world that goes to the lengths we do and spends the money and time to recover all of our missing in action from all the wars that we can. So in 2015, DOD Congress created the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, DPAA, putting together a bunch of different parts of the Defense Department that were dealing with the mission set of the missing in action.
00:37:49
Speaker
And so as part of that, they also allow DPA to develop partnerships with universities and nonprofits to help increase the capacity for the military to do these recoveries. And so the largest, if one of the largest, if not the largest anthropological forensic anthropology lab in the world is the DPA main laboratory in Hawaii. And now they have a second lab that's opened recently in the last couple of years and off at Air Force Base in Nebraska, where they employ
00:38:19
Speaker
Hundreds of people working in the lab to work on the missing in action, and they have military teams that go out and do recoveries, but to broaden that they started, as I said, bringing in academic institutions and CC worked over a couple years become one of their partners and develop a.
00:38:37
Speaker
It required a Memorandum of Agreement understanding on how to do that. And this past year, we were able to conduct a mission to France to go and try to locate a missing B-17G pilot that was shot down in a few weeks after D-Day in early July 18-19. I got to get out of my historical research.
00:38:58
Speaker
our early 1944 in northern France. Eight members of the crew bailed out, seven were captured, one the French underground got out. And so we were tasked to go and to try and locate this missing pilot. Very unique situation. In this case, the family had gotten interested in the missing pilot a few years ago. They have a family member that was involved in the
00:39:26
Speaker
US military and he had an opportunity on leave to visit the area and do some personal research and brought the case, some of the connections he had made to DPA's detachment in Germany. And they were able to carry it forward to the point where it could justify sending us in this past summer. And so we partnered with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to do the mission. Dr. Michelle Coons was our lead archeologist on the ground that oversaw the work at the site. I was the team leader and project manager
00:39:56
Speaker
So I was overall the logistics, the planning, coordination with DPAA before the mission, working it after, closing out all the finances afterwards, and then doing all the administrative logistics side of the house to enable Michelle to focus on the work on the site and leading our team.
00:40:14
Speaker
And so we kind of tried a different model. A lot of schools go in and do it through a model where they're using kind of the field school model to do that. Being a veteran and Tony Chapa being a veteran, we decided to try to use a smaller team, go in with a more trained, more focused team.
00:40:32
Speaker
of experienced personnel and people with connection to the military in different ways that would help with the mission, we thought. And then we reached out to the veterans community in France, to the American Legion and the VFW, coordinate for veterans to come in for, and other family members and such to come in and volunteer for five to seven, 10 days at the site to help out. Again, reducing costs to DPA to be able to bring people
00:40:58
Speaker
more people to the problem set. And so we took 14 people from the states. Dr. Coons, myself, another one of our PhD students here at CSU, a biological anthropologist, took Dr. Aaron Baxter, who was also working at the museum. Fortunately, DMNS released both of them to go work on the project as part of the partnership. Then took Amy Gillespie, another trained registered public archaeologist. So we had a very
00:41:25
Speaker
solid core of trained archaeologists that worked the project and then got an additional nine volunteers, three metal detecting subject matter experts from the states along with six additional undergrads or recent grads that went from both CSU as well as University of Colorado Springs to round out our volunteers from the states.
00:41:48
Speaker
And then we had about 20, 25 partners in Europe come throughout the three weeks, the missions on the ground to look for the missing pilot, as well as then incorporating probably about 15 to 20 local residents came and wanted to be involved with the recovery.
00:42:05
Speaker
To protect the site, we don't obviously talk the specific details of its location, but the little local farm community in northern France has protected this site for 75 years. They're very invested and helped the family a great deal in their research and were wonderful to us, welcoming us in their homes, helping us with whatever we needed, coming out and volunteering to move dirt 80% humidity and 80-85 degrees outside.
00:42:33
Speaker
So it was a wonderful experience to do. So was it a B-17 or a B-24? This one was a B-17G. So obviously four engine large aircraft. We found debris across virtually what probably equates to about 80 football fields, a hundred meters.
00:42:50
Speaker
or 1,000 meters by almost 500 meters. And a lot of that, I would say that debris field is that size, not because it's that size definitively, but that's the only area that we checked. If we checked some of the other permissions with property owners and went on, you'd probably see a bigger debris field. And so really, it's a really unique archaeology. Obviously, your goal is to find evidence to help you locate the missing pilot so that he can be identified, returned through the French government,
00:43:19
Speaker
to the United States government and identified through the DPA and the military DNA laboratory so that he can be reunited with his family members. And that's really one of the emotional things about this unique is, even as a historical archaeologist, where I can see names of the Cheyenne Arapahoe and Lakota that are involved, obviously I could get lists of all the soldiers and most of the civilians that were at Julesburg at the time. But here, there is actually a family that, you know,
00:43:47
Speaker
You know a name on a piece of paper of who you're looking for. You have, you can see their photographs. You see some of their personal effects they might have. In this case, we were able before because the family had involved to learn what the, from the family member, what he had learned in the research process. And it was his wife who's the grand niece. So it's, you're really just, you know, one, two generations away from this person that you're looking for. So it's really a unique.
00:44:16
Speaker
Form of archaeology to have that reality with the person but then also to be involved Unique from how you normally would operate a dig here. We were doing four meter by four meter Excavation units your primary looking for a very narrow set of archaeological evidence from certain pieces of the aircraft that may help you identify the aircraft and
00:44:39
Speaker
may identify an area where you might think the cockpit is, where you think we believe the pilot was at when the aircraft went down. And of course, then the reality of you may come across human remains from the pilot, remains of the pilot himself, where you know exactly the probability if that's human remains, that very well could be the person you're looking for. And in this case, where we only had the one individual,
00:45:07
Speaker
kept that reality in the back of your mind at all times. It made it very, I think everyone would agree, even the non-veteran, very emotional kind of situation. Absolutely. And was this aircraft shot down going towards its target or on the way back?
00:45:20
Speaker
It was about two minutes from its bomb release. Okay. And so it got hit going in, we believe from the research and the historical record that it was going in on bombings and B-1, B-2 related targets that were launching out of Northern France at that time period, trying to hit in the England. So most of the targets were around that kind of targets, either command and control or actual launch and other information. It was, I believe the second plane in formation.
00:45:50
Speaker
it broke out once it was hit, so it didn't explode and damage, which was its SOP, and then crashed down. There's a lot of conflicting stories on, you know, he did nose dive, he did veer away, so we had a lot of locals come by, and even one, he was the actual child who was still alive, was able to come by and tell us his impressions of the days after the crash, what he saw that day. So again, it was a very unique kind of a project.
00:46:17
Speaker
So you didn't have to worry about unexplored and ordinance. That's pretty, pretty well, it was a concern. And so, uh, we would again, having the metal detectors, uh, helped, uh, we would always, uh, they obviously were looking for artifacts throughout the site. And we found over 4,000, almost 4,500 artifacts that they located during the three weeks.
00:46:36
Speaker
But also, obviously, if you get a ping, we did have some survey work that was done specifically looking for potential EOD. You would, of course, at being a bomber crash, you find a lot of .50 cal ammunition exploded, shot, casings, bullets, as well as complete rounds that haven't exploded.
00:46:58
Speaker
Fortunately, those aren't really too dangerous. Most of the powder is dry. For the larger material, fortunately, it was a farm field that had been farmed for the last 75 years. And their plow zone is about 50 centimeters, they said. So it was about the depth. It was really where the soil horizon changed, about that depth.
00:47:19
Speaker
So in the most part, we were fairly confident in the areas we were digging, that we were safe. Being out of the military, we had a couple other guys that were vets that had EOD experience in terms of identifying, you know, I can identify a 500-pound bomb enough to tell us to get the hell away from it and call in the French EOD. We did have ties with the French Department of Interior's demining group, and they would come out to site and visit it and did some assessments for us as well. So we had procedures in place for safety.
00:47:48
Speaker
When you first get there and see the you can still see on the farm field just south of where we were at the craters that were in the side of this hill from world war two from the bombing that at the other v2 sites that were in the area and we had aerial imagery from right before the crash and you can see all of the bomb craters in the field that we were in so it did place in the back of your mind that it was always a
00:48:11
Speaker
remote and limited possibility, but still a possibility that you could stumble across because you still see it every day that they're running across every week, probably in Northern France and the low countries, you know, coming across the ordinance from World War II and probably even more scarier crap from World War I.
Reflections on WWI and WWII Impact
00:48:27
Speaker
Absolutely. And for our audience, V1s and V2s are the earliest basically cruise missiles. They're rockets that were developed by Wernher von Braun, who then became the head of NASA. And the first US rocket was a V2 with an American flag on it rather than a swastika. So history is fun.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was a fascinating area to be in too, just in Northern France is a slight aside. I've never really gotten very deep into World War I history and definitely not prior to the American involvement. I mean, I know all the big battles being in the military, military officer history classes.
00:49:01
Speaker
But the hotel we were staying in, we stayed about 40 minutes away in a town called Arras just because of not being able to do a recon and COVID and things like that. We chose to go with a Western brand hotel just kind of for safety and knowing what we're getting, going in blind. But Arras was the site of a major World War I battle. And so there's all these monuments and all these historical sites around this area. And the Battle of Arras had like 300,000 people killed in it over this month.
00:49:30
Speaker
And I had never even heard of it. So when hundreds of thousands of people can die in a battle or be wounded, and it's not even on the radar screen because of how the Marne and Bellawood and all these others, how even worse all these other battles were, it just was kind of eye-opening to the level of
00:49:52
Speaker
of what went on there and to see that there are British Commonwealth, I should say cemeteries all throughout that area of Northern France. And just really to see the, I mean, really brings home how much the loss was to the French, the British, and obviously the Germans as well fighting in World War I that, you know, we can't even comprehend the impact it had on their countries.
00:50:16
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Ray, for coming on and chatting with us about this stuff. You know, it's it's really interesting. We haven't had anyone who does historical military archaeology. Ray, thank you so much for coming on the show this evening. And so before we end, what are a couple sources? These could be books, articles, videos, blogs, even that you would recommend for anyone interested in the archaeology of conflict, the Indian wars, historical archaeology, or I mean, how even World War II at this point.
00:50:42
Speaker
I think the first couple I'd mention from a historical archaeology, conflict archaeology related to the Julesburg kind of campaign period, I'd recommend Battlespace 1865. It's by Doug Scott, Peter Bleed, and Amanda Renner.
00:50:58
Speaker
and it's a really very short book looks at the aftermath of the battles in nebraska right after the battle of jules second battle of julesberg but really engageable also presents kind of the strategic operational and tactical the levels of war analysis that i'm using in my research.
00:51:16
Speaker
And Doug Scott has been a great help to me in providing advice and guidance whenever I've reached out to him. And then also, if you're going to look into historical conflict archaeology, especially Plains, lack of a better term, Indian War archaeology, I'd really also recommend archaeological insights in the Custer Battle, an assessment of the 1984 fieldwork season.
00:51:37
Speaker
And that's really Doug Scott and Richard Fox Jr's initial book on their work at the Battle of Little Bighorn when they were able to do research after the fires that occurred there in the early 1980s. Really some foundational work and a lot of that work that Doug Scott has done is where conflict archaeology using forensics kind of like the CSI looking at
00:51:59
Speaker
the weapons, their ranges, where they're found, their clustering, really looking at firearms analysis and really got it started is invaluable into what I and everybody else is doing in conflict archaeology today. And both of those are very short and engageable.
00:52:14
Speaker
Another one I found, it's really two books I found, and they actually just won an award from the plane center there at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln by Leo Kilsbach, who was a Cheyenne, Northern Cheyenne, I believe. But he wrote a two set series on the Cheyenne, which are fascinating to see an internal tribal perspective from someone who's also a trained anthropologist, academic background, and being able to bridge that kind of world and writing them.
00:52:44
Speaker
from a native perspective, Cheyenne perspective, but also in an academic kind of the way academics are used to engaging with the information. Both are very fascinating books. I've used them a lot as reference to trying to understand the Cheyenne. I think it's really important too, because the Cheyenne is amazing when you dig into their governance system, not going to a lot of it, but it was very much at even a civilian military control. And we throw back to
00:53:14
Speaker
Sand Creek, that's something that, uh, Shimmington, by destroying multiple bands of the leadership of bands at Sand Creek, he breaks that civilian military control and puts the warrior societies in really the driving seat through much of 1865, 68 through 1865, 69 period with the conflict in Colorado. And so those are definitely books I'd recommend for readers
Resources for Conflict Archaeology Enthusiasts
00:53:37
Speaker
to work. And then there's another, uh, Lakota
00:53:39
Speaker
traditionalist and historian who's been fascinating named Marshall that's wrote a lot of historical fiction as well as perspectives on Lakota viewpoints. I'd really reach out, I think it's Marshall the third and mind blanking on his first name at the moment, but another great source perspectives on how things are viewed from the Lakota.
00:54:00
Speaker
Awesome. And for our listeners, those will be in the show notes. There'll be links to those and citations as well. And where can our listeners find you on social media?
00:54:11
Speaker
have a Facebook site that we use for the project. It's called the Julesberg Project. So if you search on Facebook at the Julesberg Project or at Camp Rankin 1865, it should pop up for you. That's the primary means. We do also post on the CSU Department of Anthropology and Geography's website, as well as the Center for Mountain and Plains Archaeology that Dr. Labelle runs for some of the more prominent information. But for the nitty gritty and a lot more detailed information,
00:54:40
Speaker
The project site on Facebook is the best place to go. Perfect. And because this show is a life in ruins, we have to ask you a very important question. So if you were given the chance again, would you still choose to live a life in ruins?
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think it's archaeology, especially, and for me, a historical archaeology really has blended all of my interests. It's put history, it's put my military career together and being able to bring that together and hopefully look at things from a perspective somewhat of a descendant community of the military.
00:55:15
Speaker
and give perhaps some new insights to bringing things together and understanding how and why people from both sides of the conflict did things and not look at it simply through one lens or another lens from the opposite side of the battle.
00:55:30
Speaker
Excellent. Well, thank you for joining us today, Ray. Really appreciate it, man. So everyone, we just interviewed Ray Sumner, PhD candidate at Colorado State University. You can find him on Facebook at the Julesburg Project and Camp Rankin 1865, as well as CSU Department of Anthropology and Geography at the Center for Mountain and Plains Archaeology.
00:55:51
Speaker
Facebook sites. So yeah, definitely go check them out and please, please, please everybody rate our podcast wherever you listen. If you're listening to us on the All Shows feed, subscribe to our podcast so we can actually see those downloads and tell our producers what good boys we've been. Don't forget we have a website. You can always email us. We're always down for suggestions. We've got a couple. We're excited to do a deep dive into alpha. So we definitely need Dog Boy David to be on for that one.
00:56:18
Speaker
We have a merch store, buy some merch. Buy stickers, yeah. Yeah, buy the stickers, do the thing. Ray, did I give you a sticker at Plains? I don't think he did. I'll give you the bar that I don't even remember the name of. Oh, yes. Jaeger. But yeah, I went into Plains with like a pocket full of stickers and Lon was like, why are you doing that? I was like, well, people listen to the podcast, we'll hand them out and like, just sure enough, like all these kids started surrounding me and I was just, and then I was out of stickers, so.
00:56:43
Speaker
next time. SCAs, everyone. Come find us. We'll give you stickers. And with that, we are out. Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
00:57:12
Speaker
So the last time we visited the Eastern Plains, we took a picture of a field of wheat. Turned out really grainy. Thank you, Connor. Bray's confused. He's just visibly confused. All right, we're out.
00:57:44
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.