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Buffalo Soldiers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saddle_and_accessories.JPG
Buffalo soldier field equipment in 1890 as shown in the Smithsonian picture below is the same gear that the 9th Cavalry was outfitted with in John Ford’s Sergeant Rutledge, which takes place in 1881. It is shown here because it represent two themes related to what Mark Fuhrman said about his gun collection. Murder in Brentwood, page 125: “That’s like saying because I collected late 19th century cavalry items, I approved of the slaughter of Indians.... I also collected old Winchester’s and single action Colts." The picture shows these late 19th century cavalry items: “felt campaign hat, Springfield breech-loading carbine, Colt single-action army revolver, ammunition belt, and McClellan saddle with saddlebags.”
The Civil War precursor to the U.S. cavalry’s Springfield was the Spencer. From Wiki: “In the late 1860s, the Spencer company was sold to the Fogerty Rifle Company and ultimately to Winchester” Another Spencer-Winchester link goes directly to George Armstrong Custer who used Spencer’s successfully as a Union cavalry officer but had Spencer’s and Winchesters used against him in the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Sergeant Rutledge is a courtroom drama about a black 9th cavalry sergeant accused of killing a major and raping the major's daughter. The Cavalry Swiss Army watch in the June, 1994 issue of Vanity Fair says when retired Army Sergeant Major Robert C. Hurd was killed if you know how to read the Swiss Army watch code. 3 is the fixed calendar position for March and 9 is the military p.m. equivalent of 21. The tall tale song that introduces Sergeant Rutledge has something in each of the first five lines that speaks to Fuhrman's cavalry reference, to Hurd being beaten to death with a hammer and to things that Fuhrman omitted or changed like the victim's name, his true rank and the March 21, 1994 date that he was killed. You heard about the soldier in the U.S. cavalry Who is built like Lookout Mountain, taller than a redwood tree With his iron fist he’ll drop an ox with just one mighty blow John Henry was a weakling next to Captain Buffalo...
He'll march all night and he'll march all day And he'll wear out a 20 mule team along the way...
Note: The Buffalo link to McClinton is not only O.J. Simpson's pro football memorabilia in the Palace
The Lookout Mountain link is Spencer, Tennessee in the southern part of the State, roughly 30 miles north of Dunlap. The western border of Chattanooga is about 32 miles south of Dunlap (a McClinton alias). Lookout Mountain straddles Tennessee and Georgia. In Sergeant Rutledge, a captain tells the lieutenant defending Braxton Rutledge who the court martial president is by naming his Civil War campaigns, "Chattanooga [Tennessee], Chickamauga [Georgia], Nashville [Tennessee]. Later in the movie we learn that he was also involved in the burning of Atlanta.
The map below shows the Tennessee portion of Lookout Mountain and neighborhoods (called associations) of southwestern Chattanooga. This map shows another Chickamauga and another Spencer less than 2 miles apart.
Chickamauga was a Union defeat in Georgia at the hands of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg except for the part of the Union line defended by Gen. George "Slow Trot" Thomas. For his stand against Bragg at Chickamauga, Thomas was called, "The Rock of Chickamauga." When Sherman took the best of his army to Atlanta, he left Thomas behind in Nashville with men who were too, old, crippled or crazy for his march to Atlanta. Thomas met Bragg's army again at Nashville and destroyed it, which earned him the nickname "The Hammer of Nashville."
If George Thomas, in the context of the iron fist stanza of "Captain Buffalo" makes you think of boxers with a devastating punch, George Forman and Thomas Hearns might easily come to mind. Thomas "Hitman" Hearns was born in Memphis, Tennessee. -- Jasper |
