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Wesson Rifle from the U.S. Cartridge
He was also a U.S. deputy marshal in the Indian Territory, a showman and member of Pawnee
Bill’s Wild West shows, and was involved in mining ventures in the American West and abroad. The rifle is also listed as item 169 and shown in case no. 4
in “A.E. Brooks’s Collection of Antique Guns, Pistols, Etc.”Time was clearly taken with the decoration of this rifle, and it shows signs of real frontier use, but, as is often the case, the rest of this rifle’s history is not documented. However, where it was found and some of its markings provide clues. The location in Big Sky Country where the rifle was found is south of present day Glacier National Park in western Montana in the ancestral lands of multiple Native American nations, including the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreilles now based on the Flathead Indian Reservation to the southwest and their enemies the Blackfeet now based to the north on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. While these nations were not heavily represented at the Battle of Little Bighorn, two of the 7th Cavalry’s scouts were half-Blackfoot brothers: William and Patrick Jackson. The rifle has Benjamin Kittredge’s company’s marking on it, and they sent Wesson rifles to Kansas during the Civil War. They are known to have been used in Kansas following the bloody Lawrence Massacre, and Wesson rifles were among the arms
in the arsenal at Leavensworth in 1867 when the
government was selling off surplus arms. Thus, this rifle may have came to the West for use by a loyal Kansas trooper during the Civil War and have been turned in by him after the defeat of the Confederacy. While the end of that war brought relative peace east of the Mississippi, in the West, multiple Native American nations continued to fight to hold onto their land against white settlers and the U.S. Army and its Native American allies. Native American scouts allied with the government are known to have been armed with surplus rifles and carbines. Significantly, at least one of these Frank Wesson rifles was used at the Battle of Little Bighorn based on analysis of cartridges recovered after the battle. Few of the weapons of the up to 2,500 warriors
that fought Custer and his men that day have been identified, but .44 rimfire single shot and repeating rifles are known to have been among them. Given
at least one of these rifles was used and this rifle remained in the region, it certainly could have been used that day in the Battle of Greasy Grass (as the Native Americans called it) by an allied scout or one of the victorious warriors of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, or Arapaho who wiped out Custer’s men on and around Last Stand Hill and also caused losses at Reno’s Hill. Ultimately, 268 men of the roughly 700 man 7th Cavalry were killed, and another 6 later died from their wounds.
175
in Custer Battle Guns by duMont