Lordship of Argos and Nauplia

During the late Middle Ages, the two cities of Argos (Greek: Άργος, French: Argues) and Nauplia (modern Nafplio, Ναύπλιο; in the Middle Ages Ἀνάπλι, in French Naples de Romanie) formed a lordship within the Frankish-ruled Morea in southern Greece.

Following their conquest in 1211–1212, the cities were granted as a fief to Otto de la Roche, duke of Athens, by Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, prince of Achaea. The lordship remained in the possession of the de la Roche and the Brienne dukes of Athens even after the conquest of the Duchy of Athens by the Catalan Company in 1311, and the Brienne line continued to be recognized as dukes of Athens there. Walter VI of Brienne was largely an absentee lord, spending most of his life in his European domains, except for a failed attempt in 1331 to recover Athens from the Catalans. After his death in 1356 the lordship was inherited by his sixth son, Guy of Enghien. Guy took up residence in Greece, and in 1370–1371 Guy and his brothers launched another, also failed, invasion of the Catalan domains. When Guy died in 1376, the lordship then passed to his daughter Maria of Enghien and her Venetian husband Pietro Cornaro, who would also reside there until his death in 1388. The lordship became a de facto Venetian dependency during this period, and shortly after his death, Maria sold the two cities to Venice, where she retired. Before Venice could take possession, Argos was seized by the Despot Theodore I Palaiologos, while his ally, Nerio I Acciaioli seized Nauplia. The latter city was soon captured by Venice, but Argos remained in Byzantine hands until 1394, when it too was handed over to Venice.

## History

In the first years of the 13th century, already before the arrival of the Fourth Crusade in the Byzantine Empire, Argos and Nauplia became the centre of an independent domain under the Greek lord Leo Sgouros. Sgouros had exploited the feebleness of imperial authority, and like many other provincial magnates, proceeded to carve out his own principality. From his hometown Nauplia, he seized Argos and Corinth, and attacked Athens, although he failed to take the Acropolis of Athens. By early 1205, Sgouros had advanced into Boeotia and Thessaly, but was forced to abandon his conquests in the face of the Crusaders under Boniface of Montferrat, who advanced south from Thessalonica. Boniface overran Thessaly, Boeotia and Attica, where he installed his followers as barons, and his men invaded the Morea. Sgouros and his men held out in the citadels of Argos, Nauplia and Corinth, however, even after both Boniface and Sgouros died, in 1207 and 1208 respectively. The three fortresses were kept under siege by the Crusaders until the fall of Acrocorinth in 1210, followed by Nauplia and finally by Argos in 1212. The Lord of Athens, Otto de la Roche (r. 1204–1225/34), played a major role in their capture, and as a reward the Prince of Achaea Geoffrey I of Villehardouin (r. 1209 – c. 1229) gave him Argos and Nauplia as a fief, along with an income of 400 hyperpyra from Corinth. The area of Damala (Troezen) in the Argolid was also given to the de la Roche, but soon passed to a cadet branch of the family, which assumed the Barony of Veligosti. Despite the establishment of a Frankish lordship in the southern Argolid, however, the Franks were never numerous in the district. Much as happened elsewhere in the Morea, the local Greek magnates simply submitted to their new Frankish lords, but kept their possessions and Orthodox faith, as well as a typically Byzantine culture, as evidenced by the continued construction of Byzantine-style churches during the period.

### Under the de la Roche family

After the death of Otto I, some time between 1225 and 1234, Argos and Nauplia were inherited by his son , while Athens went to Guy I de la Roche (r. 1225/34–1263). In April 1251, Otto II sold his Greek possessions to his brother Guy I in exchange of 15,000 gold hyperpyra and the latter's lands and claims in France.

Following the fall of Boniface's Kingdom of Thessalonica to the Greek Despotate of Epirus in 1224, the Principality of Achaea emerged as the most powerful and pre-eminent among the Latin states of southern Greece. Inevitably, the other Latin lordships began to be drawn into the orbit of Achaea, which during the early reign of William II of Villehardouin (r. 1247–1278) reached the height of its power and prosperity. Guy I de la Roche was one of William's feudatories, both for Argos and Nauplia, as well as for his possession of one half of Thebes As a result, he participated in the siege and conquest of the last Greek stronghold in the Morea, the fortress city of Monemvasia (1246–1248), alongside William. At about the same time, William received from the Latin Emperor the suzerainty over the Duchy of Naxos, Negroponte (Euboea), and possibly over the Marquisate of Bodonitsa as well, while the County of Cephalonia also recognized his overlordship. William's hegemonic ambitions worried many of the other Latin rulers and barons, however, resulting in the War of the Euboeote Succession (1256–1258). Guy de la Roche fought against William in the conflict, but it ended in a complete victory for William and Guy's submission to the Prince of Achaea.

Following the capture of William II by the Byzantines in the Battle of Pelagonia (1259), in 1261 the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1282) received a number of fortresses in the southeastern Morea (Monemvasia, Mystras and Grand Magne, possibly also Geraki) as a ransom for the Prince's release. According to George Pachymeres, Argos and Nauplia were also demanded by Palaiologos, but in the event they remained in Latin hands. In the 1270s, with the rise of the Latin renegade Licario, who became a Byzantine admiral, the Argolid suffered repeated raids at the hands of Licario's corsairs.

### Under the Brienne family

In 1309, Walter I of Brienne succeeded to the Duchy of Athens, but he and many of the most important lords of Frankish Greece fell in the Battle of Halmyros in March 1311 against the Catalan Company. In its aftermath, the Catalans took over the Duchy of Athens and, with the military capacity of the remaining Latin states of Greece crippled, threatened to invade the Morea and take over Argos and Nauplia as well. After briefly holding Athens against the Catalans, Walter's widow, Joanna of Châtillon, went to France to solicit aid from her father, the Constable of France Gaucher V de Châtillon, whom she appointed bailli in her name on 22 November 1312.

Over the next few years, with support from the Angevin Kingdom of Naples and the Papacy, Joanna dispatched men and provisions to the Argolid, which was administered in her name by the local Frankish brothers Walter and Francis of Foucherolles. The steadfast loyalty of the Foucherolles to the Briennist claimants was instrumental in keeping the lordship under their control over the next decade, when the Argolid was ravaged by Catalan raids. The lordship's maintenance necessitated continuous expense, however, which forced Joanna to undertake large debts. When Joanna's son Walter II of Brienne came of age in January 1321, he initially refused to take over his mother's debts. King Philip V of France adjudicated between them and decided that Walter had to pay off the sum of 7,000 livres tournois and his mother the rest.

The Briennist claims were upheld by Pope Clement V and Pope John XXII, who took a firm stance against the Catalan Company: the Catalans were excommunicated, their attacks on fellow Christians excoriated, and attacks on them by the other Latin powers of Greece encouraged. Clement sought the intercession of King James II of Aragon to get the Catalans to abandon Athens, but the King's appeal to that effect was ignored. Clement further ordered the Knights Hospitaller to provide three or four galleys and men to defend the Brienne lands, and in 1314 commanded all Templar properties in the Duchy of Athens to be placed under the control of Gaucher V de Châtillon and to be used against the Catalans. The Briennist cause was undermined, however, by the persistent refusal of the Republic of Venice to support anti-Catalan ventures. Although the Venetians were often at odds with the Catalans over their claims to various fiefs in Euboea, in 1319 an accord was reached that established generally peaceful relations between the two over the next few decades.

After 1321, Walter II repeatedly announced his intention to campaign in Greece and recover the Duchy of Athens, but financial constraints and his obligations to the King of Naples kept him occupied in Italy. In 1328, he even briefly concluded a truce with the Catalans. Thus it was not until 1330 that a serious effort got under way. In June 1330, Pope John XXII issued a crusading bull for Walter, and ordered prelates in Italy and Greece to preach for a crusade against the Catalans; shortly after, King Robert of Naples also gave the crusade his support, and allowed his feudatories to join it. The Venetians, on the other hand, renewed their treaty with the Catalans in April 1331. Sailing from Brindisi in August, Walter attacked first the Latin County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos, and the Greek Despotate of Epirus, forcing them to recognize the overlordship of King Robert. From there he proceeded to invade the Duchy of Athens through northern Boeotia, but his campaign was a failure as the Catalans avoided battle and withdrew behind the walls of Thebes and Athens. Walter had neither the troops to overwhelm the Catalans nor the money to sustain a prolonged war of sieges and attrition, and found no support among the native Greek population. By summer 1332, it was clear that the expedition had failed, and Walter returned to Brindisi. He had captured the island of Leucas and Vonitsa for himself and briefly restored Angevin suzerainty over western Greece, but the main objective had eluded him, and he had ended up with even more crippling debts. The effect of his expedition on Argos and Nauplia is unclear; he may not even have visited the territory during his stay in Greece.

Walter did not abandon his plans for regaining his inheritance in Greece, and retained papal support, which materialized in repeated excommunications of the Catalans. With the Venetians firmly opposed to rendering any help, however, Walter's plans could not be fulfilled. After further ventures and adventures in Italy and France, Walter was killed at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. During this time, the Argolid suffered a raid by the Aydinid Turks under Umur Bey in 1332, which coincided with a prolonged famine that required food to be imported from Italy. At the same time, Argos and Nauplia also came within reach of the expanding Byzantine province in the Morea, which by c. 1320 had expanded from the southeast to include most of Arcadia and Cynuria. The increased threat to the lordship prompted Walter II to construct two new castles, which first appear in his will of 1347: at Kiveri (Chamires in French) across the Argolic Gulf from Nauplia and Thermisi (Trémis) further east along the coast, across Hydra Island. Despite the depredations from raids, the Brienne fief was relatively prosperous: the area was fertile and supported agriculture, pastures for livestock, and vineyards, while the Argolic Gulf provided fisheries and salt flats near Thermisi. According to documents from later in the 14th century, carobs, raisins, resin and acorn dyes, as well as cotton and linen cloth, were exported.

### Under the Enghien family

Walter II died without direct heirs, as his only son had died as a child during his 1331 campaign. He was succeeded in his titles and claims by his sister Isabella of Brienne and her husband Walter of Enghien, but these were immediately devolved on their numerous children. While the couple's second (and eldest surviving) son, Sohier of Enghien, received the County of Brienne and the rights to Athens, it was a younger son, Engelbert, who received Argos and Nauplia, as well as Walter's lands in Cyprus. Unwilling to undertake the considerable burden of defending the Greek fiefs, Engelbert exchanged them with his brother Guy, who had originally received the fief of Ramerupt in France. Guy thus became the new "Lord of Argos, Nauplia and Kiveri".

Guy replaced Nicholas of Foucherolles, who had served as bailli during the last decade of Walter's reign, with two members of a branch of the Medici family who had settled in Greece: Piere Tantenes ("of Athens"), also known as "Yatro" (Greek for "physician", a hellenization of "Medici") in 1357–1360 and Arardo or Averardo de Medici in 1360–1363/4. Their rule proved unpopular, however, and in 1360 the local populace rebelled—according to historian Thanos Kondylis, perhaps with the encouragement of the Foucherolles—when Averardo de Medici increased taxation on figs and raisins, and blockaded Guy's soldiers in their castles. The situation was resolved when Guy in person came and settled in the lordship—he is attested at Nauplia in December 1364, where he issued an act in favour of Jacomo, Lord of Tzoya and a son-in-law of Nicholas of Foucherolles. Guy strengthened his ties to the lordship by marrying into the local aristocracy. The identity of his wife is unclear: the early 15th-century Chronographia regum francorum records that she was the daughter of the Baron of Arcadia, probably Erard III le Maure, while the 17th-century Flemish historian Vredius records that she was a Greek named Bonne or Maria. The 19th-century historian of Frankish Greece, Karl Hopf, hypothesized that Bonne was a daughter of Nicholas of Foucherolles, but without any evidence; nevertheless, his version is commonly accepted in modern literature.

Guy's reign was troubled by the threat of the Ottoman Turks, against whom, according to the Chronographia regum francorum, he proved a courageous leader. To strengthen the security of his domains, on 22 July 1362, Guy became a Venetian citizen, a development that heralded active Venetian involvement in the affairs of the area. Two years later, soon after his arrival in the Morea, he was involved in the civil war over possession of the Principality of Achaea between Philip II of Taranto and Maria of Bourbon, widow of Philip's older brother Robert, who died in September 1364 without a direct heir. Guy, along with the Despot of the Morea Manuel Kantakouzenos (r. 1349–1380), supported Maria and her son Hugh of Lusignan until 1370, when the latter sold their claims to Philip.

Now the undisputed Prince of Achaea, Philip sent to the Morea as his bailli Guy's brother Louis, Count of Conversano. By this time, the Catalans of Athens had entered a period of decline and civil war, which only somewhat subsided with the appointment of Matthew of Peralta as vicar-general in 1370. The Enghiens saw a perfect opportunity to reclaim their ancestral inheritance: on 28 March 1370 a third brother, John of Enghien, Count of Lecce, received permission from Queen Joanna I of Naples to gather 1,000 foot and 500 horse for service in Greece, and began arranging for ships to ferry them along the southeastern coasts of Italy. Guy also arranged a truce with the Despot of the Morea so as to concentrate his forces against the Catalans. As Venetian citizens, the Enghiens also approached Venice for aid, which was politely but firmly declined, first in April 1370, and again in February 1371. Undeterred, the Enghiens launched an invasion of Attica in spring 1371, but the campaign failed as the Acropolis resisted and Louis fell ill. The Enghiens retreated, and Guy concluded a truce with the Catalans in August; a marriage between his daughter and heir Maria and Joan de Llúria (probably the son of the former Catalan vicar-general Roger de Llúria) was initially stipulated in the agreement, but never actually took place. This was to be the last effort by the claimants, for troubles in Italy occupied Guy's brothers, and the looming Ottoman threat forced the Papacy to shift to a policy of supporting the Catalans. Any prospects to regain the Athenian duchy were further impeded by the capture of Megara by the ambitious Nerio I Acciaioli in 1374/75, which barred the land route into Attica to the Enghiens. Guy of Engien died shortly after October 1376. As his daughter Maria was underage and unmarried, the Lordship was governed by his brother Louis as her guardian. Louis arranged Maria's marriage to the Venetian Pietro Cornaro in May 1377. Louis seems to have launched some raids against the Catalans in 1377, but this was overshadowed by the fall of the Duchy of Athens to the Navarrese Company in 1379.

### Takeover by Venice

The Cornaro family had been established in Latin Greece for some time, acting both as the Republic of Venice's officials and on their own account, and Pietro's father Federico was accounted the richest man in Venice in 1379. The marriage of Maria of Enghien and Pietro Cornaro coincided with an increasing Venetian interest in the region, as the Republic faced new challenges and opportunities in the Aegean with the rise of the Ottomans. Possession of Nauplia would complete Venice's control of the shores of the Morea, which in turn controlled the routes from the Adriatic to the eastern Mediterranean; while Nauplia itself was valuable as an intermediate stop for the Black Sea commercial routes as well. Maria of Enghien and Pietro Cornaro were both still young when they became lords of Argos and Nauplia. In the first years of their reign, they resided in Venice, and Pietro's father Federico acted on their behalf, securing permissions from the Venetian government to send supplies or arm a galley to defend the lordship. Following his father's death in 1382, Pietro secured permission by the Venetian government to go to Nauplia himself; by this time, in Anthony Luttrell's words, "the [Venetian] senate considered these places more or less as Venetian possessions".

When Pietro Cornaro died in 1388, Maria, unable to defend her possessions, sold them to Venice on 12 December in exchange for an annual subsidy of 700 ducats. Before the Venetians could arrive to take over the two towns, however, the Byzantine Despot of the Morea Theodore I Palaiologos (r. 1383–1407), and his ally and father-in-law Nerio I Acciaioli seized them with the aid of an Ottoman army under Evrenos. Although the Venetians were quickly able to oust Nerio from Nauplia, Argos, Kiveri and Thermisi remained in Theodore's hands until 11 June 1394, when he ceded them to Venice. After Maria's death in 1393, her uncle Engelbert—who had originally received the lordship in 1356—claimed her inheritance, but when the Venetians provided the document of sale, and suggested that they would be willing to cede the castles if he could pay for their defence and reimburse Venice for the costs of their purchase and the ongoing siege of Argos, he dropped his claim. Argos remained in Venetian hands until conquered by the Ottomans at the outbreak of the First Ottoman–Venetian War in 1463, while of all Venetian territories in the Morea, Nauplia persisted longest, and was surrendered to the Ottomans in 1540 after the conclusion of the Third Ottoman–Venetian War.

## Lords of Argos and Nauplia

- Otto I de la Roche (1212 – before 1234) as Lord of Athens
- Otto II de la Roche (before 1234 – 1251)
- Guy I de la Roche (1251–1263) as Duke of Athens
- John I de la Roche (1263–1280) as Duke of Athens
- William de la Roche (1280–1287) as Duke of Athens
- Guy II de la Roche (1287–1308) as Duke of Athens
- Walter I of Brienne (1308–1311) as Duke of Athens
- Walter II of Brienne (1311–1356) as titular Duke of Athens
- Guy III of Enghien (1356–1376)
- Louis of Enghien (1376–1377) as steward for:
- Maria of Enghien (1377–1388) with her husband Pietro Cornaro (1377–1388)
- Sold to Venice in 1388, Argos seized and held by the Despotate of the Morea until 1394

Southern Greek fiefdom (1212–1388)

States and territories disestablished in 1388

States and territories established in 1212


SMS Geier

SMS Geier ("His Majesty's Ship Vulture") was an unprotected cruiser of the Bussard class built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). She was laid down in 1893 at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, launched in October 1894, and commissioned into the fleet a year later in October 1895. Designed for service in Germany's overseas colonies, the ship required the comparatively heavy armament of eight 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/35 guns and a long cruising radius. She had a top speed of 15.5 kn (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph).

Geier spent the majority of her career on foreign stations, including tours in the Americas, East Asia, and Africa. In 1897, she was deployed to the Caribbean, and during the Spanish–American War the following year, she ferried Europeans out of the war zone to Mexico by crossing the blockade lines around Cuban ports. After being transferred to the western coast of the Americas in 1899, Geier was reassigned to China to help suppress the Boxer Uprising in 1900. She remained in East Asian waters through 1905 before being recalled to Germany for major repairs. In 1911, the ship was assigned to the colony in German East Africa, though she served little time in the area, as the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 and the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 required German warships in the Mediterranean to safeguard German interests. Geier returned to East Africa in early 1914, but in June that month, the new light cruiser Königsberg arrived, and Geier headed to China for second deployment there.

Geier was still en route to the German base in Qingdao when war broke out in Europe in August 1914. Slipping out of still-neutral British Singapore days before Britain declared war on Germany, she crossed the central Pacific in an attempt to link up with Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron. While at sea, she captured one British freighter, but did not sink her. In need of engine repairs and coal, Geier put into the neutral United States port at Honolulu, Hawaii, in October 1914, where she was eventually interned. After the American entrance into the war in April 1917, the US Navy seized Geier, commissioned her as USS Schurz, and placed her on convoy duty. She was ultimately sunk following a collision with a freighter off the coast of North Carolina, with one man killed and twelve injured. She rests at a depth of 115 feet (35 m) and is a popular scuba diving site.

## Design

Through the 1870s and early 1880s, Germany built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged screw corvettes capable of patrolling the German colonial empire. A pair of new cruisers was authorized under the 1886–1887 fiscal year, intended for the latter purpose. General Leo von Caprivi, the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, sought to modernize Germany's cruiser force. The first step in the program, the two Schwalbe-classs unprotected cruisers, provided the basis for the larger Bussard class.

Geier was 83.9 meters (275 ft 3 in) long overall and had a beam of 10.6 m (34 ft 9 in) and a draft of 4.74 m (15 ft 7 in) forward. She displaced 1,608 t (1,583 long tons) normally and up to 1,918 t (1,888 long tons; 2,114 short tons) at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of two horizontal 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by four coal-fired cylindrical fire-tube boilers that were ducted into a single funnel. These provided a top speed of 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph) from 2,800 metric horsepower (2,800 ihp), and a range of approximately 3,610 nautical miles (6,690 km; 4,150 mi) at 9 kn (17 km/h; 10 mph). She had a crew of 9 officers and 152 enlisted men.

The ship was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/35 quick-firing (QF) guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 800 rounds of ammunition in total. They had a range of 10,800 m (35,400 ft). Two guns were placed side by side forward, two on each broadside, and two side by side aft. The gun armament was rounded out by five 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon for defense against torpedo boats. She was also equipped with two 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes with five torpedoes, both of which were mounted on the deck.

## Service history

Geier was ordered under the contract name "F" and was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven in 1893. She was launched on 18 October 1894, after which fitting-out work commenced. During her launching ceremony, Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Victor Valois christened the ship. She was commissioned into the German Navy on 24 October 1895 for sea trials. Her trials were completed on 21 January 1896, and she was decommissioned temporarily in Kiel. During construction, her design was slightly modified based on experience from her sister ships that had already completed their sea trials. Geier's displacement was increased slightly by around 50 t (49 long tons; 55 short tons) compared to the other ships of the class and her stern was modified.

### First deployment abroad

Geier was recommissioned on 1 December 1897 for her first deployment abroad, to the West Indies. Until then, Germany had relied on school ships to protect German nationals in the region. Rising tensions in Haiti prompted the Admiralstab (Admiralty Staff) to send Geier to the Caribbean, replacing the old ironclad Oldenburg that had been scheduled to deploy there. The ironclad König Wilhelm, which had recently been rebuilt into an armored cruiser, was sent to strengthen the German naval contingent. Geier departed Kiel on 9 December and arrived in Charlotte Amalie in the Danish West Indies on 3 January 1898, where she rendezvoused with the school ships Charlotte and Stein. Charlotte and Stein had already taken care of the situation in Haiti, so Geier went to Santiago de Cuba, where she stayed from 24 March to 6 April. She then received an order to visit Brazilian and Argentinian ports; stops included Pernambuco in Brazil (16–20 April) and Bahía Blanca in Argentina (23 April). While she was in the latter port, her tour of South America was cut short due to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War.

On 6 May she arrived in Saint Thomas. She thereafter made trips to Santiago de Cuba and San Juan. While in San Juan on 13–14 May, Geier witnessed an American squadron under Rear Admiral William T. Sampson bombard the city. The US government permitted Geier to cross the blockade line outside Havana to evacuate twenty civilians of various nationalities and take them to Veracruz in Mexico, arriving on the 29th. There, the governor of the city and the artillery officer from the training ship Zaragoza visited Geier for some practice torpedo launches. While Geier was in Mexico, the German ambassador invited her commander and 27 men to visit Mexico City, where they were received by President Porfirio Díaz. Geier thereafter returned to Cuba. On 16 June, the ship called on the port of Cienfuegos in Cuba. She passed through the American blockade of Santiago de Cuba twice, on 22–29 June and 1–4 August.

After the war ended, Geier visited New Orleans on 14 October, departing eleven days later for the Caribbean. She then resumed her tour of South America that had been interrupted by the war. She typically stopped in ports where significant numbers of Germans had emigrated. While in Buenos Aires, she received an order to proceed to the west coast of the continent. She transited the Straits of Magellan on 20–23 February 1899 and made stops in Valparaiso, Chile, Callao, Peru, and Panama. From 11 to 17 May, she stopped in Puerto San José, Guatemala, where she met a British cruiser; the two ships were sent there to settle financial disputes with the Guatemalan government. Geier's tour continued, with stops in Corinto, Nicaragua, Guayaquil, Ecuador, and Puntarenas, Costa Rica. While in Corinto, she received orders to proceed further north, to the western coast of the United States and Canada. She stopped in Acapulco before arriving in San Francisco on 14 August, where she underwent a boiler overhaul. On 18 September, she departed San Francisco bound for Vancouver, stopping in Esquimalt en route. On 18 October, she left Vancouver and began her return voyage south. She visited Chilean harbors in January and February 1900, including Puerto Montt on 14 February, before turning back north, as she had been assigned to the newly created West American station.

While in Acapulco on 9 July, Geier was ordered to cross the Pacific to join the forces of the Eight Nation Alliance fighting the Boxer Uprising in Qing China. She left port on 11 July for Yokohama, Japan, by way of Honolulu, Hawaii. She arrived in Chefoo on 29 August, where she joined the ships of the East Asia Squadron. Geier first patrolled the Bohai Sea before docking in Qingdao at the German-held Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in October. On 28 October, she steamed to Shanghai, where she remained until February 1901. Geier then steamed up the Yangtze to Chungking, where she replaced her sister ship Bussard. On 5 April, Geier returned to Qingdao; on the 29th, she was transferred to the coast of central China, where she replaced another sister, Seeadler. Geier returned to Qingdao on 18 July, and began a tour of Korean and Japanese ports four days later with the flagship of the East Asia Squadron, Fürst Bismarck. The next twelve months were filled with cruises in the region.

On 15 October 1902, Geier began a long cruise south to the Dutch East Indies, which also included a stop in Singapore. The ship entered the dry dock in Nagasaki, Japan, for a major overhaul on 2 March 1903, which lasted until 26 April. At this time, Geier was formally assigned to the East Asia Squadron. The ship resumed its normal routine of cruises in East Asian waters with stops in various ports. In February 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out; from April to August, Geier was in Chemulpo, which had been captured by the Japanese. By 1905, the ship was suffering wear, having spent over seven years on foreign stations. The repair facilities in Qingdao were insufficient for the amount of work that needed to be done, and so Geier was ordered to return to Germany. She left Qingdao on 14 January and arrived in Kiel on 16 March, where she was decommissioned for a significant period of repair work. Her three-masted schooner barque rig was reduced to a two-masted topsail schooner rig.

### Second overseas deployment

In early 1911, Geier was recommissioned to replace the unprotected cruiser Sperber on the East African Station, based in German East Africa. On 2 May she left Danzig, arriving in Kiel the following day. There, she was equipped for the deployment abroad. The ship left Kiel on 8 May and arrived in Dar es Salaam on 9 July, where she joined Seeadler. She cruised the colony's coast, but at the end of September she was ordered to the Mediterranean Sea, as the Italo-Turkish War had broken out on the 29th. At the time, the only German warship in the Mediterranean was the old gunboat Loreley, the station ship in Constantinople; this was a result of the heightened tensions in Europe following the Agadir Crisis in July, as most German warships in European waters had been recalled to Germany.

Geier's departure for the Mediterranean was delayed by a coal fire in Dar es Salaam, which required her crew to put out. She left East Africa on 2 October and arrived in Piraeus, Greece, on 16 October, where she remained until January 1912. She was then formally assigned to the Mediterranean Division, along with the recently arrived battlecruiser Goeben. From mid-April to mid-July, she made trips to provide humanitarian assistance in Libya, Palestine, and the Red Sea. These were interrupted by the arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern; the two ships cruised to the island of Corfu in early May. On 17 July, Geier went to Trieste in Austria-Hungary for an overhaul that lasted until 30 September. She thereafter went on a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean and visited several ports.

She was loading coal in Haifa on 31 January 1913 when a coal dust explosion killed two crew members. While cruising Turkish waters in August, she was ordered to replace the light cruiser Breslau in the international naval blockade of Montenegro during the Second Balkan War. She arrived off the mouth of the Bojana River in Montenegro on 11 August and patrolled it until 14 October, when she was released for a major overhaul in Triest. After repairs were completed on 4 January 1914, she was ordered to return to the East Africa Station. She arrived there on 22 February and conducted a survey of the harbor at Tanga. On 6 May, the ship was formally reclassified as a gunboat. The light cruiser Königsberg arrived on 5 June to replace Geier, which was then reassigned to the South Seas Station, where she would in turn replace her sister Condor.

### World War I

Geier's captain learned of the rising tensions in Europe following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria while en route to the Pacific. The ship coaled in Singapore on 25–29 July, departing the day after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Geier thereafter proceeded southeast through the Gaspar Strait, rather than north to Qingdao, where he would be expected to go. While off Batavia on 1 August, Geier received the order from Maximilian von Spee, the commander of the East Asia Squadron, to join him at Yap. On 3. August, she received word of the German mobilization and the order to begin cruiser warfare. She coaled at Jampea from the steamer Elmshorn of the Deutsch-Australische Dampfschiffs-Gesellschaft (DADG) on 6 August before steaming north through the Buton Strait. Off Celebes she rendezvoused with the DADG steamer Bochum, which acted as her collier.

Geier's crew made temporary repairs to the ship's engines and boilers before proceeding north to the Palau Islands. Bochum took Geier under tow to conserve coal. On 20 August, she managed to contact the cruiser Emden, which was detached from the East Asia Squadron and operating as a commerce raider. Emden instructed Geier to rendezvous at the island of Anguar, but she was unable to reach the island before Emden departed. Nevertheless, the two ships met at sea the following day; one of Geier's cutters took her commander, Lieutenant Commander Curt Graßhoff, aboard Emden to meet with her captain. Emden then departed for the Molucca Strait, while Geier proceeded to Anguar. After arriving, Geier coaled from the HAPAG steamer Tsingtau. Graßhoff intended to rendezvous with the East Asia Squadron in the central Pacific, and proceeded through the Bismarck Archipelago before turning north to Kusaie. There, on 4 September, Geier captured the British freighter Southport and disabled the ship's engines before departing. The freighter's crew repaired the damage, however, and Southport made for Australia where she reported the German gunboat's presence.

On 11 September, Geier arrived in Majuro, though the East Asia Squadron had already departed the island on 30 August. By this time, the ship's engines were in such bad shape that she would have been unable to reach Qingdao, though the point was moot, as Japanese forces had already besieged the port. In addition, opportunities for commerce raiding in the area were slim, and there were no suitably fast steamers available to arm as auxiliary cruisers. Graßhoff therefore decided to follow the East Asia Squadron to South America, despite the slow speed of his ship, which was reduced to 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph). The Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) steamer Locksun towed Geier to the Marshall Islands, where further repairs were made from 17 to 20 September. By this time, the ship's coal and water supplies were so low that the ship would not be able to continue past Hawaii. She arrived in Honolulu on 15 October, where the then-neutral Americans requested that Geier be interned. Two Japanese ships—the battleship Hizen and the armored cruiser Asama—had been patrolling in the area. Upon learning of the arrival of Geier, the two ships remained just outside the three mile limit to await Geier's departure. Graßhoff was able to delay the internment request until 7 November owing to damage to the ship and poor weather. The following day, the US Navy interned Geier.

### Service as USS Schurz

The United States entered the war on the side of the Allies on 6 April 1917. The US Navy seized Geier and refitted her for service in the Navy as a gunboat. The ship was renamed USS Schurz on 9 June, and commissioned on 15 September 1917, under the command of Commander Arthur Crenshaw. Schurz departed Pearl Harbor on 31 October and escorted Submarine Division 3 to San Diego. Arriving on 12 November, she continued on with the submarines K-3, K-4, K-7, and K-8, in early December. At the end of the month, the convoy transited the Panama Canal and proceeded to Honduras. On 4 January 1918, Schurz was relieved of escort duty. She carried the American consul from Puerto Cortes to Omao and back, after which she sailed for Key West. From Florida, she was transferred to New Orleans and then sailed for Charleston, South Carolina on 1 February where she entered dry dock for periodic maintenance.

Assigned to the American Patrol Detachment, Schurz departed Charleston toward the end of April and, for the next two months, conducted patrols and performed escort duty and towing missions along the east coast and in the Caribbean. On 19 June, she departed New York for Key West. At 04:44 on the 21st, southwest of Cape Lookout lightship, she was rammed by the merchant ship Florida. The ship hit Schurz on the starboard side, crumpling that wing of the bridge, penetrating the well and berth deck about 12 feet, and cutting through bunker no. 3 to the forward fire room. One of Schurz's crewmen was killed instantly; twelve others were injured. Schurz was abandoned and sank three hours later. The ship was struck from the Navy list on 26 August 1918.

## Wreck

The wreckage rests at a depth of 115 feet (35 m) with the top of the wreck situated at 95 feet (29 m). In 2000, the ship was the subject of a Phase II archaeological investigation headed by East Carolina University. The wreck is protected by sovereign immunity and it is therefore illegal to recover artifacts from the site without permission. In 2013, Scuba Diving magazine named USS Schurz as one of the top ten wreck dives in North Carolina.

Unprotected cruiser of the German Imperial Navy

World War I patrol vessels of the United States


Johnson County War

The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River and the Wyoming Range War, was a range conflict that took place in Johnson County, Wyoming from 1889 to 1893. The conflict began when cattle companies started ruthlessly persecuting alleged rustlers in the area, many of whom were settlers who competed with them for livestock, land and water rights. As violence swelled between the large established ranchers and the smaller settlers in the state, it culminated in the Powder River Country when the former hired gunmen to invade the county. The gunmen's initial incursion in the territory alerted the small farmers and ranchers, as well as the state lawmen, and they formed a posse of 200 men that led to a grueling stand-off. The siege ended when the United States Cavalry on the orders of President Benjamin Harrison relieved the two forces, although further fighting persisted in the following months.

The events have since become a highly mythologized and symbolic story of the Wild West and over the years variations of the story have come to include some of its most famous historical figures. In addition to being one of the best-known range wars of the American frontier, its themes, especially class warfare, served as a basis for numerous popular novels, films and television shows in the Western genre.

## Background

Conflict over land was a common occurrence in the development of the American West, but was particularly prevalent during the late 19th century, when large portions of the West were being settled by new immigrants for the first time through the Homestead Acts. It is a period that one historian, Richard Maxwell Brown, has called the "Western Civil War of Incorporation", of which the Johnson County War was a part.

In the early days of Wyoming most of the land was in public domain, which was open to stock raising as an open range and farmlands for homesteading. Large numbers of cattle were turned loose on the open range by large ranches. Each spring, round-ups were held to separate the cattle belonging to different ranches. Before a round-up, an orphan or stray calf was sometimes surreptitiously branded, which was the common way to identify the cow's owners. Lands and water rights were usually distributed to whoever settled the property first, and farmers and ranchers had to respect these boundaries (the doctrine was known as Prior Appropriation). However, as more and more homesteaders called "grangers" moved into Wyoming, competition for land and water soon enveloped the state, and the cattle companies reacted by monopolizing large areas of the open range to prevent homesteaders from using it.

The often uneasy relationship between the larger, wealthier ranches and smaller ranch settlers became steadily worse after the harsh winter of 1886–1887, when a series of blizzards and temperatures of –50 to –40 °F (–45 to –40 °C) followed by an extremely hot and dry summer, ravaged the frontier. Thousands of cattle were lost in the calamity. To protect what remained, the cattle companies reacted with a catch-all allegation of rustling against their competition. Hostilities worsened when the Wyoming legislature passed the Maverick Act, which stated that all unbranded cattle in the open range automatically belonged to the cattlemen's association. The cattlemen also held a firm grip on Wyoming's stock interests by limiting the number of small ranchers that could participate, including the annual round-ups. They also forbade their employees from owning cattle for fear of additional competition, and threatened anyone they suspected to be rustlers.

### Wyoming Stock Growers Association

Many of the large ranching outfits in Wyoming were organized as the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (the WSGA) and gathered socially at the Cheyenne Club in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Comprising some of the state's wealthiest and most influential residents, the organization held a great deal of political sway in the state and region. The WSGA organized the cattle industry by scheduling roundups and cattle shipments. The WSGA also employed an agency of detectives to investigate cases of cattle theft from its members' holdings. Grangers and rustlers often intermixed with one another in the community, making it more difficult for the detectives to differentiate the criminals and the innocent homesteaders.

Rustling in the local area was likely increasing due to the harsh grazing conditions, and the illegal exploits of organized groups of rustlers were becoming well publicized in the late 1880s. Well-armed outfits of horse and cattle rustlers roamed across various portions of Wyoming and Montana, with Montana vigilantes such as the infamous Stuart's Stranglers declaring "War on the Rustlers" in 1884. Bandits taking refuge in the infamous hideout known as the Hole-in-the-Wall were also preying upon the herds. Frank M. Canton, Sheriff of Johnson County in the early 1880s and better known as a detective for the WSGA, was a prominent figure in eliminating these supposed criminals from Wyoming. Before the events in Johnson County, Canton had already developed a reputation as a lethal gunman. At a young age he had worked as a cowboy in Texas, and in 1871 started a career in robbery and cattle rustling, as well as killing a Buffalo Soldier on October 10, 1874. Historian Harry Sinclair Drago described Canton as a "merciless, congenital, emotionless killer. For pay, he murdered eight—very likely ten—men."

## War

### Early killings

On July 20, 1889, a range detective from the Association named George Henderson accused Ella Watson, a local rancher, of stealing cattle from a fellow rancher by the name of Albert John Bothwell. The cattlemen sent riders to seize Ella before capturing her husband Jim Averell as well. Both of them were subsequently hanged from a tree. This gruesome act was one of the rare cases in the Old West in which a woman was lynched, an event that appalled many of the local residents and paved the way for future events in the war. County Sheriff Frank Hadsell arrested six men for the lynching and a trial date was set. However, before the trial, threats were sent to the witnesses who would testify against the aggressors. One of those witnesses was young Gene Crowder, who mysteriously disappeared under unknown circumstances before the trial. Another, Jim's nephew and foreman Frank Buchanan, disappeared from the county as well after a shoot-out with unknown suspects, and was presumed to be hiding or murdered. Ralph Cole, another nephew of Averell's, died on the day of the trial from poisoning.

Enemies of the Association soon fought back. George Henderson, the range detective who had accused Ella Watson, was murdered near Sweetwater Creek in October 1890. The cattle barons soon tightened their control and hunted down those who tried to oppose them. The double lynching of the Averells was followed by the lynching of Tom Waggoner, a horse trader from Newcastle, in June 1891. A friend of Waggoner named Jimmy the Butcher, who was once arrested for rustling from the Standard Cattle Company, was also murdered. Range detective Tom Smith killed a suspected rustler, and when he was indicted for murder, political connections of the Association secured his release. These killings would precipitate more hostilities and violence in the years to come.

After the lynchings of their prominent competitors, the WSGA's control over the range was undisputed, until a group of smaller ranchers formed the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association (NWFSGA) to compete with the WSGA, led by a local cowboy named Nate Champion. Upon hearing this, the WSGA immediately viewed the new association as a threat to their hold on the stock interests. The WSGA then blacklisted members of the NWFSGA from the round-ups in order to stop their operations. However, the latter refused the orders to disband and instead publicly announced their plans to hold their own round-up in the spring of 1892.

Soon, the prominent cattlemen sent out an assassination squad to kill Nate Champion on the morning of November 1, 1891. Champion and another man named Ross Gilbertson were sleeping in a cabin in Middle Fork of Powder River when a group of armed men went inside. Two of them went in while another stood by outside. Champion was immediately awakened by the intrusion, and as the gunmen pointed their weapons at him, Champion reached for his own pistol hidden under a pillow and a shootout commenced. Champion successfully shot two of the gunmen, mortally wounding and killing asassin Billy Lykins. The rest of the assassination squad subsequently fled. Champion was left uninjured except for some facial powder burns from the gunfight. In a subsequent investigation of the attack, the names of those involved were leaked to two ranchers: John A. Tisdale and Orley "Ranger" Jones. However, both men were ambushed while they were riding, which outraged many of the small ranchers and farmers in the county.

### Invaders

The WSGA, led by Frank Wolcott (WSGA Member and large North Platte rancher), hired gunmen with the intention of eliminating alleged rustlers in Johnson County and breaking up the NWFSGA. By that time, prominent names in Wyoming started taking sides. Acting Governor Amos W. Barber supported the cattlemen, who blamed the small ranchers and homesteaders for the criminal activity in the state. Former cowboy, Indian War veteran, and sheriff of Buffalo (the county seat of Johnson County), William "Red" Angus, supported the homesteaders, who believed that the cattle barons were abusing the homesteaders.

In March 1892, the cattlemen sent agents to Texas from Cheyenne and Idaho to recruit gunmen and finally carry out their plans for exterminating the homesteaders. The cattle barons had always used hired guns from Texas to take out suspected rustlers and scare away the nesters in Wyoming. One particular act of violence perpetrated by the Texans was recounted by cowboy John J. Baker, where the Texans ambushed and killed nine trappers whom they mistook for rustlers in Big Dry Creek, Wyoming. They received a \$450 bonus for the slaughter.

Soon, 23 gunmen from Paris, Texas and 4 cattle detectives from the WSGA were hired, as well as Wyoming dignitaries who also joined the expedition. State Senator Bob Tisdale, state water commissioner W. J. Clarke, as well as William C. Irvine and Hubert Teshemacher, who had both been instrumental in organizing Wyoming's statehood four years earlier, also joined the band. They were accompanied by surgeon Charles Bingham Penrose as well as Ed Towse, a reporter for the Cheyenne Sun, and a newspaper reporter for the Chicago Herald, Sam T. Clover, whose lurid first-hand accounts later appeared in eastern newspapers. A total expedition of 50 men was organized which consisted of cattlemen and range detectives, as well as the 23 hired guns from Texas. To lead the expedition, the WSGA hired Frank M. Canton. Canton's gripsack was later found to contain a list of 70 county residents to be either shot or hanged, and a contract to pay the Texans \$5 a day plus a bonus of \$50 for every rustler, real or alleged, they killed. The group became known as "The Invaders", or alternately, "Wolcott's Regulators".

John Clay, a prominent Wyoming businessman, was suspected of playing a major role in planning the Johnson County invasion. Clay denied this, saying that in 1891 he advised Wolcott against the scheme and was out of the country when it was undertaken. He later helped the "Invaders" avoid punishment after their surrender. The group organized in Cheyenne and proceeded by train to Casper, Wyoming and then toward Johnson County on horseback, cutting the telegraph lines north of Douglas, Wyoming in order to prevent an alarm. While on horseback, Canton and the gunmen traveled ahead while the party of WSGA officials led by Wolcott followed a safe distance behind.

### Shootout at the KC Ranch

The first target of the WSGA was Nate Champion, who was at the KC Ranch (also known as Kaycee) at that time. They were tasked to perform the assassination that others had failed to carry out five months before. The group traveled to the ranch late Friday, April 8, 1892, quietly surrounded the buildings, and waited for daybreak. Three men besides Champion were at the KC. Two men who were evidently going to spend the night on their way through were captured as they emerged from the cabin early that morning to collect water at the nearby Powder River, while the third, Nick Ray, was shot while standing inside the doorway of the cabin. As the gunmen opened fire on the cabin, Champion dragged the mortally wounded Nick Ray back to the cabin. The latter died hours later, and Champion was left besieged inside the log cabin alone.

Champion held out for several hours, wounding three of the vigilantes, and was said to have killed four others. Another settler by the name of Jack Flagg passed by Champion's ranch on his wagon together with his stepson and witnessed the siege. The Invaders recognized Jack Flagg as one of the men on the list and they started shooting at him. Flagg then rode away and, as the Invaders gave chase, he grabbed his rifle and beat them back. During the siege, Champion kept a poignant journal which contained a number of notes he wrote to friends while taking cover inside the cabin. "Boys, I feel pretty lonesome just now. I wish there was someone here with me so we could watch all sides at once," he wrote. The last journal entry read: "Well, they have just got through shelling the house like hail. I heard them splitting wood. I guess they are going to fire the house tonight. I think I will make a break when night comes, if alive. Shooting again. It's not night yet. The house is all fired. Goodbye, boys, if I never see you again."

The Invaders continued to shoot at the cabin while others set it on fire using a wagon they managed to steal from Flagg. Nate Champion signed his journal entry and put it in his pocket before running from the back door with a six-shooter in one hand and either a knife or a rifle in the other. As he emerged, the Invaders shot him dead. The killers pinned a note on Champion's bullet-riddled chest that read, "Cattle Thieves Beware". Jack Flagg, after escaping his pursuers, rode to Buffalo where he reported Champion's dilemma to the townsfolk. Sheriff Angus then raised a posse of 200 men (many of whom were Civil War veterans) over the next 24 hours and set out for the KC on Sunday night, April 10.

### Siege of the TA Ranch

The WSGA group then headed north on Sunday toward Buffalo to continue its show of force. By early morning of the 11th however, news quickly came of a large hostile force heading towards them. They quickly rode and took refuge in the TA Ranch in Crazy Woman Creek. During their flight, one of the Texans by the name of Jim Dudley accidentally shot himself when his horse bucked and his rifle fell to the ground, discharging and hitting his knee. He was later escorted by two others to Fort McKinney to seek treatment, but died in the fort one or two days later from gangrene.

The sheriff's posse finally reached the remaining Invaders holed up in a log barn at the TA Ranch, but the latter managed to hold them back, resulting in a siege that would last for three days. The posse surrounded the whole ranch, building pits on the ground for cover and killing the Invaders' horses to prevent them from escaping. The New York Times reported that twenty men tried to escape behind a fusillade, but the posse beat them back and killed three to five. Another Texas gunman named Alex Lowther accidentally shot himself mortally in the groin during the fight. As the siege dragged on, a settler rode off to Fort McKinney requesting to borrow a cannon but was turned down. A blacksmith named Rap Brown tried to build his own cannon, but it exploded when he first tested it. He then built a siege engine he called the "Ark of Safety"—a large, bullet-resistant wagon that would help the settlers get close to the ranch so they could throw dynamite at the Invaders.

Fortunately for the Invaders, one of their members, Mike Shonsey, managed to slip from the barn and was able to contact Governor Barber the next day. Frantic efforts to save the WSGA group ensued, and two days into the siege, late on the night of April 12, 1892, Governor Barber telegraphed President Benjamin Harrison a plea for help.

The telegram read:

> About sixty-one owners of live stock are reported to have made an armed expedition into Johnson County for the purpose of protecting their live stock and preventing unlawful roundups by rustlers. They are at 'T.A.' Ranch, thirteen miles from Fort McKinney, and are besieged by Sheriff and posse and by rustlers from that section of the country, said to be two or three hundred in number. The wagons of stockmen were captured and taken away from them and it is reported a battle took place yesterday, during which a number of men were killed. Great excitement prevails. Both parties are very determined and it is feared that if successful will show no mercy to the persons captured. The civil authorities are unable to prevent violence. The situation is serious and immediate assistance will probably prevent great loss of life.

Harrison immediately ordered the U.S. Secretary of War Stephen B. Elkins to address the situation under Article IV, Section 4, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the use of U.S. forces under the President's orders for "protection from invasion and domestic violence". The Sixth Cavalry from Fort McKinney near Buffalo was ordered to proceed to the TA ranch at once and take the WSGA expedition into custody. The 6th Cavalry left Fort McKinney a few hours later at 2 am on April 13 and reached the TA ranch at 6:45 a.m. as the settlers were about to use the Ark of Safety. Colonel J.J. Van Horn, the officer in charge of the unit, negotiated with Sheriff Angus to lift the siege, and in return the Invaders were to be handed to civilian authorities. The Sixth Cavalry took possession of Wolcott and 45 other men with 45 rifles, 41 revolvers and some 5,000 rounds of ammunition, before escorting them first to Fort McKinney and then to Cheyenne.

The text of Barber's telegram to the President was printed on the front page of The New York Times on April 14, and a first-hand account of the siege at the T.A. appeared in The Times and the Chicago Herald and other papers.

## Arrest and legal action

The WSGA group was taken to Cheyenne to be held at the barracks of Fort D.A. Russell since the Laramie County Jail was unable to hold that many prisoners. They received preferential treatment and were allowed to roam the base by day as long as they agreed to return to the jail to sleep at night. Johnson County officials were upset that the group was not kept locally at Ft. McKinney. The general in charge of the 6th Cavalry felt that tensions were too high for the prisoners to remain in the area. Hundreds of armed locals sympathetic to both sides of the conflict were said to have gone to Ft. McKinney over the next few days under the mistaken impression the Invaders were being held there.

The Johnson County attorney began to gather evidence for the case and the details of the WSGA's plan emerged. Canton's gripsack was found to contain a list of seventy alleged rustlers who were to be shot or hanged, a list of ranch houses the Invaders had burned, and a contract to pay each Texan five dollars a day plus a bonus of \$50 for each person killed. The Invader's plans reportedly included eventually murdering people as far away as Casper and Douglas. The Times reported on April 23 that "the evidence is said to implicate more than twenty prominent stockmen of Cheyenne whose names have not been mentioned heretofore, also several wealthy stockmen of Omaha, as well as to compromise men high in authority in the State of Wyoming. They will all be charged with aiding and abetting the invasion, and warrants will be issued for the arrest of all of them."

The Invaders, however, were protected by a friendly judicial system, and they took advantage of the cattle barons' corruption. Charges against the men "high in authority" in Wyoming were never filed. Eventually they were released on bail and were told to return to Wyoming for the trial. Many fled to Texas and were never seen again. In the end, the WSGA group went free after the charges were dropped on the excuse that Johnson County refused to pay for the costs of the long prosecution. The costs of housing the men at Fort D.A. Russell were said to exceed \$18,000 and the sparsely populated Johnson County was unable to pay for them

## Final killings

Tensions in Johnson County remained high. On May 10, U.S. Marshall George Wellman, was ambushed and killed by locals en route to the small community of Buffalo. The incident received national attention, with Wellman being the only marshal to die in the war. Wellman was one of the hired guns who joined the Invaders, and his death was grieved by a large crowd. The 6th Cavalry, sent to relieve the county of its violence, was said to be influenced by intense local political and social pressure, and they were unable to keep the peace. One infamous event occurred when a group of men set fire to the post exchange and planted a homemade bomb in the cavalry's barracks. Noted officer Charles B. Gatewood was seriously injured by the bomb blast in the barracks, shattering his left arm and ending his cavalry career.

The 9th Cavalry of "Buffalo Soldiers" was ordered to Fort McKinney to replace the 6th. In a fortnight the Buffalo Soldiers moved from Nebraska to the rail town of Suggs, Wyoming, where they created "Camp Bettens" to quell the local population. Reception from the settlers were negative and in one violent incident, a gunfight erupted between them and some Buffalo soldiers who entered the town. After being initially driven off, 20 more soldiers slipped from the camp to exact revenge, but the locals fought back, resulting in the death of one Buffalo Soldier named Pvt. Willis Johnson, and the wounding of two other soldiers. Another two detachments were sent and this time the locals allowed the soldiers to investigate but no one was convicted. The event forced the Army to retire the regiment from the place on November, 1892.[^1]

In the fall of 1892, as the aftershock of the stand-off was still being felt throughout the county, two alleged horse rustlers were gunned down by range detectives east of the Big Horn River. The killers escaped the law with assistance from Otto Franc, a rancher who had sided with the large cattle company faction. On May 24, 1893, Nate Champion's brother, Dudley Champion, came to Wyoming looking for work and was shot and killed in cold blood. Fifteen miles from town, Dudley had come across the ranch of Mike Shonsey who, after seeing him, immediately grabbed a gun and fired at him. A coroner's inquiry ruled Shonsey's actions were self-defense and he was acquitted of murder. Afterwards, Shonsey left the country before the officials could continue with the investigation. A year before Nate Champion's death, Shonsey actually met him near the Beaver Creek Canyon, where a fight almost commenced between the two as Nate suspected that Shonsey was one of the five men who had attacked him in his cabin. He further threatened Shonsey and demanded he give up the names of the rest of the assassins. This event made Shonsey harbor hatred toward Nate and probably toward his brother Dudley as well. Dudley Champion was the last person killed in association with the Johnson County War.

## Aftermath

Emotions ran high for many years afterward. Some considered the large and wealthy ranchers as heroes who had sought what they regarded as justice by using violence to defend what they regarded as their rights to rangeland and water rights, while others saw the WSGA as heavy-handed outlaw vigilantes running roughshod over the law. A number of tall tales were spun by both sides afterwards to make their actions appear morally justified. Parties sympathetic to the invaders painted Ella Watson as a prostitute and cattle rustler, Jim Averell as her murderous partner in crime and pimp and Nate Champion as the leader of a vast cattle rustling empire, claiming that he was a leading member of the fabled "Red Sash Gang" of outlaws that supposedly included the likes of the Jesse James gang. These claims have since been discredited. While men frequently visited Watson's cabin, this was because she mended clothing for cowboys to earn extra money. While some accounts do note that Champion wore a red sash at the time of his death, such sashes were common. While the Hole in the Wall Gang was known to hide out in Johnson County, there is no evidence that Champion had any relationship to them. Parties sympathetic to the smaller ranchers spun tales that included some of the West's most notorious gunslingers under the employ of the Invaders, including such legends as Tom Horn and Big Nose George Parrot. Horn did briefly work as a detective for the WSGA in the 1890s but there is little evidence he was involved in the war.

### Political effects

Although many of the leaders of the WSGA's hired force, such as William C. Irvine, were Democrats, the ranchers who had hired the group were tied to the Republican party and their opponents were mostly Democrats. Many viewed the rescue of the WSGA group at the order of President Harrison (a Republican) and the failure of the courts to prosecute them a serious political scandal with overtones of class war. As a result of the scandal, the Democratic Party became popular in Wyoming for a time, winning the governorship in 1892 and taking control of both houses of the state legislature in that election. Wyoming voted for the Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 U.S. Presidential Election, and Johnson County was one of the two counties in the state with the largest Bryan majorities.

### Economic analysis

Historian Daniel Belgrad argues that in the 1880s centralized range management was emerging as the solution to the overgrazing that had depleted open ranges. Moreover, cattle prices at the time were low. Larger ranchers also were hurt by mavericking (taking lost, unbranded calves from other ranchers' herds), and responded by organizing cooperative roundups, blacklisting, and lobbying for stricter anti-maverick laws. These ranchers formed the WSGA and hired gunmen to hunt down rustlers, but local farmers resented the ranchers' collective political power. The farmers moved toward decentralization and the use of private winter pastures. Randy McFerrin and Douglas Wills argue that the confrontation represented opposing property rights systems. The result was the end of the open-range system and the dominance of large-scale stock ranching and farming. The popular image of the war, however, remains that of vigilantism by aggressive landed interests against small individual settlers defending their rights.

By 1893, the WSGA was opened to the other small ranchers and farmers, finally ending their monopoly and control over Wyoming business interests. Previous practices of the WSGA, such as vigilantism and confiscation of cattle, were finally stopped. Many prominent leaders of the Association such as Frank Wolcott, Frank M. Canton and Tom Smith later left the area.

## Legacy

The Johnson County War, with its overtones of class warfare coupled with the intervention ordered by the President of the United States to save the lives of a gang of hired killers and set them free, is not a flattering reflection on the American myth of the west. The Johnson County War has been one of the best-known range wars of the frontier. It has been a popular feature of the Western genre of fiction, which includes literature, films and television shows. The Banditti of the Plains, written in 1894 by witness Asa Mercer, is the earliest record of the Johnson County War. The book was suppressed for many years by the WSGA, who seized and destroyed all but a few of the first edition copies from the 1894 printing; they were rumored to have hijacked and destroyed the second printing as it was being shipped from a printer north of Denver, Colorado. The book was reprinted several times in the 20th century and most recently in 2015. Frances McElrath's 1902 novel The Rustler, took inspiration from the Johnson County War, and was sympathetic to the perspective of the small ranchers.

The Virginian, a seminal 1902 western novel by Owen Wister, took the side of the wealthy ranchers, creating a myth of the Johnson County War, but bore little resemblance to a factual account of the actual characters and events. Jack Schaefer's popular 1949 novel Shane treated themes associated with the Johnson County War and took the side of the settlers. The 1953 film The Redhead from Wyoming, starring Maureen O'Hara, dealt with similar themes; in one scene Maureen O'Hara's character is told, "It won't be long before they're calling you Cattle Kate." In the 1968 novel True Grit by Charles Portis, the main character, Rooster Cogburn, was involved in the Johnson County War. In the early 1890s Rooster had gone north to Wyoming where he was "hired by stock owners to terrorize thieves and people called nesters and grangers... . I fear that Rooster did himself no credit in what they called the Johnson County War."

Films such as Heaven's Gate (1980) and The Johnson County War (TV-movie, 2002) painted the wealthy ranchers as the "bad guys". Heaven's Gate was a dramatic romance loosely based on historical events, while The Johnson County War was based on the 1957 novel Riders of Judgment by Frederick Manfred. The range war was also portrayed in an episode of Jim Davis's syndicated western television series Stories of the Century, with Henry Brandon as Nate Champion and Jean Parker as Ella Watson. American Heroes Channel presented the Johnson County War in the sixth episode of their Blood Feuds series documentary.

The story of the Johnson County War from the point of view of the small ranchers was chronicled by Kaycee resident Chris LeDoux in his song "Johnson County War" on the 1989 album Powder River. The song included references to the burning of the KC Ranch, the capture of the WSGA men, the intervention of the U.S. Cavalry and the release of the cattlemen and hired guns. The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo featured dioramas and exhibits about the Johnson County War, as well as a 7-foot (2.1 m) bronze statue of Nate Champion. Kaycee, Wyoming, the old site of the KC Ranch, also erected the Hoofprints in the Past'' Museum to commemorate the war.

## See also

- List of feuds in the United States

[^1]: Linse, Tamara. Range and Race. Star Tribune. February 24, 2005

1888-1893 range conflict in Johnson County, Wyoming

Range wars and feuds of the American Old West