Hawken Horse scouted up a painting of an Assiniboine hunter who has what is, in my estimation, the most badass name in all of Frontier Partisan history. Allow me to introduce Päsesick-Kaskutäu (Nothing But Gunpowder). Imagine swaggering into the trading post with plenty of plews, looking all hard in your fur-hooded capote, and the women say, … [Read more...] about Nothing But Gunpowder

The final episode of the American Revolution on the Frontier podcast series on the war on the New York frontier is up. It’s titled The Burning of the Valleys. You can access it here or on most all the podcast platforms. After the Sullivan Expedition destroyed so much of the Seneca Country in Western New York in 1779, the British came back with a … [Read more...] about The Burning Of The Valleys

Daniel & Rebecca Boone paid a heartbreakingly heavy price for Daniel’s dream of finding home and fortune in the fabled land of Kain-tu-kee. The couple’s son James was murdered by native banditti in 1773, and son Israel died in battle at Blue Licks in 1782. Daniel’s brother Ned Boone fell in an ambush in Kentucky in 1780. In 1773, Boone, … [Read more...] about Murder & Vengeance On The Appalachian Frontier

UPDATE: It never fails — five minutes after I post the trapline haul, something fresh pops up that needs to be added. This one couldn’t wait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2ZPXbO8dpA *  I don’t understand a bit of this — but I like every part of it. Must be the … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Bottles Of Rum, Cherokee War, The Timbers Of Fennario

The Phoenix Program — to the extent that anybody has even heard of it anymore — is perhaps the most controversial and most misunderstood operation of the Vietnam War. It is usually portrayed as a covert assassination program that featured Green Berets leading indigenous teams out into the Vietnamese countryside  to slaughter Viet Cong cadre in … [Read more...] about Phoenix Rising

Over deserts hot and mountains cold I traveled the Indian country Whispering your name under lonesome skies Your memory my only company But my darling dear, please have no fear For I think that it’s fair to warn you That I’ll return to claim your hand As the King of California — Dave Alvin, King of California * The vision of a … [Read more...] about The Rush

I’m one of those people who starts the Spooky Season on September 1. It runs through Hogmanay, too. I love everything about it — the crispness in the air, the shift toward autumnal light, the lingering of Indian Summer... the pumpkin spice (judge me if you must, I care not). Most of all, I revel in the close proximity of Fennario, that American … [Read more...] about ‘This Does Not Bode Well…’

The early-modern military history channel SandRhoman History just dropped another video in their series on “Staggering Sieges” — this one focused around the Siege of Detroit during Pontiac’s War. I always enjoy their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9heCNkIP9w * The Undiscovered Country, Paul Andrew Hutton’s magnum opus, is now available … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Mozambique; Afghanistan; Northern Ireland & Mexico

“...In those parts it was wiser to travel ... well-armed and with a crew who all slept with one eye open and who understood each other like brothers.” — Captain Alonso de Contreras * I have never really given the Spaniards their due. Blame Anglophile tendencies. From tales of the Armada to Sir Henry Morgan’s exploits in Panama in 1671, up … [Read more...] about A Spanish Adventurer — The Wild Life Of Captain Alonso de Contreras — Part I