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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 12, 2010 23:51:11 GMT -5
"Log of a Cowboy" is one of my favorite books on the west. Does anyone recall the author's real name (I believe Andy Adams is a pseudonym)? If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly. Very authentic.
allen
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Post by bobdurham on Jan 14, 2010 12:44:01 GMT -5
Everything I can find says Andrew Adams was his real name; named after his father. www.online-literature.com/andy-adams/There's a biography of him on Wikipedia also. Adams' and Siringo's books are some of my favorites. Bob
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 14, 2010 15:55:08 GMT -5
As usual, Bob, I'm a bit mixed up. I found my copy and a short note I'd written about it 10 years ago tucked inside the cover. Adams was a real guy alright and went on some cattle drives. The confusion was in the fact that few people seemed to realize that the book is a novel, based on Adams' experiences, and that he is speaking through the voice of his fictional character, Thomas Moore.
I have been told that Adams' father was from Northern Ireland and that his favorite song was "The Minstrel Boy," written by Irish poet and folklorist Thomas Moore (not to be confused with the Thomas More from "A Man For All Seasons," whose name is spelled differently). According to this story, Adams named his fictional character Thomas Moore in honor of the Irish poet.
Allen
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Post by Herb on Nov 28, 2010 10:45:05 GMT -5
Nelson Story's long drive was actually retold, in a mostly fictionalized version, in the 1955 Clark Gable movie, THE TALL MEN. It had the cowboys fighting Jayhawkers in Kansas, and Red Cloud's warriors near Ft. Phil Kearney, with Red Cloud himself in a red headdress getting shot off his horse and trampled under the stampeding cattle. Gotta love the movies. I remember the movie, but can't recall the details. I did just read Will Henry's The Tall Men the book the movie was based on. The book did follow the broad historical outline of the drive from Fort Worth to Fort Reno to include the Jayhawkers, the historical Souix attack on the herd, and the Texans' subsequent ambush of the Souix and recapturing the runoff cattle. The book also included the historical information on the night drives on the Bozeman Trail to further avoid the Souix and the fictional(?) final stampede against the Souix (in the book under Crazy Horse). According to the Time-Life Series, Story bought 600 head (not the 3000 head of the book) of cattle at Fort Worth, for $10 a head and sold them in Montana for $100 a head.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 1, 2010 6:42:16 GMT -5
Nelson Story's long drive was actually retold, in a mostly fictionalized version, in the 1955 Clark Gable movie, THE TALL MEN. It had the cowboys fighting Jayhawkers in Kansas, and Red Cloud's warriors near Ft. Phil Kearney, with Red Cloud himself in a red headdress getting shot off his horse and trampled under the stampeding cattle. Gotta love the movies. I remember the movie, but can't recall the details. I did just read Will Henry's The Tall Men the book the movie was based on. The book did follow the broad historical outline of the drive from Fort Worth to Fort Reno to include the Jayhawkers, the historical Souix attack on the herd, and the Texans' subsequent ambush of the Souix and recapturing the runoff cattle. The book also included the historical information on the night drives on the Bozeman Trail to further avoid the Souix and the fictional(?) final stampede against the Souix (in the book under Crazy Horse). According to the Time-Life Series, Story bought 600 head (not the 3000 head of the book) of cattle at Fort Worth, for $10 a head and sold them in Montana for $100 a head. Saw THE TALL MEN in a theater when I was 4, and remember being shocked when Clark Gable's brother, played by Cameron Mitchell, is finally found---tied to a tree and perforated by half a dozen arrows. LOts of blood! The film is still very entertaining, with lots of action and great scenery, if the script isn't much better than a TV Western script of the 1950s.
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Post by andrewkent1830 on Dec 1, 2010 16:03:08 GMT -5
I don't know if this has been mentioned or not. But check out page 230 of the book Cowboy Culture by David Dary. He has several pages about Story's drive. Mark
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