January 1864. As the Civil War rages in the rest of the country, a reign of terror begins in the gold-mining camps of Montana. Twenty-one men are hanged before the end of February at the hands of an organized band of vigilantes. The victims include a sheriff named Henry Plummer and his deputies, who stood accused of being members of a secret society of highwaymen supposedly called “The Innocents”. The killers went by the foreboding title of "The Vigilance Committee". The perpetrators were never punished and this brand of vigilantism would continue to hold sway in Montana for years to come. Before it was all over Montana would earn a reputation for it’s own peculiar brand of lynching, in which the vast majority of the victims were Caucasian.

The 1862 discovery of significant gold deposits in what would become Bannack, Montana, created a gold rush rivaling that of 1848 California. Whites, primarily single men, flooded the region previously inhabited only by Native Americans. Many were jaded miners abandoning tapped-out claims in Colorado, California and Idaho; others were Civil War deserters, adventurers and aspiring merchants. Since Montana was not yet a state, there was no federal presence in the new settlements, forcing miners to set up their own courts and hire lawmen like Henry Plummer. Unfortunately for Plummer, there were forces at work in the far-flung territory that viewed his presence as an obstacle to their goals. In what was either a clever propaganda campaign or genuine “moral panic”, the vigilantes convinced both the populace and Washington D.C. that there was an epidemic of lawlessness in the nascent state. And that, in addition to this, the criminal activity was primarily the result of an organized conspiracy that could only be stamped out by extrajudicial executions. Over time these claims became part of Montana’s official history, despite the fact that there is no evidence of any such conspiracy having ever existed.

James Gaitis’ historical novel A Stout Cord and a Good Drop is steeped in the rutted, dirt streets of Montana’s mining towns. The former lawyer spent ten years in Montana, on the edge of Glacier National Park, and wrote A Stout Cord in part to challenge the myths that surround the history of vigilantism in the founding of Montana.


First off, let me say that I really like the title. Did it come to you right off the bat or was it an excerpt from somewhere?
 
Ironically, the title comes from Dimsdale’s The Vigilantes of Montana. Dimsdale observed that among those attracted to the gold diggings at Alder Gulch “were many diseased with crime to such an extent that for their cure the only available prescription was a stout cord and a good drop.”


How did you come to find out about the Montana Vigilantes?

It did not take long after I first moved to Montana to conclude it would be a good idea to read up on a little local history. If you’ve ever come to a new place to live, you probably know that a newcomer is almost always initially treated as an outsider by the “locals.” One way to at least begin to integrate yourself is to show the locals you know as much—or more—as they do about the place where you live. So I purchased several history books and I quickly learned that the Montana Vigilantes played a central role in Montana history. That some of the most famous vigilantes became senators and governors, fabulously rich industrialists, the leaders of large organizations, and that many Montana counties and schools are named after them. And that the histories, as written, were literally unbelievable.



Can you break down the different "vigilante eras" in Montana and which one your novel takes place in?

There were a number of different vigilante eras in Montana history. A Stout Cord and a Good Drop pertains to the first and most famous of those eras, being in the early days of the great Montana gold rush during the middle of the American Civil War. It was at that time that the Montana Vigilantes first formed under the leadership of several prominent figures (all Masons and mostly Radical Republicans) who desired to arrogate power to themselves and to rid the territory of their Democratic nemesis (the popular sheriff Henry Plummer) and many of those who supported him.

Following the initial hanging spree during which two dozen men were hanged, the Montana Vigilantes played a more piecemeal role in exacting instant “justice” in the new mining towns that sprung up in Grizzly Gulch, now the location of the state capital, Helena. Some believe that the vigilantes murdered Thomas Meagher, the famous Irish revolutionary who escaped British imprisonment in Tasmania and who, as a Union Army General, led the famous Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg and other Civil War battles. Meagher, who had served as the acting Secretary of the Montana Territory, was at odds with many of the political leaders of the vigilantes who were concerned that he might seek a senatorial position once the territory achieved statehood. It was claimed by some of the very vigilantes who had participated in the earlier hanging spree that Meagher drowned by falling off a berthed sternwheeler and into the Missouri River, but Meagher was an extraordinary swimmer who had escaped from his British imprisonment by swimming for miles in the ocean. In later years the Montana Vigilantes actively protected the cattle barons of eastern Montana through a protracted series of hangings.



As their symbol of terror, sometimes written on a door or merely spoken as a threat or warning, the vigilantes used the numbers 3-7-77. Those numbers today adorn the shoulder badge of the Montana Highway Patrol. To this day, the Masons (particularly in Montana) assert that the Montana Vigilantes did the good service of bringing justice to a remote locale.

I have read a lot of theories of the significance of the numbers but what is your take on the meaning of 3-7-77?
 
There have indeed been many theories of the origins of the vigilantes’ use of 3-7-77, ranging from the thought that the numbers reflect the dimensions of a grave, to the theory that they implied that the potential victim was being told to buy a $3 dollar stage ticket and to make the 77 mile journey from Helena to Butte on the 7 o’clock stage. The correct answer may well have been lost to history; although there would seem to be a distinct possibility that they answer waits to be uncovered in some secret documents, maintained by one of the many Masonic lodges that existed in Montana during the heyday of the Montana vigilantes. I prefer to believe that the numeric sequence either had its origins in some practice employed by the California Vigilantes prior to the advent of the Montana hangings or that it reflects specific numbers assigned to certain vigilantes who were the first to use them as the vigilantes’ sign20of impending terror and that their use then was then carried forward by others. What is most important about the use of 3-7-77 is that it arguably differs little from other symbols of authoritative dictatorship that, too, symbolized a disdain for due process of law and fundamental human rights. The Nazi’s use of the “ss” being only one of many examples.


What brought this Vigilante era to end, and was anyone ever held accountable? Especially considering they hung a lawman and his deputies.
 
The vigilante era did not end but rather slowly faded away as more federal law made its way into the Montana Territory in the late 1880s. No one was ever held accountable for the hangings that occurred in 1863 and 1864. Some trial proceedings were commenced in Salt Lake City but were easily thwarted both by Wilbur Sanders (the “vigilante lawyer” who became the first president of the Montana Bar Association) and his uncle Sidney Edgerton who still held considerable influence back east. The vigilantes’ ability to evade justice can be substantially attributed to their own success at quickly rewriting history with the aid of Dimsdale and the Masonic “machine.”


Why did you decide to write "A Stout Cord..." as a novel instead of non-fiction? Did you at any point consider doing it as non-fiction?

I have always been someone who is concerned with social justice. I lived my teen years during the era of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and Vietnam and Nixon and, by the time I was 17, knew that those in power most often seek nothing other than to perpetuate their wealth and dominance. The Vietnam War and the ongoing suppression of civil rights in the United States was only the current example. Once I dug deep enough in my research into Montana history, I knew that the story of the Montana Vigilantes provided a functional and historical illustration of how vicious and imperious humans can be when they stand to gain financially and by arrogating power to themselves and those with whom they align. The problem for me was and is that to the extent people read nonfiction histories en masse it is usually only those nonfiction histories that more or less support “the party line”. In other words, there is something in society that causes it to be reluctant to shake the foundations on which its own existence is based, to revisit and re-examine the standard histories that are delivered in childhood classrooms and which serve as the basis for excessive nationalism and myopic local pride.



My thought was that if I could personalize Montana’s version of how too much power in too few hands inevitably results in social injustice, I could bring the story to life and thereby cause readers to at least attempt to re-assess the tendency to accept what we are told is the truth when it comes to what our government, our leaders have done in the past and what they do today.

Other authors have attempted to exploit the medium of historical fiction for the same purpose. In fact, the Civil War era has resulted in some of the finest historical fiction ever written—The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize), Freedom (Safire’s massive novel of Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation of the slaves), Lincoln by Gore Vidal. And, I am a great fan of the greatest work of historical fiction ever written—Tolstoy’s War & Peace—which I have read four times, including twice in Russian. So I elected to tell the story of the vigilantes in first person historical fiction narrative, through the eyes of five youthful observers, two of whom actually lived through the events. And I actually almost titled the novel “The Innocents” as a playful double entendre since the story was being told by five youths and the vigilantes had claimed that the hanging victims were a band of murderers and thieves who called themselves “The Innocents” and who used the password phrase “I’m innocent”—the very words not surprisingly spoken by some of the men shortly before they were hanged.

When you say that your book challenges some of the myths about the Vigilantes, what do you mean? Could you elaborate more specifically?

The evolution of the written “histories” of the Montana Vigilante saga is similar to that which we have seen of the course of human history. The phrase, of course, in that “The Winners Get to Write History.” It is this human proclivity that not only sanitizes the bad acts of a government or society, but which sterilizes the historical occurrence of those acts such that they appear, at least on the surface, clean and uninfected by wrongful behavior.



Prior to the 1980s, virtually every history written of the Montana Vigilante saga was written by Masons. And yet it was Masons who led the vigilantes and Masons who defended the vigilantes’ actions once those in power back east in Washington D.C. started asking questions. For example, the vigilantes literally coerced Thomas Dimsdale (himself a Mason) to write his almost absurd “The Vigilantes of Montana” immediately following the hanging of the twenty-four men. Dimsdale’s book is so filled with contradictions and blatant biases that is must be read more as a silly distortion of the truth than anything else. A second early “history” of the Montana Vigilantes was by Nathaniel Langford (“Vigilante Days and Ways”). Langford, too, was a leading Mason in Montana at the time and was well-rewarded for his loyalty. In all, more than a half dozen different histories of the critical events were written by Masons. And, in each instance, they are filled with so many contradictions that any reasonable judge would declare them lacking in credibility. Even Mark Twain, himself a Mason, casually endorsed the hanging of Jack Slade by the Montana Vigilantes (even though Slade, who himself had been a vigilante, had committed no greater crime than shooting his gun too frequently in pubic and generally disturbing the peace), and in so doing defended other Masons with whom he in all probability was closely was acquainted. The Masons were the “winners” of the vigilante saga and they availed themselves of the opportunity to create their own self-supporting version of the critical events.

The Montana Vigilantes strove to persuade the public that the hanged men were members of a murderous gang of thieves conveniently called road agents. But there is little evidence to suggest that that was universally true of the hanged men. The first hanging victim, George Ives, while somewhat rowdy, was a well-liked former military officer who was wrongly hanged for the murder of one of the leading vigilante’s adoptive son. When the vigilantes realized they had not hanged the real murderer, they went after the true killer who was forewarned by two individuals. Those individuals were then hanged without a trial for nothing more than writing and delivering a letter. Then the Vigilantes hanged the highly popular Sheriff and the leading Democratic figure in the territory, Henry Plummer, along with his two deputies, all of whom professed that they would stop the vigilantes from engaging in further hangings. Then the vigilantes hanged a cripple who had attempted to forewarn the sheriff; they hanged a man accused of being a cannibal; they hanged southerners and those who were friends of others who were friends of others, some of whom probably did commit crimes. Those that were hanged were often “guilty by association” and guilty for no other reason. And, in the end, the Montana Vigilantes and the Masons not only remained in power after sufficiently contending that the hangings were necessary to maintain the peace, but became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.



Who are those who rose/maintained power through the vigilantes and how did they become wealthy?
 
Sidney Edgerton, the Chief Judge of what was then the Idaho Territory gave the approval to hang Henry Plummer and his deputies. Only months later he was named as the first governor of the new Montana Territory. His nephew, Wilbur Sanders, who prosecuted the “trial” that resulted in the hanging of George Ives and who led the hanging of Plummer, became variously a United States Senator, the president of the Montana Historical Society, the president of the Montana Bar Association and the first grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of Montana Masons. Sam Hauser, another leading vigilante and a financier who profited substantially from mining and commerce, became a governor of the state of Montana. William Clark, one of the initial leaders of the vigilantes and who bought up mining claims in Alder Gulch and Grizzly Gulch before he moved on to copper and various other industries, became one of the richest men in the world and, ultimately, another United States Senator from Montana. Langford, who also bought up mining claims whenever opportunity presented itself, became the first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and the U. S. bank examiner for all the U. S. territories and pacific states. X Beidler, the toughest little vigilante in Montana, became U. S. deputy marshal in Helena. Granville Stuart became a fabulously wealthy Montana cattleman and led the later cattlemen’s’ range vigilante hangings in Montana and Wyoming. And the list goes on.
 
There are some indications that the vigilantes took possession of the property of those who were hanged. Henry Plummer, for example, was known to own extensive mining interests at the time of his hanging but the indications are that his widow never received anything that was owned by Plummer. But the fact remains that for a time the gold diggings in Montana were the richest in the world and that men who were business-savvy had a good chance at gaining real wealth. Moreover, many of the leading vigilantes were highly connected before they arrived. Sidney Edgerton was a former Congressman, many of the vigilantes were Masons formerly from St. Louis- (the gateway to the West), and some, such as Langford, were related (through marriage) to leading politicians in Washington. It is probably fair to say that the vigilantes’ motive was not robbery but rather the consolidation of power.



How did lynching in the West differ from its more famous cousin in the American South?

The Montana Vigilante hanging spree, of course, differed in several ways from the racially-motivated hangings of former slaves and “Negros” in the American South beginning with the post-Civil War construction and leading well into the twentieth century. The most obvious distinction clearly is that with the exception of the rare hanging of a Chinaman, the Montana hangings were not racially motivated. But the underlying factors that allow for such things to happen both in Montana and in the American South are doubtless bred out of the same human frailties and tendencies.

Both in Montana and in the South, the lynchings often served as a warning to potential offenders—in the case of Montana, petty criminals or aspiring politicians; in the case of the South, the defenseless blacks—that the crossing of lines that were sometimes vaguely defined and sometimes spoken literally in terms of black and white would be met with instant “justice” dispensed without the benefit of judge and trial and due process of law. The hanging victims were left on display for all to see. On other occasions, the hangings were exploited by the executioners as a public display of power and authority. The word that there was to be a hanging went out in advance, the public (men and women but rarely children because children should not see such things) attended in great numbers, often dressing up for the occasion and more often than not in a highly festive mood. On these occasions the public reveled in the executions much as one might enjoy a contemporary sporting event. Photographs were made or taken. Journals secretly written to memorialize yet another manifestation of the workings of justice when placed in the hands of the few.



And sometimes the hangings were done, both in Montana and in the South, under the cover of night, clandestinely and with the executioners’ names never being known but their kind and purpose still plainly evident. In both cases, murder done for personal reasons but supposedly in the name of some greater cause.

Most importantly, the many hangings performed in Montana and the American South illustrate the ingrained potentiality of human beings to deliberately ignore all sense of justice, all ability to distinguish wrong from right, when they act collectively. This propensity has always been with us and presumably always will. It is not by accident that the history of humankind is filled with mass murders on a scale that should boggle the mind of any fair-minded person. Whether it be the atrocities of the Caesars or the Huns or Napoleon or Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot, the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the rape of the Congo, the slaughters in Rwanda, the extirpation of the Aztecs, the endless trading in slaves, the extermination of the native peoples everywhere, the suppression of the Palestinians, and on and on and on.

The similarity between the saga of the Montana Vigilantes and the American South is that they both illustrate how easily a society can be devoid of guilt and shame. The absence of guilt by those that committed the atrocities and by those who observed them and by those who had an opportunity to speak out against them, extending even into the present. Both stories reflect a similar ageless tragedy of the workings of humankind and the fact that it remains a struggle to cause contemporary society to fully address its failed past. 

http://jamesgaitis.wordpress.com/my-montana-historical-novel-a-stout-cord-and-a-good-drop/