I have been fascinated by Mackenzie all my life. As a Cub Scout we visited Fort Concho in San Angelo. Of course, the good colonel used the fort as a staging area several times during the Texas Indian wars of the 1870s. In college I took Texas History from Dr. Ernest Wallace who was considered a leading expert on the man. Just a few minutes ago I reshelved his book, Randall Slicell Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier. Glad you made contact, sorry for the long delay in seeing your message. Let me know what you hear from Williams.

skrevet af barnabas kl. 1:20 pm (EST) den Apr 30, 2007

Okay, so I am just getting used to LibraryThing, stumbling around, feeling my way, and then -- boom! -- I'm confronted with the tag "Randall Slidell MacKenzie." Whoa. Well, I'm assuming that you find this brilliant, tormented, strange man as fascinating as I do, while the rest of the world fusses over that idiot Custer. At any rate, you may get a kick out of this: Yesterday, I decided to drop into the website for Williams College in Mass. I was curious what they had to say about MacKenzie. Even though he had left in his junior year, once MacKenzie gained some fame in the Civil War, the college had, of course, re-entered him on the rolls of the class of 1859. Later, they gave him an honorary master's. So, what was on their website? Nothing. Zip. Trying to play fair, I went to the alumni magazine and searched it. Nothing. I checked over on Wikipedia under "Williams College People" -- noted grads -- and MacKenzie wasn't even included in the tiny -- just two names -- "Military" section. Well, I dashed off an e-mail to the editor of the alumni magazine, leading off with the "most promising officer in the Army" quote and then briefly summarizing his career, including its bizarre and tragic end. I haven't heard back from them but who knows?

skrevet af cgoodnight1 kl. 11:07 pm (EST) den Mar 21, 2007