Whatever Shanks’s real intentions may have been, he knew which way to jump for the benefit of John T. Shanks. He realized that he was the only witness against St. Leger Grenfell, and lost no time in letting Colonel Sweet know he would be available to testify against the Englishman.
When he was released to Sweet’s custody, Shanks said: “The wonder to me now is how the Colonel could have trusted so much to a Rebel.”
“Trusted!” Sweet replied. “Your every step was shadowed from the moment you left this camp till you came back to it in irons.”
“Is that true?” Shanks seemed disappointed. “I didn’t know it, but I felt it in the air,” he admitted.7
A few weeks later the celebrated trial of George St. Leger Grenfell and seven other conspirators opened before a military commission in Cincinnati. John Shanks, who had failed to buy a ticket to Cincinnati with the money given him by Mary Morris, traveled there now at government expense. He was the leading witness for the prosecution.
During 10 weeks of testimony, defense lawyers dredged up a vast number of facts about Shanks’s past life, dwelling upon his misdeeds in efforts to discredit him as a reputable witness. His father had been a respectable wagonmaker in Nacogdoches, Texas, where Shanks was born in 1832. At the age of 15, the boy began clerking in the county courthouse. As he grew older he worked as bookkeeper and salesman, managed a store, raised livestock. “I have a rancho in Texas,” he boasted to the court. Along the way he became acquainted with the great Sam Houston; after Houston was elected governor of Texas in 1859, Shanks was rewarded with a position in the general land office at Austin. Somehow he won a reputation for toughness, and when he was charged with forging a land warrant, a gunman had to be employed to arrest him. The arrest was made aboard a ferryboat on the Trinity River without incident, and Shanks was taken to jail. He lost his case and was sentenced, then appealed and won. About this time the Civil War began, and Shanks enlisted. He told the court that he was a strong Union man and had joined the Confederate Army against his judgment because of strong local pressures.
He denied charges that he had left one wife in Texas, another in Mississippi, and had proposed marriage to a third woman in Tennessee.8
“The evidence of the witness Shanks had created quite a bit of excitement here,” newspaper correspondents reported from Cincinnati in January 1865. By the end of March, John T. Shanks and St. Leger Grenfell were well known to Northern newspaper readers. When the trial ended April 6, prison sentences of varying lengths were given to the American-born conspirators. Grenfell, who may have been the least guilty of the lot, was sentenced to death. (The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment on Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas; in 1868 while attempting escape in an open boat, the doughty Englishman was drowned.)
Released from custody of the court, witness Shanks was returned to Camp Douglas on April 6, 1865. On that same day Colonel Sweet gave him his reward—the command of a company of Galvanized Yankees. Colonel Carroll Potter was at Douglas organizing the 6th U.S. Volunteers; two more companies were needed to complete the regiment.
Next day Shanks reported for duty at Camp Fry, near Chicago, and handed a written request endorsed by Sweet to Colonel Potter: “I have the honor to respectfully apply for the appointment to the position of Captain of Company I, 6th Regiment, U.S.V. Inf. now under your command.” Potter approved it immediately, and sent him on to a physician, who asked him nine questions:
Have you ever been sick? When and of what diseases?
Have you any disease now, and what?
Have you ever had fits?
Have you ever received an injury or wound upon the head?
Have you ever had a fracture, or dislocation, or a sprain?
Are you in the habit of drinking? Or have you ever had the “horrors”?
Are you subject to the piles?
Have you any difficulty urinating?
Have you been vaccinated, or had the smallpox?
Shanks passed his physical examination, and was officially commissioned captain on April 21.9
Company I, which he would command during the following 19 months, was a Deep South unit. Mississippians, Alabamians, and Georgians made up half the muster roll. Tennesseans, Kentuckians, Missourians, and North Carolinians were next in frequency, with three or four men from each of the states of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. Shanks would get along very well with these men; Company I’s losses from desertion were much lower than the average.
On May 11, the 6th Regiment arrived at Fort Leavenworth, and within 24 hours Shanks was in trouble with Colonel Potter for being late to drill. In defending himself, Shanks characteristically cast the blame elsewhere:
In obedience to your orders I have the honor to report the reason of my absence from company drill this morning was on account of the tardiness of the Post Quartermaster and not my own.
Early this morning I obtained permission from the adjutant to get my breakfast in the Fort, and draw a tent, with the view of returning as soon as I accomplished the object of my visit. When I returned my company was out at drill which I very much regretted. I assure you, Colonel, it is not my intention or desire to evade drilling my company and a strict compliance to all orders that have or may hereafter be assigned.
I am very respectfully
Your obt’ servant
John T. Shanks
Commanding Co I, 6 U S V10
Two days later Company I moved out of Leavenworth with the regiment. Shanks’s first order in the company book assigned George H. Campbell, 36 years old, McNairy County, Tennessee, and Elisha C. Powell, 28 years old, of Clarke County, Mississippi, as teamsters to drive the company’s wagons to Fort Kearney.
At Julesburg, Company I began its first duty on the Plains under direct command of Colonel McNally of the 3rd Regiment. On June 22, McNally ordered Shanks to take 20 men and escort Leander Black’s civilian wagon train on a round trip to Fort Laramie. For the first time since his capture in Ohio, John Shanks was now a man on his own. And again he was soon in trouble with authority.
It was customary for wagonmasters to pay soldier escorts small sums of money for their services. As officer in command, Shanks received this money from Leander Black, but failed to pass it on promptly to his men. News of this omission somehow reached the ears of General Patrick Connor, after Shanks had returned the wagon train safely to Julesburg. Connor immediately sent a telegram to Shanks, demanding an explanation.
Fortunately for his future career as an officer of the Galvanized Yankees, this time Shanks had a plausible explanation:
I have returned to the enlisted men that accompanied Mr. Black’s train the amount paid them for their services, etc. On my arrival at this Post, I was instructed by Col. G. H. McNally, commanding, to receive from Mr. Black the amount due each enlisted man, keep a correct account of the same, and furnish them with small amounts at a time to purchase such necessaries from the sutler as they might need. The Colonel’s reasons for giving these instructions was to avoid as far as possible the purchase of ardent spirits by enlisted men from passing trains, and prevent the occurrence of so many desertions from the post. Acting under these instructions, I notified Mr. Black, stated to him the reasons they were so given, and since my return I have witnessed enough to convince me that Col. McNally’s instructions to me was necessary to avoid the objects above stated. I have the honor to state farther that the money was not withheld from the men with the view of defrauding them, but to maintain the proper military discipline.11
On July 25, Sergeant Joseph Thompson, a 21-year-old farm boy of Roane County, Tennessee, and five privates from Mississippi were reported absent without leave from Company I. Captain Shanks immediately secured mounts for 22 men and went in hot pursuit. A day or so later the six would-be deserters were back at Julesburg in the guardhouse. Shanks was determined to keep his company intact for the duration.
In early summer, General Connor made his decision to replace the California cavalry at
Camp Douglas, Utah, with companies of the 6th Regiment. Although Company I was not sent to Utah, it was ordered on August 16 to Laramie for reassignment. The new duties were made clear on August 31:
Captain John T. Shanks with his Company I, 6th U.S.V., will immediately take up the line of march westward on the line of the Pacific Telegraph and will make the following distribution of his command: 1 sergeant, 2 corporals and 15 privates at Horse Shoe Station; Lieutenant Griffin, 1 sergeant, 2 corporals and 15 privates at Deer Creek; 1 sergeant, 2 corporals and 15 privates at Platte Bridge; Headquarters and remainder of the company at Camp Marshall, D.T.12
Camp Marshall was a crude square of stables, barracks, and stockade built around a telegraph station at La Bonte, 66 miles west of Fort Laramie.* Except for scenery, wild game, and prowling Indians, La Bonte had little to offer in the way of diversions, but Captain Shanks soon established himself comfortably. From departing officers of the 3rd U.S. Volunteers and the 11th Ohio Cavalry, he collected a pair of mountain howitzers for defense, and three dogs, two cats, and two tame crows to relieve the tedium of his duties. His main responsibility was to keep the telegraph line open, but he preferred entertaining passersby and swapping stories with them.
One of the classic stories of La Bonte started with Jim Bridger. Bridger was cooking his breakfast there in a grove of trees when he glanced up and saw 250 bears sitting down and watching him. They had smelled bacon frying and came in as near as they dared.
“What did you do?” someone would ask Bridger.
“Oh, didn’t do nothing.”
“Well, what did the bears do?”
“Oh, they did nothing, only they just sot around.”13
As a result of this story, a common saying around that part of the North Platte country was that soldiers stationed at La Bonte “only just sot around.” Captain Shanks, however, did more than just sit around. He enjoyed himself while doing it, as the diary of Captain B. F. Rockafellow testifies. Rockafellow, of the 6th Michigan Cavalry, was returning with one of the columns of Connor’s Powder River Expedition, and stopped at Camp Marshall on the night of September 21.
Shanks’s hospitality and generosity almost overwhelmed Rockafellow. He enjoyed the good dinner and choice cigars, but being a teetotaler had to use deception to make Shanks believe he was drinking whiskey instead of water. “It worked well and the very hospitable gentleman was not displeased. Captain Shanks is the Texan who rendered such valuable assistance to the Govt, in exposing plans of the traitors in the Chicago Conspiracy. He is about 1 H P size with dark complexion, eyes, hair and whiskers. Was Capt in rebel service. Served on Genl. Bragg’s staff, and served under Morgan in Kentucky. He led column which drove in pickets within four miles of Cinn.”
Next day, Rockafellow added one more intriguing item about his host. “Capt Shanks aroused us from sweet slumbers to dress by a large crackling fire and then being well treated were invited out to a good breakfast. … He expects his lady from Chicago. She was threatened with insults and efforts made to capture or kidnap her, to cause her to divulge his part in the great conspiracy.”14
As a result of Shanks’s cordiality and his luck in staying out of trouble for a few weeks, he won the confidence of his superiors at Laramie. On October 20, he was given command over all troops between Forts Laramie and Caspar, a section which included not only 6th Regiment infantrymen but several detachments of the 11th Ohio Cavalry. (Some of the Ohio cavalrymen, as has been noted, were also Galvanized Yankees, a few of them former comrades of Shanks, captured as was he while raiding with Morgan across Ohio.)
During that autumn most of Shanks’s Indian problems were concentrated at Horse Shoe Station, which was usually the first stopping place for travelers bound west from Fort Laramie. One of the big raids occurred on November 25, when a party of Sioux attacked the station and ran off 30 head of horses. In an attempt to discourage further raiding at Horse Shoe, Shanks sent Lieutenant W. W. Swearingen of the 11th Ohio and 20 mounted men to strengthen the garrison.
Winter soon settled down over the North Platte country, and blizzards helped pacify the hostiles. The weather also kept soldiers confined to their cramped quarters. To keep in touch with his scattered stations, Shanks sent telegrams up and down the line. Occasionally he made telegraphic reports to Laramie headquarters, most of them routine, but on December 31, Colonel Maynadier must have been startled to receive this one: “I was shot today by a private of L Company, 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry while in the discharge of my official duties. Wound not dangerous. After shooting me, man tried to escape, was pursued by my orders and mortally wounded. Jno. T. Shanks, Captain.”15
Shanks’s assailant was Private Thomas Ferrier, a 22-year-old farmer from Calloway County, Missouri. Ferrier was not a Galvanized Yankee. He had enlisted in the Union Army at St. Louis, in August 1863, and was sent to Fort Laramie, where he was assigned to the 11th Ohio.
Ferrier was still alive on January 4 when Lieutenant Henrie W. Brazie, acting provost marshal, arrived from Fort Laramie to investigate the shooting incident. After five days of questioning witnesses and parties involved, a puzzled Lieutenant Brazie returned to Laramie with several depositions.
I found so many reports in circulation that it was impossible to form an opinion as to the merits of the case and it became necessary to take the statements of the principal actors in the affair. The only thing not satisfactorily explained by these statements is the shooting of Private Ferrier, which from all I could learn was entirely unjustifiable, it appearing that he was shot after he was in the custody of the party sent to arrest him. … The wound of Captain Shanks was inflicted by a pistol shot, fired by Private Ferrier which took effect in his left shoulder. The wound of Private Ferrier is also a pistol shot, entering his head near the left temple and passing out above the right eye. The shot was fired by Private Roy, Company I, 6th U.S. Volunteers, and so close to his head that the powder was blown into the flesh.
With these explanations, Lieutenant Brazie appended the depositions, and suggested that they would give his superiors “the same grounds to form an opinion as I have, and therefore I will advance none.”
Captain Shanks in his statement said that on entering the cavalry mess room he had found Ferrier and Private W. S. Foster of L Company engaged in a fight. When he ordered them to desist, Foster obeyed, but Ferrier “peremptorily refused.” The captain then ordered Ferrier to his quarters, but he again refused to obey.
I then ordered Corporal Bowers of same Company to arrest him and take him to his quarters and keep in custody until he became quiet and sober. Some ten minutes afterward I passed out the mess room door of my detachment, and stopping in the door to give some instructions to one of the cooks, the aforesaid Private Ferrier came out of the cavalry company quarters, with a revolver in his hand, and not thinking he intended shooting me I paid but little attention to him. Suddenly he fired on me, the ball entering the left side of my neck and lodging in my left shoulder, partially paralyzing my left arm. I fell to the ground insensible, Ferrier attempting his escape through the back gate of the corral. After being carried to my quarters I then became sensible, and was notified of Ferrier’s escape. I ordered a sufficient number of my men to pursue him and capture him at all hazards. After pursuing him about a mile from the post, Sergeant Johnson who was in charge, reports he was overtaken by them, and ordered to surrender, which he refused to do, saying he would die first. One of the men fired on him, the ball entering the left temple and lodging in his right eye.
The first enlisted man questioned by Lieutenant Brazie was Corporal Elijah Rushing of Company I, who stated that on the day of the incident, New Year’s Eve, he was ordered by Captain Shanks to issue a gallon of whiskey to each of the two detachments at Camp Marshall. “I issued first a half gallon to each of them. About an hour afterwards I went into the mess room. Ferrier was cursing Foster, backing him into the commissary room.”
Corporal Rushing approached them and said: “Gentlemen, stop this fight.”
“Damn you, who are you?,” Ferrier retorted. “I can whip Foster or any of his friends.”
Corporal Rushing replied: “Sir, I have not insulted you. I want you to stop this fuss.”
About that time Shanks appeared, and Ferrier told the captain that Company L had been imposed upon ever since it had been at Camp Marshall.
“Who has imposed on Company L?,” Shanks asked.
“Corporal Rushing and Foster,” Ferrier replied, and added: “Captain Shanks, I am a man from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.”
From this point on, Corporal Rushing’s account was virtually the same as Captain Shanks, but there were some discrepancies in the story told by Corporal Bowers of L Company. Bowers said that the 15 Ohio cavalrymen were given a full gallon of whiskey, of which they used two-thirds in making toddy. He added that Ferrier and Foster began quarreling over a canteen of whiskey, and that when Shanks ordered him [Bowers] to take Ferrier to his quarters, the captain had “his pistol in his hand cocked.” Bowers said that Ferrier willingly locked arms with him and they walked to the cavalry barracks. “On entering the door we unlocked arms and I moved on into the quarters. He stopped and seizing a pistol stepped to the door again and fired on Captain Shanks.”
To assure Lieutenant Brazie that mere was no ill-feeling toward Shanks among the Ohio men, Bowers added: “I would further state that the Captain has been very kind to us, showing no difference between our men and his own, always giving almost anything we asked of him.”
Private Foster, the soldier with whom Ferrier was scuffling, said that when Corporal Rushing attempted to stop them, Ferrier told the corporal “to mind his own business. … Captain Shanks came in and had a long conversation with Ferrier and then went out. We all thought everything was quieted but pretty soon Captain Shanks came into the kitchen with a revolver out which it was drawn on Ferrier. I do not know but I heard Captain Shanks say to Ferrier, ‘You have wakened up the wrong man.’ Ferrier spoke up and told Captain Shanks, ‘You have the advantage of me now.’”