Mr. Hornaday's War (35 page)

Yet his life
did
attract eulogists, and a good number of them at that. Several years before his death, when it was clear that the old lion was not much longer for this world, the editors
of Outdoor Life
magazine published a laudatory remembrance of him. “In the long and often weary annals of conservation progress, no man has been less bowed beneath reverses or less satisfied with success than Dr. Hornaday,” the editors wrote. “Determined and intransigent, it was never his policy to go around or under an opponent; smashing straight through his opposition, he has left a long trail of personal enemies in his wake—but has never looked back. Sold out by game-hogs in high places, rebuffed by organizations purporting to have a conservation purpose, deserted even by high-principled and well-intentioned leaders who felt him too radical or truculent for his time, much of Dr. Hornaday's far-seeing effort has been single-handed. In his day of triumph, let his indomitable persistence be remembered.”
13

William Temple Hornaday's life is not simply some Gilded Age antique, as quaint and outdated as a Stanley Steamer. The war for wildlife to which he devoted his life is a battle that still rages on, with this morning's paper no doubt bringing news of some fragile species in peril, some dim fen falling to the onslaughts of human progress. Hornaday's contentious life and bloody crusades are as vivid and as relevant today—perhaps more so—than they were when he died almost eighty years ago.

But his loud, large life also changed the world for the better. Organizations that he helped build, legislation that he helped pass, and the sense of moral outrage that he helped set aflame have all made our world safer for wild things and wild places. The New York Zoological Society, where Hornaday served for thirty years, is now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society; it manages some 200 million acres of protected lands around the world, with more than 500 field conservation projects in sixty countries.
14
The bison, once a whisper away from extinction, now number about half a million in North America alone (though only about 30,000 of these are genetically pure, free-roaming animals).
15
In 2008, about 121,000 fur seal
pups were born on the Pribilof Islands.
16
And the North American population of the snowy egret, once hunted to the verge of annihilation for its spectacular plumes, is now thought to number about 143,000 (though it is still considered a threatened species).
17

George Bernard Shaw once famously remarked, “[N]othing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.” And William Temple Hornaday, whatever else he may have been, was without doubt the most unreasonable of men. Had it not been for his prophetic vision, his baleful and impolite pronouncements, and his unwillingness to sit still when he saw a crime being committed, our world would be poorer, sadder, less various, and less beautiful than it is. But were he alive today, no doubt he would tell you that his life's work is far from over. In fact, it has scarcely begun.

There are a host of individuals I'd like to thank for their assistance and erudition in the preparation of this book. I owe a debt of gratitude to those who read and commented on the manuscript, including my brother Lawrence Bechtel, who's always been smarter than me; my smart and now grown-up children Adam and Lilly; my friend Jim Crawford; the apostate Dr. Steve Cory and his University of Chicago book group; and the brilliant Robert L. O'Connell. Thanks to my little “home group,” Anya, Sammy, and Milo, for support and succor. I'd like to thank my agent, Don Fehr, for placing the book with Beacon Press, as well as my indefatigable editor, Alexis Rizzuto, and the rest of the staff at Beacon, who recognized the book's merit and tried to give it a fair shake in the marketplace. Two scholar-historians are owed special mention here: Gregory Dehler, of Lehigh University, who wrote a dissertation about Hornaday and a century of wildlife protection in America; and James Dolph, of the University of Massachusetts, whose dissertation focused on the part of Hornaday's life that fell in the nineteenth century. Both provided invaluable research and insight into this extraordinarily complex and interesting man. Finally, I'd like to thank the better angels of Dr. Hornaday himself, who, despite his manifest flaws, was an inspiration to me throughout the writing of this book.

PROLOGUE: THE FEAR

1
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 20, page 1.

2
. Hornaday,
Thirty Years War for Wild Life,
p. xi.

3
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 20, p. 3.

4
. Ibid., p. 4.

5
. Ibid., chapter 9, p. 11.

6
. Ibid., chapter 20, p. 3.

7
. Hornaday,
Use and Abuse of America's Natural Resources,
p. 18.

8
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 20, p. 1.

9
. Niles Eldredge, “The Sixth Extinction,”
ActionBioScience.org
(
http://www.actionbioscience.org/
).

CHAPTER 1: HIS NAME WAS DAUNTLESS

This account of “the last buffalo hunt,” clearly one of the signature events of William Hornaday's life, is based largely on the three accounts he wrote of it, each with varying levels of detail and emphasis, as well as his journals from the field. He described these events in
The Extermination of the American Bison
in fairly clipped, scientific fashion; in
A Wild-Animal Round-Up
in a rollicking, popularized way (which first was published in the
Cosmopolitan Magazine
in 1887); and in his unpublished autobiography,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
a similar account filled with bitterly remembered detail and melancholy emotion.

1
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 229

2
. Philadelphia Zoo website,
http://www.philadelphiazoo.org
.

3
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 229.

4
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 10, p. 4.

5
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 227.

6
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 10, p. 4.

7
. “Sleeping car” entry,
Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/
.

8
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 400.

9
.
Harper's Weekly,
January 1869.

10
. Roosevelt,
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman,
p. 244.

11
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 13–15.

12
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 2, pp. 1–2; “Behind the Scenes: King Kong,”
Stereotype & Society
blog, May 27, 2007,
http://stereotypeandsociety.typepad.com
.

13
. Brinkley,
Wilderness Warrior,
p. 281.

14
.
Chicago Tribune,
November 22, 1886, cited in Hornaday,
Thirty Years War for Wild Life,
p. 100.

15
.
Popular Science Monthly
37, 1890, p. 276.

16
. “John James Audubon” entry in
Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/
.

17
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 400.

18
. William T. Hornaday, “Progress Report of Exploration for Buffalo,” cited in Ibid., p. 398.

19
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 401–2.

20
. “The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876,”
Eyewitness to History
website,
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/
.

21
.
The Northern Pacific Railway, Main Street of the Northwest,
http://www.american-rails.com
.

22
. Taos and Santa Fe Painters website,
http://www.charlesmarionrussell.com
.

23
. Doughty,
Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation,
p. 16.

24
. Hornaday,
Our Vanishing Wild Life,
p. 247.

CHAPTER 2: A MELANCHOLY INSANITY

1
. Trudeau,
Southern Storm,
p. 25.

2
. Letter from Ellen Sherman to John Sherman, in Lewis,
Sherman,
p. 203.

3
. Letter from William Tecumseh Sherman to the City Council of Atlanta, September 12, 1864,
TeachingAmericanHistory.org
.

4
. “Tecumseh” article,
Encyclopedia Britannica Online,
http://www.britannica.com/
.

5
. Hine,
American West,
p. 127.

6
. Sherman to Sheridan, May 10, 1868, in Athearn,
William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West,
p. 197.

7
. Marszalek,
Sherman,
p. 423.

8
. American Indian Genocide Museum website,
http://www.aigenom.com/Delano.html
.

9
. Punke,
Last Stand.

10
. Grinnell,
Hunting and Conservation,
p. 219.

11
.
Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary for the Year 1871.

12
. “The Last Buffalo,”
Harper's Weekly, June 6,
1874.

13
. Blackmore's preface, in Dodge,
Plains of the Great West and Their Inhabitants,
p. xii.

14
. Rinella,
American Buffalo,
p. 158.

15
. Estimate by George Catlin, cited by Rita Laws, “Native Americans and Vegetarianism,”
VRG Journal,
September 1994.

16
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
pp. 173–181.

CHAPTER 3: THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

1
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 10, p. 7.

2
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 402; Drover House website,
http://www.droverhouse.com
.

3
. “History and Genealogy,” Miles City (MT) On the Web,
http://milescity.com/history/
.

4
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 402.

5
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 10, p. 6.

6
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 407–10.

7
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 230.

8
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 414–17.

9
. Ibid., 418.

10
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 230.

11
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
pp. 8, 9; Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
pp. 230, 231.

CHAPTER 4: SOUVENIR OF A LOST WORLD

1
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 420; Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
p. 10.

2
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
pp. 10–12; Hornaday,
Wild-Animal Round-Up,
pp. 11–14.

3
. Hornaday,
Wild-Animal Round-Up,
pp. 282, 283.

4
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 429–31.

5
. Ibid., p. 432.

CHAPTER 5: THE LAST BUFFALO HUNT

1
. Hornaday,
Wild-Animal Round-Up,
p. 15.

2
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 10, p. 3.

3
. Ibid., p. 5.

4
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
pp. 467, 534; Hornaday, memorandum, September 18, 1886, Official Incoming Correspondence, 1882–90,
vol. H, 356, cited in Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 438.

5
. Peterson, “Buffalo Hunting in Montana in 1886,” pp. 2–13.

6
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
pp. 16, 17.

7
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 238.

8
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
p. 34.

9
. Hornaday,
Journal of Trip No. 4,
Part II, October 20, 1886, cited in Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” p. 447.

10
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
pp. 15, 16.

11
. Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to Millions,” pp. 445, 446; Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
p. 17.

12
. Hornaday, Journal of Trip No. 4, Part II, October 14, 1886.

13
. Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
pp. 28–31.

14
. Ibid., p. 32.

15
. Ibid., p. 33.

16
. “The Bad Winter,” lyrics by Hermann Hagedorn; also Mitchell, “Winter of 1886–87,” p. 3.

17
. Garretson,
American Bison,
p. 193.

CHAPTER 6: A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

1
. Hornaday,
Extermination of the American Bison,
p. 252.

2
. From Hornaday,
Two Years in the Jungle,
p. 491.

3
. Bridges,
A Gathering of Animals,
p. 22.

4
. “Vindication of America's Greatest,”
Parks and Recreation,
February 1932; “Revolution in Taxidermy,”
Commercial Advertiser
(NY), May 3, 1883.

5
. This reconstruction of Hornaday's first meeting with Theodore Roosevelt is based on his account of this remarkable encounter in Hornaday,
Eighty Fascinating Years,
chapter 11, pp. 18, 19; another brief account occurs in Dolph, “Bringing Wildlife to the Millions,” p. 467.