The Amazing Story of Frank Finkel of the Western Frontier in 1876

I watched an amazing History channel documentary on YouTube. It was a splendid story that historians cannot verify or reject. There are so many things that add credence to the man’s story. I wanted to present it in a flowery light. However, the documentary I watched told it in a different way. It was most compelling. I would like to present it in another way. It is set in the United States’ Frontier of 1876.

I want to ask the reader to imagine a trapper in the American West. A loner who is called Bill. A scruffy and bearded man. Perhaps dishevelled and hygienically challenged. It is 1876 and the time is around the last day of June or perhaps a couple of days into July. It is hot and the height of summer. By all accounts, our trapper is a man of an age between 30 and 40 and is rather grumpy. He takes shelter in a course shack where his one companion is lying inside on a sick bed. The man on the sick bed is suffering from Tuberculosis and is dying. All in all, circumstances are not good for Bill and his companion. Perhaps Bill is thinking of such things as he is chopping wood. He has a rifle close by because he is in Indian Territory. The Wild West frontier.

Suddenly another injured and dishevelled looking man appears. He is bloodied and exhausted. He is caked in blood upon his forehead and has the look of a person barely alive. Bill raises his rifle and starts to tell the wretched man to move on. He will not help him. Move on or Bill assures the wretched and injured man he will shoot him.

For the wretched man who had been travelling for many days, this is too much to bear. He had been wounded upon his horse and had been forced to shoot the animal after five days of riding. He had a bullet wound in the foot. Another in the abdomen and a ricochet of another in his forehead just above the eye. The man’s plight had been desperate and after days in the wilderness, his one chance of salvation was screaming at him to move on. And with the threat of being shot again. The wretched man had given up by this moment. It was more than he could bear. He collapsed.

Grumpy Bill would have sighed in anger. He did not need this further stress to his already complicated problems concerning his companion dying of Tuberculosis in the harsh wilderness. A wilderness that offered little salvation. A wilderness where plains Indians preyed upon settlers. Especially if they knew them to be vulnerable.

Reluctantly Bill managed to get the unconscious man to the coarse hut where his friend was. They realised that the young man was a Calvary trooper. Bill began to treat the wounds as best he could. The bedridden companion advised him how to go about things from his sick bed. The Trooper slipped into a coma for a few days but his metabolism held strong and he pulled through. The bullet wounds were dressed and managed to heal. When the trooper came around many days later, the man in the sick bed next to him had died of his consumption. Grumpy Bill needed the Trooper’s help in moving the dead man outside to a suitable location for burial.

Grumpy Bill may have now known that the Trooper’s name was Frank. His real name is Frank Finkel but he had used the alias name of Frank Hall when he joined the United States Army several years prior. He had been twenty in 1874 when joining the U.S. Army and one had to be twenty-one at the time. He, therefore, lied about his age and called himself Frank Hall instead of Frank Finkel.

Grumpy Bill allowed Frank Finkel to recuperate around his old shake until the fall. In that time, Grumpy Bill must have warmed to Frank. When Frank decided to leave and head north, he was given a horse. Perhaps it was the dead man’s that they had buried after Frank recovered from his wounds. He made for a boom town north of Yellowstone. It was called Fort Benton.

Frank was now out of uniform and in civilian close. One of the first things he learned once getting to civilisation was the fate of the 7^th Calvary. He read all about the terrible fate of General Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. He learnt of Captain Benteen's and Major Reno's troop too. The whole thing shocked him. He was supposed to report back to the nearest Army office or he could be registered as a deserter. There was every opportunity to do so.

Frank Finkel did not. He had lied about his age and many of the bodies from the Battle of the Little Big Horn were unrecognisable. Custer’s group and Reno’s group had suffered loses. The corpses had been mutilated beyond recognition. Plus many were missing presumed dead. In the 7th Cavalry, Frank Finkel was not known. Only his alias of Frank Hall. He had had enough of the army and the West was a place where one could easily hide and become someone else.

Frank Finkel went to California first and then moved to Washington State. He found a town to settle in where the railroad was coming. He used his knowledge of carpentry and farming and gradually acquired wealth. He also got married and built a splendid house for himself. He lived in this town in Washington State for forty years and made many friends. He was an ageing man in his sixties when he had some friends around on the veranda one afternoon. They were chatting, smoking and drinking when one of his friends began to chat about General Custer. As the debate began to get heated, Frank sat listening to each man’s rendition of what happened. Some of the accounts were wild and full of speculation from men who had not witnessed the event. Frank could stand it no longer and decided to butt into the debate with an extraordinary claim.

   

He told them that he knew of certain events because he was there. He had witnessed much of what went on. He said that many reports concerning Custer’s troop would not true because he was a trooper in C troop under Custer’s command. Obviously, his listeners were shocked and the story of his young adventure in the 7^th Cavalry spread like wildfire. 

It was 1920 by this time and Frank was an old man. A deserter who had accidentally escaped from Custer’s troop during the massacre. A local newspaper reporter in the town asked for an interview and Frank agreed. The story he told was one that even historians could not disclaim or discredit. They do not all believe it is necessarily true, but they can’t find things wrong. He actually testified that Custer’s troop did not cross the river and even said from where he was they never even got sight of the Indian village that they were trying to approach from a different area to that of Major Reno. Later historian and Indian accounts would add credence to this.

Frank Finkel AKA Trooper Frank Hall said that his C Troop unit was fired upon by hostile plains Indians from a dip in the ground. The Indian combatants were on foot with their ponies concealed beneath the mounds from where they were firing up the scarp towards the troop of C Company Cavalry. He said the small unit decided to charge the group on horseback but had no idea how many hostiles were concealed behind the dip in the ground. He was not sure if they were trying to escape or break through the lines.

The small troop were met with intense fire and quickly the charge faulted. As Frank Finkel (AKA Frank Hall) and his horse twisted and turned in the confusion, a shot hit him in the foot. He still struggled to keep his mount under control when a second shot hit him in the abdomen. As he raised his carbine, a third shot hit his weapon and ricocheted up and hit him above the eye. Blood ran down his face from the wound but the bullet had not penetrated. He was semi-conscious as his mount bolted with him still in the saddle. His horse trotted off and away from the conflict. Frank was carried away while the rest of his comrades fell.

He was badly injured and not knowing where he should go. The mount was just moving away from the battle. He came to two different water-filled gullies that had undrinkable tainted water. The third offered some respite as he and the horse could drink. He and his mount continued for five days until his horse stopped exhausted. It could go no further. Frank reluctantly shot the wretched beast to save it from being attacked by coyotes. He left the beast’s corpse and just continued walking for some more days. He would eventually arrive before grumpy Bill and receive help.

Much of Frank Finkel’s story adds up. There were also other details of accounts that help him. What also adds to his credibility among some historians is the fact that his alias was correct. There are accounts of other troopers escaping too. One on a white mount. This was an opportunity for Frank to grasp at something but he insisted that his horse was brown and not white. He stuck to his view of the events. He did not even know of Custer’s command until the fall when he got the news at Fort Benton.

He told his story in 1920 and much was made of his celebrity. He died in 1930 at the age of 76.    

Below is the very interesting History Channel Documentary via YouTube.