Born on March 20, 1767, in Boucherville, Quebec, near Montreal, Charbonneau grew up in a region deeply connected to the North American fur trade. As a young man, he worked for the British-owned North West Company, venturing deep into the western wilderness. The earliest surviving account of his character, however, paints a disturbing picture.

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The coonskin cap is one of the most recognizable symbols of the American frontier, but its status as a cultural icon owes far more to television and film than to historical fact. During the 1950s and 1960s, actor Fess Parker became the face of America’s frontier heroes, and his portrayals of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone sparked two waves of enthusiasm that made the coonskin cap a must-have item for millions of American children.

The first and most significant boom began in 1954 when Walt Disney Productions introduced the television miniseries Davy Crockett. Fess Parker’s portrayal of the Tennessee frontiersman immediately captured the imagination of audiences. The stirring theme song, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” became a nationwide hit, while Parker’s calm, courageous portrayal transformed Crockett into an American folk hero for the television age. Disney later edited the television episodes into successful theatrical films, expanding the phenomenon and bringing the adventures of Davy Crockett to audiences around the world.

No element of Parker’s costume proved more influential than the coonskin cap. Although the real Davy Crockett almost certainly wore a variety of practical frontier hats and did not make the coonskin cap his trademark, the television version fixed the image in the public imagination. Manufacturers rushed to meet unprecedented demand by producing millions of inexpensive imitation coonskin caps. Department stores, toy shops, and mail-order catalogs stocked the hats, and children proudly wore them to school, birthday parties, and neighborhood adventures. The coonskin cap quickly became one of the best-selling licensed products of the decade.

The craze extended far beyond hats. Toy rifles, buckskin shirts, fringed jackets, moccasins, lunch boxes, Halloween costumes, comic books, board games, and countless other products carried the Davy Crockett name or frontier themes. Marketing experts later pointed to the Crockett phenomenon as one of the earliest examples of modern television merchandising, demonstrating how a successful television program could generate enormous sales of licensed consumer products.

Although the original Crockett craze faded by the end of the 1950s, America’s fascination with the frontier returned when Parker accepted the lead role in the television series Daniel Boone, which premiered in 1964. Once again, Parker portrayed a legendary frontiersman wearing a coonskin cap. Historically, this portrayal was even less accurate than his depiction of Crockett, as Daniel Boone was known to favor a broad-brimmed felt hat for most of his adult life. Nevertheless, television audiences readily embraced the familiar image.

The success of Daniel Boone introduced frontier adventures to a new generation of children who had been too young to experience the original Crockett craze. Toy companies responded by producing another wave of coonskin caps, frontier play sets, toy muskets, camping gear, and costumes. While this second boom never equaled the extraordinary merchandising success of the 1950s, it reinforced the cap’s status as the defining symbol of the American frontier. By then, the association between frontier heroes and the distinctive raccoon-tail cap had become firmly embedded in popular culture.

Fess Parker’s unique achievement was that he portrayed America’s two most famous frontiersmen within a single decade, linking both characters to the same iconic piece of headwear. His performances shaped public perceptions more powerfully than history books, creating an enduring image that persists today in films, cartoons, souvenirs, and historical reenactments. Even though historians now recognize that neither Davy Crockett nor Daniel Boone habitually wore a coonskin cap, Parker’s portrayals ensured that the cap would forever symbolize courage, independence, exploration, and the romantic spirit of the American frontier. Few television actors have had such a lasting influence on American popular culture, and few costume pieces have enjoyed a legacy as remarkable as the humble coonskin cap.

Longfellow was 47 years old at the time, and at the height of his literary career. Widely …

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Born in 1789 in Burlington New Jersey and raised in the frontier settlement of Cooperstown New York, which was founded by his father, Cooper developed a lifelong interest in the American wilderness and the changing relationship between settlers and Native peoples. After serving briefly in the U.S. Navy and managing family estates, he turned to writing almost by accident. His first novel, Precaution (1820), attracted little attention, but his second novel, The Spy (1821), became an international success. Over the next three decades he wrote more than thirty novels, as well as travel books, histories, and political essays, earning recognition in both the United States and Europe.

It wasn’t until two years later that the most iconic work of his career would publish.

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I still remember being fascinated by the name “James Fenimore Cooper” and how cool it was that he used three names. And in some respects, it inspired why I went with “Andrew Scott Wills” in my professional songwriting career. There is something prominent about it. Something classic. Like Cooper, I have always been a writer. In college I took multiple writing courses including short story writing and novel writing and excelled at them. I have made many “false starts” at writing a historical novel in the style of Cooper. However my ADD tendencies hampered my ability for a long haul project, and this brought me to writing lyrics and music. I loved music and it didn’t require the time commitment of a novel: I just had to focus enough to write a 3 minute song. And the next day I could start a new one.

It wasn’t until 2023, when my father was deep diving into genealogy, that I discovered that I am actually related to the iconic author. James Fenimore Copper is my 3rd cousin 8 times removed, meaning we share the same great-great grandparents. This information came at a turning point in my life when I was trying to figure out who I was going to be going forward. I had recently started my pet project of Hawken Horse, having grown weary from the Nashville rat race of the music industry. So when I found out that I was distantly related to one of my favorite authors of all time it felt like a confirmation from the heavens that I was on the right track.

As I’ve recounted in prior articles (you can read one here), the soundtrack to Michael Mann’s 1992 “The Last of the Mohicans” is one of my favorite works of music ever recorded. Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman will forever have a seat at my table. Over the years, I have worn out multiple cassette tapes, CDs and streamed it more than any album ever. I love it.

And so last year when someone asked me “What have you always dreamed of doing musically?” the immediate thought that came into my mind was “I want to score the soundtrack for the sequel to The Last of the Mohicans”. But because there is no sequel in the works, the second idea I had was to make a soundtrack for the novel “The Deerslayer” itself. After some music industry research on how to do this, I understood how to go about releasing it. (Releasing a soundtrack is a slightly different animal than just releasing a typical record).

The idea never left me. In some ways it haunted me. There were several nights I laid awake at 3 in the morning, staring at the ceiling thinking about melodies for the different scenes. I wanted the music to resonate with what listeners and Cooper fans already knew and understood. And so rather than scoring music for each chapter, I modeled the format similarly to the LOTM soundtrack.

If music production bores you, you might want to skip to the next section.

Orchestration in 2026 is insanely different than it was 30 or even 10 years ago. Hiring an actual full orchestra to record a full length soundtrack would cost upwards of $150,000 and that doesn’t even include mixing and mastering the project. This is why only the most upper-budget major motion pictures can afford to use actual orchestras anymore. In the era of streaming and Netflix it’s simply cost prohibitive. And so 95% of the orchestral music you hear on your TV is played on a MIDI keyboard. But the good news is this comes at a time when computer generated music has reach a new stratosphere. Long gone are the days when MIDI sounded like a toy piano. Today actual instruments, played by world renowned musicians, are sampled to create the MIDI instruments. So when you press a C note on a keyboard you are literally hearing a C note on a real violin. Its absolutely amazing.

But that doesn’t mean this project is 100% MIDI, because that’s far from the truth. I personally played a lot of guitar and percussion. I also hired the very talented Peter Voronov to perform fiddle on multiple tracks. But most of my time was spent scoring the melody lines and mixing the final tracks, which can become a huge undertaking when incorporating dozens of instruments and making sure they all get their moment.

Dreams come true.

And so I am thrilled to say that “The Deerslayer: Original Soundtrack” from Aspen Ridge + Hawken Horse is available August 3rd. It’s meant to be listened to top down in order. I don’t know if “the kids” like to do that these days or not, but that’s the way it was written and intended. I prefer my records to ebb and flow and have a heartbeat to them. I like when music has a soul.

I explain all this to say that this soundtrack is a passion project 40 years in the making. I hope it inspires you not only musically, but to achieve goals that have whispered to you for years. It’s never too late. In fact, it’s right on time.

CDs are available at HawkenHorse.com

In addition, the Hawken rifle was not a cheap purchase. They tended to be carried by businessmen, party leaders and influential scouts. But what rifle were the average thousands carrying?

That would be the Leman Rifle. It was quietly one of the most influential firearms carried across the American frontier during the nineteenth century. Manufactured by gunsmith Henry Eicholtz Leman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, beginning in the 1830s, these rifles earned a reputation for durability, accuracy, and affordability.

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Most of what we think about the Mississippian culture is simply educated conjecture. However in basic term…

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"…shirt-tail men, with their cursed twisted guns, the most fatal widow-and-orphan-makers in the world"

--London Newspaper, 1775

The quote is referring to the notorious Morgan’s Riflemen, known for their long distance shooting and backwoods warfare. The quote also gets into the heart of one of the main advantages that American troops had over British troops: rifles. The vast majority of his Majesty’s troops were armed with smoothbore muskets with the maximum effective range out to about 70 yards. Meanwhile, the twisted guns (or rifled guns) of the backwoods colonials were effective out of 200 or even 300 yards.

The truth is the British officers despised this style of warfare. It wasn’t dignified compared their shoulder-to-shoulder gentlemen marches, just to be picked off from 200 yards away.

How accurate were those twisted longrifles? John W. Wright write about it in his 1924 essay The Rifle in the American Revolution from The American Historical Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 by John W. Wright. It states:

The American rifleman was picturesque in his round hat and hunting shirt, and his marksmanship compelled British officers and sergeants to lay aside their spontoons and halberds while on American service?—just as later, in South Africa, British officers abandoned their swords, and for the same reason. That he made excellent use of his weapon we are assured in many contemporaneous sources.

One German officer characterized the rifleman as “terrible”? Another wrote that the best American riflemen could, in a good light and with no wind, hit a man’s head at 200 yards and his body at 300. We are told that the riflemen, when they joined the army near Boston in August, 1775, gave an exhibition, in which a company, on a quick advance, placed their shots in seven-inch targets at 250 yards. Some very accurate shooting is described in the Virginia Gazette of September 9, 1775. Riflemen, bound for Boston, gave an exhibition. A man held between his knees a board five inches wide and seven inches long, with a paper bull’s-eye the size of a dollar. A rifleman at sixty yards, without a rest, put eight bullets in succession through the bull’s-eye.

Wright contrasts this with the more common musket:

The standard military firearm of the period was the flint-lock musket, weighing about eleven pounds and measuring four feet nine inches without bayonet. Its calibre was about .75, or eleven gauge, that is, it would take a lead ball of eleven to the pound. When fired horizontally from the shoulder it had a range of about 125 yards. At I00 yards, a good marksman might make 40 percent of hits on a target the size of a man standing. The question naturally arises, why did the musket continue to be the standard firearm when the rifle was available? Why was a weapon that had not sufficient accuracy to give a reasonable number of hits on a man standing at 1oo yards preferred to one that could at that range deliver a high percentage of hits on a target the sizeof a man’s head?

The rifle was much slower than the musket, about three to one. This was due to its laborious loading process. The bullet had to fit very tightly, to take the rifling, and so was forced in with an iron rod about six inches long and a wooden mallet, then driven home with the ramrod. When the piece was foul the process was especially slow. The musket, on the other hand, could be quickly loaded with a loosely fitting ball or balls. Another important difference was that the musket, being a standard military arm, was fitted with a bayonet, while the slender rifle barrel, unstandardized, had received no such attachment.

The point is, these “twisted” guns were accurate. And this proved true throughout the Revolution when backwoodsmen were involved, including the Battle of Kings Mountain. This is the battle that inspired my song Cursed Twisted Guns. You can listen below here: YouTube - Cursed Twisted Guns.

The chorus of Cursed Twisted Guns goes like this:

The next time you send a round ball down range from a flintlock rifle, be sure to tip your hat to those “shirt tailed men” for helping give you that right.

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Meanwhile, there are first hand accounts available at your local library and online.

As someone deep in the weeds of social media and American history, I regularly see comments like “Indians were savages that fought other tribes” or “European colonists stole Native land”. These two in particular pop out to me a lot because neither one is 100% true. They are just blanket statements being regurgitated from an uninformed source meant to shutdown a conversation. It pains me when sweeping statements like these are made about “white people” or “red people”. Most of the time when you read the actual story you discover the event involves a small subgroup of people acting poorly.

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Turner was raised in Madison County, Kentucky (just down the road from where Kit Carson was born). He was born in 1807 to parents Smithton Turner and Nancy Ragsdale and by the age of 16 he was in the Rocky Mountains working in the fur trade.

There was never a painting or photograph of John Turner, but his life was a masterclass in the improbable. In 1827, he was one of the few to walk away from the Mojave Massacre, where ten of his companions were cut down while crossing the Colorado River. The only survivors were Turner and his friend and famed fur trapper Jedediah Smith. Most men would have seen the writing in the dirt and turned back to Kentucky but Turner pushed north with Jedediah instead.

The following year, destiny caught up with them again at the mouth of the Umpqua River. While John and Jed were away from camp scouting a route, the Lower Umpqua (Kalawatset) people attacked. Of the eighteen men in that party, only four—including Turner—survived. During a later skirmish on the Rogue River in 1835, he famously grabbed a large burning log from a campfire to beat back attackers, a feat of raw desperation that allowed a small group of pioneers to escape into the brush.

Turner was more than a trapper; he was a bridge between the wild and the settled. He became one of the earliest American residents of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and was the final signer of the Memorial of 1838, a petition asking the U.S. government to extend its reach into the territory.

This point of his life was a constant loop of the Oregon and California trails. He drove cattle for the Willamette Cattle Company and, in his later years, joined the second relief party to pull survivors of the Donner Party from the snow-choked Sierras. He was the kind of man who spent twenty-four years in the mountains and somehow retained a reputation for “quaint oddities” and courage despite the blood on the trail.

After surviving Mojave arrows, Umpqua ambushes, and Rogue River war parties, Turner met his end not by a foe, but by the tool of his trade. In 1847, while in California, his own rifle accidentally discharged. The Kentucky Giant, who had outlived nearly everyone he ever trapped with, was laid low by the very steel that had kept him alive for decades.

He remains a ghost of the old West—a man whose physical stature was matched only by the sheer improbability of his heartbeat.

Would you like to learn more about the Jedediah Smith expeditions or the Donner Party rescue efforts Turner assisted with?

You can read more about John Turner in his book Three Years Hunting and Trapping America and the Great Northwest published by Maclure & Co, 1888. You can find first edition copies on websites such as eBay.

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Then came the treaties.

In 1833, the Pawnee signed away all their land south of the Platte River to the United States. Technically, they still kept hunting rights there, but the government labeled the territory a “common hunting ground” for other “friendly Indians.” That phrase would become a problem later on, because the Pawnee and Sioux were anything but friendly. To make matters worse, the treaty also stopped the Pawnee from retaliating against attacks without violating U.S. policy.

Things only tightened further in 1857 when the Pawnee gave up nearly everything north of the Platte too, except for a small reservation in present-day Nebraska. In return, the United States promised military protection — a promise that rarely meant much on the frontier.

By the 1860s, the Plains had become a powder keg with a shrinking fuse. Some Pawnee men enlisted as scouts for the U.S. Army during the Powder River campaigns against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Others worked security for the Union Pacific Railroad as the iron tracks pushed west across buffalo country. Those decisions deepened old grudges with the Sioux even more.

Then came another twist. In 1868, the Sioux signed their own treaty with the United States and were granted hunting rights along the Republican River — the same country the Pawnee still claimed hunting access to from the old 1833 treaty. Suddenly two rival nations were legally entitled to hunt the same buffalo grounds. We know where this is going.

By the summer of 1873, tension on the plains was running hot. A Pawnee hunting camp of roughly four hundred people — men, women, and children — sat near present-day Trenton, Nebraska. Not far away, large bands of Brulé and Oglala Sioux were also hunting buffalo along the Republican River country.

Word spread quickly through the Sioux camps about the nearby Pawnee hunters. Warriors gathered fast. One eyewitness later remembered that the entire camp seemed to explode into motion at once, men dropping everything and preparing for war instantly. Sioux leaders claimed they were defending their hunting territory. The Pawnee believed they were exercising rights guaranteed to them decades earlier.

And out on the open prairie, where treaties meant little when old blood feuds burned bright, nearly a thousand warriors rode toward the Pawnee camp. A month later, the place would become known as Massacre Canyon — the site of the last major battle between the Pawnee and Sioux on the Great Plains.

John Williamson was a 23 year old trail agent assigned to the Pawnee at the Genoa Agency on the Pawnee reservation. He accompanied the Pawnee on their August 1873 hunt and later wrote his accounts of the battle decades after the incident. You can read his full account The Battle of Massacre Canyon here. Below is an excerpt regarding his last time seeing Pawnee leader Sky Chief:

"On the fourth day of August we reached the north bank of the Republican River and went into camp. At 9 o'clock that evening, three white men came into camp and reported to me that a large band of Sioux warriors was camped 25 miles northwest, waiting for an opportunity to attack the Pawnees for several days, anticipating that we would move up the river where buffaloes were feeding. Previous to this, white men visited us and warned us to be on our guard against Sioux attacks, and I was a trifle skeptical as to the truth of the story told by our white visitors. But one of the men, a young man about my age at the time, appeared to be so sincere in his efforts to impress upon me that the warning should be heeded, that I took him to Sky Chief who was in command that day, for a conference. Sky Chief said the men were liars; that they wanted to scare the Pawnees away from the hunting grounds so that white men could kill buffaloes for hides. He told me I was a squaw and a coward. I took exception to his remarks, and retorted: 'I will go as far as you dare go. Don't forget that.' The following morning August 5, we broke camp and started north, up the divide between the Republican and the Frenchman Rivers. Soon after leaving camp, Sky Chief rode up to me and extending his hand said, 'Shake, brother.' He recalled our little unpleasantness the night previous and said he did not believe there was cause for alarm, and was so impressed with the belief that he had not taken the precaution to throw out scouts in the direction the Sioux were reported to be. A few minutes later a buffalo scout signaled that buffaloes had been sighted in the distance, and Sky Chief rode off to engage in the hunt. I never saw him again. He had killed a buffalo and was skinning it when the advance guard of the Sioux shot and wounded him. The Chief attempted to reach his horse, but before he was able to mount, several of the enemy surrounded him. He died fighting. A Pawnee, who was skinning a buffalo a short distance away but managed to escape, told me how Sky Chief died."

To read more accounts of the battle also check out Lester Beach Platt’s Account of the Battle of Massacre Canyon here.

At first light on August 5, 1873, the Pawnee Nation moved out through a narrow canyon in southwest Nebraska. The hunters rode ahead looking for buffalo while the families followed behind with packhorses loaded down with hides, food, and camp gear. It must have looked like any other hunting morning on the Plains — dust rising off the grass, horses snorting in the cool air, children riding beside their mothers.

Then the trap closed. Within moments, gunfire echoed and the whole hunt collapsed into chaos.

John Williamson rode out with another man hoping to arrange some kind of peace talk before things got worse, but bullets snapped around them and forced them back almost immediately. There would be no council that day.

One of the central figures in the fight was Pawnee chief Sky Chief, remembered in Pawnee tradition as a warrior who refused to abandon his people even when the battle was clearly lost. During the fighting he shouted encouragement to the men around him, urging them to stand firm while women and children tried to escape the canyon.

The stories handed down afterward are brutal.

According to Pawnee accounts, Sky Chief killed his own young son rather than allow the child to be captured. As the Sioux closed in around him, he stayed behind on foot to cover the retreat. His younger brother, Dog Chief, managed to ride through the fighting and begged him to withdraw, but Sky Chief refused. He reportedly tore off his bear-claw necklace — the symbol of his leadership — and handed it over, telling his brother to save it from falling into enemy hands.

Meanwhile the canyon had turned into a killing ground.

The Sioux heavily outnumbered the Pawnee, and panic spread fast among the fleeing camp. Women began throwing buffalo hides, saddles, and dried meat from the packhorses in hopes of making the animals run faster. Warriors fired down from both sides of the ravine into the retreating Pawnee below. Survivors later described it less as a battle than a rout.

Ten miles away in the little settlement of Culbertson, people could hear the gunfire rolling across the prairie.

By afternoon, U.S. cavalry troops from nearby Fort McPherson rode into the canyon. The first bodies they found were women. Army surgeon David Franklin Powell later recalled counting fifty-nine dead Pawnee scattered through the ravine, though estimates would climb much higher in the years afterward.

Back in the Sioux camps, victorious warriors returned carrying scalps and celebrating the fight. A young Lakota boy who later became the well-known Luther Standing Bear remembered the excitement that swept through the village as the warriors rode in.

For the Pawnee, though, the loss hit like a hammer blow. News reached the reservation a few days later, bringing mourning and panic. Survivors traveled east toward Plum Creek, wounded and exhausted, where doctors treated whoever was still alive.

That hunt in 1873 would become the last major buffalo hunt the Pawnee ever made in Nebraska.

Pawnee Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Matt Reed writes:

As many as 150 Pawnee warriors, including Curly Chief, Riding In, and Ruling His Son, among others, held off the attacking Lakota and sent the women, children, and horses into the six-mile-long canyon to flee toward the Republican River. At the end of the day, at least 75 Pawnees, and perhaps double that number, were killed and left within and atop the canyon walls. The slaughtered Pawnees at Massacre Canyon were buried in place within the canyon, while survivors returned to Genoa on foot and by railroad. Within less than a year, the Pawnees left their homeland of Nebraska for a reservation in Indian Territory in Oklahoma.

In the spring of 2021, a cooperative between the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office (NeSHPO), Nebraska State Archeology Office (SAO), and Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma formed to archeologically research the site. To read more about this recent research and findings visit the Nebraska State Historical Society here.

In 1779 the British military planners in London desperately wanted to secure the corridor of the Mississippi River against both Spanish and Patriot activity. Their plans included expeditions from West Florida to take New Orleans as well as several expeditions to gain control of the Upper Mississippi, such as the small town of St. Louis.

The incentive was twofold, to surround the Patriots and cut off any opportunity for reinforcements while also taking charge of the lucrative fur trade. And so Patrick Sinclair, the military governor at Fort Michilimackinac, had traders find interested tribes in an expedition against St. Louis. Sinclair offered the fur traders the opportunity to control the fur trade in the upper parts of Spanish Louisiana as an incentive to participate.

The Spanish controlling St. Louis caught wind of the plans and being well aware of the importance of their position began making their own plans for a counter. In the spring of 1780, Lieutenant Governor Fernando de Leyba, a captain in the Spanish Army, hurriedly ordered defenses to be built. But that was easier said than done for their humble garrison.

He was forced to ask the villagers for voluntary contributions to pay for the materials and masonry work. Leyba gave four hundred piastre of his own money and asked the residents for another six hundred. The villagers stepped up to meet the quota, and also volunteered four hundred days of labor without pay. Since that side of the village was the most exposed, work began first on the west tower situated on the hill above the village (now Fourth and Walnut Streets downtown St. Louis). As it neared completion Leyba ran out of funds and at the time of the battle the tower still had no roof. (Some of the merchants could have afforded more, but many of them had not been paid for supplies furnished to George Rogers Clark.) With no show of support from New Orleans, the people felt abandoned by their government in the face of impending attack. As the most visible symbol of that government, Leyba was in a delicate position.

With a force of only 197 men, 168 of whom were inexperienced militia, it was highly probable that the opposing British and Native combined force of 1,000 would overwhelm the Fort San Carlos. However, Leyba appealed to François Vallé, a 64-year-old French inhabitant, former captain of the French militia, who was located 60 miles to the South of the fort at the site of the French Colonial Sainte Genevieve. Valle sent his two sons and 60 well-trained and equipped French militiamen to help defense.

The original plans incorporated a fort with four corners featuring stone towers. But as time and resources ran out, a makeshift replacement for the other three towers was made with entrenchments. Lieutenant Picote de Belestre, one of St. Ange’s officers who had transferred to the Spanish service, supervised the digging of more than a mile of trenches around the village.

The lone circular limestone tower stood about 30 to 40 feet tall and 30 feet wide. It was equipped with five cannons and provided a commanding view of the surrounding wilderness.

On May 25, British commander Hesse sent out scouting parties to lay eyes on the upcoming situation at St. Louis. However, the scouts were not able to get close enough for any valuable reconnaissance due to the presence of workers (including women and children) in the fields outside the village.

On the morning of May 26th Hesse split his force, sending 300 Natives across the river to attack Cahokia, while the larger remaining force arrived near St. Louis about 1pm.

Imagine Hesse’s surprise to step from the woods and lay eyes on an imposing stone tower jutting out of the hilltop. Armed with canon and sharpshooters, to boot. As the British force came into view a warning shot was fired from the tower. The attack began as the Sioux and Winnebagoes led the way, followed by the Sauk, Meskwaki and fur traders, including Hesse, in the rear.

From the tower, Leyba directed the defense and gave the order to open fire on the approaching enemy from the trenches and tower when they came in range. On the first volley, most of the Sauk and Meskwaki fell back, leaving many of the other participants suspicious of their motives in joining the expedition.

The Wapasha and the Sioux warriors persisted for several hours in attempts to draw the Spanish defenders out, going to the extent of brutally killing captives they had taken in the fields. However, Leyba refused to grant permission for a sortie, despite the angered townsfolk. The attackers eventually withdrew and headed north, destroying crops, livestock, and buildings as they went. Meanwhile on the other side of the river, Ducharme’s attack on Cahokia was easily repulsed thanks to the timely arrival of George Rogers Clark’s reinforcement. Clark’s reputation as a brutal frontier fighter made the Native force reluctant to pursue the attack.

Unfortunately the tower no longer stands. This is quite a shame. I would have loved to have seen it along with its surrounding trenches and walls. The original site, rather humorously, is located from the center field wall of Busch Stadium back through the batters eye and into the Ballpark Village and Gateway Arch National Park. A monument stands just outside of the stadium (right next to Starbucks), commemorating the battle that took place 246 years ago.

To read more about this obscure American Revolution battle, check out Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 1764–1980 by James Neal Primm (1998).

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David’s frontier artwork has been inspiring folks internationally since the bi-centennial. His works are displayed in collections like the Booth Western Art Museum, Tennessee State Museum, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. He has even painted celebrities like Wes Studi (The Last of the Mohicans) and William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys.

In my excitement, I decided to write David an email to tell him what an honor it was for me share an issue with him and explain how much his work has inspired my music. In doing so, I discovered that he has only lived 25 minutes away all these years. Wild! My email was replied to and before I knew it I found myself sitting on his back porch sipping a cup of coffee discussing the wild frontier with the very man I had looked up to since my youth.

It’s amazing to me how God weaves people and events through your life that you never see coming. Or how things that you never thought possible just become normal in a matter of moments.

David and I are now good friends and I have met many other great friends through him. And that’s who David is. His artwork connects people. It brings people with similar passions of American history together. You might say his artwork is a middle ground for lovers of the Middle Ground.

Today, much in the same way that David’s paintings hang in my recording studio to inspire me as I write and record, David routinely plays my Hawken Horse records while he paints. I can’t think of a greater honor.

Of David’s work "Up the South Slope” will always be a favorite for me because of what it represents. But literally all of his artwork has inspired me over the years. I want to highlight a few of my favorite David Wright works. The titles are in the captions.

And if you haven’t heard, David has a new book available covering the span of his career called Historian With A Brush. I highly recommend it, especially if you don’t have the wall space for paintings and prints. You can grab a copy of the book for your coffee table and flip through a table top gallery. It’s a great addition to any frontier enthusiast’s library.

You can buy prints and books at his website and you can also follow him on Facebook.

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Many people know that “Promentory” is an orchestration of the tune “The Gael” by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean from his 1990 album The Search. But few know that the soundtrack was originally supposed to be electronic music. You read that right.

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