In His Own Words

Booklet takes historian along on one man’s journey

One of my goals in retirement is to get all my historical materials unboxed, sorted, and properly shelved or filed. Sometimes, when I open a particularly old box, I come across a long-forgotten item which proves of considerable interest. Such was the case last week when I discovered a faded photocopy of The Trail of a Pioneer by Silas M. Shinn.

Consisting of fewer than 100 unnumbered pages, The Trail of a Pioneer is little more than a booklet, but it contains some interesting observations by an early settler in Pope County. This memoir is not well known, with only four copies found in libraries — three in Arkansas and one at Yale University.

Silas Monroe Shinn was born Nov. 18, 1821, in North Carolina, the seventh son and one of 11 children of Silas B. and Elizabeth B. Shinn. Silas and his siblings had a difficult time after their father died early. In 1839, Silas along with many relatives moved to Pope County, near modern Russellville.

The Shinn family would go on to play a large role in the history of Arkansas, especially Pope County. At least four members of the extended family served in the state legislature, and others held county offices. Descendants are still found in Arkansas.

In 1841, Silas Shinn married Letitia L. Maddux, “with whom I lived in love, peace and harmony for nearly 67 years” before she died in 1908. They had six children, but two died in infancy.

Perhaps the most useful part of Shinn’s memoir is his remembrance of the role Arkansas soldiers played in the 1840s war with Mexico. The state militia was poorly organized, so raw recruits comprised most of the Arkansas volunteers sent to Mexico. The Arkansas regiment, which consisted of both infantry and mounted cavalry, had a choice of two well-known but very dissimilar men for regimental commander: the prominent lawyer and Whig leader Albert Pike and the former Democratic governor and congressman Archibald Yell.

Like most Whigs, Pike opposed the war, but he took seriously his militia responsibilities and stifled his criticism. As gregarious as Pike was stuffy, Yell resigned his congressional seat to join the militia. He had no military experience, but that did not prevent his election as regimental commander.

On July 13, 1845, the Arkansas militiamen were mustered into federal service, and five days later the 800 men and 40 wagons of supplies set off for San Antonio. Some difficult times lay ahead.

Facing little resistance at first, the Arkansas troops grew restless, betraying their lack of discipline. On one occasion Gen. John E. Wool, the American commander, had all three regimental officers of the Arkansas militia arrested for refusing to accept a designated campground. Silas Shinn was committed to Yell, and in his memoir he described Gen. Wool as “a very nice looking Commander, very starcy [starchy], a rigid disciplinarian but our men called him ‘Old Granny Wool.’”

Shinn claimed in his memoir that the Arkansas soldiers “suffered … we had the heaviest service laid on us.”

The worst offense committed by the Arkansas troops came on Feb. 10, 1847, when about 100 militiamen massacred a number of unarmed Mexican civilians. Shinn implies in his memoir that he was not a part of the massacre, but he described how “the Mexicans, many of them on their knees, begged for their lives.” It is not surprising that the Arkansas cavalrymen became known as the “mounted devils of Arkansas.”

Shinn’s memoir includes a vivid description of the decisive Battle of Buena Vista. As he rode across the battlefield, “it was a very sad sight, many were dead. Many were wounded so bad that they could not get away, all begging for water. The enemy had gone over some of the field, and had turned the dead over, searching for money or something. Oh, the ghostly sight of it!”

Shinn devoted much of his memoir to his trek to California during the gold rush of 1849-50. Shinn has no reluctance to admit being smitten with gold fever: “… it aroused in me such a desire for a part of the yellow metal, that I concluded to leave my wife and children … Oh how crazy we all were for the bright and shining gold.”

Leaving from Fort Smith in the spring of 1849, Shinn traveled with 153 other men in 53 wagons. The migration was highly organized. Each wagon had to be stout enough to carry at least 2,000 pounds, and four yokes of oxen (eight animals) were required to pull the wagons. No more than four men were assigned to each heavily laden wagon: “There was to be clothing, guns, ammunition and a common fund of 50 dollars to each wagon.”

Shinn never got rich from his California mining. He returned to Arkansas in the summer of 1850 carrying 98 ounces of gold dust. He returned permanently to California in 1855, his wife and children following soon after.

The family settled in Sonoma County where it prospered. Shinn died at age 92 in 1914, six years after the death of his wife.

Note: I will be giving a lecture on the history of the Butterfield Overland Mail in Arkansas at 10 a.m. Friday at the College of the Ouachitas in Malvern.