Legends of the Old West - THREE GUARDSMEN Ep. 3 | Chris Madsen: “Soldier of Fortune”

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Chris Madsen was a Danish immigrant with a colorful past, but one thing was certain: he loved action. When he moved to America, he joined the Fifth Cavalry and fought on the Northern Plains for nearly 15 years. Then, he traded his uniform for a Deputy U.S. Marshal badge and started chasing bandits across Oklahoma Territory. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join To advertise on this podcast, please email: [e-mail] For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On January 17, 1876, 26-year-old Christian Madsen-Vormos arrived in New York City. Three weeks earlier, he left his home country of Denmark. Now that he was safely in America, he needed a job. Only four days after arriving in the U.S., the short, red-headed young man with blue eyes enlisted in the Army. He signed in using the name Chris Madsen, which he kept for the rest of his life. And when he told his fellow recruits about his previous military experience, they couldn't believe their ears. At age 13,

Madsen said, he fought with the Danish army in a famous skirmish between Prussia and Denmark. At age 20, he left Denmark for good and joined the French Foreign Legion. He joined just in time to fight in the Battle of Sedan, in which Napoleon III was captured. More than 100,000 of his fellow soldiers were also captured, but Madsen managed to stay free. He spent the next four years as a soldier of fortune, drifting from conflict to conflict wherever muscle was needed. He even spent time in Africa, presumably helping set up colonial interests for European powers. In 1874, about a year and a half before coming to the States, Madsen drifted to Norway. He was offered a job at a railroad shipping office.

Somehow it turned into a job on whaling ships. On one of those ships, he met a man who served in the U.S. Civil War ten years earlier. The man's identity isn't clear, but he told Madsen stories about life in the American Army. The now 25-year-old Madsen was intrigued and decided to go see for himself. He bought passage to the U.S. and made his way to the New York City Enlistment Office. At that point, he began a career in the U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement, and that's why we know his name today. Except, virtually none of that story is true. The only part that is true is Madsen traveled from Denmark to the United States and enlisted in the U.S. Army. It's also

true that Madsen helped bring law and order to Oklahoma Territory. His story as a deputy U.S. marshal is mingled with two other deputies, Heck Thomas and Bill Tillman. Together and separately, the three men took down scores of bandits, most notably the Doolin Dalton gang. The trio of lawmen became known as the Three Guardsmen. We've already told most of Heck Thomas' story, and now it's time to focus on the colorful character of Chris Madsen. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch.

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Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And this season, we're telling the stories of the Three Guardsmen, a trio of U.S. Marshals who neutralized some of the worst criminals in the Old West. This is Episode 3, Chris Madsen, Soldier of Fortune.

According to Danish historians, Chris Madsen was born in 1851 in a village on an island. He lived at home with his parents until he was 14 and then got a job assisting the pastor at his local church. Six months later, he enrolled at a nearby agricultural school where he learned basic farming skills. At 16, he moved home again but just for a year. In May of 1868, he found a job in the big city of Copenhagen, working for a wine dealer. That was where his trouble started. Madsen worked for the dealer for all of six months, at which point he either got fired or became bored and left. He worked odd jobs for a while but couldn't support himself. He traveled to Sweden in hopes of finding employment, but that failed too. In May of 1869, he returned to Denmark, but he was so broke that he couldn't

make it all the way back to his parents' house. He begged the police department to help him get home to the village. They gave him a little money, and he started his journey. little money and he started his journey. But he never made it all the way home. It seems that, while on his way, he met a person who could help with his money problems. The person explained to him that all he needed was something called a beggar's letter. That was a note that explained he had lost all his belongings. When a person gifted him money or food or something else of value, the contributor signed the note so that others could see who had been so generous. Madsen decided to take the scheme a little bit further. He forged the names of famous people on his letter so others would be more inclined to help him. And they were, until the scheme

caught up with him. A man was ready to give Madsen some money, and then the man saw his own name on the letter as someone who had previously donated. Madsen had forged the man's name and then happened to meet the guy in person. Madsen was arrested for the first time and spent five days in jail for fraud, but that was just the beginning of his crime spree. Madsen spent half of the next six years in jail for vagrancy, begging, fraud, and forgery. Most of it was in Denmark, but he managed to get arrested in Sweden too. In all fairness, both countries were experiencing a high rate of unemployment at the time.

He may not have had much of a choice. Madsen started using aliases in order to stay one step ahead of the law. Using one of his fake names, he managed to get a job as an engineer in Norway. But by that time, Madsen's criminal activity was so well known that wanted posters followed him to Norway. so well known that wanted posters followed him to Norway. Someone recognized him and he was arrested again. Norway sent him back to Denmark, and Danish authorities decided they were done with Chris Madsen. The young fraudster served a little less than two years in prison. When he got out, the government bought him a one-way ticket to America, where he could be someone else's problem. He arrived in New York City in January 1876, where he promptly enlisted in the U.S. Army. A few days later, Madsen wrote to the Danish consul asking for a loan. This practice seems

outrageous today, but in the late 1800s, it was not unusual for a recent immigrant to ask his or her home country for a small loan in order to get established in the United States. It seems Denmark gave Madsen a loan, but a few months later, he said he couldn't repay it. He claimed he was in the hospital after an accident involving a horse. Like most of his stories, it was probably false. But soon enough, Madsen experienced his first taste of real, verifiable action. And once he did, he couldn't resist being in the center of it, for better or worse. According to Madsen, he joined the 7th Cavalry, the regiment led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Later in life, he claimed that he and a group of others in the 7th were transferred against their wishes to the 5th Cavalry. That transfer prevented them from

participating in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But of course, Madsen was never in the 7th. He enlisted in the 5th Cavalry, and that's where he stayed. But less than a month after that fateful battle in June of 1876, he did witness something that became a significant event in the legend of one of the most famous men in America. He watched Buffalo Bill Cody fight a Cheyenne warrior named Yellow Hair. After Custer's defeat, the Army heard rumors that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne were going to leave the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies

in northwestern Nebraska to join the armies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The 5th Cavalry was on its way to join the hunt for Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and then it was told to detour to stop the warriors from leaving the reservations. By mid-July 1876, the 5th Cavalry was in position along the most likely route between the reservations and the armies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The cavalry was stationed in an isolated spot in northwestern Nebraska and camped near a stream that is now called Warbonnet Creek.

Exhausted soldiers positioned themselves on hills and on the edges of ravines to keep watch overnight. Trooper Chris Madsen was on a hill to the north of the camp with a telescope. In the earliest light of dawn on July 17th, lookouts spotted a small band of Cheyenne riding through the hills. Buffalo Bill Cody was the chief scout for the 5th Cavalry. He had left the stages of the East to rejoin his old unit for the great campaign against the tribes of the Northern Plains. He and the 5th Cavalry's commanding officer watched the Cheyenne and wondered why they seemed so fascinated by something to the West. That something turned out to be the wagon train of supplies that was on its way to the cavalry's camp. The wagon train and the two couriers who

rode out in front had no idea they were about to be ambushed by a scouting party that would quickly turn into a war party. Cody suggested that he and a few other scouts ride out and scatter the small band of Cheyenne. That would free up the rest of the cavalry to battle the larger force of warriors that everyone assumed was following the Cheyenne. Cody raced toward the wagon train on his powerful horse and quickly outdistanced the rest of the scouts. He rounded a hill and nearly ran headlong into Yellow Hair, the warrior who led the group of Cheyenne. Chris Madsen had a good view of the fight that followed from his hilltop observation post. Years later, he of the fight that followed from his Hilltop Observation post. Years later, he described the fight between Yellow Hair and Buffalo Bill in a manuscript.

Here's some of what he wrote. The instant they were face to face, their guns fired. It seemed almost like one shot. Cody's bullet went through the Indian's leg and killed his pinto pony. The Indian's bullet went through the Indian's leg and killed his pinto pony. The Indian's bullet went wild. Cody's horse stepped into a prairie dog hole and stumbled but was up in a moment. Cody jumped clear of his mount. Kneeling, he took deliberate aim and fired the second shot.

An instant before Cody fired the second shot, the Indian fired at him but missed. Cody's bullet went through the Indian's head and ended the battle. Cody went over to the fallen Indian and neatly removed his scalp while other soldiers gave chase to the Indian's companions. There is no doubt about it. Buffalo Bill scalped this Indian, who, it turned out, was a Cheyenne sub-chief called Yellow Hair. The fight was eventually known as the Battle of Warbonnet Creek, though the only fighting that day was between Buffalo Bill and Yellow Hair. Cody embellished and transformed the fight for use in his next stage play,

but the exaggerations and the dramatic license don't take away from the fact that he won a rare one-on-one duel with a Cheyenne warrior. And it was one of the few verified instances of a white person scalping a warrior. And Chris Madsen had a front row seat to the whole thing. It was his first real taste of conflict on the Northern Plains. And he wanted more. After Buffalo Bill killed Yellow Hair, and after the 5th Cavalry completed its mission to block warriors from reaching the armies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,

the 5th returned to Fort Laramie to regroup and resupply. fifth return to Fort Laramie to regroup and resupply. Chris Madsen had been in the United States for seven months, and for most of that time it had been winter and spring. Now it was mid-July, deep summer. When he arrived at Fort Laramie in southeastern Wyoming, he was blown away by how hot and desolate it seemed. He had never seen swarms of grasshoppers like the ones around Laramie. it seemed. He had never seen swarms of grasshoppers like the ones around Laramie. He was jealous of the men who were able to find mosquito netting. They tied it around their faces to keep the jumping bugs from cutting their skin. The cavalry only stayed at Fort Laramie for a couple days. Then they started marching north toward Goose Creek near the Wyoming-Montana border.

General Crook and an army of more than a thousand soldiers had been camped on Goose Creek for two months since they fought the Battle of the Rosebud one week before the Battle of the Little Big Horn. But now, Crook needed to chase Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the 5th Cavalry was ordered to join him for the hunt. During the trek north, Madsen and a soldier named Milner acted as couriers and mailmen. They rode the trail between camps to deliver dispatches and letters. Early in their time as mail carriers, they had one of those experiences that twists your stomach when you look back on it with the benefit of hindsight. One morning, they got a late start. It was well after dark when they reached the spot where they should have caught up to the rest of the cavalry. They found the cavalry's campsite, but the men had

moved on. In front of Madsen and Milner were two trails. One went to the left, and one went to the right. Madsen could see that one of the trails featured heavy imprints of wagons and the other was made by a small party of men on horses. Madsen remembered that Buffalo Bill always told him to keep the Bighorn Mountains on his left as he rode the trail. That way he would never get lost as he tried to find the cavalry. And Madsen claimed it was Cody who taught him to never underestimate Native American tribes. With Cody's teachings fresh in Madsen's mind, Madsen studied the two trails. He wondered if warriors might have created the horse-only trail

in the hopes of luring any straggling cavalrymen right into their camp. Madsen convinced Milner that they should make a wide circle around this area to reach the rest of the 5th, and they successfully made it to the cavalry camp. Madsen said that a year later, he was riding past the same spot with a captured Cheyenne scout who confirmed his suspicion. The scout said that he and his raiding party had made the second trail and were waiting to ambush any soldiers who chose the wrong path. And in that scenario, soldiers who made the wrong choice would have suffered exquisite tortures. Madsen and Milner avoided that fate, but little did they know that there were tortures of

a different kind in their future, and they wouldn't be alone in their suffering. The 5th Cavalry completed the journey to northern Wyoming and joined General Crook's army. The combined force was the largest American army on the northern plains, and it would get larger in the near future. Crook's soldiers would unite with the remaining men of the 7th Cavalry. The survivors of the Little Bighorn had rested and recovered along the banks of the Yellowstone River for several weeks while they waited for supplies and reinforcements. When they received both, they marched out in search of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. They would soon rendezvous with Crook's column to make one last big push against the tribes of the Northern Plains.

And it did not go well, especially for Chris Madsen and the men of General Crook's Army. In August 1876, Crook's Army united with the 7th Cavalry under the command of General Alfred Terry. The new force of roughly 4,000 soldiers named itself the Yellowstone Expedition, and its goal was to continue the campaign to kill or capture the tribes who remained free on the northern plains. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the largest Native American village in history split into two groups. One followed Sitting Bull, and the other followed Crazy Horse. The U.S. Army didn't know it at the time, but Sitting Bull's village was probably out of reach. It made its way north to Canada, but Crazy Horse's village moved east toward the Black Hills. The new combined army moved in that direction, but the full force

didn't last long. There was friction between General Crook and General Terry right from the beginning. Within a few days, Crook took his army and separated from Terry. Crook went his own way, and it nearly destroyed his men. destroyed his men. The sanitized, politically correct label for the ordeal that followed is the Starvation March. Many of the men who endured the experience were more blunt and raw about it. They called it the Horse Meat March. After Crook's column separated from Terry's column, Crook's confidence in his ability to find Crazy Horses' village produced terrible side effects. Crook led his men toward the Black Hills in an area that would soon be part of Dakota Territory. His men had severely limited rations, and the

weather turned against them. It was early September, and it was cold and wet and often foggy. It was early September, and it was cold and wet and often foggy. Madsen remembered how the pounding rain spoiled the food that was packed on the horses and mules. It never let up, so the infantry and cavalry wore the same wet clothes for weeks. Famished soldiers collapsed on the trail. Horses died from exhaustion or had to be put down when their legs broke in the mud. Eventually, soldiers were ordered to shoot and butcher their own horses for food. The men were starting to go crazy.

Many had now lost their horses and their boots and were walking barefoot. Madsen and his friend Milner were good hunters and they were able to kill some antelope, but they didn't have a chance to distribute the meat to the hungry men. They learned that members of the troop had discovered a Native American camp somewhere up ahead. Madsen said that they heard an officer and a contingent of cavalry had stumbled into a camp while most of the warriors were away hunting. The officer and his men needed help, so Madsen and Milner hurried toward the camp. It was pouring rain, and they could barely see a few feet in front of them. But Madsen clearly heard the bullet that whizzed by his ear when they were about a quarter of a mile from the camp. Madsen looked around and saw warriors charging out of the woods.

He raced his horse into a ravine and dropped out of the range of gunfire. He had inadvertently walked right into an engagement that became known as the Battle of Slim Buttes. And in typical Madsen fashion, his version of the sequence of events that led to the battle wasn't entirely accurate. When General Crook's soldiers were at their lowest point, he ordered a detachment of 150 men to hurry ahead of the main column to reach Deadwood. They were supposed to buy supplies and then rush back to the starving troops, but they never made it. Instead, they stumbled into a small village of a Lakota chief named American Horse. a chief named American Horse. American Horse was a distinguished warrior who had fought in Red Cloud's War and was credited with killing Captain William Fetterman in the famous Fetterman Fight,

or Fetterman Massacre, in December 1866. Ten years later, American Horse was one of the prominent war chiefs at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But now, two and a half months after the battle, he and his village of about 40 lodges had separated from Crazy Horse's village. American Horse was reportedly leading his people to a reservation when Crook's detachment discovered their camp. That initiated the Battle of Slim Buttes and the last chapter of American Horse's story. Buttes and the last chapter of American Horse's story. The detachment of troops found the village on the night of September 8, 1876. They attacked at dawn on September 9 and quickly scattered the villagers. The main body of General Crook's troops arrived at the village around mid-morning and secured the site.

They ransacked the village and were overjoyed when they discovered 5,000 pounds of meat that was being stored for the winter. They weren't going to starve anymore, though of course the villagers probably would when the soldiers took the meat. During the initial skirmish, American Horse and several others fled to a cave in a deep ravine. They held out for more than a day, but after the constant gunfire from the soldiers killed or wounded most of the holdouts, American Horse offered to surrender. He had also been gravely wounded, and he died a short time later. Crazy Horse and his warriors tried to ride to the rescue, but they were badly outnumbered and were turned back by Crook's army. The soldiers burned the village and resumed their march on September 10th. They were still miserable

and in terrible shape and had about a hundred miles to walk before they reached the mining camps around Deadwood, and the threat of danger was still present. Madsen and his friend Milner rode away from the column to go hunting, as was their custom. The 5,000 pounds of meat from the village had been a blessing, but it wasn't nearly enough to sustain 2,000 men for the next 100 miles. So Madsen and Milner kept hunting. Milner found some apple trees in a canyon. He filled his stomach and then his saddlebag. And Madsen didn't worry when he heard gunshots in the distance. He figured Milner had spotted an antelope or a deer. But when Madsen reached the source of the sound, he found Milner's horse lying dead.

A little further on, he found his friend. He was splayed out on the ground with his clothing torn from his body. His chest was cut open and his scalp was gone. Madsen saw a group of warriors riding away in the distance. That was the last notable action for Chris Madsen on the expedition, and the Battle of Slim Buttes was the last engagement for Crook's Army in that part of the campaign. The ragged troops trudged into Custer City a few weeks later and spent several more resting and recovering from more than two months of marching with very few positive results.

Madsen estimated that in the five and a half months that he was on the campaign, he rode at least 1,500 miles. And in spite of all the hardships, Madsen wanted to continue with the Army. For the next 14 years, he crisscrossed the northern plains with the cavalry as it finished the subjugation of Native American tribes. His time was peppered with terrifying episodes that were sandwiched between long treks filled with loneliness. He fought bravely at the Battle of Milk Creek in 1879, when Ute warriors killed Indian agent Nathan Meeker and ten others in northern Colorado.

agent Nathan Meeker and ten others in northern Colorado. Madsen narrowly survived a bout with something called Mountain Fever that killed two of his fellow soldiers. As his competence as a soldier increased, so did his responsibility and reputation. In 1883, when President Chester A. Arthur traveled across the country to tour the Yellowstone area, Madsen was picked to lead the president's advance team. Two years later, in May of 1885, he was reassigned to the Southern Plains, to Fort Riley, Kansas to be exact. There, at a Christmas Eve party, he met the woman who cured his loneliness. And she set him on the path to becoming a lawman in Indian territory. And that put him on the trail to tangle with the most feared outlaw gang in Oklahoma, the Doolin-Dalton gang. Next time on Legends of the Old West, Chris Madsen trades his cavalry uniform for a deputy

U.S. Marshal badge. Along with the other guardsmen, he spends the early 1890s tracking and fighting killers and thieves in Oklahoma Territory, most notably the Doolin Daltons. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Thank you. our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Julia Bricklin. Original music by Rob Valliere. Copy editing by me, Chris Wimmer, and I'm your host and producer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, or wherever you're listening.

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