Letters From Readers - February 2008 - Wild West

Thank you for the Winchester Model 1894 “Guns of the West” article by Charles M. Robinson III in the June 2007 issue. I, along with Kevin Tierney, ran the “Save Winchester” campaign. Unfortunately, despite having found a buyer that would keep the factory open and production in New Haven, Conn., Winchester/Olin decided to license the name to Browning, another division of the Herstal Group that owned the failed U.S. Repeating Arms. I still have much faith in the Model 94 and other historic Winchester models. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for continuing to make sure that the 94 and the other fine arms made for generations in New Haven are not forgotten. I still hold out hope, no matter how remote the possibility, that we will see that fine model again, either as a Winchester product, or from another American manufacturer.

While I am not one to forget the past, I am also not one to dwell on it. So, I have recently launched the return of Merwin, Hulbert & Co. The Web site (www.MerwinHulbertCo.com) is up and we are taking indications of interest so that when the models come to market they will be what the market wants, which is the way it should be.

I recently encountered John Koster’s article “Survivor Frank Finkel’s Lasting Stand” (June 2007 Wild West). I think that this interesting, well-researched bit of history is a valuable contribution to the Old West’s treasury of wild but true stories. I’ve done a lot of military history research and can appreciate the work by Mr. Koster.

In his zeal to recognize Finkel as a survivor of Custer’s Last Sand, author John Koster makes several bold and erroneous assumptions that do not withstand scrutiny. The author’s thesis is that Frank Finkel was actually August Finckle, who was reported dead with the Custer command. True, both men were of Germanic ethnicity with similar surnames, both stood more than 6 feet tall and both are linked with Company C of the 7th Cavalry. These are tenuous foundations, however, on which to attempt to build a mighty fortress of fact. The facts remain that Frank Finkel was born in Marietta, Ohio (not Berlin, Prussia), that he was born in 1854 (not 1845), that he enlisted under the name Frank Hall (not August Finckle) and that he served as a private and temporarily as a corporal (not as a sergeant). Whether Frank Finkel actually survived Custer’s Last Stand is still debated, but there is no credible evidence that he was Sergeant August Finckle. The best evidence says that he was not.

Allowing the article connecting Frank Finkel with August Finckle is a shoddy piece of editing. Other than height, they share no commonality. August’s body, one of a mid-30s sergeant, was found on the battlefield and ID’d. Frank’s body, which would have been one of a 20-year-old private, was not found by his friends. I am currently aiding a relative of Frank’s in her quest to connect the dots of his life from enlisting under an alias in Council Bluffs to his revelation in Dayton, Wash., some 40 odd years later, which was depicted well in Sole Survivor, by Doug Ellison, whom I have also interviewed. Doug admits that, for now, the story is a “footnote of history”; but an intriguing story nonetheless. We are still searching for links to the 7th that can verify Frank’s story. However, the piece published in your latest issue is poppycock.

I have been a reader and subscriber to your magazine for many years, through the graciousness of my wife who purchased the subscription as a gift to me. She has also purchased a gift subscription for our son John, who is a rancher in Montana. I eagerly await each edition of your magazine and sit down and read it from cover to cover. John P. Koster’s article on Frank Finkel’s surviving the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Greasy Grass) and other articles that you publish are, in my mind, the highest quality and caliber of journalistic art and give the reader vivid descriptions and understanding of the events.

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4 Comments to “Letters From Readers - February 2008 - Wild West”
Mr. Koster is incorrect. Mr. Finkel did claim, in 1921, that he enlisted under the name Frank Hall, and that he was listed among the killed, under that name. It is unfortunate that this preposterous story has been revived as anything but fantasy.

By Michael Wyman on Jun 30, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’ve read Finkel’s entire file and he never claimed he enlisted as
Frank Hall. He said in 1921 that he was the man on the roster —
August Finckle. The records in the Columbia County Courthouse
show that he used the name “Finckle” in the marriage book but
that the spelling drifted from “Finkle” to “Finkel” through the
remainder of the 19th Century. His second wife , a Canadian
national, invented “Frank Hall” , probably after she saw “Berlin,
Prussia” as his (fictitious) brithplace on his 1872 enlistment form.
Despite the documented shift in spelling “Finckle” and “Finkel” had
identical penmanship as confirmed by a psychiatrist, a
criminologist, a police detective, a genealogist and a half-dozen
librarians. John Koster

By John Koster on Nov 4, 2008 at 7:14 pm
PS: Nobody named Frank Hall was killed at the Little Bighorn.
The real Frank Hall was five-foot-seven and deserted in May of
1875, a year before the 7th Cavalry set out for their final
expedition. Finckle was was just over six feet tall with dark hair
and pale eyes. So was Finkel until his hair turned gray. Both men
were bilingual in English and German. Finkel insisted his horse
had been a “roan” and C Company was the only company that
followed Custer mounted on sorrels — roans if they had white
points. The dead 7th Cavalry horse found 80 miles from the
battlefield with a carbine still in the scabbard was — guess what —
a sorrel. Short of DNA or fingerprints, I’d say this case is closed.
We already have multiple signatures and forensic evidence.

By John Koster on Nov 4, 2008 at 7:22 pm
PPS: Frank Finkel never refused to meet with Charles Windolph.
Hermie Billmeyer contacted Windolph only after Frank Finkel
was dead and she needed the pension. (Frank had been prosperous
until and when his first wife died, but Hermie appears to have
involved Frank in the stock market — 1929! - and alienated the
three surviving adult children with some tough dealing on
Frank’s will.) Charles Windolph wrote in the 1940s that he
couldn’t be sure whether the man in the photograph was Finckle
or not because his eyesight had gotten so bad - he was past 90 —
but he didn’t see how anybody could have survived. Remember
that Windolph, an excellent soldier, fought on Reno Hill. didn’t get
to Custer Hill until two days after the battle, and explicited stated
that he went back to find “Finkle’s” body but couldn’t find it.
Finckle broke out with five or six other C Company troopers, all
shortly killed or fatally wounded, just as the battle on Calhoun
Ridge was developing. He himself was shot twice — once in the
side — not the stomach — and once in the foot. He also described
Tullock’s Creek, two branches alkali and the third potable, as Dr.
Charles Kuhlman, a Finkel believer, wrote in the 1950s. Long
before Richard Allen Fox’s archeology, Finkel described a battle
where the soldiers were overwhelmed by rapid gunfire — and as a
sneak attack on an Indian village, which may be part of the
reason some people take such drastic umbrage: in the 19th
Century, Custer’s Last Stand was generally understood by the
public at large to be a “Sioux ambush” though of course the Army
knew better.

By John Koster on Nov 4, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Letters From Readers - February 2008 - Wild West

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