Billy Hynes: Cork teen stowaway served in the US Cavalry on the wild frontier

By Paul O’Brien

Dr Paul O’Brien explores the eventful life of Corkonian William F. Hynes, from his time as a soldier in the American Indian Wars through to his career as a Populist politician.

Captain Frank Higginson of the SS Propontis was faced with a problem when his ship from Liverpool via Queenstown (Cobh) docked in Boston on 1 November 1865. Two young stowaways had been discovered on board: William Goode, aged 15 and William Francis Hynes, from Cork city, who gave his age as 16 but was in fact 15 also. The captain held the boys for return to their families but Hynes managed to slip ashore with the help of a sympathetic crew member.

Frontier duty

Hynes next showed up at Carlisle Barracks, Philadelphia, on 25 May 1866, where he enlisted in the famous 2nd US Cavalry Regiment under the assumed name William Jones, “Billy” to his comrades. The barracks were the staging ground for recruits destined for the western frontier.

The recruits went by train to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. From there 100 new soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant J.T. Peale, began the 600-mile march to Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, through wild country abounding with game. At the Forks of the Republican, Billy met his first Native Americans: 150 Cheyenne were hunting buffalo in a massive herd. It took the soldiers four days to march through the herd and the Cheyenne joined them for part of the journey. Chief Bull Bear set up a desperate fight between two of his mounted warriors (armed only with bows) and a large bull buffalo, the latter goaded to fighting fury in response to Lt Peale’s jibe that “buffalo won’t fight”.

At Fort Laramie, Billy joined Troop E of the 2nd Cavalry. His fellow soldiers were a mixed bunch from various states and European countries, many of them fellow Irishmen with differing reasons for joining the frontier cavalry. Billy had never ridden a horse before but following a crash course, he soon saw action when part of his troop was sent to the Black Hills after a Sioux raiding party who had driven off stock.

During this time the great Sioux chief Red Cloud was fighting his Powder River campaign to resist the rush of western expansion which would ultimately destroy the free lifestyle of the plain’s indigenous people. In later years, Billy recounted a desperate pursuit of Sioux warriors who had stampeded and run off a mule herd under the cover of a snowstorm. But Billy had respect and sympathy for their struggle, later describing the Sioux as “uncompromising defenders of liberty”. Despite his personal feelings, he and his fellow soldiers followed orders. He wrote:

“Revenge was not theirs, nor was vengeance or fears
As they rode thro’ a vastness unknown
Midst wide open spaces where wild savage races
Like eagles, were given their own.”

The Trans-Mississippi West, patrolled by relatively few army units, was indeed vast: a million square miles composed of what are now the states of Wyoming, Montana, and North and South Dakota. Troop E was now based out of the newly established Fort Russell in present-day Wyoming. Duties here included the pursuit of “hostiles” (as Washington termed the Native Americans they had forced to rebel), hunting down desperados, rescuing snowbound wagon trains, guarding railroad crews, protecting telegraph outposts and delivering mail to army stations along the Oregon trail from Fort Laramie to South Pass. In the winter of 1866–67, the troop also undertook construction work at Fort Caspar.

Billy was involved in several minor engagements between 1866–67. For example, Troop E soldiers were in action at La Bonte Creek, on 28 September 1866; La Prele Creek, on 1 May 1867, when Billy’s friend Ralston Baker was killed; and near Bridger’s Ferry, on 23 May 1867, when Kerrymen Tom Jordan and Patrick Kelliher died. In the latter engagement, Troop E surprised the attackers of a corralled wagon train, galloping in among the Native Americans in a classic cavalry charge just as they launched the assault. They were also with the Pawnee Scouts that August, as they engaged in a running fight with the Sioux in the valley of the North Platte.

The year 1868 was a busy one for Troop E. Records at NARA show they covered 2,200 miles in all between April and the end of November. The Union Pacific Railroad workers and surveying parties were protected by the troopers, who scouted between the railhead and the North Platte, camping on the trail for more than six weeks at a time.

In April of that year, Troop E also escorted the US government commissioners from Fort Russell to Fort Laramie for the treaty negotiations following Red Cloud’s campaign that closed the Bozeman Trail. These included Generals Alfred Terry, William Tecumseh Sherman and the notorious William Selby Harney, who had overseen the mass hangings of 30 Irishmen in the Los San Patricios Battalion of the Mexican army in 1847. But Red Cloud failed to show up to the negotiations: he didn’t trust the generals and with good reason as time would tell. Later he signed the treaty and adhered to his word, unlike the US government.

In camp and on the trail, Billy entertained his fellow soldiers with a pleasant baritone voice, as well as a mix of Sioux chants and quotes from Shakespeare. He was given to composing verse and liked to ham it up as a stage Irishman. He was a good soldier, who was at home in the hard school of the frontier cavalry. By the time of his discharge on 25 May 1869, aged 19, he had been made sergeant. Billy used his alias William Jones for the duration of his service, which gave rise to a few problems later on when he applied for an Indian Wars pension.

After the frontier

Billy soon found work with the Union Pacific Railroad as a fireman, brakeman, engineer, machinist and conductor at various times. He founded Denver Lodge # 77 (called Rocky Mountain Lodge) of the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, remaining a member for over 70 years. This was a conservative organization adhering to strong Christian principles. It focused on providing fellowship and support to members and their families rather than getting involved in bargaining and strike action.

By 1879 Billy had saved $500 and decided to blow it on an education (he had formerly attended the North Monastery in Cork city). He went to Paris and signed up at the Collège de Sorbonne, taking time off to travel about visiting museums and historic sites. He explored the railroads in Ireland and visited his old hometown, Cork. In Spain, he went to a bullfight which didn’t measure up to the savage encounter he had witnessed at the Forks of the Republican in 1866. During his time abroad, Billy supported himself by writing articles for newspapers and the Firemen’s Magazine. In love with words, he never used one if there was room for ten.

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Returning to Denver, Billy joined the railroad mail service and in 1880, under the editorship of Eugene V. Debs, he was made associate editor of the Firemen’s Magazine. Debs – whose father came from a factory-owning family in France and whose wife openly opposed his political philosophy – became the recognized founder of American socialism. Admired and reviled in equal measure, Debs strove to better the lot of the American worker against the massive strength of corporate America.

Billy entered politics as a Populist and was elected to the Colorado legislature, serving in 1893 and 1894. This was a stormy time in Denver as Populist Governor Davis Hanson Waite sought to curb the influence of corrupt city officials who protected the powerful criminal element, which included the notorious Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith. Hynes became known as “Honest Billy” and was made president of the State Labor Congress in 1894.

The previous year saw a combination of Populists and Democrats succeed in getting the issue of votes for women on the ballot, where it passed by a slim majority. This made Colorado the first state to approve women’s suffrage by popular vote. The next election saw Clara Cressingham, Carrie Clyde Holly and Frances Klock elected to the legislature; they were all Republicans. The Populists went down, including now ex-Governor Waite. Nationwide, however, the Populist movement had lasting effects as both Democrats and Republicans incorporated several of its less radical aims into their own platforms, including Federal income taxation, the direct election of senators and banking reforms. The movement also played a part in the development of powerful rural, urban and labour constituencies that made America modern.

In 1896 Billy – described by the Denver Post as “a stalwart and brainy fighter” – was chosen to represent several organizations before a committee of the US Senate investigating railmen’s working conditions. He spent three years lobbying in Washington. He went on to study law, being admitted to the Colorado Bar on 6 September 1901 and was elected justice of the peace in Denver the same year. Billy had been appointed as a Denver county court judge by 1917.

Billy never lost interest in his native country. Over the years he kept in touch with family in Ireland, including the Egars of Cork. In 1942 the old frontier cavalryman wrote to his Irish relatives promising that the US would take care of the twin forces of evil in the Pacific and Europe then threatening the very foundations of civilization.

In 1943 he published an account of his days in the cavalry: Soldiers of the Frontier. Some of this had previously appeared in the Firemen’s Magazine in the late 1880s as “Frontier Reminiscences”, under the pen name Tim Fagan.

Billy died on 14 February 1946, then well into his 90s. He was pre-deceased shortly before by Helena (Lena), his wife of over 60 years. They had one child, a boy who died young. In 1878 he wrote a beautiful poem for his wife which seems to combine the love of a woman and the beauty of the Western skies:

“I rather the lovelight in my Lena’s eyes
Than the first bright flash of morning light
That shakes the night from yonder skies
And leaves the stars to track its flight

I rather the soft love blush on my Lena’s cheek
Than the golden flood of closing day
That lights the range from peak to peak
And holds the last long lingering ray.”

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The schoolboy of 15 who had stowed away from Ireland in search of adventure in the great land of freedom and opportunity beyond the western ocean had found it aplenty. Cavalryman during the Indian Wars, railroader, scholar, legislator, jurist, advocate for justice in many causes, writer and sometime poet, his long and eventful life spanned a remarkable period in the history of the United States. Billy’s obituarist in the Firemen’s Magazine said,

“though small in stature, he was an intellectual giant who never deserted a friend or a cause … he was gentle and courteous, but he never ran away from a fight.”

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