1st Cavalry Bn, California, CSA?

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Pat Holscher
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What unit was this?
IMGP3143.JPG
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Headstone at the Ft. Fred Steele, Wyoming. The bleakest historical site in Wyoming.
Todd
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A VERY good question - I would think that this being a PRIVATE marker, vs. a standard government marker, is telling. Confederate war dead as well as Union are authorized a government-issued marker.

Looks like the burial was registered / approx date of death October 1, 1874.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... d=42487318

J Jefferson Standifer
1832–1874

Birth ABT. 1832 • Prob TN
Death 01 OCT 1874
Todd
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Pat Holscher
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Wow. That's quite a biography, and not a very PC one.
Pat Holscher
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This is obviously a newer marker, and this is a very desolate post cemetery. There's only one other surviving marker (and a bunch of numbered cement post for where graves had been, and maybe a few are. I wasn't able to examine the other marker as a rattle snake blocked my path.

Anyhow, I wonder how somebody even found this grave to have a newer marker installed?
Todd
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Pat Holscher wrote:This is obviously a newer marker, and this is a very desolate post cemetery. There's only one other surviving marker (and a bunch of numbered cement post for where graves had been, and maybe a few are. I wasn't able to examine the other marker as a rattle snake blocked my path.

Anyhow, I wonder how somebody even found this grave to have a newer marker installed?
Makes me think the organization this site belongs to would have the sexton records for the numbered sites. Might be interesting to contact them and find out who inquired for this Standefer and placed the marker. Best I can find out, the 'Twenty-First Century Confederate Legion' is some odd creation of the fringe 'League of the South', or at least closely affiliated with them. :crazy:

From some of the stuff that's attached to this particular Standefer, this marker looks like a misfire... :oops:
Pat Holscher
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Todd wrote:
Pat Holscher wrote:This is obviously a newer marker, and this is a very desolate post cemetery. There's only one other surviving marker (and a bunch of numbered cement post for where graves had been, and maybe a few are. I wasn't able to examine the other marker as a rattle snake blocked my path.

Anyhow, I wonder how somebody even found this grave to have a newer marker installed?
Makes me think the organization this site belongs to would have the sexton records for the numbered sites. Might be interesting to contact them and find out who inquired for this Standefer and placed the marker. Best I can find out, the 'Twenty-First Century Confederate Legion' is some odd creation of the fringe 'League of the South', or at least closely affiliated with them. :crazy:

From some of the stuff that's attached to this particular Standefer, this marker looks like a misfire... :oops:
This is turning out to be quite interesting, I might contact State Parks to see what the deal is. I wonder to what extent they verified that this interesting Frontier fellow was the right one?
Story
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Todd wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:21 pm http://www.carolyar.com/bioJeffersonStandifer.htm

Hmm.... the plot thickens....
Why not contact the blog owner and ask? She might be aware of it.
http://www.carolyar.com/index2.html
Todd
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Story wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:59 am
Todd wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:21 pm http://www.carolyar.com/bioJeffersonStandifer.htm

Hmm.... the plot thickens....
Why not contact the blog owner and ask? She might be aware of it.
http://www.carolyar.com/index2.html
Looks like she quoted this source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=NCObM ... er&f=false

Digging around some ancestry.com searches, it looks like there was a similarly named 'Standifer' that was a confederate out of alabama - at the same time this Standifer was running around the west.

Found a reference in google books - https://books.google.com/books?id=chEBB ... te&f=false

If there was any creditable sourcing in that book, might be interesting.
st_anger87
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Hello,
I know this is an old thread, but I am writing a biography about Jeff Standifer. I am wondering if anyone ever was able to dig up any more information on the marker. I have been in contact with Wyoming State Parks, and they have nothing. I have found that the sign near the cemetery matches the information on the marker, which is strange. The marker was placed sometime after 1992, as it was not there when the state archeologist did a survey there. I have spent the last 7 months trying to track down the 21st Century Confederate Legion. They placed a bunch of these markers in the Key West Cemetary in Florida. The sexton there basically told me that they did not have permission to do so. They tried to put up a bunch of Confederate battle flags, and paint some of the old headstones as well. The most intriguing marker they have placed is on the spot that John Wilkes Booth was killed, which is on the property of the US Army, again without permission.
Anyway, that is the gist of the information I have found but I am still digging. :D
Todd
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Sounds about right - there was an old post on a civil war forum some years ago that can still be googled, that has a reference to a rather cryptic name and po box. Whomever is behind this is a bit on the cowardly side.

The whole business is about as sketchy as a person could imagine. The efforts it took to hunt down a lonely old gravesite that far from their obvious FL base of ops, to guerilla-install a marker on the grave of a fellow whose history has a tenuous confederate connection at best...
st_anger87
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I believe I know the post you are talking about. I sent a letter to that p.o. box last month, it was returned as undeliverable. A google of the name on that p.o. box comes back to a man who is pushing 90, so it could be that he is not even alive still. I was provided with another name by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This man was a former member of that group. I am waiting a response on that. I have also tracked down his old website, via the wayback machine. I am starting to think this is the best candidate so far.

As far as Standifer's connection to the Confederacy, its not as strenuous as first supposed. I have been able to show that his connections were in fact very strong. In a way, I suppose that makes this 21st Century Confederate Legions marker more legitimate.
Todd
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Above all, we shouldn't try to ignore the more than obvious white supremacist ideology that is being conveyed by a '21st Century Confederate Legion' attribution.

Think what you may about confederate history, it's difficult to ignore the fact that a LOT of confederate history, symbols and imagery have been co-opted for political groups in later times for less-than-savory purposes. I would put these particular markers in this category - tasteless and offensive misuse of some poor fellow's grave for a modern political statement.

After all, if the burial is of a legitimate (or even illegitimate*) combatant of the civil war, the government will provide a standard military marker. There's no need to advertise some modern organization - for what little good it's apparently done for them.

* example, Bloody Bill Anderson has a military issue marker, and he was a notorious war criminal.
st_anger87
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*update*
I received a letter from a man claiming to be a member of the Twenty First Century Confederate Legion. Here is what he had to say.

“21CCL is merely an ID code among individuals who look after, & often mark, the resting places of Confederate Patriots. There is no formal organization that I know of. Presumably there are members in all age groups both male & female. Any monument (marker) provider is capable of offering the inexpensive permanent stone marker that members provide at their own expense. It is simply a labor of love.
A nearly 87, I am no long as active as formerly. In my prime, I provided markers primarily in Florida, and occasionally in the northeast & southwest. I don't recall any activity in Idaho. It’s been simply a ‘labor of love’, & remembrance. I am not into newspeak. (over) I happen to have # of copies of the “organizations” signature booklet, the source of my own information. It happened to be published here in KWST (Key West) However the address it provided is no longer valid.”
Todd
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Hmm. Ok.

Doesn't really address that an official DOD marker is authorized for said same Confederate veterans, and would be a similar 'labor of love' to arrange for, have delivered, and have installed, perhaps even with a ceremony.

Versus, say, sneaking into remote cemeteries and emplacing unauthorized markers, with some kind of advertisement for a sketchy, likely supremacist group. Sounds more like they've been trying to avoid heat for some time - may be a tough nut to crack finding out the real story.

And none of that justifies the marker on John Wilkes Booth's death site - honoring a civilian and murderer. Guess they'd have a rough time trying to pull this one at Green Mount Cemetery.
Pat Holscher
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Indeed my reaction is about the same as Todd's. I can't help but note that the largest text on the marker is the "Twenty First Century Confederate Legion" text itself, which is larger than that for the decedent and comes across as some sort of latter day advertisement for something calling itself that, no matter what it is.

Looking around the net these markers have uniformity of design, which suggests more than individual effort, although the organization could surely be pretty loose. The surprise here is that this particular site is so remote that somebody actually took note of this particular location, which is really surprising for this sort of effort.
st_anger87
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Pat and Todd, thank you for saying that because I feel the same way, and was starting to think I was crazy for thinking that. There has to be a larger organization to it. I wrote the gentleman back and requested he send me that "signature booklet" he mentioned he has several copies of. I sent him stamps and an envelope to make it easy for him.
Also Todd, I sent a FOIA request to the Army yesterday to see if they have any info on that Booth marker, particularly if they have removed it.
I reached out all of the monument makers in that area of Wyoming, none of them had a record of making the Standefer marker. I asked one of them for a quote to make one, he said it would be around $600. That doesn't sound like money some hillbillies from the South would have laying around.
Pat Holscher
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st_anger87 wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:42 am
I reached out all of the monument makers in that area of Wyoming, none of them had a record of making the Standefer marker.
These markers, based on the photographs of them, are all quite uniform so there's a central maker somewhere, which is what you are noting.

Way up in this thread I noted that I was pondering contacting State Parks to ask them what they knew. I can only dimly recall doing that, as it was quite awhile back, but if my recollection is correct I caught them during their busy season but they replied they didn't know anything about it. So it seems pretty clear that not only is it a private marker, it was a private effort, and frankly an illegal one as a person isn't supposed to mess around with things in a state park. I may inquire again as I'm curious.

The real oddity oddity of it is that somebody even knew that Standefer had once been buried there (the graves were moved after the post was closed). This location isn't far from the Interstate highway but this is not a well visited location by any means. Indeed, even though its close to the highway, it isn't sufficiently close that a person would note it and then think "I think I'll stop there". The few times I've been there it was a dedicated effort on my part. And of the two or three times I've been there, there was only a single occasion in which other people were there (the most recent). That somebody went there, noted the former location, and then went back with the marker is really surprising, particularly in a region in which running into the grave of a known Confederate veteran is really unlikely. It seems to me that some information on him and all the other decadents once buried there is posted on a display there, and it might have noted his unusual history and maybe some unlikely person from nearby Rawlins came back with the marker, but even that presents really long odds, although the marker obviously got there.
st_anger87
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Pat, you are right on with my line of thinking and why I am so bent on figuring his thing out. More so, Standifer was not a Confederate soldier, as confirmed through both the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He was a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and after he was chased out of Idaho by Federal Troops, he ended up in Mazatlan, where he met with a Confederate spy. Standifer made several trips between Mazatlan, overland through Mexico to Texas, to help men get from California to Texas to join the CSA army. My best theory is that this earned him the marker.
Again though, that is a lot of research for someone to do. To not only connect Standifer with the Confederacy, but also figure out where he was buried and place the marker.
As far as the remains being moved, I have a report that indicates just the military burials were removed. As far as I can tell the civilian ones are still here, including Standifer.

This is the reply I received from Steve Horn, Director of the North Platte Region for State Parks:
Mr. Wade,

"I have no information on site which would direct me to anything about Standifer (Standefer?). Lore, legend and old interpretation make for strange bedfellows. I have had others send information towards this goal and provide a link below which may shed some light on the subject. This is a topic I have not pursued closely and may end up taking down the information as we go through the interpretation at the site.
Best of luck"

The link he provided was to this very forum thread. lol.
Todd
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I recall from earlier google that there was some kind of book about csa spy activity in the Rockies and west. Wonder if a mention of his actions in that kind of readily available source might have inspired someone?

No telling with people - someone made a huge effort to put a govt marker on William ‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson’s grave. That guy was a monster.
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