Carved In Stone: Matthew Davis on Mount Rushmore, Wounded Knee & Medals of Honor, Deadwood, the Lakota, Stone Mountain and the Klan, American Aesthetics, Custer, Whitman, Jackson, and the Black Hills

Support the Archive on Patreon! Follow William Engels's writing on Substack. Who do the Black Hills really belong to? Was George Armstrong Custer a hero, an idiot, or a fanatic? Who carved Mount Rushmore, and what was it supposed to represent (the "apotheosis of Western Civilization?") What happened at Wounded Knee (in 1890, and 1973) - and why does Secretary of War (sic) Pete Hegseth (sick) want to make sure that those Medals of Honor are preserved?

My guest on Hemlock #40 was Matthew Davis, author of A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore available now in bookstores. You can read more about Matthew on his website, https://www.matthewdaviswriter.com/

NOTES

Books:

• The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer

• American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World by David E. Stannard

• Death Sonnet for Custer by Walt Whitman (later titled "From Far Dakota's Canons" in Leaves of Grass:

FROM far Dakota's cañons,

Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the

silence,

Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.

The battle-bulletin,

The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,

The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,

In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter'd horses

for breastworks,

The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.

Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,

The loftiest of life upheld by death, 10

The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd,

O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!

As sitting in dark days,

Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light,

for hope,

From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,

(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,

Electric life forever at the centre,)

Breaks forth a lightning flash.

Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,

I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a

bright sword in thy hand, 20

Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,

(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)

Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,

After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color

Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,

Thou yieldest up thyself.