The Prince of Serendipity Strikes again for Richard Clow and “Rough Enough”

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

Talk about a really amazing coincidence today! Out of the blue comes an email from one of my new followers who just happens to be the Great-Great – Step – Grandson of Richard Headley Clow (1847 – 1926) CW veteran 1864-65) about whom I wrote the book “Rough Enough” in 2013. Check it out!.

The really neat thing is this, and I quote from his note to me:

” I have one letter from Richard Clow to his father from Petersburg another from later describing an attack on a wood cutting party. Homesteading documents I have as well. I also have grandpa Clow’s dad’s saber and saddle carbine.”

What it looks like is, that out of the blue we have another connection back to Petersburg, VA where Richard was in the 56th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry after joining up in Boston during the Civil War.

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Then there appears to be another letter about an Indian attack at Fort Buford, Dakota Territory about 1869-72 when Richard was there, at a totally different site from the one which I describe in the book.

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Additionally! We may now located the saddle carbine and sword that Richard Clow would have carried as First Sergeant at Fort Buford, D.T. in 1869 – 1870 See Fort Buford before he mustered out of the 13th Infantry.

All current artifacts known to have belonged to Richard Clow are now in The Museum of the Rockies on Montana State University Museum Info. His original letters and diary are in the Montana State Library with copies in “Rough Enough.”

I’m hoping to get a copy of the letter and photos of the two weapons with permission to put pictures on my blog and also put that info into the Baker Camp, OR newsletter for the SUVCW.

Keep posted!>)