Journal of the Company of Military Historians
57
A Dragoon on Trial: The Quality of Military Justice and the Court-martial of Pvt. Percival Lowe Will Gorenfeld The near-perfect Dragoon Pvt. Percival Lowe would not forget the hot evening of 23 July 1850 at Fort Kearny. The day started off well enough, with Lowe participating in Sunday’s traditional guard mounting. Wearing the impressive dark blue dress uniform, with its tall yellow collar, tails, and polished brass buttons; a tall black shako, topped by a horsehair-plume and with a dancing yellow braid; polished leather accouterments, saddle, valise, and weapons in proper order and oiled, Lowe reported for inspection. After guard mounting, Lowe took his horse into the stable, hung his polished saddle, blanket, and valise onto a rack. He then changed into his fatigue uniform and reported for guard duty. Not in his wildest imagination did he suspect that before the coming of dawn he would be arrested and placed in double irons. Following a bugler’s sounding of “Tatoo” (lights out), all activities at Fort Kearny ceased and guards took up their posts at vital locations about the installation. That summer evening Lowe was stationed as a guard at the stable. All quiet was the night, save the company’s mules that were crowded unhappily into a corral located outside of the stable, and began a loud chorus of braying. When Lowe went on guard duty for his 2300 to midnight shift, both stable and adjacent granary appeared to be locked. In his book, Lowe took some pains to describe the large stable at Fort Kearny. It was “two hundred feet long and forty feet wide, built of sod, with three doors at each end and one in center of building on each side—open windows on both sides about thirty feet apart.” As if arguing his defense in the court-martial, Lowe writes, “Of course no sentinel could get around fast enough to watch these openings in this large building.” He informs us in 1850 the post suffered from the temptation of soldiers to desert to the gold fields of California.1 As a youth, Lowe was an avid reader of books that romanticized and glorified the West, and he sought to be “on the great plains of the West, live among Indians, buffaloes, and other big game, and the mountaineers and trappers of whom [he] had read so much,” at the same time he expected “good board, clothing, medical attention … [and the prospect] of going to the ‘land of gold.’”2 Thus, he pursued adventure, first on the high seas, and then decided to explore the Great Plains. On 16 October 1850, having lied about his age enlisted in the 1st Dragoons. Lowe’s vision of the West reflected those of his contemporaries, among whom were well-heeled lads such as Mathias Baker of Connecticut; James and Charles Hildreth of New York; Thomas Russell of Tennessee; Francis Clarke of England; and English immigrant, James
Bennett of Avon, New York; Mathias Baker of New Jersey; and countless privileged young men who longed to be with the Army as it explored and coursed through the West.3 After leaving the Army, Lowe would pursue a successful career in both business and Kansas politics. Subsequently, in his later years, he would author Five Years a Dragoon, published in 1906, one of the best written books describing the life of an enlisted man in the antebellum Army. Don Russell, having written the introduction to the book’s 1965 reprint, found the original version to be unique in its reference to the 1849-1856 period, which has received scant attention by prior historians. In addition, Russell observed Lowe’s book is one of only a few authored by an enlisted soldier during the period prior to the Civil War.4 Lowe detailed all manner of exciting moments he experienced during his years with the 1st Dragoons, including a detailed account of a desertion which occurred at Fort Kearny in modern-day Nebraska. However, he excluded any mention of the disappearance of a fellow soldier along with two horses resulting in his own incarceration and court-martial. Lowe additionally excludes any mention of the inhumane treatment he received while awaiting a hearing.5 As good as the book is, Lowe’s failure to include any mention of his court-martial is only one of a number of events that are entirely omitted. An example of omission is his close relationship with Bugler Langford Peel where Lowe praises him throughout the entire account, conveniently neglecting to mention the fact Peel had abandoned his wife and child to become a fierce gunfighter known as Farmer Peel, living in Virginia City and other towns in the west, a historical aspect chronicled in Mark Twain’s Roughing It. It turns out Peel was later gunned down in Montana by his best friend.6 Upon completion of his training at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Lowe was assigned to serve in Company B of the 1st Dragoons stationed at Fort Kearny. At the time of Lowe’s enlistment in the 1st Dragoons, Bvt. Maj. Robert Chilton commanded the company. A native Virginian, Robert Chilton graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1837, finishing near the bottom of his class. Following his graduation, Chilton received a brevet second lieutenant’s commission in the 1st Dragoons. After being initially posted at Fort Leavenworth, Chilton served at a variety of Army frontier stations, ultimately gaining a brevet major’s commission in 1847 for his efforts at the Battle of Buena Vista during the war with Mexico. At the outset of the Civil War, Chilton would resign his U.S. Army commission. He then received an appointment to
