The connections one person can make with historical figures often transcend a human lifetime. One of those people was Roy Shadrick “Shade” Large. Roy’s grandfather, Bazil Toussaint Charbonneau, Jr., born in 1800, was the nephew of Sacajawea. She later adopted him as her son. As a young man, Roy played end on the Carlisle Indians football team with the legendary Jim Thorpe.
Born in rural Sweetwater County on October 28, 1892, to Bazil Charbonneau’s daughter
Margaret (Ca-kit-sie) “Maggie” Bazil Cody-Carter-Large-Day and Shadrack James Large, he grew up near Ft. Washakie on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Charbonneau’s wife was Nad Zap, translated to English as Broken Nose, an Eastern Shoshone woman.
As was the case with many youngsters on reservations across the United States, Roy went away to boarding school. His destination was in Pennsylvania, at the Carlisle Indian School, which was part high school, part college, and home to the “Fighting Indians” of Carlisle.
Roy was not an American citizen. Aside from a few exceptions, no Native American was considered an American citizen at the time. They couldn’t vote, serve on juries, and had only marginal legal protection, and that came at the federal level. Their children were taken from them and sent far away to boarding schools where the policy of “assimilation” tried to remove all tribal culture, tradition and history.
“Kill the Indian, save the man,” was often heard at these boarding schools.
Despite the prejudice, systemic racism, and hostile treatment, when President Woodrow Wilson declared war on the Central Powers, 15,000 Native American men answered the call.
They weren’t citizens, but most of those 15,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines volunteered.
In another racist twist, in some states these “non-citizens” were drafted by their local draft boards; they couldn’t be citizens, but they could be called to arms to defend a nation they weren’t allowed to join.
Like many young Native men, Roy Shade Large came from a warrior culture.
His Eastern Shoshone ancestors fought the Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota long before Europeans moved into the Wind River Valley.
The Shoshones fought at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 14, 1876, not against the U.S. Cavalry but in support. Chief Washakie and approximately 160 of his men, along with their new allies, the Crow, are often credited with saving Gen. George Crook and his men against the Sioux under Crazy Horse and a large group of Northern Cheyenne.
These were the stories that a young, wide-eyed Roy Large heard after the fire at night.
He went off to Carlisle and studied animal science. Roy’s interest in horses would serve him well in later years when he was overseas in France during the Great War.
Back row, left to right: Alex Arcasa, Stansill “Possom” Powell, Gus Welch, Jim Thorpe – Carlisle Indian School
But first, Large would play a little football for the Fighting Indians.
Carlisle was coached by the legendary Pop Warner. Officially an “independent” team, they played the best college football teams in the Northeast.
In the 1912 season, Large turned 20 midway through the schedule. On his birthday, the Indians rolled over the Toronto All Stars in Ontario, Canada 49-7.
The team finished 12-1-1 that season. They hammered Villanova 65-0, the Syracuse Orange Men 33-0 and the Pittsburgh Panthers at Forbes Field, 45-8. They had wins over Army, Brown, Lehigh, Georgetown and a 0-0 tie with Washington and Jefferson. Their only loss came at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, 34-26 to Penn.
They played in front of sold-out crowds in some of the largest stadiums of the day. Their own small stadium at Indian Field in Carlisle was standing room only.
On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I.
Roy Large enlisted just two months later on June 4.
He was assigned to the Veterinary Detachment, Company D, 4th Engineers.
Roy was an excellent soldier. The combination of a bright, well-educated mind with his rural upbringing on the Wind River Reservation was just what the Army needed.
A letter he wrote to his friends at Carlisle was reprinted in the November 2, 1917, issue of the school’s student newspaper, the Carlisle Arrow and Red Man.
Roy wrote that he was stationed at Vancouver Barracks, Washington. He’d only been in the Army a few months.
“On September first I was made a sergeant,” Roy wrote.
That rapid advancement from private to noncommissioned officer was unprecedented.
There were many other Native American men from Wyoming who joined to fight the “Hun,” as German soldiers were often called.
Harry Reid, a Navajo living in Sheridan, served with the 13th Field Artillery, 4th Division.
Carl Burnaugh, another Eastern Shoshone, served as an Army bugler from October 7, 1917, to December 15, 1919. He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Riverton.
Burt “Yellow Nose” Addison, a Northern Arapaho living near the town of Arapahoe, was just 20 years old when he enlisted. He served in France with the United States Army.
Some young men served but never made it across the Atlantic.
One of those men was a grandson of Chief Washakie, U.S. Army Private John Washakie.
He was a student at the Fort Sill Indian School in Oklahoma when he enlisted.
Born on July 19, 1899, Washakie was just 18 when he joined the U.S. Army.
John trained with the coastal artillery, which provided shore defense against possible enemy shelling or submarine attacks on surface ships.
He was sent to Fort Casey on Puget Sound.
One of the often ignored aspects of Native American men serving in the American military is their lack of resistance to many diseases that men from urban settings had developed immunity to.
These young Native men were largely from isolated, rural areas. Their non-native counterparts from other rural areas suffered from illness more often than men from cities as well.
John contracted acute pulmonary tuberculosis. It was initially diagnosed as pneumonia, but no matter the diagnosis, John Washakie died in the post hospital on May 13, 1918.
He was taken home and buried at the Sacajawea Cemetery at Fort Washakie.
Renowned Eastern Shoshone historian, author, and curator John Washakie is named after Private John Washakie.
The most decorated soldier from Wyoming in World War I was Thomas Daniel Saunders, a member of the Northern Cheyenne.
Thomas was born in Medicine Bow on April 28, 1892.
Though a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, he had Northern Arapaho relatives on the Wind River Reservation.
The relationship between Native Americans and military service was a tenuous one for a long time. During the Plains Wars between 1864 and 1890, Native Americans were considered hostile enemies, but at the same time useful as scouts.
The Army Appropriations Act of 1866 authorized the Army to enlist up to 1,000 Native Americans to serve as scouts.
In 1917, the Selective Service Act created the national draft. Native Americans were technically exempt from the draft, but over 12,000 men waived the exemption to serve in World War I.
Saunders took the waiver, enlisting in Cheyenne in June 1917. He was assigned to Company A, Second Engineers, Second Division.
The work of a combat engineer was among the deadliest in what was arguably the deadliest conflict for soldiers in human history.
Combat engineers had to clear minefields, dig trenches, and roll out thousands of miles of coiled barbed wire. When an attack came, they were at the front of the assault, clearing the wire and mines so the infantry could attack German positions.
On September 12, 1918, Corporal Saunders, with another engineer, cut through barbed wire to lead an advance into the Château de Jaulny. Saunders battled eight German soldiers, and eventually 63 German soldiers surrendered to him.
He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the French equivalent of the Silver Star, for his bravery, after another heroic incident at Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes on October 8, when he led a patrol under heavy German fire.
Upon receiving the award, his commanding officer said, “This soldier has shown himself under trying situations to be far above his comrades, in all operations requiring alertness, coolness, and dependability, backed by fearlessness.”
Saunders remained in the Army after the war. On November 11, 1921, he was one of the six body bearers for the Unknown Soldier in dedication ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery.
General of the Army John J. Pershing personally handpicked Corporal Saunders for the honor guard.
During the ceremony, Crow Chief Plenty Coups placed a war bonnet and coup stick on the coffin of the Unknown Soldier. “I feel it an honor to the red man that he takes part in this great event, because it shows that the thousands of Indians who fought in the great war are appreciated by the white man.”
Saunders was one of only 10 Native Americans to receive the Croix de Guerre.
Saunders died in Los Angeles on November 15, 1947. His body lay at the Los Angeles Morgue for over a week before an article in the Los Angeles Times related the story.
Los Angeles Times – November 26, 1947
Body of World War I Hero Lies Unclaimed in Morgue for Week
“LOS ANGELES – Nov. 26. (AP)—The body of a Cheyenne Indian, one of the pallbearers for the Unknown Soldier in 1921, lay unclaimed in the county morgue for a week, the victim of pneumonia.
Finally he was identified as Thomas D. Saunders, 56, holder of the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre. He was given a military funeral yesterday with the American Legion and Army Engineers participating.”
While the young men were fighting and dying across the sea in France, the people of the Wind River Reservation were active in their own war effort. Volunteers knit sweaters and rolled bandages for the troops. War bonds in Lander, Riverton, Hudson, and Shoshoni were purchased by many Arapaho and Shoshone people, and 1,000 acres were set aside for growing wheat, corn, and barley to be used in the war effort on the reservation.
Native American soldiers had a mystique among the enemy, particularly German soldiers who had grown up reading translations of popular American pulp novels of the late 1800s telling the tales of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo.
On a few occasions, Native American soldiers scalped the German dead, which built even more fear among the “Boche” as the German soldiers were called.
America at the Front – Fullerton Leonard Waldo –
“Red Indians from Wyoming or Colorado were stoics of the high explosive shells and the poison gas as if the calumet went round at the council-fire or the drums beat to a dance.”
The language is repulsive today but was complimentary a century ago.
The story of Roy Large continues after his enlistment in 1917, when he found himself in the Veterinary Detachment of Company D, 4th Engineers.
Veterinary services were a key component of combat in World War I. Trucks, troop carriers, and tanks were beginning to arrive on the battlefield, but from 1914 to 1918 horses and mules were the prime movers of troops and equipment. An estimated six to eight million mules and horses were involved in World War I.
They were as susceptible to machine gun fire, mortars, artillery, bombing, and poison gas as their human counterparts. Keeping them healthy, well-fed, shod, and ready for battle was a key element of success or failure.
The 4th Engineers was created in 1917 and organized at Vancouver Barracks, Washington. That’s where Roy was first assigned.
After a few months, the entire unit was loaded onto rail cars and shipped across the country to Camp Greene, North Carolina, prior to preparing for deployment to France.
The regiment loaded onto the transport ship USS Martha Washington in April 1918 and arrived in France two weeks later.
It took a few months for the American forces to organize, but soon Companies A, B, C, and D were in heavy action against the Germans at Château-Thierry.
The 4th Engineers were major players in the operations. They ensured supplies reached the front, sometimes dropped the reins of their mules to pick up a rifle, and constantly tried to avoid German artillery and aerial bombing.
Young Roy Large had seen two of the world’s great rivers, the Columbia during training and the Rhine while battling the German Army.
Officers noticed that Native American soldiers were more apt to fly into battle with bayonets ready or knives in hand than the rest of the troops.
There was a cultural reason for this.
It was explained to a wide-eyed teenager, Chico Her Many Horses, by Paul Leader Charge, an elder of the Oglala by the time Chico was in his teens in the late 1960s.
Paul was born on October 19, 1894. He lived to be 100, passing on October 10, 1995.
Paul explained why many of the Native American soldiers were so quick to go to the bayonet.
“Paul told me he couldn’t get into the warrior society since he’d only killed enemies with a 30-06,” Chico said. “If you didn’t kill your enemy hand to hand, you couldn’t get into the warrior societies.”
Her Many Horses is one of the most renowned and respected Native American historians in the world.
The standard American Army rifle in World War I was either the bolt-action Springfield or Enfield. Both fired a 30-06 cartridge and were deadly to over a thousand yards, but they didn’t qualify a young Native American fighting as a soldier for the United States Army as a warrior when he went back home.
There are many references by Native American soldiers to killing the enemy with a bayonet and few with a rifle or pistol. Author Fullerton Waldo addressed this when commenting on the letters Native American soldiers sent home.
America at the Front – Fullerton Leonard Waldo –
He makes the letter as pleasant and as cheerful as he can. He passes lightly over the casualties and the deaths of his pals beside him. He says nothing of what it means to kill a man with a bayonet.
How many people at home realize that war is not drilling but killing, that it means not merely knocking over a steeple seven miles away but thrusting inches of cold steel into the abdomen of another human being at two o’clock in the morning?
He cannot write home about that. The children must not know how ghastly a business it is. The friends and neighbors when he gets back, if he gets back, will welcome him with open arms and all their hearts as a hero, but he will not be able to put before them the awful inwardness of his experience.
When the Armistice was signed, Roy Large served with the American occupation forces in Germany. He came home in 1919.
Roy was in combat in the final months of the war, first at Château-Thierry and then at Meuse-Argonne.
Roy returned home and married Margaret Mary Merna in early 1923.
The couple had one child, June Eileen. She was born on November 14, 1923, at the tribal hospital in Fort Washakie.
June grew up at Fort Washakie and on her grandparents’ farm south of Cheyenne. She attended Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas. She met and married Robert Joseph Carlow, a member of the Oglala tribe.
Robert Joseph Carlow was born on May 22, 1921, at Hot Springs, South Dakota. He graduated from Oglala Community School in 1939 and immediately enlisted at Fort F.E. Warren in Cheyenne. After the war was in full swing, he moved to the Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
In a strange twist of fate, Robert’s father, Robert Joe Carlow, was a soldier in the U.S. Army from Rosebud, South Dakota, during World War I. It is not known whether he and Roy Large knew each other in France, but they did know each other soon after when their children were married.
Young Robert Joseph Carlow enlisted in the United States Army in 1939. In 1943, he switched to the airborne.
Carlow was killed on January 8, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge. He was a private in the 3rd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
June lived to be 90, passing away on May 18, 2014, at the Davis Hospice Center in Cheyenne.
A tribute was written to Robert Carlow at Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
“Robert was sent overseas several times for varying durations from 1941-1945. He saw action with the infantry at Attu and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians and later transferred to the paratroopers in 1944. In preparation for Operation Overlord, the 82nd Airborne Division was reorganized. Two new Parachute Regiments, the 507th and 508th Infantry, joined the division. Robert was part of the 507th Regiment. Paratroopers often jumped into unknown territory and they had to be prepared for any encounters and conditions. They often carried 70 pounds of equipment, if not more.
This brave soldier was killed in action on January 8, 1945, in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge. He was awarded the Purple Heart. He was survived by his mother and sister, Eileen Brock, half-sisters and brothers, Wynema DeLong, Phoebe Carlow, Joyce Pourier, Mike Carlow, Ella Carlow and Pat Carlow. Robert was buried at Fort Meade National Cemetery at Sturgis, South Dakota. Robert Carlow will not be forgotten.”
Robert Carlow was one of 405,000 young men and women who never came home from the war in Europe and the Pacific.
Roy Large did return home.
The great-grandson of Sacajawea, who played football with Jim Thorpe at Carlisle and bravely fought for a nation he wasn’t even a citizen of, passed on August 22, 1977, in Cheyenne. He is buried at the Wheatland Cemetery in Wheatland, Wyoming.