The following new message has been added to the Group 12 board under the new topic of Group 12, Website Update... -------------------------------- I updated the Group 12 website, to include the famous grandson of Joseph "Logtown Joe" Williams, b. 12 Oct 1775, d. 5 Oct 1840, Surry Co., NC. His name was Col. Richard Irving Dodge, 1848 graduate of West Point. He was the son of Susan Williams and Col. Richard James Dodge. Dodge is the subject of the new book, "Colonel Richard Irving Dodge: The Life and Times of a Career Army Officer", by Wayne R. Kime; University of Oklahoma Press; Norman; 2006. Prewar experience was fighting Comanches in Texas, under Lt. James Longstreet. After Dodge fought with distinction on behalf of Union forces at the Battle of Bull Run, he requested a transfer to a noncombatant position in New York. He did this rather than fight against his mother's family (Williams' were from North Carolina, and Dodge's from New York). Later Dodge took part in the Great Sioux War, exploration of the Black Hills, established forts on the frontier. "Dodge admired Plains Indians for their bravery and military prowess, and he lamented the end of their life brought on by confinement on reservations and the wholesale slaughter of buffalo...he regretted that the unspoiled western wilderness he loved was shrinking under the onslaught of Anglo-American settlement...yet he considered the Indians to be 'savages', who would not accept civilization unless threatened by force." Outside of his military career, Dodge is most noted for the city named after him, "Dodge City, Kansas" and for the books, "The Plains of the Great West, and their Inhabitants" (1877); "The Black Hills: A Minute Description of Routes, Secenery, Soil, Climate, Zoology, ect. (1876).