Certainly of all the American wars, the worst was the Civil War which pitted American against American and there was an enormous amount of blood shed on our own land.

After that war many Confederates came to Montana to start a new life in the west. Their graves and those of Union soldiers were some of the first graves tended to on Decoration Day in Montana. That war was not that long ago. When the Blackwood family came to ranch on Clear Creek, they had one of their former slaves with them. He was free but did not want to leave the family he loved.

Long before that many Native Americans she...