Wednesday, July 13, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Nugget editor launches Kickstarter campaign for book
By Craig rullman
Correspondent
Nugget Newspaper edi-
tor Jim Cornelius was born
and raised in the suburbs of
L.A., but as a child his fam-
ily had a cabin in the Angeles
National Forest, where he
roamed the woods with a pel-
let gun and stories of Apache
warriors, Daniel Boone, and
Davy Crockett informing his
imagination.
“The first time I ever saw
a movie in a theater was when
my brother took me to see
Jeremiah Johnson,” Jim says,
and from those experiences
his fascination with the fron-
tier, and the men and women
who occupied it, was born.
The result of that fasci-
nation and lifelong study is
the book “Warriors of the
Wildlands: True Tales of the
Frontier Partisans,” 12 fas-
cinating biographies of men
who lived and operated on
the world’s wild and dan-
gerous frontiers, stretching
from the 1770s to World War
I. From Simon Kenton and
Blue Jacket on the Ohio fron-
tier, to Al Sieber and Pancho
Villa on the borderlands, to
legends of the African expe-
rience such as Deneys Reitz,
a Boer commando, the book
is an in-depth, gripping, and
historically valuable look into
the lives of some of those
who lived on the edge of civi-
lization, and in many ways
helped shape the future.
A Kickstarter crowd-fund-
ing campaign launches July
13, to help get the book into
print. To support the campaign
visit www.kickstarter.com
and search “Jim Cornelius”
o r v i s i t w w w. f r o n t i e r
partisans.com for a link.
“Most of the book’s sub-
jects were not profession-
als,” Cornelius says. “They
were highly skilled guys who
applied fieldcraft and hunt-
ing skills in warfare from the
Canadian prairies to Mexico
to Africa. When people think
of the frontier they often
think of North America, but
the phenomenon was similar
all around the globe.”
Cornelius explains that
he chose to refer to his sub-
jects as “partisans” because
it “evokes small, irregular
bands of men fighting in
woods, mountains and des-
erts. The men I profile were
warriors — but not soldiers.
Simon Kenton formed his
own, unsanctioned Ranger
band. Jack Hays’ and Ben
McCulloch’s Texas Rangers
were volunteers … Al Sieber
of Apache Wars fame was
a professional scout — but
always as a civilian con-
tractor. Frederick Russell
Burnham may have been ‘the
greatest scout America ever
I’ve lived with these
stories my whole life.
I love these guys.
even the bad ones.
— Jim Cornelius
produced,’ but his day job
was prospecting.”
The politics of the fron-
tier were never simple, then
or now, and Cornelius says
studying and writing about
the people involved is “not as
simple as good guys vs. bad
guys. You can’t separate the
heroism, triumph, and trag-
edy that is all tangled up in
the stories of the frontiers.”
Jim’s book is notable for his
commitment to write “history
that deals with the frontier
honestly.”
Of those he chose to pro-
file, Jim says, “Some of these
guys were probably not so
lovely as individuals. Pancho
Villa is a great example, but
what interests
me the most is
that they came
out of a way of
life that created
resilience and
courage and
they all have
those quali-
ties, whether
they were good
people or bad
people.”
Cornelius
experimented
with historical
fiction, but “as
much as I love
good histori-
cal fiction, I’ve
never felt com-
fortable writing
it. As soon as I
start tweaking
the history to
photo by lynn WoodWard
fit the story, it
Jim
Cornelius
has
penned
a
book
of biographies.
stops working
for me.”
Cornelius’
f a s c i n a t i o n w i t h f r o n- the book, which is impor-
tier history also led to the tant reading for those who
development of his blog, sustain an interest in the les-
FrontierPartisans.com, which sons and lives that popu-
enjoys international reader- lated the world’s remote
ship and a lively conversa- borderlands.
Says Jim, “I’ve lived with
tion among fans of the fron-
tier. With over 600 posts and these stories my whole life. I
4,000 comments, the website love these guys. Even the bad
helped lay the foundation for ones.”