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Foreword: Historians disagree about the role our ancestor, Mike Shonsey, played in the so-called "War on Powder River". Some consider him to have been nothing more than a hired gunslinger; others believe he was simply a loyal employee, doing the job that anyone in his position would have done during the "wild west" era. However, the following narrative seems to best represent a consensus of those who had first hand knowledge of Mike and the events that took place in April 1892 on the Powder River in Johnson County, Wyoming.

By 1879 the West was growing old. The buffalo were almost gone, as well as most of the Indians. The Union Pacific Railroad had completed its link across the country ten years earlier. The time was now ripe for the West of the cattle baron and the great beef bonanza on the northern plains. Cheyenne, Wyoming was a raw young city of two or three thousand sprawled along one side of the UP tracks, but its fame was already attracting the adventurous. Far to the north of the territorial capital, the not-yet-organized Johnson County was an empty paradise of waving grass; a cowman's paradise, with the Indians gone, but the cowmen not yet there. No one was there, except a couple hundred assorted frontier types and the lonely little Army post, Fort McKinney.

That year was to see the beginning of a mighty flood. A young Englishman, Moreton Frewen, bought out the 76 brand from a ranchman on the Sweetwater River, and the first big herd of cattle was driven onto Powder River. Then the Anglo-American Cattle Company, first of the big overseas corporations, was organized in London, and they established a "ranche" where one of the little branching tributaries of Powder River flowed out of the mountains. Word spread about the fortunes to be made, and soon everybody who was anybody on either side of the Atlantic was talking about raising cattle in the West. Land was virtually free, courtesy of Uncle Sam. No costs beyond the paltry wages of a handful of cowboys. No capital investment to speak of -- a few rude log buildings. No risks -- simply buy a herd and let nature do the rest.

Fortunes were indeed made, and lost, over the next dozen or more years. One gigantic cattle corporation followed another on the scene from 1880 through 1884, most having been organized abroad, and this foreign dominance created some resentful undercurrents in the West during the mad decade. The great roundups of 1883 and 1884 were like nothing ever seen again. Twenty different cow outfits would take part, with 200 cowboys and 2000 horses, gathering and working 400,000 head of cattle in six weeks. However, all was not rosy. Amid all the talk of twenty percent returns on investment, a new word was being heard: overstocking. The absentee owners, though, could only see the magnificent profits rolling it, and could not understand the reality facing them.

The year 1885 saw a great deflation in the value of the herds, followed by a depression in 1886, and the devastating winter of 1886-87, during which the herds were literally decimated. The cowboys found themselves without work. Those who then tried to start a little spread of their own, even with as few as a dozen head of cattle, were blacklisted by the large cattle ranchers and could find no employment. These wranglers were even refused the courtesy of the range, and not allowed a camp meal or a place to bed down on the range with the big outfits. The cattle barons had formed the Wyoming Stock Growers Association to band together and control the ranges. Its policy was to take a hard line against the small cattlemen and cowboys, and to control ownership of the cattle, and the markets for them. Those attempting to resist were branded as rustlers and thieves.

In desperation, the small cattlemen and homesteaders of the Powder River country formed an organization of their own, and gave it the impressive title of Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers Association. One of their first actions was to announce their intention of holding their own roundup anywhere and any time they pleased; they were not to be called "rustlers" just because they had homesteaded land in the cattle country; and they had as much right to the mavericks (unbranded steers) as the big ranchers. As hard times and hard feelings continued, fueled by the killings of a number of "rustlers" and others who resisted the cattle barons, the fuse was lit and everyone in northern Wyoming knew an explosion had to follow. Popular sentiment built up against the big cattlemen, and particularly the absentee owners, and the large operators found it increasingly difficult to receive justice in the courts. When the small settler was accused of taking in cattle that wandered in off the ranges, or out-and-out known rustlers were brought into court, sympathy often went to the small operator and his family, and the rustler went free for lack of convicting evidence. Rustling continued and convictions became so rare that by 1891 leading members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association began to lay serious plans for eliminating known rustlers. It was thought that Johnson County held the core of resistance against the big cattlemen. Sheriff Red Angus seemed to be leading the resistance; and the Hole-in-the-Wall country, west of Kaycee, had become the famous hideout for the cattle rustlers.

The big cattlemen weren't yielding an inch, and the farmers and small ranchers weren't going to stand for the illegal confiscation of their stock without a fight. The people of Buffalo, Wyoming in the center of Johnson County chose up sides. It was friend against friend, depending upon whose man you "rode with". The northern Wyoming group was a collection of riled-up cowboys, led by Nate Champion, who had a spread on the Middle Fork of Powder River, known as the KC ranch. Nick Ray, a cowboy from Missouri, owned no cattle or land, but was ready to take up the fight for his friend, Nate, whom the cattlemen considered to be the leader of the "blackballed cowboys". On the first of November, 1891, Nate and another man were attacked in their beds at dawn by a party of armed men with intent to kill. The attack failed.

Seeing that spasmodic retaliation was doing no good, The Wyoming Stock Growers Association decided to rid the state of rustlers. They felt a large scale, cooperative action, even in defiance of the law, was the only solution. After a series of secret meetings, they decided to begin by cleaning up Johnson County. They selected young Mike Shonsey, a carefree cowboy working as foreman for the Western Union Beef Company, to scout that region and find out what was happening there. Mike, born in Montreal, Canada, had come to Wyoming from Ohio at a young age, and began his cowboy career at the age of seventeen by working for W.E. Guthrie. Guthrie considered him one of the most expert ropers and all around cowpunchers he had ever known. Guthrie later wrote "that Mike took his life in his own hands in carrying out that mission; that the least misstep, indiscretion, or suspicion of his real mission would have cost him his life". Shonsey despised the Texas cowboys and was one of the few men working on the range who sided with the big owners. He had been charged by one of the Texans with rebranding cattle for his own employer, and a fist fight took place, leaving Mike with a festering grudge. Mike is said to have been involved in the failed attempt on Champion's life. In another encounter on the range, Champion rode up to some cattle that Shonsey and his men were working, and began to cut out certain animals. According to range etiquette, this was a deliberate insult which was intended to provoke Shonsey to go for his gun. But no man cared to tangle with Nate Champion in a gun fight, and Mike swallowed the insult.

Mike brought back news of the newly-formed Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers Association, which had scheduled its roundup for May 1, a month ahead of the legal roundups. He further confirmed the report that the rustlers were selling stolen beef to contractors building the Burlington Railroad from Alliance, Nebraska to Billings, Montana. The cattlemen, who had not recovered from their staggering losses during the disastrous winter of '86-'87, were desperate. Faced with the possibility of losing more cattle, they laid plans to invade Johnson County. On April 5, 1892, a three-car special train carrying twenty-five Texas gunmen recruited in Denver, pulled into Cheyenne and was coupled to another three-car train carrying horses, wagons, ammunition, dynamite and supplies. Twenty-four Wyoming men, know as "The Regulators", boarded the train, which then proceeded north to Casper. Arriving in Casper the next afternoon, they unloaded and rode north toward Buffalo with plans to eliminate everyone there who was on their list of enemies.

Just before reaching their staging place at a ranch just south of Buffalo, they were met by Mike Shonsey, who had been spying on the rustlers. Mike had stayed overnight at Nate Champion's ranch, ate breakfast with him, and then rode off to intercept the Regulators. "I just left the KC spread," Mike told them, "Champion and Ray are there along with two trappers." Leaders of the expedition had planned to move first to Buffalo to get the sheriff and his deputies. But here was a closer quarry, likely to escape if not dealt with at once. And so, after resting men and horses at the nearby ranch, the Regulators rode north toward the KC Ranch on the night of April 8. Shonsey was sent out in charge of a squad to reconnoiter. After dark, they arrived at the KC ranch, surrounded it and concealed themselves until morning.

After a night of drinking, playing the fiddle, and singing, the sun was nearly two hours high when Champion started making flapjacks for breakfast. Ben Jones, one of the "trappers", picked up a bucket and started toward the river for wash water. When he did not return, Bill Walker, the other trapper, went looking for him. They were both grabbed by the Regulators and hustled away. Being innocent, out-of-work freighters, they were turned loose in the hills where they hid for weeks after witnessing what followed. Soon, Nick Ray walked out with his axe, and began cutting firewood. A gun fired once, Ray whirled. As he did so, fifty-two men concealed in the stable opened fire simultaneously. Ray staggered and fell. The door of the cabin flew open. Nate Champion leaped out, rifle in hand. He sent a volley of fire toward the stable, lifted Ray, and lugged him into the cabin amid a hail of bullets.

Ray was all but dead. As Nate alternately nursed and shot, he realized he was alone and could only guess at the number of men in the army outside, bent on his destruction. He took out a notebook and pencil, and began a remarkable diary of his last hours. By nine o'clock, Nick Ray was dead. All day long, Nate fought off the invaders successfully, as he was well fortified in the cabin. However, he knew his hours were numbered. Frustrated by their inability to get at Champion, the Regulators decided just before dark to fire the cabin. They loaded a wagon with timber and hay, set it afire, and drove it against the cabin. Tongues of flame began to shoot up from the roof. There was loud cheering from the Regulators, and they gradually moved their circle closer. Champion's warning shots became fewer and fewer, then ceased. Nate put his final entry in the log of his last stand: "The house is all fired. Goodbye, boys, if I never see you again. Nathan D. Champion." Then, rifle in hand and a loaded six-gun in his belt, he burst through the doorway and ran for it. According to a later account by Bill Walker, one of the unfortunate itinerant freighters captured by the Regulators, Nate was winged by one of the recruited gunmen, known as the Texas Kid, "and then he met a hail of lead from Mike Shonsey's rifle". That stopped him for a second, he staggered, then twenty rifles roared and Nate went down. Walker says Champion lay on the ground for more than two hours before the gunmen got up enough nerve to walk over to make sure he was dead.

News of the invasion spread quickly throughout the state. By sundown, 200 men were deputized, mounted, and advancing from Buffalo toward the KC Ranch. They arrived too late to help Champion, but succeeded in separating the Regulators from their supply wagons. The invaders then made a quick dash to the friendly TA Ranch and burrowed in. Meanwhile, Ben Jones and Bill Walker turned up at a nearby ranch of one of the Regulators, looking for something to eat. Mike Shonsey's wife, Olive, was there, scared half to death. According to Walker, "she had heard the bombarding and knew something had gone wrong, and that Mike was probably mixed up in it. Even the womenfolks, who threw all kinds of fits when their own men got into a jackpot, didn't worry a bit over nesters getting wiped out. Mrs. Shonsey had no idea how the cattlemen and their killers happened to be over on Powder River, instead of up at Buffalo, and we sure didn't go out of our way to explain. Besides, we figured a little worry might do her some good. And I imagine it did get her somewhat prepared for her next meeting with Mike, when she saw him looking through the bars from the wrong side."

For two days, a battle raged as the aroused ranchers, led by the sheriff of Johnson County, tried to roust the Regulators. Finally, during the night, Shonsey, the youngest of the invaders, made a spectacular escape in an attempt to bring help to the beleaguered fortress. He managed to get word to Governor Barber in Cheyenne, who acted swiftly to wire President Benjamin Harrison that the State of Wyoming was being blown to bits by the cattle barons and the citizens of Buffalo. In quick reply, the President sent three troops of the Thirteenth Cavalry from Fort McKinney to bring everyone to their senses. The Regulators surrendered meekly. They were held first at Fort Russell, near Cheyenne, and then transferred to the state penitentiary in Laramie. Because no one in Buffalo was impartial, their trial was to be held in Cheyenne. They were indicted for murder, and retained in custody until August when they were released on bail. The fighting over, the Texans went home. When the Wyoming cattlemen were finally brought to trial the following January, the case was dismissed due to legal loopholes and chicanery. Besides, it was nearly impossible to find a jury of unbiased men.

After being released from jail, Mike and his wife moved to Converse County, adjacent to Johnson County. There they lived quietly on the 77 Ranch on Lance Creek. The story of Mike Shonsey was not finished, however. In May, 1893, he heard that Dudley Champion, a younger brother of Nate's, had come to Johnson County looking for work. Mike figured that Dudley was looking for him, too. According to Bill Walker, Mike became jittery and decided to ambush Dudley, shot him without warning, and killed him instantly. Mike rode to the 77 Ranch to tell his wife what had happened. Then he rode all night to Douglas, where he gave himself up to authorities, and claimed that Dudley Champion started to pull his gun, but Mike being faster, beat him to the draw. Shonsey fired in self defense. Mike voluntarily remained in an unlocked cell until his story could be verified, then was released from custody. The local paper merely reported the man in the unlocked cell as "Mike Shonsey is in town and stopping over with friends". No mention was made of Dudley Champion. The History of Natrona County (Douglas, Wyoming) states that Mike then boarded a train south, presumably going to Mexico. No action was ever taken against him after that, although witnesses later came forward, claiming that the killing was unprovoked, cold-blooded murder on the part of Shonsey.

Mike was the youngest, and the last survivor of the Johnson County Regulators. He later became a rancher in Nebraska and one of its most respected citizens. He was certainly one of the most colorful characters of the West, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty-seven.

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