When William went West

This isolated farmhouse, standing beyond the village, faces due north to the sea not much more than a mile away. It's no longer farmed, judging by the clutter of boats and horse boxes around the yard. We followed a footpath through it and along some ancient lanes that recent weather has turned itno waterways.

In the second half of the 19th century the James family lived here. Of Thomas and Eleanor's  seven children  three were boarded out with grandparents but even so the land did not provide an adequate living. The two eldest boys went to sea and perished in it, the father died from TB and so did the two eldest daughters. The widowed mother remarried. The third son William Batine James,  by now in his twenties, sailed across the Atlantic - not an unusual destination for a young man seeking  his fortune.
But what transpired was remarkable. He landed in Quebec, made his way to Toronto and thence to Chicago where, failing to succeed otherwise,  he signed on for five years in the US Army and became a cavalry man.. (I imagine James as a young boy ambling along the leafy Pembrokeshire lanes on a pony - it was the way most people got around.)

He found himself serving under General Custer in  the wild "Indian territory" area of the Dakota badlands [it was all Indian territory of course]. His letters home went unanswered (it's not clear why)  but he seemed to be thriving and was promoted to the rank of a sergeant in 1876. Shortly after this, Custer prepared his troops to engage with the Sioux. Their leader Sitting Bull, had already prophesied a great Indian victory with 'soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky.' And that was what transpired when Custer engaged with the Sioux and other tribes at what they call Battle of the Greasy Grass, known to the white people as Little Bighorn. 
Custer's Last Stand was also William James's, for his story ends there. Custer's cavalry fought bravely but were outnumbered and all perished on or off the battlefield. The body of William James was not identified and is assumed to have been buried with others on the battlefield. His family never learnt of his fate, his letters only coming to light during the 20th century. There is no memorial to him here, just his childhood home still facing the sea.

For anyone interested in learning more there's a fuller account here