Dusty Trails and Tall Tales Interviews Peter Sherayko

 In collaboration with Matthew Pizzolato of Dusty Trails and Tall Tales Podcast. Matthew Interviews Hollywood and movie artist and actor Peter Sherayko, who is best known for his role as Texas Jack in the movie Tombstone

Autographed Photo from the authors collection of Peter Sherayko as 

Texas Jack from to movie Tombstone

Gunfight on the Santa Fe Trail

I was honored to have met Peter a few years back at the "Gunfight on the Sante Fe Trail." He is an expert on the American west and provides support and consulting for historic movies, where he strives for historic accuracy.

G.C. Stevens

 Actor and historian Peter Sherayko joins Dusty Trails & Tall Tales for an in-depth conversation about authenticity in Western film and television.

Best known for his work on Tombstone and his behind-the-scenes contributions to Deadwood, Peter has spent decades studying, preserving, and helping filmmakers accurately portray the Old West on screen. His experience spans acting, historical consulting, and hands-on production work—giving him a rare, well-rounded perspective on what Hollywood gets right, what it gets wrong, and why the details matter.

In this episode, we talk about the challenges of making authentic Westerns, the importance of historical accuracy in props, wardrobe, weapons, and locations, and how Peter’s passion for the genre led him to create Caravan West Productions—a company dedicated to helping filmmakers, historians, and event organizers meet the demanding standards of the Western genre.

Whether you’re a fan of classic Westerns, modern interpretations, or the craftsmanship that goes into bringing the Old West to life, this conversation offers a thoughtful look behind the camera at one of America’s most demanding film genres.

250 years of American History

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The Union Jack Knife: By Tom Shaw of Knife Delights

 

Photo courtesy of Tom Shaw. Photo

of a Union Jack Knife

I'd like to thank Tom Shaw for the use of his videos!

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Jack Knives: The Everyday Tool of Union Soldiers in the Civil War:

250 Years of American History

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Union soldiers relied on practical, portable tools to endure camp life and the rigors of campaigning. Among these, the humble jack knife—a simple folding pocket knife—stood out as an indispensable companion. Unlike larger fixed-blade knives such as Bowies (more common early in the war among Confederates), jack knives were lightweight, easy to carry in a pocket, and far less cumbersome than belt knives.

These slipjoint knives typically featured one or two blades, sometimes with additional tools like a screwdriver or awl. Manufactured by American cutlers, including the Union Knife Company, they were widely available through sutlers (mobile camp merchants) or brought from home. Soldiers used them for countless daily tasks: opening ration cans, peeling potatoes and onions, carving wood, sharpening pencils for letters home, cutting rope, or performing minor repairs on gear.

While not officially issued to infantry (unlike some naval folding knives), jack knives were ubiquitous among Union troops due to their versatility and convenience. In an era before modern multi-tools, this modest blade was a soldier's constant aide, helping sustain morale and survival amid hardship.

A short video on the jack knife

Correcting Morgan Earps Image on Find A Grave: G.C. Stevens

 

Photo of Morgan Earp, Courtesy of Emory Cantey

The real part of the Journey of our lives has a lot to do with the connections between people, places and times. We are caught up in the flow of the river of time. A river which can be majestic, or as violent and unforgiving like the Mississippi or Missouri rivers on a bad day. But then you view them from a distance, and experience their might, or in the case of history from a place further down the timeline. What the author has learned in the last few years, is that within the time continuum of our history, there can be found a lot misunderstandings which have manifest along the way when historians, writers and collectors dabble in the art of minutia. No where is this more apparent than when the pursuit of history crosses paths with historic photos. This area can be a deeply emotional pursuit, of those who have, what Glenn Boyer once called "photowishitus." And Morgan and other famed Tombstone legends seem to have had their photos mixed up with other people from time to time, one prime example is a photo once claimed to be Doc Holliday, which turned out to be a photo of another Tombstone Citizen by the name of John Escapule. (True West Magazine May 2015). The author even had T-shirt at one time that was purchased in Tombstone Arizona in a gift shop there, that featured an image of John Escapule on the front, which was identified as Doc Holliday. The same type of confusion also occurred with the photo of Morgan Earp. But the author did some due diligence on the above photo Morgan Earp (See articles below), and determined that the photo at the top of this article is Morgan Earp. Then one day I was working with Findagrave.com. and I popped on Morgan's listing at found that the photo featured was not Morgan but  a photo of James Earp was featured instead.  I promptly reached out to Findagrave.com and let them know of this and I uploaded a copy of the correct photo which they eventually approved and changed. Thanks to findagrave.com for working with me to correct this error.

-G.C. Stevens

The Correct photo of Morgan Earp, (and his wife Louisa Earp) also appeared in the late Ben Traywick's book "Historical Documents and Photographs of Tombstone. "Both photos were credited to the Glenn Boyer collection.

                            Findagrave.com Morgan Earp

Photo Investigation Morgan Earp  

In Wyatt Earps Shadow

Frontier Dust Wild West Stories & Poetry: By G.C. Stevens

 

Now Available on Amazon.com

FRONTIER DUST
WILD WEST STORIES AND POETRY

$13.99 Paperback

$2.99 Kindle

Author Page

Gene Stevens of CSL&OH.A. Talks to Dusty Trails and Tall Tales

Dusty Trails and Tall Tales Podcast

   It was a pleasure talking to Matthew from Dusty Trails and Tall Tales!

Take a listen as we talk about civil war reenacting, the Black Hawk War of 1832, the frontier, Jesse James, old photos, legends, Tombstone AZ and the darker side of the frontier!!

Dusty Trails Books & Publishing - Dusty Trails Books & Publishing

*Note The incident I mentioned about the shooting of a local Mayor occurred in Maxwell Iowa not Cambridge.  The towns are in the same vicinity but I mentioned the wrong place.

Here's a link to a story I wrote about it.

Maxwell Iowa

History Under Foot: Artillery Piece Polk City Iowa: by G.C. Stevens

 

History and artifacts are all around us. During the authors travels, this particular piece of artillery was spotted in a shaded area in the town square of Polk City Iowa. It is part of a veteran's memorial.  As the author examined the piece, it became apparent that the gun was only the barrel of a former artillery piece. So, the author started digging into the history of the piece. An inquiry was made online at "The Cannon Club" Which is a facebook page dedicated to cannon collectors and those who study historic artillery, and the author also did some digging on his own. As it turns out this gun turned out to be a barrel of a "French 75mm Gun" The history of this gun is significant, because this new technology made this gun very valuable on the battlefield. The French 75mm gun was a rapid-fire gun and could fire fifteen artillery shells per minute.

As a German soldier wrote in his diary during the Battle of the Marne:

"September —. The attack is violent on the outside; we remain close together, man to man, inundated by the shell from the French artillery. It is a fire of hell." 

When the U.S. became involved in World War I, space on ships was limited and manpower had priority over heavy equipment, so American troops often used French heavy equipment, including this 75mm field gun. An early adaption of the weapon was for anti-aircraft purposes. Interestingly, the German Army, which had found their comparable field piece unsuitable for this purpose, used captured French 75s to defend against Allied aircraft."

-Roads to the Great War Edward Thomas Roads

Video from youtube channel "Wardaddy"

Photo from "Roads of the Great War"

no. 16639

Dated 1917

                                                        

                                                                  More Can be found at

ROADS TO THE GREAT WAR

 

Army of the Southwest: Sergeant at Arms: G.C. Stevens

 

I'm very honored to have been chosen to act as

 Seargeant of Arms

for

The Army of The Southwest

Be sure to check out this blog and the ASW website for civil war reenactment events in 2026

250 Years of American History: Witness To History: The Story of Benjamin Speer, Guarding President Lincoln's Body

   

 

Special thanks to Jerry Beatty and the Warren County Iowa Historical Society

for the use of photos and information from the publication

"Warren County, Iowa & The Civil War" Which was published in 2015

Pvt. B.F. Speer

Benjamin Franklin Speer was born in Princeton, Missouri, on Feb 25th, 1845, he was the son of Joseph and Dorothy (Collier)Speer. His mother died when he was four years of age and Benjamin took up the responsibilities of helping his father on the family farm. But when the American civil war broke out, Ben who at the time was only sixteen years old, enlisted in the army on September 04th of 1861, in Company D, of the 7th Missouri State Militia. He served in the 7th for approximately eight months, then in August of 1862 he again enlisted in Co, G, 27th Missouri and served in this regiment until the end of the war. Ben was with the regiment at the siege of Vicksburg Mississippi. He became disabled {sic]and sent to Jefferson Barracks, 12 miles south of St. Louis and then to the Marine Hospital in St. Louis. After his release from the, hospital, Benjamin was assigned to Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio, he was then assigned to the infamous Camp Douglas, at Chicago where he guarded Confederate prisoners of war. 

Soldier B.F. Speer Guarded Abraham Lincoln's Body. 

During Benjamin's time as a camp guard. President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. A few days later was honored to have been chosen as one of the soldiers who be tasked with protecting President Lincolns body while it was in Chicago.

Monday May 1st, 1865

The funeral train arrived in Chicago on May 1st, 1865. The arrival and presence of the train was said to be both a pageant and very solemn experience and it was estimated that nearly thirty-six thousand people turned out to greet and honor President Lincoln. After the body was taken off the train and carried to the court house, where he lay in state. Benjamin was stationed at the front end of the casket, where he stood two-hour watches with three other soldiers. Their assignment was to keep the endless stream of grieving people moving in an orderly manner. The next day, while the casket was placed into the hearse, in preparation for the return to the train depot, Speer and the three other guards, took their positions at the four corners of the hearse and stood at "arms rest, at the reverse" with the muzzle resting on the toes of their right foot, with their chins resting on their hands, on the butt of their rifles. As the casket was placed on the hearse, Speer continued in the position, and then right wheeled to March in escort of the hearse until the procession of a "Colored boy" [sic] who took the horse by its bridle and walked it too the train depot, where it was loaded and taken to it's final destination in Springfield Illinois. Benjamin then returned to Camp Douglas, where he served, until sent to Cairo Illinois where he was honorably discharged on August 1st of 1865.

After the War

After the war, Benjamin worked six years on a farm near Decatur Illinois and then returned home to Princeton where he cut railroad ties and did other construction work. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic, and later married Martha Moore at Goshen Missouri, they had five children, then in 1913 they moved to Indianola Iowa

Source: Sally J. Speer, Indianola Iowa.

 

The attack on Fort Sumter officially signaled the beginning of the war.

Stereograph shows cannon shells, rocks, debris, and

gabion reinforcement retaining walls inside Fort Sumter.

- Library of Congress

Engine "Nashville" of the Lincoln Funeral Train

Photo shows a Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad engine, with a

 portrait of Abraham Lincoln mounted on the front. The engine was one of several used to 

carry Lincoln's body from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill.

-Library of Congress

Lincoln funeral car on the old tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad by 

Lake Michigan, Chicago, 1865

-Library of Congress

Funeral service of President Lincoln at Chicago, Illinois, May 1.

 Removing the coffin from the funeral train to the catafalque

-Library of Congress

Assassination of the president Abraham Lincoln : Emordung des Präsidenten Abraham Lincoln. L'assassinat du président Abraham Lincoln

Names

Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana (Library of Congress)

250 Years of History CSL&OH.A.

Historic items have a way of falling into my lap. I recently acquired this belt buckle that commemorates the 200th anniversary of the United States. I was alive to see it and remember it well.  

                                                    

    

    250 Years of American History

From the foundational 1620 Mayflower compact to Settlement of the vast American west. Our story is as sweeping as the Great Plains west of the Missouri River. Settlement of the west, the civil war, the railroads and great names such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, William T Sherman, U.S. Grant, Robert E Lee, George Armstrong Custer, Lewis and Clark, John C. Fremont, Black Hawk and Sitting Bull, are all part of that landscape. Over the next twelve months the CSL&OH.A. will be creating articles dedicated to that legacy.

G.C. Stevens

                                                          

Check Out Our Book Store

                                Dusty Trails of the Old West Anthology available on Amazon 

 

Book Review: Screen Greats Vol IV, Hollywood COWBOY HEROES: By G.C. Stevens

        Subtitle: Authors big find at the local Salvation Army

 Resale Store, a very nice Dietz Kerosene Lantern

 and a copy of "Hollywood Cowboy Heros, Screen Greats Vol IV."

                              

The front cover of "Screen Greats Vol IV, Hollywood 

"COWBOY HEROES"

It was Hollywood and T.V. that introduced my generation to the western genre, we learned American history by T.V. osmosis.                  

 -G.C. Stevens

Screen Greats Vol IV was originally published in 1981 by Starlog Press Inc. Which was a publishing company better known for their sci-fi mags, but Starlog went out of business in 2009 along with many of our other beloved magazines from that time period that disappeared when the internet started taking over media. I did an immediate search for information on "Cowboy Heros" I found that there are still some copies that can be found on sale. This magazine contains forty different chapters covering subjects from silent movie period, early serial period, big screen movies and television. It contains actors from "Bronco Billy Anderson to John Wayne and just about every cowboy actor in between" 

The is booklet is 82 pages long, it's packed from cover to cover with many photos. Each page contains multiple vignettes in alphabetical order. The booklet is in black & white, (except for inside covers photos which are in color.) and the pages show some age. The paper it is printed on does not appear to be acid free paper, so there is some discoloration. The book starts out with one of these authors favorite movies "The Great Train Robbery" filmed in 1903, to a complete list of John Wayne's filmography from 1929 to 1976. Cowboys Heros is a direct reflection of what we saw at on T.V. and at the movies. It was Hollywood and T.V. that introduced my generation to the western genre, we learned American history by T.V. osmosis. Our entertainment was a good western and six-guns blazing and the local theater. As I turned the pages in this book, I could smell buttered popcorn in the air, and the crack and pop of the film projector in the background. I'm glad I was able to add "Hollywood Cowboy Heros" to my collection.

 

 

 

  My new Dietz #76, which was a very popular 

Lantern introduced in 1976 a great find.

A very dashing Gary Cooper, well mounted and handsome.

A list of early silent westerns.