6/25/2005:
Mark Kellogg was killed on this date in 1876 at the battle of the Little Bighorn. Working as a reporter, Kellogg became the first Associated Press correspondent to die in battle.
Forty-year-old Kellogg worked for a law office but also wrote for the Bismarck Tribune under the pseudonym “Frontier.” Tribune publisher Clement Lounsberry was ill when the 7th Cavalry set out, so he invited Kellogg to accompany them to cover the story. Kellogg was later found scalped and missing an ear. In his last known correspondence to Lounsberry he wrote “...by the time this reaches you we will have met and fought...with what results remains to be seen. I go with Custer and will be at the death.”
Source: Sandy Barnard. 1996. I Go With Custer: the Life and Death of Reporter. Bismarck: Bismarck Tribune.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm