On a Bayonet Throne
The story of Volney V. Ashford
(a work in progress)

 

In June of 1863 a young man from Port Hope, Ontario left a promising career in law to run off with three friends to enlist in the Union Army (a true story).

Volney V. Ashford (or "V.V.") served as quartermaster sergeant for the Grizwold Light Cavalry through the end of the war. His good friend and future brother-in-law, Edward Dodds, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at Ashby's Gap, losing an arm in the process.

V.V. returned from the war, married, and attempted to settle down choosing to take up a new career as a surveyor for the Beaverton railway and joining the Canadian militia as an officer in the
Prince of Wales' Canadian Dragoons.

But tragedy dogged poor V.V., losing not one, but two wives and an infant daughter in a short time. Depressed and haunted by dreams from the past, V.V. accepted the advice of his brother Clarence in 1884 inviting him for a therapeutic visit to the islands of aloha. Hawai'i proved to be an especially vigorous tonic for V.V. He soon found himself settling-in to stay and enmeshed, for better or worse, in the Byzantine politics of his day.

V.V. again took up law, joining his brother's practice in Honolulu. His charisma and knowledge of military affairs propelled him to command of the Honolulu Rifles, a militia unit with unabashed ties to European and American residents of uncertain loyalty to the Hawaiian Crown. In 1887 he found himself at the pointy edge of a coup-d'état that sent tremors around the world.

V.V.'s final years were filled with intrigue, romance and disappointment. The newspapers jealously hailed Volney Ashford as "The Man Who Would be King."