Let us begin with a question. When does a man cease to be a man? Which is to say, at what point have you replaced so many of his parts he is not longer the sum of them…*

*To be very clear form the offset this is a hypothetical question posed by this particular story. I do not suggest this question should be applied to real people nor would I condone anyone who did.

Poe posed this question in his story in the 1839 edition of Burtons Gentleman’s Magazine in his story ‘The Man That Was Used Up : A Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign’. The man in question is Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith, a famous war hero of the ‘Indian’ wars. The general is sought out by Poe’s unnamed narrator because he is considered to be ‘one of the most remarkable men of the age’ which he certainly proves to be, in one respect at least.

Before we go any further it needs to be remembered that Poe was a former soldier himself, and while he never served in the west he would have known plenty who did from his time at West Point. His opinion of the people and tribes of the first nations was clearly coloured by this experience and the common opinions of colonial Americans of the period. The Little Bighorn was still over thirty years away, Wounded Knee fifty. The ‘Indian’ wars were current events through out Poe’s life. This does perhaps make it slightly odd that of the two tribes mentioned in the story only one of them is real.

The Kickapoo people’s are now three midwestern tribes, sharing a common heritage and Algonquain language that now reside in Olkahoma, Kansas and Texas, though their origins lay further north where they resided in half of what is now Illinois before being forced south in the 1830’s. There are around 5000 Kickapoo’s remaining on reservation land in the US today. In 1800 there were closer to 100000…

The Bugaboo’s on the other hand are entirely fictional, so probably faired better…

In any regard the Kickapoo and Bugaboo of Poe’s story are not the relatively peaceful tribesmen upon whom a genocide was committed. Peaceful tribes force in to war against a violent foe determined to run them off their lands, repeatedly cheating, lying and breaking treaties. The narrative of western colonialism being the aggressor was not a narrative that would gain sympathy among Poe’s readers or indeed from Poe himself. Thus the native tribes make for a perfect boggy men for this story, slowly whittling down the valiant Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith and whittled him down they have. Luckily however the story focus on the effects more than the actions of the ‘natives’, though the depiction of barbaric practices treatment of prisoners is entirely one sided as one may expect.

At the beginning of the narrative we are told Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith is, ‘an impressive physical specimen at six feet tall with flowing black hair, large and lustrous eyes, powerful-looking shoulders, and other essentially perfect attributes’ and this indeed the man the narrator meets at the beginning of the tale.

Later however the narrator begins to hear rumors that cast shade of doubt on the truth of the man. All is not quite what it seems and many a lady who has admired the general for afar, well they will not be drawn beyond to say it is a shame that he… well…

Eventually the narrator visits the general at his residence and there he discovers the truth that no one will say aloud. The general, the fine figure of a man he met earlier, is in fact a facade. The general has paid for his sins in the Indian wars and the Bugaboo extracted there tole upon him.

The general is a man of parts, most of those parts having to be attached by his much verbally abused servant, a negro house slave, on a morning. The cork leg, the false arm , the wig , the false eye, the false pallet … All wonderfully made , a wonder of modern science as it were. but never the less, the general was a man , ‘all used up’

The problem with all this and what was intended as a humorous tale of a man who is more parts than human, a cyborg if you like, long before the word cyborg was invented. When is a man no longer a man… A job the story does well…

But the humor, beyond the narrators questioning of various socialites to find out more about the general, is lost due to the racism in the depiction as savages of an actual native people who were among the most peaceful and put upon tribes in north America, forced marched south to less plentiful scrub land to open up Illinois for white settlers. Then there is the other racism of calling a fictional tribe the ‘bugaboo’ which given the word literally means boggy-man or monster , and finally there is the racism directed by the general at his servant which is used by Poe for comic effect…

All of which is no way as humorous in these latter days than it was intended to be when Poe wrote it and as much as Poe needs to be read with him being ‘of his time’ in mind, sometimes that excusing of the writer doesn’t make the reading of their tales any easier.

A PAIR OF RAVENS LOOKING AT EACH OTHER SHIFTILY NOT REALLY WANTING TO ADMIT THEY LIKED IT

SHOULD YOU READ IT: It isn’t terrible , in fact it still is quite amusing in parts, it just has a few too many issues and not enough charm to make up for them.

ISSUES: Well there is the racism. Then there is the other racism and finally there is the racism…

Bluffers fact:  There are many tales about men who are all used up. Michael Moorcock was inspired by this tale when he wrote his short story ‘The Stone Thing’ about a warrior who has replaced many parts of himself over the years springs to mind. In Moorcock’s tale the final punchline involves one singular piece of anatomy that was replaced with a carved piece of granite. The lady with the warrior admires it beauty, its girth, its pleasing curvature… everything in fact, and bemoans only that it was made of stone. “Alas, there is little else in the mountains of the stone men” says the warrior, sadly.

I, amused by Moorcock’s tale, and knowing granite is by nature mildly radioactive once wrote my own tale of a warrior that was all used up for an anthology. Mine was in a sci-fi setting, in which the final bit of the man that aliens had changed was also a fine example of a thing admired by a princess for it beauty, its girth, its pleasing curvature… Though she does bemoan that it was made out of Strontium 90, even if it is useful to have it glow in the dark that way…

So, Poe is indirectly responsible for a radio active penis. I am not sure what he would think about that.