KILLING DULL CARE IN CAMP—EXPLORING THE SNOW-CRESTED BIG HORN
MOUNTAINS—FINERTY KILLS HIS FIRST BUFFALO—THE SWIMMING POOLS—A BIG
TROUT—SIBLEY’S SCOUT—A NARROW ESCAPE—NEWS OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE—THE
SIOUX TRY TO BURN US OUT—THE THREE MESSENGERS FROM TERRY—WASHAKIE
DRILLS HIS SHOSHONES—KELLY THE COURIER STARTS TO FIND TERRY—CROW
INDIANS BEARING DESPATCHES—THE SIGN-LANGUAGE—A PONY RACE—INDIAN
SERENADES—HOW THE SHOSHONES FISHED—A FIRE IN CAMP—THE UTES JOIN US.
In the main, this absence of news from Terry was the reason why General
Crook took a small detachment with him to the summit of the Big Horn
Mountains and remained four days. We left camp on the 1st of July, 1876,
the party consisting of General Crook, Colonel Royall, Lieutenant Lemly,
Major Burt, Lieutenants Carpenter, Schuyler, and Bourke, Messrs. Wasson,
Finerty, Strahorn, and Davenport, with a small train of picked mules
under Mr. Young. The climb to the summit was effected without event
worthy of note, beyond the to-be-expected ruggedness of the trail and
the beauty and grandeur of the scenery. From the highest point gained
during the day Crook eagerly scanned the broad vista of country spread
out at our feet, reaching from the course of the Little Big Horn on the
left to the country near Pumpkin Buttes on the right. Neither the
natural vision nor the aid of powerful glasses showed the slightest
trace of a marching or a camping column; there was no smoke, no dust, to
indicate the proximity of either Terry or Gibbon.
Frank Gruard had made an inspection of the country to the northwest of
camp several days before to determine the truth of reported smokes, but
his trip failed to confirm the story. The presence of Indians near camp
had also been asserted, but scouting parties had as yet done nothing
beyond proving these camp rumors to be baseless. In only one instance
had there been the slightest reason for believing that hostiles had
approached our position. An old man, who had been following the command
for some reason never very clearly understood, had come into camp on
Tongue River and stated that while out on the plain, letting his pony
have a nibble of grass, and while he himself had been sleeping under a
box elder, he had been awakened by the report of a gun and had seen two
Indian boys scampering off to the north: he showed a bullet hole through
the saddle, but the general opinion in camp was that the story had been
made up out of whole cloth, because parties of men had been much farther
down Tongue River that morning, scouting and hunting, without perceiving
the slightest sign or trace of hostiles. Thirty miners from Montana had
also come into camp from the same place, and they too had been unable to
discover traces of the assailants.
The perennial character of the springs and streams watering the
pasturage of the Tongue River region was shown by the great masses of
snow and ice, which were slowly yielding to the assaults of the summer
sun on the flanks of “Cloud Peak” and its sister promontories. Every few
hundred yards gurgling rivulets and crystal brooks leaped down from the
protecting shadow of pine and juniper groves and sped away to join the
Tongue, which warned us of its own near presence in a cañon on the left
of the trail by the murmur of its current flowing swiftly from basin to
basin over a succession of tiny falls. Exuberant Nature had carpeted the
knolls and dells with vernal grasses and lovely flowers; along the
brook-sides, wild rose-buds peeped; and there were harebells, wild flax,
forget-me-nots, and astragulus to dispute with their more gaudy
companions—the sunflowers—possession of the soil. The silicious
limestones, red clays, and sandstones of the valley were replaced by
granites more or less perfectly crystallized. Much pine and fir timber
was encountered, at first in small copses, then in more considerable
bodies, lastly in dense forests. A very curious variety of juniper made
its appearance: it was very stunted, grew prone to the ground, and until
approached closely might be mistaken for a bed of moss. In the
protecting solitude of these frozen peaks, lakes of melted snow were
frequent; upon their pellucid surface ducks swam gracefully, admiring
their own reflection.
We did not get across the snowy range that night, but were compelled to
bivouac two or three miles from it, in a sheltered nook offering fairly
good grass for the mules, and any amount of fuel and water for our own
use. There might be said to be an excess of timber, as for more than six
miles we had crawled as best we could through a forest of tall pines and
firs, uprooted by the blasts of winter. Game trails were plenty enough,
but we did not see an animal of any kind; neither could we entice the
trout which were jumping to the surface of the water, to take hold of
the bait offered them. General Crook returned with a black-tailed deer
and the report that the range as seen from the top of one of the lofty
promontories to which he had climbed appeared to be studded with
lakelets similar to the ones so near our bivouac. We slashed pine
branches to make an odorous and elastic mattress, cut fire-wood for the
cook, and aided in the duty of preparing the supper for which impatient
appetites were clamoring. We had hot strong coffee, bacon and venison
sliced thin and placed in alternate layers on twigs of willow and
frizzled over the embers, and bread baked in a frying-pan.
Our appetites, ordinarily good enough, had been aggravated by the climb
of twelve miles in the keen mountain air, and although epicures might
not envy us our food, they certainly would have sighed in vain for the
pleasure with which it was devoured. After supper, each officer staked
his mule in a patch of grass which was good and wholesome, although not
equal to that of the lower slopes, and then we gathered around the fire
for the post-prandial chat prior to seeking blankets and repose, which
fortunately was not disturbed by excessive cold or the bites of
mosquitoes, the twin annoyances of these great elevations. We arose
early next morning to begin a march of great severity, which taxed to
the utmost the strength, nervous system, and patience of riders and
mules; much fallen timber blocked the trail, the danger of passing this
being increased a hundredfold by boulders of granite and pools of
unknown depth; the leaves of the pines had decayed into a pasty mass of
peat, affording no foothold to the pedestrian or horseman, and added the
peril of drowning in a slimy ooze to the terrors accumulated for the
intimidation of the explorer penetrating these wilds.
We floundered along in the trail made by our Shoshones on their way back
to their own homes, and were the first white men, not connected with
that band of Indians, who had ever ascended to this point. Immense
blocks of granite, some of them hundreds of feet high, towered above us,
with stunted pine clinging to the scanty soil at their bases; above all
loomed the majestic rounded cone of the Cloud Peak, a thousand feet
beyond timber line. The number of springs increased so much that it
seemed as if the ground were oozing water from every pore; the soil had
become a sponge, and travel was both difficult and dangerous; on all
sides were lofty banks of snow, often pinkish in tint; the stream in the
pass had diminished in breadth, but its volume was unimpaired as its
velocity had trebled. At every twenty or thirty feet of horizontal
distance there was a cascade of no great height, but so choked up with
large fragments of granite that the current, lashed into fury, foamed
like milk. The sun’s rays were much obscured by the interlacing branches
of the majestic spruce and fir trees shading the trail, and the rocky
escarpments looming above the timber line. We could still see the little
rivulet dancing along, and hear it singing its song of the icy granite
peaks, the frozen lakes, and piny solitudes that had watched its birth.
The “divide,” we began to congratulate ourselves, could not be far off;
already the pines had begun to thin out, and the stragglers still lining
the path were dwarfed and stunted. Our pretty friend, the mountain
brook, like a dying swan, sang most sweetly in its last moments; we saw
it issue from icy springs above timber line, and bade it farewell to
plunge and flounder across the snow-drifts lining the crest. In this
last effort ourselves and animals were almost exhausted. On the “divide”
was a lake, not over five hundred yards long, which supplied water to
the Big Horn on the west and the Tongue on the east side of the range.
Large cakes and floes of black ice, over a foot in thickness, floated on
its waters. Each of these was covered deep with snow and regelated ice.
It was impossible to make camp in this place. There was no
timber—nothing but rocks and ice-cold water, which chilled the hands
dipped into it. Granite and granite alone could be seen in massy crags,
timberless and barren of all trace of vegetation, towering into the
clouds, in bold-faced ledges, the home of the mountain sheep; and in
cyclopean blocks, covering acres upon acres of surface. Continuing due
west we clambered over another ridge of about the same elevation, and as
deep with snow and ice, and then saw in the distance the Wind River
range, one hundred and thirty miles to the west. With some difficulty a
way was made down the flank of the range, through the asperous
declivities of the cañon of “No Wood” Creek, and, after being sated with
the monotonous beauties of precipices, milky cascades, gloomy forests,
and glassy springs, the welcome command was given to bivouac.
We had climbed and slipped fifteen miles at an altitude of 12,000 feet,
getting far above the timber line and into the region of perpetual snow.
Still, at that elevation, a few pleasant-faced little blue and white
flowers, principally forget-me-nots, kept us company to the very edge of
snow-banks. I sat upon a snowbank, and with one hand wrote my notes and
with the other plucked forget-me-nots or fought off the mosquitoes. We
followed down the cañon of the creek until we had reached the timber,
and there, in a dense growth of spruce and fir, went into bivouac in a
most charming retreat. Buffalo tracks were seen all day, the animal
having crossed the range by the same trail we had used. Besides buffalo
tracks we saw the trails of mountain sheep, of which General Crook and
Lieutenant Schuyler killed two. The only other life was tit-larks,
butterflies, grasshoppers, flies, and the mosquitoes already spoken of.
The snow in one place was sixty to seventy feet deep and had not been
disturbed for years, because there were five or six strata of
grasshoppers frozen stiff, each representing one season. In all cases
where the snow had drifted into sheltered ravines and was not exposed to
direct solar action, it never melted from year’s end to year’s end. Our
supper of mountain mutton and of sheep and elk heart boiled in salt
water was eaten by the light of the fire, and was followed by a restful
sleep upon couches of spruce boughs.
We returned to our main camp on the 4th of July, guided by General Crook
over a new trail, which proved to be a great improvement upon the other.
Mr. John F. Finerty killed his first buffalo, which appeared to be a
very good specimen at the time, but after perusing the description given
by Finerty in the columns of the _Times_, several weeks later, we saw
that it must have been at least eleven feet high and weighed not much
less than nine thousand pounds. We made chase after a herd of sixteen
elk drinking at one of the lakes, but on account of the noise in getting
through fallen timber were unable to approach near enough. An hour
later, while I was jotting down the character of the country in my
note-book, eight mountain sheep came up almost close enough to touch me,
and gazed with wonder at the intruder. They were beautiful creatures in
appearance: somewhat of a cross between the deer, the sheep, and the
mule; the head resembles that of the domestic sheep, surmounted by a
pair of ponderous convoluted horns; the body, in a slight degree, that
of a mule, but much more graceful; and the legs those of a deer, but
somewhat more “chunky;” the tail, short, slender, furnished with a brush
at the extremity; the hair, short and chocolate-gray in color; the eyes
rival the beauty of the topaz. Before I could grasp my carbine they had
scampered around a rocky promontory, where three of them were killed:
one by General Crook and two by others of the party.
Camp kept moving from creek to creek in the valley of the Tongue, always
finding abundant pasturage, plenty of fuel, and an ample supply of the
coldest and best water. The foot-hills of the Big Horn are the ideal
camping-grounds for mounted troops; the grass grows to such a height
that it can be cut with a mowing-machine; cattle thrive, and although
the winters are severe, with proper shelter all kinds of stock should
prosper. The opportunity of making a suitable cross between the
acclimatized buffalo and the domestic stock has perhaps been lost, but
it is not too late to discuss the advisability of introducing the
Thibetan yak, a bovine accustomed to the polar rigors of the Himalayas,
and which has been tamed and used either for the purposes of the dairy
or for those of draught and saddle. The body of the yak is covered with
a long coat of hair, which enables it to lie down in the snow-drifts
without incurring any risk of catching cold. The milk of the yak is said
to be remarkably rich, and the butter possesses the admirable quality of
keeping fresh for a long time.
This constant moving of camp had another object: the troops were kept in
practice in taking down and putting up tents; saddling and unsaddling
horses; packing and unpacking wagons; laying out camps, with a due
regard for hygiene by building sinks in proper places; forming promptly;
and, above all, were kept occupied. The raw recruits of the spring were
insensibly converted into veterans before the close of summer. The
credulity of the reader will be taxed to the utmost limit if he follow
my record of the catches of trout made in all these streams. What these
catches would have amounted to had there been no herds of horses and
mules—we had, it must be remembered, over two thousand when the
wagon-trains, pack-trains, Indian scouts, and soldiers were all
assembled together—I am unable to say; but the hundreds and thousands of
fine fish taken from that set of creeks by officers and soldiers, who
had nothing but the rudest appliances, speaks of the wonderful resources
of the country in game at that time.
The ambition of the general run of officers and men was to take from
fifteen to thirty trout, enough to furnish a good meal for themselves
and their messmates; but others were carried away by the desire to make
a record as against that of other fishers of repute. These catches were
carefully distributed throughout camp, and the enlisted men fared as
well as the officers in the matter of game and everything else which the
country afforded. General Crook and the battalion commanders under him
were determined that there should be no waste, and insisted upon the
fish being eaten at once or dried for later use. Major Dewees is
credited with sixty-eight large fish caught in one afternoon, Bubb with
eighty, Crook with seventy, and so on. Some of the packers having
brought in reports of beautiful deep pools farther up the mountain, in
which lay hidden fish far greater in size and weight than those caught
closer to camp, a party was formed at headquarters to investigate and
report. Our principal object was to enjoy the cool swimming pools so
eloquently described by our informants; but next to that we intended
trying our luck in hauling in trout of exceptional size.
The rough little bridle-path led into most romantic scenery: the grim
walls of the cañon began to crowd closely upon the banks of the stream;
in places there was no bank at all, and the swirling, brawling current
rushed along the rocky wall, while our ponies carefully picked their way
over a trail, narrow, sharp, and dangerous as the knife-edge across
which true believers were to enter into Mahomet’s Paradise. Before long
we gained a mossy glade, hidden in the granite ramparts of the cañon,
where we found a few blades of grass for the animals and shade from the
too warm rays of the sun. The moss-covered banks terminated in a flat
stone table, reaching well out into the current and shaded by
overhanging boulders and widely-branching trees. The dark-green water in
front rushed swiftly and almost noiselessly by, but not more than five
or six yards below our position several sharp-toothed fragments of
granite barred the progress of the current, which grew white with rage
as it hissed and roared on its downward course.
We disrobed and entered the bath, greatly to the astonishment of a
school of trout of all sizes which circled about and darted in and out
among the rocks, trying to determine who and what we were. We were
almost persuaded that we were the first white men to penetrate to that
seclusion. Our bath was delightful; everything combined to make it
so—shade, cleanliness, convenience of access, purity and coolness of the
water, and such perfect privacy that Diana herself might have chosen it
for her ablutions! Splash! splash!—a sound below us! The illusion was
very strong, and for a moment we were willing to admit that the
classical huntress had been disturbed at her toilet, and that we were
all to share the fate of Actæon. Our apprehensions didn’t last long; we
peeped through the foliage and saw that it was not Diana, but an army
teamster washing a pair of unquestionably muddy overalls. Our bath
finished, we took our stand upon projecting rocks and cast bait into the
stream.
We were not long in finding out the politics of the Big Horn trout; they
were McKinleyites, every one; or, to speak more strictly, they were the
forerunners of McKinleyism. We tried them with all sorts of imported and
manufactured flies of gaudy tints or sombre hues—it made no difference.
After suspiciously nosing them they would flap their tails, strike with
the side-fins, and then, having gained a distance of ten feet, would
most provokingly stay there and watch us from under the shelter of
slippery rocks. Foreign luxuries evidently had no charm for them. Next
we tried them with home-made grasshoppers, caught on the banks of their
native stream. The change was wonderful: in less than a second, trout
darted out from all sorts of unexpected places—from the edge of the
rapids below us, from under gloomy blocks of granite, from amid the
gnarly roots of almost amphibious trees. My comrades had come for an
afternoon’s fishing, and began, without more ado, to haul in the
struggling, quivering captives. My own purpose was to catch one or two
of good size, and then return to camp. A teamster, named O’Shaughnessy,
formerly of the Fourteenth Infantry, who had been brought up in the
salmon districts of Ireland, was standing near me with a large mess just
caught; he handed me his willow branch, most temptingly baited with
grasshoppers, at the same time telling me there was a fine big fish, “a
regular buster, in the hole beyant.” He had been unable to coax him out
from his retreat, but thought that, if anything could tempt him, my bait
would. I cautiously let down the line, taking care to keep in the
deepest shadow. I did not remain long in suspense; in an instant the big
fellow came at full speed from his hiding-place, running for the bait.
He was noble, heavy, and gorgeous in his dress of silver and gold and
black and red. He glanced at the grasshoppers to satisfy himself they
were the genuine article, and then one quick, nervous bound brought his
nose to the hook and the bait into his mouth, and away he went. I gave
him all the line he wanted, fearing I should lose him. His course took
him close to the bank, and, as he neared the edge of the stream, I laid
him, with a quick, firm jerk, sprawling on the moss. I was glad not to
have had any fight with him, because he would surely have broken away
amid the rocks and branches. He was pretty to look upon, weighed three
pounds, and was the largest specimen reaching camp that week. He graced
our dinner, served up, roasted and stuffed, in our cook Phillips’s best
style.
General Crook, wishing to ascertain with some definiteness the
whereabouts of the Sioux, sent out during the first week of July a
reconnoitring party of twenty enlisted men, commanded by Lieutenant
Sibley, Second Cavalry, to escort Frank Gruard, who wished to move along
the base of the mountains as far as the cañon of the Big Horn and
scrutinize the country to the north and west. A larger force would be
likely to embarrass the rapidity of marching with which Gruard hoped to
accomplish his intention, which was that of spying as far as he could
into the region where he supposed the hostiles to be; all the party were
to go as lightly equipped as possible, and to carry little else than
arms and ammunition. With them went two volunteers, Mr. John F. Finerty
and Mr. Jim Traynor, the latter one of the packers and an old
frontiersman. Another member of the party was “Big Bat.”
This little detachment had a miraculous escape from destruction: at or
near the head of the Little Big Horn River, they were discovered,
charged upon, and surrounded by a large body of hostile Cheyennes and
Sioux, who fired a volley of not less than one hundred shots, but aimed
too high and did not hit a man; three of the horses and one of the mules
were severely crippled, and the command was forced to take to the rocks
and timber at the edge of the mountains, whence they escaped, leaving
animals and saddles behind. The savages seemed confident of their
ability to take all of them alive, which may explain in part why they
succeeded in slipping away under the guidance of Frank Gruard, to whom
the whole country was as familiar as a book; they crept along under
cover of high rocks until they had gained the higher slopes of the
range, and then travelled without stopping for two days and nights,
pursued by the baffled Indians, across steep precipices, swift torrents,
and through almost impenetrable forests. When they reached camp the
whole party looked more like dead men than soldiers of the army: their
clothes were torn into rags, their strength completely gone, and they
faint with hunger and worn out with anxiety and distress. Two of the
men, who had not been long in service, went completely crazy and refused
to believe that the tents which they saw were those of the command; they
persisted in thinking that they were the “tepis” of the Sioux and
Cheyennes, and would not accompany Sibley across the stream, but
remained hiding in the rocks until a detachment had been sent out to
capture and bring them back. It should be mentioned that one of the
Cheyenne chiefs, “White Antelope,” was shot through the head by Frank
Gruard and buried in all his fine toggery on the ground where he fell;
his body was discovered some days after by “Washakie,” the head-chief of
the Shoshones, who led a large force of his warriors to the spot.
General Crook, in forwarding to General Sheridan Lieutenant Sibley’s
report of the affair, indorsed it as follows: “I take occasion to
express my grateful appreciation to the guides, Frank Gruard and
Baptiste Pourrier, to Messrs. Bechtel, called Traynor in my telegram,
and John F. Finerty, citizen volunteers, and to the small detachment of
picked men from the Second Cavalry, for their cheerful endurance of the
hardships and perils such peculiarly dangerous duty of necessity
involves. The coolness and judgment displayed by Lieutenant Sibley and
Frank Gruard, the guide, in the conduct of this reconnaissance, made in
the face of the whole force of the enemy, are deserving of my warmest
acknowledgments. Lieutenant Sibley, although one of the youngest
officers in this department, has shown a gallantry that is an honor to
himself and the service.” A very vivid and interesting description of
this perilous affair has been given by Finerty in his fascinating
volume, “War-Path and Bivouac.” During the absence of the Sibley party
General Crook ascended the mountains to secure meat for the command; we
had a sufficiency of bacon, and all the trout the men could possibly
eat, but fresh meat was not to be had in quantity, and the amount of
deer, elk, antelope, and bear brought in by our hunters, although
considerable in itself, cut no figure when portioned out among so many
hundreds of hungry mouths. The failure to hear from Terry or Gibbon
distressed Crook a great deal more than he cared to admit; he feared for
the worst, obliged to give ear to all the wild stories brought in by
couriers and others reaching the command from the forts and agencies. By
getting to the summit of the high peaks which overlooked our camps in
the drainage of the Tongue, the surrounding territory for a distance of
at least one hundred miles in every direction could be examined through
glasses, and anything unusual going on detected. Every afternoon we were
now subjected to storms of rain and lightning, preceded by gusts of
wind. They came with such regularity that one could almost set his watch
by them.
Major Noyes, one of our most earnest fishermen, did not return from one
of his trips, and, on account of the very severe storm assailing us that
afternoon, it was feared that some accident had befallen him: that he
had been attacked by a bear or other wild animal, had fallen over some
ledge of rocks, been carried away in the current of the stream, or in
some other manner met with disaster. Lieutenant Kingsbury, Second
Cavalry, went out to hunt him, accompanied by a mounted detachment and a
hound. Noyes was found fast asleep under a tree, completely exhausted by
his hard work: he was afoot and unable to reach camp with his great haul
of fish, over one hundred and ten in number; he had played himself out,
but had broken the record, and was snoring serenely. Mr. Stevens, chief
clerk for Major Furey, the quartermaster, was another sportsman whose
chief delight in life seemed to be in tearing the clothes off his back
in efforts to get more and bigger fish than any one else.
Word came in from General Crook to send pack mules to a locality
indicated, where the carcasses of fourteen elk and other game for the
command had been tied to the branches of trees. It was not until the
10th of July, 1876, that Louis Richaud and Ben Arnold rode into camp,
bearing despatches from Sheridan to Crook with the details of the
terrible disaster which had overwhelmed the troops commanded by General
Custer; the shock was so great that men and officers could hardly speak
when the tale slowly circulated from lip to lip. The same day the Sioux
made their appearance, and tried to burn us out: they set fire to the
grass near the infantry battalions; and for the next two weeks paid us
their respects every night in some manner, trying to stampede stock,
burn grass, annoy pickets, and devil the command generally. They did not
escape scot-free from these encounters, because we saw in the rocks the
knife left by one wounded man, whose blood stained the soil near it;
another night a pony was shot through the body and abandoned; and on
still another occasion one of their warriors, killed by a bullet through
the brain, was dragged to a ledge of rocks and there hidden, to be found
a week or two after by our Shoshone scouts.
The Sioux destroyed an immense area of pasturage, not less than one
hundred miles each way, leaving a charred expanse of territory where had
so lately been the refreshing green of dainty grass, traversed by
crystal brooks; over all that blackened surface it would have been
difficult to find so much as a grasshopper; it could be likened to
nothing except Burke’s description of the devastation wrought by Hyder
Ali in the plains of the Carnatic. Copious rains came to our relief, and
the enemy desisted; besides destroying the pasturage, the Sioux had
subjected us to the great annoyance of breathing the tiny particles of
soot which filled the air and darkened the sky.
Hearing from some of our hunters that the tracks of a party—a large
party—of Sioux and Cheyennes, mounted, had been seen on the path taken
by Crook and his little detachment of hunters, going up into the Big
Horn, Colonel Royall ordered Mills to take three companies and proceed
out to the relief, if necessary, of our General and comrades. They all
returned safely in the course of the afternoon, and the next day, July
11th, we were joined by a force of two hundred and thirteen Shoshones,
commanded by their head-chief, “Washakie,” whose resemblance in face and
bearing to the eminent divine, Henry Ward Beecher, was noticeable. This
party had been delayed, waiting for the Utes and Bannocks, who had sent
word that they wanted to take part in the war against the Sioux; but
“Washakie” at last grew tired, and started off with his own people and
two of the Bannock messengers.
Of these two a story was related to the effect that, during the previous
winter, they had crossed the mountains alone, and slipped into a village
of Sioux, and begun to cut the fastenings of several fine ponies; the
alarm was given, and the warriors began to tumble out of their beds; our
Bannocks were crouching down in the shadow of one of the lodges, and in
the confusion of tongues, barking of dogs, hurried questioning and
answering of the Sioux, boldly entered the “tepi” just vacated by two
warriors and covered themselves up with robes. The excitement quieted
down after a while, and the camp was once more in slumber, the presence
of the Bannocks undiscovered, and the Sioux warriors belonging to that
particular lodge blissfully ignorant that they were harboring two of the
most desperate villains in the whole western country. When the proper
moment had come, the Bannocks quietly reached out with their keen
knives, cut the throats of the squaws and babies closest to them,
stalked out of the lodge, ran rapidly to where they had tied the two
best ponies, mounted, and like the wind were away.
Besides the warriors with “Washakie,” there were two squaws, wives of
two of the men wounded in the Rosebud fight, who had remained with us.
As this was the last campaign in which great numbers of warriors
appeared with bows, arrows, lances, and shields as well as rifles, I may
say that the shields of the Shoshones, like those of the Sioux and Crows
and Cheyennes, were made of the skin of the buffalo bull’s neck, which
is an inch in thickness. This is cut to the desired, shape, and slightly
larger than the required size to allow for shrinking; it is pegged down
tight on the ground, and covered with a thin layer of clay upon which is
heaped a bed of burning coals, which hardens the skin so that it will
turn the point of a lance or a round bullet. A war-song and dance from
the Shoshones ended the day.
On the 12th of July, 1876, three men, dirty, ragged, dressed in the
tatters of army uniforms, rode into camp and gave their names as Evans,
Stewart, and Bell, of Captain Clifford’s company of the Seventh
Infantry, bearers of despatches from General Terry to General Crook; in
the dress of each was sewed a copy of the one message which revealed the
terrible catastrophe happening to the companies under General Custer.
These three modest heroes had ridden across country in the face of
unknown dangers, and had performed the duty confided to them in a manner
that challenged the admiration of every man in our camp. I have looked
in vain through the leaves of the Army Register to see their names
inscribed on the roll of commissioned officers; and I feel sure that
ours is the only army in the world in which such conspicuous courage,
skill, and efficiency would have gone absolutely unrecognized.
Colonel Chambers, with seven companies of infantry and a wagon-train
loaded with supplies, reached camp on the 13th. With him came, as
volunteers, Lieutenants Hayden Delaney, of the Ninth, and Calhoun and
Crittenden, of the Fourteenth Infantry, and Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy.
Personal letters received from General Sheridan informed General Crook
that General Merritt, with ten companies of the Fifth Cavalry, had left
Red Cloud Agency with orders to report to Crook, and that as soon after
they arrived as possible, but not until then, Crook was to start out and
resume the campaign. Courier Fairbanks brought in despatches from
Adjutant-General Robert Williams at Omaha, Nebraska, to the effect that
we should soon be joined by a detachment of Utes, who were desirous of
taking part in the movements against the Sioux, but had been prevented
by their agent. General Williams had made a representation of all the
facts in the case to superior authority, and orders had been received
from the Department of the Interior directing their enlistment. Nearly
fifty of the Utes did start out under Lieutenant Spencer, of the Fourth
Infantry, and made a very rapid march to overtake us, but failed to
reach our wagon-train camp until after our command had departed; and, in
the opinion of Major Furey, the risk for such a small party was too
great to be undertaken.
Camp was the scene of the greatest activity: both infantry and cavalry
kept up their exercises in the school of the soldier, company and
battalion, and in skirmishing. Detachments of scouts were kept
constantly in advanced positions, and although the enemy had made no
attempt to do anything more than annoy us in our strong natural
intrenchments, as the camps close to the Big Horn might fairly be
designated, yet it was evident that something unusual was in the wind.
“Washakie” ascended to the tops of the highest hills every morning and
scanned the horizon through powerful field-glasses, and would then
report the results of his observations. Colonel Mills did the same thing
from the peaks of the Big Horn, to some of the more accessible of which
he ascended. The Shoshones were kept in the highest state of efficiency,
and were exercised every morning and evening like their white brothers.
At first they had made the circuit of camp unattended, and advanced five
or ten miles out into the plains in the performance of their evolutions;
but after the arrival of fresh troops, under Chambers, “Washakie” was
afraid that some of the new-comers might not know his people and would
be likely to fire upon them when they charged back to camp; so he asked
General Crook to detail some of his officers to ride at the head of the
column, with a view to dispelling any apprehensions the new recruits
might feel. It fell to my lot to be one of the officers selected. In all
the glory of war-bonnets, bright blankets, scarlet cloth, head-dresses
of feathers, and gleaming rifles and lances, the Shoshones, mounted
bareback on spirited ponies, moved slowly around camp, led by
“Washakie,” alongside of whom was borne the oriflamme of the tribe—a
standard of eagle feathers attached to a lance-staff twelve feet in
length. Each warrior wore in his head-dress a small piece of white
drilling as a distinguishing mark to let our troops know who he was.
We moved out in column of twos; first at a fast walk, almost a trot,
afterwards increasing the gait. The young warriors sat like so many
statues, horse and rider moving as one. Not a word was spoken until the
voices of the leaders broke out in their war-song, to which the whole
column at once lent the potent aid of nearly two hundred pairs of sturdy
lungs. Down the valley about three miles, and then, at a signal from
“Washakie,” the column turned, and at another, formed front into line
and proceeded slowly for about fifty yards. “Washakie” was endeavoring
to explain something to me, but the noise of the ponies’ hoofs striking
the burnt ground and my ignorance of his language were impediments to a
full understanding of what the old gentleman was driving at. I learned
afterwards that he was assuring me that I was now to see some drill such
as the Shoshones alone could execute. He waved his hands; the line
spread out as skirmishers and took about two yards’ interval from knee
to knee. Then somebody—“Washakie” or one of his lieutenants—yelled a
command in a shrill treble; that’s all I remember. The ponies broke into
one frantic rush for camp, riding over sage-brush, rocks, stumps,
bunches of grass, buffalo heads—it mattered not the least what, they
went over it—the warriors all the while squealing, yelling, chanting
their war-songs, or howling like coyotes. The ponies entered into the
whole business, and needed not the heels and “quirts” which were plied
against their willing flanks. In the centre of the line rode old
“Washakie;” abreast of him the eagle standard. It was an exciting and
exhilarating race, and the force preserved an excellent alignment. Only
one thought occupied my mind during this charge, and that thought was
what fools we were not to incorporate these nomads—the finest light
cavalry in the world—into our permanent military force. With five
thousand such men, and our aboriginal population would readily furnish
that number, we could harass and annoy any troops that might have the
audacity to land on our coasts, and worry them to death.
General Crook attempted to open communication with General Terry by
sending out a miner named Kelly, who was to strike for the head of the
Little Big Horn, follow that down until it proved navigable, then make a
raft or support for himself of cottonwood or willow saplings and float
by night to the confluence of the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, and down
the latter to wherever Terry’s camp might be. Kelly made two attempts to
start, but was each time driven or frightened back; but the third time
got off in safety and made the perilous journey, and very much in the
lines laid down in his talk with Crook.
Violent storms of snow, hail, and cold rain, with tempests of wind,
prevailed upon the summits of the range, which was frequently hidden
from our gaze by lowering masses of inky vapor. Curious effects, not
strictly meteorological, were noticed; our camp was visited by clouds of
flies from the pine forests, which deposited their eggs upon everything;
the heat of the sun was tempered by a gauze veil which inspection showed
to be a myriad of grasshoppers seeking fresh fields of devastation.
Possibly the burning over of hundreds of square miles of pasturage had
driven them to hunt new and unharmed districts; possibly they were
driven down from the higher elevations by the rigorous cold of the
storms; possibly both causes operated. The fact was all we cared for,
and we found it disagreeable enough. With these insects there was larger
game: mountain sheep appeared in the lower foot-hills, and two of them
were killed along our camp lines. To balk any attempt of the enemy to
deprive us altogether of grass, whenever camp was moved to a new site, a
detail of men was put to work to surround us with a fire-line, which
would prevent the fires set by mischievous Sioux from gaining headway.
In making one of these moves we found the Tongue River extremely swollen
from the storms in the higher peaks, and one of the drivers, a good man
but rather inexperienced, had the misfortune to lose his
self-possession, and his wagon was overturned by the deep current and
three of the mules drowned, the man himself being rescued by the
exertions of the Shoshone scouts, who were passing at the moment.
On the 19th of July four Crow Indians rode into camp bearing despatches,
the duplicates of those already received by the hands of Evans, Stewart,
and Bell. General Terry, realizing the risk the latter ran, had taken
the precaution to repeat his correspondence with Crook in order that the
latter might surely understand the exact situation of affairs in the
north. After being refreshed with sleep and a couple of good warm meals,
the Crows were interrogated concerning all they knew of the position of
the hostiles, their numbers, ammunition, and other points of the same
kind. Squatting upon the ground, with fingers and hands deftly moving,
they communicated through the “sign language” a detailed account of the
advance of Terry, Gibbon, and Custer; the march of Custer, the attack
upon the village of “Crazy Horse” and “Sitting Bull,” the massacre, the
retreat of Reno, the investment, the arrival of fresh troops on the
field, the carrying away of the wounded to the steamboats, the sorrow in
the command, and many other things which would astonish persons ignorant
of the scope and power of this silent vehicle for the interchange of
thought.
The troops having been paid off by Major Arthur, who had come with
Colonel Chambers and the wagon-train, the Shoshones each evening had
pony races for some of the soldiers’ money. This was the great amusement
of our allies, besides gambling, fishing, drilling, and hunting. The
greater the crowd assembled, the greater the pleasure they took in
showing their rare skill in riding and managing their fleet little
ponies. The course laid off was ordinarily one of four hundred yards.
The signal given, with whip and heel each rider plied his maddened
steed; it was evident that the ponies were quite as much worked up in
the matter as their riders. With one simultaneous bound the half-dozen
or more contestants dart like arrow from bow; a cloud of dust rises and
screens them from vision; it is useless to try to pierce this veil; it
is unnecessary, because within a very few seconds the quaking earth
throbs responsive to many-footed blows, and, quick as lightning’s flash,
the mass of steaming, panting, and frenzied steeds dash past, and the
race is over. Over so far as the horses were concerned, but only begun
so far as the various points of excellence of the riders and their
mounts could be argued about and disputed.
This did not conclude the entertainment of each day: the Shoshones
desired to add still more to the debt of gratitude we already owed them,
so they held a serenade whenever the night was calm and fair. Once when
the clouds had rolled by and the pale light of the moon was streaming
down upon tents and pack-trains, wagons and sleeping animals, the
Shoshones became especially vociferous, and I learned from the
interpreter that they were singing to the moon. This was one of the most
pronounced examples of moon worship coming under my observation.
The Shoshones were expert fishermen, and it was always a matter of
interest to me to spend my spare moments among them, watching their way
of doing things. Their war lodges were entirely unlike those of the
Apaches, with which I had become familiar. The Shoshones would take half
a dozen willow branches and insert them in the earth, so as to make a
semi-cylindrical framework, over which would be spread a sufficiency of
blankets to afford the requisite shelter. They differed also from the
Apaches in being very fond of fish; the Apaches could not be persuaded
to touch anything with scales upon it, or any bird which lived upon
fish; but the Shoshones had more sense, and made the most of their
opportunity to fill themselves with the delicious trout of the mountain
streams. They did not bother much about hooks and lines, flies, casts,
and appliances and tricks of that kind, but set to work methodically to
get the biggest mess the streams would yield. They made a dam of rocks
and a wattle-work of willow, through which the water could pass without
much impediment, but which would retain all solids. Two or three young
men would stay by this dam or framework as guards to repair accidents.
The others of the party, mounting their ponies, would start down-stream
to a favorable location and there enter and begin the ascent of the
current, keeping their ponies in touch, lashing the surface of the
stream in their front with long poles, and all the while joining in a
wild medicine song. The frightened trout, having no other mode of
escape, would dart up-stream only to be held in the dam, from which the
Indians would calmly proceed to take them out in gunny sacks. It was not
very sportsmanlike, but it was business.
I find the statement in my note-books that there must have been at least
fifteen thousand trout captured in the streams upon which we had been
encamped during that period of three weeks, and I am convinced that my
figures are far below the truth; the whole command was living upon trout
or as much as it wanted; when it is remembered that we had hundreds of
white and red soldiers, teamsters, and packers, and that when Crook
finally left this region the camp was full of trout, salt or dried in
the sun or smoked, and that every man had all he could possibly eat for
days and days, the enormous quantity taken must be apparent. Added to
this we continued to have a considerable amount of venison, elk, and
bear meat, but no buffalo had been seen for some days, probably on
account of the destruction of grass. Mountain sheep and bear took its
place to a certain extent.
It was the opinion and advice of Sheridan that Crook should wait for the
arrival of Merritt, and that the combined force should then hunt Terry
and unite with him, and punish the Sioux, rather than attempt to do
anything with a force which might prove inadequate. In this view old
“Washakie” fully concurred. The old chief said to Crook: “The Sioux and
Cheyennes have three to your one, even now that you have been
reinforced; why not let them alone for a few days? they cannot subsist
the great numbers of warriors and men in their camp, and will have to
scatter for pasturage and meat; they’ll begin to fight among themselves
about the plunder taken on the battle-field, and many will want to slip
into the agencies and rejoin their families.”
But, while waiting for Merritt to come up with his ten companies of
cavalry, Crook sent out two large scouting parties to definitely
determine the location and strength of the enemy. One of these consisted
entirely of Shoshones, under “Washakie;” it penetrated to the head of
the Little Big Horn and around the corner of the mountain to the cañon
of the Big. Horn; the site of a great camp was found of hundreds of
lodges and thousands of ponies, but the indications were that the enemy
were getting hard pressed for food, as they had been eating their dogs
and ponies whose bones were picked up around the camp-fires. From that
point the trails showed that the enemy had gone to the northeast towards
the Powder River. The other scouting party was led by Louis Richaud, and
passed over the Big Horn Mountains and down into the cañon of the Big
Horn River; they found where the Sioux of the big village had sent
parties up into the range to cut and trim lodge-poles in great numbers.
Richaud and his party suffered extremely from cold; the lakes on the
summit of the mountains were frozen, and on the 1st of August they were
exposed to a severe snow-storm.
Later advices from Sheridan told that the control of the Sioux agencies
had been transferred to the War Department; that Mackenzie and six
companies of his regiment had been ordered to take charge at Red Cloud
and Spotted Tail, assisted by Gordon with two companies of the Fifth
Cavalry. Although showers of rain were of almost daily occurrence, and
storms of greater importance very frequent, the weather was so far
advanced, and the grass so dry and so far in seed, that there was always
danger of a conflagration from carelessness with fire.
One of the Shoshones dropped a lighted match in the dry grass near his
lodge, and in a second a rattle and crackle warned the camp of its
danger. All hands, Indian and white, near by rushed up with blankets,
blouses, switches, and branches of trees to beat back the flames. This
was a dangerous task; as, one after another, the Shoshone frame shelters
were enveloped in the fiery embrace of the surging flames, the explosion
of cartridges and the whistling of bullets drove our men back to places
of safety. In the tall and dry grass the flames held high revel; the
whole infantry command was turned out, and bravely set to work, and,
aided by a change in the wind, secured camp from destruction. While thus
engaged, they discovered a body of Indians moving down the declivity of
the mountain; they immediately sprang to arms and prepared to resist
attack; a couple of white men advanced from the Indian column and called
out to the soldiers that they were a band of Utes and Shoshones from
Camp Brown, coming to join General Crook.
Our men welcomed and led them into camp, where friends gave them a warm
reception, which included the invariable war-dance and the evening
serenade. Some of the new-comers strolled over to chat with the
Shoshones who had been wounded in the Rosebud fight, and who, although
horribly cut up with bullet wounds in the thigh or in the flanks, as the
case was, had recovered completely under the care of their own doctors,
who applied, nothing but cool water as a dressing; but I noticed that
they were not all the time washing out the wounds as Americans would
have done, which treatment as they think would only irritate the tender
surfaces. The new-comers proved to be a band of thirty-five, and were
all good men.
On the 2d of August camp was greatly excited over what was termed a game
of base-ball between the officers of the infantry and cavalry; quite a
number managed to hit the ball, and one or two catches were made; the
playing was in much the same style, and of about the same comparative
excellence, as the amateur theatrical exhibitions, where those who come
to scoff remain to pray that they may never have to come again.