TO AND THROUGH THE BLACK HILLS—HOW DEADWOOD LOOKED IN 1876—THE DEADWOOD
“ACADEMY OF MUSIC”—THE SECOND WINTER CAMPAIGN—THE NAMES OF THE
INDIAN SCOUTS—WIPING OUT THE CHEYENNE VILLAGE—LIEUTENANT MCKINNEY
KILLED—FOURTEEN CHEYENNE BABIES FROZEN TO DEATH IN THEIR MOTHERS’
ARMS—THE CUSTER MASSACRE AGAIN—THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF RANDALL
AND THE CROW SCOUTS.
The joy of the people in the Hills knew no bounds; the towns of
Deadwood, Crook City, Montana, and many others proceeded to celebrate
the news of their freedom and safety by all the methods suitable to such
a momentous occasion in a frontier civilization: there was much in the
way of bonfires, the firing of salutes from anvils, cheering,
mass-meetings, alleged music, and no small portion of hard drinking. By
resolution of the Deadwood Council, a committee, consisting of the first
mayor, Farnum, and councilmen Kurtz, Dawson, and Philbrick, was sent out
to meet General Crook and extend to him and his officers the freedom of
the city; in the same carriage with them came Mr. Wilbur Hugus, who had
assisted me in burying Captain Philip Dwyer at Camp Date Creek, Arizona,
four years previously. The welcome extended these representatives was
none the less cordial because they had brought along with them a most
acceptable present of butter, eggs, and vegetables raised in the Hills.
Despatches were also received from General Sheridan, informing Crook
that the understanding was that the hostiles were going to slip into the
agencies, leaving out in the Big Horn country “Crazy Horse” and “Sitting
Bull,” with their bands, until the next spring. To prevent a recurrence
of the campaign the next year, Sheridan was determined to disarm and
dismount all the new arrivals, and for that purpose had stationed a
strong force at each agency, but he wished Crook to move in with his
command to “Red Cloud” and “Spotted Tail” and superintend the work there
instead of remaining in the Hills as Crook wished to do, and continue
the campaign from there with some of the towns, either Deadwood or
Custer City, as might be found best adapted to the purpose, as a base.
Congress had authorized the enlistment of four hundred additional Indian
scouts, and had also appropriated a liberal sum for the construction of
the posts on the Yellowstone. Crook was to turn over the command to
Merritt, and proceed in person, as rapidly as possible, to confer with
Sheridan, who was awaiting him at Fort Laramie, with a view to
designating the force to occupy the site of old Fort Reno during the
winter.
After enduring the hardships and discomforts of the march from the head
of Heart River, the situation in the bivouac on the Whitewood, a
beautiful stream flowing out of the Hills at their northern extremity,
was most romantic and pleasurable. The surrounding knolls were thickly
grassed; cold, clear water stood in deep pools hemmed in by thick belts
of timber; and there was an abundance of juicy wild plums, grapes, and
bull berries, now fully ripe, and adding a grateful finish to meals
which included nearly everything that man could desire, brought down in
wagons by the enterprising dealers of Deadwood, who reaped a golden
harvest. We were somewhat bewildered at sitting down before a canvas
upon which were to be seen warm bread baked in ovens dug in the ground,
delicious coffee, to the aroma of which we had been for so long a time
strangers, broiled and stewed meat, fresh eggs, pickles, preserves, and
fresh vegetables. Soldiers are in one respect like children: they forget
the sorrows of yesterday in the delights of to-day, and give to glad
song the same voices which a few hours ago were loudest in grumbling and
petty complaint. So it was with our camp: the blazing fires were
surrounded by crowds of happy warriors, each rivalling the other in
tales of the “times we had” in a march whose severity has never been
approached by that made by any column of our army of the same size, and
of which so little is known that it may truly be said that the hardest
work is the soonest forgotten.
Crook bade good-by to the officers and men who had toiled along with him
through the spring and summer, and then headed for the post of Fort
Robinson, Nebraska, one hundred and sixty miles to the south. For
one-half this distance our road followed down through the centre of the
Black Hills, a most entrancing country, laid out apparently by a
landscape artist; it is not so high as the Big Horn range, although
Harney’s and other peaks of granite project to a great elevation, their
flanks dark with pine, fir, and other coniferæ; the foot-hills velvety
with healthful pasturage; the narrow valleys of the innumerable petty
creeks a jungle of willow, wild rose, live oak, and plum. Climbing into
the mountains, one can find any amount of spruce, juniper, cedar, fir,
hemlock, birch, and whitewood; there are no lakes, but the springs are
legion and fill with gentle melody the romantic glens—the retreat of the
timid deer.
A description of Deadwood as it appeared at that time will suffice for
all the settlements of which it was the metropolis. Crook City, Montana,
Hills City, Castleton, Custer City, and others through which we passed
were better built than Deadwood and better situated for expansion, but
Deadwood had struck it rich in its placers, and the bulk of the
population took root there. Crook City received our party most
hospitably, and insisted upon our sitting down to a good hot breakfast,
after which we pressed on to Deadwood, twenty miles or more from our
camping place on the Whitewood. The ten miles of distance from Crook
City to Deadwood was lined on both sides with deep ditches and
sluice-boxes, excavated to develop or work the rich gravel lying along
the entire gulch. But it seemed to me that with anything like proper
economy and care there was wealth enough in the forests to make the
prosperity of any community, and supply not alone the towns which might
spring up in the hills, but build all the houses and stables needed in
the great pastures north, as far as the head of the Little Missouri. It
was the 16th of September when we entered Deadwood, and although I had
been through the Black Hills with the exploring expedition commanded by
Colonel Dodge, the previous year, and was well acquainted with the
beautiful country we were to see, I was unbalanced by the exhibition of
the marvellous energy of the American people now laid before us. The
town had been laid off in building lots on the 15th of May, and all
supplies had to be hauled in wagons from the railroad two hundred and
fifty miles away and through bodies of savages who kept up a constant
series of assaults and ambuscades.
The town was situated at the junction of the Whitewood and Deadwood
creeks or gulches, each of which was covered by a double line of
block-houses to repel a sudden attack from the ever-to-be-dreaded enemy,
the Sioux and Cheyennes, of whose cruelty and desperate hostility the
mouths of the inhabitants and the columns of the two newspapers were
filled. I remember one of these journals, _The Pioneer_, edited at that
time by a young man named Merrick, whose life had been pleasantly
divided into three equal parts—setting type, hunting for Indians, and
“rasslin’” for grub—during the days when the whole community was reduced
to deer-meat and anything else they could pick up. Merrick was a very
bright, energetic man, and had he lived would have been a prominent
citizen in the new settlements. It speaks volumes for the intelligence
of the element rolling into the new El Dorado to say that the
subscription lists of _The Pioneer_ even then contained four hundred
names.
The main street of Deadwood, twenty yards wide, was packed by a force of
men, drawn from all quarters, aggregating thousands; and the windows of
both upper and lower stories of the eating-houses, saloons, hotels, and
wash-houses were occupied by women of good, bad, and indifferent
reputation. There were vociferous cheers, clappings of hands, wavings of
handkerchiefs, shrieks from the whistles of the planing mills, reports
from powder blown off in anvils, and every other manifestation of
welcome known to the populations of mining towns. The almond-eyed
Celestial laundrymen had absorbed the contagion of the hour, and from
the doors of the “Centennial Wash-House” gazed with a complacency
unusual to them upon the doings of the Western barbarians. We were
assigned quarters in the best hotel of the town: “The Grand Central
Hotel, Main Street, opposite Theatre, C. H. Wagner, Prop. (formerly of
the Walker House and Saddle Rock Restaurant, Salt Lake), the only
first-class hotel in Deadwood City, D. T.”
This was a structure of wood, of two stories, the lower used for the
purposes of offices, dining-room, saloon, and kitchen; the upper was
devoted to a parlor, and the rest was partitioned into bedrooms, of
which I wish to note the singular feature that the partitions did not
reach more than eight feet above the floor, and thus every word said in
one room was common property to all along that corridor. The “Grand
Central” was, as might be expected, rather crude in outline and
construction, but the furniture was remarkably good, and the table
decidedly better than one had a right to look for, all circumstances
considered. Owing to the largeness of our party, the escort and packers
were divided off between the “I. X. L.” and the “Centennial” hotels,
while the horses and mules found good accommodations awaiting them in
Clarke’s livery stable. I suppose that much of this will be Greek to the
boy or girl growing up in Deadwood, who may also be surprised to hear
that very many of the habitations were of canvas, others of unbarked
logs, and some few “dug-outs” in the clay banks. By the law of the
community, a gold placer or ledge could be followed anywhere, regardless
of other property rights; in consequence of this, the office of _The
Pioneer_ was on stilts, being kept in countenance by a Chinese
laundryman whose establishment was in the same predicament. Miners were
at work under them, and it looked as if it would be more economical to
establish one’s self in a balloon in the first place.
That night, after supper, the hills were red with the flare and flame of
bonfires, and in front of the hotel had assembled a large crowd, eager
to have a talk with General Crook; this soon came, and the main part of
the General’s remarks was devoted to an expression of his desire to
protect the new settlements from threatened danger, while the citizens,
on their side, recited the various atrocities and perils which had
combined to make the early history of the settlements, and presented a
petition, signed by seven hundred and thirteen full-grown white
citizens, asking for military protection. Then followed a reception in
the “Deadwood Theatre and Academy of Music,” built one-half of boards
and the other half of canvas. After the reception, there was a
performance by “Miller’s Grand Combination Troupe, with the Following
Array of Stars.” It was the usual variety show of the mining towns and
villages, but much of it was quite good; one of the saddest
interpolations was the vocalization by Miss Viola de Montmorency, the
Queen of Song, prior to her departure for Europe to sing before the
crowned heads. Miss Viola was all right, but her voice might have had
several stitches in it, and been none the worse; if she never comes back
from the other side of the Atlantic until I send for her, she will be
considerably older than she was that night when a half-drunken miner
energetically insisted that she was “old enough to have another set o’
teeth.” We left the temple of the Muses to walk along the main street
and look in upon the stores, which were filled with all articles
desirable in a mining district, and many others not usual in so young a
community. Clothing, heavy and light, hardware, tinware, mess-pans,
camp-kettles, blankets, saddlery, harness, rifles, cartridges,
wagon-grease and blasting powder, india-rubber boots and garden seeds,
dried and canned fruits, sardines, and yeast powders, loaded down the
shelves; the medium of exchange was gold dust; each counter displayed a
pair of delicate scales, and every miner carried a buckskin pouch
containing the golden grains required for daily use.
Greenbacks were not in circulation, and already commanded a premium of
five per cent, on account of their portability. Gambling hells
flourished, and all kinds of games were to be found—three card monte,
keno, faro, roulette, and poker. Close by these were the
“hurdy-gurdies,” where the music from asthmatic pianos timed the dancing
of painted, padded, and leering Aspasias, too hideous to hope for a
livelihood in any village less remote from civilization. We saw and met
representatives of all classes of society—gamblers, chevaliers
d’industrie, callow fledglings, ignorant of the world and its ways,
experienced miners who had labored in other fields, men broken down in
other pursuits, noble women who had braved all perils to be by their
husbands’ sides, smart little children, and children who were adepts in
profanity and all other vices—just such a commingling as might be looked
for, but we saw very little if any drinking, and the general tone of the
place was one of good order and law, to which vice and immorality must
bow.
We started out from Deadwood, and rode through the beautiful hills from
north to south, passing along over well-constructed corduroy roads to
Custer City, sixty miles to the south; about half way we met a
wagon-train of supplies, under charge of Captain Prank Guest Smith, of
the Fourth Artillery, and remained a few moments to take luncheon with
himself and his subordinates—Captain Cushing and Lieutenants Jones,
Howe, Taylor, and Anderson, and Surgeon Price. Custer City was a
melancholy example of a town with the “boom” knocked out of it; there
must have been as many as four hundred comfortable houses arranged in
broad, rectilinear streets, but not quite three hundred souls remained,
and all the trade of the place was dependent upon the three saw and
shingle mills still running at full time. Here we found another
wagon-train of provisions, under command of Captain Egan and Lieutenant
Allison, of the Second Cavalry, who very kindly insisted upon exchanging
their fresh horses for our tired-out steeds so as to let us go on at
once on our still long ride of nearly one hundred miles south to
Robinson; we travelled all night, stopping at intervals to let the
horses have a bite of grass, but as Randall and Sibley were left behind
with the pack-train, our reduced party kept a rapid gait along the wagon
road, and arrived at the post the next morning shortly after breakfast.
Near Buffalo Gap we crossed the “Amphibious” Creek, which has a double
bottom, the upper one being a crust of sulphuret of lime, through which
rider and horse will often break to the discomfort and danger of both;
later on we traversed the “Bad Lands,” in which repose the bones of
countless thousands of fossilized monsters—tortoises, lizards, and
others—which will yet be made to pay heavy tribute to the museums of the
world. Here we met the officers of the garrison as well as the members
of the commission appointed by the President to confer with the Sioux,
among whom I remember Bishop Whipple, Judge Moneypenny, Judge Gaylord,
and others.
This terminated the summer campaign, although, as one of the results of
Crook’s conference with Sheridan at Fort Laramie, the Ogallalla chiefs
“Red Cloud” and “Red Leaf” were surrounded on the morning of the 23d of
October, and all their guns and ponies taken from them. There were seven
hundred and five ponies and fifty rifles. These bands were supposed to
have been selling arms and ammunition to the part of the tribe in open
hostility, and this action of the military was precipitated by “Red
Cloud’s” refusal to obey the orders to move his village close to the
agency, so as to prevent the incoming stragglers from being confounded
with those who had remained at peace. He moved his village over to the
Chadron Creek, twenty-two miles away, where he was at the moment of
being surrounded and arrested.
General Crook had a conference with the head men of the Ogallallas and
Brulés, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and told them in plain language
what he expected them to do. The Government of the United States was
feeding them, and was entitled to loyal behavior in return, instead of
which many of our citizens had been killed and the trails of the
murderers ran straight for the Red Cloud Agency; it was necessary for
the chiefs to show their friendship by something more than empty words,
and they would be held accountable for the good behavior of their young
men. He did not wish to do harm to any one, but he had been sent out
there to maintain order and he intended to do it, and if the Sioux did
not see that it was to their interest to help they would soon regret
their blindness. If all the Sioux would come in and start life as
stock-raisers, the trouble would end at once, but so long as any
remained out, the white men would insist upon war being made, and he
should expect all the chiefs there present to aid in its prosecution.
There were now fifty-three companies of soldiers at Red Cloud, and they
could figure for themselves just how long they could withstand such
force. “Red Cloud” had been insolent to all officers placed over him,
and his sympathies with the hostiles had been open and undisguised;
therefore he had been deposed, and “Spotted Tail,” who had been
friendly, was to be the head chief of all the Sioux.
The assignment of the troops belonging to the summer expedition to
winter quarters, and the organization from new troops of the expedition,
which was to start back and resume operations in the Big Horn and
Yellowstone country, occupied several weeks to the exclusion of all
other business, and it was late in October before the various commands
began concentrating at Fort Fetterman for the winter’s work.
The wagon-train left at Powder River, or rather at Goose Creek, under
Major Furey, had been ordered in by General Sheridan, and had reached
Fort Laramie and been overhauled and refitted. It then returned to
Fetterman to take part in the coming expedition. General Crook took a
small party to the summit of the Laramie Peak, and killed and brought
back sixty-four deer, four elk, four mountain sheep, and one cinnamon
bear; during the same week he had a fishing party at work on the North
Platte River, and caught sixty fine pike weighing one hundred and one
pounds.
Of the resulting winter campaign I do not intend to say much, having in
another volume described it completely and minutely; to that volume
(“Mackenzie’s Last Fight with the Cheyennes—a Winter Campaign in
Wyoming”) the curious reader is referred; but at the present time, as
the country operated in was precisely the same as that gone over during
the preceding winter and herein described—as the Indians in hostility
were the same, with the same habits and peculiarities, I can condense
this section to a recapitulation of the forces engaged, the fights
fought, and the results thereof, as well as a notice of the invaluable
services rendered by the Indian scouts, of whom Crook was now able to
enlist all that he desired, the obstructive element—the Indian
agent—having been displaced. Although this command met with severe
weather, as its predecessor had done, yet it was so well provided and
had such a competent force of Indian scouts that the work to be done by
the soldiers was reduced to the zero point; had Crook’s efforts to
enlist some of the Indians at Red Cloud Agency not been frustrated by
the agent and others in the spring, the war with the hostile Sioux and
Cheyennes would have been over by the 4th of July, instead of dragging
its unsatisfactory length along until the second winter and entailing
untold hardships and privations upon officers and men and swelling the
death roll of the settlers.
The organization with which Crook entered upon his second winter
campaign was superb in equipment; nothing was lacking that money could
provide or previous experience suggest. There were eleven companies of
cavalry, of which only one—“K,” of the Second (Egan’s)—had been engaged
in previous movements, but all were under excellent discipline and had
seen much service in other sections.
Besides Egan’s there were “H” and “K,” of the Third, “B,” “D,” “E,” “F,”
“I,” and “M,” of the Fourth, and “H” and “L,” of the Fifth Cavalry.
These were placed under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, of
the Fourth Cavalry.
Colonel R. I. Dodge, Twenty-third Infantry, commanded the infantry and
artillery companies, the latter serving as foot troops; his force
included Batteries “C,” “F,” “H,” and “K,” of the Fourth Artillery;
Companies “A,” “B,” “C,” “F,” “I,” and “K,” of the Ninth Infantry; “D”
and “G,” of the Fourteenth Infantry; and “C,” “G,” and “I,” of the
Twenty-third Infantry.
General Crook’s personal staff was composed of myself as Acting
Assistant Adjutant-General; Schuyler and Clarke, Aides-de-Camp; Randall,
Chief of Scouts; Rockwell, of the Fifth Cavalry, as Commissary; Surgeon
Joseph R. Gibson as Chief Medical Officer.
In the list of officers starting out with this expedition are to be
found the names of Major G. A. Gordon, Fifth Cavalry, and Major E. F.
Townsend, Ninth Infantry, and Captain C. V. Mauck, Fourth Cavalry, and
Captain J. B. Campbell, Fourth Artillery, commanding battalions;
Lieutenant Hayden Delaney, Ninth Infantry, commanding company of Indian
scouts; and the following from the various regiments, arranged without
regard to rank: Wessels and Hammond; Gerald Russell, Oscar Elting, and
George A. Dodd, of the Third Cavalry; James Egan and James Allison, of
the Second Cavalry; John M. Hamilton, E. W. Ward and E. P. Andrus,
Alfred B. Taylor and H. W. Wheeler, of the Fifth Cavalry; J. H. Dorst,
H. W. Lawton, C. Mauck, J. W. Martin, John Lee, C. M. Callahan, S. A.
Mason, H. H. Bellas, Wirt Davis, F. L. Shoemaker, J. Wesley Rosenquest,
W. C. Hemphill, J. A. McKinney, H. G. Otis, of the Fourth Cavalry;
Cushing, Taylor, Bloom, Jones, Campbell, Cummins, Crozier, Frank G.
Smith, Harry R. Anderson, Greenough, Howe, French, of the Fourth
Artillery; Jordan, MacCaleb, Devin, Morris C. Foot, Pease, Baldwin,
Rockefeller, Jesse M. Lee, Bowman, of the Ninth Infantry; Vanderslice,
Austin, Krause, Hasson, Kimball, of the Fourteenth Infantry; Pollock,
Hay, Claggett, Edward B. Pratt, Wheaton, William L. Clarke, Hoffman,
Heyl, of the Twenty-third Infantry; and Surgeons Gibson, Price, Wood,
Pettys, Owsley, and La Garde.
Mackenzie’s column numbered twenty-eight officers and seven hundred and
ninety men; Dodge’s, thirty-three officers and six hundred and forty-six
enlisted men. There were one hundred and fifty-five Arapahoes,
Cheyennes, and Sioux; ninety-one Shoshones, fifteen Bannocks, one
hundred Pawnees, one Ute, and one Nez Percé, attached as scouts; and
four interpreters.
The supplies were carried on four hundred pack-mules, attended by
sixty-five packers under men of such experience as Tom Moore, Dave
Mears, Young Delaney, Patrick, and others; one hundred and sixty-eight
wagons and seven ambulances—a very imposing cavalcade. Major Frank
North, assisted by his brother, Luke North, commanded the Pawnees; they,
as well as all the other scouts, rendered service of the first value, as
will be seen from a glance at these pages. General Crook had succeeded
in planting a detachment of infantry at old Fort Reno, which was rebuilt
under the energetic administration of Major Pollock, of the Ninth, and
had something in the way of supplies, shelter, and protection to offer
to small parties of couriers or scouts who might run against too strong
a force of the enemy. This post, incomplete as it was, proved of prime
importance before the winter work was over.
We noticed one thing in the make-up of our scouting force: it was an
improvement over that of the preceding summer, not in bravery or energy,
but in complete familiarity with the plans and designs of the hostile
Sioux and Cheyennes whom we were to hunt down. Of the Cheyennes, I am
able to give the names of “Thunder Cloud,” “Bird,” “Blown Away,” “Old
Crow,” “Fisher,” and “Hard Robe.” Among the Sioux were, in addition to
the young man, “Charging Bear,” who had been taken prisoner at the
engagement of Slim Buttes, “Three Bears,” “Pretty Voiced Bull,” “Yellow
Shirt,” “Singing Bear,” “Lone Feather,” “Tall Wild Cat,” “Bad Boy,”
“Bull,” “Big Horse,” “Black Mouse,” “Broken Leg,” a second Indian named
“Charging Bear,” “Crow,” “Charles Richaud,” “Eagle,” “Eagle” (2),
“Feather On The Head,” “Fast Thunder,” “Fast Horse,” “Good Man,” “Grey
Eyes,” “James Twist,” “Kills First,” “Keeps The Battle,” “Kills In The
Winter,” “Lone Dog,” “Owl Bull,” “Little Warrior,” “Leading Warrior,”
“Little Bull,” “No Neck,” “Poor Elk,” “Rocky Bear,” “Red Bear,” “Red
Willow,” “Six Feathers,” “Sitting Bear,” “Scraper,” “Swift Charger,”
“Shuts The Door,” “Slow Bear,” “Sorrel Horse,” “Swimmer,” “Tobacco,”
“Knife,” “Thunder Shield,” “Horse Comes Last,” “White Face,” “Walking
Bull,” “Waiting,” “White Elk,” “Yellow Bear,” “Bad Moccasin,” “Bear
Eagle,” “Yankton,” “Fox Belly,” “Running Over,” “Red Leaf”—representing
the Ogallallas, Brulés, Cut Offs, Loafers, and Sans Arcs bands.
The Arapahoes were “Sharp Nose,” “Old Eagle,” “Six Feathers,” “Little
Fox,” “Shell On The Neck,” “White Horse,” “Wolf Moccasin,” “Sleeping
Wolf,” “William Friday,” “Red Beaver,” “Driving Down Hill,” “Yellow
Bull,” “Wild Sage,” “Eagle Chief,” “Sitting Bull,” “Short Head,” “Arrow
Quiver,” “Yellow Owl,” “Strong Bear,” “Spotted Crow,” “White Bear,” “Old
Man,” “Painted Man,” “Left Hand,” “Long Hair,” “Ground Bear,” “Walking
Water,” “Young Chief,” “Medicine Man,” “Bull Robe,” “Crying Dog,” “Flat
Foot,” “Flint Breaker,” “Singing Beaver,” “Fat Belly,” “Crazy,” “Blind
Man,” “Foot,” “Hungry Man,” “Wrinkled Forehead,” “Fast Wolf,” “Big Man,”
“White Plume,” “Coal,” “Sleeping Bear,” “Little Owl,” “Butcher,” “Broken
Horn,” “Bear’s Backbone,” “Head Warrior,” “Big Ridge,” “Black Man,”
“Strong Man,” “Whole Robe,” “Bear Wolf.”
The above will surely show that we were excellently provided with
material from the agencies, which was the main point to be considered.
The Pawnees were led by “Li-here-is-oo-lishar” and “U-sanky-su-cola;”
the Bannocks and Shoshones by “Tupsi-paw” and “O-ho-a-te.” The chief
“Washakie” was not with them this time; he sent word that he was
suffering from rheumatism and did not like to run the risks of a winter
campaign, but had sent his two sons and a nephew and would come in
person later on if his services were needed. These guides captured a
Cheyenne boy and brought him in a prisoner to Crook, who learned from
him much as to the location of the hostile villages.
In the gray twilight of a cold November morning (the 25th), Mackenzie
with the cavalry and Indian scouts burst like a tornado upon the
unsuspecting village of the Cheyennes at the head of Willow Creek, a
tributary of the Powder, and wiped it from the face of the earth. There
were two hundred and five lodges, each of which was a magazine of
supplies of all kinds—buffalo and pony meat, valuable robes, ammunition,
saddles, and the comforts of civilization—in very appreciable
quantities. The roar of the flames exasperated the fugitive Cheyennes to
frenzy; they saw their homes disappearing in fire and smoke; they heard
the dull thump, thump, of their own medicine drum, which had fallen into
the hands of our Shoshones; and they listened to the plaintive drone of
the sacred flageolets upon which the medicine men of the Pawnees were
playing as they rode at the head of their people. Seven hundred and five
ponies fell into our hands and were driven off the field; as many more
were killed and wounded or slaughtered by the Cheyennes the night after
the battle, partly for food and partly to let their half-naked old men
and women put their feet and legs in the warm entrails. We lost one
officer, Lieutenant John A. McKinney, Fourth Cavalry, and six men killed
and twenty-five men wounded; the enemy’s loss was unknown; at least
thirty bodies fell into our hands, and at times the fighting had a
hand-to-hand character, especially where Wirt Davis and John M. Hamilton
were engaged. The village was secured by a charge on our left in which
the companies of Taylor, Hemphill, Russell, Wessells, and the Pawnees
participated. The Shoshones, under Lieutenant Schuyler and Tom Cosgrove,
seized a commanding peak and rained down bullets upon the brave
Cheyennes, who, after putting their women and children in the best
places of safety accessible, held on to the rocks, and could not be
dislodged without great loss of life.
Mackenzie sent couriers to Crook, asking him to come to his help as soon
as he could with the long rifles of the infantry, to drive the enemy
from their natural fortifications. Crook and the foot troops under
Dodge, Townsend, and Campbell made the wonderful march of twenty-six
miles over the frozen, slippery ground in twelve hours, much of the
distance by night. But they did not reach us in time, as the excessive
cold had forced the Cheyennes to withdraw from our immediate front,
eleven of their little babies having frozen to death in their mothers’
arms the first night and three others the second night after the fight.
The Cheyennes were spoken to by Bill Roland and Frank Gruard, but were
very sullen and not inclined to talk much; it was learned that we had
struck the village of “Dull Knife,” who had with him “Little Wolf,”
“Roman Nose,” “Gray Head,” “Old Bear,” “Standing Elk,” and “Turkey
Legs.” “Dull Knife” called out to our Sioux and Cheyenne scouts: “Go
home—you have no business here; we can whip the white soldiers alone,
but can’t fight you too.” The other Cheyennes called out that they were
going over to a big Sioux village, which they asserted to be near by,
and get its assistance, and then come back and clean us out. “You have
killed and hurt a heap of our people,” they said, “and you may as well
stay now and kill the rest of us.” The Custer massacre was represented
by a perfect array of mute testimony: gauntlets, hats, and articles of
clothing marked with the names of officers and men of the ill-fated
Seventh Cavalry, saddles, silk guidons, and other paraphernalia pointing
the one moral, that the Cheyennes had been as foremost in the battle
with Custer as they had been in the battle with Crook on the Rosebud a
week earlier.
All the tribes of the plains looked up to the Cheyennes, and respected
their impetuous valor; none stood higher than they as fierce, skilful
fighters; and to think that we had broken the back of their hostility
and rendered them impotent was a source of no small gratification. They
sent a party of young men to follow our trail and see whither we went;
these young men crawled up close to our camp-fires and satisfied
themselves that some of their own people were really enlisted to fight
our battles, as Ben Roland had assured them was the case. This
disconcerted them beyond measure, added to what they could see of our
column of scouts from the other tribes. “Dull Knife” made his way down
the Powder to where “Crazy Horse” was in camp, expecting to be received
with the hospitality to which his present destitution and past services
entitled him. “Crazy Horse” was indifferent to the sufferings of his
allies and turned the cold shoulder upon them completely, and this so
aroused their indignation that they decided to follow the example of
those who had enrolled under our flag and sent in word to that effect.
At first it was not easy to credit the story that the Cheyennes were not
only going to surrender, but that every last man of them would enlist as
a soldier to go out and demolish “Crazy Horse;” but the news was
perfectly true, and in the last days of December and the first of
January the first detachment of them arrived at Red Cloud Agency; just
as fast as the condition of their ponies and wounded would admit,
another detachment arrived; and then the whole body—men, women, and
children—made their appearance, and announced their desire and intention
to help us whip “Crazy Horse.” “Crazy Horse” happened to be related by
blood or by marriage to both “Spotted Tail” and “Red Cloud,” and each of
these big chiefs exerted himself to save him. “Spotted Tail” sounded the
Cheyennes and found that they were in earnest in the expressed purpose
of aiding the Americans; and when he counted upon his fingers the
hundreds of allies who were coming in to the aid of the whites in the
suppression, perhaps the extermination, of the Dakotas, who had so long
lorded it over the population of the Missouri Valley, he saw that it was
the part of prudence for all his people to submit to the authority of
the General Government and trust to its promises.
Colonel Mason was not only a good soldier, he was a man of most
excellent education, broad views and humane impulses; he had gained a
great influence over “Spotted Tail,” which he used to the best
advantage. He explained to his red-skinned friends that the force soon
to be put in the field would embrace hundreds of the Sioux at the
agencies, who were desirous of providing themselves with ponies from the
herds of their relations, the Minneconjous; that every warrior of the
Cheyennes had declared his intention of enlisting to fight “Crazy
Horse”; that there would be, if needed, two hundred and fifty men, or
even more, from the Utes, Bannocks, and Shoshones; that over one hundred
Pawnees were determined to accompany any expedition setting out; that
one hundred Winnebagoes had offered their services; that all the
able-bodied Arapahoes were enrolled, and that the Crows had sent word
that two hundred of their best warriors would take part. In the early
part of the winter the Crows had sent two hundred and fifty of their
warriors under Major George M. Randall and the interpreter, Fox, to find
and join Crook’s expedition. After being subjected to indescribable
privations and almost frozen to death in a fierce wind and snow storm
upon the summits of the Big Horn range—from the fury of which Randall
and his companions were saved by the accident of discovering a herd of
buffaloes hiding from the blast in a little sag, which animals they
attacked, killing a number and eating the flesh raw, as no fire could
live in such a blast, and putting their feet inside the carcasses to
keep from freezing stiff—the brave detachment of Crows succeeded in
uniting with us on Christmas morning, 1876, in one of the most
disagreeable blizzards of that trip.
Their number had been reduced below one hundred, but they were still
able to aid us greatly, had not Crook deemed it best for them to return
home and apprise their tribe of the complete downfall of the Cheyennes
and the breaking of the backbone of hostility. There might be other
fights and skirmishes in the future, but organized antagonism to the
whites was shattered when the Cheyenne camp was laid low, and future
military operations would be minimized into the pursuit of straggling
detachments or conflicts with desperate bands which had no hope of
success, but would wish to sell their lives at the highest rate
possible. The best thing for the Crows and Utes and Shoshones to do
would be to move into, or at least close to, the Big Horn Mountains, and
from there raid upon the petty villages of the Sioux who might try to
live in the seclusion of the rocks and forests. “Spotted Tail” said that
“Crazy Horse” was his nephew, and he thought he could make him see the
absolute inutility of further resistance by going out to have a talk
with him.
Mason telegraphed all the foregoing facts to General Crook, who had been
summoned to Cheyenne as a witness before a general court-martial; Crook
replied that there was no objection to the proposed mission, but that
“Spotted Tail” must let “Crazy Horse” understand that he was not sent
out with any overtures, and that all “Crazy Horse” could count upon was
safety in his passage across the country, by setting out at once before
another movement should begin. “Spotted Tail” found “Crazy Horse”
encamped near the head of the Little Powder, about midway between
Cantonment Reno and the southwestern corner of the Black Hills. He made
known his errand, and had no great difficulty in making his nephew see
that he had better begin his movement towards the agency without a
moment’s delay. Several of “Crazy Horse’s” young men came in with
“Spotted Tail,” who was back at Camp Robinson by the last week in
January, 1877. General Crook’s headquarters had been transferred to that
point, and there was little to do beyond waiting for the arrival of
“Crazy Horse” and other chiefs.
Of our mess and its members, as well as the people who dined or supped
with us, I am sure that my readers will pardon me for saying a word.