Fort Randall was the extreme frontier post occupied by troops. The fort
was located on a beautiful site on the left bank. The boat landing
and remaining here awaited the preparations of an officer, Captain
Wessells, and a squad of soldiers to accompany the Indian agents as a
guard.
The officers’ quarters and barracks occupied two sides of a quadrangle
of about ten acres, forming a level parade ground of prairie sod, in
the center of which stood a flag-staff and bandstand. In the afternoon
a fine regimental band regaled us with delightful music that seemed to
be enjoyed even by the Indians loafing around the fort. The officers
were exceeding courteous, showing us everything of interest to be
seen about the post, and when Captain Wessells and his squad of men,
twenty soldiers, were ready to come on board on our departure, we
were heartily and boisterously cheered by a multitude of officers and
soldiers assembled on the river bank. A lieutenant who had perhaps
imbibed too freely at the bar shouted at the top of his voice, throwing
his hat into the river as the boat floated away.
Our next prominent landing was Fort Pierre, the main trading post
of the great Sioux nation. Here we found them assembled in force,
the entire tribe being present except one band, that of “Big Head,”
awaiting the arrival of Colonel Redfield, their agent. The river bottom
above the fort was dotted with their lodges as far as we could see
from the hurricane deck of the boat. The cabin would not accommodate
even the chiefs of this vast assemblage, so the council was held in
the open plain a short distance from the landing. The chiefs were
splendid-looking fellows when they got together, hardly one among them
less than six feet high. The Sioux then mustered a larger number of
stalwart, fine-looking, bronze-colored men than could be assembled
elsewhere on the continent. They were then subdivided into eight bands,
all present on that occasion except the band of “Big Head,” the most
unfriendly and hostile of the Sioux. The previous year when Colonel
Vaughn was their agent, Big Head got mad at him, and while he was
speaking, jerked the spectacles off his nose, declaring that he allowed
no man “to look at him with two pair of eyes.”
The council with the Sioux continued the greater part of the day with a
great flow of Indian eloquence. A large quantity of goods was brought
from the boats and piled in heaps--enough, it seemed, to stock a large
wholesale house, but, in accepting the goods, the Indians did not seem
to show any pleasure, much less gratitude; on the contrary, they looked
about with their usual indifference as if they felt they were being put
under obligations not easily discharged. But in truth little of their
talk was understood by me, and less of their actions.
The fur trade at Fort Pierre was more extensive than at any other
point on the river, and both the trading companies had many employees
residing there, and kept large stocks of goods. Here I made the
acquaintance of two young gentlemen, natives of St. Louis, members of
the forty or four hundred porcelain of that town, now, however, on
duty at the fort directing the Indian trade, and each supporting two
squaws, the mothers of several children. They seemed in fine health and
spirits, and enjoying life in spite of isolation from refined society.
As the boat was leaving Fort Pierre, we gained a passenger that would
be a conspicuous person in any crowd from his unusual good looks.
Soon after coming on board he joined in the poker game, being well
known to all the upper river men. A man of twenty-five years, tall,
well built and remarkably handsome, a quarter-blood Sioux, his mother
being a half-blood, his father a Frenchman long a resident of the
Indian country, and who had given this son all the advantages of a
good education at some eastern college. He was affable, agreeable and
gentlemanly in his conduct, and I shall never forget the man although I
do not recall his name. He remained with us only a few days, stopping
off at a trading post some distance above Fort Pierre.
At Fort Pierre we had another addition to our passengers in the person
of Colonel Vaughn’s Indian wife and children. The colonel, being a
widower when appointed by President Pierce agent for the Sioux, married
(according to the custom of the Indians) a member of that tribe, and
in the early spring she had accompanied the colonel from the Blackfoot
Agency, down the river on a keel-boat, to Fort Pierre, where she had
remained with some relatives awaiting the colonel’s return. Being thus
identified, Colonel Vaughn’s influence and popularity with the Indians
was greatly increased, and in fact so thoroughly established that he
remained at the agency on Sun River, Montana, surrounded by Indians,
without a guard and with perfect safety.
A day or two after leaving Fort Pierre the boat was signalled by Big
Head and his band who came approaching the river from the northeast,
across a vast bottom prairie, and who were conspicuous on account
of their absence at the council at Fort Pierre, and this fact was
construed by the agent and others connected with the Indians as an
indication of his continued unfriendliness or possible open hostility.
The boat was steaming along against a strong current, but near the
shore, when this band was seen approaching, giving signals for the boat
to land, which the agent immediately ordered. While the landing was
being made, the band, several hundred in number, had approached within
two hundred yards of the river bank, when they formed an irregular
line and halting, fired towards us a number of guns, the bullets from
which went whistling through the air above us. For a while it was
thought they had attacked us, but in a few moments it was discovered
that this demonstration of fire arms was intended as a salute for
the agent. The boat having landed, Big Head and his sub-chiefs and
warriors came on board, assembled in the cabin, where a council was
duly organized. Big Head made a great speech, in which he gave some
excuse for not attending the general council at Fort Pierre, claiming
to be altogether peaceful and friendly, and anxious to accept the
annuities from the great father at Washington. Big Head was a heavy
built ugly Indian unlike most of his tribe, who were generally tall,
well proportioned, fine-looking fellows.
Singularly enough, no buffalo were seen by us while ascending the river
in 1858. Several years later, in 1865, going up the river to the mines
in Montana, we saw great herds of them along the river for more than
a thousand miles, and killed as many as were needful to supply the
boats with meat. They were frequently found crossing the river in such
numbers as to prevent navigation of the boat. Occasionally we would
approach them massed under a bluff-bank, after swimming the river, too
steep to allow exit from the water, and here they would stand or swim
around in the water (accumulated here from the opposite side of the
river) exhausted and apparently bewildered.
Under these circumstances, if we were in need of meat, the captain
would land the boat below them, the yawl-boat would be lowered, manned
with oarsmen, and a man provided with a rope and butcher-knife,
and rowed up to the heads of the animals as they swam around. The
rope would be tied around the horns, the buffalo killed with the
butcher-knife, the carcass floated down to the boat, when the hoisting
tackle would be attached to it and lifted aboard, where it was handily
skinned and quartered.
After we passed above that part of the river with which the pilots
were thoroughly acquainted, it was necessary to tie up at night, and
much time was consumed in cutting wood. The boat was also delayed some
time at Cedar Island, an island covered with a dense grove of cedar,
growing so thick that the trees were void of branches or knots, forming
excellent smooth poles that were used for various purposes at the
trading posts, and a great quantity of these poles were cut and brought
on board. This was the only island in the river on which the growth
was entirely cedar, and on this island the Indians procured their
lodge-poles.
On this part of the river one could sit on the deck of the boat and
enjoy the vast expanse of country, gradually sloping from the river
to the hills, miles in extent, generally monotonous to be sure, but
sublime in its vastness and simplicity. Here and there herds of deer
and antelopes and packs of wolves went scampering off, alarmed by the
noise of the boat. There were two large wolf hounds on board, partly
greyhounds, being sent up to one of the trading posts.
On one occasion while the boat was landed to cut wood they were taken
on shore and turned loose to chase a large wolf, seen not far off. The
dogs put after him, soon running at full speed, in our view for a mile
or more, overtaking the wolf, but declining to seize him, not having
been yet trained for coursing wolves.
At the Mandan village, on the right bank, just above the present site
of Bismarck, we found the first abode of Indians having the resemblance
of permanency, their houses being of earth, supported by timbers on
the inside, rounded up like a big potato hill, so as turn the rain. At
this point Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804–5, on their famous
journey across the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The Rees, some
distance above on the left bank of the river, had houses of similar
construction, all the other tribes having portable lodges of poles and
rawhides.
Forts Berthold, Clark and Union were the main trading posts above, and
at each of these we found numbers of Indians collected to meet the
agents, and at which we landed of course to hold the usual council
and talk followed by the delivery of their proper share of the goods
provided for them. As we approached nearer the British possessions the
Indians were pretty well supplied with guns, obtained from the British
traders, a short, smooth bore, cheap-looking affair, but handy enough
for killing buffalo on horseback, while running.
Some of our passengers busied themselves during our stay at these
places in purchasing bows and arrows, pipes, shields, moccasins, etc.,
to be preserved as mementoes of the Indians. The young Englishman, Mr.
Lace, was particularly active in the acquisition of these articles
of Indian make, and so was the barkeeper of the boat, who acquired a
general assortment to take back with him to St. Louis.
The Indians along the upper Missouri were not then confined to
reservations and, in fact, roamed unrestrained from the Platte to the
North far beyond our boundary into the British possessions, and from
the Mississippi to the crest of the Rocky Mountains, subsisting mainly
upon the flesh of the buffalo.
The long twilight of this high latitude enabled the boat to run in
clear weather almost if not quite as late as 10 o’clock, and little
time was lost by darkness, and we were also favored with several
magnificent displays of the Aurora Borealis, exceedingly brilliant,
lighting the entire northern half of the sky for hours at a time.
On reaching the spurs or detached ranges of the mountains that appear
on either side of the river, navigation was rendered more difficult
by the shoals and rapids over which the boat could hardly have passed
but from the fact that she had been lightened by the discharge of the
greater part of her cargo, at points below.
In the latter part of June we landed at Fort Benton, the head of
navigation on the Missouri, where the boat remained several days.