It was a tune as inspiring as “Yankee Doodle,” but sweeter.
The expedition made a great sight. First rode a squad of the picked
scouts—Delawares and white men—headed by Wild Bill clad in showy
fringed buckskins. Scout “Pony Bill” Cody did not accompany. He was
reserved to guide another detachment to Fort Hays.
After the line of scouts came the commanding officers and their staffs.
General Hancock was only representing the department, to talk with the
Indians, but he frequently dashed up and down the march, inspecting. He
and General Smith made an active pair, prompt to criticize.
The infantry, long Springfield rifles at a slant over shoulder,
canteens clinking at hips, with the artillery and the pontoon train
rumbling behind, formed one column. A detachment of recruits from Fort
Leavenworth, to be distributed among the Southwest posts, had joined
only just in time. They were under young Lieutenant John A. Hannay of
the Third Infantry.
The Seventh Cavalry, following their band, formed the other column.
General Custer and his adjutant, Lieutenant Moylan, led; and close
behind the general rode Ned, the orderly bugler. Behind Ned was the
color guard—Sergeant Kennedy with the great silken Stars and Stripes,
another sergeant with the broad blue, yellow-fringed standard of the
Seventh Cavalry, and the two guards who completed the four.
The general staff, and the cavalry officers of course, and the
artillery officers and most of the infantry officers were horseback;
save old Major Gibbs, who was fleshy, and who had been badly wounded
years before in an Indian fight. He rode in the ambulance. Young
Lieutenant Hannay, with his recruits, must walk.
Glancing back from his saddle Ned thrilled in his heart as he saw the
long blue columns, with flags large and small floating over, and the
wagon train, the white hoods drawn each by six mules, filing after.
The cavalry seemed the least showy, for all the troopers were so loaded
down with blanket rolls, and frying pan and tin cup, and canteen, and
haversack stuffed with hardtack, and seven-shot carbine, and saber,
and studded cartridge belt with butcher-knife thrust through it, and
revolver holsters, and lariat and picket pin slung to saddle, that
really the riders looked like traveling peddlers!
As for the other column—Odell and Sergeant Kennedy and such veteran
cavalrymen had laughed among themselves, when they heard that Indians
were to be chased with artillery and a pontoon train.