“In my opinion, gentlemen,” said in Ned’s hearing Wild Bill, “it’s
worth a lot o’ trouble, and the Government can afford to give in on a
few points, to keep those settlers from being murdered, who are out
here with their families, trying hard to build up the country. If we
can only hold those Injuns off till fall, after the buffalo season, and
get ’em on their reservation for the winter, we can then watch ’em.”
From Fort Hays the Seventh Cavalry marched south, in early summer, to
join with some of the Tenth Cavalry and the Third Infantry, along the
Arkansas River near Fort Larned and Fort Dodge. The Indian villages
were still in this vicinity, and the young men were restless and full
of threats. General Alfred Sully, who had fought the Sioux in Dakota
in 1863, was in command down here, over the District of the Arkansas.
Ned was retained on his quartermaster department detail; but he was
growing eager to take the field with his comrades.
Affairs seemed to be shaping all right, until in July arrived at Fort
Hays, by courier from Fort Larned, word that the warriors were leaving
the villages, and trailing northward. Quickly following came the news
that a party of Cheyennes had raided the friendly Kaws, or Kansas
Indians, near Council Grove south of Riley, and had robbed settlers.
This must not be permitted, for the United States was bound to protect
its Indian friends.
The Cheyennes and Arapahos and all had not been given the guns and
ammunition promised them by the treaty. Now it was time for the annual
distribution of gifts. When the Comanches and the Kiowas gathered at
Fort Larned to receive them, the agent announced that they could have
no rifles or pistols or powder and lead until the Kaws and the settlers
had been paid for the damage done to them.
This made the Indians angry. They refused all gifts, and returned to
their camp, the young men began to war-dance.
General Sully appeared at Fort Larned, and prepared for action. But
Little Rock, Cheyenne chief, claimed that only some bad young men,
on an expedition against the Pawnees, had robbed the Kaws and the
settlers. All the chiefs promised that if guns and ammunition were
issued, so that their people might hunt the buffalo, everything would
be quiet.
“No more trips will be made by my people into the settlements,” assured
Little Raven, the fat old Arapaho chief, who had always been friendly
toward the whites. “Their hearts are good, and they wish to be at peace
forever.”
So even General Sully was convinced, and ordered the guns and
ammunition to be issued.
“The gen’ral ought to’ve known better, gentle-_men_,” declared Scout
Will Comstock, speaking of the matter at Fort Hays, where he had
arrived on an errand. “Those Injuns talked ’round him. One hundred
pistols, eighty rifles, twelve kegs powder, half a keg o’ lead, fifteen
thousand caps, to the ’Rapahos: forty pistols, twenty rifles, three
kegs powder, half a keg o’ lead, five thousand caps to the ’Paches;
Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas—they’re bein’ treated the same; that’s
the case to-day. And, gentle-_men_,” he added, impressively, “you
mark my words. We’ll hear from those weepons in a way we won’t like.
I know Injuns. Little Raven an’ Black Kettle may mean all right, when
speakin’, but they can’t control their bucks. We’ll all be fightin’
those same guns before the buff’ler turn south.”
Now August had set in; and on the seventh who should arrive at the
post of Fort Hays but a large band of the Indians from the Arkansas.
They had come up from the Pawnee Fork west of Fort Larned, and said
they were on their way to fight the Pawnees. There were four or five
Arapahos, and twenty Sioux visitors from the north, and 200 Cheyennes.
Old Black Kettle the Cheyenne chief was leader; other chiefs were
Tall Wolf and Red Nose and Porcupine Bear and Bear That Goes Ahead
(Cheyennes), and even a son of Little Raven the Arapaho chief.
That night they held a big powwow. Black Kettle shook hands with all
the soldiers within reach. From beside the council camp-fire he made a
speech, to say, as translated by Wilson the post trader:
“The white soldiers ought to be glad all the time, because their ponies
are so big and so strong, and because they have so many guns and so
much to eat. All other Indians may take the war path, but Black Kettle
will forever keep peace with his white brothers. He loves his white
brothers, and his heart feels glad when he meets them and shakes their
hands in friendship.”
This sounded very good, for the whites; but everybody knew that the
Black Kettle band had no business going out to fight the Pawnees or
anybody else. If they didn’t find the Pawnees, then they might try to
fight whomever they met.
Away they rode, in their war-paint; and next, dreadful tidings came
back. First, into Fort Harker were brought by their husbands two white
women; almost crazed the men related that a party of Cheyennes had
entered their ranch house, on the Saline River north of Harker, and
after being kindly treated to hot coffee and sugar, had thrown the
coffee in the women’s faces, knocked the men down, and abused all
terribly. Two other white men had been killed in the fields with clubs;
a woman had been killed, and two children had been carried away.
This was the news, to Hays from Fort Harker. From Fort Wallace, in the
other direction, came word as shocking. Boyish Scout Will Comstock had
been murdered by friendly Chief Turkey Leg’s Cheyennes; Sharpe Grover,
his companion, had been desperately wounded.
Some of the young Cheyennes had tried to trade with Comstock for his
prized revolver. But he would not trade. It was the same revolver that
he promised to give to General Custer as soon as he had guided the
general to a victory. The young Indians then rode with him and Grover
to escort them from the village. Presently they dropped behind, did the
Indians, shot Will Comstock dead, through the back, and almost killed
Grover. But from shelter of his chum’s body, with his long-range rifle
Grover fought all day. During the night and the next day he hid in a
ravine; and through the ensuing darkness he crawled and staggered clear
to Fort Wallace, where he gasped out the tale.
Aye, the buffalo had not turned southward, but already were Fort Hays
and the other white stations of the southwest hearing from the guns and
pistols issued at Fort Larned. From the Smoky Hill stage route and that
of the Santa Fé, from the Republican, the Saline, the Arkansas and the
Cimarron, at last along the telegraph line passed report after report,
brought in by settler and scout and courier, telling of onslaught by
Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche. The town of Sheridan, at the end of
the Kansas Pacific Railroad, only fifteen miles from Fort Wallace,
announced that it had been attacked and for two days kept in a state of
siege!
Settlers and scouts and other frontiersmen began to pour into Fort
Hays and Hays City; and here arrived General Sheridan himself—the
small-bodied, large-headed, bristly little Irishman, with fire in his
gray eyes.
“This is war,” Ned heard him repeat. “We’ll fight them to a finish. The
only way to control them is to destroy them wherever they are to be
found, until they all are confined on a reservation.”
Buffalo Bill Cody had been assigned to the quartermaster department
with station at Fort Larned. Now one day he came riding posthaste into
Hays, his horse matted with sweaty dust, he as dusty and as tired. He
bore dispatches, and reported that all his route of seventy miles had
been infested with hostile warriors.
He volunteered to return at once over the same route, with dispatches
for Fort Dodge, thirty miles further. Back he rode; and in two more
days he was at Hays again. He had ridden 350 miles in fifty-five hours.
He stayed at Fort Hays, for General Sheridan promoted him to be Chief
of Scouts for the Fifth Cavalry.
Buffalo Bill’s last dispatches told that the old men and squaws left
in the villages were packing the tipis and were moving south, as if
the Indians did not intend to winter on any reservation. Evidently the
winter villages were to be set up where the soldiers could not follow.
From General Sheridan went quick orders to General Sully to stop the
Indians, and turn them. And as the soldiers were being kept busy, in
the south and guarding the Smoky Hill trail, to protect the settlers
northward an expedition of volunteers was ordered out.
They all were frontiersmen, who gladly rallied to fight for ranch and
town. Thirty enlisted at Fort Harker, seventeen at Fort Hays. General
George A. Forsyth, who was called “Sandy” and was colonel on the staff
of General Sheridan, was the commanding officer. Lieutenant Beecher was
his aide. Dr. John S. Mooers of Kansas City, surgeon in the Civil War,
was medical officer; General W. H. H. McCall, of the Civil War, was
first sergeant. Sharpe Grover (now well again) was the guide; Stillwell
and Trudell and Dick Parr were among the scouts.
Ned burned to go, but he was refused because of his youth.
“You wait,” comforted Jack Stillwell—a jaunty young fellow, with waist
like a girl’s and face as smooth as Ned’s own. “There’ll be plenty left
for you other people, soldiers and all, to do. Wait till Sheridan gets
out after ’em.”
“Wall, there won’t be as many as there are now,” remarked significantly
Sharpe Grover, standing near.
In truth so thought Ned when, on the twenty-eighth of August, out from
Fort Hays rode against the Dog Soldiers raiding the settlements the
little company of half a hundred—few in numbers but every man a skilled
shot. They were well armed with Spencer and Henry repeating rifles, and
had much ammunition. General “Sandy” Forsyth and Sharpe Grover led.
A few days passed. Ned must continue with his clerkship duties—which,
of course, somebody must perform, even in war. Soldiering is not all
fighting.
Next, was it learned that south of the Arkansas General Sully,
his Seventh Cavalry and his Third Infantry, had almost lost their
wagon-train and had been driven back into Fort Dodge! One trooper had
been captured by the Indians (poor fellow, Ned knew him well) and
carried off to be tortured to death. Captain Hamilton and Captain Smith
had charged with their companies in vain, to rescue him.
And next came the more startling news that on the Arikaree branch of
the upper Republican, not far from the Forks where Pawnee Killer had
attacked the Seventh Cavalry camp, 700 Cheyenne warriors under Chief
Roman Nose had surrounded General Forsyth’s fifty men, and had almost
“wiped them out.” After a terrific fight of three days and three
nights, the volunteers had been rescued by Colonel Carpenter and his
Tenth Cavalry from Fort Wallace. Lieutenant Beecher and Dr. Mooers
had been killed; the general thrice wounded; Roman Nose and many of
his braves had fallen. Jack Stillwell had brought the first dispatch
through to Wallace; Trudell had been his companion.
Yes, war it was. Wouldn’t Custer be needed? At Monroe, Michigan,
wouldn’t he be chafing? His term of discipline was almost done. Then,
as sudden great news, appeared in the Leavenworth daily paper received
at Fort Hays the following telegram, copied:
Headquarters Department of the Missouri,
In the Field, Fort Hays, Kansas, September 24, 1868.
General G. A. Custer, Monroe, Michigan:
Generals Sherman, Sully, and myself, and nearly all the
officers of your regiment, have asked for you, and I hope the
application will be successful. Can you come at once? Eleven
companies of your regiment will move about the 1st of October
against the hostile Indians, from Medicine Lodge Creek toward
the Wichita Mountains.
P. H. SHERIDAN, _Major-General Commanding_.