_Major-General_.
The campaign to the north was planned with a view of going after all the
northern Indians then at war--the Arapahoes, North Cheyennes, and the
different bands of the Sioux. Their depredations had extended east to the
Missouri River, and General Pope sent General Sully with a force up that
river to take care of the hostile Sioux that had gathered and had been
fighting the troops at Forts Rice, Berthoud, and other points. Before
reaching these posts his column was turned and sent to Devil's Lake after
the Santee Sioux, who had been committing depredations in Minnesota, but
after reaching the lake he failed to find any Indians, they having fled to
the British Possessions. He returned to the Missouri River and endeavored
to make terms with the tribes concentrated on it, but only partially
succeeded. We knew that there were from two to three thousand of the
Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes concentrated at or near Bear Butte, near
the north end of the Black Hills, and it was the intention of General
Sully with his force to go after this band, but, being turned to the east,
I organized a force about 1,000 strong under Colonel Nelson Cole, who went
up the Missouri River in boats to Omaha and whose orders were to move from
Omaha to Columbus up the Loup Fork to its head and thence across the
Niobrara to the White Earth River and then to Bear Butte. Failing to find
the Indians there, he was to push on to Powder and Tongue Rivers, where he
was to join Brigadier-General P. E. Connor, who was in command of this
district. Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Walker's column of about 500 men of
the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry was to go north from Fort Laramie along the
west base of the Black Hills and join Colonel Cole, and later join General
Connor on the Tongue River; while General Connor, with a small command of
about 500 men, was moving north along the Platte to the head of Salt
Creek down the Salt to Powder River, where he was to establish a fort and
supply station; from thence he was to move along the east base of the Big
Horn Mountains until he struck the hostile Indians in that vicinity. These
columns should have moved in May or June, but it was July and August
before they got started, on account of the failure of the contractors to
deliver the supplies to them on the plains at the different supply-depots;
but when they started they moved with alacrity, and would, no doubt, have
accomplished the purpose of the campaign had it not been for the fact that
they were stopped by an order from Washington to return to Fort Laramie by
October 15th.
During May, June, and July the Indians were very aggressive all along the
South Platte and North Platte routes. Every Government train had to go
guarded; every emigrant train had to be organized into trains of 50 or 100
wagons, with the teamsters armed and placed under an officer, and even
then a great many of their people were killed and a great deal of stock
run off. The commanding officer at Fort Laramie, during June, had
concentrated at his post about 2,000 of what was considered friendly
Indians. Most of these Indians had been captured during the spring
campaign. They had brought in with them most of the prisoners that had
been captured on their raids upon the stage-lines and the ranches. General
Connor, desiring to get these Indians removed as far as possible from the
hostile Indians, under my order moved them south toward the Republican
River, in charge of two companies of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, commanded
by Captain Fouts. These Indians did not take kindly to this movement, and
the escort sent with them was not as large as it ought to have been. When
they were sixty miles south of Fort Laramie they were communicated with by
a band of hostile Indians who followed down the opposite side of the
Platte River, and early in the morning they attacked their escort, killing
Captain Fouts and four soldiers, and wounding seven others. In the fight
there were a great many Indians killed and wounded, but these Indians were
allowed to go south with their arms, to convince them that we put
confidence in them and did not treat them as prisoners. With the aid of
the other Indians on the north side of the Platte, they forced the escort
to intrench itself, by doing which the train and the women and others who
had been rescued from the Sioux Indians were saved, as word was gotten to
Fort Laramie and relief was sent. The Indians after this fight crossed the
North Platte River and moved north toward the Black Hills.
Colonel Moonlight, in command of Fort Laramie, as soon as he heard of this
revolt, went to relieve the intrenched party. The Indians, however, had
crossed the Platte River. He followed them. When within ten or fifteen
miles of the band, through carelessness in taking care of his horses, the
Indians turned upon him, stampeded his stock, and, in fact, drove off 200
or 300 head of it, leaving his command on foot. The attack of the hostiles
frightened the horses so that they could not be controlled, and they ran
towards the Indians. Moonlight and his command had to march back to
Laramie, a long distance, without food or transportation, as they had
started out with only one or two days' rations. Colonel Moonlight was
immediately relieved of his command, but the damage had been done, which
gave the hostile Indians great encouragement. General Connor sent this
dispatch:
JULESBURG, June 15, 1865.
(Received 9:50 p. m.)
_Major-General Dodge_:
I ordered the Indians who surrendered at Laramie to be sent to
Kearney. Colonel Moonlight sent them without first dismounting them,
under charge of two companies of Seventh Iowa Cavalry. They revolted
sixty miles this side of Laramie, killing Captain Fouts, who was in
command, and four soldiers, and wounding seven; also killed four of
their own chiefs who refused to join them; fifteen Indians were
killed; the Indians fled north with their ponies, women, and children,
leaving all their camp equipage. Troops are in pursuit. Mail-stages
have stopped west of Camp Collins. Everything appears to work
unfavorably owing to failure of corn contractors and incompetency of
some of my subordinates. I will overcome all obstacles, however, in a
short time. Have you sent me cavalry yet? J. D. Doty, Governor of
Utah, was buried at Camp Douglas Cemetery this morning. Died of heart
disease.
P. E. CONNOR,
_Brigadier-General_.
During July, a band of the Arapahoes raided the South Platte River
stage-line between Fort Collins and Fort Halleck, drove off most of the
stock from the stations, and committed other depredations. Colonel Porter,
who was in command of that district, concentrated his force and went after
the Indians, and in a very few days restored the stage stations and gave
the Indians sound whippings, which kept that line clear nearly all summer.
The Indians that had done this work had gone into Fort Collins claiming to
be friendly and wishing to make a treaty, and after being fed there for
some time, left one night and committed the depredations before troops
could stop them. From here they moved immediately north to join the
hostile Indians north of the North Platte. I had received notice from
Washington that the Interior Department had information that these Indians
were peaceable and would not join in the campaigns; but, being on the
ground, I knew better, because we were capturing them in nearly all of the
attacks that they made. With them was a portion of one of the bands of the
Sioux.
On July 27, ten miles west of the North Platte Bridge station, a Mormon
train coming east was attacked by the Indians and Lieutenant Casper W.
Collins, of the Eleventh Ohio, and twenty-five men of the Eleventh Kansas,
went out to relieve it, when about one thousand Indians attacked him.
While he saved the train he lost his own life, and twenty-five of his men
were scalped and their bodies horribly mutilated; but while the Indians
had heavy losses in the fight, they were able to divide up and scatter
before any of the troops sent to attack them could reach them. I named the
post at Platte Bridge Fort Casper, and it is now known as the town of
Casper, on the North-Western railroad.
On August 16th a large band of Sioux Indians attacked a military station
on the South Platte route. They were overtaken by the Pawnee Indian
Battalion of our forces, who gave them a good whipping. They killed a
large number and took their stock and scattered them. This was a band of
Sioux Indians that had been lying on the North Platte and made this dash
to the South Platte stage-line, thinking we had withdrawn the troops from
it to the northern expedition. Very few of them ever got back to their
tribes.
The battalion of Pawnees with General Conner had made a great capture of a
band of Cheyennes who had been down on the Fort Halleck route. The latter
had there captured a part of a company of a Michigan Regiment who were
escorting a few wagons, the captives having been tied to the wagons and
burned. By some means, General Conner got word of this, and knew the trail
they would take to get back to the main command, and on this trail he
placed Major North and his battalion of Pawnees. Major North, in
describing to me what followed, said that when the Indians came back and
discovered that they were surrounded, one, an old man, moved up towards
him and placed his hand up to his mouth, telling him to come on; that they
were ready to die; that they were full of white men up to that,--meaning
up to his mouth. The Pawnees killed every one of this band and scalped
them. On one of them was found a diary of one of the Michigan soldiers who
had been killed, and one of the Cheyennes had used the book to give an
account of their travels, their camps and fights, and what they had done
on this raid. From this diary our guides could tell just exactly where the
party had been, where they had camped, where they had captured the
Michigan soldiers, and their route on their return. A half-breed had
written in the book a defiance of the troops, telling what the Indians
demanded. Among other things they demanded that before they would make
peace we should give up all their prisoners; that we should abandon the
country north of the Platte River, etc.
As soon as General Connor reached Powder River he established his post and
named it Fort Connor. (It was afterward named Fort Reno by me.) Connor
immediately pushed on to the Crazy Woman Mountain fork of Powder River and
then to the east base of the Big Horn Mountains, following that to the
Tongue River and down the Tongue until James Bridger, the chief scout and
guide of the expedition, claimed to have seen the smoke a long distance
away, of an Indian camp. No one else could see it, but, as a precaution,
Connor sent out the Pawnee scouts, and on August 27th they discovered
about 2,000 Indians camped on the Tongue River, near the mouth of Wolf
Creek. It is a singular fact that in this vicinity General Crook fought
his great battle on the Rosebud, the Custer massacre occurred, and it was
not very far away that the Phil Kearney disaster occurred, when Lieutenant
Fetterman and his whole command was slaughtered. General Connor
immediately corralled the trains and took his available forces, about 250
men, and marched all night and struck this band at daylight, giving them a
complete surprise. They were Arapahoes under Black Bear and Old David,
with several other noted chiefs. The band was just breaking up their camp,
but the Indian soldiers rallied and fought desperately. Captain H. E.
Palmer, A. A. G., with General Connor, gives this description of the
attack:
The word was passed back for the men to close up and follow the
General and not to fire a shot until he fired in advance. General
Conner then took the lead, riding his horse up the steep bank of the
ravine and dashing out across the mesa as if there were no Indians
just to his left. Every man followed as close as possible. At the
first sight of the General the Indian ponies grazing on the table-land
in front of us sent up a tremendous whinnying, and galloped down
toward the Indian village. More than 1,000 dogs began to bark, and
more than 700 Indians made the air ring with their fearful yelling. It
appeared that the Indians were in the act of breaking camp. The most
of their tepees were down and packed for the march. The ponies, more
than 3,000, had been gathered in and most of the squaws and children
were mounted, some of them having taken the line of march up the
stream to the new camp. The General watched the movements of his men
until he saw the last man emerge from the ravine, when he wheeled on
the left into line. The whole line then fired a volley into the
village without stopping their horses, and the bugles sounded a
charge. Not a man but realized that the charge into the village
without a moment's hesitation was our only salvation. We already saw
that we were greatly outnumbered, and that only desperate fighting
would save our scalps. We were in the village in the midst of a
hand-to-hand fight with the warriors and squaws, for many of the
squaws did as brave fighting as their savage lords. Unfortunately for
the squaws and children, our men had no time to direct their aim, and
bullets from both sides and murderous arrows filled the air. Women and
children fell among the killed and wounded. The scene was
indescribable. Each man seemed an army by himself. Near the sweathouse
I emptied my revolver into the carcasses of three warriors. One of our
men, a member of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry, a fine-looking soldier
with as handsome a face as I ever saw on a man, grabbed me by the
shoulder and turned me about that I might assist him in drawing an
arrow from his mouth. Having no surgeon of a higher grade than a
hospital steward, it was decided that in order to get the arrow out of
his mouth the tongue would have to be cut out, which was done. The
Indians made a brave stand trying to save their families, and
succeeded in getting away with a large majority of their women and
children, leaving behind nearly all of their plunder.
We now went up a stream called Wolf Creek, General Connor in close
pursuit. Soon after we left the village General Connor advised me to
instruct Captain North to take his battalion of Indians and get all
the stock he could possibly gather. General Connor pursued the savages
fully ten miles from camp, when he found himself accompanied by only
fourteen men. Our horses were so worn out that it was impossible for
the men to keep up. The Indians noticed his movements and turned upon
him and his soldiers. They fell back as fast as possible. Captain
North and myself had succeeded in coralling about a thousand ponies.
Scores of buffalo-robes, blankets, and furs were heaped up on
lodge-poles, and on these we placed our dead, and burned their bodies
to keep the Indians from mutilating them. Our attack on the village
began at 9 a. m. We remained until 2:30 and had destroyed a great deal
of Indian property. At 2:30 we took up the line of march for the
corralled train. Captain North with his eighty Indians undertook to
drive the captured stock. They were soon a great ways ahead, while the
rest of the force was engaged in beating back the Indians. The Indians
pressed on every side. They seemed to have plenty of ammunition, but
they did most of their fighting with arrows. Before dark we were
reduced to forty men, and had only a little ammunition. The Indians
showed no signs of stopping the fight, but kept on charging on us,
dashing away at the stock, and keeping us constantly on the move until
fifteen minutes of twelve, when the last shot was fired by our
pursuers. The incidents of this fight would make very interesting
reading. Every man was a general. Not a man in the company but
realized that his life was in the balance. We must either whip the
Indians and whip them badly or be whipped ourselves. We could see that
the Indians greatly outnumbered us, but we were better armed than
they. As for fighting qualities the savages proved themselves as brave
as any of our men. We had accomplished a great deal; 250 Indian lodges
and their contents had been burned, with the entire winter's supplies;
the son of Black Bear was killed: sixty-three Indians were killed,
1,100 ponies were captured, and a lot of women and children were taken
prisoners.
General Connor's report of this battle was burned in Utah, and
consequently was never forwarded to me or to the Government, so we do not
know what the loss on his part was; but it was severe.
General Connor now moved down the Tongue River to make a connection with
Colonel Walker and Colonel Cole, at the appointed rendezvous. His scouts
discovered that Colonel Cole in moving north had endeavored to reach the
mouth of Powder River and had failed, and after six days' fighting had
marched south, expecting to go to Port Laramie, not knowing that there
were supplies at Fort Connor.
Colonel Cole, who with his column had started from Omaha, had made
reasonable progress, following out the routes laid down, and did not
discover any Indians until he reached the Little Missouri River, on a
branch of the Piney that he was coming down. Lieutenant-Colonel Walker, of
the center column, visited his camp and was two days behind him. He should
have immediately joined him, to carry out his instructions. Cole was
headed toward the Tongue River, near the Wolf Mountains. When he got into
the brakes of the Powder River, he discovered many signs of Indians. This
is a very rough country, and he had great difficulty in getting his long
trains through it; however, he dropped into the valley about fifty miles
above the mouth of Powder River and sent a detachment with his best guide
fifty miles across to Tongue River and Panther Mountains and discovered
nothing of Connor. In Cole's instructions he was told that there would be
a supply-depot at Panther or Wolf Mountains, but General Connor had
changed this and made the supply-depot at what was known as Camp Connor,
on Powder River, and he did not notify either Cole or Walker of this
change, which he should have done, as had he done so it would have avoided
all the trouble that these two columns encountered. Cole's detachment of
cavalry discovered no signs of Connor on Tongue River and so followed down
the river, while they should have gone up; and failing to find any sign of
any depot at Panther Mountains, reported back to Cole. Cole's rations were
now exhausted, or nearly so, as he had not been as careful of them as he
should have been, expecting as he did to find a depot where he could get
plenty at the end of his sixty days' march. It shows that he was not up to
the woodcraft of the country. In examining Powder River towards its mouth
he found it destitute of grass and full of canyons. He, therefore, made
up his mind to move south up the Powder River valley, with a view to
either meeting Connor or making for Fort Laramie. The Indians, seeing this
retreat, became very bold. There were at least 2,000 of them, Cheyennes
and Sioux, and without making an attack they simply harassed him,
sometimes forcing a fight; but very few were hurt. Colonel Cole should
have parked his train, placed it in a defensive position under a good
guard, and then mobilized the rest of his force, and, with what rations he
had, gone after the Indians, giving them battle and forcing the fight with
them. He had plenty of men.
Cole had not advanced very far towards Port Connor when, on September 6th,
Colonel Walker and his command joined him. Then he had plenty of men to
meet all the Indians in the country, if his force was properly handled.
When this fighting commenced he was not over thirty miles from where
Connor fought his battle, and Captain Palmer states that they heard a
cannon, but could not tell which direction the noise came from. Connor,
hearing nothing from Cole, sent out Major North with a couple of Indian
scouts and with Bridger as guide. They got over into the Powder River
country and discovered Cole's trail. During Cole's retreat up the Powder
there came a fearful snow-storm. The animals having marched so far without
grain, were already very much exhausted, and the storm lasting three days,
they became so weak that they were not fit to use, and they were therefore
shot, just as they stood at the picket-line, to prevent them from falling
into the Indians' hands. This destruction of the animals and the burning
of all their equipment was about the first thing that Major North struck,
and of course he experienced a great anxiety, fearing that Cole had met
with great disaster, and immediately reported to General Connor, who at
once sent Sergeant C. L. Thomas with two Pawnees with dispatches to
Colonel Cole to march on up Powder River to Fort Connor, where he would
find supplies. Cole's troops seem to have started out not fully prepared
for such a trip, especially in the line of shoes and leggings, although
they were carefully instructed by me to be sure to take a surplus, as I
knew the country. Cole's excuse is that while he made ample requisition,
the Quartermaster never shipped them, and so when he reached Omaha he had
to buy such as he could find. Colonel Cole's troops seem to have kept up
their organization and their fighting qualities, for whenever they met the
Indians they always whipped them; but they were on the retreat, which gave
every advantage to the Indians. When Cole's troops reached Port Connor
they were in a deplorable condition--ragged, barefooted, and almost
without rations and ammunition.
The Indians surrounding Fort Connor at this time had become so numerous
that the commanding officer thought it prudent to intrench the post, which
shows good judgment; but Colonel Cole complains in his report that the
troops were made to help do this intrenching. Speaking of this he says:
While camped here (Fort Connor) an occurrence took place, strange but
most true, which as an integral part of the closing history of the
command must have full relation. Some thirty-six hours after reaching
this post, a fatigued detail of 400 men was ordered from the Second
Missouri Light Artillery to work on the earthworks being thrown up
around the place. If the spirit that prompted the detail expected to
force its principles through insubordination or rebellion, it was
disappointed. What a sight was here! Four hundred ragged, bare-footed
men, emaciated with fatigue, who had met and worsted the enemy on
three several occasions, marched up in the face of a garrison of 2,000
or more.
I don't know where he got the 2,000 troops, as all the troops when he
reached Fort Connor were two companies of Michigan cavalry, General Connor
then not having reached that post; and when he did, all told there were
not 2,000 troops there. Cole's loss was very light,--nine killed,--while
he claims to have killed from 200 to 500 of the Indians.
It was very evident to me that there was no very severe fighting here; it
was simply a skirmish on a retreat.
Lieutenant-Colonel Walker's column, which started from Fort Laramie on
August 2d, moved up the west base of the Black Hills, and struck Cole's
column on August 20th on what was known as Piney Creek. After striking
Cole's trail he followed it a short distance, and then left it and struck
Powder River, much farther south than Cole had, and on reaching the river
he fell right into the same band of Indians that were gathered along the
Powder River to harass Cole. He, too, was short of provisions, although he
was equipped to travel very rapidly, having all his supplies on
pack-mules. As soon as he got in touch with Cole he joined him and
followed him to Fort Connor. General Connor's idea was to make up a
rapid-moving column of about 1,000 men, using the pack-mules of Walker,
and then combine his and Cole's troops to move on a line farther to the
west and follow these Indians to the British Possessions if necessary. He
had the ammunition, equipment and everything at Fort Connor to fit out
these columns with. As near as they could estimate there were about 6,000
Indians all told.
[Illustration: PUMPKIN BUTTES
Prominent land-mark near where Colonels Cole and Walker fought the Indians
in September, 1865, on Powder River.]
The wagon-road train that started from Sioux City under Colonel Sawyer's
engineering party, with two companies of the Fifth United States Volunteer
Infantry under the command of Captain George N. Williford, that were to
open a wagon-road from Sioux City up the Niobrara River by a short route
to the north end of the Black Hills, intended to cross to Powder River and
then to the south end of the Big Horn Mountains, making a direct emigrant
route into Montana. As soon as I heard of the instructions given this
expedition I got word to Colonel Sawyer that it was impossible for him to
travel on that route; that he must keep to the south end of the Black
Hills and follow up the North Platte until he struck what was known as the
Bozeman trail, that was laid out in 1864 by some emigrants going into
Montana. This was the trail that Connor had taken on his route to Tongue
River. It was feasible all the way from the Platte to Montana. Colonel
Sawyer paid no attention to this information, but kept on his original
route until he got into the brakes of the Powder River, not very far from
where Cole struck them. When within twenty miles of the River, he
ascertained by his own guide that it was impossible to advance any farther
in that direction; consequently, he had to retrace his steps. On the
second day they were attacked by a large band of Indians; evidently the
Cheyennes and Sioux that afterwards attacked Colonels Cole and Walker.
These Indians kept them corralled nearly four days and nights, fighting
through the day and withdrawing at night, only to begin their hostilities
at dawn; but finding that their efforts only resulted in many being
killed, they abandoned the siege and left, going south, striking Cole's
trail on August 22d, which they followed, and on the 23d Colonel Sawyer
marched into Port Connor. While Captain Williford does not say that he
took charge of this train, that is a fact. He took charge of it and kept
it until he got to Fort Connor. He was a splendid officer and it was
through his good judgment and his ability as a soldier that he saved the
whole outfit. The Bent Boys, who were at the head of the Cheyennes, would
communicate with Sawyer and get him to send out persons for the purpose of
trading with them, and whoever was sent inside their lines was held
prisoner, the idea being to wear Sawyer's force out by this means. But
they struck the wrong man in Captain Williford, who, comprehending the
situation, attacked the Indians. I knew Williford in the Civil War, and
he was a very efficient officer. At Fort Connor I relieved Williford, his
men being mostly barefooted, and put Colonel Kidd of the Michigan Cavalry,
in command, with a suitable escort, and instructed him to follow the
Connor trail until they struck Tongue River, and then to swing towards the
Yellowstone and strike the trail up that river to Bozeman. This train,
when they got nearly opposite to where General Connor fought, was again
attacked by the Indians; but Colonel Kidd managed to get news to General
Connor and he sent two or three companies of his command to the rescue.
They were absent while he fought his battle on Tongue River. They drove
off the Indians, and relieved the train, which reached Montana in safety.
Early in September I reached Fort Connor--before General Cole and Colonel
Walker had concentrated there--and gave instructions under the direction
of the authorities at Washington, forwarded to me by General Pope, to
withdraw all the troops to Fort Laramie, and stop all their operations
against the Indians, and endeavor to bring them in for a consultation,
and, if possible, to make an agreement as to the cessation of all
hostilities. This was a fatal mistake. When I received this dispatch from
General Pope, on August 31st, I sent the following message to him: