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Transcriber's Notes:
1. The original version of this book used small-capitals for names
in corespondence headings and closings, as well as in lists. In
addition, a.m/p.m are now all in lower case.
2. Text originally in italics is now delimited by an underscore, for
example: _The text was italicized_.
3. p. 159. To maintain margins, line 4 of the song was broken
after "...you brutes,"
4. In THE MYSTERY OF 'MAHBIN MILL, the original book does
not contain a Chapter II.
5. Acronymns and abbreviations used in "Plodder's Promotion."
Sp. Fru. abbreviates "spiritus frumenti" (better known as whiskey).
C. and G. E. is the acronym for "Camp and Garrison Equipage."
R.Q.M. is the acronym for Regimental Quarter-Master."
6. "...account of their * on..." Transcriber assumes "actions" is the
missing word. The sentence broke across two pages.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK, U. S. A.]
CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK
AND STORIES OF ARMY LIFE
BY
CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.
AUTHOR OF "BETWEEN THE LINES" "A WAR-TIME WOOING"
ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1890
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by
CHARLES KING,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE.
Ten years ago, at the request of the editor of a paper at my old home,
these sketches of the Sioux Campaign of 1876 were written and, finding
favor with comrades to whom a few were sent, were published in pamphlet
form. Now, reinforced by certain other sketches which have since
appeared, they are given a new framework.
They were the first-fruits, so to speak, of a pen that has since been
seldom idle. They were rough sketches, to be sure, but no rougher than
the campaign; and in the early days of a divorce from associations that
were very dear, and of a return to surroundings once familiar, yet,
after twenty years of absence, so changed that a cat in a strange garret
could hardly have felt less at home, I laid their faint tribute of
respect and honor at the feet of the soldier who had been our commander
in the wild days in Arizona, our leader from the Platte to the
Yellowstone and our comrade in every hardship and privation--
Brigadier-General George Crook, United States Army.
Only enough of these pamphlets were printed to reach the few hundred
comrades who rode the grim circuit of "The Bad Lands" in that eventful
centennial year. The little edition was long ago exhausted. The years
that followed only served to strengthen the ties that bound me to the
revered commander of old cavalry days. Many a name recorded in these
pages no longer graces our muster-rolls. Mason, our soldier major,
gallant Emmet Crawford, brave old Munson, daring Philo Clark Rodgers
and Price, Egan and Dewees, Bache and Hunter, have been called from the
ranks in which they won such honor, and, only a few short months ago,
the leader whom they so faithfully served rejoined them on the farther
shore of the dark and silent river. The mountains and prairies over
which we marched and fought know no longer the war-cry of painted savage
or the din of thrilling combat. Herds of browsing cattle crowd the
lovely valleys through which we drove the buffalo. Peaceful homes and
smiling villages dot the broad Northwest where hardly a roof-tree was in
place when Crook essayed the task of subjugating the foeman to
settlement and civilization. Another star had been added to the one
awarded him for the campaign which left the fierce Apaches conquered and
disarmed. The highest grade in the army had been attained when, all too
soon, he was summoned to answer to his name, "beyond the veil."
Better pens than mine shall tell our people of his long years of brave
and faithful service in which this campaign of '76--so pregnant with
interest to us who rode the trail, and with result to a waiting
nation--was, after all, only an episode; but, just as in honor and in
loyalty, these faint pictures of the stirring scenes through which he
led us were inscribed to him at their birth, so now, with added honor
and in affectionate remembrance tenfold increased, is that humble
tribute renewed.
Charles King,
_Captain, U. S. A._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK . . . . . 1
CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS . . . . . . 173
THE MYSTERY OF 'MAHBIN MILL . . 209
PLODDER'S PROMOTION . . . . . . 265
ILLUSTRATIONS.
MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK, U.S.A. . . . . . _Frontispiece._
FORT FETTERMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Facing p. 44_
SUPPLY CAMP, HEAD OF TONGUE RIVER . . . . . . . " 54
CROOK'S COLUMN ON TONGUE RIVER . . . . . . . . . " 68
A SICK SOLDIER ON A "TRAVOIS" . . . . . . . . . " 134
DEADWOOD CITY, BLACK HILLS OF DAKOTA . . . . . . " 146
"THE DANDY FIFTH" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 158
"'COME, JACK,' SAID THE CAPTAIN, REASSURINGLY" . " 180
"ONE MOMENT MORE, AND, MUFFLED IN RED
SILK, HER BIGGEST LANTERN SWUNG GLOWING
IN THE WINDOW" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 206
"CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 208
CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK.
CHAPTER I.
FORT HAYS AND THE START.
The disastrous battle on the Little Horn, which resulted in the
annihilation of General Custer and his five favorite companies of the
Seventh Cavalry, occurred on the 25th of June, 1876. On the 4th of that
month, we of the Fifth Cavalry were far to the south, scattered over the
boundless prairies of Kansas. Regimental headquarters and four companies
occupied the cosey quarters of Fort Hays, nearly midway between
Leavenworth and Denver, Missouri and the mountains, and Company "K," of
which I then was first lieutenant, had pitched its tents along the banks
of a winding fork of the Smoky Hill River, wondering why we had been
"routed out" from our snug barracks and stables at Fort Riley, and
ordered to proceed, "equipped for field service," to Hays City, by rail.
Ordinarily, Uncle Sam pays the costly railway fare for horsemen and
their steeds only when danger is imminent. The two posts were but a
week's easy march apart; not a hostile Indian had been seen or heard of
in all Kansas since the previous winter; General Pope, who commanded the
department, had won the hearts of the ladies and children of the
officers' families by predicting that there would be no separation from
husbands and fathers that summer at least; all the ladies had "joined,"
and, after our long sojourn in the wilds of Arizona, where but few among
them had been able to follow us, we were rejoicing in their presence and
luxuriating in the pretty homes ornamented and blessed by their dainty
handiwork. Some among their number had never before appeared in
garrison, and were taking their first lesson in frontier experience.
Some, too, had only been with us six short weeks, and did not dream that
the daily parades in which they took so much delight, the sweet music of
our band, the brilliant uniforms and dancing plumes that lent such color
and life to rapid drill or stately guard-mounting, were one and all but
part and parcel of the preparation for scenes more stirring, far less
welcome to such gentle eyes.
Fort Hays was joyous with mirth and music and merry laughter, for some
of the ladies of the regiment had brought with them from the distant
East younger sisters or friends, to whom army life on the plains was a
revelation, and in whose honor a large barrack-room had been transformed
into "the loveliest place in the world for a german," and Strauss's
sweetest music rose and fell in witching invitation after the evening
tattoo. Riding, driving, and hunting parties were of daily occurrence,
and more than one young fellow's heart seemed in desperate jeopardy when
the summons came.
The sun was setting in a cloudless sky as I reined in my horse in front
of General Carr's quarters and dismounted, to make my report of a three
days' hunt along the valley of the Saline for stampeded horses. The
band, in their neat summer dress, were grouped around the flagstaff,
while the strains of "Soldaten Lieder" thrilled through the soft evening
air, and, fairly carried away by the cadence of the sweet music, a party
of young ladies and officers had dropped their croquet mallets and were
waltzing upon the green carpet of the parade. Seated upon the verandas,
other ladies and older officers were smilingly watching the pretty
scene, and on the western side of the quadrangle the men in their white
stable frocks were just breaking ranks after marching up from the
never-neglected care of their horses. Half a dozen laughing children
were chasing one another in noisy glee, their bright sashes and dainty
dresses gleaming in the last rays of the golden orb. The general himself
was gazing thoughtfully at the distant line of willows that fringed the
banks of the stream, and holding an open newspaper in his hand as I
entered and made my report.
"Have you heard the news?" he asked me. "Schuyler has gone to join
General Crook as aide-de-camp. Got a telegram from him just after you
left on this scout, and started last night. It's my belief that Crook
will have a big campaign, and that we'll be sent for."
Ten minutes after, as the trumpets rang out the "retreat," and the last
echoes of the evening gun died away over the rolling prairie, we noted a
horseman coming at rapid gait along the dusty road from Hays City, as
the railway station was hopefully named. He disappeared among the
foliage in the creek bottom. The soft hush of twilight fell upon the
garrison, the band had gone away to supper, the bevy of sweet-faced
girls with their tireless escorts had gathered with a number of officers
and ladies in front of the general's quarters, where he and I were still
in conversation, when the horseman, a messenger from the telegraph
office, reappeared in our midst. "Despatch for you, general; thought
you'd better have it at once," was all he said, as he handed it to "the
chief," and, remounting, cantered away.
Carr opened the ugly brown envelope and took out, not one, but three
sheets of despatch paper, closely written, and began to read. Looking
around upon the assembled party, I noticed that conversation had ceased
and a dozen pair of eyes were eagerly scrutinizing the face of the
commanding officer. Anxious hearts were beating among those young wives
and mothers, and the sweet girl-faces had paled a little in sympathy
with the dread that shone all too plainly in the eyes of those who but
so recently had undergone long and painful separation from soldier
husbands. The general is a sphinx; he gives no sign. Slowly and
carefully he reads the three pages; then goes back and begins over
again. At last, slowly, thoughtfully he folds it, replaces the fateful
despatch in its envelope, and looks up expectant of question. His
officers, restrained by discipline, endeavor to appear unconcerned, and
say nothing. The ladies, either from dread of the tidings or awe of him,
_look_ volumes, but are silent. Human nature asserts itself, however,
and the man and the commander turns to me with, "Well, what did I tell
you?" And so we got our orders for the Sioux campaign of 1876.
To the officers, of course, it was an old story. There was not one of
our number who had not seen hard campaigning and sharp Indian fighting
before. But could we have had our choice, we would have preferred some
less abrupt announcement. Hardly a word was spoken as the group broke up
and the ladies sought their respective homes, but the bowed heads and
hidden faces of many betrayed the force of the blow.
The officers remained with General Carr to receive his instructions.
There was no time to lose, and the note of preparation sounded on the
spot. General Sheridan's orders directed four companies from Fort Hays
to proceed at once to Cheyenne by rail, and there await the coming of
the more distant companies--eight in all, to go on this, the first
alarm.
Companies "A," "B," "D," and "K" were designated to go; "E" to stay and
"take care of the shop." Those to go were commanded by married officers,
each of whom had to leave wife and family in garrison. "E" had a
bachelor captain, and a lieutenant whose better half was away in the
East, so the ladies of the regiment were ready to mob the general for
his selection; but there was wisdom in it. In ten minutes the news was
all over the post. A wild Celtic "Hurray, fellows, we're going for to
join Crook," was heard in the barracks, answered by shouts of approval
and delight from every Paddy in the command. Ours is a mixed array of
nationalities--Mulligan and Meiswinkel, Crapaud and John Bull, stand
shoulder to shoulder with Yanks from every portion of the country. In
four regiments only is exclusiveness as to race permitted by law. Only
darkies can join their ranks. Otherwise, there is a promiscuous
arrangement which, oddly enough, has many a recommendation. They balance
one another as it were--the phlegmatic Teuton and the fiery Celt,
mercurial Gaul and stolid Anglo-Saxon. Dashed and strongly tinctured
with the clear-headed individuality of the American, they make up a
company which for _personnel_ is admirably adapted to the wants of our
democratic service. The company of the Fifth Cavalry most strongly
flavored with Irish element in the ranks was commanded by Captain Emil
Adam, an old German soldier, whose broken English on drill was the
delight of his men. "The representative Paddy," as he calls himself,
Captain Nick Nolan, of the Tenth Cavalry, has an Ethiopian lieutenant (a
West-Pointer) and sixty of the very best darkies that ever stole
chickens. But wherever you meet them, the first to hurray at the chance
of a fight is the Pat, and no matter how gloomy or dismal the campaign,
if there be any fun to be extracted from its incidents, he is the man to
find it.
And so our Irishmen gave vent to their joy, and with whistling and
singing the men stowed away their helmets and full-dress uniforms, their
handsome belts and equipments, and lovingly reproduced the old Arizona
slouch hats and "thimble belts," and the next evening our Fort Hays
command, in two special trains, was speeding westward as fast as the
Kansas Pacific could carry us. The snow-capped peaks of the Rockies hove
in sight next day, and Denver turned out in full force to see us go
through. At evening on the 7th, we were camping on the broad prairie
near Cheyenne. Here Major Upham joined us with Company "I." A week after
we were off for Laramie. On the 22d, our companies were ordered straight
to the north to find the crossing of the broad Indian trail from the Red
Cloud and Spotted Tail reservations, by which hundreds of Indians were
known to be going to the support of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
We were to hide in the valley of the South Cheyenne, near the base of
the Black Hills, and cut off the Indian supplies. Buffalo Bill had
joined us, his old comrades of the Sioux war of 1868-69; and though we
feared the Indians would be quick to detect our presence, and select
others of a dozen routes to the Powder River country, we hoped to be
able to nab a few.
On the 24th, we had begun our march at 6 a.m. from the Cardinal's Chair,
at the head of the Niobrara, and before noon had descended into the
valley of "Old Woman's Fork," of the South Cheyenne. We had with us two
half-breed Sioux scouts and an Indian boy, "Little Bat," who had long
been employed by the Fort Laramie officers as a reliable guide. Camping
at noon along the stream, I was approached by Major Stanton, who had
joined our column under instructions from General Sheridan, and informed
that he was going to push ahead of the column at once, as the scouts
reported recent Indian signs. It was necessary, he said, that he should
get to the Cheyenne as quickly as possible, and he wanted me to go as
commander of the escort. In half an hour we were in saddle again, Major
Stanton with his blunderbuss of a rifle, "Little Bat" in his
semi-civilized garb, Lieutenant Keyes with forty men of Company "C," and
myself. The general detained me a moment to convey some earnest
instructions, and to post me on certain points in Sioux warfare which
experience with Apaches was supposed to have dulled, and, with the
promise, "I'll follow on your trail to-morrow," waved his hand, and in
two minutes we were out of sight down the winding valley.
Three p.m. is early on a long June day. We rode swiftly, steadily, but
cautiously northward; the valley widened out to east and west; we made
numerous cut-offs among the bends of the stream, crossing low ridges, at
each one of which Bat, well to the front, would creep to the top, keenly
scrutinize all the country around, and signal "come on." At 5 o'clock he
suddenly halted and threw himself from his horse, and I cantered forward
to see what was up. We had struck our first trail of the campaign, and
the yielding soil was thick with pony tracks. Coming from the east, the
direction of the reservation, they led straight down the valley, and we
followed. Every now and then other tracks from the east joined those we
were on, and though at least four or five days old, they were of
interest. Half an hour before sunset, far off among the hills to the
northeast, a thin column of smoke shot up into the clear sky. Ten
minutes more another rose in the west. They were Sioux signals, and we
were discovered. But the country was open all around us; not a tree
except the cottonwoods along the narrow stream-bed, no fear of
ambuscade, and we must not halt until within sight of the Cheyenne
valley; so on we go. Just at twilight, Bat, five hundred yards in front,
circles his horse rapidly to the left, and again I join him. It is the
recent trail of a war-party of Sioux, crossing the valley, and
disappearing among the low hills to the northwest. They number fifty
warriors, and those whose tracks we have been following took the same
direction--the short cut towards the Big Horn mountains. Our march is
very cautious now--advance, flankers, and rear guard of old, tried
soldiers, well out; but on we jog through the gathering darkness, and at
nine p.m., as we ride over a ridge, Bat points out to me a long, low
line of deeper shade, winding six or seven miles away in the moonlight.
It is the timber along the Cheyenne, and now we may hunt for water and
give our tired horses rest and grass. The valley is broad; the water
lies only in scanty pools among the rocks in the stream-bed. There has
been no rain for a month, and there is not a blade of grass nearer than
the bluffs, a mile away. Our horses drink eagerly, and then in silence
we fill our canteens and move off towards the hills. Here I find a basin
about two hundred yards in diameter, in which we "half lariat" and
hobble our horses; dig holes in the ground, wherein, with sage brush
for fuel, we build little fires and boil our coffee, while Keyes and I
take a dozen of our men and post them around our bivouac at points
commanding every approach. No Indian can reach us unseen through that
moonlight. No Indian cares to attack at night, unless he has a "sure
thing;" and though from five different points we catch the blaze of
signal fires, we defy surprise, and with ready carbine by our side we
eat our crisp bacon, sip the welcome tin of steaming coffee, then light
our pipes and chat softly in the cool night air. Little we dream that
two hundred miles away Custer is making his night ride to death. Our
supports are only twenty-five miles away. We dread no attack in such
force that we cannot "stand off" until Carr can reach us, and, as I make
my rounds among the sentinels to see that all are vigilant, the words of
the Light Cavalryman's song are sounding in my ears:
"The ring of a bridle, the stamp of a hoof,
Stars above and the wind in the tree;
A bush for a billet, a rock for a roof,
Outpost duty's the duty for me.
Listen! A stir in the valley below--
The valley below is with riflemen crammed,
Cov'ring the column and watching the foe;
Trumpet-Major! Sound and be d----."
Bang! There's a shot from below, and the bivouac springs to life.