THE FIGHT OF THE REAR GUARD.
Ragged and almost starving, out of rations, out at elbows and every
other exposed angle, out of everything but pluck and ammunition, General
Crook gave up the pursuit of Sitting Bull at the head of Heart River.
The Indians had scattered in every direction. We had chased them a
month, and were no nearer than when we started. Their trail led in as
many different directions as there are degrees in the circle; they had
burned off the grass from the Yellowstone to the mountains, and our
horses were dropping by scores, starved and exhausted, every day we
marched. There was no help for it, and only one thing left to do. At
daybreak the next morning the orders came, "Make for the Black
Hills--due south by compass--seven days' march at least," and we headed
our dejected steeds accordingly and shambled off in search of supplies.
Through eleven days of pouring, pitiless rain we plodded on that
never-to-be-forgotten trip, and when at last we sighted Bare Butte and
halted, exhausted, at the swift-flowing current of the Belle Fourche,
three fourths of our cavalry, of the Second, Third, and Fifth regiments,
had made the last day's march afoot. One half our horses were broken
down for good, one fourth had fallen never to rise again, and dozens had
been eaten to keep us, their riders, alive.
Enlivening incidents were few enough, and--except one--of little
interest to Milwaukeeans. That one is at your service. On the night of
September 7th we were halted near the head-waters of Grand River. Here a
force of one hundred and fifty men of the Third Cavalry, with the
serviceable horses of that regiment, were pushed ahead under Major Anson
Mills, with orders to find the Black Hills, buy up all the supplies he
could in Deadwood, and then hurry back to meet us. Two days after, just
as we were breaking up our cheerless bivouac of the night, a courier
rode in with news that Mills was surrounded by the Indians twenty miles
south, and every officer and man of the Fifth Cavalry whose horse had
strength enough to trot pushed ahead to the rescue. Through mud, mist,
and rain we plunged along, and by half-past ten were exchanging
congratulations with Mills and shots with the redskins in as wealthy an
Indian village, for its size, as ever we had seen. Custer's guidons and
uniforms were the first things that met our eyes--trophies and evidence
at once of the part our foe had taken in the bloody battle of the Little
Big Horn. Mills had stumbled upon the village before day, made a
magnificent dash, and scattered the Indians to the neighboring heights,
Slim Buttes by name, and then hung on to his prize like a bull-dog, and
in the face of appalling odds, till we rode in to his assistance. That
afternoon, reinforced by swarms of warriors, they made a grand rally and
spirited attack, but 'twas no use. By that time we had some two thousand
to meet them, and the whole Sioux nation couldn't have whipped us. Some
four hundred ponies had been captured with the village, and many a fire
was lighted and many a suffering stomach gladdened with a welcome change
from horse-meat, tough and stringy, to rib roasts of pony, grass-fed,
sweet, and succulent. There is no such sauce as starvation.
Next morning, at break of day, General Crook, with the wounded, the
Indian prisoners, his sturdy infantry, and all the cavalry but one
battalion of the Fifth Regiment, pushed on for the south through the
same overhanging pall of dripping mist. They had to go. There wasn't a
hard-tack north of Deadwood, and men must eat to live.
The First Battalion of the Fifth he left to burn completely the village
with all its robes, furs, and Indian treasures, and to cover the
retreat.
As the last of the main column disappeared through the drizzle, with
Mason's skirmishers thrown well out upon their right flank, a light wind
swept upward the veil of smoke and mist, and the panorama became evident
to us and to the surrounding Indians at one and the same moment. There
was no time to take observations--down they came with a rush.
On a little knoll in the centre of the burning village a group of
horsemen has halted--General Carr, who commands the Fifth Cavalry, his
staff and orderlies--and the first remark as the fog raises falls from
the lips of the adjutant: "By Jove! Here's a Badger State benefit!"
All along the line the attack has commenced and the battalion is sharply
engaged--fighting afoot, their horses being already led away after the
main column, but within easy call. Our orders are to follow, but to
stand off the Indians. They are not wanted to accompany the march. It is
one thing to "stand off the Indians" and hold your ground--it is quite
another to stand him off and fall back. They are dashing about on their
nimble ponies, following up the line as it doggedly retires from ridge
to ridge, far outnumbering us, and all the time keeping up a rattling
fire and a volley of aboriginal remarks at our expense. "Lo" yells with
unaffected glee when his foe falls back, and it sometimes sounds not
unlike the "yi-i-i-ip" of the rebels in '63. Along our line there is a
business-like taciturnity, an occasional brief, ringing word of command
from some officer, or a half-repressed chuckle of delight as some
Patlander sees an Indian reel in his saddle, and turns to mutter to his
neighbor on the skirmish line that he'd "softened the wax in that boy's
ears." Occasionally, too, some man suddenly drops carbine, claps his
hand to leg, arm, or side, and with an odd mixture of perplexity and
pain in his face looks appealingly to the nearest officer. Our surgeon
is just bandaging a bullet hole for one such, but finds time to look up
and ask:
"Why Badger State benefit, King? I don't see the point."
"Just because there are six Wisconsin men right here on this slope," is
the answer, "and dozens more for aught I know."
Look at them if you will. I warrant no resident of the Cream City could
recognize his townsmen to-day. Remember, we've been hunting Sioux and
Cheyennes since May; haven't seen a shanty for three months, or a tent
for two; haven't had a change of raiment for eight weeks, or a shave for
ten; and, under those battered slouch hats and in that tattered dress,
small wonder that you fail to know the wearers. Right in our front,
half-way to the skirmish line, rides the major commanding the battalion;
a tall, solidly-built fellow, with twinkling blue eyes and a bronzed
face, barely visible under the mass of blond hair and beard over which
the rain is dripping. He is a Milwaukeean and a West-Pointer, a stanch
favorite, too; and to-day the whole rear guard is his command, and on
his shoulders rests the safety of our move. His is an ugly, trying duty,
but he meets it well. Just now he is keenly watching the left of his
line, and by a trick he has of hitching forward in his saddle when
things don't go exactly right, you see that something's coming. A quick
gesture calls up a young officer who is carelessly lounging on a
raw-boned sorrel that sniffs excitedly at the puffs of smoke floating
past his nose. Quick as the gesture the officer straightens in his
saddle, shifts a quid into his "off" cheek, and reins up beside his
commander. The major points to the left and front, and away goes the
subaltern at a sputtering gallop. Milwaukee is sending Fond du Lac to
make the left company "come down out of that." They have halted on a
rocky ridge from which they can gloriously pepper the would-be pursuers,
and they don't want to quit. The major is John J. Upham, the subaltern
is Lieutenant H. S. Bishop.
Square in front, striding down the opposite slope and up towards us come
the Company "G" skirmishers. A minute more and the ridge they have left
is swarming with Indians. "Halt!" rings out along the line, and quick as
thought the troopers face about, fling themselves _ventre a terre_ and
blaze away, scattering the Sioux like chaff.
There's a stalwart, bearded fellow commanding the right skirmishers of
the company, steadily noting the fire of his men. Never bending himself,
he moves from point to point cautioning such "new hands" as are
excitedly throwing away their shots. He is their first sergeant, a crack
soldier; Milwaukee, too--for in old days at Engelmann's school we knew
him as Johnny Goll. Listen to his captain, half a head taller and quite
as prominent and persistent a target, who is shaking a gauntleted fist
at his subordinate and shouting, "I've told you to keep down a dozen
times, sergeant; now, by God, I want you to do it." This makes the
nearest men grin. The others are too busy to hear it.
The scene is picturesque enough from our point of view. To the south,
two miles away by this time, Crook's long column is crawling snake-like
over the rolling sward. To the west the white crags and boulders of the
buttes shut off the view--we are fighting along at their very base.
Northward the country rises and falls in alternate grassy ridge and
ravine; not a tree in sight--only the low-hanging pall of smoke from the
burning village in the near distance; the slopes swarming with dusky
horsemen, dashing towards us, whooping, yelling, firing, and retiring,
always at speed, except where some practised marksman springs from his
pony and prone upon the ground draws bead at our chiefs. Between their
restless ranks and us is only the long, thin line of cavalry
skirmishers, slowly falling back face to the foe, and giving them gun
for gun. Eastward, as far as the eye can reach, the country rolls away
in billowy undulations, and--look! there comes a dash of Indians around
our right flank. See them sweeping along that ridge? Upham is on low
ground at this moment and they are beyond his view, but General Carr
sees the attempt to cut us off, and in a second the adjutant of the
regiment comes tearing to the line, fast as jaded horse can carry him. A
comprehensive gesture accomplishes at once the soldierly salute to the
major and points out the new danger. Kellogg's company swings into
saddle and fairly springs to the right to meet it.
In buckskin trousers, fringed and beaded, but much the worse for wear,
in ragged old hunting-shirt and shapeless hat, none but the initiated
would recognize Milwaukee, much less West Point, in that adjutant. But
he was marker of our Light Guard years before the war, and the first
member of its corps of drummer boys. He is just speeding a grim-looking
cavalryman, one of the headquarters orderlies, off with a despatch to
General Merritt, and that orderly is a Milwaukeean, too, and may have to
"run the gauntlet" getting that message through; but his face, what you
can see of it through grizzled hair and beard, looks unconcerned enough;
and under the weather-stained exterior he is known to be a faithful old
soldier--one who loves the rough life better than he did the desk in
_ante bellum_ days when he was clerking at Hathaway & Belden's. "Old
George," as the men call him, ran a train on the Watertown road, too,
once upon a time, but about the close of the war he drifted from the
volunteers into the regulars, and there he has stuck ever since.
But all this time Crook is marching away faster than we can back and
follow him. We have to keep those howling devils beyond range of the
main column, absorb their attention, pick up our wounded as we go, and
be ready to give the warriors a welcome when they charge.
Kellogg, with Company "I," has driven back the attempted turn of our
right, but the Indians keep up their harassing attack from the rear.
Time is precious, and Upham begins to think we are wasting it. Again the
adjutant has come to him from General Carr, and now is riding along the
line to the right, communicating some order to the officers, while
Lieutenant Bishop is doing the same on the left. Just as the skirmishers
cross the next ridge a few cool old shots from each company drop on
hands and knees, and, crawling back to the crest, open a rapid fire on
the pursuers, checking them. Covered by this the main line sweeps down
at a run, crosses the low, boggy ground between them, and toils up the
ridge on which we are stationed. Here they halt, face about, throw
themselves flat on their faces, and the major signals to the outlying
skirmishers to come in; they obey with a rush, and a minute after a mass
of Indians pops over the divide in pursuit. With a ringing hurrah of
exultation our line lets drive a volley, the astonished redskins wheel
about, those who can, lugging with them the dead or wounded who have
fallen, and scatter off under shelter.
"How's that, King?" says the major, with a grin. "Think they've had
enough?" Apparently they have, as none reappear except in distant
groups. Mount is the word. Ranks are formed, the men chat and laugh a
moment, as girths and stirrups are being rearranged, then silence and
attention as they break into column and jog off after Crook's distant
battalions.
The adjutant is jotting down the list of casualties in his note-book.
"What time is it, major?" "Eight o'clock," says Upham, wringing the wet
from his hat. "Eight o'clock here; church-time in Milwaukee."
Who would have thought it was Sunday?