river and went upon the benches beyond. Three nights we slept out.
Only a few had robes. There was but little food, only a few women
having little chunks of dry meat in their small packs. There was hard
freezing at night and there was mud and water by day. But nobody
appeared to become ill from the exposure. Early on the fourth day
we arrived at where we had aimed, a camp of Ogallala Sioux far up
a creek east of Powder river. Three or four Ogallala lodges had
been beside our Cheyenne camp when the soldiers came. These people
traveling with us led us to their main camp.
The Ogallalas received us hospitably, as we knew they would do. Crazy
Horse was their principal chief. Heads of lodges all about the camp
were calling out to us:
“Cheyennes, come and eat here.”
They fed us to fullness and gave us temporary shelter and robes.
At night a council was held by the chiefs of the two bands. At the
council our people told about the soldier attack. It was decided that
the Ogallalas and the Cheyennes should go together to the Uncpapa
Sioux, located northeastward from us. The next forenoon all of us set
out in that direction. Horses were loaned to the Cheyennes by the
Ogallalas, so none of us had to walk.
Buffalo Bull Sitting Down, known to the white people as Sitting Bull,
was the principal chief of the Uncpapas in that camp. There were more
of them than of Cheyennes and Ogallalas combined. When we arrived
there they set up at once two big special lodges in the center of
their camp circle. Our men were placed in one of these lodges, our
women in the other. In each lodge sat a circle of Cheyennes about the
inner wall. Uncpapa women had set their pots to boiling when first we
had been seen. Now they came with meat. They kept on coming, coming,
with more and more meat. We were filled up, and we had plenty extra
to keep for another day. An Uncpapa herald went riding about the camp
and calling out:
“The Cheyennes are very poor. All who have blankets or robes or
tepees to spare should give to them.”
Crowds of women and girls came with gifts. A ten-year-old Uncpapa
girl put a buffalo robe in front of me and left it there. It was mine
now. An Uncpapa man gave my father a medicine pipe to replace his
lost one. I did not receive that kind of present, but I was provided
with every important comfort. Whoever needed any kind of clothing got
it immediately. They flooded us with gifts of everything needful.
Crowds of their men and women were going among us to find out and to
supply our wants.
“Who needs a blanket?”
“I do.”
“Take this one.”
“Who wants this tepee?”
“Give it to me.”
“It is yours.”
They brought horses--lots of horses.
“Who wants a horse?”
“I.”
“You may have this one.”
Oh, what good hearts they had! I never can forget the generosity of
Sitting Bull’s Uncpapa Sioux on that day.
Our women’s backs were burdened and our gift horses were loaded as we
went to the nearby place assigned to us for the setting up of our own
camp circle. Every household had a lodge, the same as had been the
case at our lost camp. Some of the new tepees were small, but they
served all necessary purposes until we could get buffalo skins for
making larger ones.
This triple camp was fifty or more miles east of Powder river, on
east from a big and tall white stone which the white people call
Chalk Butte. It was at the headwaters of a stream flowing westward
into Powder river. The Cheyennes had been three sleeps on the way to
the Ogallalas. One sleep there. Three sleeps of travel by Cheyennes
and Ogallalas to the Uncpapa camp. Five or six sleeps the three
tribes stayed together at this place.
Various scouting parties went out to find out where were the
soldiers. Eight or ten of us Cheyennes went to Tongue river and
beyond. At Tongue river we stopped for a daytime rest. Our horses
were picketed out to graze. After a while they began to show signs
of alarm. A Cheyenne went out to look. He saw a lone white man afoot
among the herd. Indian horses were afraid of white people, so they
were snorting. The Cheyenne approached the white man and called out:
“How!”
“How,” the white man responded.
They shook hands. The Cheyenne got his own horse, mounted it, and
asked the white man to go with him to the other Indians. They set
off, the Cheyenne on horseback, the white man afoot. The stranger
had a six shooter in a scabbard at his belt, but he made no offer to
use it. He appeared friendly. He was thin and hungry-looking. His
clothing was very ragged. The other Cheyennes got their horses, and
they all gathered about the newcomer. Some of them mounted their
horses, others stood afoot holding them.
“Who are you?” a Cheyenne signed.
The white man could make signs, but not very well. He made us
understand him, though. He said he had been a soldier, but he got
lost from them. He told us he had not fought us, as he had been
lost before that time. He said the ragged clothing he had on was
taken from a dead Sioux, as he did not want to be seen with soldier
clothing. One Cheyenne kept saying, in our language, “Let’s kill
him.” But nobody agreed with him. Finally he jerked up his rifle and
fired. The white man fell dead. Others then cut him and beat him, so
that no one man could have the blame nor receive the honor.
Robbing the body was the next step. About all he had was the six
shooter, some cartridges for it, and a little package tied to his
belt. It had meat in it. It was horse meat and had been cooked in an
open blazing fire. We threw it away.
This man was killed not many miles down the Tongue river from my
present home place. The exact spot is on a ranch where now lives a
white man named Wolf. The place is on Tongue river below the present
town of Ashland, Montana.
HISTORICAL NOTE
A sketch of the military campaign of 1876 against the roaming
Sioux and Cheyennes is interposed here for the enlightenment of
such readers as may not be familiar with the frontier history of
that period. There is nothing new in this sketch; it is simply a
synopsis of what heretofore has been accepted and published.
After the Indian troubles during and immediately following our
civil war, in 1868 a treaty was made with the Sioux and Cheyenne
tribes of the northern plains country. A few of the Sioux, mainly
a band of Uncpapas led by Sitting Bull, refused to go into the
treaty council. Various reservations in the Dakotas were agreed
upon as belonging exclusively to the various tribes of Indians
involved. All lands lying westward of these reservations, as far
as the Bighorn river and Bighorn mountains, in Montana, were
to be hunting grounds for the Indians as long as wild game in
abundance remained there.
Bands of these Dakota red people were going out to the hunting
grounds and returning again from time to time. Some of them
elected to remain most of the time, or all of the time, in the
Montana open country. Sitting Bull and a few others like him
stayed entirely away from the agencies. They were actuated partly
by resentment and partly by a sincere desire to avoid conflict
that regularly resulted from prolonged contiguity of Indians and
whites.
The Cheyennes and the Ogallala Sioux were assigned to the Black
Hills country as their reservation--forever, according to the
terms of the treaty. Soon afterward it became apparent that rich
gold fields were hidden away somewhere in the lands conceded
to them. In 1874, obedient to orders from Washington, General
George A. Custer led his Seventh cavalry from Fort Lincoln,
Dakota, on an exploratory expedition into the Cheyenne-Ogallala
country. They found ample verification of the rumors as to the
presence of gold there. The news spread rapidly, and there was a
rush of white men fortune-seekers into the midst of these Indian
possessions.
The government made a weak effort to restrain the intruders.
But the eager migrants flooded in and burst through the flimsy
military barriers. The vexing problem was dodged by moving
the Indians to other lands. But not all of them went to the
designated new reservations. Many of them, angered at what they
deemed a wrongful ousting, took their tepees and their families
and went to live altogether in the open hunting regions. Indians
from other reservations did likewise. That was the beginning of
the “Indian uprising” of 1876.
In December, 1875, pursuant to our governmental policy, General
Sherman, then commander-in-chief of the United States army,
issued an important general order. He proclaimed that all Indians
found off their reservations after the last day of January,
1876, would be regarded as hostiles to be fought by the military
forces. It being evident that not many of the Dakota roamers in
Montana would return to the reservations until they were forced
to do so, bodies of soldiers were set in motion for seeking
out and driving these wanderers back within their assigned
territorial bounds.
The active military field leaders in this campaign were
Brigadier-General Terry, Brigadier-General Crook, Colonel Gibbon
and Lieutenant-Colonel Custer. Each of these four officers had
been brevetted Major-General of Volunteers during the civil war,
but the contracting of the army after the war set each of them
back to a lower ranking. Terry had infantry from Fort Rice and
Custer’s Seventh cavalry, from Fort Lincoln, Dakota. Crook had a
force of cavalry and infantry at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. Gibbon
had infantry from Fort Shaw and cavalry from Fort Ellis, Montana.
From their three basic points--in Dakota, in Wyoming and in
Montana--the three bodies of soldiers moved toward a common
central area between the Powder and Bighorn rivers, in Montana,
where the Indians being sought were roaming. Details of these
military movements are too extensive for review here. The most
thrilling phase of the campaign began when Custer and his Seventh
cavalry set off up the Rosebud valley to follow a recent Indian
trail. The result of this subsidiary proceeding was the supreme
tragedy in the annals of our American frontier warfare.
The first fight of that 1876 struggle was this attack upon the
Cheyenne camp on Powder river, March 17th. There have been
published many worthy books recounting the military operations
of that year. Reliable edification on this subject may be found
in General Godfrey’s magazine articles, in Colonel Graham’s
“The Story of the Little Bighorn,” in Grinnell’s “The Fighting
Cheyennes,” in Brininstool’s “A Trooper with Custer,” in the
diaries of Lieutenants Bradley and McClernand, and in some other
published writings.[15] These tell the stirring story of where
our soldiers went and what they did during that eventful summer.
Wooden Leg tells the equally stirring story of where the Indians
went and what they did during that same time.
THOMAS B. MARQUIS.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] February, 1876.
[14] March 17th, 1876. Gen. J. J. Reynolds in command of soldiers.
Historians mistakenly mention this incident as a victory over “Crazy
Horse’s village.”--T. B. M.
[15] EDITOR’S NOTE: The interested reader will find also much
enlightenment in Dr. Marquis’ “Soldiering in the Old West,” to be
published soon by The Midwest Company.
VI
_Swarming of Angered Indians._
A band of Minneconjoux Sioux arrived at the Uncpapa camp either just
before or just after we got there. They had not been troubled by
the soldiers, but they wanted to keep out of trouble. Lame Deer was
their principal chief. The Cheyennes were well acquainted with the
Minneconjoux. We had camped and hunted with them many times. There
were some intermarriages with them, so there were a few Cheyennes
among them and a few of their people belonging to our tribe. We had
mingled with them almost as much as we had with the Ogallalas. We
never had associated closely with the Uncpapas. They were almost
strangers to us. We knew of them only by hearsay from the Ogallalas
and the Minneconjoux.
The movement to the Uncpapas was because they had a much larger
band in the hunting grounds than had any of the other tribes. Some
of them, with Sitting Bull as their leader, had been out all of the
time for several years. At this first assembling, the Ogallala band
was in number next to the Uncpapas. The Minneconjoux had not quite
as many as had the Ogallalas. The Cheyenne band was the smallest.
During past times, when the Cheyennes and the Ogallalas and the
Burned Thighs (Brûlé Sioux) had fought the white soldiers many times
in the country farther southward, not many of the Uncpapas had been
with them. These people kept mostly at peace by staying away from
all white settlements. Now it was becoming generally believed among
Indians that this was the best plan.
Sitting Bull had come into notice as the most consistent advocate
of the idea of living out of all touch with white people. He would
not go to the reservation nor would he accept any rations or other
gifts coming from the white man government. He rarely went to the
trading posts. Himself and his followers were wealthy in food and
clothing and lodges, in everything needful to an Indian. They did
not lose any horses nor other property in warfare, because they had
not any warfare. He had come now into admiration by all Indians
as a man whose medicine was good--that is, as a man having a kind
heart and good judgment as to the best course of conduct. He was
considered as being altogether brave, but peaceable. He was strong
in religion--the Indian religion. He made medicine many times. He
prayed and fasted and whipped his flesh into submission to the will
of the Great Medicine. So, in attaching ourselves to the Uncpapas
we other tribes were not moved by a desire to fight. They had not
invited us. They simply welcomed us. We supposed that the combined
camps would frighten off the soldiers. We hoped thus to be freed from
their annoyance. Then we could separate again into the tribal bands
and resume our quiet wandering and hunting.
The four camps could not remain long together in any one location.
The food game would become scarce there and the feed for our horses
would be eaten away. We had to move on. A council of all of the
tribal chiefs decided we should go northward to the head of the next
stream flowing into the east side of Powder river. The next morning
after the decision had been made, the four different bands set off in
procession toward the appointed place.
The Cheyennes were in the lead. The Ogallalas came next. Following
them were the Minneconjoux. The Uncpapas were last. The order of
movement was the result of an agreed plan. The Cheyennes and the
Uncpapas had the specially dangerful positions. I do not know on just
what grounds this was the arrangement, but I know that this was the
intention. The Cheyennes kept scouts out in front looking forward
from high points. The Uncpapas had always some of their young men
staying back to observe if any enemies were following. The Ogallalas
and the Minneconjoux sent guardians off to the hill points at the
sides.
Three sleeps, I believe, our four camp circles stood in this new
location. The Cheyennes in advance had been allowed to choose first
the spot for the encampment. The Ogallalas and the Minneconjoux then
located themselves only a little distance from us and from each
other. The Uncpapas placed their circle on whatever good ground
was left and on ground most suitable for guarding that side of the
combined body of Indians. In the camping as well as in the traveling,
the Cheyennes and the Uncpapas occupied the specially exposed
positions.
The scarcity of feed for our horses led the council into a decision
to move on yet farther northward. As I remember it, we spent one
sleep in temporary camp during this movement as well as in the first
combined shift of base. Our horses were weak for lack of food, so we
had to travel slowly. We stopped at the upper regions of the next
creek tributary to Powder river. I believe we stayed there three
sleeps.
The Arrows All Gone Sioux (the Sans Arcs) came to us at this camping
place. Five camp circles now were in close communion. The number
of people in this added band was about the same as in the Ogallala
or the Minneconjoux organizations. In the case of each of the five
tribes, only a part of their members were here. But in each case
more were coming from time to time while few or none were going back
to the reservations. I believe the number of Cheyenne lodges now must
have been increased to fifty. The Ogallalas, Minneconjoux and Arrows
All Gone each had more, perhaps sixty or seventy. The comparative
size of the Uncpapa circle indicated they might have had as many as a
hundred and fifty lodges.
After three or four sleeps the five camps moved again. This time we
swerved to the northwestward. Our stopping place now was lower down
on the next creek flowing into Powder river. New grass was beginning
to peep up here. Our hungry horses searched greedily for it. The
herder boys were kept busy at keeping them from rambling too far.
The tribal herds were kept separate, boys or youths from each tribe
guarding their own bands.
The Blackfeet Sioux joined us here, I believe. I am not sure of the
exact place where they came, but I can not recollect any other point
where they might have come. I recall clearly, though, that when we
got to Powder river there were six camp circles, the Blackfeet Sioux
making up the sixth one. Theirs was not a very large circle, but it
was a separate one. They camped close to the Uncpapas.
Many extra horses were brought in by some of the newly arriving
Indians. I think most of them were brought by the Blackfeet Sioux,
or perhaps by the Arrows All Gone. But wherever they were needed by
members of other tribes they were distributed out as gifts.
A few Waist and Skirt Indians[16] attached themselves to us. They
were known also as No Clothing people, because their men had no
clothing. They were extremely poor, having but little property and no
horses. They had plenty of dogs--big dogs--to drag or to carry their
tepees and other scant property. Their tribal name, as known to us,
arose from their women having dresses made up in two parts. Other
Indian women made up their dresses in one piece. I heard Cheyennes
talk about Sitting Bull’s father being with these people. He may have
been there, but I do not remember having seen him. These Indians had
small tepees, and their lodge poles were placed with the butt ends
up. They camped all the time in a little group beside the Uncpapa
circle. Some Assiniboines also were mingled with the Uncpapas, and
others of them were with the Blackfeet Sioux. A few Burned Thigh
tepees were with the Ogallalas and the Blackfeet Sioux. Many of the
incoming Indians talked of having been north of Elk river.[17] Some
of the talk I had heard was that they had been searching there for
us. As I remember it, the extra horse bands were brought from the
north side of that stream.
Chief Lame White Man and a big band of other Cheyennes came to us
at Powder river. They had made a long journey out from the White
River agency. They had been looking for us all about the heads of
the Powder, Tongue and Rosebud rivers. They doubled back and found
our trail east of Powder river. They had not learned of the soldier
attack upon our Cheyenne camp.
Lame White Man did not belong to the Northern Cheyenne tribe, but he
had been much of the time with us. He was a big chief or an old man
chief of the Southern Cheyennes. He was not a chief with us, but he
was a wise and good man. For this reason he had much influence among
us, even as an adviser to our chiefs. His wife and family were with
him, and their lodge became a part of our growing camp circle.
From Powder river our course was directed westward. We went over the
hill country. The grass was coming up everywhere, and our horses were
growing stronger. I believe we camped in two or three places between
there and the Tongue river, one sleep at each place. Individual
hunters and small hunting parties were gathering meat for their
families. Even when we stopped for but one sleep at any place, all of
the camp circles were formed and all of the lodges set up. It was the
taking down, moving and setting up again every day of a little city.
A big band of additional Cheyennes came to us on Tongue river. They
were led by Dirty Moccasins, an old man chief. They had crossed
Powder river, journeyed over the divide west of it to Otter creek
and followed this stream down to Tongue river. Our camp was thirty
or forty miles down from where Otter creek flows into the river.
Straggling lodges had been reaching us, but this was the largest
annexation in any one group. Our Cheyenne circle now was double what
it had been when we first joined the Uncpapas. The other circles
likewise were growing in the same way. These Cheyennes brought extra
ammunition, sugar, coffee and tobacco.
Going on west from Tongue river, we stopped several days, perhaps
four or five sleeps, at the upper part of a stream we knew as Wood
creek. It is the first creek of importance west of Tongue river and
flowing, I believe, into Elk river. Our horses now were getting much
grass. As the main part of the herds grazed, the men were hunting.
Big parties of Indians killed lots of buffalo in this neighborhood.
There were many thousands of these animals here. The Cheyennes made
a special effort to get a plentiful supply of robes for making larger
lodges. The smaller ones given to our people by the Uncpapas had been
comfortable, but larger ones were more comfortable. We also got skins
for robes. Men and women all were busy, the men at hunting and the
women at tanning the skins.
Councils of the chiefs of the six tribes assembled together were
held at each place of camping. They talked of whatever might be of
general interest. Particularly, a council settled where we should go
next, at each move. We had not set out to go into any special region.
The moves depended upon reports of hunting parties or scouts. They
learned and reported where was most of such game as we were seeking.
Many young men were anxious to go for fighting the soldiers. But the
chiefs and old men all urged us to keep away from the white men. They
said that fighting wasted energy that ought to be applied in looking
only for food and clothing, trying only to feed and make comfortable
ourselves and our families. Our combination of camps was simply for
defense. We were within our treaty rights as hunters. We must keep
ourselves so.
From Wood creek we went yet westward to the upper part of what we
called Sioux creek. Here we stayed but one sleep and followed the
same direction the next day. All of the people were on horses or on
lodgepole travois dragged by horses. All of the personal or family
belongings were in travois baskets or on the backs of special pack
horses. We had not any wagons. Such vehicles could not have been used
in most of the country that Indians inhabited then.
We arrived at the Rosebud river or large creek about the middle of
May, I believe. I did not know then anything about a calendar, but
judging from my recollection of the condition of the grass and the
trees, about the weather and other natural conditions, that must have
been about the time.[18] Many times during the later years of peace I
have been up and down that valley, on my way to and fro between the
reservation and the town of Forsythe, so I with other Cheyennes have
kept exactly in mind all of the old camping places along this stream.
The first Rosebud camping place of the six great circles of Indians
was about seven or eight miles up from Elk river. The Uncpapa circle
at that time was partly on the land where now is a ranch house
occupied by white people. The place now is known as the James
Kennedy place, as a white man having that name lived there during
many years. The Uncpapa circle extended from the present location of
this house out across the present highway road and upon the bench
eastward. The Cheyennes were camped about a mile and a half up the
valley from Sitting Bull’s Uncpapas. Our location included a line of
trees such as yet are there extending from the creek across the road
east of it. An old white man named Eugene Noyes was living there a
few years ago, in a house just off a short distance southwest from
that old Cheyenne camp site. The other four circles were at four
different places between the Uncpapas and the Cheyennes. All of them
were on the east side of the creek.