at 9.30 in the morning, capturing some horses and killing an Indian
boy left there. We then all realized for the first time that while
we were lucky not to have been entirely vanquished, we had been most
humiliatingly defeated, and that the village which Custer was to meet
only seven days later, fourteen miles west on the Little Big Horn,
contained probably 15,000 or 20,000 souls, perhaps 4,000 or 5,000
warriors, and that perhaps only half of them had met us in battle, and
that had my command remained at the village not one of us would have
returned.
In fact, I, with General Crook, visited this village site in our fall
campaign, and he told me I ought to have been thankful to him for
returning me from that canyon as they were as well or better equipped
to destroy me as they were to destroy Custer and his command, and here
I want to pay a tribute to both Colonel Custer and Captain Henry. I
knew both as long as they lived, and have been acquainted with nearly
all prominent cavalry officers during my service, and they were always
in my mind typical cavalry soldiers of the U. S. Army. I always
resented criticisms that were made against Custer by men from General
Terry down, who had little or no knowledge of Indian warfare. While a
good man, Terry was not familiar with Indian warfare.
The next day we returned to our camp on Goose Creek, where General
Crook and all of us made very brief reports of the battle,
having little pride in our achievement. General Crook asked for
reinforcements, and went into camp awaiting them, meanwhile we amused
ourselves by hunting and fishing in the Big Horn Mountains, both
General Crook and I being very fond of hunting. We spent much time in
the mountains, and some two days later, after the Custer engagement,
I and my Lieutenant, Schwatka, went to the peak of the Big Horn
Mountains, the northernmost point, thinking we might observe something
in that direction, it being about thirty-five or forty miles to the
Rosebud. About 2 p.m. we observed a great smoke, and realized that
there had been a fight. Returning to camp in the night, we reported to
General Crook. About June 30th, I, with my squadron, being the outpost
on the lower Goose Creek, observed at sunrise some smoke which created
suspicion, and looking down the valley I saw three mounted men coming
toward me, which I first thought were Indians, but later discovered
that they were white men on mules, Privates James Bell, William Evans,
and Benj. F. Stewart, Company "E," 7th Infantry (who were awarded
medals on December 2, 1876), and I rode to them. They handed me a
dispatch from General Terry to General Crook, stating that Custer
and his command had been massacred and that they had been sent by
General Terry to carry his message to General Crook. Crook was in the
mountains hunting. I carried the dispatch to Colonel Royal, commanding
the camp, who opened it, and read the dispatch, which horrified the
assembled officers.
He ordered me with my full company to carry it as rapidly as I could
to General Crook, and after climbing about eighteen miles in the
mountains I found him returning with his pack mules loaded down with
elk, deer and big horn sheep. He read the dispatch, and while all of
us were horrified and oppressed with mortification and sympathy for
the dead and wounded, there was with all, particularly in General
Crook's expression, a feeling that the country would realize that
there were others who had underrated the valor and numbers of the
Sioux.
While General Crook was a cold, gray-eyed and somewhat cold-blooded
warrior, treating his men perhaps too practically in war time, there
yet ran through us a feeling of profound sympathy for his great
misfortune, while at the same time we had a still more profound
sympathy for the other gallant and more sympathetic Custer--at least,
most of us. There were some there, I regret to say, who had ranked him
and over whom he was promoted, that would insinuate, "I told you so,"
and for these sentiments the majority of us had no respect.
Finally, we were joined by General Merritt and the entire Fifth
Cavalry, and the fall campaign ensued. After its termination I was
returned to the command of Camp Sheridan, my former post, and was
directed by General Crook to enter into communication with Chief Touch
the Clouds of the Minneconjous, whose tribe still remained hostile,
and I proposed to approach him through Spotted Tail and try to induce
him to surrender. He approved, and I fitted up Spotted Tail with
about thirty of his friendly Indians, rations and pack mules, and he
proceeded to the camp of Touch the Clouds, and after some protracted
negotiations induced him to return and surrender at a given time,
about thirty days in advance, stipulating, however, that he was to
be received with honors when he joined Spotted Tail's band. This
reception, according to Indian tradition, consisted of the following
program:
When a hostile band agrees to return to peace and join its former
friends, the hosts are supposed to be captured by them; the tribe
to be joined is notified when the tribe joining will approach; the
approaching tribe is drawn up in war paint in apparent hostile array,
and with great shouts and whooping, charge through the receiving
village, who stand out receiving them with cheers, apparently of joy;
the charging Indians firing their pieces in every direction save
toward their supposed make-believe enemies. After charging fully
through the village they return again, dismounting, and shake hands
with their newly-made friends, and direct their squaws to pitch their
tepees around those of the village. Chief Touch the Clouds sent in
word that he would like to make a formal surrender, and if General
Crook and his staff would appear on the parade ground of the military
post, he, with his principal chiefs--about thirty in number--would
gallop in, mounted as with hostile intent, and when arrived within a
few yards of the General, would cast their arms on the ground. And
this ceremony was actually gone through by General Crook and his staff
officers. The arms they threw down were pieces of no value.
It will be observed that the ethics of the North American Indians did
not differ materially from the ethics of the barbarians now fighting
in Europe, in that they wanted no peace without victory.
Touch the Clouds surrendered about 1,500 Minneconjous, which increased
Spotted Tail's tribe to nearly 6,000.
Transcriber's Note:
1. All obvious spelling and punctuation errors corrected.
2. Italics are shown as _text_ and bold is shown as =text=.