PART I

Protecting the Frontier

CHAPTER ONE

The Powder River Expedition

I. The Field and the Fighters

Since the United States began to be there never was such a post as Fort

Philip Kearney, commonly called Fort Phil Kearney.[3] From its

establishment, in 1866, to its abandonment, some two years later, it was

practically in a state of siege. I do not mean that it was beleaguered

by the Indians in any formal, persistent investment, but it was so

constantly and so closely observed by war parties, hidden in the

adjacent woods and the mountain passes, that there was little safety

outside its stockade for anything less than a company of infantry or a

troop of cavalry; and not always, as we shall see, for those.

Rarely in the history of the Indian wars of the United States have the

Indians, no matter how preponderant in force, conducted a regular siege,

Pontiac’s investment of Detroit being almost unique in that particular.

But they literally surrounded Fort Phil Kearney at all times. Nothing

escaped their observation, and no opportunity to harass and to cut off

detached parties of the garrison, to stampede the herds, or to attack

the wagon trains, was allowed to pass by. Not a stick of timber could be

cut, not an acre of grass mowed, except under heavy guard. Herds of beef

cattle, the horses for the cavalry and mounted infantry, the mules for

the supply wagons, could not graze, even under the walls of the fort,

without protection. The country teemed with game. Hunting parties were

absolutely forbidden. To take a stroll outside the stockade on a summer

evening was to invite death, or worse if the stroller happened to be a

woman. There was no certainty about the attacks, except an assurance

that one was always due at any given moment. As old James Bridger, a

veteran plainsman and fur trader, a scout whose fame is scarcely less

than that of Kit Carson, and the confidential companion adviser of

Carrington in 1866, was wont to say to him: “Whar you don’t see no

Injuns thar they’re sartin to be thickest.”

Taking at random two average months in the two different years during

which the post was maintained, one in the summer, another in the fall, I

find that there were fifteen separate and distinct attacks in one and

twenty in the other. In many of these, in most, in fact, one or more men

were killed and a greater number wounded. Not a wagon train bound for

Montana could pass up the Bozeman trail, which ran under the walls of

the fort, and for the protection of which it had been established,

without being attacked again and again. Only the most watchful prudence,

the most skilful management, and the most determined valor, prevented

the annihilation of successive parties of emigrants seeking the new and

inviting land.

The war with the Indians was about the ownership of territory, as most

of our Indian wars have been. Indeed, that statement is true of most of

the wars of the world. The strong have ever sought to take from the

weak. The westward-moving tide of civilization had at last pressed back

from the Missouri and the Mississippi the Sioux and their allies, the

Cheyennes, the largest and most famous of the several great groups of

Indians who have disputed the advance of the white man since the days of

Columbus, saving perhaps the Creeks and the Iroquois.

The vast expanse of territory west of the hundredth meridian, extending

from the Red River to the British Columbia boundary line, was at the

time practically devoid of white settlements, except at Denver and Salt

Lake, until the Montana towns were reached in the northwest.[4] It is a

great sweep of land which comprises every variety of climate and soil.

The huge Big Horn Mountains severed that immense domain. The Sweet Water

Country and all east of the Wind River Range, including South Pass and

the region west of the great bend of the North Platte, had its prairies

and fertile valleys. Just north of the Big Horn Mountain Range, which

took in the territory which formed the most direct route to Central

Montana, and the occupation of which was the real objective of

Carrington’s expedition in the spring of 1866, was the most precious

section, controlled by tribes jealous of any intrusion by the whites.

All along the Yellowstone and its tributaries, in spite of the frequent

“_Mauvaises Terres_,” or “bad lands,” of apparent volcanic origin, the

whole country was threaded with clear streams from the Big Horn Range.

The valleys of these were luxuriant in their natural products and their

promise. Enormous herds of buffalo roamed the plains, affording the

Indian nearly everything required for his support. The mountains

abounded with bear, deer and other game in great variety. The many

rivers which traversed the territory teemed with fish, the valleys which

they watered were abundantly fertile for the growing of the few crops

which the Indian found necessary for his support. The land was desirable

naturally and attracted the attention of the settlers.

It cannot be gainsaid that the Indians enjoyed a quasi-legal title to

this land. But if a comparatively small group of nomadic and savage

tribes insists upon reserving a great body of land for a mere hunting

ground, using as a game preserve that which, in a civilized region,

would easily support a great agricultural and urban population of

industrious citizens seeking relief from the crowded and confined

conditions of older communities, what are you going to do about it?

Experience has shown that in spite of treaties, purchases and other

peaceful means of obtaining it, there is always bound to be a contest

about that land. The rights of savagery have been compelled to yield to

the demands of civilization, ethics to the contrary notwithstanding. And

it will always be so, sad though it may seem to many.

The close of the Civil War threw many soldiers out of employment. After

four years of active campaigning they could not settle down to the

humdrum life of village and country again. With a natural spirit of

restlessness they gathered their families, loaded their few household

belongings into wagons, and in parties of varying sizes made their way

westward. Railroads began to push iron feelers across the territory.

Engineers and road builders, as well as emigrants, demanded the

protection of the government. At first most of the settlers merely

wished to pass through the country and settle in the fair lands upon the

other side, but the fertility and beauty that met their eyes on every

hand irresistibly invited settlement on the journey.

At that time there were four great routes of transcontinental travel in

use: southward over the famous Santa Fé trail; westward over the Kansas

trail to Denver; westward on the Oregon trail through Nebraska and Salt

Lake City to California and Oregon; northwestward on the Bozeman trail

through Wyoming to Montana. The Union Pacific road was building along

the Oregon trail, the Kansas Pacific along the Kansas trail to Denver,

while the great Santa Fé system was not yet dreamed of.

The railroads being in operation for short distances, the only method of

transportation was in the huge Conestoga wagon, or prairie schooner

which, with its canvas top raking upward fore and aft over a capacious

wagon box, looked not unlike the hull of the boat from which it took its

name. These wagons were drawn by four or six mules—sometimes by oxen,

known as “bull teams”—and, stores there being none, carried everything

that a settler was apt to need in the new land, including the

indispensable wife and children.

I am concerned in this article only with the Bozeman or Montana trail.

Early in 1866 Government Commissioners at Fort Laramie, Nebraska, were

negotiating a treaty with the Sioux and Northern Cheyennes to secure the

right of way for emigrants through that territory which, by the

Harney-Sanborne treaty, had been conceded to them in 1865. Red Cloud, an

Oglala Sioux, the foremost of the young warriors, led the objectors to

the treaty, even to the point of fighting, and opposed the more

conservative chiefs who deprecated war as eventually fatal to all their

territorial claims. During this council, to anticipate later events,

Carrington, then approaching with troops, arrived in advance,

dismounted, and was introduced to the members of the council. Red Cloud,

noticing his shoulder straps, hotly denounced him as the “White Eagle”

who had come to steal the road before the Indian said yes or no. In full

view of the mass of Indians who occupied the parade ground he sprang

from the platform under the shelter of pine boughs, struck his tepees

and went on the war-path. A telegram by Carrington advising suspension

of his march until the council came to some agreement was negatived, and

although Sunday he pushed forward nine miles beyond the fort before

sunset.

One stipulation upon which the United States insisted was the

establishment of military posts to guard the trail, without which it was

felt the treaty would amount to nothing. The Brulé Sioux, under the lead

of Spotted Tail, Standing Elk and others, favored the concession, and

ever after remained faithful to the whites. The older chiefs of other

Sioux bands, in spite of Red Cloud’s defection and departure, remained

in council for some days and, although sullen in manner and noisy in

protests, finally accepted valuable gifts and indemnities and so far

satisfied the Commission that they despatched special messengers to

notify the District Commander that “satisfactory treaties had been made

with the tribes represented at Laramie and that its route was safe.”

Emigrant trains were also pushed forward with their assurance that an

ample force of regulars had gone up the country to ensure their safety.

The sequel will appear later.

II. General Carrington’s Romantic Expedition

Pursuant to the plan, Brigadier-General Henry B. Carrington, Colonel of

the Eighteenth Regular Infantry, was ordered with the second battalion

of his regiment, about to become the Twenty-seventh Regular Infantry, to

establish, organize and take command of what was known as the Mountain

District. The Mountain District at that time had but one post in it,

Fort Reno, one hundred and sixty miles from Fort Laramie. Carrington was

directed to march to Fort Reno, move it forty miles westward, garrison

it, and then, with the balance of his command, establish another post on

the Bozeman trail, between the Big Horn Mountains and the Powder River,

so as to command that valley much frequented by Indians; and, lastly, to

establish two other posts, one on the Big Horn, the other on the

Yellowstone, for the further protection of the trail.

General Carrington was a graduate of Yale College. He had been a

teacher, an engineer and scientist, a lawyer and man of affairs, a

student of military matters as well as Adjutant-General of Ohio for

several years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. At the beginning

of that struggle he promptly moved one battery and several regiments of

Ohio Militia into West Virginia to take part in the Battle of Phillipi

before the State Volunteers could be mustered into the United States

service. Without his solicitation, on May 14th, 1861, he had been

appointed Colonel of the Eighteenth United States Infantry, promoted

Brigadier-General November 29th, 1863, and had rendered valuable and

important services during the war. He was a high-minded Christian

gentleman, a soldier of large experience and proven courage, an

administrator of vigor and capacity, and, as his subsequent career has

shown, a man of fine literary talents.[5] No better choice could have

been made for the expedition.

After many delays, due principally to difficulties in securing

transportation, a little army of seven hundred men, accompanied by four

pieces of artillery, two hundred and twenty-six wagons, and a few

ambulances containing the wives and children of several of the officers,

set forth from old Fort Kearney, Nebraska, on the 19th of May, 1866.

About two hundred of the men were veterans, the rest raw recruits. They

were armed with old-fashioned Springfield, muzzle-loading muskets, save

a few who had the new Spencer breech-loading carbine, a weapon of rather

short trajectory, but a great improvement on the old army musket from

the rapidity of fire which it permitted. A portion of the command was

mounted from the discarded horses of a cavalry regiment going east to be

mustered out. They were not trained horsemen, however, and at first were

rather indifferent mounted infantrymen.

Among the soldiers were artificers and mechanics of every description.

The government had provided appliances needed for building forts,

including tools, doors, sash, glass, nails, stoves, steel, iron, mowers,

reapers, scythes, and two steam sawmills. The officers were in the main

a fine body of men, most of whom had learned their soldiering in the

Civil War.

[Illustration:

_Copyright by D. F. Barry_

]

CROW KING AMERICAN HORSE[6]

RED CLOUD GALL

GROUP OF FAMOUS WAR CHIEFS

It seems incredible to think that women should accompany such an

expedition, but no grave anticipations of trouble with the Indians were

felt by any persons in authority at that time. The Sioux and Cheyennes

had consented to the opening of the road, and though they demurred to

the forts, they had not absolutely refused the treaty when the

government insisted upon it. The expedition was not conceived or planned

for war. It was supposed to be a peaceable expedition. In fact, General

Sherman, who visited Fort Kearney before the troops began to march,

personally advised the ladies to accompany the expedition as very

attractive in its object and wholly peaceful. Had the authorities known

what was to happen, a force three times as great would scarcely have

been thought adequate for the purpose. But even had there been a full

knowledge of the dangers incurred, the army women would have gone with

their husbands.

History records no greater instances of romantic devotion than those

exhibited by the army wife. She stands peculiar among American women

to-day in that particular. The army woman in a hostile country risked

much more than the men. Her fate when captured was terrible beyond

description—one long agony of horror and shame until death put an end to

it. I have talked with army officers of large experience and have read

what others have said, and the universal testimony is that no woman who

was ever captured by the plains Indians west of the Missouri was spared.

It was commonly agreed among the officers and men of regiments

accompanied by women—and fully understood by the women as well—that in

the last extremity the women were to be shot by their own friends,

rather than to be allowed to fall into the hands of the savages; but no

such apprehension attended this march.

The army woman’s knowledge of the peril in the usual border warfare was

not an imaginary one, either. As we may read in letters and books

written by army wives, it was brought home to them directly again and

again. After every campaign poor, wretched women of stranded and robbed

emigrant trains or devastated settlements were brought into the various

camps, to whom these army women ministered with loving care, and from

whom they heard frightful and sickening details that froze the blood;

yet the army wife herself never faltered in her devotion, never failed

in her willingness to follow wherever her husband was sent. And, save

for the actual campaigning in the field, the army wife was

everywhere—sometimes there, too.

In this particular expedition there were several little children, from

some of whom I have gleaned details and happenings. One of these lads,

while at Fort Kearney before the march, became so expert with the bow

and arrow in target shooting with young Pawnee Indians near the fort,

that he challenged General Sherman to shoot over the flagstaff. The

youngster accomplished it by lying upon his back with feet braced

against the bow, and the general squarely withdrew from the contest,

declining to follow the boy’s ingenious artifice.

The march was necessarily a slow one and the distance great—some six

hundred miles—so that it was not until the twenty-eighth of June they

reached Fort Reno. There they were menaced by the Indians for the first

time and every endeavor was made to stampede their herds. The officers

and men were fast becoming undeceived as to the character of their

expedition. To abandon Fort Reno, or to remove it, was not practicable.

Carrington ordered it re-stockaded and put in thorough repair,

garrisoned it from his command, and with the balance, something over

five hundred, advanced farther into the unknown land on the 9th of July.

On the 13th of July, 1866, he established his camp on the banks of the

Big Piney Creek, an affluent of the Powder River, about four miles from

the superb Big Horn Range, with snow-capped Cloud Peak towering nine

thousand feet into the heavens, close at hand. A few days later, on a

little, flower-decked, grass-covered plateau, bare of trees, which

fortunately happened to be just the size to contain the fort he proposed

to erect, and which sloped abruptly away in every direction, forming a

natural glacis, he began building the stockade.

III. The Outpost of Civilization

The plateau lay between two branches of the Piney. To the eastward of

the smaller branch rose a high hill called Pilot Hill. West of it was

another ridge which they named Sullivant Hills. Southwest of Sullivant

Hills was a high ridge called Lodge Trail Ridge, the main branch of the

Piney Creek flowing between them, so that the water supply was at the

eastern or “Water Gate” of the fort. The Bozeman trail passed westward,

under Pilot Hill in front of the fort, crossing the Big Piney as it

neared Sullivant Hills, and then, circling around Lodge Trail Ridge for

easier ascent, advanced northward, twice crossing Peno Creek and its

branches, before that stream joined Goose Creek, a tributary to Tongue

River, one of the chief forks of the Yellowstone. The first branch of

the Peno was five miles from the fort, and the second twelve miles

farther, where the garrison had to cut hay, but the branch nearer the

fort was especially associated with the events of December 21st, as well

as with the fight of the sixth of the same month.

The spot was delightful. Adjacent to the fort were broad stretches of

fertile, brilliantly flowered, grassy, river and mountain creek valleys.

The mountains and hills were covered with pines. Game there was in

plenty; water was clear and abundant. Wood, while not immediately at

hand, else the place would not have been practicable of defense without

tremendous labor in clearing it, was conveniently adjacent.

General Carrington marked out the walls of the fort, after a survey of

the surrounding country as far as Tongue River, set up his sawmills, one

of them of forty horse-power, capable of cutting logs thirty inches in

diameter, established a logging camp on Piney Island, seven miles

distant, with no intervening hills to surmount, which made

transportation easy, and began the erection of the fort. Picket posts

were established upon Pilot and Sullivant Hills, which overlooked

approaches both from the east and the road to the mountains. Three times

Indians attempted to dislodge these pickets, once at night; but

case-shot exploding over them, and each time causing loss of men or

ponies, ended similar visitations.

The most careful watchfulness was necessary at all hours of the day and

night. The wood trains to fetch logs to the sawmills went out heavily

guarded. There was fighting all the time. Casualties among the men were

by no means rare. At first it was difficult to keep men within the

limits of the camp; but stragglers who failed to return, and some who

had been cut off, scalped and left for dead, but who had crawled back to

die, convinced every one of the wisdom of the commanding officer’s

repeated orders and cautions.[7]

To chronicle the constant succession of petty skirmishes would be

wearisome; yet they often resulted in torture and loss of life on the

part of the soldiers, although the Indians in most instances suffered

the more severely. One single incident may be taken as illustrative of

the life of the garrison.

One afternoon, early in October, the picket reported that the wood train

was attacked to the west, and shortly after signalled the approach of a

small party of soldiers from the east. Detachments were sent from the

post in both directions. It proved to be not a reinforcement of troops

or ammunition supplies, but two ambulances with two contract surgeons

and an escort of eight men, besides Bailey, the guide, and Lieutenant

Grummond, who had just been appointed to the Eighteenth Infantry, and

his young bride. As they approached the main gate, accompanied by the

mounted men who had been sent out to meet them, they were halted to give

passage to an army wagon from the opposite direction. It was escorted by

a guard from a wood train, and brought in the scalped, naked, dead body

of one of their comrades, a strange welcome, indeed, to the young wife,

who, upon leaving Laramie, had been assured of a beautiful ride through

fertile valleys without danger, and sadder yet in its sequel two months

later.

[Illustration: FORT PHILIP KEARNEY]

Meanwhile the work of erecting the fort was continued. It was a

rectangle, six hundred by eight hundred feet, inclosed by a formidable

stockade of heavy pine logs standing eight feet high, with a continuous

banquette, and flaring loopholes at every fourth log. There were

enfilading blockhouses on the diagonal corners, with portholes for the

cannon, and quarters for officers and men, with other necessary

buildings. The commanding officer’s quarters was a two-story building of

framed lumber, surmounted by a watch-tower. The officers’ and men’s

quarters were built of logs. The warehouses, four in number, eighty feet

by twenty-four, were framed.

East of the fort proper was a corral of slightly less area, surrounded

by a rough palisade of cottonwood logs, which inclosed the wood train,

hay, and miscellaneous supplies. Everything—stockade, houses, stables,

in all their details, blacksmith shops, teamsters’ quarters, and so

on—was planned by Carrington himself.[8]

The main fort inclosed a handsome parade ground, in the center of which

arose the tall flagstaff planned and erected by a ship carpenter in the

regiment. From it, on the 31st of October, with great ceremony and much

rejoicing, the first garrison flag that ever floated over the land was

unfurled. The work was by no means completed as it appears on the map,

but it was inclosed, and there were enough buildings ready to house the

actual garrison present, although the fort was planned for a thousand

men, repeatedly promised but not furnished, while all the time both

cavalry and the First Battalion of the Eighteenth were held within the

peaceful limits of Fort Laramie’s control.

Early in August Captain Kinney, with two companions, had been sent

ninety miles to the northward to establish the second post on the Big

Horn, which was called Fort C. F. Smith, and was very much smaller and

less important than Fort Phil Kearney. The third projected post was not

established. There were not enough men to garrison the three already in

the field, much less to build a fourth.

-----

Footnote 3:

Although the general for whom this fort was named spelled his name

Kearny, the name of the fort is written as above in all official

documents I have examined.

Footnote 4:

The country is roughly comprehended by the boundary lines between

which Mountain Standard, or 105th meridian, Time, prevails.

Footnote 5:

Among his literary works he is best known for his “Washington, the

Soldier,” and his “Battles of the American Revolution,” which is the

standard work of the kind. In a personal interview he told me he read

some portion of the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew every day

for years. Not many army officers can say that, and very few

civilians, either.

Footnote 6:

Killed at Slim Buttes

Footnote 7:

Just when the alarms were most frequent a messenger came to the

headquarters, announcing that a train en route from Fort Laramie, with

special messengers from that post, was corralled by Indians, and

demanded immediate help. An entire company of infantry in wagons, with

a mountain howitzer and several rounds of grape-shot, was hastened to

their relief. It proved to be a train with mail from the Laramie

Commission announcing the consummation of a “satisfactory treaty of

peace with all the Indians of the Northwest,” and assuring the

District Commander of the fact. The messenger was brought in in

safety, and peace lasted until his message was delivered. So much was

gained—that the messenger did not lose his scalp en route.

Footnote 8:

General W. B. Hazen, upon inspection of this post’s stockade,

pronounced it “the best he had ever seen, except one built by the

Hudson Bay Company, in British America.”

CHAPTER TWO

The Tragedy of Fort Phil Kearney

I. How the Fighting Began

To summarize the first six months of fighting, from the first of August

to the close of the year, the Indians killed one hundred and fifty-four

persons, including soldiers and citizens, wounded twenty more, and

captured nearly seven hundred animals—cattle, mules, and horses. There

were fifty-one demonstrations in force in front of the fort, and they

attacked every train that passed over the trail.

As the fort was still far from completion, the logging operations were

continued until mid-winter. On every day the weather permitted, a

heavily guarded train of wood-cutters was sent down to Piney Island, or

to the heavier timber beyond, where a blockhouse protected the choppers.

This train was frequently attacked. Eternal vigilance was the price of

life. Scarcely a day passed without the lookout on Pilot Hill signalling

Indians approaching, or the lookout on Sullivant Hills reporting that

the wood train was corralled and attacked. On such occasions a strong

detachment would be mounted and sent out to drive away the Indians and

bring in the wood train—an operation which was invariably successful,

although sometimes attended with loss.

Hostile demonstrations were met by prompt forays or pursuits, as

circumstances permitted; and on one occasion the general pursued a band

that ran off a herd nearly to Tongue River; but flashing mirrors

betrayed Indian attempts to gain his rear, and a return was ordered,

abandoning the stolen stock.

One expedition is characteristic of many. On the afternoon of December

6th the lookout on Sullivant Hills signalled that the wood train was

attacked, and Captain (Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel) Fetterman, the senior

captain present, was detailed with a squad of forty mounted men,

including fifteen cavalrymen under Lieutenants Bingham and Grummond,

with Sergeant Bowers of the infantry, a veteran of the Civil War, to

relieve the wood train and drive the Indians toward the Peno Valley,

while Carrington himself, with about a score of mounted infantrymen,

would sweep around the north side of Lodge Trail Ridge and intercept

them.

The Indians gave way before Fetterman’s advance, hoping to lure the

troops into an ambush, but at a favorable spot they made a stand. The

fighting there was so fierce that the cavalry, which by a singular

circumstance was without its officers, gave way and retreated headlong

across the valley toward the ridge. The mounted infantry stood its

ground, and under Fetterman’s intrepid leadership was making a brave

fight against overwhelming odds, the number of Indians present being

estimated at more than three hundred. It would have gone hard with them,

however, had not Carrington and the first six of his detachment suddenly

swept around a small hill or divide and taken the Indians in reverse.

The general had been forced to advance under fire, and meeting the

fugitive cavalry, ordered them to fall in behind his own detachment. He

was filled with anxiety as to the course of the fight on the other side

of the ridge.

[Illustration]

CAPT. W. J. FETTERMAN[9] CAPT. FREDK. H. BROWN[9]

LIEUT. G. W. GRUMMOND[9] CAPT. JAMES POWELL

THE FORT PHIL KEARNEY FIGHTERS

_For portrait of General Carrington, see illustration opposite page 174_

Carrington, in his official report,[10] says: “But six men turned

the point with me, one a young bugler of the Second Cavalry, who

told me that Lieutenant Bingham had gone down the road around the

hill to my right. This seemed impossible, as he belonged to

Fetterman’s command. I sounded the recall on his report, but in

vain. One of my men fell and his horse on him. The principal chief

operating during the day attempted to secure his scalp, but

dismounting, with one man to hold the horses and reserving fire, I

succeeded in saving the man and holding the position until joined by

Fetterman twenty minutes later. The cavalry that had abandoned him

had not followed me, though the distance was short; but the Indians,

circling round and yelling, nearly one hundred in number, with one

saddle emptied by a single shot fired by myself, did not venture to

close in.”

The rear detachment and Fetterman soon joined, and by the efforts of the

combined parties the Indians were compelled to flight. It was a close

call for all, but Lieutenants Grummond and Bingham were yet unaccounted

for. Search was instantly made for these two officers and the infantry

sergeant, who had become separated from their command while chasing some

scattered Indians. One of the officers, Lieutenant Bingham, was dead.

Lieutenant Grummond, after a hand-to-hand fight, was closely pressed by

mounted Indians and was barely rescued. Sergeant Bowers had been

fearfully wounded and scalped, although he was still alive, but died

immediately.[11] He had killed three Indians before he had been

overborne. The cavalrymen, mostly recruits, were deeply ashamed of their

defection, which was partly due to the incaution of their officers in

leaving them to pursue a few Indians, and they were burning with a

desire to retrieve their reputation, which they bravely did with their

lives some two weeks later.

The casualties in the little command were two killed, five wounded. A

messenger was sent to the fort for an ambulance, and the command retired

in good order without further sight of the Indians. Lieutenant Bingham

was not the first officer killed; for, five months before, Lieutenant

Daniels, riding ahead of a small party of soldiers escorting several

officers and the wife of Lieutenant Wands from Fort Laramie, had been

killed in full view of the party. He had been horribly tortured with a

stake before he died, and the savages put on his clothing and danced on

the prairie just out of range, in front of the party, which was too

small to do more than stand on the defensive. Lieutenant Grummond’s wife

was in the fort during the fighting on the sixth of December, and her

joy at her husband’s safe return can be imagined.

On the eighth of December President Andrew Johnson congratulated

Congress that treaties had been made at Fort Laramie, and that _all was

peace in the Northwest_!

On the 19th of December, in this peaceful territory, the wood train was

again attacked in force. Carrington promptly sent out a detachment under

Captain Powell with instructions to relieve the wood train, give it his

support, and return with it, but not to pursue threatening Indians, for

experience had shown that the Indians were constantly increasing in

numbers and growing bolder with every attack. Powell efficiently

performed his task. The Indians were driven off, and, although he was

tempted to pursue them, he was too good a soldier to disobey orders, so

he led his men back in safety to the fort.

By this time all warehouses were finished, and it was estimated that one

large wood train would supply logs enough for the completion of the

hospital, which alone needed attention.

Impressed by Powell’s report, Carrington himself accompanied the

augmented train on the 20th, built a bridge across to Piney Island to

facilitate quick hauling, and returned to the fort to make ready for one

more trip only. No Indians appeared in sight on that date. Already

several hundred large logs had been collected for winter’s firewood,

besides the slabs saved at the sawmill.

It cannot be denied that there was much dissatisfaction among some of

the officers at Carrington’s prudent policy. They had the popular idea

that one white man, especially if he were a soldier, was good for a

dozen Indians; and although fifteen hundred lodges of Indians were known

to be encamped on the Powder River, and there were probably between five

and six thousand braves in the vicinity, they were constantly suggesting

expeditions of all sorts with their scanty force. Some of them,

including Fetterman and Brown, “offered with eighty men to ride through

the whole Sioux Nation!” While the mettle of the Sioux Nation had not

yet been fairly tried by these men, Carrington was wise enough to

perceive that such folly meant inevitable destruction, and his consent

was sternly refused.

The total force available at the fort, including prisoners, teamsters,

citizens and employees, was about three hundred and fifty—barely enough

to hold the fort, should the Indians make an attack upon it. Besides

which, details were constantly needed to carry despatches, to deliver

the mail, to get supplies, to succor emigrant trains, and so on. The

force was woefully inadequate, and the number of officers had been

depleted by detachment and other causes until there were but six left.

Ammunition was running low. There were at one time only forty rounds per

man available. Repeated requests and appeals, both by letter and

telegram, for reinforcements and supplies, and especially for modern and

serviceable weapons, had met with little consideration. The officials in

the far East hugged their treaty, and refused to believe that a state of

war existed; and, if it did exist, were disposed to censure the

commanding officer for provoking it. In several instances presents given

in the treaty at Fort Laramie were found on the persons of visiting

Indians, and one captured Indian pony was heavily loaded with original

packages of those presents.

Carrington had done nothing to provoke war, but had simply carried out

General Sherman’s written instructions, sent him as late as August, to

“avoid a general war, until the army could be reorganized and

increased;” but he defended himself and command stoutly when attacked.

Some of the officers, therefore, covertly sneering at the caution of the

commander, were burning for an opportunity to distinguish themselves on

this account, and had practically determined to make or take one at the

first chance. Fetterman and Brown, unfortunately, were the chief of

these malcontents.

II. The Annihilation of Fetterman’s Command

On the 21st of December, the ground being free from snow, the air clear

and cold, the lookout on Sullivant Hills signalled about eleven o’clock

in the morning that the wood train had been corralled, and was again

attacked in force about a mile and a half from the fort. A relief party

of forty-nine men from the Eighteenth Infantry, with twenty-seven

troopers from the Second Cavalry, a detachment from which, nearly all

recruits and chiefly armed with muskets as their carbines had not

reached Laramie, had joined the post some months before, was at once

ordered out.

The command was first given to Captain Powell, with Lieutenant Grummond

in charge of the cavalry. Grummond had a wife in delicate health at the

post, and he was cautioned by the officers to take care not to be led

into a trap, although his experience on the 6th, when he had so narrowly

escaped death, was, it would seem, the best warning he could have had.

This body of men was the best armed party at the post, a few of those

designated carrying the Spencer repeating carbines. Each company had

been directed to keep forty rounds per man on hand for immediate use in

any emergency, besides extra boxes always kept in company quarters. The

men had been exercised in firing recently and some of the ammunition had

been expended, although they still had an abundant supply for the

purposes of the expedition. Carrington personally inspected the men

before they left, and rejected those who were not amply provided.

The situation of the wood train was critical, and the party was

assembled with the greatest despatch. Just as they were about to start,

Captain Fetterman, who had had less experience in the country and in

Indian fighting than the other officers, for he had joined the regiment

some time after the fort had been built and expected assignment to

command Fort C. F. Smith, begged for the command of the expedition,

pleading his senior captaincy as justification for his request.

Carrington reluctantly acceded to his plea, which indeed he could

scarcely have refused, and placed him in charge, giving him strict and

positive instructions to “relieve the wood train, drive back the

Indians, _but on no account to pursue the Indians beyond Lodge Trail

Ridge_,” and that so soon as he had performed this duty he was to return

immediately to the fort.

Captain Fetterman, as has been said, had frequently expressed his

contempt for the Indians, although his fight on December 6th had

slightly modified his opinions. Carrington, knowing his views, was

particular and specific in his orders. So necessary did he think the

caution that he repeated it to Lieutenant Grummond, who, with the

cavalry, followed the infantry out of the gate, the infantry, having

less preparation to make, getting away first. These orders were

delivered in a loud voice and were audible to many persons—women,

officers, and men in the fort. The general went so far as to hasten to

the gate after the cavalry had left the fort, and from the sentry

platform or banquette overlooking it, called out after them again,

emphatically directing them “on no account to pursue the Indians across

Lodge Trail Ridge.”

The duty devolved upon Captain Fetterman was exactly that which Captain

Powell had performed so satisfactorily a few days before. With Captain

Fetterman went Captain Brown, with two citizens, frontiersmen and

hunters, as volunteers. These two civilians, Wheatley and Fisher, were

both armed with the new breech-loading rapid-fire Henry rifle, with

which they were anxious to experiment on the hostiles. Wheatley left a

wife and children in the fort.

[Illustration: THE FETTERMAN MASSACRE Dec. 21, 1866.]

Captain Frederick Brown, a veteran of the Civil War, had just been

promoted, had received orders detaching him from the command, and was

simply waiting a favorable opportunity to leave. He was a man of the

most undaunted courage. His position as quartermaster had kept him on

the watch for Indians all the time, and he announced on the day before

the battle that he “must have one chance at the Indians before he left.”

It is believed, however, that his impetuous counsel, due to his good

luck in many a brush with assailing parties, which he had several times

pursued almost alone, largely precipitated the final disaster.

The total force, therefore, including officers and citizens, under

Fetterman’s command, was eighty-one—just the number with which he had

agreed to ride through the whole Sioux Nation. No one in the command

seems to have had the least idea that any force of Indians, however

great, could overcome it.

Captain Fetterman, instead of leading his men direct to the wood train

on the south side of Sullivant Hills, double-quicked toward the Peno

Valley on to the north side. Perhaps he hoped that he could take the

Indians in reverse and exterminate them between his own troops and the

guard of the wood train—which all told comprised some ninety men—when he

rounded the western end of the hills. This movement was noticed from the

fort; but, as it involved no disobedience of orders, and as it might be

considered a good tactical manœuver, no apprehension was felt on account

of it.

The Indians surrounding the wood train were well served by their scouts,

and when they found that Fetterman’s force was advancing on the other

side of the hill, they immediately withdrew from the wood train, which

presently broke corral and made its way to the Piney, some seven miles

northwest of the fort, unmolested. As Fetterman’s troops disappeared

down the valley, a number of Indians were observed along the Piney in

front of the fort. A spherical case-shot from a howitzer in the fort

exploded in their midst, and they vanished. The Indians were much afraid

of the “gun that shoots twice,” as they called it.

At that time it was discovered that no doctor had gone with the

relieving party, so Acting-Assistant Surgeon Hines, with an escort of

four men, was sent out with orders to join Fetterman. The doctor

hastened away, but returned soon after with the information that the

wood train had gone on, and that when he attempted to cross the valley

of the Peno to join Fetterman’s men he found it full of Indians, who

were swarming about Lodge Trail Ridge, and that no sign of Fetterman was

observed. Despite his orders, he must have gone over the ridge.

The alarm caused in the fort by this news was deepened by the sound of

firing at twelve o’clock. Six shots in rapid succession were counted,

and immediately after heavy firing was heard from over Lodge Trail

Ridge, five miles away, which continued with such fierceness as to

indicate a pitched battle. Carrington instantly despatched Captain Ten

Eyck with the rest of the infantry, in all about fifty-four men,

directing him to join Fetterman’s command, then return with them to the

fort. The men went forward on the run. A little later forty additional

men were sent after Ten Eyck. Carrington at once surmised that Fetterman

had disobeyed orders, either wittingly or carried away by the ardor of

the pursuit, and was now heavily engaged with the Indians on the far

side of the ridge.

Counting Fetterman’s detachment, the guards of the wood train, and Ten

Eyck’s detachments, the garrison of the fort was now reduced to a very

small number. The place, with its considerable extent, might now be

attacked at any time. Carrington at once released all prisoners from the

guard-house, armed the quartermaster’s employees, the citizens, and

mustered altogether a force of only one hundred and nineteen men to

defend the post.[12] Although every preparation for a desperate defense

had been made, there were not enough men to man the walls.

The general and his remaining officers then repaired to the observatory

tower, field glasses in hand, and in apprehension of what fearful

catastrophe they scarcely allowed themselves to imagine. The women and

children, especially those who had husbands and fathers with the first

detachment, were almost crazed with terror.

Presently Sample, the general’s own orderly, who had been sent with Ten

Eyck, was seen galloping furiously down the opposite hill. He had the

best horse in the command (one of the general’s), and he covered the

distance between Lodge Trail Ridge and the fort with amazing swiftness.

He dashed up to headquarters with a message from Ten Eyck, stating that

“the valley on the other side of the ridge is filled with Indians, who

are threatening him. The firing has stopped. He sees no sign of Captain

Fetterman’s command. He wants a howitzer sent out to him.”

The following note was sent to Captain Ten Eyck:

“Forty well-armed men, with three thousand rounds, ambulances, stores,

etc., left before your courier came in. You must unite with Fetterman.

Fire slowly, and keep men in hand. You would have saved two miles toward

the scene of action if you had taken Lodge Trail Ridge. I order the wood

train in, which will give fifty men to spare.”

No gun could be sent him. Since all the horses were already in the

field, it would have required men to haul it. No more could be spared,

and not a man with him could cut a fuse or handle the piece anyway. The

guns were especially needed at the fort to protect women and children.

Late in the afternoon Ten Eyck’s party returned to the fort with

terrible tidings of appalling disaster. In the wagons with his command

were the bodies of forty-nine of Fetterman’s men; the remaining

thirty-two were not at that time accounted for. Ten Eyck very properly

stood upon the defensive on the hill and refused to go down into the

valley in spite of the insults and shouts of the Indians, who numbered

upward of two thousand warriors, until they finally withdrew. After

waiting a sufficient time, he marched carefully and cautiously toward

Peno Valley and to the bare lower ridge over which the road ran.

There he came across evidences of a great battle. On the end of the

ridge, nearest the fort, in a space about six feet square, inclosed by

some huge rocks, making a sort of a rough shelter, he found the bodies

of the forty-nine men whom he had brought back. After their ammunition

had been spent, they had been stripped, shot full of arrows, hacked to

pieces, scalped, and mutilated in a horrible manner. There were no

evidences of a very severe struggle right there. Few cartridge shells

lay on the ground. Of these men, only four besides the two officers had

been killed by bullets. The rest had been killed by arrows, hatchets, or

spears. They had evidently been tortured to death.

Brown and Fetterman were found lying side by side, each with a bullet

wound in the left temple. Their heads were burned and filled with powder

around the wounds. Seeing that all was lost, they had evidently

stood-face to face, and each had shot the other dead with his revolver.

They had both sworn to die rather than be taken alive by the Indians,

and in the last extremity they had carried out their vows. Lieutenant

Grummond, who had so narrowly escaped on the 6th of December, was not

yet accounted for, but there was little hope that he had escaped again.

III. Carrington’s Stern Resolution

The night was one of wild anxiety. Nearly one-fourth of the efficient

force of the fort had been wiped out. Mirror signals were flashed from

the hills during the day, and fires here and there in the night

indicated that the savages had not left the vicinity. The guards were

doubled, every man slept with his clothing on, his weapons close at

hand. In every barrack a noncommissioned officer and two men kept watch

throughout the night. Carrington and the remaining officers did not

sleep at all. They fully expected the fort to be attacked. The state of

the women and children can be imagined, although all gossip and rumor

were expressly prohibited by the commander.

[Illustration: STOCKADE]

The next day was bitterly cold. The sky was overcast and lowering, with

indications of a tremendous storm. The Indians were not accustomed to

active operations under such conditions, and there was no sign of them

about. Carrington determined to go out to ascertain the fate of his

missing men. Although all the remaining officers assembled at his

quarters advised him not to undertake it, lest the savages, flushed with

victory, should attempt another attack, Carrington quietly excused his

officers, told the adjutant to remain with him, and the bugle instantly

disclosed his purpose in spite of dissenting protests. He rightly judged

that the moral effect of the battle would be greatly enhanced, in the

eyes of the Indians, if the bodies were not recovered. Besides, to set

at rest all doubts it was necessary to determine the fate of the balance

of his command. His own wife, as appears from her narrative,[13]

approved his action and nerved herself to meet the possible fate

involved, while Mrs. Grummond was the chief protestant that, as her

husband was undoubtedly dead, there should be no similar disaster

invited by another expedition.

In the afternoon, with a heavily armed force of eighty men, Carrington

went in person to the scene of battle. The following order was left with

the officer of the day: “Fire the usual sunset gun, running a white lamp

to masthead. If the Indians appear fire three guns from the

twelve-pounder at minute intervals, and, later, substitute a red lantern

for the white.” Pickets were left on two commanding ridges, as signal

observers, as the command moved forward. The women and children were

placed in the magazine, a building well adapted for defense, which had

been stocked with water, crackers, etc., for an emergency, with an

officer pledged not to allow the women to be taken alive, if the General

did not return and the Indians overcame the stockade.

Passing the place where the greatest slaughter had occurred, the men

marched cautiously along the trail. Bodies were strung along the road

clear to the western end farthest from the fort. Here they found

Lieutenant Grummond. There were evidences of a desperate struggle about

his body. Behind a little pile of rock, making a natural fortification,

were the two civilians who had been armed with the modern Henry rifle.

By the side of one fifty shells were counted, and nearly as many by the

side of the other brave frontiersman. Behind such cover as they could

obtain nearby lay the bodies of the oldest and most experienced soldiers

in Fetterman’s command.

In front of them they found no less than sixty great gouts of blood on

the ground and grass, and a number of dead ponies, showing where the

bullets of the defenders had reached their marks,[14] and in every

direction were signs of the fiercest kind of hand-to-hand fighting.

Ghastly and mutilated remains, stripped naked, shot full of

arrows—Wheatley with no less than one hundred and five in him, scalped,

lay before them.

Brown rode to the death of both a little Indian “calico” pony which he

had given to the general’s boys when they started from Fort Leavenworth,

in November, 1865, and the body of the horse was found in the low ground

at the west slope of the ridge, showing that the fight began there,

before they could reach high ground.[15] At ten o’clock at night, on the

return, the white lamp at masthead told its welcome story of a garrison

still intact.

Fetterman had disobeyed orders. Whether deliberately or not, cannot be

told. He had relieved the wood train, and instead of returning to the

post, had pursued the Indians over the ridge into Peno Valley, then

along the trail, and into a cunningly contrived ambush. His men had

evidently fought on the road until their ammunition gave out, and then

had either been ordered to retreat to the fort, or had retreated of

their own motion—probably the latter. All the dead cavalry horses’ heads

were turned toward the fort, by the way. Fetterman and Brown, men of

unquestioned courage, must have been swept along with their flying men.

There may have been a little reserve on the rocks on which they hoped to

rally their disorganized, panic-stricken troops, fleeing before a horde

of yelling, blood-intoxicated warriors. I imagine them vainly

protesting, imploring, begging their men to make a stand. I feel sure

they fought until the last. But these are only surmises; what really

happened, God alone knows.

The judgment of the veteran soldiers and the frontiersmen, who knew that

to retreat was to be annihilated, had caused a few to hold their ground

and fight until they were without ammunition; then with gun-stocks,

swords, bayonets, whatever came to hand, they battled until they were

cut down. Grummond had stayed with them, perhaps honorably sacrificing

himself in a vain endeavor to cover the retreat of the rest of his

command. The Indian loss was very heavy, but could not exactly be

determined.

[Illustration:

_Copyright, 1902, by Charles Schreyvogel_

LIEUTENANT GRUMMOND SACRIFICING HIMSELF TO COVER THE RETREAT

_Drawing by Charles Schreyvogel_

]

IV. The Reward of a Brave Soldier

Such was the melancholy fate of Fetterman and his men. The post was

isolated, the weather frightful. A courier was at once despatched to

Fort Laramie, but such means of communication was necessarily slow, and

it was not until Christmas morning that the world was apprised of the

fatal story. In spite of the reports that had been made and fatuously

believed, that peace had obtained in that land, it was now known that

war was everywhere prevalent. The shock of horror with which the

terrible news was received was greater even than that attendant upon the

story of the disastrous battle of the Little Big Horn, ten years later.

People had got used to such things then; this news came like a bolt from

the blue.

Although Carrington had conducted himself in every way as a brave,

prudent, skilful, capable soldier, although his services merited reward,

not censure, and demanded praise, not blame, the people and the

authorities required a scapegoat. He was instantly relieved from command

by General Cooke, upon a private telegram from Laramie, never published,

before the receipt of his own official report, and was ordered to change

his regimental headquarters to the little frontier post at Fort Caspar,

where two companies of his first battalion, just become the new

Eighteenth, were stationed, while four companies of the same battalion,

under his lieutenant-colonel, were ordered to the relief of Fort Phil

Kearney.

The weather had become severe and the snow was banked to the top of the

stockade. The mercury was in the bulb. Guards were changed half-hourly.

Men and women dressed in furs made from wolfskins taken from the

hundreds of wolves which infested the outside butcher-field at night,

and which were poisoned by the men for their fur. Upon the day fixed

precisely for the march, as the new arrivals needed every roof during a

snow-storm which soon became a blizzard, Carrington, his wife and

children, his staff and their families, including Mrs. Grummond,

escorting the remains of her husband to Tennessee, and the regimental

band, with its women and children, began that February “change of

headquarters.” They narrowly escaped freezing to death. More than

one-half of the sixty-five in the party were frosted, and three

amputations, with one death, were the immediate result of the foolish

and cruel order.

It was not until some time after that a mixed commission of soldiers and

civilians, which thoroughly investigated Carrington’s conduct, having

before them all his books and records from the inception of the

expedition until its tragic close, acquitted him of all blame of any

sort, and awarded him due praise for his successful conduct of the whole

campaign. His course was also the subject of inquiry before a purely

military court, all of them his juniors in rank, which also reported

favorably. General Sherman expressly stated that “Colonel Carrington’s

report, to his personal knowledge, was fully sustained,” but by some

unaccountable oversight or intent, the report was suppressed and never

published, thereby doing lasting injustice to a brave and faithful

soldier.

At the same time the government established the sub-post between Laramie

and Fort Reno, so earnestly recommended by Carrington, in October,

calling it Fort Fetterman, in honor of the unfortunate officer who fell

in battle on the 21st of December.

Perhaps it ill becomes us to censure the dead, but the whole unfortunate

affair arose from a direct disobedience of orders on the part of

Fetterman and his men. They paid the penalty for their lapse with their

lives; and so far, at least, they made what atonement they could. A year

later opportunity was given the soldiers at Phil Kearney to exact a

dreadful revenge from Red Cloud and his Sioux for the slaughter of their

brave comrades.

-----

Footnote 9:

Killed on Lodge Trail Ridge

Footnote 10:

Published by the United States Senate in 1887.

Footnote 11:

At the burial of Sergeant Bowers, Captain Brown, who had known him

during the Civil War, pinned his Army of the Cumberland badge upon his

breast, and this was found when the remains were reinterred in 1878.

Footnote 12:

PHIL KEARNEY GARRISON, at date of massacre, from “Post Returns”:—

Wood Party, besides teamsters 55 men

Fetterman’s Party (two citizens) 81 men

Ten Eyck’s Party (relieving) 94 men

Helpless in hospital 7 men

Roll-call, of present, all told 119 men

Total officers and men 356 men

Ninety rifles worn out by use on horseback. Citizen employees used

their private arms.

Information furnished by General H. B. Carrington.

Footnote 13:

“AB-SA-RA-KA, Land of Massacre,” by Mrs. Carrington, of which Oliver

Wendell Holmes wrote to General Carrington as follows: “What an

interesting record is that of Mrs. Carrington! I cannot read such a

story of devotion and endurance in the midst of privations and danger,

without feeling how little most of us know of what life can be when

all the human energies are called out by great enterprises and

emergencies.”

Footnote 14:

The Indians, where possible, remove the bodies of their slain. They

did during this campaign, as few dead Indians ever came into

possession of the troops.

Footnote 15:

Once, while loading the bodies in the wagons, a nervous sergeant

mistook one of the pickets for Indians in the rear, and gave the

alarm. His detail was sharply ordered by the general to “leave their

ammunition and get back to the fort as best they could, if they were

afraid; for no armed man would be allowed to leave until the last body

was rescued.”

CHAPTER THREE

The Thirty-two Against the Three Thousand

I. The Improvised Corral on Piney Island

Red cloud, who had been one of the subchiefs of the Sioux, gained so

much prestige by the defeat and slaughter of Fetterman’s men that he

became at once the leading war chief of the nation.[16] The angry

braves, flushed with conquest and eager for blood, hastened to enroll

themselves by thousands in his band.

Fort Phil Kearney had been in a state of siege before: it was more

closely invested now than ever. Contrary to their usual avoidance of the

war-path in cold weather, throughout the long and bitter winter there

was no intermittence to the watchfulness of the Indians. The garrison

was constantly in arms. Attacks of all sorts were made with increasing

frequency. The letters from the soldiers which got through to the East

adequately describe their sense of the dire peril which menaced them.

“_This may be my last letter_” is a frequent phrase. Travel on the trail

was abandoned. As soon as possible in the spring, reinforcements were

hurried up and the fort was completed, but the same state of affairs

continued right along without intermission.

With the advance of summer Red Cloud gathered his warriors and

determined upon a direct attack upon the fort itself. He was tired of

skirmishing, stampeding stock, cutting off stragglers, etc. He wanted

war, real war, and he got it! If, or when, he captured the fort, he

would advance upon the other two forts in succession and so clear the

country, once and for all, of the detested invaders, whose soldierly

qualities he seems to have held in contempt. For the campaign he

proposed he assembled no fewer than three thousand warriors, the flower

of the Sioux Nation. Probably half of them were armed with firearms,

Winchester rifles, Spencer repeating carbines, or old army muskets,

including those that had been captured from Fetterman’s party. Under

cover of frequent skirmishes, which prevented much scouting on the part

of the troops, Red Cloud gathered his warriors undiscovered and

unmolested, and prepared to attack about the first of August, 1867.

The limits of the military reservation had been fixed at

Washington—without adequate knowledge of the ground and in disregard of

General Carrington’s request and protests—so as to exclude the timber

land of Piney Island, from which the post had been built, and from which

the nearest and most available wood supply must be obtained. The post

had been completed, but immense supplies of wood would be required for

fuel during the long and severe winter. This was to be cut and delivered

at the fort by a civilian outfit which had entered upon a contract with

the government for the purpose. One of the stipulations of the contract

was that the woodmen should be guarded and protected by the soldiers.

Wood-cutting began on the 31st of July, 1867, and Captain and

Brevet-Major James Powell, commanding “C” Company, of the twenty-seventh

Infantry, which was formerly a battalion of the Eighteenth a part of the

command which had built the fort, and to which Fetterman and his men had

belonged, was detailed with his company to guard the contractor’s party.

Captain Powell had enlisted in the army in 1848 as a private soldier.

The Civil War had given him a commission in the regular service, and in

its course he had been twice brevetted for conspicuous gallantry, once

at Chickamauga and the second time during the Atlanta campaign, in which

he had been desperately wounded. He had had some experience in Indian

fighting before and since he came to the post, and had distinguished

himself in several skirmishes, notably in the relief of the wood train,

a few days before Fetterman’s rashness and disobedience precipitated the

awful disaster.

Arriving at Piney Island, some seven miles from the post, Powell found

that the contractor had divided his men into two parties. One had its

headquarters on a bare, treeless, and comparatively level plain, perhaps

one thousand yards across, which was surrounded by low hills backed by

mountains farther away. This was an admirable place to graze the herds

of mules required to haul the wagons. As will be seen, it could also be

turned into a highly defensive position. The other camp was in the thick

of the pine wood, about a mile away across the creek, at the foot of the

mountain. This division of labor necessitated a division of force, which

was a misfortune, but which could not be avoided.

Powell sent twelve men under a noncommissioned officer to guard the camp

in the wood, and detailed thirteen men with another noncommissioned

officer to escort the wood trains to and from the fort. With the

remaining twenty-six men and his lieutenant, John C. Jenness, he

established headquarters on the plain in the open.

The wagons used by the wood-cutters were furnished by the

quartermaster’s department. In transporting the cordwood, the woodmen

made use of the running gears only, the wagon bodies having been

deposited in the clearing. In order to preserve their contents and to

afford as much protection as possible to their occupants in case of

Indian attacks, the quartermaster’s department was in the habit of

lining the wagon beds with boiler iron; and, to give their occupants an

opportunity to fight from concealment, loopholes were cut in the sides.

Almost every authority who has written of the fight has concluded that

the particular wagon beds in question were so lined. This is a mistaken

though natural conclusion. In a letter to an old comrade who wrote an

account of the subsequent action,[17] Powell makes no mention of any

iron lining, and it is certain that the wagons were not lined, but were

just the ordinary wooden wagon beds.[18]

There were fourteen of these wagon bodies. Powell arranged them in the

form of a wide oval. At the highest point of the plain, which happened

to be in the center, this corral was made. The wagon beds were deep, and

afforded ample concealment for any one lying in them. I sometimes wonder

why Powell did not stand these beds on their sides instead of their

bottoms, making a higher and stouter inclosure, the bottoms being

heavier than the sides; but it is clear that he did not. There were

plenty of tools, including a number of augers, in the camp, and with

these Powell’s men made a number of loopholes about a foot from the

ground, in the outward sides of the wagons.

At the ends of the oval, where the configuration of the ground made it

most vulnerable for attack, especially by mounted men, two wagons

complete—that is, with bodies and running gears—were placed a short

distance from the little corral. This would break the force of a charge,

and the defenders could fire at the attacking party underneath the

bodies and through the wheels. The spaces between the wagon bodies were

filled with logs and sacks of grain, backed by everything available that

would turn a bullet. The supplies for the soldiers and wood party were

contained in this corral.

[Illustration:

The Wagon-Box Corral on Piney Island

]

Instead of the old Springfield muzzle-loading musket, with which the

troops mainly had been armed up to this time, Powell’s men were provided

with the new Allen modification of the Springfield breech-loading rifle.

He had enough rifles for his men and for all the civilian employees, and

a large number of new Colt revolvers, with plenty of ammunition for all.

The new rifle had never been used by the troops in combat with the

Indians, and the latter were entirely ignorant of its tremendous range

and power and the wonderful rapidity of fire which it permitted. They

learned much about it in the next day or two, however. A quantity of

clothing and blankets was issued to the troops at the fort on the first

of August, and supplies for Powell’s men were sent down to him.

II. The Wild Charge of the Sioux

Having matured his plans, Red Cloud determined to begin his attack on

Fort Phil Kearney by annihilating the little detachment guarding the

train.[19] Parties of Indians had been observed in the vicinity for

several days, but no attack had been made since Powell’s arrival until

the second of August, when, about nine o’clock in the morning,[20] a

party of some two hundred Indians endeavored to stampede the herd of

mules. The herders, who were all armed, stood their ground and succeeded

for the time being in beating back the attack. While they were hotly

engaged with the dismounted force, sixty mounted Indians succeeded in

getting into the herd and running it off. At the same time five hundred

other Indians attacked the wood train at the other camp.

The affair was not quite a surprise, for the approach of the Indians had

been detected and signalled from the corral on the island a few moments

before. In the face of so overwhelming a force the soldiers and

civilians at the wood train immediately retreated, abandoning the train

and the camp. Here four of the lumbermen were killed. The retreat,

however, was an orderly one, and they kept back the Indians by a

well-directed fire.

Meanwhile the herders, seeing the stampede of the mules, made an effort

to join the party retreating from the wood train. The Indians endeavored

to intercept them and cut them off. Powell, however, with a portion of

his force, leaving the post in command of Lieutenant Jenness,

immediately dashed across the prairie and attacked the savages in the

rear. They turned at once, abandoning the pursuit of the herders, and

fell upon Powell, who in his turn retreated without loss to the corral.

His prompt and bold sortie had saved the herders, for they were enabled

to effect a junction with the retreating train men and their guards and

the soldiers and civilians, and eventually gained the fort, although not

without hard fighting and some loss. One thing that helped them to get

away from the Indians was that the savages stopped to pillage the camp

and burn it and the train. Another thing was the presence of Powell’s

command, which they could not leave in the rear. After driving away the

others and completing the destruction of the camp, they turned their

attention to Powell’s corral.

Some of the clothing that had been received the day before had not been

unpacked or distributed, so it was used to strengthen the weak places in

the corral. Powell’s men lay down in the wagon beds before the

loopholes; blankets were thrown over the tops of the beds to screen the

defenders from observation and in the hope of perhaps saving them from

the ill effects of the plunging arrow fire, and everything was got

ready. Everybody had plenty of ammunition.

Some of the men who were not good shots were told off to do nothing but

load rifles, of which there were so many that each man had two or three

beside him, one man making use of no less than eight. Four civilians

succeeded in joining the party in the corral—a welcome addition, indeed,

bringing the total number up to thirty-two officers and men. Among this

quartet was an old frontiersman who had spent most of his life hunting

in the Indian country, and who had been in innumerable fights, renowned

for his expertness in the use of the rifle—a dead-shot. This was the man

to whom the eight guns were allotted. Powell, rifle in hand, stationed

himself at one end of the corral; Jenness, similarly armed, was posted

at the other, each officer watching one of the openings covered by the

complete wagons, which were loaded with supplies so they could not be

run off easily by hand.

While all these preparations were being rapidly made, although without

confusion or alarm, the surrounding country was filling with a countless

multitude of Indians. It was impossible at the time to estimate the

number of them, although it was ascertained that more than three

thousand warriors were present and engaged. Red Cloud himself was in

command, and with him were the great chiefs of the great tribes of the

Sioux, who were all represented—Unkpapas, Miniconjous, Oglalas, Brulés,

and Sans Arcs, besides hundreds of Cheyennes.

So confident of success were they that, contrary to their ordinary

practices, they had brought with them their women and children to assist

in carrying back the plunder. These, massed out of range on the farthest

hills, constituted an audience for the terrible drama about to be played

in the amphitheater beneath them.

We can well imagine the thoughts of that little band of thirty-two,

surrounded by a force that outnumbered them one hundred to one. Their

minds must have gone back to that winter day, some seven months before,

when twice their number had gone down to defeat and destruction under

the attack of two-thirds of their present foemen. It is probable that

not one of them ever expected to escape alive. The chances that they

could successfully withstand an attack from so overwhelming a number of

foes of such extraordinary bravery were of the smallest. But not a man

flinched, not a man faltered. They looked to their weapons, settled

themselves comfortably in the wagon beds, thought of Fetterman and their

comrades, and prayed that the attack might begin and begin at once.

There were no heroics, no speeches made. Powell quietly remarked that

they had to fight for their lives now, which was patent to all; and he

directed that no man, for any reason, should open fire until he gave the

order.

Some little time was spent by the Indians in making preparations, and

then a force of about five hundred Indians, magnificently mounted on the

best war ponies and armed with rifles, carbines, or muskets, detached

themselves from the main body and started toward the little corral lying

like a black dot on the open plain. They intended to ride over the

soldiers and end the battle with one swift blow. Slowly at first, but

gradually increasing their pace until their ponies were on a dead run,

they dashed gallantly toward the corral, while the main body of the

savages, at some distance in their rear, prepared to take advantage of

any opening that might be made in the defenses. It was a brilliant

charge, splendidly delivered.

Such was the discipline of Powell’s men that not a shot was fired as the

Indians, yelling and whooping madly, came rushing on. There was

something terribly ominous about the absolute silence of that little

fortification. The galloping men were within one hundred yards now, now

fifty. At that instant Powell spoke to his men. The inclosure was

sheeted with flame. Out of the smoke and fire a rain of bullets was

poured upon the astonished savages. The firing was not as usual—one

volley, then another, and then silence; but it was a steady, persistent,

continued stream, which mowed them down in scores. The advance was

thrown into confusion, checked but not halted, its impetus being too

great; and then the force divided and swept around the corral, looking

for a weak spot for a possible entrance. At the same moment a furious

fire was poured into it by the warriors, whose position on their horses’

backs gave them sufficient elevation to enable them to fire over the

wagon beds upon the garrison. Then they circled about the corral in a

mad gallop, seeking some undefended point upon which to concentrate and

break through, but in vain. The little inclosure was literally ringed in

fire. Nothing could stand against it. So close were they that one bullet

sometimes pierced two Indians.[21]

[Illustration:

CHARGE OF RED CLOUD ON THE CORRAL AT PINEY ISLAND

_Drawing by R. Farrington Elwell_

]

Having lost terribly, and having failed to make any impression whatever,

the Indians broke and gave way. They rushed pell-mell from the spot in

frantic confusion till they got out of range of the deadly storm that

swept the plain. All around the corral lay dead and dying Indians,

mingled with killed and wounded horses kicking and screaming with pain,

the Indians stoically enduring all their sufferings and making no

outcry. In front of the corral, where the first force of the charge had

been spent, horses and men were stretched out as if they had been cut

down by a gigantic mowing-machine. The defenders of the corral had

suffered in their turn. Lieutenant Jenness, brave and earnest in

defense, had exposed himself to give a necessary command and had

received a bullet in his brain. One of the private soldiers had been

killed and two severely wounded. The thirty-two had been reduced to

twenty-eight. At that rate, since there were so few to suffer, the end

appeared inevitable. The spirit of the little band, however, remained

undaunted. Fortunately for them, the Indians had met with so terrible a

repulse that all they thought of for the time being was to get out of

range. The vicinity of the corral was thus at once abandoned.

III. Red Cloud’s Baptism of Fire

Red Cloud determined, after consultation with the other chiefs, upon

another plan which gave greater promise of success. Seven hundred

Indians, armed with rifles or muskets and followed by a number carrying

bows and arrows, were told off to prepare themselves as a skirmishing

party. Their preparations were simple, and consisted of denuding

themselves of every vestige of clothing, including their war shirts and

war bonnets. These men were directed to creep forward, taking advantage

of every depression, ravine, or other cover, until they were within

range of the corral, which they were to overwhelm by gun and arrow fire.

Supporting them, and intended to constitute the main attack, were the

whole remaining body of the Indians, numbering upward of two thousand

warriors.

With the wonderful skill of which they were masters, the skirmishing

party approached near to the corral and began to fire upon it. Here and

there, when a savage incautiously exposed himself, he was shot by one of

the defenders; but in the main the people of the corral kept silent

under this terrible fusillade of bullets and arrows. The tops of the

wagon sides were literally torn to pieces; the heavy blankets were

filled with arrows which, falling from a distance, did no damage. The

fire of the Indians was rapid and continuous. The bullets crashed into

the wood just over the heads of the prostrate men, sounding like

cracking thunder; yet not one man in the wagon beds was hurt. Arguing,

perhaps from the silence in the corral, that the defenders had been

overwhelmed and that the time for the grand attack had arrived, signal

was given for the main body of the Indians to charge.

They were led by the nephew of Red Cloud, a superb young chieftain, who

was ambitious of succeeding in due course to the leadership now held by

his uncle. Chanting their fierce war songs, they came, on arranged in a

great semicircle. Splendid, stalwart braves, the flower of the nation,

they were magnificently arrayed in all the varied and highly-colored

fighting panoply of the Sioux. Great war bonnets streamed from the heads

of the chiefs, many of whom wore gorgeous war shirts; the painted bodies

of others made dashes of rich color against the green grass of the

clearing and the dark pines of the hills and mountains behind. Most of

them carried on their left arms painted targets or shields of buffalo

hide, stout enough to turn a musket shot unless fairly hit.

Under a fire of redoubled intensity from their skirmishers they broke

into a charge. Again they advanced in the face of a terrible silence.

Again at the appointed moment the order rang out. Again the fearful

discharge swept them away in scores. Powell’s own rifle brought down the

dauntless young chief in the lead. Others sprang to the fore when he

fell and gallantly led on their men. Undaunted, they came on and on, in

spite of a slaughter such as no living Indian had experienced or heard

of. The Indians could account for the continuous fire only by supposing

that the corral contained a greater number of defenders than its area

would indicate it capable of receiving. So, in the hope that the

infernal fire would slacken, they pressed home the attack until they

were almost at the wagon beds. Back on the hills Red Cloud and the

veteran chiefs, with the women and children, watched the progress of the

battle with eager intensity and marked with painful apprehension the

slaughter of their bold warriors.

The situation was terribly critical. If they came on a few feet farther

the rifles would be useless, and the little party of twenty-eight would

have to fight hand-to-hand without reloading. In that event the end

would be certain; but just before the Indians reached the corral, they

broke and gave way. So close had they come that some of the troopers in

their excitement actually rose to their knees and threw the augers with

which the loopholes had been made, and other missiles, in the faces of

the Indians. Others, however, kept up the fire, which was indeed more

than mortal humanity could stand.

What relief filled the minds of the defenders, when they saw the great

force which had come on so gallantly reeling back over the plains in

frantic desire to get to cover, can easily be imagined. Yet such was the

courage, the desperation of these Indians, in spite of repulse after

repulse and a slaughter awful to contemplate, that they made no less

than six several and distinct charges in three hours upon that devoted

band. After the first attack made by the men on horseback, not a single

casualty occurred among the defenders of the corral. It was afternoon

before the Sioux got enough.

The Indians could not account for this sustained and frightful fire

which came from the little fort, except by attributing it to magic. “The

white man must have made bad medicine,” they said afterwards, before

they learned the secret of the long-range, breech-loading firearm, “to

make the guns fire themselves without stopping.” Indeed, such had been

the rapidity of the fire that many of the gun-barrels became so hot that

they were rendered useless. To this day the Indians refer to that battle

as “the bad medicine fight of the white man.”

The ground around the corral was ringed with Indian slain. They were

piled up in heaps closer by, and scattered all over the grass farther

away. Nothing is more disgraceful in the eyes of an Indian chieftain or

his men than to permit the dead bodies of those killed in action to fall

into the hands of the enemy. Red Cloud recognizing the complete

frustration of his hopes of overwhelming Fort Phil Kearney and sweeping

the invaders out of the land at that time, now only wished to get his

dead away and retreat. In order to do so he threw forward his

skirmishers again, who once more poured a heavy fire on the corral.

This seemed to Powell and his exhausted men the precursor of a final

attack, which they feared would be the end of them. Indeed Powell, in

his report, says that another attack would have been successful. From

the heat and the frightful strain of the long period of steady fighting,

the men were in a critical condition. The ammunition, inexhaustible as

it had seemed, was running low; many of the rifles were useless. They

still preserved, however, their calm, unbroken front to the foe, and

made a slow, deliberate, careful reply to the firing that was poured

upon them.

Red Cloud, however, had no thought of again attacking. He only wanted to

get away. Under cover of his skirmishers he succeeded in carrying off

most of the dead, the wounded who were able to crawl getting away

themselves. A warrior, protecting himself as well as he could with the

stout buffalo-hide shield he carried, would creep forward, attach the

end of a long lariat to the foot of a dead man, and then rapidly

retreating he would pull the body away. All the while the hills and

mountains resounded with the death chants of the old men and women.

At the close of these operations a shell burst in the midst of the

Indian skirmishers, and through the trees off to the left the weary

defenders saw the blue uniforms of approaching soldiers, who a moment

afterwards debouched in the open.

An astonishing sight met the eyes of the relief party. Clouds of Indians

covered the plain. The little corral was still spitting fire and smoke

into the encircling mass. They had got there in time then. Without

hesitation the troops deployed and came forward on the run. Their cheers

were met by welcoming shouts from Powell and his heroic comrades.

The herders, woodsmen, and guards who had escaped from their camp in the

morning, had reached the fort at last with the news of Powell’s imminent

danger. Major Smith, with one hundred men and a howitzer, was at once

despatched to his support. No one dreamed that the force of Indians was

so great, or perhaps more men would have been sent, although the number

at the fort was still insufficient to permit of the detachment of a very

large party. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. The Indians,

disheartened and dismayed by their fearful repulse, sullenly retreated

before the advance of the charging soldiers. There was a splendid

opportunity presented to them to wipe out Smith’s command with their

overwhelming force, for they could have attacked him in the open; but

they had had enough for that day, and the opportunity was not embraced.

Major Smith realized instantly that the proper thing for him to do, in

the face of such great odds, was to get Powell’s men and return with all

speed. Carrying the bodies of the dead and wounded, the little band of

defenders joined the rescuers and returned to the fort, leaving the

barren honors of the field to the Indians, Awho occupied it on the heels

of the retiring soldiers.[22]

IV. After the Battle. The Scout’s Story

Powell modestly estimated he had killed sixty-seven Indians and wounded

one hundred and twenty. Most of his men declared the Indian loss to have

been between three and four hundred, but it was not until a year after

the battle that the real facts were ascertained from the Indians

themselves. The loss in killed and wounded in the engagement, on the

part of the Indians, was _one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven_. In

other words, each of the defenders had accounted for at least thirty-six

of the Indians. Amply, indeed, had the little band avenged the death of

their comrades under Fetterman.

As Colonel Dodge justly says, the account reads like a story of

Cortes.[23] At first sight it appears to be incredible. In explanation

of it, the following account, which Colonel Dodge has preserved of a

subsequent conversation between the frontiersman to whom the eight guns

were allotted and the department commander is of deep interest:—

“How many Indians were in the attack?” asked the General.

“Wall, Gin’r’ll, I can’t say fer sartin, but I think thar wur nigh

onto three thousand uv ’em.”

“How many were killed and wounded?”

“Wall, Gin’r’ll, I can’t say fer sartin, but I think thar wur nigh

onto a thousand uv ’em hit.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Wall, Gin’r’ll, I can’t say; but gi’me a dead rest, I kin hit a

dollar at fifty yards every time, and I fired with a dead rest at

more’n fifty of them varmints inside of fifty yards.”

“For Heaven’s sake, how many times did you fire?” exclaimed the

astonished General.

“Wall, Gin’r’ll, I can’t say, but I kept eight guns pretty well het

up for more’n three hours.”

On this occasion Powell received his third brevet for heroism and

distinguished conduct on the field.

The next fall a new treaty was made with the Indians, and the post which

had been the scene alike of heartbreaking disaster and defeat and of

triumph unprecedented, was abandoned to them. The troops were withdrawn.

The Indians at once burned it to the ground. It was never reoccupied,

and to-day is remembered simply because of its association with the

first and, with one exception, the most notable of our Indian defeats in

the west, and with the most remarkable and overwhelming victory that was

ever won by soldiers over their gallant red foemen on the same ground.

At this writing (September, 1903) the once mighty Red Cloud, now in his

eighty-ninth year, is nearing his end, and already various claimants for

the now practically empty honor of the Head-Chieftainship of the Sioux

have arisen, the two most prominent candidates being young Red Cloud and

the son of old Sitting Bull.

NOTE

Since the first publication of this article I have received the

following letter, which, as it tends to confirm what seems incredible,

the terrible Indian loss, I quote in full:

DEAR MR. BRADY:

Although I am much nearer three score than fifty, I still enjoy

historical romance and facts, and I have, I think, read most of your

writings. I have just read your last article and it recalls a

conversation with Red Cloud twenty years ago.

He was with my dear old friend, “Adirondack Murray” and, I think, J.

Amory Knox and myself. He, Murray and Knox had been photographed in

a group. In reminiscing in regard to the Piney Island battle, he

said he went in with over three thousand braves and lost over half.

Murray asked him if he meant over fifteen hundred had been killed

then, and he said:

“I lost them. They never fought again.”

He knew Murray, Knox and myself wielded the pen sometimes but that

we never used private talks. I tell you the above for your personal

satisfaction. Sincerely,

W. R. E. COLLINS,

1438 Broad—Exchange, New York.

3–22-’04.

-----

Footnote 16:

Mahapiya-luta, Red Cloud, was one of the most famous of the great

Sioux Nation. He was a fierce and ruthless warrior, but withal a man

of his word. After the abandonment of Fort Phil Kearney he

participated in no important actions with the soldiers, although he

was elected head chief of the Sioux. In the war of 1876 his camp was

surprised by General Mackenzie before he had an opportunity to go on

the war-path. His men were disarmed, and with him were detained in the

reservation. It was a fortunate thing for the army.

Recently the old chief was asked to tell the story of his most

thrilling adventure. It was a tale of one man against seven, and the

old man’s dim eyes grew bright and his wrinkled face lighted up with a

strange light as he told it. A well-known warrior was jealous of Red

Cloud, and, together with six of his followers, waylaid the young

brave in a lonely spot.

Two of them were armed with rifles, the rest carried only bows and

arrows, while Red Cloud had a Winchester. At the first fire Red Cloud

fell with a bullet in his thigh, but from where he lay he contrived to

kill every one of his assailants.

The skill and courage he displayed on that occasion won for him many

admiring followers, and as war after war with the whites broke out and

he won fresh laurels his followers increased in numbers. He joined the

various secret societies, passed through the terrible agony of the sun

dance, and when, in 1866, the chiefs of the tribe signed a “peace

paper,” he stood out for and declared war. The fighting men flocked to

his standard, and when the awful massacre in which he played so

conspicuous a part occurred, he was proclaimed Chief of all the Sioux.

All the prestige he lost at Piney Island he regained upon the

abandonment of the forts by the government, a most impolitic and

unfortunate move.

Footnote 17:

General Rodenbough, in “Sabre and Bayonet.”

Footnote 18:

This statement is corroborated by private letter from a veteran

soldier in the United States Army, who is one of the few survivors of

the battle. Surgeon Horton, who was at the post from its establishment

until it was abandoned, also says that the wagon beds were of ordinary

boards, without lining or other protection.

Footnote 19:

On the same day an attack was made in force on Fort C. F. Smith, on

the Big Horn.

Footnote 20:

Powell’s official report says nine, although a private letter written

some time later makes the hour seven. It isn’t material, anyway: there

was ample time for all the fighting both sides cared for before the

day was ended.

Footnote 21:

“I know that my husband never expected to come out of that fight

alive. He has told me that during the fight the Indians came up so

close to the corral, that one shot would pass through the Indian in

advance and kill or wound the one behind. My husband claimed the honor

of killing Red Cloud’s nephew.”—Letter from Mrs. Annie Powell to me.

Surgeon Horton states that the men told him on their return to the

fort that the Indians were crowded so closely together that the

conical bullets from their muskets killed four or five Indians in line

behind one another. The Indians came up in solid masses on every side.

Footnote 22:

Dr. Horton writes me that when Powell’s men reached the post they were

literally crazed with excitement and the nervous strain of the fight.

The health of many of them was completely broken. Powell himself never

fully recovered from the strain of that awful day, his wife informs

me.

Footnote 23:

“Our Wild Indians,” by Colonel R. I. Dodge, U. S. A. Mrs. Powell, in a

letter to me, also vouches for the anecdote quoted.

CHAPTER FOUR

Personal Reminiscences of Fort Phil Kearney and the Wagon-Box Fight

By Mr. R. J. Smyth.[24]

“Cherokee, Ia., 6–27–1904.

As I was a member of the Carrington Powder River Expedition of 1866, I

take the liberty of sending you a short sketch of happenings about Fort

Phil Kearney. Being actively engaged with others for some two years in

making the history of that place, I think that the account may be of

interest.

I left Fort Leavenworth early in the spring of 1866. At Fort Kearney,

Nebraska, we found Col. Carrington and a part of his command, consisting

of several companies of the Eighteenth Regular Infantry. Early in April

we received some recruits for said command, and in a short time started

on what at that time was called the Carrington Powder River Expedition.

We followed the overland trail (sometimes called the Salt Lake trail) up

the south side of the South Platte River to Julesberg, crossed the river

there, then crossed the divide to the North Platte. From here we went to

Fort Laramie. From this point we marched west to Mussa ranch, crossed

Horse Creek, and followed the Bozeman trail. This was a new road, and a

short cut to Montana. After following this trail fifteen miles we struck

the North Platte at Bridger’s Ferry. We crossed here in a ferryboat—a

large flat boat attached to a large cable rope stretched across the

river.

We followed the North Platte River up on the right side to a point

opposite to the present site of Fort Fetterman. At this point we left

the river and struck across the country, crossing Sand Creek and several

other small creeks, among which I now remember the North, South, and

Middle Cheyennes. They were then merely the dry beds of what would be

quite large rivers at the time of the melting of the snow in the

mountains. At a point twenty-two miles east of the Powder River we

struck the head of the Dry Fork of the Powder River and followed it down

to the river.

There on the west side we found Fort Reno, established by General Conner

in ’65 and garrisoned by a few “galvanized soldiers.” The garrison had

been greatly reduced by desertions during the winter, the soldiers

making for Montana. “Galvanized soldiers” was a name given to captured

Rebel soldiers who enlisted in the Union Army to do frontier duty in

order to get out of prison, and incidentally to draw pay from Uncle Sam.

We laid over here for a few days, and on the fourth of July the Indians

stampeded the stock of Al. Leighton, the sutler. The colonel made a

detail of soldiers and citizens to go out after the Indians and recover

the stock if possible.

[Illustration:

_Courtesy of The Century Co._

“BOOTS AND SADDLES:” A START IN THE EARLY MORNING

_Drawing by Frederic Remington_

]

It was indeed a laughable sight to see the soldiers trying to ride mules

that were not broken to ride—and the soldiers knew about as much about

riding as the mules did. We followed the Indians to the Pumpkin Buttes

and I am free to say for myself that I was very glad that we did not

find them. Had we got in touch with them we would have had the smallest

kind of a show to save our hair. The soldiers being mounted on green

mules, and being armed with the old Springfield musket, and that

strapped on their backs, a very few Indians could have stampeded the

mules and, in fact, the soldiers as well.

We, the citizens, had made arrangements that if the Indians attacked us

we would stick together and fight it out the best that we could. Jim

Bridger, our guide, was with this party. He was an old timer in the

mountains. I had two years experience in the mountains and plains prior

to this time; the rest of the citizens were good men. We returned to the

fort safely but did not recover any of the stock.

A day or two later we left the fort. The first day’s march was a very

hard one, thirty-six miles to Crazy Woman’s Fork. This creek was a very

fine one, clear, cool, and very rapid. The command was badly demoralized

by this long, hot, and dry march, no water between that point and Fort

Reno. The soldiers had been paid off a day or two before, many had been

drunk, many more thoughtless, and did not provide for water in spite of

orders. I saw five dollars paid for a canteen of water on this march. On

our arrival at Crazy Woman’s Fort, the commanding officer detailed a

guard to keep the soldiers from jumping into the creek and drinking too

much water.

We laid over here two days, to repair wagons and bring in the

stragglers. Had the Indians been on hand, they could have cleaned up

many of the soldiers at this time. From this creek west to the Big Horn

the country is very fine; plenty of wood, water, and grass; in fact, a

paradise. We traveled west to the forks of the Pineys. The big and

little Pineys fork near where we made our camp, sixty-five miles west of

the Powder River.

On the twenty-fourth day of July we moved to the place where we

established Fort Phil Kearney. The grasshoppers were so thick in the air

that day that they nearly obscured the sun from sight.[25] In fact, it

did not look bigger than a silver dollar. The fort was built about as

you have described it, and from the day that we established it until I

left there, in November, ’67, the Indians were very much in evidence and

plenty of fighting nearly all that time.

I was a teamster on this expedition, driving an ambulance team. Made

several trips to Fort Laramie and to Fort C. F. Smith on the Big Horn.

This latter Fort was established by Carrington a short time after the

establishment of Fort Phil Kearney, and was a two-company post.