A great loss to us was in Buffalo Bill, whose theatrical engagements demanded his presence in the East early in the fall; and most reluctantly he, too, was compelled to ask his release. He left his "pardner," Jim White, with us to finish the campaign; and we little thought that those two sworn friends were meeting for the last time on earth when "Buffalo Chips" bade good-bye to Buffalo Bill.
Ten soldiers of the Fifth were pronounced incapacitated by the examiners, and ordered to return. Among them was an elderly man who had joined the regiment in June with a good character from the Fourth Cavalry. The Custer massacre had so preyed upon his mind as to temporarily destroy his intellect, or make it too keen for the wits of the Medical Department. I believe that up to the last moment it was an open question whether Caniff (for such was his name) was downright insane or only shamming; but he carried his point, and got away from the danger he dreaded. "But, Lord, sir," as the corporal in charge of the detachment afterwards told me, "he was the sensiblest man you ever see by the time we got past Bismarck." In fact, it would look as though that Custer massacre had been responsible for the unmanning of just three members of the Fifth Cavalry; and, to the ineffable disgust of the veteran Company "K," two of them were privates in its ranks.
Our stay of six days on the Yellowstone presented no features of general interest. A brace of trading-boats swept down with the current from the markets of the Gallatin valley, and some of us were able to purchase, at fabulous prices, new suits of underclothing and a quantity of potatoes and onions, of which the men stood sadly in need. More supplies of grain and rations arrived, and our horses had a few nibbles of oats, but not enough to build up any of their lost strength. General Terry, from the east side of the Powder, rode over one day to pay a visit to General Crook; and the story goes that our brigadier was pointed out to him squatted on a rock in the Yellowstone, and with that absorbed manner which was his marked characteristic, and a disregard for "style" never before equalled in the history of one of his rank, scrubbing away at his hunting-shirt.
Thursday morning, August the 24th, chilled and soaked, we marched away from the Yellowstone, and mostly on foot, leading our gaunt horses through the thick mud of the slopes along the Powder, we toiled some ten miles; then halted for the night. Then it cleared off, and night came on in cloudless beauty, but sharply cold. Next morning we hung about our fires long after our frugal breakfast, waiting for the signal to saddle and march. Trumpet-calls were forbidden "until further orders"; and it was divined that now, at least, we might hope to see the Indians who had led us this exasperating chase. But it was long before we reached them, and this narrative is running threadbare with dry detail. Let me condense from my note-book the route and incidents of the march to Heart River, where we finally gave up the chase:
"General Terry's cavalry—Seventh and Second—followed us on the march of the 25th, after we had forded Powder River and started up the eastern bank; camped again that night in the valley after long and muddy march. At seven a.m. on the 26th we of Crook's army cut loose from any base, and marched square to the east; and General Terry, with his entire command, bade us farewell, and hurried back to the Yellowstone. Couriers had reached him during the night with important information, and he and his people were needed along the crossings of the great river while we hunted the redskins over the prairies. The weather was lovely, the country rolling and picturesque; but far and near the Indians had burned away the grass. Camped on the west fork of O'Fallon's Creek. Game abundant all around us, but no firing allowed."...
"Sunday, 27th.—Marched seven a.m. at rear of column, north of east; rolling country; no timber; little grass; crossed large branch of O'Fallon's Creek at eleven a.m., where some pack-mules were stalled, but finally got through. Bivouac one p.m. in dry east fork of same creek."...
"Monday, 28th.—Day beautiful and cool; march rapid and pleasant along the trail on which Terry and Custer came west in May and June. Country beautifully bold and undulating, with fine grass everywhere. We halted on Cabin Creek at 1.30 p.m.; and two hours after, over in the direction of Beaver Creek to the northeast, two large smokes floated up into the still air. Just at sunset there came on a thunder-storm, with rain, hail, and vivid lightning—hailstones as big as acorns, and so plentifully pelting that with great difficulty we restrained our horses from stampede. The lightning kindled the prairie just in front of the pickets, and the rain came only in time to save our grass. Of course, we were drenched with rain and hammered with hail."
"Tuesday, 29th.—Most beautiful day's march yet; morning lovely after the storm. We move rapidly on trail of the infantry, and at ten o'clock are astonished at seeing them massing in close column by division on the southwest side of grassy slopes that loom up to a great height, and were soon climbing the bluffs beyond them—an ascent of some five to six hundred feet." ...
Here General Merritt gave the regiment a lesson which it richly deserved. Fuel had been a little scarce on one or two recent occasions; and some of the men, finding a few logs at the foot of the bluffs, hoisted them on their tottering horses, and were clambering in this fashion up the ascent, when the "Chief" caught sight of them. The general is a man of great restraint at such a time, but, without the employment of language either profane or profuse, he managed to convey an intimation to some eighty acres of hillside, in less than five seconds, that those logs should be dropped; and they were. Later in the day he devoted a half-hour to the composition of a general order expressive at once of his views on the matter which had excited his wrath in the morning, and his intentions with reference to future offenders. Winding up, as it did, with a scathing denunciation of this "violation of the first principles" of a cavalryman's creed, we of the Fifth felt sore for a week after; but it served us right, and the offence did not occur again.
We found ourselves on the crest of a magnificent range, from which we looked down into the beautiful valley of the Beaver to the east, and southward over mile after mile of sharp, conical buttes that were utterly unlike anything we had seen before. We had abundant water and grass, and here we rested two days, while our scouts felt their way out towards the Little Missouri.
Thursday, the 31st, with a cold norther blowing, we went down the Beaver ten miles to the north, halted and conducted the bi-monthly muster demanded by the regulations, and again the scouts swept over the country in vain search of Indian signs, while we waited until late the following afternoon for their reports, and then merely moved down the valley another eight miles for the night. On the 2d we put in a good day's work, marching rapidly and steadily until two p.m., still in the beautiful wild valley of the Beaver, catching glimpses during the day of the tall Sentinel Buttes off to our right. Next day we turned square to the east again, jogging quickly along through hills and upland that grew bolder and higher every hour; camped at head of Andrew's Creek; pushed on again on the following morning (Monday, September 4th), cold and shivering in another norther—by nine the rain pouring in torrents. As we neared the Little Missouri the hills became higher, outcroppings of coal were to be seen along every mile. Finally, wedébouchedthrough a long, deep, tortuous cañon into the Little Missouri itself, forded and bivouacked in a fine grove of timber, where, the rain having ceased again, and with fine, blazing fires in every direction, we spent a night of comfort.
The Indians must be near at hand. The timber, the valley, the fords and crossings, all indicate their recent presence. To-morrow's sun should bring them before our eyes. At daybreak we are up and ready. The day is drizzly, and the command don't seem to care a pin by this time. We are becoming amphibious, and so long as the old cavalryman has a quid of good tobacco to stow in his taciturn jaws he will jog along contentedly for hours, though the rain descend in cataracts.
Our march leads us southeastward up the valley of Davis's Creek—a valley that grows grandly beautiful as we near its head. We of the Fifth are some distance from the head of column as we climb out upon the fine plateau that here stretches for miles from the head of the creek towards the streams that rise a day's march away and flow towards the Missouri. Away in front we can see General Crook and his staff; far out beyond them are tiny dots of horsemen, whom we know to be Stanton and the scouts. Every now and then a deer darts into sight along the column, and now permission is given to shoot; for we are over a hundred miles from the nearest chance for supplies, and have only two days' rations left. We are following those Indians to the bitter end.
Suddenly, away to the front, rapid shots are heard. A moment they sound but a mile distant; in another moment they are dying out of hearing. We prick up our ears and gather reins. Looking back, I see the long column of bearded faces lighting up in eager expectation, but no order comes to hasten our advance. We hear later that our scouts had succeeded in getting near enough to exchange shots with a small war-party of Sioux; but their ponies were fresh and fleet, our horses weak and jaded, and there was no possibility of catching them.
Late that afternoon we halt at the head of Heart River. And now at last it looks as though we are whipped without a fight. We not only have not caught the Indians, but we have run out of rations. Only forty-eight hours' full supplies are left, but a little recent economizing has helped us to a spare day or so on half-rations. It is hard for us, but hardest of all for the general, and it is plain that he is deeply disappointed. But action is required, and at once. We can easily make Fort Abraham Lincoln in four days; but, by doing so, we leave all the great stretch of country to the south open to the hostiles, and the Black Hills settlements defenceless. Just how long it will take us to march to Deadwood cannot be predicted. It is due south by compass, but over an unknown country. While the chief is deciding, we lie down in the cold and wet and try to make ourselves comfortable. Those who are tired of the campaign and hungry for a dinner predict that the morning will find us striking for the Missouri posts; but those who have served long with General Crook, and believe that there is a hostile Indian between us and the Black Hills, roll into their blankets with the conviction that we will have a fight out of this thing yet.
Many a horse has given out already, and dismounted men are plodding along by the flank of column. We have been on half-rations for three days, and are not a little ravenous in consequence, and our campaign suits, which were shabby on the Rosebud, are rags and tatters now. As Colonel Mason and I are "clubbing" our ponchos and blankets for the night, I turn to my old captain, with whom it has been my good-fortune to serve so long and still not to lose him on his promotion, and ask, "Well, what do you think of it?" And Mason, who is an inveterate old growler around garrison in the piping times of peace, and stanchest and most loyal of subordinates in trying times in the field, answers as I could have predicted: "We oughtn't to give up yet, on account of a little roughing it; andCrook's not the man to do it."
THE FIGHT OF THE REAR GUARD.
Ragged and almost starving, out of rations, out at elbows and every other exposed angle, out of everything but pluck and ammunition, General Crook gave up the pursuit of Sitting Bull at the head of Heart River. The Indians had scattered in every direction. We had chased them a month, and were no nearer than when we started. Their trail led in as many different directions as there are degrees in the circle; they had burned off the grass from the Yellowstone to the mountains, and our horses were dropping by scores, starved and exhausted, every day we marched. There was no help for it, and only one thing left to do. At daybreak the next morning the orders came, "Make for the Black Hills—due south by compass—seven days' march at least," and we headed our dejected steeds accordingly and shambled off in search of supplies.
Through eleven days of pouring, pitiless rain we plodded on that never-to-be-forgotten trip, and when at last we sighted Bare Butte and halted, exhausted, at the swift-flowing current of the Belle Fourche, three fourths of our cavalry, of the Second, Third, and Fifth regiments, had made the last day's march afoot. One half our horses were broken down for good, one fourth had fallen never to rise again, and dozens had been eaten to keep us, their riders, alive.
Enlivening incidents were few enough, and—except one—of little interest to Milwaukeeans. That one is at your service. On the night of September 7th we were halted near the head-waters of Grand River. Here a force of one hundred and fifty men of the Third Cavalry, with the serviceable horses of that regiment, were pushed ahead under Major Anson Mills, with orders to find the Black Hills, buy up all the supplies he could in Deadwood, and then hurry back to meet us. Two days after, just as we were breaking up our cheerless bivouac of the night, a courier rode in with news that Mills was surrounded by the Indians twenty miles south, and every officer and man of the Fifth Cavalry whose horse had strength enough to trot pushed ahead to the rescue. Through mud, mist, and rain we plunged along, and by half-past ten were exchanging congratulations with Mills and shots with the redskins in as wealthy an Indian village, for its size, as ever we had seen. Custer's guidons and uniforms were the first things that met our eyes—trophies and evidence at once of the part our foe had taken in the bloody battle of the Little Big Horn. Mills had stumbled upon the village before day, made a magnificent dash, and scattered the Indians to the neighboring heights, Slim Buttes by name, and then hung on to his prize like a bull-dog, and in the face of appalling odds, till we rode in to his assistance. That afternoon, reinforced by swarms of warriors, they made a grand rally and spirited attack, but 'twas no use. By that time we had some two thousand to meet them, and the whole Sioux nation couldn't have whipped us. Some four hundred ponies had been captured with the village, and many a fire was lighted and many a suffering stomach gladdened with a welcome change from horse-meat, tough and stringy, to rib roasts of pony, grass-fed, sweet, and succulent. There is no such sauce as starvation.
Next morning, at break of day, General Crook, with the wounded, the Indian prisoners, his sturdy infantry, and all the cavalry but one battalion of the Fifth Regiment, pushed on for the south through the same overhanging pall of dripping mist. They had to go. There wasn't a hard-tack north of Deadwood, and men must eat to live.
The First Battalion of the Fifth he left to burn completely the village with all its robes, furs, and Indian treasures, and to cover the retreat.
As the last of the main column disappeared through the drizzle, with Mason's skirmishers thrown well out upon their right flank, a light wind swept upward the veil of smoke and mist, and the panorama became evident to us and to the surrounding Indians at one and the same moment. There was no time to take observations—down they came with a rush.
On a little knoll in the centre of the burning village a group of horsemen has halted—General Carr, who commands the Fifth Cavalry, his staff and orderlies—and the first remark as the fog raises falls from the lips of the adjutant: "By Jove! Here's a Badger State benefit!"
All along the line the attack has commenced and the battalion is sharply engaged—fighting afoot, their horses being already led away after the main column, but within easy call. Our orders are to follow, but to stand off the Indians. They are not wanted to accompany the march. It is one thing to "stand off the Indians" and hold your ground—it is quite another to stand him off and fall back. They are dashing about on their nimble ponies, following up the line as it doggedly retires from ridge to ridge, far outnumbering us, and all the time keeping up a rattling fire and a volley of aboriginal remarks at our expense. "Lo" yells with unaffected glee when his foe falls back, and it sometimes sounds not unlike the "yi-i-i-ip" of the rebels in '63. Along our line there is a business-like taciturnity, an occasional brief, ringing word of command from some officer, or a half-repressed chuckle of delight as some Patlander sees an Indian reel in his saddle, and turns to mutter to his neighbor on the skirmish line that he'd "softened the wax in that boy's ears." Occasionally, too, some man suddenly drops carbine, claps his hand to leg, arm, or side, and with an odd mixture of perplexity and pain in his face looks appealingly to the nearest officer. Our surgeon is just bandaging a bullet hole for one such, but finds time to look up and ask:
"Why Badger State benefit, King? I don't see the point."
"Just because there are six Wisconsin men right here on this slope," is the answer, "and dozens more for aught I know."
Look at them if you will. I warrant no resident of the Cream City could recognize his townsmen to-day. Remember, we've been hunting Sioux and Cheyennes since May; haven't seen a shanty for three months, or a tent for two; haven't had a change of raiment for eight weeks, or a shave for ten; and, under those battered slouch hats and in that tattered dress, small wonder that you fail to know the wearers. Right in our front, half-way to the skirmish line, rides the major commanding the battalion; a tall, solidly-built fellow, with twinkling blue eyes and a bronzed face, barely visible under the mass of blond hair and beard over which the rain is dripping. He is a Milwaukeean and a West-Pointer, a stanch favorite, too; and to-day the whole rear guard is his command, and on his shoulders rests the safety of our move. His is an ugly, trying duty, but he meets it well. Just now he is keenly watching the left of his line, and by a trick he has of hitching forward in his saddle when things don't go exactly right, you see that something's coming. A quick gesture calls up a young officer who is carelessly lounging on a raw-boned sorrel that sniffs excitedly at the puffs of smoke floating past his nose. Quick as the gesture the officer straightens in his saddle, shifts a quid into his "off" cheek, and reins up beside his commander. The major points to the left and front, and away goes the subaltern at a sputtering gallop. Milwaukee is sending Fond du Lac to make the left company "come down out of that." They have halted on a rocky ridge from which they can gloriously pepper the would-be pursuers, and they don't want to quit. The major is John J. Upham, the subaltern is Lieutenant H. S. Bishop.
Square in front, striding down the opposite slope and up towards us come the Company "G" skirmishers. A minute more and the ridge they have left is swarming with Indians. "Halt!" rings out along the line, and quick as thought the troopers face about, fling themselvesventre à terreand blaze away, scattering the Sioux like chaff.
There's a stalwart, bearded fellow commanding the right skirmishers of the company, steadily noting the fire of his men. Never bending himself, he moves from point to point cautioning such "new hands" as are excitedly throwing away their shots. He is their first sergeant, a crack soldier; Milwaukee, too—for in old days at Engelmann's school we knew him as Johnny Goll. Listen to his captain, half a head taller and quite as prominent and persistent a target, who is shaking a gauntleted fist at his subordinate and shouting, "I've told you to keep down a dozen times, sergeant; now, by God, I want you to do it." This makes the nearest men grin. The others are too busy to hear it.
The scene is picturesque enough from our point of view. To the south, two miles away by this time, Crook's long column is crawling snake-like over the rolling sward. To the west the white crags and boulders of the buttes shut off the view—we are fighting along at their very base. Northward the country rises and falls in alternate grassy ridge and ravine; not a tree in sight—only the low-hanging pall of smoke from the burning village in the near distance; the slopes swarming with dusky horsemen, dashing towards us, whooping, yelling, firing, and retiring, always at speed, except where some practised marksman springs from his pony and prone upon the ground draws bead at our chiefs. Between their restless ranks and us is only the long, thin line of cavalry skirmishers, slowly falling back face to the foe, and giving them gun for gun. Eastward, as far as the eye can reach, the country rolls away in billowy undulations, and—look! there comes a dash of Indians around our right flank. See them sweeping along that ridge? Upham is on low ground at this moment and they are beyond his view, but General Carr sees the attempt to cut us off, and in a second the adjutant of the regiment comes tearing to the line, fast as jaded horse can carry him. A comprehensive gesture accomplishes at once the soldierly salute to the major and points out the new danger. Kellogg's company swings into saddle and fairly springs to the right to meet it.
In buckskin trousers, fringed and beaded, but much the worse for wear, in ragged old hunting-shirt and shapeless hat, none but the initiated would recognize Milwaukee, much less West Point, in that adjutant. But he was marker of our Light Guard years before the war, and the first member of its corps of drummer boys. He is just speeding a grim-looking cavalryman, one of the headquarters orderlies, off with a despatch to General Merritt, and that orderly is a Milwaukeean, too, and may have to "run the gauntlet" getting that message through; but his face, what you can see of it through grizzled hair and beard, looks unconcerned enough; and under the weather-stained exterior he is known to be a faithful old soldier—one who loves the rough life better than he did the desk inante bellumdays when he was clerking at Hathaway & Belden's. "Old George," as the men call him, ran a train on the Watertown road, too, once upon a time, but about the close of the war he drifted from the volunteers into the regulars, and there he has stuck ever since.
But all this time Crook is marching away faster than we can back and follow him. We have to keep those howling devils beyond range of the main column, absorb their attention, pick up our wounded as we go, and be ready to give the warriors a welcome when they charge.
Kellogg, with Company "I," has driven back the attempted turn of our right, but the Indians keep up their harassing attack from the rear. Time is precious, and Upham begins to think we are wasting it. Again the adjutant has come to him from General Carr, and now is riding along the line to the right, communicating some order to the officers, while Lieutenant Bishop is doing the same on the left. Just as the skirmishers cross the next ridge a few cool old shots from each company drop on hands and knees, and, crawling back to the crest, open a rapid fire on the pursuers, checking them. Covered by this the main line sweeps down at a run, crosses the low, boggy ground between them, and toils up the ridge on which we are stationed. Here they halt, face about, throw themselves flat on their faces, and the major signals to the outlying skirmishers to come in; they obey with a rush, and a minute after a mass of Indians pops over the divide in pursuit. With a ringing hurrah of exultation our line lets drive a volley, the astonished redskins wheel about, those who can, lugging with them the dead or wounded who have fallen, and scatter off under shelter.
"How's that, King?" says the major, with a grin. "Think they've had enough?" Apparently they have, as none reappear except in distant groups. Mount is the word. Ranks are formed, the men chat and laugh a moment, as girths and stirrups are being rearranged, then silence and attention as they break into column and jog off after Crook's distant battalions.
The adjutant is jotting down the list of casualties in his note-book. "What time is it, major?" "Eight o'clock," says Upham, wringing the wet from his hat. "Eight o'clock here; church-time in Milwaukee."
Who would have thought it was Sunday?
"BUFFALO BILL" AND "BUFFALO CHIPS."
In all these years of campaigning, the Fifth Cavalry has had varied and interesting experiences with a class of men of whom much has been written, and whose names, to readers of the dime novel andNew York Weeklystyle of literature, were familiar as household words; I mean the "Scouts of the Prairie," as they have been christened. Many a peace-loving citizen and thousands of our boys have been to see Buffalo Bill's thrilling representations on the stage of the scenes of his life of adventure. To such he needs no introduction, and throughout our cavalry he is better known than any general except Crook.
A motley set they are as a class—these scouts; hard riding, hard swearing, hard drinking ordinarily, and not all were of unimpeachable veracity. But there was never a word of doubt or question in the Fifth when Buffalo Bill came up for discussion. He was chief scout of the regiment in Kansas and Nebraska in the campaign of 1868-69, when the hostiles were so completely used up by General Carr. He remained with us as chief scout until the regiment was ordered to Arizona to take its turn at the Apaches in 1871, and nothing but his having a wife and family prevented his going thither. Five years the regiment was kept among the rocks and deserts of that marvellous land of cactus and centipede; but when we came homeward across the continent and were ordered up to Cheyenne to take a hand in the Sioux war of 1876, the first addition to our ranks was Buffalo Bill himself. He was "starring it" with his theatrical troupe in the far East, and read in the papers that the Fifth was ordered to the support of General Crook. It was Bill's benefit night at Wilmington, Delaware. He rushed through the performance, paid off his company, took the midnight express, and four days later sprang from the Union Pacific train at Cheyenne, and was speedily exchanging greetings with an eager group of his old comrades, reinstated as chief scout of the regiment.
Of his services during the campaign that followed, a dozen articles might be written. One of his best plays is founded on the incidents of our fight of the 17th of July with the Cheyenne Indians, on the War Bonnet, for it was there he killed the warrior Yellow Hand, in as plucky a single combat on both sides as is ever witnessed. The Fifth had a genuine affection for Bill; he was a tried and true comrade—one who for cool daring and judgment had no superior. He was a beautiful horseman, an unrivalled shot, and as a scout unequalled. We had tried them all—Hualpais and Tontos in Arizona; half-breeds on the great plains. We had followed Custer's old guide, "California Joe," in Dakota; met handsome Bill Hickox (Wild Bill) in the Black Hills; trailed for weeks after Crook's favorite, Frank Gruard, all over the Big Horn and Powder River country; hunted Nez Perces with Cosgrove and his Shoshones among the Yellowstone mountains, and listened to "Captain Jack" Crawford's yarns and rhymes in many a bivouac in the Northwest. They were all noted men in their way, but Bill Cody was the paragon.
This time it is not my purpose to write of him, but,forhim, of another whom I've not yet named. The last time we met, Cody and I, he asked me to put in print a brief notice of a comrade who was very dear to him, and it shall be done now.
James White was his name; a man little known east of the Missouri, but on the Plains he was Buffalo Bill's shadow. I had met him for the first time at McPherson station in the Platte valley, in 1871, when he came to me with a horse, and the simple introduction that he was a friend of Cody's. Long afterwards we found how true and stanch a friend, for when Cody joined us at Cheyenne as chief scout he brought White with him as assistant, and Bill's recommendation secured his immediate employment.
On many a long day's march after that White rode by my side along the flanks of the column, and I got to know him well. A simpler-minded, gentler frontiersman never lived. He was modesty and courtesy itself, conspicuous mainly because of two or three unusual traits for his class—he never drank, I never heard him swear, and no man ever heard him lie.
For years he had been Cody's faithful follower—half servant, half "pardner." He was Bill's "Fidus Achates;" Bill was his adoration. They had been boys together, and the hero worship of extreme youth was simply intensified in the man. He copied Bill's dress, his gait, his carriage, his speech—everything he could copy; he let his long yellow hair fall low upon his shoulders in wistful imitation of Bill's glossy brown curls. He took more care of Bill's guns and horses than he did of his own; and so, when he finally claimed, one night at Laramie, the right to be known by some other title than simple Jim White—something descriptive, as it were, of his attachment for Cody and life-long devotion to his idol "Buffalo Bill," a grim quartermaster (Morton, of the Ninth Infantry), dubbed him "Buffalo Chips," and the name was a fixture.
Poor, honest-hearted "Chips"! His story was a brief one after that episode. We launched out from Laramie on the 22d of June, and, through all the vicissitudes of the campaign that followed, he was always near the Fifth. On the Yellowstone Cody was compelled to bid us a reluctant farewell. He had theatrical engagements to meet in the fall, and about the end of August he started on General Terry's boat for Fort Buford and the States. "Chips" remained in his capacity as scout, though he seemed sorely to miss his "pardner."
It was just two weeks after that we struck the Sioux at Slim Buttes, something of which I told you in a former chapter. You may remember that the Fifth had ridden in haste to the relief of Major Mills, who had surprised the Indians away in our front early Saturday morning, had whipped them in panicky confusion out of their "tepees" into the neighboring rocks, and then had to fight on the defensive against ugly odds until we rode in to the rescue. As the head of our column jogged in among the lodges, and General Carr directed us to keep on down to face the bluffs to the south, Mills pointed to a ravine opening out into the village, with the warning, "Look out for that gully; there are two or three wounded Indians hidden in there, and they've knocked over some of my men."
Everybody was too busy just then to pay much attention to two or three wounded Indians in a hole. We were sure of getting them when wanted. So, placing a couple of sentinels where they could warn stragglers away from its front, we formed line along the south and west of the captured village, and got everything ready to resist the attack we knew they would soon make in full force.
General Crook had arrived on the scene, and, while we were waiting for "Lo" to resume the offensive, some few scouts and packers started in to have a little fun "rousting out them Injuns." Half a dozen soldiers got permission to go over and join in while the rest of us were hungrily hunting about for something to eat. The next thing, we heard a volley from the ravine, and saw the scouts and packers scattering for cover. One soldier held his ground—shot dead. Another moment, and it became apparent that not one or two, but a dozen Indians were crouching somewhere in that narrow gorge, and the move to get them out assumed proportions. Lieutenant Clark, of General Crook's staff, sprang into the entrance, carbine in hand, and a score of cavalrymen followed, while the scouts and others went cautiously along either bank, peering warily into the cave-like darkness at the head. A squad of newspaper correspondents, led by that reckless Hibernian, Finerty, of theChicago Times, came tearing over, pencil in hand, all eagerness for items, just as a second volley came from the concealed foe, and three more of their assailants dropped, bleeding, in their tracks. Now our people were fairly aroused, and officers and men by dozens hurried to the scene. The misty air rang with shots, and the chances looked bad for those redskins. Just at this moment, as I was running over from the western side, I caught sight of "Chips" on the opposite crest. All alone, he was cautiously making his way, on hands and knees, towards the head of the ravine, where he could look down upon the Indians beneath. As yet he was protected from their fire by the bank itself—his lean form distinctly outlined against the eastern sky. He reached a stunted tree that grew on the very edge of the gorge, and there he halted, brought his rifle close under his shoulder, in readiness to aim, and then raised himself slowly to his feet, lifted his head higher, higher, as he peered over. Suddenly a quick, eager light shone in his face, a sharp movement of his rifle, as though he were about to raise it to the shoulder, when, bang!—a puff of white smoke floated up from the head of the ravine, "Chips" sprang convulsively in the air, clasping his hands to his breast, and with one startled, agonizing cry, "Oh, my God, boys!" plunged heavily forward, on his face, down the slope—shot through the heart.
Two minutes more, what Indians were left alive were prisoners, and that costly experiment at an end. That evening, after the repulse of the grand attack of Roman Nose and Stabber's warriors, and, 'twas said, hundreds of Crazy Horse's band, we buried poor "Chips," with our other dead, in a deep ravine. Wild Bill, California Joe, and Cosgrove have long since gone to their last account, but, among those who knew them, no scout was more universally mourned than Buffalo Bill's devoted friend, Jim White.
THE "CHIEF" AND THE STAFF.
With the death of our scout, Jim White, that eventful afternoon on the 9th of September, 1876, the skulking Indians in the ravine seemed to have fired their last shot. Several squaws were half dragged, half pushed up the banks, and through them the hidden foe were at last convinced that their lives would be spared if they would come out and surrender. Pending the negotiations, General Crook himself, with two or three staff officers, came upon the scene, and orders were given that the prisoners should be brought to him.
The time was, in the martial history of our country, when brigadier-generals were as plentiful as treasury-clerks—when our streets were ablaze with brilliant buttons, double rows and grouped in twos; when silver stars shone on many a shoulder, and every such luminary was the centre of half a score of brilliant satellites, the blue-and-gold aides-de-camp, adjutant-generals, etc., etc. But those were the dashing days of the late civil war, when the traditions of 1812 and Mexico were still fresh in the military mind, and when we were half disposed to consider it quite the thing for a general to bedeck himself in all the splendor to be borrowed from plumes, epaulettes, and sashes, and, followed by a curveting train of attendants, to gallop forth and salute his opponent before opening the battle. They did it in 1812, and "Old Fuss and Feathers," as many in the army called Winfield Scott, would have pursued the same system in '47, but for the fact that bluff Zachary Taylor—"Old Rough and Ready"—had taken the initiative, and left all full-dress outfits east of the Rio Grande.
We do things in a still more practical style nowadays, and, when it comes to fighting Indians, all that is ornamental in warfare has been left to them. An Indian of the Sioux or Cheyenne tribe, when he goes into battle, is as gorgeous a creature as vermilion pigment, plumed war-bonnet, glittering necklace, armlets, bracelets, and painted shield can make him. But here is a chance to see a full-fledged brigadier-general of the United States Army and his brilliant staff in action—date, September 9th, 1876; place, a muddy ravine in far-western Dakota; campaign, the great Sioux war of that year. Now, fellow-citizens, which is brigadier and which is private soldier in this crowd? It has gathered in not unkindly curiosity around three squaws who have just been brought into the presence of the "big white chief." You are taxpayers—you contribute to the support of the brigadier and the private alike. Presumably, therefore, having paid your money, you take your pick. I see you will need assistance. Very well, then. This utterly unpretending party—this undeniably shabby-looking man in a private soldier's light-blue overcoat, standing ankle-deep in mud in a far-gone pair of private soldier's boots, crowned with a most shocking bad hat, is Brigadier-General George Crook, of the United States Army. He commanded the Eighth Corps at Cedar Creek, and ever since the war closed has been hustled about the great West, doing more hard service and making less fuss about it than you suppose possible in the case of a brigadier-general. He has spent the best days of his life, before and since the war, in the exile of the frontier. He has fought all the tribes on the western slope of the Rockies, and nearly all on the eastern side. Pitt River Indians sent an arrow through him in 1857, and since the day he took command against the Apaches in Arizona no white man's scalp would bring the price his would, even in the most impoverished tribe on the continent.
The rain is dripping from the ragged edge of his old white felt hat and down over his untrimmed beard as he holds out his hand to greet, Indian fashion, the first squaw whom the interpreter, Frank Gruard, is leading forward. Poor, haggard, terrified old wretch, she recognizes the big chief at once, and, springing forward, grasps his hand in both of hers, while her eyes mutely implore protection. Never having seen in all her life any reception but torture for prisoners, she cannot be made to believe, for some minutes, that the white man does not war that way. The other squaws come crowding after her, each eager to grasp the general's hand, and then to insert therein the tiny fist of the pappoose hanging in stolid wonderment on her back. One of the squaws, a young and really handsome woman, is shot through the hand, but she holds it unconcernedly before her, letting the blood drip to the ground while she listens to the interpreter's explanation of the general's assurance of safety.
Standing by the general are two of his aides. West of the Missouri you would not need introduction to him or them, for no men are better known; but it is the rarest thing imaginable to see any one of the three anywhere else. In point of style and attire, they are no better off than their chief. Bourke, the senior aide and adjutant-general of the expedition, is picturesquely gotten up in an old shooting-coat, an indescribable pair of trousers, and a straw hat minus ribbon or binding, a brim ragged as the edge of a saw, and a crown without a thatch. It was midsummer, you recollect, when we started on this raid, and, while the seasons have changed, our garments, perforce, remain the same, what there is left of them.
Schuyler, the junior, is a trifle more "swell" in point of dress. His hat has not quite so many holes; his hunting-shirt of brown canvas has stood the wear and tear of the campaign somewhat better, and the lower man is garbed in a material unsightly but indestructible. All three are old campaigners in every part of the West. The third aide-de-camp we saw in the previous article, down in the ravine itself, heading the attack on the Indians. Clark is unquestionably the show-figure of the staff, for his suit of Indian-tanned buckskin seems to defy the elements, and he looks as handsome and jaunty as the day we met him on the Yellowstone.
Meantime more Indians are being dragged out of their improvised rifle-pits—warriors, squaws, and children. One of the latter is a bright-eyed little miss of some four or five summers. She is absolutely pretty, and looks so wet and cold and hungry that Bourke's big heart is touched, and, lifting her from the ground, he starts off with her towards where the Fifth Cavalry are bivouacked, and I go with them. The little maiden suspects treachery—torture or death, no doubt—for with all her savage strength she kicks, struggles, claws, and scratches at the kindly, bearded face, scorns all the soothing protestations of her captor, and finally, as we arrive at Bourke's camp-fire, actually tears off that veteran straw hat, and Bourke, being a bachelor, hands his prize over to me with the remark that, as a family man, I may have better luck. Apparently I do not, but in a moment the adjutant-general is busying himself at his haversack. He produces an almost forgotten luxury—a solid hard-tack; spreads upon it a thick layer of wild-currant jam, and hands it to the little termagant who is deafening me with screams. "Take it, it's washtay, Wauwataycha;" and, sudden as sunburst from April cloud, little Wauwataycha's white teeth gleamed in smiles an instant, and then are buried in the sweet morsel. Her troubles are forgotten, she wriggles out of my arms, squats contentedly in the mud by the fire, finishes a square foot of hard-tack in less time than we could masticate an inch, and smilingly looks up for more.
Poor little heathen! It wasn't the treatment she expected, and, doubtless, more than ever, she thinks "white man heap fool," but she is none the less happy. She will fill her own little stomach first, and then go and tell the glad tidings to her sisters, cousins, and aunts, and that white chief will have consequential damages to settle for scores of relatives of the original claimant of his hospitality. Indian logic in such matters is nothing if not peculiar. Lo argues, "You give my pappoose something to eat—you my pappoose friend; now you give me, or you my enemy."
Nothing but big luck will save Bourke's scanty supply of provender this muddy, rainy afternoon.
We have captured a dozen or more rabid Indians who but half an hour ago were strewing the hillside with our dead. Here's one grinning, hand-shaking vagabond with one of Custer's corporals uniforms on his back—doubtless that corporal's scalp is somewhere in the warrior's possession, but he has the deep sagacity not to boast of it; and no man in his sound senses wants to search the average Indian. They are our prisoners. Were we theirs, by this time we would be nakedly ornamenting a solid stake and broiling to a juicy death to the accompaniment of their exultant howls. But fate ordains otherwise; we are good North American citizens and must conciliate—so we pass them around with smiling, pacific grasp of handcheery "How coolahs," and seat them by the fire and bid them puff of our scanty store of tobacco, and eat of our common stock of pony. But we leave a fair-sized guard with orders to perforate the first redskin that tries to budge, while the rest of us grab our carbines and hurry to our posts. Scattering shots are heard all along and around our line—the trumpets of the cavalry ring out "To arms!" the Fifth Cavalry follows with "Forward." It means business, gentlemen, for here come Crazy Horse, Roman Nose, and scores, nay hundreds, of these Dick Turpins of the Plains, bent on recapturing their comrades. We must drop pen to meet them.
THE COMBAT OF SLIM BUTTES.
It is a stirring sight that meets the eye as, scrambling up from the shelter of the ravine in which we have been interviewing our captives, we gain the hillside and look hurriedly around. The whole landscape is alive with men and horses in excited motion. We are in a half-amphitheatre of picturesque and towering bluffs. North, south, and west they frown down upon us, their crests enveloped in eddying mist and rain clouds, the sward at their base rolling towards us in successive dips and ridges. Not three hundred yards away the nearest cliff tosses skyward directly south of the centre of the village we have won, but to the west and north they open out a good three-quarter mile away.
The village itself consists of some thirty lodges or tepees of the largest and most ornate description known to Sioux architecture. The prisoners say that the head man of the municipality was Roman Nose, and that he and his band are but flankers of the great chieftain Crazy Horse, whose whereabouts are vaguely indicated as "over there," which may mean among the white crags of Slim Buttes, within rifle shot, or miles away towards the Little Missouri. The tepees are nestled about in three shallow ravines or "cooleys," as the Northern plainsmen sometimes call them, which, uniting in the centre of the metropolis, form a little valley through which their joint contributions trickle away in a muddy streamlet. On a point at the confluence of the two smaller branches stands a large lodge of painted skins, the residence no doubt of some chief or influential citizen, for it is chuck-full of robes and furs and plunder of every description. Here, not inside, for the domicile savors of long and unventilated occupation, but outside in the mud, General Carr has established the headquarters of the Fifth Cavalry. Its left is bivouacked directly in front, facing south in the narrow ravine nearest the tall white butte that stands like a sentinel against the stormy sky, while the rest of the line sweeps around to the west, crossing the level plateau between the two main ravines. Mason's battalion is holding this front and uniting with the Second Cavalry battalion on our right.
Directly behind us rises a mound in the very centre of our position, and here General Merritt, who commands the whole cavalry brigade, has planted his flag. It overlooks the field. Below him to the north are the lodges to which the wounded men have been brought, and where the surgeons are now at work. Here, too, the compact battalion of the infantry has stacked its arms and set about kicking the heavy mud off its worn brogans. Somewhere over there also is the entire Third Cavalry, but I have been too busy with other entertainments since we trotted in at noon to find out much about them. To them belongs solely and entirely the honor of the capture of the village in the first place—only a hundred and fifty men at that. Their advance under Mills and Crawford, Schwatka and poor Von Luettwitz (who pays for the honor with a leg the surgeons have just lopped off) dashed in at daybreak while we were yet twenty miles away, and since we got in to help them hold the prize all hands have had their hands full.
Southeast of Merritt's central position a curling white smoke rising from the main ravine through the moisture-laden air, and begriming the folds of a red-and-blue headquarters flag, indicates where Crook himself is to be found. The brigadier is no better off—cares to be no better off than the private. He has not a rag of canvas to shelter his head.
Close in around the lines the lean, bony, leg-weary horses of the cavalry are herded, each company by itself where best it can find patches of the rich buffalo grass. No need to lariat those horses now. For weeks past they have barely been able to stagger along, and the morning's twenty-mile shuffle through the mud has utterly used them up. Nevertheless, each herd is strongly guarded, for the Indians are lurking all around us, eagerly watching every chance.
The scattering shots from the distant portion of our lines, that have brought us scrambling up the hillside, wake the scene to the instant life and excitement we note as we reach the first ridge. As adjutant, my duties call me at once to General Carr's headquarters, whence half a dozen officers who were gathered in conversation are scattering to their companies. A shout from the hillside announces, "Indians firing into the herds over in front of the Third Cavalry." Even as the hail is heard, a rattling of small arms, the sharp, vicious "ping" of the carbine and the deep "bang" of the longer-ranged rifle, sweeps along the western front. Just as we expected, Crazy Horse has come to the rescue, with all his available warriors. It is just half-past four o'clock by General Carr's watch, and between this and sunset the matter must be settled. As yet we can see nothing of it from our front, but every man seems to know what's coming. "Sound to arms, Bradley," is General Carr's quiet order to our chief trumpeter, and as the ringing notes resound along the ravines the call is taken up from battalion to battalion. The men spring to ranks, the herd guards are hurrying in their startled horses, and the old chargers, scenting Indians and danger, toss their heads snorting in the air and come trotting in to their eager masters. All but one herd—"Look at the Grays," is the cry, for Montgomery's horses have burst into a gallop, excited by the shouts and clamor, and there they go up the slope, out to the front, and square into the fastness of the Indians. Not yet! A dozen eager troopers, officers and men, have flung themselves on their steeds, all without saddles, some without bridles, and are off in chase. No need of their services, though. That dragoon corporal in charge of the herd is a cool, practised hand—hehasto be to wear chevrons in Montgomery's troop—and, dashing to the front, he half leads, half turns the leaders over to the left, and in a great circling sweep of five hundred yards has guided them back into the very midst of their company. It is at once skilful and daring. No Indian could have done it better, and Corporal Clanton is applauded then and mentioned in General Carr's report thereafter.
Even as it is occurring, the hillsides in our own front bristle with the savage warriors, too far off as yet for close shooting, but threateningly near. Our horses must be kept under cover in the ravines, and the lines thrown out to meet the foe, so "Forward" is sounded. Upham's battalion scramble up the ridge in their front, and the fun begins. All around the rocky amphitheatre the Indians come bobbing into sight on their active ponies, darting from behind rocks and ledges, appearing for a brief instant over the rise of open ground eight hundred yards away, then as suddenly dipping out of sight into some intervening "swale," or depression. The first thing, while the general's horse and mine are being saddled, is to get the other animals into the ravine under shelter, and while I'm at it, Bourke, the aide-de-camp we last saw petting and feeding his baby-captive, comes rattling up the pebbly stream-bed and rides out to the front with that marvellous wreck of a straw hat flapping about his ears. He never hears the laughing hail of "How did you leave your baby, John?" but is the first mounted officer I see along the line.
"Press where you see my old hat shine,Amid the ranks of war,And be your oriflamme to-dayThis tile from Omaha."
Macaulay barbarously paraphrased in the mud of Slim Buttes.
As the general swings into saddle and out to the front, the skirmish line is spreading out like a fan, the men running nimbly forward up the ridges. They are not well in hand, for they fire rapidly as they run. The volleys sound like a second Spottsylvania, a grand success as afeu de joie, but, as the colonel indignantly remarks, "They couldn't hit a flock of barns at that distance, much less an Indian skipping about like a flea," and orders are sent to stop the wild shooting. That there are hundreds of Indians is plainly apparent from their rapid fire, but they keep five or six hundred yards away behind the ridges, peppering at every exposed point of our line. Upham's battalion is swinging around to the west; Mason has pushed his five companies square out to the front along the plateau, driving the Indians before him. To his right the Second and Third Cavalry, fighting dismounted too, are making merry music. And now, filing over the ridge, comes the long column of infantry; and when they get to work with their "long toms" the Indians will have to skip in earnest. The shrill voice of their gray-bearded old chief sends his skirmishers rapidly out on Upham's left, and a minute more the rocks are ringing with the deeper notes of his musketry. Meantime I have counted at least two hundred and fifty Indian warriors darting down from one single opening among the bluffs square in Mason's front, and the wounded are drifting in from his line far more rapidly than from other exposed points. The brunt of the attack coming along that plateau falls on him and his five companies.
It is growing darker, and the flashes from our guns take a ruddier tinge. The principal occupation of our officers, staff and line, has been to move along among the men and prevent the waste of ammunition. Every now and then some young redskin, ambitious of distinction, will suddenly pop from behind a sheltering hummock and dash at the top of his pony's speed along our front, but over three hundred yards away, taunting and blackguarding us in shrill vernacular as he does so. Then the whole brigade wants to let drive at him and squander ammunition at the rate of five dollars a second on that one pestiferous vagabond. "Hold your fire, men!" is the order. "Give them half a chance and some of the painted humbugs will ride in closer."
By 5.30 the light is so uncertain that we, who are facing west along the plateau, and have the grim buttresses of the Buttes in our front, can barely distinguish the scudding forms of the Indians; but the flash of their rifles is incessant, and now that they are forced back beyond the possibility of harm to our centre, the orders are to lie down and stand them off. These men crouching along the ridge are Company "F," of the Fifth. They and their captain (Payne) you have heard more of in the Ute campaign. One of them, a keen shot, has just succeeded in knocking an Indian out of his saddle and capturing his pony, and even while his comrades are shouting their congratulations, up comes Jack Finerty, who seeks his items on the skirmish line, and uses pencil and carbine with equal facility. Finerty wants the name of the man who killed that Indian, and, learning from the eager voices of the men that it is "Paddy" Nihil, he delightedly heads a new paragraph of his despatch "Nihil Fit," shakes hands with his brother Patlander, and scurries off to take a hand in the uproar on the left.
"The war that for a space did failNow trebly thundering swelled the gale."
Colonel Chambers, with his plucky infantrymen, has clambered up the cliff on the south, changed front forward on his right—practically, not tactically—and got in a flank fire along the very depressions in which the Indians are settled. This is more than they can stand. The sun goes down at Slim Buttes on hundreds of baffled and discomfited Sioux. They have lost their village; lost three hundred tip-top ponies. A dozen of their warriors and squaws are in our hands, and a dozen more are dead and dying in the attempt to recapture them; and the big white chief Crook has managed to gain all this with starving men and skeleton horses.
Drawing in for the night, we post strong pickets well out in every direction, but they are undisturbed. Now comes the summing-up of casualties. The adjutants make the weary round of their regiments through wind and rain, taking the reports of company commanders, and then repairing to the surgeons to verify the lists. Two or three lodges have been converted into field hospitals; and in one of these, among our own wounded, two of the surgeons are turning their attention to a captive—the warrior American Horse. He lies upon some muddy robes, with the life-blood ebbing from a ghastly hole in his side. Dr. Clements examines his savage patient tenderly, gently as he would a child; and, though he sees that nothing can save life, he does all that art can suggest. It is a painful task to both surgeon and subject. The latter scorns chloroform, and mutters some order to a squaw crouching at his feet. She glides silently from the tepee, and returns with a bit of hard stick; this he thrusts between his teeth, and then, as the surgeons work, and the sweat of agony breaks out upon his forehead, he bites deep into the wood, but never groans nor shrinks. Before the dawn his fierce spirit has taken its flight, and the squaws are crooning the death-chant by his side.
Our own dead are fortunately few, and they are buried deep in the ravine before we move southward in the morning—not only buried deep, but a thousand horses, in column of twos, tramp over the new-made graves and obliterate the trace. You think this is but poor respect to show to a soldier's grave, no doubt; but then you don't know Indians, and cannot be expected to know that as soon as we are gone the skulking rascals will come prowling into the camp, hunting high and low for those graves, and, if they find them, will dig up the bodies we would honor, secure the scalps as trophies of their prowess, and then, after indescribable hackings and mutilations, consign the poor remains to their four-footed relatives, the prairie wolves.
Our wounded are many, and a hard time the patient fellows are having. Such rude shelter as their comrades can improvise from the Indian tepees we interpose between them and the dripping skies above. The rain-drops sputter in the flickering watch-fires around their cheerless bivouac; the night wind stirs the moaning pines upon the cliffs, and sweeps down in chill discordance through creaking lodge-poles and flapping roof of hide; the gaunt horses huddle close for warmth and shelter; the muffled challenge of the outlying picket is answered by the yelp of skulking coyote; and wet, cold, muddy, and, oh! so hungry, the victors hug their drenched blankets about their ears, and, grasping their carbines, pillowed on their saddles, sleep the sleep of the deserving.
A RACE FOR RATIONS.
The village of Slim Buttes destroyed, General Crook pushed ahead on his southward march in search of the Black Hills and rations. All Sunday morning Upham's battalion of the Fifth Cavalry covered the rear, and fought back the savage attacks upon the column; but, once well away from the smoking ruins, we were but little molested, and soon after noon caught up with the rest of the regiment, and found the entire command going into bivouac along a little stream flowing northward from an opening among towering cliffs that were thrown like a barrier athwart our line of march. It was cold, cheerless, rainy weather, but here we found grass and water for our famished cattle; plenty of timber for our fires, though we had not a thing to cook, but men and horses were weak and chilled, and glad of a chance to rest.
Here Doctors Clements, Hartsuff, and Patzki, with their assistants, went busily to work perfecting the improvised transportation for the wounded. There was not an ambulance or a field-litter in the command. Two officers—Bache, of the Fifth, and Von Luettwitz, of the Third Cavalry—were utterlyhors du combat, the latter having left his leg at the fight on the previous day, and some twenty-five men, more or less severely wounded, were unable either to walk or ride a horse.
Frontiersmen are quick to take lessons from the Indians, the most practical of transportation masters. Saplings twelve feet in length were cut (Indian lodge-poles were utilized); the slender ends of two of these were lashed securely on either side of a spare pack-mule, the heavy ends trailing along the ground, and fastened some three feet apart by cross-bars. Canvas and blankets were stretched across the space between; hereon one wounded man was laid, and what the Indians and plainsmen call atravoiswas complete. Over prairie or rockless road it does very well, but for the severely wounded a far more comfortable litter was devised. Two mules were lashed "fore and aft" between two longer saplings; the intervening space was rudely but comfortably upholstered with robes and blankets, and therein the invalid might ride for hours as smoothly as in a palace car. Once, in the Arizona mountains, I was carried an entire week in a similar contrivance, and never enjoyed easier locomotion—so long as the mules behaved. But just here it may be remarked that comfort which is in the faintest degree dependent upon the uniform and steadfast serenity of the army mule is of most uncertain tenure. Poor McKinstry, our wagon-master (who was killed in Payne's fight with the Utes last September, and whose unflattering comparison may have been provoked by unhappy experiences with the sex), used to say: "Most mules could swap ends quicker'n a woman could change her mind;" and it was by no means required that the mule should "swap ends" to render the situation of the poor fellow in thetravoisundesirable, if, indeed, he was permitted to retain it.