CHAPTER XVI.
THE ATTACK UPON CRAZY HORSE’S VILLAGE—THE BLEAK NIGHT MARCH ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS—EGAN’S CHARGE THROUGH THE VILLAGE—STANTON AND MILLS AND SIBLEY TO THE RESCUE—THE BURNING LODGES—MEN FROZEN—THE WEALTH OF THE VILLAGE—RETREATING TO LODGE POLE CREEK—CROOK REJOINS US—CUTTING THE THROATS OF CAPTURED PONIES.
General Crook directed General J. J. Reynolds, Third Cavalry, to take six companies of cavalry, and, with the half-breed scouts, make a forced march along the trail of the hunters, and see just what he could find. If the trail led to a village, Reynolds should attack; if not, the two portions of the command were to unite on the Powder at or near a point designated. Crook was very kindly disposed towards General Reynolds, and wanted to give him every chance to make a brilliant reputation for himself and retrieve the past. Reynolds had been in some kind of trouble in the Department of Texas, of which he had been the commander, and as a consequence of this trouble, whatever it was, had been relieved of the command and ordered to rejoin his regiment. We were out on the trail by half-past five in the afternoon, and marched rapidly up a steep ravine, which must have been either Otter or Pumpkin Creek, and about half-past two in the morning of March 17, 1876, were able to discern through the darkness the bluffs on the eastern side of the Big Powder; the night was very cold, the wind blew keenly and without intermission, and there were flurries of snow which searched out the tender spots left in our faces.
It was of course impossible to learn much of the configuration and character of the country in such darkness and under such circumstances, but we could see that it was largely of the kind called in Arizona “rolling mesa,” and that the northern exposure of the hills was plentifully covered with pine and juniper, while grass was in ample quantity, and generally of the best quality ofgrama. Stanton led the advance, having Frank Gruard and one or two assistants trailing in the front. The work was excellently well done, quite as good as the best I had ever seen done by the Apaches. Stanton, Mr. Robert E. Strahorn, Hospital Steward Bryan, and myself made a small party and kept together; we were the only white men along not connected with the reservations.
This march bore grievously upon the horses; there were so many little ravines and gullies, dozens of them not more than three or four feet in depth, which gashed the face of nature and intersected the course we were pursuing in so many and such unexpected places, that we were constantly halting to allow of an examination being made to determine the most suitable places for crossing, without running the risk of breaking our own or our horses’ necks. The ground was just as slippery as glass, and so uneven that when on foot we were continually falling, and when on horseback were in dread of being thrown and of having our horses fall upon us, as had already happened in one case on the trip. To stagger and slip, wrenching fetlocks and pasterns, was a strain to which no animals could be subjected for much time without receiving grave injuries. Our horses seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion, and when the trail was at all decent would press forward on the bit without touch of spur. When Frank Gruard had sighted the bluffs of the Powder, the command halted in a deep ravine, while Frank and a picked detail went out in front some distance to reconnoitre. The intense cold had made the horses impatient, and they were champing on the bits and pawing the ground with their hoofs in a manner calculated to arouse the attention of an enemy, should one happen to be in the vicinity. They were suffering greatly for water; the ice king had set his seal upon all the streams during the past week, and the thickness of the covering seen was from two and a half to three feet. This thirst made them all the more restless and nervous. While we halted in this ravine, many of the men lay down to sleep, much to the alarm of the officers, who, in fear that they would not awaken again, began to shake and kick them back to wakefulness.
By looking up at the “Dipper” we could see that we were travelling almost due east, and when our scouts returned they brought the important information that the two Indians whomwe had been following had been members of a hunting party of forty, mounted, whose trail we were now upon. Frank led off at a smart pace, and we moved as fast as we could in rear; the mists and clouds of night were breaking, and a faint sign in the east told the glad news that dawn was coming. Directly in front of us and at a very short distance away, a dense column of smoke betrayed the existence of a village of considerable size, and we were making all due preparations to attack it when, for the second time, Frank returned with the information that the smoke came from one of the burning coal-measures of which Montana and Wyoming were full. Our disappointment was merely temporary; we had not begun fairly to growl at our luck before Frank returned in a most gleeful mood, announcing that the village had been sighted, and that it was a big one at the base of the high cliffs upon which we were standing.
The plan of battle was after this manner: Reynolds had three battalions, commanded respectively by Moore, Mills, and Noyes. Noyes’s battalion was to make the first move, Egan’s company, with its revolvers, charging in upon the village, and Noyes cutting out and driving off the enemy’s herd of ponies. Mills was to move in rear of Noyes, and, after the village had been charged, move into and take possession of it, occupy the plum thicket surrounding it, and destroy all the “tepis” and plunder of all kinds. These battalions were to descend into the valley of the Powder through a ravine on our right flank, while Moore with his two companies was to move to the left and take up a position upon the hills overlooking the village, and receive the flying Indians with a shower of lead when they started to flee from their lodges, and attempted to get positions in the brakes or bluffs to annoy Egan.
Noyes led off with his own and Egan’s companies, and Frank Gruard, “Big Bat,” and others of the scouts showing the path down the ravine; the descent was a work of herculean difficulty for some of the party, as the horses slipped and stumbled over the icy ground, or pressed through the underbrush and fallen rocks and timber. At length we reached the narrow valley of the Powder, and all hands were impatient to begin the charge at once. This, Major Noyes would not allow; he sent Gruard, “Big Bat,” and “Little Bat” to the front to look at the ground and report whether or not it was gashed by any ravines which would renderthe advance of cavalry difficult. Their report was favorable, nothing being seen to occasion fear that a mounted force could not approach quite close to the lodges. It was a critical moment, as Frank indicated where the Indian boys were getting ready to drive the herds of ponies down to water, which meant that the village would soon be fully aroused. At last we were off, a small band of forty-seven all told, including the brave “Teddy” Egan himself, Mr. Strahorn, the representative of theRocky Mountain News, a man who displayed plenty of pluck during the entire campaign, Hospital Steward Bryan, and myself. We moved out from the gulch in column of twos, Egan at the head; but upon entering the main valley the command “Left front into line” was given, and the little company formed a beautiful line in less time than it takes to narrate it. We moved at a fast walk, and as soon as the command “Charge” should be given, we were to quicken the gait to a trot, but not move faster on account of the weak condition of our stock. When the end of the village was reached we were to charge at full gallop down through the lines of “tepis,” firing our revolvers at everything in sight; but if unable to storm the village, we were to wheel about and charge back. Just as we approached the edge of the village we came upon a ravine some ten feet in depth and of a varying width, the average being not less than fifty. We got down this deliberately, and at the bottom and behind a stump saw a young boy about fifteen years old driving his ponies. He was not ten feet off. The youngster wrapped his blanket about him and stood like a statue of bronze, waiting for the fatal bullet; his features were as immobile as if cut in stone. The American Indian knows how to die with as much stoicism as the East Indian. I levelled my pistol. “Don’t shoot,” said Egan, “we must make no noise.” We were up on the bench upon which the village stood, and the war-whoop of the youngster was ringing wildly in the winter air, awakening the echoes of the bald-faced bluffs. The lodges were not arranged in any order, but placed where each could secure the greatest amount of protection from the configuration of the coves and nooks amid the rocks. The ponies close to the village trotted off slowly to the right and left as we drew near; the dogs barked and howled and scurried out of sight; a squaw raised the door of her lodge, and seeing the enemy yelled with all her strength, but as yet there had been not one shot fired.We had emerged from the clump of cottonwoods and the thick undergrowth of plum bushes immediately alongside of the nearest “tepis,” when the report of the first Winchester and the zipp of the first bullet notified us that the fun had begun.
The enemy started out from their lodges, running for the rocky bluffs overlooking the valley, there to take position, but turning to let us have the benefit of a shot every moment or so. We could not see much at which to fire, the “tepis” intervening, but we kept on our way through the village, satisfied that the flight of the hostiles would be intercepted by Moore from his place upon the hills. The Indians did not shoot at our men, they knew a trick worth two of that: they fired deliberately at our horses, with the intention of wounding some of them and rendering the whole line unmanageable. The first shot struck the horse of the troop blacksmith in the intestines, and made him rear and plunge and fall over backwards. That meant that both horse and man werehors du combatuntil the latter could extricate himself, or be extricated from under the dying, terrified animal. The second bullet struck the horse of Steward Bryan in the head, and knocked out both his eyes; as his steed stiffened in death, Bryan, who was riding next to me, called out, “There is something the matter with my horse!” The third missile was aimed at “Teddy” Egan, but missed him and cut the bridle of my old plug as clean as if it had been a piece of tissue paper. From that on the fire became a volley, although the people of the village were retreating to a place of safety for their women and children.
The herd of ponies had been “cut out,” and they were now afoot unless they could manage to recapture them. Two or three boys made an attempt to sneak around on our right flank and run the herd back up among the high bluffs, where they would be practically safe from our hands. This was frustrated by Egan, who covered the line of approach with his fire, and had the herd driven slightly to our rear. The advantages, however, were altogether on the side of the Sioux and Cheyennes, as our promised support did not arrive as soon as expected, and the fire had begun to tell upon us; we had had three men wounded, one in the lower part of the lungs, one in the elbow-joint, and one in the collar-bone or upper part of the chest; six horses had been killed and three wounded, one of the latter being Egan’s own,which had been hit in the neck. The men wounded were not the men on the wounded horses, so that at this early stage of the skirmish we had one-fourth of our strength disabled. We held on to the village as far as the centre, but the Indians, seeing how feeble was our force, rallied, and made a bold attempt to surround and cut us off. At this moment private Schneider was killed. Egan was obliged to dismount the company and take shelter in the plum copse along the border of the ice-locked channel of the Powder, and there defend himself to the best of his ability until the arrival of the promised reënforcements.
Noyes had moved up promptly in our rear and driven off the herd of ponies, which was afterwards found to number over seven hundred; had he charged in echelon on our left, he would have swept the village, and affairs would have had a very different ending, but he complied with his instructions, and did his part as directed by his commander. In the work of securing the herd of ponies, he was assisted by the half-breed scouts.
Colonel Stanton and Lieutenant Sibley, hearing the constant and heavy firing in front, moved up without orders, leading a small party of the scouts, and opened an effective fire on our left. Half an hour had passed, and Moore had not been heard from; the Indians under the fire from Stanton and Sibley on our left, and Egan’s own fire, had retired to the rocks on the other side of the “tepis,” whence they kept plugging away at any one who made himself visible. They were in the very place where it was expected that Moore was to catch them, but not a shot was heard for many minutes; and when they were it was no help to us, but a detriment and a danger, as the battalion upon which we relied so much had occupied an entirely different place—one from which the fight could not be seen at all, and from which the bullets dropped into Egan’s lines.
Mills advanced on foot, passing by Egan’s left, but not joining him, pushed out from among the lodges the scattering parties still lurking there, and held the undergrowth on the far side; after posting his men advantageously, he detailed a strong party to burn and destroy the village. Egan established his men on the right, and sent a party to aid in the work of demolition and destruction. It was then found that a great many of our people had been severely hurt by the intense cold. In order to make the charge as effective as possible, we had disrobed and thrownto one side, upon entering the village, all the heavy or cumbrous wraps with which we could dispense. The disagreeable consequence was that many men had feet and fingers, ears and noses frozen, among them being Lieutenant Hall and myself. Hall had had much previous experience in the polar climate of these northwestern mountains, and showed me how to treat myself to prevent permanent disability.
He found an air-hole in the ice, into which we thrust feet and hands, after which we rubbed them with an old piece of gunny-sack, the roughest thing we could find, to restore circulation. Steward Bryan, who seemed to be full of resources and forethought, had carried along with him a bottle of tincture of iodine for just such emergencies; this he applied liberally to our feet and to all the other frozen limbs, and thus averted several cases of amputation. While Steward Bryan was engaged in his work of mercy, attending to the wounded and the frozen, Mills’s and Egan’s detachments were busy setting fire to the lodges, of elk and buffalo hide and canvas, which numbered over one hundred.
For the information of readers who may never have seen such lodges or “tepis,” as they are called in the language of the frontier, I will say that they are large tents, supported upon a conical frame-work of fir or ash poles about twenty feet long, spread out at the bottom so as to give an interior space with a diameter of from eighteen to twenty-five feet. This is the average size, but in each large village, like the present one, was to be found one or more very commodious lodges intended for the use of the “council” or for the ceremonies of the “medicine” bands; there were likewise smaller ones appropriated to the use of the sick or of women living in seclusion. In the present case, the lodges would not burn, or, to speak more explicitly, they exploded as soon as the flames and heat had a chance to act upon the great quantities of powder in kegs and canisters with which they were all supplied. When these loose kegs exploded the lodge-poles, as thick as a man’s wrist and not less than eighteen feet long, would go sailing like sky-rockets up into the air and descend to smash all obstacles in their way. It was a great wonder to me that some of our party did not receive serious injuries from this cause.
In one of the lodges was found a wounded squaw, who stated that she had been struck in the thigh in the very beginning ofthe fight as her husband was firing out from the entrance to the lodge. She stated that this was the band of “Crazy Horse,” who had with him a force of the Minneconjou Sioux, but that the forty new canvas lodges clustered together at the extremity by which we had entered belonged to some Cheyennes who had recently arrived from the “Red Cloud” Agency. Two lodges of Sioux had arrived from the same agency two days previously with the intention of trading with the Minneconjoux.
What with the cold threatening to freeze us, the explosions of the lodges sending the poles whirling through the air, and the leaden attentions which the enemy was once more sending in with deadly aim, our situation was by no means agreeable, and I may claim that the notes jotted down in my journal from which this narrative is condensed were taken under peculiar embarrassments. “Crazy Horse’s” village was bountifully provided with all that a savage could desire, and much besides that a white man would not disdain to class among the comforts of life.
There was no great quantity of baled furs, which, no doubt, had been sent in to some of the posts or agencies to be traded off for the ammunition on hand, but there were many loose robes of buffalo, elk, bear, and beaver; many of these skins were of extra fine quality. Some of the buffalo robes were wondrously embroidered with porcupine quills and elaborately decorated with painted symbolism. One immense elk skin was found as large as two and a half army blankets; it was nicely tanned and elaborately ornamented. The couches in all the lodges were made of these valuable furs and peltries. Every squaw and every buck was provided with a good-sized valise of tanned buffalo, deer, elk, or pony hide, gaudily painted, and filled with fine clothes, those of the squaws being heavily embroidered with bead-work. Each family had similar trunks for carrying kitchen utensils and the various kinds of herbs that the plains’ tribes prized so highly. There were war-bonnets, strikingly beautiful in appearance, formed of a head-band of red cloth or of beaver fur, from which depended another piece of red cloth which reached to the ground when the wearer was mounted, and covered him and the pony he rode. There was a crown of eagle feathers, and similar plumage was affixed to the tail-piece. Bells, ribbons, and other gew-gaws were also attached and occasionally I have noticed a pair of buffalohorns, shaved down fine, surmounting the head. Altogether, these feather head-dresses of the tribes in the Missouri drainage were the most impressive and elegant thing to be seen on the border. They represented an investment of considerable money, and were highly treasured by the proud possessors. They were not only theindiciaof wealth, but from the manner in which the feathers were placed and nicked, the style of the ornamentation, and other minute points readily recognizable by the other members of the tribe, all the achievements of the wearer were recorded. One could tell at a glance whether he had ever stolen ponies, killed men, women, or children, been wounded, counted “coup,” or in any other manner demonstrated that his deeds of heroism were worthy of being chanted in the dances and around the camp-fires. In each lodge there were knives and forks, spoons, tin cups, platters, mess-pans, frying-pans, pots and kettles of divers shapes, axes, hatchets, hunting-knives, water-kegs, blankets, pillows, and every conceivable kind of truck in great profusion. Of the weight of dried and fresh buffalo meat and venison no adequate idea can be given; in three or four lodges I estimated that there were not less than one thousand pounds. As for ammunition, there was enough for a regiment; besides powder, there was pig-lead with the moulds for casting, metallic cartridges, and percussion caps. One hundred and fifty saddles were given to the flames.
Mills and Egan were doing excellent work in the village itself; the herd of ponies was in Noyes’s hands, and why we should not have held our place there, and if necessary fortified and sent word to Crook to come across the trail and join us, is one of those things that no man can explain. We had lost three killed, and had another man wounded mortally. General Reynolds concluded suddenly to withdraw from the village, and the movement was carried out so precipitately that we practically abandoned the victory to the savages. There were over seven hundred ponies, over one hundred and fifty saddles, tons upon tons of meat, hundreds of blankets and robes, and a very appreciable addition to our own stock of ammunition in our hands, and the enemy driven into the hills, while we had Crook and his four companies to depend upon as a reserve, and yet we fell back at such a rate that our dead were left in the hands of the Indians, and, as was whispered among the men, one of our poor soldiersfell alive into the enemy’s hands and was cut limb from limb. I do not state this fact of my own knowledge, and I can only say that I believe it to be true. We pushed up the Powder as fast as our weary horses could be made to move, and never halted until after we had reached the mouth of Lodge Pole Creek, where we awaited the arrival of General Crook.
The bivouac at the mouth of the Lodge Pole was especially dreary and forlorn; the men nicknamed it “Camp Inhospitality”: there was a sufficiency of water—or ice—enough wood, but very little grass for the animals. There was nothing to eat; not even for the wounded men, of whom we had six, who received from Surgeon Munn and his valuable assistant, Steward Bryan, and Doctor Ridgeley all the care which it was possible to give. Here and there would be found a soldier, or officer, or scout who had carried a handful of cracker-crumbs in his saddle-bags, another who had had the good sense to pick up a piece of buffalo meat in the village, or a third who could produce a spoonful of coffee. With these a miserable apology was made for supper, which was not ready until very late; because the rear-guard of scouts and a handful of soldiers—which, under Colonel Stanton, Frank Gruard, “Big Bat,” and others, had rounded up and driven off the herd of ponies—did not join until some time after sundown. A small slice of buffalo meat, roasted in the ashes, went around among five or six; and a cup of coffee would be sipped like the pipe of peace at an Indian council.
The men, being very tired with the long marching, climbing, and fighting of the past two days, were put on a “running guard” to give each the smallest amount possible of work and the greatest of sleep. No guard was set over the herd, and no attempt was made to protect it, and in consequence of this great neglect the Indians, who followed us during the night, had not the slightest trouble in recovering nearly all that originally belonged to them. Even when the loss was discovered and the fact reported that the raiders were still in sight, going over a low bluff down the valley, no attention was paid, and no attempt made to pursue and regain the mainstay of Indian hostility. The cold and exposure had begun to wear out both horses and men, and Doctor Munn had now all he could do in looking after the numerous cases of frost-bite reported in the command; my recollection is that there were sixty-six men whose noses, feet, or fingerswere more or less imperilled by the effects of the cold. Added to these were two cases of inflammatory rheumatism, which were almost as serious as those of the wounded men.
Crook reached camp about noon of the 18th of March, and it goes without saying that his presence was equal to that of a thousand men. He expressed his gratification upon hearing of our successful finding of “Crazy Horse’s” village, as that chief was justly regarded as the boldest, bravest, and most skilful warrior in the whole Sioux nation; but he could not conceal his disappointment and chagrin when he learned that our dead and wounded had been needlessly abandoned to the enemy, and that with such ample supplies of meat and furs at hand our men had been made to suffer from hunger and cold, with the additional fatigue of a long march which could have been avoided by sending word to him. Crook, with a detachment from the four companies left with him, had come on a short distance in advance of Hawley’s and Dewees’s battalions, and run in upon the rear-guard of the Cheyennes and Sioux who had stampeded so many of the ponies from Reynolds’s bivouac; the General took sight at one of the Indians wearing a war-bonnet and dropped him out of the saddle; the Indian’s comrades seized him and took off through the broken country, but the pony, saddle, buffalo robe, blanket, and bonnet of the dead man fell into our hands, together with nearly a hundred of the ponies; which were driven along to our forlorn camp at the confluence of the Lodge Pole and the Powder.
There was nothing for Crook to do but abandon the expedition, and return to the forts, and reorganize for a summer campaign. We had no beef, as our herd had been run off on account of the failure to guard it; we were out of supplies, although we had destroyed enough to last a regiment for a couple of months; we were encumbered with sick, wounded, and cripples with frozen limbs, because we had not had sense enough to save the furs and robes in the village; and the enemy was thoroughly aroused, and would be on thequi vivefor all that we did. To old Fort Reno, by way of the valley of the Powder, was not quite ninety miles. The march was uneventful, and there was nothing to note beyond the storms of snow and wind, which lasted, with some spasmodic intermissions, throughout the journey. The wind blew from the south, and there was a softening of the ground, which aggravated the disagreeable features by adding mud to our other troubles.
The Indians hung round our camps every night, occasionally firing a shot at our fires, but more anxious to steal back their ponies than to fight. To remove all excuse for their presence Crook ordered that the throats of the captured ponies be cut, and this was done on two different nights: first, some fifty being knocked in the head with axes, or having their throats cut with the sharp knives of the scouts, and again, another “bunch” of fifty being shot before sun-down. The throat-cutting was determined upon when the enemy began firing in upon camp, and was the only means of killing the ponies without danger to our own people. It was pathetic to hear the dismal trumpeting (I can find no other word to express my meaning) of the dying creatures, as the breath of life rushed through severed windpipes. The Indians in the bluffs recognized the cry, and were aware of what we were doing, because with one yell of defiance and a parting volley, they left us alone for the rest of the night.
Steaks were cut from the slaughtered ponies and broiled in the ashes by the scouts; many of the officers and soldiers imitated their example. Prejudice to one side, the meat is sweet and nourishing, not inferior to much of the stringy beef that used to find its way to our markets.
Doctor Munn, Doctor Ridgeley, and Steward Bryan were kept fully occupied in tending to the patients under their charge, and were more than pleased when the wagon-train was reached, and“travois”and saddles could be exchanged for ambulances and wagons.
Our reception by our comrades back at the wagon-train—Coates, Ferris, and Mason—was most cordial and soldier-like. The most gratifying proof of their joy at our return was found in the good warm supper of coffee, bacon, and beans prepared for every one of our columns, commissioned and enlisted. The ice in the Powder proved very treacherous, as all “alkali” ice will; it was not half so thick as it had been found on the Tongue, where it had ranged from two to three feet. General Crook distributed the troops to the various military posts, and returned to his headquarters in Omaha. The conduct of certain officers was the subject of an investigation by a general court-martial, but it is not my purpose to overcrowd my pages with such matters, which can be readily looked up by readers interested in them. On our way down to Cheyenne, we encountered squadsupon squads of adventurers, trudging on foot or riding in wagons to the Black Hills. At “Portuguese Phillip’s” ranche, sixty-eight of these travellers had sat down to supper in one day; while at Fagan’s, nearer Cheyenne, during the snow-storm of March 26th and 27th, two hundred and fifty had slept in the kitchens, stables, and out-houses.