CHAPTER XX.
THE JUNCTION WITH MERRITT AND THE MARCH TO MEET TERRY—THE COUNTRY ON FIRE—MERRITT AND HIS COMMAND—MR. “GRAPHIC”—STANTON AND HIS “IRREGULARS”—“UTE JOHN”—THE SITE OF THE HOSTILE CAMP—A SIOUX CEMETERY—MEETING TERRY’S COMMAND—FINDING TWO SKELETONS—IN THE BAD LANDS—LANCING RATTLESNAKES—BATHING IN THE YELLOWSTONE—MACKINAW BOATS AND “BULL” BOATS—THE REES HAVE A PONY DANCE—SOME TERRIBLE STORMS—LIEUTENANT WILLIAM P. CLARKE.
On the 3d of August, 1876, Crook’s command marched twenty miles north-northeast to Goose Creek, where Merritt had been ordered to await its arrival. The flames of prairie fires had parched and disfigured the country. “Big Bat” took me a short cut across a petty affluent of the Goose, which had been full of running water but was now dry as a bone, choked with ashes and dust, the cottonwoods along its banks on fire, and every sign that its current had been dried up by the intense heat of the flames. In an hour or so more the pent-up waters forced a passage through the ashes, and again flowed down to mingle with the Yellowstone. The Sioux had also set fire to the timber in the Big Horn, and at night the sight was a beautiful one of the great line of the foot-hills depicted in a tracery of gold.
General Merritt received us most kindly. He was at that time a very young man, but had had great experience during the war in command of mounted troops. He was blessed with a powerful physique, and seemed to be specially well adapted to undergo any measure of fatigue and privation that might befall him. His force consisted of ten companies of the Fifth Cavalry, and he had also brought along with him seventy-six recruits for the Second and Third Regiments, and over sixty surplus horses, besides an abundance of ammunition.
The officers with General Merritt, or whose names have notalready been mentioned in these pages, were: Lieutenant-Colonel E. A. Carr, Major John V. Upham, Lieutenant A. D. B. Smead, A. D. King, George O. Eaton, Captain Robert H. Montgomery, Emil Adam, Lieutenant E. L. Keyes, Captain Samuel Sumner, Lieutenant C. P. Rodgers, Captain George F. Price, Captain J. Scott Payne, Lieutenants A. B. Bache, William P. Hall, Captain E. M. Hayes, Lieutenant Hoel S. Bishop, Captain Sanford C. Kellogg, Lieutenants Bernard Reilly and Robert London, Captain Julius W. Mason, Lieutenant Charles King, Captain Edward H. Leib, Captain William H. Powell, Captain James Kennington, Lieutenant John Murphy, Lieutenant Charles Lloyd, Captain Daniel W. Burke, Lieutenant F. S. Calhoun, Captain Thomas F. Tobey, Lieutenant Frank Taylor, Lieutenant Richard T. Yeatman, Lieutenants Julius H. Pardee, Robert H. Young, Rockefeller, and Satterlle C. Plummer, with Lieutenants W. C. Forbush as Adjutant, and Charles H. Rockwell as Quartermaster of the Fifth Cavalry, and Assistant Surgeons Grimes, Lecompt, and Surgeon B. H. Clements, who was announced as Medical Director of the united commands by virtue of rank. Colonel T. H. Stanton was announced as in command of the irregulars and citizen volunteers, who in small numbers accompanied the expedition. He was assisted by Lieutenant Robert H. Young, Fourth Infantry, a gallant and efficient soldier of great experience. At the head of the scouts with Merritt rode William F. Cody, better known to the world at large by his dramatic representation which has since traversed two continents: “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.”
Major Furey was directed to remain at this point, or in some eligible locality close to it, and keep with him the wagon-train and the disabled. Paymaster Arthur was to stay with him; and outside of that there were three casualties in the two commands: Sutorius, dismissed by sentence of general court-martial; Wilson, resigned July 29th; and Cain, whose mind betrayed symptoms of unsoundness, and who was ordered to remain with Furey, but persisted in keeping with the column until the Yellowstone had been reached. Couriers arrived with telegrams from General Sheridan at Chicago, Williams at Omaha, and Colonel Townsend, commanding at Fort Laramie; all of whom had likewise sent clippings from the latest papers, furnishing information from all points in the Indian country. From theseclippings it was learned that the stream of adventurers pouring into the Black Hills was unabated, and that at the confluence of the Deadwood and Whitewood Creeks a large town or city of no less than four thousand inhabitants had sprung up and was working the gold “placers,” all the time exposed to desperate attacks from the Indians, who, according to one statement, which was afterwards shown to be perfectly true, had murdered more than eighty men in less than eight days. These men were not killed within the limits of the town, but in its environs and in the exposed “claims” out in the Hills.
Several new correspondents had attached themselves to Merritt’s column; among them I recall Mills, of the New YorkTimes, and Lathrop, of theBulletin, of San Francisco. These, I believe, were the only real correspondents in the party, although there were others who vaunted their pretensions; one of these last, name now forgotten, claimed to have been sent out by the New YorkGraphic, a statement very few were inclined to admit. He was the greenest thing I ever saw without feathers; he had never been outside of New York before, and the way the scouts, packers, and soldiers “laid for” that man was a caution. Let the other newspaper men growl as they might about the lack of news, Mr. “Graphic,” as I must call him, never had any right to complain on that score. Never was packer or scout or soldier—shall I add officer?—so weary, wet, hungry, or miserable at the end of a day’s march that he couldn’t devote a half-hour to the congenial task of “stuffin’ the tenderfoot,” The stories told of Indian atrocities to captives, especially those found with paper and lead-pencils, were enough to make the stoutest veteran’s teeth chatter, and at times our newly-discovered acquisition manifested a disinclination to swallow, unstrained, the stories told him; but his murmurs of mild dissent were drowned in an inundation of “Oh, that hain’t nawthin’ to what I’ve seed ’em do.” Who the poor fellow was I do not know; no one seemed to know him by any other designation than “The Tenderfoot.” He had no money, he could not draw, and was dependent upon the packers and others for every meal; I must say that he never lacked food, provided he swallowed it with tales of border horrors which would cause the pages of the Boys’ Own Five-Cent Novelette series to creak with terror. I never saw him smile but once, and that was underprovocation sufficient to lead a corpse to laugh itself out of its shroud.
One of the biggest liars among Stanton’s scouts—I do not recall whether it was “Slap-jack Billy, the Pride of the Pan-Handle,” or “Pisen-weed Patsey, the Terror of the Bresh”—was devoting a half-hour of his valuable time to “gettin’ in his work” on the victim, and was riding one pony and leading another, which he had tied to the tail of the first by a rope or halter. This plan worked admirably, and would have been a success to the end had not the led pony started at some Indian clothing in the trail, and jumped, and pulled the tail of the leader nearly out by the roots. The front horse wasn’t going to stand any such nonsense as that; he squealed and kicked and plunged in rage, sending his rider over his head like a rocket, and then, still attached to the other, something after the style of a Siamese twin, charged through the column of scouts, scattering them in every direction. But this paroxysm of hilarity was soon over, and the correspondent subsided into his normal condition of deep-settled melancholy. He left us when we reached the Yellowstone, and I have never blamed him.
One of the facts brought out in the telegrams received by General Crook was that eight warriors, who had left the hostiles and surrendered at Red Cloud Agency, had reported that the main body of the hostiles would turn south. Lieutenant E. B. Robertson, Ninth Infantry, found a soapstone dish on the line of march, which could have come from the Mandans only, either by trade or theft; or, possibly, some band of Mandans, in search of buffalo, had penetrated thus far into the interior and had lost it.
In a telegram sent in to Sheridan about this date Crook said: “On the 25th or 26th, all the hostile Indians left the foot of the Big Horn Mountains, and moved back in the direction of the Rosebud Mountains, so that it is now impracticable to communicate with General Terry by courier. I am fearful that they will scatter, as there is not sufficient grass in that country to support them in such large numbers. If we meet the Indians in too strong force, I will swing around and unite with General Terry. Your management of the agencies will be a great benefit to us here.”
We had one busy day; saddles had to be exchanged or repaired,horses shod, ammunition issued, provisions packed, and all stores in excess turned into the wagon-train. The allowance of baggage was cut down to the minimum: every officer and soldier was to have the clothes on his back and no more; one overcoat, one blanket (to be carried by the cavalry over the saddle blanket), and one India-rubber poncho or one-half of a shelter tent, was the allowance carried by General Crook, the members of his staff, and all the officers, soldiers, and packers. We had rations for fifteen days—half of bacon, sugar, coffee, and salt, and full of hard bread; none of vinegar, soap, pepper, etc. There were two hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition to the man; one hundred to be carried on the person, and the rest on the pack-mules, of which there were just three hundred and ninety-nine. The pack-train was in five divisions, each led by a bell-mare; no tents allowed, excepting one for the use of the surgeons attending to critical cases.“Travois”poles were hauled along to drag wounded in case it should become necessary.
Our mess, which now numbered eleven, was, beyond dispute, the most remarkable mess the army has ever known. I challenge comparison with it from anything that has ever been seen among our officers outside of Libby or Andersonville prisons. General Crook did not allow us either knife, fork, spoon, or plate. Each member carried strapped to the pommel of his saddle a tin cup, from which at balmy morn or dewy eve, as the poets would say, he might quaff the decoction called coffee. Our kitchen utensils comprised one frying-pan, one carving-knife, one carving-fork, one large coffee pot, one large tin platter, one large and two small tin ladles or spoons, and the necessary bags for carrying sugar, coffee, bacon, and hard bread. I forgot to say that we had also one sheet-iron mess pan. General Crook had determined to make his column as mobile as a column of Indians, and he knew that example was more potent than a score of general orders.
We marched down “Prairie Dog” Creek, to its junction with Tongue River, passing through a village of prairie dogs, which village was six miles long. The mental alienation of our unfortunate friend—Captain Cain—became more and more apparent. By preference, I rode with Colonel Stanton’s scouts; they called themselves the “Montana Volunteers,” but why they did so I never could understand, unless it was that every other State andTerritory had repudiated them and set a price upon their heads. There was a rumor widely circulated in camp to the effect that one or two of these scouts had never been indicted for murder; it was generally suspected that Stanton himself was at the bottom of this, in his anxiety to secure a better name for his corps. There were very few of them who couldn’t claim the shelter of the jails of Cheyenne, Denver, and Omaha by merely presenting themselves, and confessing certain circumstances known to the police and detectives of those thriving boroughs. Many a night Joe Wasson, Strahorn, and I sat upon our saddles, to be sure that we should have them with us at sunrise. One of the most important of these volunteers was “Ute John,” a member of the tribe of the same name, who claimed to have been thoroughly civilized and Christianized, because he had once, for six months, been “dlivin’ team fo’ Mo’mon” in Salt Lake. “Ute John” was credited by most people with having murdered his own grandmother and drunk her blood, but, in my opinion, the reports to his detriment were somewhat exaggerated, and he was harmless except when sober, which wasn’t often, provided whiskey was handy. “John’s” proudest boast was that he was a “Klischun,” and he assured me that he had been three times baptized in one year by the “Mo’mon,” who had made him “heap wash,” and gave him “heap biled shirt,” by which we understood that he had been baptized and clad in the garments of righteousness, which he sorely needed. “Ute John” had one peculiarity: he would never speak to any one but Crook himself in regard to the issues of the campaign. “Hello, Cluke,” he would say, “how you gittin’ on? Where you tink dem Clazy Hoss en Settin’ Bull is now, Cluke?”
We had a difficult time marching down the Tongue, which had to be forded thirteen times in one day, the foot-soldiers disdaining the aid which the cavalry was ordered to extend by carrying across all who so desired. The country was found to be one gloomy desolation. We crossed the Rosebud Mountains and descended into the Rosebud Creek, where trails were found as broad and distinct as wagon-roads; the grass was picked clean, and the valley, of which I wrote so enthusiastically in the spring, was now a desert. We discovered the trap which “Crazy Horse” had set for us at the Rosebud fight on the 17th of June, and confidence in Crook was increased tenfold by the knowledgethat he had outwitted the enemy on that occasion. The Sioux and Cheyennes had encamped in seven circles, covering four miles in length of the valley. The trail was from ten to twelve days old, and, in the opinion of Frank and the other guides, had been made by from ten to twenty thousand ponies.
The hills bordering the Rosebud were vertical bluffs presenting beautiful alternations of color in their stratification; there were bands of red, pink, cream, black, and purple; the different tints blending by easy gradations into a general effect pleasing to the eye. There were quantities of lignite which would be of incalculable benefit to the white settlers who might in the future flock into this region. In riding along with our Indian scouts we learned much of the secret societies among the aboriginal tribes: the “Brave Night Hearts,” the “Owl Feathers,” and the “Wolves and Foxes.” These control the tribe, fight its battles, and determine its policy. Initiation into some one of them is essential to the young warrior’s advancement. The cañon of the Rosebud would seem to have been the burying-ground of the Western Dakotas; there were dozens of graves affixed to the branches of the trees, some of them of great age, and all raided by our ruthless Shoshones and Utes, who with their lances tumbled the bones to the ground and ransacked the coverings for mementos of value, sometimes getting fine bows, at others, nickel-plated revolvers. There was one which the Shoshones were afraid to touch, and which they said was full of bad “medicine;” but “Ute John,” fortified, no doubt, by the grace of his numerous Mormon baptisms, was not restrained by vain fears, and tumbled it to the ground, letting loose sixteen field mice which in some way had made their home in those sepulchral cerements.
Captain “Jack Crawford, the Poet Scout,” rode into camp on the 8th of August attended by a few companions. The weather became rainy, and the trail muddy and heavy. August 11th our scouts sent in the information that a line of Indians was coming up the valley, and our men advanced as skirmishers. Soon word was received that behind the supposed enemy could be seen the white canvas coders of a long column of wagons, and we then knew that we were about to meet Terry’s command. Our cavalry were ordered to halt and unsaddle to await the approach of the infantry. The Indian scouts were directed to proceed to thefront and determine exactly who the strangers were. They decked themselves in all the barbaric splendors of which they were capable: war-bonnets streamed to the ground; lances and rifles gleamed in the sun; ponies and riders, daubed with mud, pranced out to meet our friends, as we were assured they must be.
When our Indians raised their yells and chants, the scouts at the head of the other column took fright and ran in upon the solid masses of horsemen following the main trail. These immediately deployed into line of skirmishers, behind which we saw, or thought we saw, several pieces of artillery. “Buffalo Bill,” who was riding at the head of our column, waved his hat, and, putting spurs to his horse, galloped up alongside of Major Reno, of the Seventh Cavalry, who was leading Terry’s advance. When the news passed down from man to man, cheers arose from the two columns; as fast as the cheers of Terry’s advance guard reached the ears of our men, they responded with heart and soul. General Crook sent Lieutenant Schuyler to extend a welcome to General Terry, and proffer to him and his officers such hospitalities as we could furnish.
Schuyler returned, leading to the tree under which Crook was seated a band of officers at whose head rode Terry himself. The meeting between the two commanders was most cordial, as was that between the subalterns, many of whom had served together during the war and in other places. We made every exertion to receive our guests with the best in our possession: messengers were despatched down to the pack-trains to borrow every knife, fork, spoon, and dish available, and they returned with about thirty of each and two great coffee-pots, which were soon humming on the fire filled to the brim with an exhilarating decoction. Phillips, the cook, was assisted on this occasion by a man whose experience had been garnered among the Nez Percés and Flat-Heads, certainly not among Caucasians, although I must admit that he worked hard and did the best he knew how. A long strip of canvas was stretched upon the ground and covered with the tin cups and cutlery. Terry and his staff seated themselves and partook of what we had to offer, which was not very much, but was given with full heart.
Terry was one of the most charming and affable of men; his general air was that of the scholar no less than the soldier. His figure was tall and commanding; his face gentle, yet decided;his kindly blue eyes indicated good-nature; his complexion, bronzed by wind and rain and sun to the color of an old sheepskin-covered Bible, gave him a decidedly martial appearance. He won his way to all hearts by unaffectedness and affability. In his manner he was the antithesis of Crook. Crook was also simple and unaffected, but he was reticent and taciturn to the extreme of sadness, brusque to the verge of severity. In Terry’s face I thought I could sometimes detect traces of indecision; but in Crook’s countenance there was not the slightest intimation of anything but stubbornness, rugged resolution, and bull-dog tenacity. Of the two men Terry alone had any pretensions to scholarship, and his attainments were so great that the whole army felt proud of him; but Nature had been bountiful to Crook, and as he stood there under a tree talking with Terry, I thought that within that cleanly outlined skull, beneath that brow, and behind those clear-glancing blue-gray eyes, there was concealed more military sagacity, more quickness of comprehension and celerity to meet unexpected emergencies, than in any of our then living Generals excepting Grant, of whose good qualities he constantly reminded me, or Sheridan, whose early friend and companion he had been at West Point and in Oregon.
That evening, General Crook and his staff dined with General Terry, meeting with the latter Captains Smith and Gibbs, Lieutenants Maguire, Walker, Thompson, Nowlan, and Michaelis. From this point Terry sent his wagon-train down to the Yellowstone, and ordered the Fifth Infantry to embark on one of the steamboats and patrol the river, looking out for trails of hostiles crossing or attempting to cross to the north. All the sick and disabled were sent down with this column; we lost Cain and Bache and a number of enlisted men, broken down by the exposure of the campaign. The heat in the middle of the day had become excessive, and General Terry informed me that on the 8th it registered in his own tent 117° Fahrenheit, and on the 7th, 110°. Much of this increase of temperature was, no doubt, due to the heat from the pasturage destroyed by the hostiles, which comprehended an area extending from the Yellowstone to the Big Horn Mountains, from the Big Horn River on the west to the Little Missouri on the east.
In two things the column from the Yellowstone was sadly deficient: in cavalry and in rapid transportation. The SeventhCavalry was in need of reorganization, half of its original numbers having been killed or wounded in the affair of the Big Horn; the pack-train, made up, as it necessarily was, of animals taken out of the traces of the heavy wagons, was the saddest burlesque in that direction which it has ever been my lot to witness—for this no blame was ascribable to Terry, who was doing the best he could with the means allowed him from Washington. The Second Cavalry was in good shape, and so was Gibbon’s column of infantry, which seemed ready to go wherever ordered and go at once. Crook’s pack-train was a marvel of system; it maintained a discipline much severer than had been attained by any company in either column; under the indefatigable supervision of Tom Moore, Dave Mears, and others, who had had an experience of more than a quarter of a century, our mules moved with a precision to which the worn-out comparison of “clockwork” is justly adapted. The mules had been continuously in training since the preceding December, making long marches, carrying heavy burdens in the worst sort of weather. Consequently, they were hardened to the hardness and toughness of wrought-iron and whalebone. They followed the bell, and were as well trained as any soldiers in the command. Behind them one could see the other pack-train, a string of mules, of all sizes, each led by one soldier and beaten and driven along by another—attendants often rivalling animals in dumbness—and it was hard to repress a smile except by the reflection that this was the motive power of a column supposed to be in pursuit of savages. On the first day’s march, after meeting Crook, Terry’s pack-train dropped, lost, or damaged more stores than Crook’s command had spoiled from the same causes from the time when the campaign commenced.
When the united columns struck the Tongue, the trail of the hostile bands had split into three: one going up stream, one down, and one across country east towards the Powder. Crook ordered his scouts to examine in front and on flanks, and in the mean time the commands unsaddled and went into camp; the scouts did not return until almost dark, when they brought information that the main trail had kept on in the direction of the Powder. Colonel Royall’s command found the skeletons of two mining prospectors in the bushes near the Tongue; appearances indicated that the Sioux had captured these men and roasted them alive. On this march we saw a large “medicine rock,” inwhose crevices the Sioux had deposited various propitiatory offerings, and upon whose face had been graven figures and symbols of fanciful and grotesque outline.
In following the main trail of the enemy it seemed as if we were on a newly cut country road; when we reached a projecting hill of marl and sandy clay, the lodge poles had cut into the soft soil to such an extent that we could almost believe that we were on the line of work just completed, with pick, spade, and shovel, by a gang of trained laborers. Trout were becoming scarce in this part of the Tongue, but a very delicious variety of the “cat” was caught and added to the mess to the great delight of the epicure members. The rain had increased in volume, and rarely an hour now passed without its shower. One night, while sitting by what was supposed to be our camp-fire, watching the sputtering flames struggling to maintain life against the down-pouring waters, I heard my name called, and as soon as I could drag my sodden, sticky clothes through a puddle of mud I found myself face to face with Sam Hamilton, of the Second, whom I had not seen since we were boys together in the volunteer service in the Stone River campaign, in 1862. It was a very melancholy meeting, each soaked through to the skin, seated alongside of smoking embers, and chilled to the marrow, talking of old times, of comrades dead, and wondering who next was to be called.
The Indian trail led down the Tongue for some miles before it turned east up the “Four Horn” Creek, where we followed it, being rewarded with an abundance of very fine grama, called by our scouts the “Two-Day” grass, because a bellyful of it would enable a tired horse to travel for two days more. An Indian puppy was found abandoned by its red-skinned owners, and was adopted by one of the infantry soldiers, who carried it on his shoulders. Part of this time we were in “Bad Lands,” infested with rattlesnakes in great numbers, which our Shoshones lanced with great glee. It was very interesting to watch them, and see how they avoided being bitten: three or four would ride up within easy distance of the doomed reptile and distract its attention by threatening passes with their lances; the crotalus would throw itself into a coil in half a second, and stay there, tongue darting in and out, head revolving from side to side, leaden eyes scintillating with the glare of the diamond, ready to strike venomous fangs into any one coming within reach. TheShoshone boys would drive their lances into the coil from three or four different directions, exclaiming at the same time: “Gott tammee you! Gott tammee you!” which was all the English they had been able to master.
We struck the Powder and followed it down to its junction with the Yellowstone, where we were to replenish our supplies from Terry’s steamboats. The Powder contrasted unfavorably with the Tongue: the latter was about one hundred and fifty feet wide, four feet deep, swift current, and cold water, and, except in the Bad Lands near its mouth, clear and sweet, and not perceptibly alkaline. The Powder was the opposite in every feature: its water, turbid and milky; current, slow; bottom, muddy and frequently miry, whereas that of the Tongue was nearly always hard-pan. The water of the Powder was alkaline and not always palatable, and the fords rarely good and often dangerous. The Yellowstone was a delightful stream: its width was not over two hundred and fifty yards, but its depth was considerable, its bed constant, and channel undeviating. The current flows with so little noise that an unsuspecting person would have no idea of its velocity; but steamboats could rarely stem it, and bathers venturing far from the banks were swept off their feet. The depth was never less than five feet in the main channel during time of high water. The banks were thickly grassed and covered with cottonwood and other timber in heavy copses.
Crook’s forces encamped on the western bank of the Powder; the supplies we had looked for were not on hand in sufficient quantity, and Lieutenant Bubb, our commissary, reported that he was afraid that we were going to be grievously disappointed in that regard. General Terry sent steamers up and down the Yellowstone to gather up all stores from depots, and also from points where they had been unloaded on account of shallow water. Crook’s men spent a great deal of the time bathing in the Yellowstone and washing their clothes, following the example set by the General himself: each man waded out into the channel clad in his undergarments and allowed the current to soak them thoroughly, and he would then stand in the sunlight until dried. Each had but the suit on his back, and this was all the cleaning or change they had for sixty days. The Utes and Shoshones became very discontented, and “Washakie” had several interviews with Crook, in which he plainly toldthe latter that his people would not remain longer with Terry’s column, because of the inefficiency of its transportation; with such mules nothing could be done; the infantry was all right, and so was part of the cavalry, but the pack-train was no good, and was simply impeding progress. The steamer “Far West,” Captain Grant Marsh, was sent up the river to the mouth of the Rosebud to bring down all the supplies to be found in the depot at that point, but returned with very little for so many mouths as we now had—about four thousand all told.
A great many fine agates were found in the Yellowstone near the Powder, and so common were they that nearly all provided themselves with souvenirs from that source. Colonel Burt was sent up the river to try to induce the Crows to send some of their warriors to take the places soon to be vacated by the Shoshones, as Crook foresaw that without native scouts the expedition might as well be abandoned. Burt was unsuccessful in his mission, and all our scouts left with the exception of the much-disparaged “Ute John,” who expressed his determination to stick it out to the last.
Mackinaw boats, manned by adventurous traders from Montana, had descended the river loaded with all kinds of knick-knacks for the use of the soldiers; these were retailed at enormous prices, but eagerly bought by men who had no other means of getting rid of their money. Besides the “Mackinaw,” which was made of rough timber framework, the waters of the Yellowstone and the Missouri were crossed by the “bull-boat,” which bore a close resemblance to the basket “coracle” of the west coast of Ireland, and, like it, was a framework of willow or some kind of basketry covered with the skins of the buffalo, or other bovine; in these frail hemispherical barks squaws would paddle themselves and baggage and pappooses across the swift-running current and gain the opposite bank in safety.
At the mouth of Powder there was a sutler’s store packed from morning till night with a crowd of expectant purchasers. To go in there was all one’s life was worth: one moment a soldier stepped on one of your feet, and the next some two-hundred-pound packer favored the other side in the same manner. A disagreeable sand-storm drove Colonel Stanton and myself to the shelter of the lunette constructed by Lieutenant William P. Clarke, Second Cavalry, who had descended the Yellowstonefrom Fort Ellis with a piece of artillery. Here we lunched with Clarke and Colonel Carr, of the Fifth Cavalry, stormbound like ourselves. The Ree scouts attached to Terry’s column favored our Utes and Shoshones with a “pony” dance after nightfall. The performers were almost naked, and, with their ponies, bedaubed and painted from head to foot. They advanced in a regular line, which was not broken for any purpose, going over every obstruction, even trampling down the rude structures of cottonwood branches erected by the Utes and Shoshones for protection from the elements. As soon as they had come within a few yards of the camp-fires of the Shoshones, the latter, with the Utes, joined the Rees in their chant and also jumped upon their ponies, which staggered for some minutes around camp under their double and even treble load, until, thank Heaven! the affair ended. Although I had what might be called a “deadhead” view of the dance, I did not enjoy it at all, and was not sorry when the Rees said that they would have to go back to their own camp.
There was not very much to eat down on the Yellowstone, and one could count on his fingers the “square” meals in that lovely valley. Conspicuous among them should be the feast of hot bacon and beans, to which Tom Moore invited Hartsuff, Stanton, Bubb, Wasson, Strahorn, Schuyler, and myself long after the camp was wrapped in slumber. The beans were cooked to a turn; there was plenty of hard-tack and coffee, with a small quantity of sugar; each knew the other, there was much to talk about, and in the light and genial warmth of the fire, with stomachs filled, we passed a delightful time until morning had almost dawned.
On the 20th of August, our Utes and Shoshones left, and word was also received from the Crows that they were afraid to let any of the young men leave their own country while such numbers of the Sioux and Cheyennes were in hostility, and so close to them. General Crook had a flag prepared for his headquarters after the style prevailing in Terry’s column, which served the excellent purpose of directing orderlies and officers promptly to the battalion or other command to which a message was to be delivered. This standard, for the construction of which we were indebted to the industry of Randall and Schuyler, was rather primitive in design and general make-up. It was aguidon, of two horizontal bands, white above, red beneath, with a blue star in the centre. The white was from a crash towel contributed by Colonel Stanton, the red came from a flannel undershirt belonging to Schuyler, and an old blouse which Randall was about to throw away furnished the star. Tom Moore had a“travois”pole shaved down for a staff, the ferrule and tip of which were made of metallic cartridges.
Supper had just been finished that day when we were exposed to as miserable a storm as ever drowned the spirit and enthusiasm out of any set of mortals. It didn’t come on suddenly, but with slowness and deliberation almost premeditated. For more than an hour fleecy clouds skirmished in the sky, wheeling and circling lazily until re-enforced from the west, and then moving boldly forward and hanging over camp in dense, black, sullen masses. All bestirred themselves to make such preparations as they could to withstand the siege: willow twigs and grasses were cut in quantities, and to these were added sage-brush and grease-wood. Wood was stacked up for the fire, so that at the earliest moment possible after the cessation of the storm it could be rekindled and afford some chance of warming ourselves and drying clothing. With the twigs and sage-brush we built up beds in the best-drained nooks and corners, placed our saddles and bridles at our heads, and carbines and cartridges at our sides to keep them dry. As a last protection, a couple of lariats were tied together, one end of the rope fastened to a picket pin in the ground, the other to the limb of the withered Cottonwood alongside of which headquarters had been established; over this were stretched a couple of blankets from the pack-train, and we had done our best. There was nothing else to do but grin and bear all that was to happen. The storm-king had waited patiently for the completion of these meagre preparations, and now, with a loud, ear-piercing crash of thunder, and a hissing flash of white lightning, gave the signal to the elements to begin the attack. We cowered helplessly under the shock, sensible that human strength was insignificant in comparison with the power of the blast which roared and yelled and shrieked about us.
For hours the rain poured down—either as heavy drops which stung by their momentum; as little pellets which drizzled through canvas and blankets, chilling our blood as they soaked into clothing; or alternating with hail which in great, globular crystals,crackled against the miserable shelter, whitened the ground, and froze the air. The reverberation of the thunder was incessant; one shock had barely begun to echo around the sky, when peal after peal, each stronger, louder, and more terrifying than its predecessors, blotted from our minds the sounds and flashes which had awakened our first astonishment, and made us forget in new frights our old alarms. The lightning darted from zenith to horizon, appeared in all quarters, played around all objects. In its glare the smallest bushes, stones, and shrubs stood out as plainly as under the noon sun of a bright summer’s day; when it subsided, our spirits were oppressed with the weight of darkness. No stringing together of words can complete a description of what we saw, suffered, and feared during that awful tempest. The stoutest hearts, the oldest soldiers, quailed.
The last growl of thunder was heard, the last flash of lightning seen, between two and three in the morning, and then we turned out from our wretched, water-soaked couches, and gathering around the lakelet in whose midst our fire had been, tried by the smoke of sodden chips and twigs to warm our benumbed limbs and dry our saturated clothing. Not until the dawn of day did we feel the circulation quicken and our spirits revive. A comparison of opinion developed a coincidence of sentiment. Everybody agreed that while perhaps this was not the worst storm he had ever known, the circumstances of our complete exposure to its force had made it about the very worst any of the command had ever experienced. There was scarcely a day from that on for nearly a month that my note-books do not contain references to storms, some of them fully as severe as the one described in the above lines; the exposure began to tell upon officers, men, and animals, and I think the statement will be accepted without challenge that no one who followed Crook during those terrible days was benefited in any way.
I made out a rough list of the officers present on this expedition, and another of those who have died, been killed, died of wounds, or been retired for one reason or another, and I find that the first list had one hundred and sixteen names and the second sixty-nine; so it can be seen that of the officers who were considered to be physically able to enter upon that campaign in the early summer months of 1876, over fifty per cent, are not now answering to roll-call on the active list, after about sixteenyears’ interval. The bad weather had the good effects of bringing to the surface all the dormant geniality of Colonel Evans’s disposition: he was the Mark Tapley of the column; the harder it rained, the louder he laughed; the bright shafts of lightning revealed nothing more inspiriting than our worthy friend’s smile of serene contentment. In Colonel Evans’s opinion, which he was not at all diffident about expressing, the time had come for the young men of the command to see what real service was like. “There had been entirely too much of this playing soldier, sir; what had been done by soldiers who were soldiers, sir, before the war, sir, had never been properly appreciated, sir, and never would be until these young men got a small taste of it themselves, sir.”
General Merritt’s division of the command was provided with a signal apparatus, and the flags were of great use in conveying messages to camp from the outlying pickets, and thus saving the wear and tear of horse-flesh; but in this dark and rainy season the system was a failure, and many thought that it would have been well to introduce a code of signals by whistles, but it was not possible to do so under our circumstances.
The “Far West” had made several trips to the depot at the mouth of the Rosebud, and had brought down a supply of shoes, which was almost sufficient for our infantry battalions, but there was little of anything else, and Bubb, our commissary, was unable to obtain more than eleven pounds of tobacco for the entire force.
We were now laboring under the serious disadvantage of having no native scouts, and were obliged to start out without further delay, if anything was to be done with the trail of the Sioux, which had been left several marches up the Powder, before we started down to the Yellowstone to get supplies. Crook had sent out Frank Gruard, “Big Bat,” and a small party to learn all that could be learned of that trail, which was found striking east and south. Terry’s scouts had gone to the north of the Yellowstone to hunt for the signs of bands passing across the Missouri. The report came in that they had found some in that direction, and the two columns separated, Terry going in one direction, and Crook keeping his course and following the large trail, which he shrewdly surmised would lead over towards the Black Hills, where the savages would find easy victims in the settlers pouring into the newly discovered mining claims.Captain Cain, Captain Burrowes, and Lieutenant Eaton, the latter broken down with chills and fever as well a pistol wound in the hand, were ordered on board the transports, taking with them twenty-one men of the command pronounced unfit for field service. One of these enlisted men—Eshleman, Ninth Infantry—was violently insane. Our mess gained a new member, Lieutenant William P. Clarke, Second Cavalry, ordered to report to General Crook for duty as aide-de-camp. He was a brave, bright, companionable gentleman, always ready in an emergency, and had he lived would, beyond a doubt, have attained, with opportunity, a distinguished place among the soldiers of our country. General Terry very kindly lent General Crook five of his own small band of Ree scouts; they proved of great service while with our column.