CHAPTER XXI.
CROOK AND TERRY SEPARATE—THE PICTURESQUE LITTLE MISSOURI—THE “HORSE MEAT MARCH” FROM THE HEAD OF THE HEART RIVER TO DEADWOOD—ON THE SIOUX TRAIL—MAKING COFFEE UNDER DIFFICULTIES—SLAUGHTERING WORN-OUT CAVALRY HORSES FOR FOOD—THE FIGHT AT SLIM BUTTES—LIEUTENANT VON LEUTTEWITZ LOSES A LEG—THE DYING CHIEF, “AMERICAN HORSE,” SURRENDERS—RELICS OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE—“CRAZY HORSE” ATTACKS OUR LINES—SUNSHINE AND RATIONS.
On the 23d of August we were beset by another violent storm, worse, if such a thing were possible, than any yet experienced. All through the night we lay in from three to four inches of water, unable to shelter ourselves against the strong wind and pelting Niagara which inundated the country. Sleep was out of the question, and when morning came it threw its cold gray light upon a brigade of drowned rats, of disgusted and grumbling soldiers. It was with difficulty we got the fires to burn, but a cup of strong coffee was ready in time, and with the drinking of that the spirits revived, and with a hearty good-will all hands pulled out from the valley of the Yellowstone, and plodded slowly through the plastic mud which lay ankle deep along the course of the Powder. There was a new acquisition to the column—a fine Newfoundland dog, which attached itself to the command, or was reported to have done so, although I have always had doubts upon that subject. Soldiers will steal dogs, and “Jack,” as he was known to our men, may have been an unwilling captive, for all I know to the contrary.
There was no trouble in finding the big Sioux trail, or in following it east to O’Fallon’s Creek, finding plenty of water and getting out of “the burnt district.” The grass was as nutritive as it ought to have been in Wyoming and Montana, and as it would have been had not the red men destroyed it all. Anothertrying storm soaked through clothing, and dampened the courage of our bravest. The rain which set in about four in the afternoon, just as we were making camp, suddenly changed to hail of large size, which, with the sudden fall in temperature, chilled and frightened our herds of horses and mules, and had the good effect of making them cower together in fear, instead of stampeding, as we had about concluded they would surely do. Lightning played about us with remorseless vividness, and one great bolt crashed within camp limits, setting fire to the grass on a post near the sentinel.
The 29th and 30th of August we remained in bivouac at a spring on the summit of the ridge overlooking the head waters of Cabin Creek, while our blankets and clothing were drying; and the scouts reconnoitred to the front and flanks to learn what was possible regarding the trail, which seemed much fresher, as if made only a few days previously. Hunting detachments were sent out on each flank to bring in deer, antelope and jack rabbits for the sick, of whom we now had a number suffering from neuralgia, rheumatism, malaria, and diarrhœa. Lieutenant Huntington was scarcely able to sit his horse, and Lieutenant Bache had to be hauled in a“travois.”
The night of August 31, 1876, was so bitter cold that a number of General Crook’s staff, commissioned and enlisted, had a narrow escape from freezing to death. In our saturated condition, with clothing scant even for summer, we were in no condition to face a sudden “norther,” which blew vigorously upon all who were encamped upon the crests of the buttes but neglected those in the shelter of the ravines. The scenery in this neighborhood was entrancing. Mr. Finerty accompanied me to the summit of the bluffs, and we looked out upon a panorama grander than any that artist would be bold enough to trace upon canvas. In the western sky the waning glories of the setting sun were most dazzling. Scarlet and gold, pink and yellow—in lovely contrast or graceful harmony—were scattered with reckless prodigality from the tops of the distant hills to near the zenith, where neutral tints of gray and pale blue marked the dividing line between the gorgeousness of the vanishing sunlight and the more placid splendors of the advancing night, with its millions of stars. The broken contour of the ground, with its deeply furrowed ravines, or its rank upon rank of plateaux and ridges, resembledan angry sea whose waves had been suddenly stilled at the climax of a storm. The juiciest grama covered the pink hillocks from base to crest, but scarcely a leaf could be seen; it was pasturage, pure and simple—the paradise of the grazier and the cowboy. We gave free rein to our fancy in anticipating the changes ten years would effect in this noble region, then the hunting ground of the savage and the lair of the wild beast.
We crossed the country to the east, going down Beaver Creek and finding indications that the hostiles knew that we were on their trail, which now showed signs of splitting; we picked up four ponies, abandoned by the enemy, and Frank Gruard, who brought them in, was sure that we were pressing closely upon the rear of the Indians, and might soon expect a brush with them. A soldier was bitten in the thumb by a rattlesnake; Surgeon Patzki cauterized the wound, administered ammonia, and finished up with two stiff drinks of whiskey from the slender allowance of hospital supplies. The man was saved. The trail kept trending to the south, running down towards the “Sentinel” Buttes, where our advance had a running fight with the enemy’s rear-guard, killing one or two ponies.
The next point of note was the Little Missouri River, into the valley of which we descended on the 4th of September, at the place where General Stanley had entered it with the expedition to survey the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1873. This is called by the Indians the “Thick Timber” Creek, a name which it abundantly deserves in comparison with the other streams flowing within one hundred miles on either side of it. We emerged from the narrow defile of Andrus’ Creek, into a broad park, walled in by precipitous banks of marl, clay, and sandstone, ranging from one hundred to three hundred feet high. Down the central line of this park grew a thick grove of cottonwood, willow, and box-elder, marking the channel of the stream, which at this spot was some thirty yards wide, two to three feet deep, carrying a good volume of cold, sweet water, rather muddy in appearance. The bottom is of clay, and in places miry, and the approaches are not any too good. A small amount of work was requisite to cut them down to proper shape, but there was such a quantity of timber and brush at hand that corduroy and causeway were soon under construction. The fertility of the soil was attested by the luxuriance of the grass, the thickness oftimber, the dense growth of grape-vines, wild plums, and bull berries, already ripening under the warm rays of the sun and the constant showers. Where the picket lines of Terry’s cavalry had been stretched during the spring, and the horses had scattered grains of corn from their feed, a volunteer crop had sprung up, whose stalks were from ten to twelve feet high, each bearing from two to four large ears still in the milk.
Our scouts and the advance-guard of the cavalry rushed into this unexpected treasure-trove, cutting and slashing the stalks, and bearing them off in large armfuls for the feeding of our own animals. The half-ripened plums and bull berries were thoroughly boiled, and, although without sugar, proved pleasant to the taste and a valuable anti-scorbutic. Trial was also made of the common opuntia, or Indian fig, the cactus which is most frequent in that section of Dakota; the spines were burnt off, the thick skin peeled, and the inner meaty pulp fried; it is claimed as an excellent remedy for scurvy, but the taste is far from agreeable, being slimy and mucilaginous.
On the 5th of September we made a long march of thirty miles in drizzling rain and sticky mud, pushing up Davis Creek, and benefiting by the bridges which Terry’s men had erected in many places where the stream had to be crossed; we reached the head of the Heart River, and passed between the Rosebud Butte on the right and the Camel’s Hump on the left. Here we again ran upon the enemy’s rear-guard, which seemed disposed to make a fight until our advance got up and pushed them into the bluffs, when they retreated in safety, under cover of the heavy fog which had spread over the hills all day. Of the fifteen days’ rations with which we had started out from the Yellowstone, only two and a half days’ rations were left. When Randall and Stanton returned from the pursuit of the enemy, the Rees, who were still with us, gave it as their opinion that the command could easily reach Fort Abraham Lincoln in four days, or five; Glendive, on the Yellowstone, in our rear, could not be much farther in a direct line; but here was a hot trail leading due south towards the Black Hills, which were filling with an unknown number of people, all of whom would be exposed to slaughter and destruction. There is one thing certain about a hot trail: you’ll find Indians on it if you go far enough, and you’ll find them nowhere else. Comfort and ease beckoned fromFort Lincoln, but duty pointed to Deadwood, and straight to Deadwood Crook went. His two and a half days’ rations were made to last five; the Rees were sent in with despatches as fast as their ponies could travel to Lincoln, to inform Sheridan of our whereabouts, and to ask that supplies be hurried out from Camp Robinson to meet us. With anything like decent luck we ought to be able to force a fight and capture a village with its supplies of meat. Still, it was plain that all the heroism of our natures was to be tried in the fire before that march should be ended; Bubb concealed seventy pounds of beans to be used for the sick and wounded in emergencies; Surgeon Hartsuff carried in his saddle-bags two cans of jelly and half a pound of cornstarch, with the same object; the other medical officers had each a little something of the same sort—tea, chocolate, etc. This was a decidedly gloomy outlook for a column of two thousand men in an unknown region in tempestuous weather. We had had no change of clothing for more than a month since leaving Goose Creek, and we were soaked through with rain and mud, and suffering greatly in health and spirits in consequence.
We left the Heart River in the cold, bleak mists of a cheerless morning, which magnified into grim spectres the half-dozen cottonwoods nearest camp, which were to be imprinted upon memory with all the more vividness, because until we had struck the Belle Fourche, the type of the streams encountered in our march was the same—timberless, muddy, and sluggish. The ground was covered with grass, alternating with great patches of cactus. Villages of prairie dogs extended for leagues, and the angry squeak of the population was heard on all sides. “Jack,” the noble Newfoundland dog which had been with us since we started out from the mouth of Powder, was now crazy for some fresh meat, and would charge after the prairie dogs with such impetuosity that when he attempted to seize his victim, and the loosely packed soil around the burrow had given way beneath their united weight, he would go head over heels, describing a complete somersault, much to his own astonishment and our amusement. After turning the horses out to graze in the evening, it generally happened that camp would be visited by half a dozen jack rabbits, driven out of their burrows by fear of the horses’ hoofs. The soldiers derived great enjoyment every time one was started, and as poor pussy darted from bush to bush, doubled andtwisted, bounded boldly through a line of her tormentors, or cowered trembling under some sage-brush, the pursuers, armed with nose-bags, lariats, and halters, would advance from all sides, and keep up the chase until the wretched victim was fairly run to death. There would be enough shouting, yelling, and screeching to account for the slaughter of a thousand buffaloes. We learned to judge of the results of the chase in the inverse ratio to the noise: when an especially deafening outcry was heard, the verdict would be rendered at once that an unusually pigmy rabbit had been run to cover, and that the men who had the least to do with the capture had most to do with the tumult.
The country close to the head of Heart River was strewn with banded agate, much of it very beautiful. We made our first camp thirty-five miles south of Heart River by the side of two large pools of brackish water, so full of “alkali” that neither men nor horses cared to touch it. There wasn’t a stick of timber in sight as big around as one’s little finger; we tried to make coffee by digging a hole in the ground upon which we set a tin cup, and then each one in the mess by turns fed the flames with wisps of such dry grass as could be found and twisted into a petty fagot. We succeeded in making the coffee, but the water in boiling threw up so much saline and sedimentary matter that the appearance was decidedly repulsive. To the North Fork of the Grand River was another thirty-five miles, made, like the march of the preceding day, in the pelting rain which had lasted all night. The country was beautifully grassed, and we saw several patches of wild onions, which we dug up and saved to boil with the horse-meat which was now appearing as our food; General Crook found half a dozen rose-bushes, which he had guarded by a sentinel for the use of the sick; Lieutenant Bubb had four or five cracker-boxes broken up and distributed to the command for fuel; it is astonishing what results can be effected with a handful of fire-wood if people will only half try. The half and third ration of hard-tack was issued to each and every officer in the headquarters mess just the same as it was issued to enlisted men; the coffee was prepared with a quarter ration, and even that had failed. Although there could not be a lovelier pasturage than that through which we were marching, yet our animals, too, began to play out, because they were carrying exhausted and half-starved men who could not sit up in the saddle, and couldn’t so frequentlydismount on coming to steep, slippery descents where it would have been good policy to “favor” their faithful steeds.
Lieutenant Bubb was now ordered forward to the first settlement he could find in the Black Hills—Deadwood or any other this side—and there to buy all the supplies in sight; he took fifty picked mules and packers under Tom Moore; the escort of one hundred and fifty picked men from the Third Cavalry, mounted on our strongest animals, was under command of Colonel Mills, who had with him Lieutenants Chase, Crawford, Schwatka, Von Leuttewitz, and Doctor Stevens. Two of the correspondents, Messrs. Strahorn and Davenport, went along, leaving the main column before it had reached the camp of the night. We marched comparatively little the next day, not more than twenty-four miles, going into camp in a sheltered ravine on the South Fork of the Grand River, within sight of the Slim Buttes, and in a position which supplied all the fuel needed, the first seen for more than ninety miles, but so soaked with water that all we could do with it was to raise a smoke. It rained without intermission all day and all night, but we had found wood, and our spirits rose with the discovery; then, our scouts had killed five antelope, whose flesh was distributed among the command, the sick in hospital being served first. Plums and bull berries almost ripe were appearing in plenty, and gathered in quantity to be boiled and eaten with horse-meat. Men were getting pretty well exhausted, and each mile of the march saw squads of stragglers, something which we had not seen before; the rain was so unintermittent, the mud so sticky, the air so damp, that with the absence of food and warmth, men lost courage, and not a few of the officers did the same thing. Horses had to be abandoned in great numbers, but the best of them were killed to supply meat, which with the bull berries and water had become almost our only certain food, eked out by an occasional slice of antelope or jack rabbit.
The 8th of September was General Crook’s birthday; fifteen or sixteen of the officers had come to congratulate him at his fire under the cover of a projecting rock, which kept off a considerable part of the down-pour of rain; it was rather a forlorn birthday party,—nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no chance to dry clothes, and nothing for which to be thankful except that we had found wood, which was a great blessing. Sage-brush, once sodespised, was now welcomed whenever it made its appearance, as it began to do from this on; it at least supplied the means of making a small fire, and provided the one thing which under all circumstances the soldier should have, if possible. Exhausted by fatiguing marches through mud and rain, without sufficient or proper food, our soldiers reached bivouac each night, to find only a rivulet of doubtful water to quench their thirst, and then went supperless to bed.
In all the hardships, in all the privations of the humblest soldier, General Crook freely shared; with precisely the same allowance of food and bedding, he made the weary campaign of the summer of 1876; criticism was silenced in the presence of a general who would reduce himself to the level of the most lowly, and even though there might be dissatisfaction and grumbling, as there always will be in so large a command, which is certain to have a percentage of the men who want to wear uniform without being soldiers, the reflective and observing saw that their sufferings were fully shared by their leader and honored him accordingly. There was no mess in the whole column which suffered as much as did that of which General Crook was a member; for four days before any other mess had been so reduced we had been eating the meat of played-out cavalry horses, and at the date of which I am now writing all the food within reach was horse-meat, water, and enough bacon to grease the pan in which the former was to be fried. Crackers, sugar, and coffee had been exhausted, and we had no addition to our bill of fare beyond an occasional plateful of wild onions gathered alongside of the trail. An antelope had been killed by one of the orderlies attached to the headquarters, and the remains of this were hoarded with care for emergencies.
On the morning of September 9th, as we were passing a little watercourse which we were unable to determine correctly, some insisting that it was the South Fork of the Grand, others calling it the North Fork of Owl Creek—the maps were not accurate, and it was hard to say anything about that region—couriers from Mills’s advance-guard came galloping to General Crook with the request that he hurry on to the aid of Mills, who had surprised and attacked an Indian village of uncertain size, estimated at twenty-five lodges, and had driven the enemy into the bluffs near him, but was able to hold his own until Crook could reach him.The couriers added that Lieutenant Von Leuttewitz had been severely wounded in the knee, one soldier had been killed, and five wounded; the loss of the enemy could not then be ascertained. Crook gave orders for the cavalry to push on with all possible haste, the infantry to follow more at leisure; but these directions did not suit the dismounted battalions at all, and they forgot all about hunger, cold, wet, and fatigue, and tramped through the mud to such good purpose that the first infantry company was overlapping the last one of the mounted troops when the cavalry entered the ravine in which Mills was awaiting them. Then we learned that the previous evening Frank Gruard had discovered a band of ponies grazing on a hill-side and reported to Mills, who, thinking that the village was inconsiderable, thought himself strong enough to attack and carry it unaided.
He waited until the first flush of daylight, and then left his pack-train in the shelter of a convenient ravine, under command of Bubb, while he moved forward with the greater part of his command on foot in two columns, under Crawford and Von Leuttewitz respectively, intending with them to surround the lodges, while Schwatka, with a party of twenty-five mounted men, was to charge through, firing into the “tepis.” The enemy’s herd stampeded through the village, awakening the inmates, and discovering the presence of our forces. Schwatka made his charge in good style, and the other detachments moved in as directed, but the escape of nearly all the bucks and squaws could not be prevented, some taking shelter in high bluffs surrounding the village, and others running into a ravine where they still were at the moment of our arrival—elevenA.M.
The village numbered more than Mills had imagined: we counted thirty-seven lodges, not including four upon which the covers had not yet been stretched. Several of the lodges were of unusual dimensions: one, probably that occupied by the guard called by Gruard and “Big Bat” the “Brave Night Hearts,” contained thirty saddles and equipments. Great quantities of furs—almost exclusively untanned buffalo robes, antelope, and other skins—wrapped up in bundles, and several tons of meat, dried after the Indian manner, formed the main part of the spoil, although mention should be made of the almost innumerable tin dishes, blankets, cooking utensils, boxes of caps, ammunition, saddles, horse equipments, and other supplies that wouldprove a serious loss to the savages rather than a gain to ourselves. Two hundred ponies—many of them fine animals—not quite one-half the herd, fell into our hands. A cavalry guidon, nearly new and torn from the staff; an army officer’s overcoat; a non-commissioned officer’s blouse; cavalry saddles of the McClellan model, covered with black leather after the latest pattern of the ordnance bureau; a glove marked with the name of Captain Keogh; a letter addressed to a private soldier in the Seventh Cavalry; horses branded U. S. and 7 C.—one was brandedD 7——Cwere proofs that the members of this band had taken part, and a conspicuous part, in the Custer massacre. General Crook ordered all the meat and other supplies to be taken from the village and piled up so that it could be issued or packed upon our mules. Next, he ordered the wounded to receive every care; this had already been done, as far as he was able, by Mills, who had pitched one of the captured lodges in a cool, shady spot, near the stream, and safe from the annoyance of random shots which the scattered Sioux still fired from the distant hills.
A still more important task was that of dislodging a small party who had run into a gulch fifty or sixty yards outside of the line of the lodges, from which they made it dangerous for any of Mills’s command to enter the village, and had already killed several of the pack-mules whose carcasses lay among the lodges. Frank Gruard and “Big Bat” were sent forward, crawling on hands and feet from shelter to shelter, to get within easy talking distance of the defiant prisoners in the gulch, who refused to accede to any terms and determined to fight it out, confident that “Crazy Horse,” to whom they had despatched runners, would soon hasten to their assistance. Lieutenant William P. Clarke was directed to take charge of a picked body of volunteers and get the Indians out of that gulch; the firing attracted a large crowd of idlers and others, who pressed so closely upon Clarke and his party as to seriously embarrass their work. Our men were so crowded that it was a wonder to me that the shots of the beleaguered did not kill them by the half-dozen; but the truth was, the Sioux did not care to waste a shot: they were busy digging rifle-pits in the soft marly soil of the ravine, which was a perfect ditch, not more than ten to fifteen feet wide, and fifteen to twenty deep, with a growth of box elder that aided in concealing their doings fromour eyes. But, whenever a particularly good chance for doing mischief presented itself, the rifle of the Sioux belched out its fatal missile. Private Kennedy, Company “C,” Fifth Cavalry, had all the calf of one leg carried away by a bullet, and at the same time another soldier was shot through the ankle-joint.
The ground upon which Captain Munson and I were standing suddenly gave way, and down we both went, landing in the midst of a pile of squaws and children. The warriors twice tried to get aim at us, but were prevented by the crooked shape of the ravine; on the other side, “Big Bat” and another one of Stanton’s men, named Cary, had already secured position, and were doing their best to induce the Indians to surrender, crying out to them “Washte-helo” (Very good) and other expressions in Dakota, the meaning of which I did not clearly understand. The women and pappooses, covered with dirt and blood, were screaming in an agony of terror; behind and above us were the oaths and yells of the surging soldiers; back of the women lay what seemed, as near as we could make out, to be four dead bodies still weltering in their gore. Altogether, the scene, as far as it went, was decidedly infernal; there was very little to add to it, but that little was added by one of the scouts named Buffalo White, who incautiously exposed himself to find out what all the hubbub in the ravine meant. Hardly had he lifted his body before a rifle-ball pierced him through and through. He cried out in a way that was heart-rending: “O, Lord! O, Lord! They’ve got me now, boys!” and dropped limp and lifeless to the base of the hillock upon which he had perched himself, thirty feet into the ravine below at its deepest point.
Encouraged by “Big Bat,” the squaws and children ventured to come up to us, and were conducted down through the winds and turns of the ravine to where General Crook was; he approached and addressed them pleasantly; the women divined at once who he was, and clung to his hand and clothing, their own skirts clutched by the babies, who all the while wailed most dismally. When somewhat calmed down they said that their village belonged to the Spotted Tail Agency and was commanded by “Roman Nose” and “American Horse,” or “Iron Shield,” the latter still in the ravine. General Crook bade one of them go back and say that he would treat kindly all who surrendered.The squaw complied and returned to the edge of the ravine, there holding a parley, as the result bringing back a young warrior about twenty years old. To him General Crook repeated the assurances already given, and this time the young man went back, accompanied by “Big Bat,” whose arrival unarmed convinced “American Horse” that General Crook’s promises were not written in sand.
“American Horse” emerged from his rifle-pit, supported on one side by the young warrior, on the other by “Big Bat,” and slowly drew near the group of officers standing alongside of General Crook; the reception accorded the captives was gentle, and their wounded ones were made the recipients of necessary attentions. Out of this little nook twenty-eight Sioux—little and great, dead and alive—were taken; the corpses were suffered to lie where they fell. “American Horse” had been shot through the intestines, and was biting hard upon a piece of wood to suppress any sign of pain or emotion; the children made themselves at home around our fires, and shared with the soldiers the food now ready for the evening meal. We had a considerable quantity of dried buffalo-meat, a few buffalo-tongues, some pony-meat, and parfleche panniers filled with fresh and dried buffalo berries, wild cherries, wild plums, and other fruit—and, best find of all, a trifle of salt. One of the Sioux food preparations—dried meat, pounded up with wild plums and wild cherries—called “Toro,” was very palatable and nutritious; it is cousin-german to our own plum pudding.
These Indians had certificates of good conduct dated at Spotted Tail Agency and issued by Agent Howard. General Crook ordered that every vestige of the village and the property in it which could not be kept as serviceable to ourselves should be destroyed. The whole command ate ravenously that evening and the next morning, and we still had enough meat to load down twenty-eight of our strongest pack-mules. This will show that the official reports that fifty-five hundred pounds had been captured were entirely too conservative. I was sorry to see that the value of the wild fruit was not appreciated by some of the company commanders, who encouraged their men very little in eating it and thus lost the benefit of its anti-scorbutic qualities. All our wounded were cheerful and doing well, including Von Leuttewitz, whose leg had been amputated at the thigh.
The barking of stray puppies, the whining of children, the confused hum of the conversation going on among two thousand soldiers, officers, and packers confined within the narrow limits of the ravine, were augmented by the sharp crack of rifles and the whizzing of bullets, because “Crazy Horse,” prompt in answering the summons of his distressed kinsmen, was now on the ground, and had drawn his lines around our position, which he hoped to take by assault, not dreaming that the original assailants had been re-enforced so heavily. It was a very pretty fight, what there was of it, because one could take his seat almost anywhere and see all that was going on from one end of the field to the other. “Crazy Horse” moved his men up in fine style, but seemed to think better of the scheme after the cavalry gave him a volley from their carbines; the Sioux were not left in doubt long as to what they were to do, because the infantry battalions commanded by Burt and Daniel W. Burke got after them and raced them off the field, out of range.
One of our officers whose conduct impressed me very much was Lieutenant A. B. Bache, Fifth Cavalry: he was so swollen with inflammatory rheumatism that he had been hauled for days in a“travois”behind a mule; but, hearing the roll of rifles and carbines, he insisted upon being mounted upon a horse and strapped to the saddle, that he might go out upon the skirmish line. We never had a better soldier than he, but he did not survive the hardships of that campaign. The Sioux did not care to leave the battle-field without some token of prowess, and seeing a group of ten or twelve cavalry horses which had been abandoned during the day, and were allowed to follow along at their own pace, merely to be slaughtered by Bubb for meat when it should be needed, flattered themselves that they had a grand prize within reach; a party of bold young bucks, anxious to gain a trifle of renown, stripped themselves and their ponies, and made a dash for the broken-down cast-offs; the skirmishers, by some sort of tacit consent, refrained from firing a shot, and allowed the hostiles to get right into the “bunch” and see how hopelessly they had been fooled, and then when the Sioux started to spur and gallop back to their own lines the humming of bullets apprised them that our men were having the joke all to themselves.
Just as “Crazy Horse” hauled off his forces, two soldiers bare-footed,and in rags, walked down to our lines and entered camp; their horses had “played out” in the morning, and were in the group which the Sioux had wished to capture; the soldiers themselves had lain down to rest in a clump of rocks and fallen asleep to be awakened by the circus going on all around them; they kept well under cover, afraid as much of the projectiles of their friends as of the fire of the savages, but were not discovered, and now rejoined the command to be most warmly and sincerely congratulated upon their good fortune. It rained all night, but we did not care much, provided as we now were with plenty of food, plenty of fuel, and some extra bedding from the furs taken in the lodges. In the drizzling rain of that night the soul of “American Horse” took flight, accompanied to the Happy Hunting Grounds by the spirit of Private Kennedy.
After breakfast the next morning General Crook sent for the women and children, and told them that we were not making war upon such as they, and that all those who so desired were free to stay and rejoin their own people, but he cautioned them to say to all their friends that the American Government was determined to keep pegging away at all Indians in hostility until the last had been killed or made a prisoner, and that the red men would be following the dictates of prudence in surrendering unconditionally instead of remaining at war, and exposing their wives and children to accidents and dangers incidental to that condition. The young warrior, “Charging Bear,” declined to go with the squaws, but remained with Crook and enlisted as a scout, becoming a corporal, and rendering most efficient service in the campaign during the following winter which resulted so brilliantly.
“Crazy Horse” felt our lines again as we were moving off, but was held in check by Sumner, of the Fifth, who had one or two men slightly wounded, while five of the attacking party were seen to fall out of their saddles. The prisoners informed us that we were on the main trail of the hostiles, which, although now split, was all moving down to the south towards the agencies. Mills, Bubb, Schwatka, Chase, and fifty picked men of the Third Cavalry, with a train made up of all our strong mules under Tom Moore, with Frank Gruard as guide, were once more sent forward to try to reach Deadwood, learn all the news possible concerning the condition of the exposed mining hamlets nearthere, and obtain all the supplies in sight. Crook was getting very anxious to reach Deadwood before “Crazy Horse” could begin the work of devilment upon which he and his bands were bent, as the squaws admitted. Bubb bore a despatch to Sheridan, narrating the events of the trip since leaving Heart River.
Knowing that we were now practically marching among hostile Sioux, who were watching our every movement, and would be ready to attack at the first sign of lack of vigilance, Crook moved the column in such a manner that it could repel an attack within thirty seconds; that is to say, there was a strong advance-guard, a rear-guard equally strong, and lines of skirmishers moving along each flank, while the wounded were placed on“travois,”for the care of which Captain Andrews and his company of the Third Cavalry were especially detailed. One of the lodges was brought along from the village for the use of the sick and wounded, and afterwards given to Colonel Mills. The general character of the country between the Slim Buttes and the Belle Fourche remained much the same as that from the head of Heart River down, excepting that there was a small portion of timber, for which we were truly thankful. The captured ponies were butchered and issued as occasion required; the men becoming accustomed to the taste of the meat, which was far more juicy and tender than that of the broken-down old cavalry nags which we had been compelled to eat a few days earlier. The sight of an antelope, however, seemed to set everybody crazy, and when one was caught and killed squads of officers and men would fight for the smallest portion of flesh or entrails; I succeeded in getting one liver, which was carried in my nose-bag all day and broiled over the ashes at night, furnishing a very toothsome morsel for all the members of our mess.
While speaking upon the subject of horse-meat, let me tell one of the incidents vividly imprinted upon memory. Bubb’s butcher was one of the least poetical men ever met in my journey through life; all he cared for was to know just what animals were to be slaughtered, and presto! the bloody work was done, and a carcass gleamed in the evening air. Many and many a pony had he killed, although he let it be known to a couple of the officers whom he took into his confidence that he had been raised a gentleman, and had never before slaughtered anything but cows and pigs and sheep. One evening, he killed a marewhose daughter and granddaughter were standing by her side, the daughter nursing from the mother and the granddaughter from the daughter. On another occasion he was approached by one of Stanton’s scouts—I really have not preserved his name, but it was the dark Mexican who several weeks after killed, and was killed by, Carey, his best friend. After being paid off, they got into some kind of a drunken row in a gambling saloon, in Deadwood, and shot each other to death. Well, this man drew near the butcher and began making complaint that the latter, without sufficient necessity, had cut up a pony which the guide was anxious to save for his own use. The discussion lasted for several minutes and terminated without satisfaction to the scout, who then turned to mount his pony and ride away; no pony was to be seen; he certainly had ridden one down, but it had vanished into vapor; he could see the saddle and bridle upon the ground, but of the animal not a trace; while he had been arguing with the butcher, the assistants of the latter had quickly unsaddled the mount and slaughtered and divided it, and the quarters were then on their way over to one of the battalions. It was a piece of rapid work worthy of the best skill of Chicago, but it confirmed one man in a tendency to profanity and cynicism.
Our maps led us into a very serious error: from them it appeared that the South Fork of Owl Creek was not more than twenty or twenty-five miles from the Belle Fourche, towards which we were trudging so wearily, the rain still beating down without pity. The foot soldiers, eager to make the march which was to end their troubles and lead them to food and rest, were ready for the trail by three on the morning of the 12th of September, and all of them strung out before four. As soon as it was light enough we saw that a portion of the trail had set off towards the east, and Major Upham was sent with one hundred and fifty men from the Fifth Cavalry to find out all about it. It proved to be moving in the direction of Bear Lodge Butte, and the intention evidently was to annoy the settlements in the Hills; one of Upham’s men went off without permission, after antelope, and was killed and cut to pieces by the prowling bands watching the column. The clouds lifted once or twice during the march of the 12th and disclosed the outline of Bear Butte, a great satisfaction to us, as it proved that we were going in the right direction for Deadwood. The country was evenly divided between cactus andgrass, in patches of from one to six miles in breadth; the mud was so tenacious that every time foot or hoof touched it there would be a great mass of “gumbo” adhering to render progress distressingly tiresome and slow. Our clothing was in rags of the flimsiest kind, shoes in patches, and the rations captured at the village exhausted. Mules and horses were black to the houghs with the accretions of a passage through slimy ooze which pulled off their shoes.
Crook’s orders to the men in advance were to keep a sharp lookout for anything in the shape of timber, as the column was to halt and bivouac the moment we struck anything that would do to make a fire. On we trudged, mile succeeding mile, and still no sign of the fringe of cottonwood, willow, and elder which we had been taught to believe represented the line of the stream of which we were in search. The rain poured down, clothes dripped with moisture, horses reeled and staggered, and were one by one left to follow or remain as they pleased, while the men, all of whom were dismounted and leading their animals, fell out singly, in couples, in squads, in solid platoons. It was half-past ten o’clock that never-to-be-forgotten night, when the last foot soldier had completed his forty miles, and many did not pretend to do it before the next morning, but lay outside, in rear of the column, on the muddy ground, as insensible to danger and pain as if dead drunk.
We did not reach the Belle Fourche that night, but a tributary called Willow Creek which answered every purpose, as it had an abundance of box-elder, willow, ash, and plum bushes, which before many minutes crackled and sprang skyward in a joyous flame; we piled high the dry wood wherever found, thinking to stimulate comrades who were weary with marching and sleeping without the cheerful consolation of a sparkling camp-fire. There wasn’t a thing to eat in the whole camp but pony-meat, slices of which were sizzling upon the coals, but the poor fellows who did not get in killed their played-out horses and ate the meat raw. If any of my readers imagines that the march from the head of Heart River down to the Belle Fourche was a picnic, let him examine the roster of the command and tell off the scores and scores of men, then hearty and rugged, who now fill premature graves or drag out an existence with constitutions wrecked and enfeebled by such privations and vicissitudes.There may still be people who give credence to the old superstitions about the relative endurance of horses of different colors, and believe that white is the weakest color. For their information I wish to say that the company of cavalry which had the smallest loss of horses during this exhausting march was the white horse troop of the Fifth, commanded by Captain Robert H. Montgomery; I cannot place my fingers upon the note referring to it, but I will state from recollection that not one of them was left behind.
On the 13th we remained in camp until noon to let men have a rest and give stragglers a chance to catch up with the command. Our cook made a most tempting ragout out of some pony-meat, a fragment of antelope liver, a couple of handfuls of wild onions, and the shin-bone of an ox killed by the Sioux or Cheyennes, and which was to us almost as interesting as the fragments of weeds to the sailors of Columbus. This had been simmering all night, and when morning came there was enough of it to supply many of our comrades with a hot platterful. At noon we crossed to the Belle Fourche, six miles to the south, the dangerous approaches of Willow Creek being corduroyed and placed in good order by a party under Lieutenant Charles King, who had been assigned by General Merritt to the work.
The Belle Fourche appealed to our fancies as in every sense deserving of its flattering title: it was not less than one hundred feet wide, three deep, with a good flow of water, and a current of something like four miles an hour. The bottom was clay and sandstone drift, and even if the water was a trifle muddy, it tasted delicious after our late tribulations. Wells dug in the banks afforded even better quality for drinking or cooking. The dark clouds still hung threateningly overhead, but what of that? all eyes were strained in the direction of Deadwood, for word had come from Mills and Bubb that they had been successful, and that we were soon to catch a glimpse of the wagons laden with food for our starving command. A murmur rippled through camp; in a second it had swelled into a roar, and broken into a wild cry, half yell, half cheer. Down the hill-sides as fast as brawny men could drive them ran fifty head of beef cattle, and not more than a mile in the rear wagon sheets marked out the slower-moving train with the supplies of the commissariat.
As if to manifest sympathy with our feelings, the sun unveiledhimself, and for one good long hour shone down through scattering clouds—the first fair look we had had at his face for ten dreary days. Since our departure from Furey and the wagon-train, it had rained twenty-two days, most of the storms being of phenomenal severity, and it would need a very strong mind not to cherish the delusion that the elements were in league with the red men to preserve the hunting lands of their fathers from the grasp of the rapacious whites. When the supplies arrived the great aim of every one seemed to be to carry out the old command: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die.” The busy hum of cheerful conversation succeeded to the querulous discontent of the past week, and laughter raised the spirits of the most tired and despondent; we had won the race and saved the Black Hills with their thousands of unprotected citizens, four hundred of whom had been murdered since the summer began. The first preacher venturing out to Deadwood paid the penalty of his rashness with his life, and yielded his scalp to the Cheyennes. It was the most ordinary thing in the world to have it reported that one, or two, or three bodies more were to be found in such and such a gulch; they were buried by people in no desire to remain near the scene of horror, and as the Hills were filling up with restless spirits from all corners of the world, and no one knew his neighbor, it is doubtful if all the murdered ones were ever reported to the proper authorities. When the whites succeeded in killing an Indian, which happened at extremely rare intervals, Deadwood would go crazy with delight; the skull and scalp were paraded and sold at public auction to the highest bidder.