CHAPTER XXV.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE INDIAN AGENCIES—AGENT MACGILLICUDDY’S WONDERFUL WORK—CROOK’S REMAINING DAYS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE—THE BANNOCK, UTE, NEZ PERCÉ, AND CHEYENNE OUTBREAKS—THE KILLING OF MAJOR THORNBURGH AND CAPTAIN WEIR—MERRRITT’S FAMOUS MARCH AGAINST TIME—HOW THE DEAD CAME TO LIFE AND WALKED—THE CASE OF THE PONCAS—CROOK’S HUNTS AND EXPLORATIONS; NEARLY FROZEN TO DEATH IN A BLIZZARD—A NARROW ESCAPE FROM AN ANGRY SHE-BEAR—CATCHING NEBRASKA HORSE-THIEVES—“DOC” MIDDLETON’S GANG
After Doctor Irwin the Indians at Red Cloud had as agent Doctor V. T. MacGillicuddy, whose peculiar fitness for the onerous and underpaid responsibilities of the position brought him deserved recognition all over the western country, as one of the most competent representatives the Indian Bureau had ever sent beyond the Missouri. Two or three times I looked into affairs at his agency very closely, and was surprised both at the immense amount of supplies on hand—running above a million pounds of flour and other parts of the ration in proportion—and the perfect system with which they were distributed and accounted for. There were then eight thousand Indians of both sexes at the agency or on the reserve, and the basis of supplies was either Pierre, in Dakota, on the Missouri, or Sidney, Nebraska, on the Union Pacific; the former two hundred and the latter one hundred and twenty-five miles distant. MacGillicuddy was kept on the go all the time from morning till night, and managed to do the work of twenty men. His salary was the munificent sum of twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars per annum. I could not help saying to myself that this man was carrying upon his shoulders the weight of a force equal to one-third the United States Army; were he in the army, MacGillicuddywould have been a major-general, surrounded by a high-priced staff, dividing the work and relieving him of nearly all care; he would have had three aides-de-camp, too frequently his own relations, each getting from the Government a better salary than the agent of this great concourse of savages was receiving. MacGillicuddy was expected and required to keep his wards at peace, feed and clothe them in health, see that they received proper medical attendance while sick, encourage them in habits of industry, especially farming and cattle-raising, prepare all kinds of accounts for the information of his bureau, and in his moments of leisure instruct the aborigines in the Catechism and Testament. In this matter of Indian agents, as in all that pertains to Indian affairs, the great trouble is that the American people have so little common sense. Let the salaries paid to agents be raised to such a standard that the position will be an inducement for first-class men to consider, and there will not be so much trouble in getting an honest administration, if there should be coupled a good-conduct tenure, subject to the approval of some such organization as the Indian Rights Association. Civil Service Reform may well be introduced in the Indian service.
Of the other services rendered by General Crook while in command of the Department of the Platte there is no room to speak. Much of the highest importance and greatest interest happened under his administration, and it is needless to say that all which devolved upon him to do was done well, done quietly, done without flourish of trumpets, and without the outside world learning much about it. In the line of military operations, there was the trouble with the Cheyennes who broke out from the Indian Territory during the summer of 1878, and fought their way across three military departments to the Tongue River, where they surrendered to their old commanding officer, Lieutenant William P. Clarke, Second Cavalry. There was the nipping in the bud of the outbreak among the Shoshones and Bannocks, principally the latter, led by “Tindoy” and “Buffalo Horn,” both of whom were personally well known to Crook, who used his influence with them to such advantage that they remained at peace until the aggressions of the whites became too great and drove them out upon the war-path. These Indians did not, properly speaking, belong to General Crook’s department, but lived on the extreme northwestern corner of it in a chain of almost inaccessiblemountains in central Idaho. There was the Ute outbreak, dating back to inadequate rations and failure to keep pledges. The Utes were not of Crook’s department, but it was a battalion of the Third and Fifth Cavalry and Fourth Infantry, which moved out from Rawlins, Wyoming, under Major Thornburgh, Fourth Infantry, to save the agency and the lives of the employees; and, after poor Thornburgh had been sacrificed, it was Merritt’s column which made the wonderful march of one hundred and sixty miles in two and a half days to rescue the survivors in the “rat-hole” on Milk River.
Merritt had been preceded by a company of the Ninth Cavalry, commanded by Captain Dodge and Lieutenant M. B. Hughes, who had aided the beleaguered garrison to withstand the attack of the Utes till the arrival of re-enforcements. The concentration of cars and the clearing of obstacles from the track of the Union Pacific Railroad imposed a great tax upon the shoulders of its principal officials, Mr. S. H. Clark and Mr. T. L. Kimball, but they were found equal to every demand made upon them and turned over their track to General Williams and Colonel Ludington, the two staff officers charged with aiding the Merritt expedition. In the campaign, we lost Thornburgh and Weir, killed—two noble soldiers whom the country could ill afford to lose; and had a number of men killed and wounded and several officers badly hurt—Grimes, Paddock, Payne, and Cherry.
A very singular thing occurred during the time that the troops were besieged behind their feeble rifle-pits down in the hollow. One of the first to be struck was the blacksmith of the citizen train which had moved out from Fort Fred Steele under Lieutenant Butler D. Price, Fourth Infantry; his corpse, without wasting ceremony, was rolled up in place and made to do its part in supplying protection to the soldiers; a piece of canvas was thrown over it, and in the excitement and danger the dead man was forgotten. When Merritt’s column arrived on the ground, the trumpeter alongside of him was ordered to sound “Officers’ Call,” upon hearing which the invested troops sprang upon the earthworks and gave cheer after cheer. It may have been the noise—it may have been something else—but at any rate there was a movement at one end of the rifle-pits, and slowly and feebly from under the overlying clay and canvas, thedead man arose, shook himself, put his hand wearily to his head, and asked: “My God, what’s the matter, boys?” Then he staggered about, many of the men afraid to touch him, or even go near him, and in a few moments was dead in good earnest. The explanation made by Doctor Grimes was that, in the first place, the man had been shot through the head at the intersection or junction of the jaws just under the brain; the shock had knocked him senseless, and the blood spurting from the ghastly wound had led the soldiers to conclude somewhat hastily that he was dead; the slip of canvas carelessly thrown over the body had preserved it from being suffocated by the earth scraped against it; the wound was so near the brain that it would have been impossible to avoid inflammation of the latter organ, and when this set in, the victim fell dead.
The case of the Poncas was, beyond question, the most important one occurring within General Crook’s jurisdiction after the pacification of the Sioux. I do not purpose entering into all its ramifications, which would be entirely too tedious for the reader, but it may be summed up in a nutshell. The Poncas were a small band of Siouan stock, closely affiliated to the Omahas, who lived at the mouth of the Niobrara, on the Missouri River. They had a reservation which, unluckily for them, was arable and consequently coveted by the white invader. From this they were bulldozed by officials of the Government and transported to the Indian Territory, where malaria and other disorders, complicated with homesickness, depleted their numbers, and made them all anxious to return to the old land. Application for permission to do this was refused, and thereupon a portion of the band tried the experiment of going at their own expense across country, walking every foot of the way, molesting nobody, and subsisting upon charity. Not a shot was fired at any one; not so much as a dog was stolen. The western country was at that time filled with white tramps by thousands, whose presence excited no comment; but the spectacle of nearly two hundred Indians going along peaceably back to their old habitat to seek work and earn their own bread, was too much for the equilibrium of the authorities in Washington. One of the Indians was carrying a sack tied by a string to his neck; it contained the bones of a beloved grandchild—not a very heinousoffence in itself, but having been committed by a man whose skin was wrinkled and red, and whose people had for generations been the consistent friends of the white race, it was tantamount to felony.
To make a long story short, some people in Omaha began talking about the peculiarities presented in this case of the Omahas, and wondering why they had been arrested by the military authorities. Lieutenant W. L. Carpenter, Ninth Infantry, had them under his charge at Fort Omaha, and gave them an excellent character for sobriety and good behavior of every kind. Public sympathy became aroused; meetings were held, one of the first, if not the first, being that in the Presbyterian Church, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Harsha and Rev. Mr. Sherrill, and it was determined to bring the matter before the United States court upon a writ of habeas corpus to ascertain by what right these people were restrained of their liberty. Competent lawyers were enlisted, and the case was taken up by the Hon. A. J. Poppleton and Hon. J. L. Webster, two of the most prominent members of the bar in Nebraska. Dr. George L. Miller, in theHerald, and Mr. Edward Rosewater, in theBee, and such citizens as the late Judge Savage, Bishop O’Connor, Rev. John Williams, and Bishop Clarkson brought much influence to bear; and by the time that Judge Dundy’s court had convened the attention of the people of the United States was to some extent converged upon the trial, which was simply to determine the momentous question whether or not an American Indian who had never been upon the war-path could sever his tribal relations and go to work for his own living. Judge Dundy’s decision was to the effect that he could; and the path of citizenship was opened for the Indian.
Mrs. “Bright Eyes” Tibbles, an Omaha Indian lady of excellent attainments and bright intellect, and her husband, Mr. J. H. Tibbles, editor of the OmahaRepublican, took up the cudgels, and travelled through the Eastern and Middle States, addressing large concourses in all the principal towns and cities, and awakening an intelligent and potent interest in the advancement of the native tribes which has not yet abated. President Hayes appointed a commission, to consist of General George Crook, General Nelson A. Miles, Messrs. Stickney and Walter Allen, and the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, to look into the general subjectof the condition and prospects of the Poncas; and as the result of this the members of the band who had returned to the mouth of the Niobrara were permitted to remain there unmolested.
To incorporate herein an account of the explorations and hunts upon which General Crook engaged while in command of the Department of the Platte, after the Indians had been reduced to submission, would be tantamount to a description of the topography of the country west of the Missouri up to and including the head-waters of the Columbia, and north and south from the Yellowstone Park to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, and would swell in volume until it would include a description of the methods of catching or killing every fish that swam in the streams, every bird that floated in the air, and every wild animal that made its lair or burrow within those limits. Ducks, geese, turkeys, sage hens, prairie chickens; pike, pickerel, catfish, trout, salmon-trout, and whitefish; elk, deer, moose, antelope, mountain sheep; bears, wolverines, badgers, coyotes, mountain wolves—all yielded tribute to his rod or rifle. He kept adding to his collection of stuffed birds and eggs until there was no man in the country who possessed a more intimate practical knowledge of the habits of the fauna and flora of the vast region beyond the Missouri. As he made these journeys on horse or mule back, there was no man who could pretend to compare with him in an acquaintance with the trails and topography of the country off from the lines of railroad, and only one—General Sherman—who could compare in a general knowledge of the area of the United States. Sherman, while General of the army, was a great traveller, constantly on the go, but nearly all of his trips were made by rail or in stage-coach, and but few by other methods.
In company with General Sheridan, General Sackett, and General Forsyth, General Crook travelled across the then unknown territory between the Wind River and the Big Horn to the Tongue River, then down to the Custer battle-field, and by steamer from the mouth of the Little Horn to the Yellowstone, and down the Missouri to Bismarck. In company with the Hon. Carl Schurz, then Secretary of the Interior, he explored all the Yellowstone Park, and viewed its wonders—the exquisite lake, the lofty precipices of the cañon, the placid flow of the beautiful river, and its sudden plunge over the falls into the depths below,the eruptions of the geysers, the immense mass of waters contained in the springs, the pits of boiling sulphur, the solid wall of forest of so many varieties of timber, the dainty flowers, the schools of trout, the shady nooks in the hill-sides resounding to the footfall of black-tail, elk, or bear, the lofty cones, snow-crusted, reflecting back the rays of the summer sun—all the beauties, oddities, and marvels which combine to make the National Park a fairyland to dwell forever in the dreams of those who have the good fortune to enter its precincts. With all the cañons, passes, peaks, and trails of the Wahsatch, Uintah, Medicine Bow, Laramie, and other ranges he was as familiar as with his alphabet.
He was not always so prudent as he should have been while out on these trips, and several times had very close calls for death. Once, while shooting wild geese on one of the little tributaries of the Platte, he was caught in a blizzard, and while trying to make his way back to his comrades, stepped into an air-hole, and would have been drowned had it not been for the heroic exertions of Mr. John Collins and the late Mr. A. E. Touzalin. He had more adventures than I can count, with bears of all kinds and with maddened, wounded stags. Once, while hunting in the range known as the Three Tetons, he stationed his party so as to cut off the retreat of a very large bear which had taken refuge in a tule thicket or swamp; the enraged animal rushed out on the side where Crook was, and made straight towards him, mouth wide open and eyes blazing fire; Crook allowed Bruin to come within ten feet, and then, without the quiver of a muscle or the tremor of a nerve, fired and lodged a rifle-ball in the back of the throat, not breaking out through the skull, but shattering its base and severing the spinal cord. It was a beautiful animal, and Crook was always justifiably proud of the rug.
For eight or nine years, Mr. Webb C. Hayes, of Cleveland, Ohio, hunted with Crook, and probably knows more of his encounters with ursine monsters than any living man, not excepting Tom Moore. Mr. Hayes became a renowned bear-hunter himself, and is well known in all the mountains close to the Three Tetons. In addition to being an excellent shot, he is a graceful runner; I remember seeing him make a half-mile dash down the side of a mountain with a bear cub at his heels, and the concurrence of opinion of all in camp was that the physicalculture of Cornell University was a great thing. General Crook became prominently identified with the Omaha Gun Club, which included in its membership such crack shots as the late Major T. T. Thornburgh (afterwards killed by the Utes), Messrs. Barriger, Collins, Coffman, Parmlee, Patrick, Petty, and others. In all their hunts General Crook participated, as well as in the fishing expeditions organized by such inveterate anglers as T. L. Kimball, Frank Moores and the late Judge Carter, of Wyoming, whose home at Fort Bridger offered every comfort to his friends that could be found in a great city.
Carter was a man of means and the most hospitable, generous instincts. He was never content unless his house was filled with guests, for whom nothing was too good, provided they humored his whimsical notion that a certain patent medicine, called “The Balm of Life,” was a panacea for every ill. Judge Carter had entered the far western country near Fort Bridger with the expedition sent out to Utah under General Albert Sydney Johnston, although I am not absolutely sure as to the exact time, and had remained and accumulated means, principally from the increase of his herds, which might truly have been styled the cattle upon a thousand hills. The last time I saw this grand-looking old patriarch was at a very substantial breakfast, served in his own princely style, where the venison, mountain mutton, and broiled trout would have evoked praise from Lucullus, but after which—much as the Egyptians introduced images of mummies at their banquets—Ludington, Bisbee, Stanton, McEldree, and I had to face the ordeal of being dosed with the “Balm of Life,” which came near being the Balm of Death for some of us.
In the great riots of 1877, and again in 1882, Crook’s energies were severely taxed for the protection of the Government property along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, but he performed the duty to the satisfaction of all classes. The handsome, stately, soldierly figure of the late General John H. King, Colonel of the Ninth Infantry, rises up in my memory in this connection. He rendered most valuable and efficient service during the periods in question. Similarly, in running down and scattering the robber bands of Doctor Middleton, and other horse-thieves in the Loup country, in northwestern Nebraska, the intelligent work performed by General Crook, Captain Munson,and Lieutenant Capron was well understood and gratefully recognized by all who were acquainted with it. Nebraska had reason to feel indebted for the destruction of one of the most desperate gangs, led by a leader of unusual nerve and intelligence—the celebrated “Doc.” Middleton, who was wounded and captured by Deputy United States Marshal Llewellyn.