UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class BUILDERS OF THE NATION OR From the Indian Trail to the Railroad National Edition Complete in Twelve Volumes v ^" 2 I MES VSAi I 1 A .1-. r\ eorge A STRAYED <tt*itrr* I row ,/// original fainting by A. A \\ au,f. NATIONAL EDITION COMPLETE IN TWELVE VOLUMES f e: =^r . M-, ,-af 8 ^ - ,, guildens/ l Nation THE SOLDIER ii By Brig. Gen l. George A. Forsyth U. S. A. (Retired) ILLUSTRATED - "= NEW TORK THEBg&MPTONSoCIETY W c- THE TVEBs-rv ; Copyright, 1900 By D. APPLETON & COMPANY Copyright, 1908 By THE BRAMPTON SOCIETY CONTENTS CHAPTER PACK IX. THE Sioux CAMPAIGN OF 1868 AND 1869 . . 199 X. A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE Sioux CAMPAIGN OF 1868 AND 1869 233 XL THE CLOSE OF THE Sioux CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69 AND THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PlEGANS . . 249 XII. ARIZONA AND THE APACHE 261 XIII. THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON .... 286 XIV. THE Sioux CAMPAIGN OF 1876 . . . .308 XV. THE CLOSE OF THE Sioux CAMPAIGN AND THE NEZ PERCES WONDERFUL FLIGHT . . . 830 XVI. THE ARMY OFFICER, THE PEOPLE, AND THE SOLDIER 363 INDEX . , 379 Soldier. II. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS OUSTER S LAST FIGHT FRONTISPIECE From the Original Painting by A. R. W&nd PAGE THE ATTACK ON BLACK KETTLE S CAMP . . .243 ARRIVAL OF TERRY S COLUMN ON THE OUSTER BATTLE FIELD 327 SURRENDER OF AMERICAN HORSE . 339 Soldier. II. THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. CHAPTER IX. THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868 AND 1869. So many criticisms have been passed on the army s Indian campaigns on the Western plains since the civil war by really good and philanthropic people, un fortunately with no adequate knowledge of the facts that brought it about, that it may be well to give my readers a few extracts from the official reports of two of our best-known generals to disabuse their minds of the idea that the army incited them, but before I do so I wish to quote for their benefit the opinion of these Indians by the late Colonel Richard I. Dodge, who was by far the ablest writer and best-informed man in re gard to their mode of life, habits, and character who has lived in recent times. He spent the best portion of his life on the great plains, frequently living among them, for he was a mighty hunter and loved wild life, and he made these people a painstaking study. He has written of their good and bad qualities without a shadow of partiality, and ever and always with a desire to do them justice, and he sums up tersely and accurately the reason why an Indian develops into what he actual ly becomes in the following words: "Eastern people, . . . misled by the traveller s tales of enthusiastic missionaries or the more inter- 199 200 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. cstod statements of [Indian] agents and professional humanitarians, and indulging in a philanthropy safe because distant and sincere because ignorant, are ready to believe all impossible good and nothing bad of the noble savage, . . . while the Western man who has lost his horses, had his house burned, or his wife vio lated or murdered finds a whole lifetime of hatred and revenge too little to devote to his side of the question. " The conception of Indian character is almost im possible to a man who has passed the greater portion of his life surrounded by the influences of a cultivated, refined, and moral society. . . . The truth is simply too shocking, and the revolted mind takes refuge in dis belief as the less painful horn of the dilemma. As a first step toward an understanding of his character we must get at his standpoint of morality. As a child he is not brought up. . . . From the dawn of intelligence his own will is his law. There is no right and no wrong to him. ... No dread of punishment restrains him from any act that boyish fun or fury may prompt. No lessons inculcating the beauty and sure reward of good ness or the hideousness and certain pnishment of vice are ever wasted on him. The men by whom he is sur rounded, and to whom he looks as models for his future life, are great and renowned just in proportion to their ferocity, to the scalps they have taken, or the thefts they have committed. His earliest boyish memory is probably a dance of rejoicing over the scalps of stran gers, all of whom he is taught to regard as enemies. The lessons of his mother awaken only a desire to take his place as soon as possible in fight and foray. The in struction of his father is only such as is calculated to fit him best to act a prominent part in the chase, in theft, and in murder. . . . Virtue, morality, generosity, honour, are words not only absolutely without signifi- THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 201 cance to him, but are not accurately translatable into any Indian language on the plains." * That people of this peculiar training should break treaties at will was only to be expected, especially when they deemed themselves the stronger party, as they certainly did after the abandonment by the Gov ernment of the posts of Forts Phil Kearny, Reno, and C. F. Smith at their imperative demand. The Indian accedes to a demand only from one consideration fear. Nothing else will move him; and the fact that we had given up these posts on their threat of war at once set tled the question in their minds of the strength of the relative forces. The condition of affairs on the border that grew out of this act upon the part of the Govern ment is perhaps best shown in the following extracts from the annual reports of Generals Sherman and Sheridan submitted to the Secretary of War in 1868: "REPORT OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN. " HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI, " ST. Louis, MISSOURI, November 1, 1868. " GENEKAL: The military division of the Missouri is still composed of the departments of Missouri, Platte, and Dakota, embracing substantially the country west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, in cluding New Mexico, Utah, and Montana. " These departments are commanded by Generals Sheridan, Augur, and Terry. " You will observe that while the country generally has been at peace, the people on the plains and the troops of my command have been constantly at war, en- * The Plains of the Great West, by Richard Irving Dodge. G. P. Putnam s Sons. Pages 255-257. 202 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. during all its dangers and hardships, with none of its honours or rewards. " It has always been most difficult to discover the exact truth concerning the cause of a rupture with any Indians. They never give notice beforehand of a war like intention, and the first notice comes after their rifles and lances have done much bloody work. All intercourse then necessarily ceases, and the original cause soon becomes buried in after events. The pres ent Indian war in General Sheridan s department is no exception, and, as near as I can gather it, the truth is about this: " Last year, in the several councils held at North Platte and Fort Laramie by the peace commission with fragmentary bands of Sioux, the Indians asserted that they were then, and had been always, anxious to live at peace with their white neighbours, provided we kept faith with them. They claimed that the building of the Powder Kiver road, and the establishment of mili tary posts along it, drove away the game from the only hunting grounds they had left after our occupation of Montana and Nebraska; that this road had been built in the face of their protest and in violation of some old treaty which guaranteed them that country forever. That road and the posts along it had been constructed in 1865 and 1866, for the benefit of the people of Mon tana, but had almost ceased to be of any practical use to them by reason of the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose terminus west of the Black Hills made it easier for the wagons to travel by an older and better road west of the mountains. " For this reason, and because the farther extension of this railroad, under rapid progress, would each year make the Powder River road less and less used, the com mission yielded to the earnest entreaty of the Sioux, THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 203 and recommended the abandonment for the time of this road. On the second day of last March, General Grant gave the necessary orders for breaking up the posts Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith; but it was well toward August before the stores and mate rial could all be hauled away. As we had reason to apprehend, some of the Sioux, attributing our action to fear, followed up our withdrawal by raids to the line of the Pacific road, and to the south of it into Colo rado. Others of them doubtless reached the camps of the Arapahoes on Beaver Creek and the Cheyenne camps on Pawnee Fork, near Fort Lamed, and told them what had occurred, and made them believe that by war, or threats of war, they too could compel us to abandon the Smoky Hill line, which passes through the very heart of the buffalo region, the best hunting grounds of America. 66 About this time viz., August 3d or 4th a party of Indians, composed of two hundred Cheyennes, four Arapahoes, and twenty Sioux, are known to have start ed from their camp on Pawnee Fork on a war expedi tion, nominally to fight the Pawnees. On the 10th they appeared on the Saline north of Fort Barker, where the settlers received them kindly; they were given food and coffee, but, pretending to be offended because it was in tin cups/ they threw it back in the faces of the women and began at once to break up furniture and set fire to the houses. They seized the women and ravished them, perpetrating atrocities which could only have been the result of premeditated crime. Here they killed two men. Thence they crossed over to the settlements on the Solomon, where they continued to destroy houses and property, to ravish all females, and killed thirteen men. Going on to the Republican, they killed two more men and committed other acts of similar brutal atrocity. As soon as intelligence of this could be car- 204 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. ricd to Fort Harker troops were sent in pursuit, who succeeded in driving them away, rescuing some captive children, and killing but few Indians, by reason of their fast ponies and familiarity with the country. " I recite these facts with some precision, because they are proved beyond dispute, and up to the very 1110- ment of their departure from Pawnee Fork no Indian alleges any but the kindest treatment on the part of the agents of the General Government, of our soldiers, or of the frontier people. " On the 4th of September Governor Hunt tele graphed me from Denver: Just returned. Fearful con dition of things here. Nine persons murdered by Indi ans yesterday within a radius of sixty miles/ etc. And on the 24th of September, Acting-Governor Hall again telegraphed from Denver: The Indians have again at tacked our settlements in strong force, obtaining pos session of the country to within twelve miles of Denver. They are more bold, fierce, and desperate in their as saults than ever before. It is impossible to drive them out and protect the families at the same time, for they are better armed, mounted, disciplined, and better offi cered than our men. Each hour brings intelligence of fresh barbarities, and more extensive robberies/ etc. " On the 4th of September Governor Crawford, of Kansas, telegraphed from Topeka: Have just received a despatch from Hays, stating that Indians attacked, captured, and burned a train at Pawnee Fork, killed, scalped, and burned sixteen men; also attacked another train at Cimarron crossing, which was defended until ammunition was exhausted, when the men abandoned the train, saving what stock they could. Similar at tacks are of almost daily occurrence. These things must cease. I can not disregard constant and persistent ap- THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 205 peals for help. I can not sit idly by and see our people butchered, but as a last resort will be obliged to call upon the State forces to take the field and end these outrages/ 4 4 "All this time General Sheridan in person was labouring with every soldier of his command to give all possible protection to the scattered people in that wide range of country from Kansas to Colorado and New Mexico. But the very necessity of guarding interests so widely scattered made it impossible to spare enough troops to go in search of the Indians in their remote camps. *** " This double process of peace within their reser vations and war without must soon bring this matter to a conclusion. " With great respect, your obedient servant, "W. T. SHERMAN, "Lieutenant General. " Brevet Major-General E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant General, Washington, D. C" " HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, " IN THE FIELD, FORT HAYS, September 36, 18G8. " GENERAL: In reply to your letter of September 17, 1868, asking for a report of the facts touching the be ginning of the present Indian troubles, I have the hon our to respectfully submit the following: "Early in the spring, after assuming command of the Department of the Missouri, I visited the line of military posts on the Arkansas. About Fort Dodge, Kansas, I found many Indians there encamped, em bracing Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahoes, and Chey- ennes. They asked me to have an interview with them, 206 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. which I declined, stating to them that I was simply visiting the military posts to learn their condition and that of the soldiers, and that I was not authorized to talk with them. " From all I could learn at Dodge there appeared to be outspoken dissatisfaction on the part of all these Indians to removing to the reservations assigned to them by the treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek of the previous fall. I learned from officers and others that all the tribes considered the treaty of no importance, save to get the annuities promised them in it, and that they did not intend to move to their reservations. " The manner of the Indians, so far as I saw, was insolent and overbearing, and so manifest as to cause me to take all the precautions in my power to protect railroad and other lines of travel in the district of the upper Arkansas. " The difficulty of maintaining peace for the sum mer was then so apparent, and my desire to maintain friendly relations so great, that I thought I would en gage three good men familiar with Indian language and well known in the tribes, so that any misunder standing or accidental circumstance might be explained at once and under my own immediate directions. In carrying out this intention I employed Mr. William Comstock, Mr. Grover, and Mr. Parr, giving to Corn- stock and Grover all Indians west of Wallace and on the head waters of Walnut and Pawnee Creeks, and to Mr. Parr all Indians on the Solomon and Saline, placing in charge of these scouts Lieutenant F. H. Beecher, Third Infantry, a very intelligent and trustworthy offi cer, with directions to communicate to me every week, or oftener, and to use every effort to maintain peace. Much good was accomplished by Beecher and his three men, who travelled constantly and kept me well posted on the location of the Indians and their movements. THE SIOtTX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 207 Lieutenant Beecher and these scouts were under my own especial orders. " Matters went on pretty well until the arrival of the Kiowas and Comanches at Fort Lamed, about the 4th of July, except occasionally trains would be stopped on the roads, and coffee, sugar, and food demanded and obtained before they were allowed to go on. Previous to their arrival the most threatening reports reached me of their intentions. " On the 3d or 4th of August a party of about two hundred Cheyennes, four Arapahoes, and twenty Siouxs, then visiting the Cheyennes, organized and left their camps on Pawnee Creek and proceeded first to the Saline Valley, north of Fort Harker. They were kindly received by two farmers living in the advanced settle ments, and given coffee, etc. After throwing the coffee in the faces of the women serving it to them, because it was given to them in tin cups, they then commenced the robbery of the houses, and violated the women until they were insensible from brutal treatment. This was on the 10th of August. They then crossed to the set tlements on the Solomon, approaching them on the 12th, where they were again kindly received and served with coffee; after which they commenced robbing the house, taking the stock, ravishing the women, and mur dering thirteen men. Two of the women outraged were also shot and badly wounded. A small party then crossed to the Republican and killed two persons there; but the main party returned to the Saline, carrying with them as captives two children named Bell. After arriv ing at the Saline they commenced attacking the set tlers, evidently with the intention of cleaning out the whole valley; but while Mr. Schermerhorn was defend ing his house, Colonel Benteen with his company of 208 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. the Seventh Cavalry, which had marched swiftly from Zarah, arrived, and, hearing the firing, went to the relief of the house which was being attacked, and ran the Indians about ten miles. Lieutenant Beecher, who was with his scouts on Walnut Creek, hearing there was trouble on the Solomon and Saline, but without know ing its nature, despatched Comstock and Grover to the camp of Turkey Leg, on the Solomon, to be ready to explain in case the white people were at fault. They were ordered out of Turkey Leg camp, and were fol lowed by a party of seven Indians, professing friend ship; and while conversing with them were both shot in the back Comstock killed instantly and Grover bad ly wounded; but by lying on the ground, making a de fence of Comstock s body, he kept the Indians off and made his escape in the darkness of the night. From this time out, and almost before information could be communicated by Indian runners, people were killed and scalped from the Cimarron River, south of the Arkansas, to the Republican, and from the settlements on the Solomon and Saline west to the Rocky Moun tains; stock run off, trains burned, and those accom panying them in some cases thrown into the flames and consumed. The most horrible barbarities were perpe trated on the dead bodies of these victims of savage ferocity. " There was no provocation on the part of the white people during the whole summer, although some of them had to abandon their ranches. Friendly issues were made at the military posts to the Indians visiting them, and large issues made by the Indian Department of rations and goods. " I respectfully append a list of casualties and dep redations reported to me from the 10th of August to THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- G9. 209 the 17th of September. This report does not cover all the murders or the amount of damage done. The total number murdered on this list is sixty-four. "I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, " P. H. SHERIDAN, "Major General, U. S. A. " Lieutenant-General W. T. SHERMAN, " Commanding Military Division of the Missouri, St. Louis, Mo. "A true copy: " J. SCHUYLER CROSBY, " Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, A. D. C., A. A. A. 0." The moment it became evident that war with the Indians could be no longer avoided, General Sheridan, who was then commanding the Department of the Mis souri, with his headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kan sas, at once took the field in person. I was at that time a major of the Ninth Regiment of United States cav alry and serving upon his staff as an acting inspector general, and, as a matter of course, I accompanied my chief to the field. He had an unusually able and com petent staff, and I felt that I could be easily spared and, under the circumstances, render more efficient service if placed directly in command of troops; still I could not see how I could be given a command, as I was junior to most of the field officers then serving in the department. However, I finally ventured to state my wishes to the general. He said that he would be glad to give me a command that was commensurate with my rank if he had the troops, but that as things were it was impossible to justly do so; still there was a way in which I might have an independent command 210 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. in case I was willing to waive rank. I gladly accepted his offer, and it resulted in the following order: "HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, " FORT HARKER, August 24, 1868. "Brevet Colonel George A. Forsyth, A. A. Inspector General, Department of the Missouri : " COLONEL: The general commanding directs that you, without delay, employ fifty first-class hardy fron tiersmen to be used as scouts against the hostile Indi ans, to be commanded by yourself, with Lieutenant Beecher, Third Infantry, as your subordinate. You can enter into such articles of agreement with these men as will compel obedience. " I am, sir, very respectfully, " Your obedient servant, " (Signed) J. SCHUYLER CROSBY, "A. D. C. and A. A. Adjutant General." As there was no legal authority to enlist scouts as a part of the regular army nor as volunteers, I was given authority to enrol my company as quartermaster s employees, agreeing to pay them a stipulated sum per day While so employed. They were, however, to mount themselves, but the Government was to allow them thirty cents a day for the use of their horses, and in case the horses were worn out or killed in service they were to receive full value for them. Arms, horse equip ments, and rations were furnished by the Government. The military organization was that of a troop of cav alry. Five days from the time I received the order I had enrolled the fifty men called for, and in compli ance with instruction contained in the following note we took the field: THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 211 " FORT HAYS, KANSAS, August 29, 1868. " Brevet Colonel Oeorge A. Forsyth, Commanding Detachment of Scouts : " I would suggest that you move across the head waters of Solomon (Kiver) to Beaver Creek, thence down that creek to Fort Wallace. On arrival at Wallace report to me by telegraph at this place. " Yours truly, " P. H. SHERIDAN, "Major General." Our equipment was simple: A blanket apiece, saddle and bridle, a lariat and picket pin, a canteen, a haver sack, butcher knife, tin plate, tin cup, a Spencer repeating rifle (carrying six shots in the magazine be sides the one in the barrel), a Colt s revolver (army size), and a hundred and forty rounds of rifle and thirty rounds of revolver ammunition per man this carried on the person. In addition, we had a pack train of four mules, carrying camp kettles and picks and shovels, in case it became necessary to dig for water, together with four thousand extra rounds of ammunition,, some medi cal supplies, and extra rations of salt and coffee. Each man, officers included, carried seven days cooked ra tions in his haversack. This troop of scouts was in many respects a most remarkable one. Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher, my subordinate, was a man of marked ability, a son of the Rev. Charles Beecher, and a nephew of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. He had a fine war record, and was lame for life from the effect of a bullet received at the battle of Gettysburg. Cool, quiet, self- possessed, and of undaunted bravery, he had in him all the elements of an officer and a gentleman. Dr. 212 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. J. IT. Mooers, my acting assistant surgeon, had been a major and surgeon in one of the New York volunteer regiments during the civil war. My acting post ser geant was William H.H.McCall, who had commanded a Pennsylvania regiment in front of Petersburg, Va., and was brevetted a brigadier general for his splendid han dling of his troops when General J. B. Gordon, of the Confederate army, attacked and carried Fort Stedman one spring morning in 1865 during the siege of Peters burg. My guide, Sharpe Grover, was one of the ablest plainsmen of his day, a man about forty years of age, and has already been mentioned in General Sheridan s report, quoted above. The soldiers as a class were wonderfully good men; many of them had been soldiers in either the regu lar, volunteer, or Confederate service, and their in dividual histories, drifting as they had to the fron tier after our civil war, must have been worth hear ing and recording. They were of many different occu pations, trades, and professions, and among them were farmers, drovers, teachers, lawyers, mechanics,, and mer chants, with, as I have said before, a large percentage of old soldiers, and with one or two exceptions they were accustomed to the use of firearms and good aver age marksmen,, some few of them being exceedingly good shots, although in those days rifle practice in or out of the army was not by any comparative degree equal to the proficiency since attained. Following out the line indicated in the instructions of the commanding general, I moved straight for the Saline River, crossed it and the south fork of the Solo mon River, and reached Beaver Creek at its junction with Short Nose Creek. Here there had evidently been THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OP 1868- 69. 213 a very large camp of Indians, and there were all the in dications of their haling held a great sun dance at this place, probably just before or after they had decided to go upon the war path. I scouted up this creek beyond timber line, but did not find any fresh trails, so I moved directly across country to Fort Wallace, arriving there on the night of the 5th of September. I found here a despatch from the Governor of the State of Kansas urging me to go to the protection of the exposed settlers near Bison Basin. I should have done so had not word reached me at daylight the next morning from the town of Sheridan, then located at the end of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, thirteen miles distant, that a freight er s train had been attacked by Indians near there on the preceding evening and two teamsters killed, al though the Indians had been driven off by the other teamsters, who, fortunately, were well armed. Leaving two of my men sick in hospital at Fort Wal lace, I moved immediately to the scene of the attack. It had evidently been made by a war party, probably not more than twenty strong. We followed the trail until nightfall, camped on it, and resumed the march at day light. By nine o clock it had disappeared. The In dians had scattered, with, in all probability, an agree ment to meet at a given point many miles distant. After a brief consultation with Lieutenant Beecher, my chief scout Grover, and McCall, I decided to circle until we could pick up the trail somewhere and follow it to its junction with the main body of Indians to which it belonged. Circling out and steadily seeking for the trail, with a general trend toward Short Nose Creek, in which direction I expected to find the Indians, on the fifth day out frtfm Fort Wallace we reached the north bank of 15 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. the Republican River. As one of my scouts urged his horse to water through the willow copse on its bank he stumbled upon a recently abandoned wicki-up a temporary shelter made by the Indians interlacing the overhanging boughs of bushes and covering the top with leaves and grass. Two dismounted Indians had occupied it, probably within the last twenty-four hours. We took up their trail at once, and soon ran upon a very recently abandoned camp of three mounted Indi ans, and, following their trail, it led us to a trail made by a war party of at least twenty mounted Indians. We followed this to the forks of the Republican River. It soon crossed to the north side of the stream, and smaller trails from both north and south constantly entered it, until at length it became almost a beaten road along which it was plainly evident several large Indian vil lages had recently gone with all their belongings in the shape of ponies loaded with lodge poles, which, drag ging along on the ground, had worn deep ruts in the soil, together with droves of horses and ponies and pack mules, some of them partially shod, with indications of many dogs in the column, which was strong confirma tion that the Indians were moving their families to a permanent camp well out of harm s way. About this time some of my men grew apprehensive, and a sort of committee came to me and entered a pro test upon our further advance into the Indian country. I told them that we were out to find and fight Indians, and that I was taking all the risks that they were; that some of these Indians upon whose trail we were now moving were part of the same band that had harried the border along the Solomon River and massacred the ranchmen and their families. It was expected that we THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 215 would hunt these people down, and furthermore it was, in my opinion, less dangerous to go on now and attack them than it would be to turn back. At any rate, I meant to fight them, and I did not believe that they could annihilate us even if we were not strong enough to whip them. The men quietly fell back, and as, fortu nately, there were many old soldiers in the command, nothing more was said regarding the matter. Up to this time we had not seen an Indian, al though I was well satisfied that they were watching us. Each hour that we advanced the trail grew hotter, and it soon became evident that the villages were not far distant. We were about out of rations, although we had plenty of salt and coffee, but large game had not been seen within twenty-four hours, good evidence that it had been lately hunted away. At about four o clock or a little later on the afternoon of September 16th I decided to go into camp on the south bank of the Re publican River at a point where the grazing was fairly good. We were in a little swale or valley about two miles long and of nearly the same width. On our side (the south side of the stream) it sloped down to the water s edge, and lying out about midway in the bed of the stream, say sixty yards away from the bank, was a small island, perhaps sixty or seventy yards in length and from fifteen to twenty yards in width, covered with a low growth of bushes with a single small tree that shot up among the bushes about the middle of the island. It formed a pretty break in the landscape, as the water rippled around the gravelly head of the island and flowed along its sides at an average width of five or six yards, but of no great depth, probably 216 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. not exceeding a foot in any place. The river beds of all these Western mountain streams are wide, and in the months of May and June they run bank full, sweeping majestically along, but in the late summer and fall they dwindle at times to the merest thread of running water. After grazing our animals until dark, we encamped on the bank of the river, just opposite the little island. Every possible precaution was taken against surprise; the horses were both hobbled as well as carefully picketed out, and instructions were given that in case of attack each man should grasp his horse s lariat and stand with rifle in hand awaiting orders. A strong guard was posted, and, although it was an unusu ally cold night for the season of the year, most of the men slept well and soundly. Naturally anxious, 1 was up and paced the rounds with the guard more than once. Just at the first flash of dawn, as I was standing near the outermost sentry, we heard the thud of unshod horses feet, and a few seconds later between us and the sky line we caught sight of the waving feathers in the war bonnet of a mounted warrior just moving over the crest of a rise in the ground a little way above us on the bank of the stream. As we raised our guns to our shoulders, even before we could fire, we saw him joined by several others. The sharp crack of our rifles caused the men to spring to their feet and instinctively grasp their horses lariats almost before our shout of " Indians! Turn out; Indians! " could reach their star tled ears. Running backward toward the camp, only two hundred feet away, and keeping my eyes fixed on the small war party, I saw at once that their intention was to stampede our horses, for they dashed forward THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 217 on their ponies, rattling dried hides, beating Indian drums, and yelling at the top of their lungs. It was too late for that, however, as nearly every man already had his horse s lariat wrapped around his left arm and his rifle grasped in both hands. A few shots sent them whirling back, even quicker than they came, and the attempted surprise was a failure. " Saddle up and stand to horse! " was the order, and the men sprang to work with an energy born of the peril that confronted them. Almost as quickly as I can pen the words the command was equipped, bridled and saddled, and standing to horse in line, each man with his bridle thrown over his left arm, with his loaded rifle in his hands, coolly awaiting orders. It was light enough to begin to dimly discern ob jects within two or three hundred yards when my chief scout Grover placed his hand on my shoulder and said: "0 heavens, general, look at the Indians!" Cadmus-like they appeared to spring full armed from the very earth. From up and down the sandy bed of the river, from across the stream and along the opposite bank, from the rising ground back of us, and above and below us on our side of the river they seemed to suddenly start into view, and then, even as we looked, shouting their war cries, beating their drums, and exultantly chanting their death song they began to press toward us, both on foot and on horseback, firing at us with their rifles as they came steadily on. The moment, however, that they were well within rifle shot a few sharp volleys from the scouts were sent in among them, staggering their advance for the nonce, and causing them to hastily fall back out of range. There was but one course for us to take, as we were 218 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. surrounded and greatly outnumbered: I ordered my men to lead their horses to the little island lying out in the river bed in our immediate front, to tie them in a cir cle to the bushes growing there, and to cover themselves by each digging a rifle pit, and then, if we could not beat off our foe, we could at least sell our lives dearly. Placing our extra boxes of ammunition, now very pre cious, on four of the saddles, we moved on foot with a solid front across the bed of the stream to the little island opposite us, tied our horses to the bushes in a circle, and then dropping quickly to the ground and partially sheltered by their horses, two men working together, with their butcher s knives and tin plates, the whole command began rapidly to cover itself by a series of detached rifle pits, all facing outward. As we made this move some of our best shots kept up a fire from our flanks, and three of our best men remained temporarily in the long grass on the bank of the river to protect the north end of the island. The enemy had, I think purposely, left the way down the river open, but I realized at once that the little gorge through which we had debouched into the valley the preceding day would be lined with warriors awaiting any attempt to escape that way. Our movement to the island was unexpected, and for a few moments seemed to puzzle them, but as soon as they began to comprehend what it meant they were wild with rage. Their mounted warriors dashed up and down and urged the dismounted riflemen to close in on us at once, many of them springing from their horses and coming on with them to the banks of the stream, and for a few moments they poured in a heavy fire upon us, killing and wounding several of THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 219 the men. By this time, however, our men were al ready partially covered by their little rifle pits, while the poor horses, who were being shot down in all directions, and who tugged and strained in vain at their lariats, gave us an additional protection, and the small bushes and long grass helped conceal from the enemy exactly where our men lay. Just at this crisis one of the men, who had lost his head, shouted: "Don t let s stay here and be shot down like dogs! Will any one try for the opposite bank with me?" "I will," said some one in reply. Standing in the midst of the circle, revolver in hand, I told them I would shoot down the first man who attempted to leave the island, in which I was quickly backed by McCall. " It s our only chance, men, to stay where we are," said I. Lieutenant Beecher, who was aiming as carefully and firing as steadily as if at target practice, suddenly called out, " You addle- headed fools, have you no sense ? " and so the crisis passed, for had an attempt then been made to leave the island no white man would have lived to record the fight. For the next twenty minutes my sole command con sisted in urging the men to aim carefully, fire low, and not to fire until they could see something to hit; and on no account to waste their ammunition, as our safety might depend upon how carefully we managed to hus band it. And now discipline began to tell, as it always does in the end. The enemy was getting the worst of it. He was losing men, while, being fairly well covered, we were suffering comparatively little. I still stood up right, walking from man to man, but from every side I was asked to lie down. Scarcely had I done so when 220 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. I received a bullet in the fore part of my right thigh, ranging upward. It remained imbedded in the flesh and gave me more intense pain than much more serious wounds I had previously received, and for a moment or two I could scarcely speak, so great was the agony. Dr. Mooers, who was doing yeoman work with his rifle, now suggested that as I was the only man not covered with a rifle pit that his pit be enlarged to cover both of us. A couple of men went at once to his assist ance, but while they were energetically working at it I incautiously threw up my left leg as I leaned over to give an order to one of the men, and a bullet smashed the bone midway between the ankle and the knee. Three minutes later I was pulled down into the pit and was safely under cover. Riding around, just outside of rifle range on the opposite bank of the river, were several hundred mounted warriors, evidently under command of a gi gantic chief, who seemed exasperated almost to frenzy at the blunder the Indians had made in allowing us to occupy the island we were now intrenched upon. A second look, and I concluded whom it must be, so I called out to G rover, " Is not the large chief Roman Nose?" "None other," was the reply; "there is not such another Indian on the plains." " Then these are the Northern Cheyennes?" "Yes, and the Ogallalla and Brule Sioux and the Dog soldiers. There are more than a thousand warriors here." I doubted this, and told Grover so, but in a muttered reply he held to his estimate. I could not bring myself to believe that there were so many; in fact, I did not wish to believe it, as it discouraged the men, but after ward I knew that he was nearly right. About this THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. time my surgeon, Dr. Mooers, was hit by a rifle bullet in the forehead, and never spoke but one rational word, although he lived for nearly three days after receiving the wound. A few moments later, while glancing over the side of my rifle pit, I received a scalp wound, but my felt hat being doubled down broke the force of the bullet, and it glanced off, but left me with a splitting headache, and although the scalp was scarce ly cut and only a large swelling marked the spot, six weeks later the surgeon s probe discovered a loose piece of skull, which he duly removed. As I peered over my rifle pit I gradually became aware that the mounted Indians were disappearing around a bend in the stream in the direction from which the command had come on the previous day, and I again heard, for the second or third time, the musical tone of an artillery bugle. I now began to think it possible that Roman Nose had some rene gade white man with his warriors, especially since just as our last horse was shot down some one shouted from among the Indian riflemen, " There goes the last damned horse anyhow! " Turning these things over in my mind, it occurred to me that possibly Roman Nose might be forming his warriors around the bend of the river with the intention of charging us, shooting, and trampling us to death as he rode over us. I called out to Lieutenant Beecher and gave him my opinion of what the withdrawal of the mounted Indians might possibly mean. Beecher, McCall, and Grover all agreed with me. " Then, let the men get ready," was the order. In a few moments our dispositions were made. Each gun was loaded to its capacity one shot in the barrel, six in the magazine and the weapons of the killed and 000, THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. badly wounded men were also loaded and laid close at hand ready for instant use, while the revolvers were carefully looked to and loosened in their holsters. Or ders were given for the men to lie low, so as not to expose themselves unnecessarily to the fire of the In dian riflemen, who were besieging us, until such time as the word should be given; then to turn in their pits, facing the charge, and fire at the word. In a few moments after our preparations were com pleted Roman Nose and his warriors swept around the bend of the stream, out of and well beyond rifle range, with a front of about sixty men and a depth of six or eight ranks. Each warrior was, with the exception of his cartridge belt and box and moccasins, perfectly naked and hideously painted. They rode barebacked with only a horse-hair lariat wrapped twice around the middle of their horses and passing loosely over each knee; their hair was braided and their scalp locks ornamented with feathers or else their heads were covered with war bonnets, and they guided their animals with the bridle reins in their left hands, while their rifles were held squarely across the front of their bodies, but resting lightly on the necks of their horses. As they rode into view they halted for a moment and Roman Nose turned and addressed them, waving his right hand toward us in an impassioned manner. The hills or rising ground on the north bank of the river just beyond him were completely covered with women and children anxiously watching the fight, and from his gestures he must have alluded to them in his speech. Then turning squarely toward where we lay, he shook his clinched fist at us and evidently gave the word of command, for breaking first into a trot THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1808- 69. 223 and then into a gallop, but always keeping a splendid alignment, the massive band of Indian warriors bore swiftly down upon us. Eiding well in front of the centre of his line Roman Nose led the charge with a reckless gallantry that may have been equalled, but could not have been excelled. Six feet three inches in height, and perfectly naked save for a superb war bonnet on his head, a crimson silk sash around his waist, and his moccasins on his feet, showing immense breadth of shoulder, but nevertheless sinewy and slim both in waist and flank, he sat well forward on his barebacked chestnut-coloured charger, with his knees under the lariat that twice encircled his horse s body and his rifle held just below the trigger in his left hand, its barrel in the hollow of his arm, while the same hand grasped both his horse s mane and bridle, leaving his right arm free to direct his men, and as he came charging on at the head of his conmiand he was the very beau ideal of an Indian chief. Waving his hand with a royal gesture to the women and children on the bluffs, who broke into a wildly exultant cry as the horsemen started, he turned slightly and directly faced us, and then, throwing back his head and glancing skyward, he struck the palm of his hand across his mouth and gave tongue to a blood-curdling war cry I have never yet heard equalled, which was instantly caught up and echoed by his own band, the Indian riflemen, and the women and children over beyond the river s northern bank. As soon as the charging warriors had fairly started toward us, our immediate assailants, who lay under cover on the two banks of the river opposite the island, opened a rapid fire on us from both sides, with the THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. intention of covering us to such an extent that we would not dare rise from our rifle pits to open fire upon the attacking force, and so for a few seconds bullets fell everywhere around us. This I had looked for, but I well knew that once the charging Indians came within range of the bullets of their own men their fire must necessarily cease. Glancing back over my command, I saw that they had all turned in their rifle pits toward the foot of the island, the direction from which the charge was coming, and, crouching low, with their knees well under them, their rifles close ly gripped in their sinewy hands, their bronzed faces set like iron, and their eyes fairly ablaze with wrath, they lay with nostrils all a-quiver, impatiently awaiting the command to fire. Suddenly the fire from the Indian riflemen ceased, and, placing my back against my rifle pit and leaning on my elbows against its sides, I shouted, " Now! " and Beecher, McCall, and Grover echoed the cry. Instantly starting to their knees, with their rifles at shoulder as they rose, and with one quick glance along the barrel, forty good men and true sent the first of seven successive crashing volleys into the on-rushing savage horde. Welcoming the first and second volleys with a reckless yell, the charging warriors came gallant ly on, but at the third the most of them ceased to shout, and I could see great gaps in their ranks and men and horses going down, but still the mass of them bravely held their course, Roman Nose leading them and wildly waving his heavy Springfield rifle over his head as though it were a wisp of straw, he alone still shouting his defiant war cry as he swept toward us. At the fourth volley their great medicine man, who was lead- THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 225 ing the left of the column, went suddenly down, and for an instant the column seemed to check its speed, but only for a second, and then with a mad rush it came bounding and leaping onward. The fifth volley seemed to pile men and horses in heaps, and at the sixth Roman Nose and his horse went down in death together. A hundred feet farther, and they will be upon us! But now the column hesitates and shakes, and the scouts pour in their last and seventh volley just as a few of the warriors reach the foot of our little island, and then, springing quickly to their feet, with wild cheers and imprecations on their foes, the frontiersmen suddenly pour almost into the very faces of the mounted war riors a rapid fire from their revolvers; while the Indian column suddenly divides on each side of the island and breaks in all directions for the shelter of either shore, the now completely defeated and panic-stricken savages, cowering to their horses backs, fearfully demoralized, and seeking only safety in eager and headlong flight. " Down, men, lie down! " I fairly shriek. " Down on your lives! " shouts McCall, and the men, hot and pant ing, throw themselves flat to the bottom of the rifle pits just in time to escape a scorching volley from the Indian riflemen who have been awaiting their oppor tunity and are almost wild with rage at the death of Eoman Nose and the outcome of his desperate charge. Turning toward Grover, I called out, " Can they do bet ter than that, Grover?" "Man and boy, I have been on the plains for more than thirty years, and I never saw anything like that before. I think they have done their level best," was his reply. "All right," was my response, "we are good for them," and I decided then and there that the staying 226 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. powers of the two combatants would decide the issue. Just then Lieutenant Beecher rose from his rifle pit and, staggering and leaning on his rifle, half dragged himself to where I lay, and then calmly lying down by my side, laid his face downward on his arm and said, quietly and simply: " I have my death wound, general. I am shot in the side and dying." " Oh, no, Beecher, no. It can t be as bad as that." " Yes. Good night," and he sank into semiuncon- sciousness almost immediately. I heard him murmur once, " My poor mother! " but he soon became slightly delirious, and at sunset his life went out. Good night, good knight! And now came a lull in the battle. While the very air was resonant with the moans and shrieks of the women and children in the hills who had witnessed the failure of Eoman Nose s attack, and could see the dead bodies of their husbands, brothers, and sons dotting the sand of the river s bed along the route of his desperate charge, the Indians in ambush continued to fire at us now and then, but we were well covered by our rifle pits and no harm came to us from that source. About two o clock they essayed a second charge under new leaders, but it was delivered weakly in comparison with the first, for they broke and ran with a small loss before they came within a hundred yards of the island, and no one of our force was injured in the slightest degree. About six o clock, however, they formed back in the same bend or canon from which Roman Nose had come, and with a wild rush came on en masse in a perfect frenzy, shouting their war cries and firing from their horses backs as they came. But in the meantime the scouts had deepened their rifle pits and strengthened THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 227 and repaired the little earthworks, so that they were perfectly protected from the Indian riflemen, and be sides they had developed perfect confidence in them selves, so they coolly and deliberately picked out their men and dropped many of them as soon as they came well within range. It was death to advance, and the Indians soon recognised the fact, so the whole com mand broke suddenly and fled just before reaching the foot of the island. It was, as I felt it would be, their last attempt at a charge. When night came it began to rain, and as the day had been intensely hot it was most welcome. Out of fifty-one men, including myself, the list of casualties was as follows: Lieutenant Beecher, Surgeon Mooers, and scouts Chalmers, Smith, and Wilson were dead or dying; scouts Louis Farley and Bernard Day were mortally wounded; scouts O Donnell, Davis, Tucker, Gantt, Clarke, Armstrong, Morton, and Violett severely, and scouts Harrington, Davenport, Haley, Mc- Laughlin, Hudson Farley, McCall, and two others slightly wounded. As for myself, with a bullet in my right thigh, my left leg broken below the knee, and a painful scalp wound, I had all I could do to force myself carefully to think out the best course to pursue under existing circumstances. Orders were issued to unsaddle the dead horses, use the saddles to strengthen our works, to completely connect the rifle pits and deepen them still more, and to cut off large steaks from the dead horses and mules and bury them deep in the sand to avoid putrefaction. I then selected two men, Trudeau, an old trapper, and Jack Stillwell, a beardless young lad, but most intelli gent and trustworthy (since a well-known frontier 228 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. scout), gave them my only map, and told them to try and steal through the enemy s lines to Fort Wallace, about, as I estimated, one hundred and ten miles dis tant, and to give to the commanding officer there, Colo nel Bankhead, an account of our condition and to guide him to where we lay, as I well knew he would unhesitatingly come to our assistance. At midnight they took off their boots, hung them about their necks, and, walking backward so that the impression left by their stocking feet might seem to be Indian moccasins pointing our way, stole quietly out through the dark ness and disappeared. I may as well state here that after four days and nights of perilous adventure they reached the post in safety, but, as I shall hereafter show, they were an hour or two late with their infor mation. Having made the wounded as comfortable as pos sible with water dressings, one of the command hav ing dug down to water in his rifle pit, and a strong guard having been posted, I ate a few mouthfuls of raw horseflesh and dozed away until morning. The Indians, evidently believing that we would try to escape in the night, approached at early daylight to take up our trail. Owing to some one accidentally discharging his rifle they threw themselves flat on the ground, and we only succeeded in killing one of them. This next day was very hot, and we that were wounded suffered intensely. There was some fighting now and then, but our besiegers kept their distance when they ascertained that they could not advance under cover of a white flag. During all this time I noticed that there was a steady beating of drums and death chants among the THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OP 1868- 69. 229 women in the main camp of the savages. It was a weary enough day, for we were out of food save horse and mule meat, which we had to eat without cooking, but fortunately we had plenty of good water. At eleven o clock at night I sent out two more men to try for Fort Wallace, but every outlet was guarded, and they returned at three o clock the next morning. The third day was fortunately cloudy. Our besiegers kept up a desultory firing now and then, but it did us no harm. At noon Scout Grover informed me that the Indian women and children were beginning to with draw, and I concluded at once that the Indians had decided to give up the fight. Accordingly, I took my memorandum book and pencilled the following de spatch: " ON DELAWARE CREEK, REPUBLICAN RIVER, " September 19, 1868. " To Colonel BanJchead, or Commanding Officer, Fort Wallace : "I sent you two messengers on the night of the 17th instant, informing you of my critical condition. I tried to send two more last night, but they did not succeed in passing the Indian pickets, and returned. If the others have not arrived, then hasten at once to my assistance. I have eight badly wounded and ten slightly wounded men to take in, and every animal I had was killed, save seven, which the Indians stam peded. Lieutenant Beecher is dead, and Acting-As sistant-Surgeon Mooers probably can not live the night out. He was hit in the head Thursday, and has spoken but one rational word since. I am wounded in two places in the right thigh and my left leg broken below the knee. The Cheyennes alone number four hundred and fifty or more. Mr. Grover says they never fought so before. They were splendidly armed with Spencer and Henry rifles. We killed at least thirty-five of them, 16 230 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. and wounded many more, besides killing and wounding a quantity of their stock. They carried off most of their killed during the night, but three of their men fell into our hands. I am on a little island, and have still plenty of ammunition left. We are living on mule and horse meat, and are entirely out of rations. If it was not for so many wounded, I would come in, and take the chances of whipping them if attacked. They are evi dently sick of their bargain. " I had two of the members of my company killed on the 17th namely, William Wilson and George W. Chalmers. You had better start with not less than seventy-five men, and bring all the wagons and ambu lances you can spare. Bring a six-pound howitzer with you. I can hold out here for six days longer if abso lutely necessar} r , but please lose no time. " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, " GEORGE A. FORSYTH, " U. S. Army, Commanding Company Scouts. " P. S. My surgeon having been mortally wounded, none of my wounded have had their wounds dressed yet, so please bring out a surgeon with you." I confided this to two excellent men, Donovan and Pliley. They left our intrenchments at midnight, and as they did not return I was hopeful that they had es caped the vigilance of the Indian sentries and were on their way to Fort Wallace. It was these two men, who fell in with Colonel L. H. Carpenter s command two days later, that gave the first intimation of our plight to department headquarters. The wound in my thigh having become exceed ingly painful, I asked some of the men to cut the bullet out, but as it lay very near the femoral artery THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 231 they all declined to attempt it. Taking my razor, which happened to be in my saddle bags, and getting two of the men to press the flesh tautly back, I man aged to cut it out myself, greatly to my almost im mediate relief. On the fourth day our horse and mule meat became putrid, but one of the men shot a little gray coyote wolf that helped out somewhat. It was weary work waiting, and on the fifth day the Indi ans began to withdraw. I had the men raise me up on a blanket to get a better view of affairs, and suddenly the Indians sent in a fusillade of about twenty shots. The man who held the corner of the blanket upon which rested my broken leg dropped it, causing the bone to part and protrude through the flesh, much to my sav agely expressed wrath. On the sixth day I called the well men together and told them that as there was no certainty that our messengers could get through they were entitled to a chance for their lives. I believed that most of our enemies had withdrawn, and as they were well armed I doubted if any ordinary body of Indians would dare attack them on their way to Fort Wallace. As for us wounded men, we must take our chances if at tacked. For a few moments there was a dead silence, and then rose a hoarse shout of: " Never! never! We ll stand by you, general, until the end"; McCall saying, " We ve fought together, and, by heavens, if need be, we ll die together." The next two days the Indians only keeping a vedette in sight, and most of them having disap peared seemed to me to be almost interminable. We all became weaker for want of food, but as we had an abundance of water and were lying still, we 232 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. did not suffer very much. On the morning of the ninth day one of the men lying near me suddenly sprang up, and, shading his hand with his eyes, shouted, " There are some moving objects on the far hills! " Every well man was on his feet in an instant, and then some keen-eyed scout shouted, " By the God above us, it s an ambulance! " The strain was over. It was Col onel Carpenter with a troop of the Tenth Cavalry. I hope the reader will pardon me if I have been pro lix, but this was my own part in the Sioux campaign of 1868. From that time until its close I watched it through the despatches sent in from the front. In this fight the Indians afterward admitted a loss of seventy- five killed and many wounded, and a fighting force of nine hundred and seventy warriors. CHAPTER X. A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE sioux CAMPAIGN OF 1868 AND 1869. THE suffering of the men who marched to the res cue of the beleaguered troops at Fort Phil Kearny during the winter months of 1866 and 1867 was almost unbearable. Campaigning in the teeth of a blizzard and struggling along in a blinding swirl of snow, with the thermometer ranging from ten to thirty degrees below zero, tests the individual strength of soldiers to the very verge of human endurance, and the begin ning of winter had heretofore meant the close of mili tary campaigning against the Indians on the great plains. No one knew this fact better than the Indians themselves, and as soon as November s snow covered the grass they always left the war path and proceeded to snugly ensconce themselves in comfortable shape by selecting a sheltered site on the wooded bank of some large stream far away from the outermost limits of even the most advanced line of frontier settlements. Here they established their camp in permanent winter quarters, to which, in due time, their scouting parties brought their supplies of dried buffalo, deer, and other meats, which had been put up by the squaws at various 234 THE STORY OF THE SOLDI ER. periods during the preceding summer, and securely hid den or cached against this time of need, for the vast herds of buffalo upon which they relied for food always migrated as soon as the grass was snow capped, seek ing pasture in the South or up among the wooded foot hills of the Eocky Mountains. Neither had they any longer forage for their ponies, who were herded under guard of the half-grown boys and women along the bottom lands of the river upon which their camp was located, and became thin and weak upon such gama grass as they could get by scraping away the snow with their hoofs or filled their gnawing stomachs with the summer s growth of swamp willow shoots, which grew on the bushes that lined the banks of the stream. They had no fear of other hostile tribes, for they well knew that they too would abandon the war path during the winter, and as for the white man, they felt that where they could not overcome the rigours of the climate it would be in vain for him to attempt to do so; moreover, all experience in former wars had shown that with the advent of winter the soldiers were withdrawn to the shelter of the permanent posts until the following spring. So, with their tepees strongly pitched against the strength of the winter winds, banked up with earth, and doubly covered with Indian-tanned buffalo hides, the red-handed warriors, who had so successfully har ried the Western frontier, killed the men of its isolated settlements, outraged their women, and then merci lessly butchered them and their little children, made their camp warm and comfortable, and quietly sat down in fancied security and savage idleness and proceeded to leisurely while away the winter in card playing, feasting, dancing, and boasting against the next A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 235 spring s campaign; while far away along the line of the scattered frontier the white snow fell silently and, blown by the prairie winds, drifted against and finally covered, as with a white pall, the half -burned logs that marked the site of the once happy home of the dead frontiersman and his family. The close of the summer s campaign of 1868 against the Indians on the Western plains, while it had resulted in some losses to the savages, had not done them enough harm to take the fight out of them or convince them that the Government was strong enough to effectually punish them for their attacks on the frontier settle ments. On the contrary, abandoning the Powder Eiver country, together with the evacuation of Forts Keno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith at their arrogant demand, which posts they promptly burned as soon as the troops were withdrawn, had made them confident in their own strength and buoyed them up with the idea that the Government feared them, for the wild Indian, from the very nature of his training, can not comprehend that anything once in the possession of another should ever be given up save and only through fear. General Sheridan, however, had already determined upon a winter campaign, but he alone was confident of its ultimate success, and accordingly he at once sternly set about its execution, despite predictions of its failure by old frontiersmen as well as some of his subordinates, who in age and length of service were much older sol diers than he was, even if of much less exalted rank in the army. Up to this time a winter s campaign on the great plains was an unheard of proceeding, and was re garded as an impossibility, but, never doubting or hesi tating, the general threw himself into its execution with 236 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. all his accustomed energy and thoroughness of detail. He ordered the establishment of a supply depot at Monument Creek, in southern Kansas, from which a force of six hundred infantry was to operate along the banks of the main Canadian River. A second supply depot was made near the head waters of the North Ca nadian Biver, from which five troops of cavalry were to operate southward toward Antelope Hills. These two commands were to keep scouting, constantly mov ing over a certain designated section of country, so as to hunt out any detached bands of Indians that might be wintering in their vicinity. The third and main winter supply depot was located near the junction of Beaver Creek and the North Candian River in Indian Territory, rather more than one hundred miles south of Fort Dodge, and was known as Camp Supply. The troops at this cantonment were eleven troops of the Seventh United States Cavalry, four companies of infantry, and the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, a newly recruited regiment of volunteers for Indian service. Early in November General Sheridan took up his field headquarters at this point that the winter s operations in the field might be almost under his personal super vision. The Seventh United States Cavalry had been organized at the close of the civil war. Its officers were men who had seen much service in the South, and most of its enlisted men were old soldiers who had served in various volunteer regiments from 1861 to 1865. Its lieutenant colonel, and commanding officer in the field, was General George A. Custer, one of the youngest, most dashing, and capable of our cavalry generals dur ing the civil war, and with a well-deserved reputation for great personal gallantry and untiring energy. On A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 237 the evening of November 22d he was ordered to take the field on the following day and find and attack the Indians in their winter camps, presumably somewhere along the Washita River. At four o clock on the morning of the 23d of No vember reveille aroused the sleeping troopers from their little dog tents to roll call. It was too dark to see, but they realized that the snow was a foot in depth, the thermometer below zero, and a blinding blizzard of a snowstorm raging apparently in all directions. Be yond feeding their shivering horses, which were tied to a picket rope in the open, and brushing the snow from their backs, stable call was a farce, breakfast at 5 A. M. standing in the snow around a camp fire was not much better, though a cup or two of hot coffee was relished most decidedly. The trumpet call of " the general " set every one to work taking down and pack ing the tents, and just before daylight " Boots and sad dles " told the half -frozen men that they were in for the winter s campaign. Saddling was shortly over. " To horse " and " Mount " quickly followed, and the regiment moved out in column of twos, preceded by the scouts and Indian guides, but so dense was the snowstorm that the Indian guides confessed their in ability to find the way to Wolf Creek, fifteen miles dis tant, which was to be the first night s camping ground. In fact, it was not possible to see anything twenty yards away from the column, so General Ouster took out his map, and the command found their way through the storm to Wolf Creek solely by aid of the compass. How the heavily laden little wagon train of supplies managed to get through to the camp was almost incom prehensible to the whole command, but the frontier 238 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. " bull whacker " develops into a marvellous mule driver, and the Government mule, when compelled to do so, can climb up a hill or slide down it, like a goat, and pull a heavily loaded wagon after him, squirm out of its way when it comes thundering down upon him, and never get out of harness either. But reaching camp was a great deal owing to the escort to the wagon train, which was one of the troops of the Seventh Cavalry, that did yeoman work that winter s day, by the aid of long coils of rope and their lariats, in fairly lifting the train of wagons up, down, and over the hills, rocks, and ravines that lay in its road to camp. The 24th was little better, though the storm abated somewhat as the command continued its march up the valley of Wolf Creek, but the thermometer registered seven degrees below zero and the snow was eighteen inches deep on the level. Of the march on the 25th General Custer writes: " Our route still kept up the valley of Wolf Creek. Nothing w^as particularly worthy of notice ex cept the immense quantities of game seeking shelter from the storm offered by the little strip of timber ex tending along the valley of Wolf Creek and its tribu taries. Even the buffaloes with their huge shaggy coats huddled together in the timber, so drowsy or benumbed from the effects of the cold as not to discover our ap proach, fell an easy prey to the Indian scouts and the marching column, and a bountiful supply of fresh meat was laid in. ; That night the command again encamped in the valley, but the weather was bitter cold, and as they stood in the snow around their little camp fires, for fuel at this point was scarce, and ate their supper of smoky and half -roasted buffalo meat, bacon, hardtack, A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 239 and coffee, it was not strange that their thoughts flew far afield to other days and other scenes, for it was Thanksgiving eve, and memory did not fail to bring back to most of them cheerful hearthstones and ample but dainty tables, groaning beneath the choicest viands, surrounded by bright and joyous faces, instinct with good cheer, content, and happiness; and so even the best and most enthusiastic soldier among them was a bit more quiet than usual, as he smoked his pipe and thought of the far-away loved ones ere he wrapped his blanket about him and, crawling into his little dog tent, lay down to sleep on the frozen earth, from which he had managed in some manner to sweep away most of the snow with which it had been covered. The next night the command encamped near the mouth of a little stream that emptied into the Canadian Eiver a mile or so farther on. Wood was plenty and the camp was an unusually good one. General Ouster decided to move his command across the Canadian River the next day, but determined to send Major Elliott with three full troops of the regiment on a scout fifteen miles up the valley on the north bank of the river in search of any recent Indian trail made since the snow had fallen by any belated war party that might give him a clew to the probable location of the winter camps of the Indi ans, and possibly a straight road thereto. Major Elliott was promptly off by daylight, and, a ford having been found, General Custer crossed his com mand, but it was hard and dangerous work, as the river was bank full with a rapid current and quantities of floating ice, to say nothing of the bottom being in places quicksand. However, by doubling the teams and the free use of ropes and lariats it was finally accomplished; 240 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. and by eleven o clock the train and the whole command was on the south side of the Canadian River and had moved across the valley and up on to the level of the great plains. Just as this was accomplished Corbin, one of Ouster s scouts, came riding at full speed with the information that Major Elliott, when twelve miles up the north fork of the Canadian, had discovered the trail of an Indian war party one hundred and fifty strong not twenty-four hours old, had followed it across to the south bank of the river, and was in full pursuit. Corbin was furnished a fresh horse and sent back full speed to tell Elliott to push on until 8 P. M., and if by that time Custer had not joined him to camp and wait for him. Leaving his train under guard of eighty men with instructions to follow as fast as possible, Custer set out with the rest of the force to overtake the major. Each trooper carried one hundred rounds of ammu nition, coffee, and hard bread, and a small amount of forage. Tents and extra blankets were left with the wagons. It was to be a ride that was to end only when the enemy had been struck. The snow was now a foot deep on the plains, but the weather had moderated, so that at midday the upper crust became soft. Custer took a direct line across the open plain and frequently changed the leading troop of his column, as breaking the way was exhaust ing to the horses. It was not until 9 P. M. that he overtook Elliott, who had halted near the trail on a stream of good water and was concealed in the tim ber awaiting his arrival. The horses were unsaddled, well rubbed down, and given a good feed of oats. Camp fires were built under the steep banks of the creek to A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. conceal the fire from observation, and the men made coffee, which with " hardtack " was a most welcome meal. After an hour s rest the horses were quietly sad dled and without the slightest noise the cavalry moved out again and took up the trail by moonlight, led by the Osage guides and the scouts California Joe and Corbin. Not a loud word was spoken, and strict orders prohibited the lighting of a match or smoking of a pipe. After following the trail for a number of miles the command was halted at the request of one of the Osage Indian scouts, who averred that he smelled fire. This was doubted, but he was ordered to advance cautiously, and the cavalry slowly followed. Half a mile farther on a small camp fire was discovered slowly smouldering in the timber. The Indian scouts now advanced cau tiously, and, after carefully examining the vicinity and hunting over the ground, gave it as their opinion that this fire had been kindled by Indian boys, who had been grazing and herding their ponies there the pre vious day, and that the Indian village was probably within two or three miles distance. The Indian scouts again took up the trail, but moved very cautiously, the cavalry keeping some distance to the rear and moving as silently as possible. Ouster himself now accompa nied the two Osage Indian scouts, who kept just at his horse s head. He writes: " The same one who discovered fire advanced cautiously to the crest and looked carefully into the valley beyond, . . . then crouched down, and came creeping back. What is it? Heaps Injuns down there. " In a moment Ouster had dismounted, crept to the crest, and looked over. He could indistinctly see THE STOftY OP THE SOLDIER. a herd of some kind of animals, but a moment later the bark of a dog followed by the tinkling of a bell told him it was the Indian pony herd, and he knew then that his force was fairly upon the winter camp of the Indi ans and undiscovered. It was now past midnight. So, quickly but quietly hurrying back to his troops, Ouster assembled all his officers, told them to take off their sabres, that their clanking might not make any noise, and silently guided them to the crest. There in the moonlight he pointed out the location of the village, that they all might have a good general idea of the exact situation, and stealthily withdrawing to the regiment, which was standing to horse on the trail a little less than a mile distant, he gave his orders for the attack. He divided his force into four detach ments of nearly equal strength his entire command numbered something .more than eight hundred men with instructions to two of the detachments to move out at once and make a circuitous march of several miles and take position on the farther side of the Indian village, and within little more than an hour after they had left the column these two detachments, which had moved out to the left for the farther side of the village, had made a long detour and carefully and cau tiously taken up their allotted positions, and lay silent and undiscovered within a short half mile of the Indian camp, the tepees of which occupied the timber along the river bank in a straggling line that stretched down stream for more than a quarter of a mile. Another detachment moved slowly and silently about a mile to the right of the trail and took up a position in the valley on the right of the village, par tially concealed in a clump of timber. Ouster with the The attack mi Hlark Keltic s camp. A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 243 fourth detachment remained on the main trail. The village was thus completely surrounded, and the orders were for all the detachments to approach the village as near as might he without running great risk of dis covery, conceal themselves as much as possible, and to remain absolutely quiet until daylight. Strict orders were given that not a match was to be lighted or a shot to be fired until the charge was sounded by the regimental trumpeter in Ouster s detachment, when each of the other three detachments were to charge upon the village and attack it at all points. It grew very cold toward morning, but the men were not al lowed to make the slightest noise, not even to swing their arms or stamp their feet, and it was over four long hours to day, even after the various detachments reached their hiding places. Custer had no absolute knowledge that they had done so, but he knew he could depend upon his offi cers to do all that was possible. While waiting the attack the men were all dismounted, each man hold ing his own horse, and many of them, while still holding their bridles, wrapped the capes of their overcoats over their heads and threw themselves down in the snow in front of their horses and went to sleep. At the first sign of dawn every one was astir. Overcoats were taken off and strapped to the saddle, in order that the men s movements might not be im peded by their bulk and weight, carbines were care fully loaded and slung, pistols examined and loosened in their holsters, saddles recinched, and curb chains carefully looked to. Then as a whispered command to mount ran quietly along the line the men sprang lightly into their saddles, gathered up their reins, fixed 24-4 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. their eyes for an instant on the brightening heavens in the east, and turned with quickened ears and eager eyes in the direction of the village, impatiently await ing the bugle blast, which they well knew would soon wake the echoes along the banks of the Washita. At this moment Ouster, at the head of his command, was moving at a slow walk on the main trail to the vil lage. His bugler, with his trumpet in his hand and his eyes on the general, rides by his side, while just in the rear is the regimental band, the leader of which has had orders to play Garry Owen, the regimental war cry, the instant the charge is sounded. A turn in the trail, and in the dim light of early morning, five hundred yards distant, dotting the north bank of the Washita for more than a quarter of a mile, without a sign of human life about it, lay the Indian village. From the top of two or three of the tepees a light wreath of smoke floated languidly on the cold, still morning air, while close to it is the pony herd, but the ponies evidently sense dan ger, and, throwing up their heads, the herd began to slowly move off. For an instant Ouster believed that the Indians have been warned and feared that the vil lage was deserted. The next second his astonished ears heard the sharp report of a rifle from the other end of the village. Instantly turning to his trumpeter, Ouster commanded," Sound the charge! " Placing his trumpet to his lips he obeyed, and as the piercing blare of " the charge " cut clearly through the frosty air Ouster glanced back over his shoulder at his expectant band leader, driving the rowels of his spurs into his charger s flanks as he did so, and shouted, "Play!" and then to the rollicking air of Garry Owen the whole column breaks into a mad gallop, dashed out around and by the A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 245 band, and with a ringing cheer and in a mighty rush swept down the trail to the village. While borne on the rushing wind to Ouster s anxious ears, as they galloped on, three other trumpets echoed the blare of his own in answering charge, and from every side of the doomed Indian village, with hoarse and heavy cheers and thun dering stride, came three other converging columns of cavalry, charging straight for the Indian tepees. It was a complete surprise to the Indians, and the sleep ing warriors sprang from their couches, grasped their arms, and, throwing back the entering flap of their tepees, leaped into the open air, rifles in hand, to make what stand they could against their enemies. The screams of the women and children, the howling and baying of the Indian dogs, the shouts of the soldiers, the crack of rifles, and the wild rush of the charging troopers through the village, mingled with the defiant war cry of the now desperate Cheyennes, made for a short time a heartrending scene of awful retribution, for the cavalry had fallen upon Black Kettle s band, the very worst in the Cheyenne nation, and the one that had done more to devastate the Kansas frontier than any other one band on the great plains. Whatever may be truthfully said against the Ameri can Indian, and much that is bad can be truthfully said, cowardice is not one of his faults, especially of the Chey enne, and, fiend that he was, Black Kettle was no cow ard. He was the very first to spring fully armed from his tepee, for his quick ear had caught the sound of ad vancing cavalry even before the trumpet sounded the charge, and, firing his rifle as a signal to his band (this was the gunshot that had startled Glister), he called upon them to rally, shouting his war cry of defiance as 17 246 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. the cavalry swept down upon his village, where, dis daining flight, he was one of the first Indians to fall dead from the opening volleys of the cavalry, but he fell gallantly fighting and at the front, dying bravely, like the savage warrior that he was. In less than an hour the cavalry had complete possession of the Indian village, but only after hard fighting. But soon the question was, Could they hold it? All of the Indian warriors who had escaped from the tepees had taken position behind rocks, trees, and under cover of the river bank, and, led by Little Rock, the next in rank to Black Kettle, now assailed the cavalry from all sides. Custer soon saw that he had sharp work before him, and was much puzzled at the apparent strength of his assailants, and still more so when some of them appeared fully mounted in his immediate front. In quiry soon developed the fact that the village of Black Kettle, which he had captured, was located the highest up on the stream, while below it, in succession, a mile or two apart and within less than ten miles, were lo cated the villages of all the hostile tribes of the South ern plains, including other bands of Cheyenne, Ara- pahoes, Kiowas, Comanches, and even some of the Apaches. Reforming his command as rapidly as he could get the detachments together, he prepared for an attack of the Indians in force. It soon came, but, forming his men on foot in a circle within the village, he was able to successfully repel it. His quartermaster, Major Bell, fearing he might need ammunition, had taken a small escort from the train and pushed through with it, arriving just in time to be of the greatest serv ice. Custer now proceeded to destroy the village, burn- A WINTER S FIGHT IN THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 247 ing it with all its supplies. Then, mounting his troops, he attacked and drove back the assailing Indians. He had captured Black Kettle s herd of eight hundred and seventy-five ponies, but now realized that he could not safely get them back to Camp Supply, so, after taking what were needed to mount the captive women and children, he ordered the rest shot. He now prepared to make his way back, but on assembling his command Major Elliott and fourteen enlisted men were missing. When last seen Elliott was in close pursuit of a small party of Indians, but notwithstanding searching par ties were sent as far as was safe to send them nothing could be found of the major and his men. Perhaps, however, the fate of Major Elliott and his party, con sisting of Sergeant-Ma j or Kennedy, three corporals, and ten privates of the Seventh Cavalry, may as well be recorded here as elsewhere, although nothing posi tive was known of their fate until the 10th of the fol lowing December. I quote from General Custer s report: " The bodies of Elliott and his little band, with but a single excep tion, were found lying within a circle not exceeding twenty yards in diameter. We found them exactly as they fell, except that their barbarous foe had stripped and mutilated the bodies in the most savage manner. ... No words were needed to tell how desperate had been the struggle before they were finally over whelmed." Mounting his whole force and throwing forward his flankers and skirmishers, Custer boldly, with colours flying and his band playing, moved directly to ward the large body of mounted Indians who now con fronted him and directly down the river toward their camps. In a few moments they broke wildly in the 248 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. direction of their villages, evidently thinking that Cus- ter must be the advance guard of a much larger force. This was exactly the impression he wished to produce; so about dark he retraced his course, passed through the burned village, and took up his old trail for Camp Supply, which he reached with all his prisoners in due time without further notable incident. In this action we lost two fine officers, Major Elliott and Captain Hamilton, of the Seventh Cavalry, and nineteen en listed men killed, and had three officers and eleven en listed men wounded. The Indians lost two of their chiefs, Black Kettle and Little Eock, and one hundred and one warriors killed, besides their wounded. But by far the best result of this expedition was that it taught the Indians that winter s ice and snow no longer meant rest and safety for them after a summer s bloody raid upon the frontier settlements. CHAPTER XL THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69 AND THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PIEGANS. No sooner had General Custer returned to Camp Supply from his battle on the Washita than General Sheridan determined on a second winter s stroke at the savages. But as soon as the report of this attack upon the winter camp of the Indians in zero weather reached the East the humanitarians seemed to go wild over it, and through the pulpit, the press, and Congress, with out pausing for a moment to inquire into the military necessity that demanded it nor the justice that sanc tioned it, they proceeded bitterly to assail General Sheridan, the army, and the War Department, alleging that the campaign was made solely that the army might have an excuse for its being, never seeming to realize that the Indians had brought the trouble upon them selves by a series of unprovoked murders and outrages upon the frontiersmen and their families almost pass ing the bounds of mortal endurance. General Sheridan, however, said little or nothing at the time, but unhesitatingly continued his movements. In his first report, however, of his winter s operations he struck back rather savagely at his Eastern assailants, and as this official report to the commanding general of 249 250 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. the army not only outlines with sketchy distinctness his winter s campaign, but gives his reasons for it, without glossing over the actions of the Indians that occasioned it, I shall quote directly from it, believing that the mass of our people have little or no knowledge of the actual brutality of the Indians of the great plains: "HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI, "CHICAGO, ILL., November 1, 1869. " GENERAL: I have the honour to submit for your information the following report of military operations in the Department of Missouri from October 15, 1868, to March 27, 1869. In my annual report of last year, and in a special report made previously, I gave details of the murderous outbreak and massacre of defenceless frontier citizens by that class of our people known as Indians. " The Indians have run riot along the lines of our Western settlements and the emigrant and commercial lines of travel for many years, murdering and plunder ing, without any adequate punishment, and the Gov ernment has heretofore sought to give protection to some of its best interests by making presents to these savages; or, in other words, while it found it necessary to enact the most stringent laws for the government of civilized whites, it was attempting to govern a wild, brutal, and savage people without any laws at all. " The experience of many years of this character of Indian depredations, with security to themselves and families in the winter, had made them very confident and bold; especially was this true of the previous sum mer and winter. So boldly had this system of murder and robbery been carried on that not less than eight CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 251 hundred people had been murdered since June, 1862 men, women, and children. To disabuse the minds of the savages of this confident security, and to strike them at a period at which they were the most if not entirely helpless, became a necessity, and the general in chief then in command of this division authorized a winter campaign, and at or about the same time directed that the reservation set apart for the Kiowas and Comanches at the Witchita Mountains should be considered a place of refuge, where, if the savages would go and submit, they would be exempt from the operations of the troops. " The blow that Ouster had struck was a hard one, and fell on the guiltiest of all the bands that of Black Kettle. It was this band that, without provocation, had massacred the settlers on the Saline and Solomon, and perpetrated cruelties too fiendish for recital. " He was also with the band on Walnut Creek, where they made their medicine or held their devilish in cantations previous to the party setting out to massacre the settlers. I subjoin here the affidavit of Edmund Guerriere, an educated half-breed and an intelligent man, who was with the tribe at the time, showing that the men of this very band were the leaders of the mas sacre and instigators of the war: " HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, "!N THE FIELD, MEDICINE BLUFF CREEK, " WITCHITA MOUNTAINS, February 9, 1869. " Personally appeared before me, Edmund Guerriere, who resides on the Purgatoire River, Colorado Territory, who, being duly sworn, testifies as follows : " I was with the Cheyenne Indians at the time of the massa cre on the Solomon and Saline Rivers, in Kansas, the early part 252 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. or middle of last August, and I was living at this time with Lit tle Rock s band. " The war party who started for the Solomon and Saline was Little Rock s, Black Kettle s, Medicine Arrow s, and Bull Bear s bands ; and, as near as I can remember, nearly all the different bands of Cheyennes had some of their young men in this war party which committed the outrages and murders on the Solo mon and Saline. Red Nose and The-man-who-breaks-the-mar- row-bones (Ho-eh-a-mo-a-hce) were the two leaders in this mas sacre, the former belonging to the Dog Soldiers and the latter to Black Kettle s band. As soon as we heard the news by runners, who came on ahead to Black Kettle, saying that they had already commenced fighting, we moved from our camp on Buckner s Fork of the Pawnee, near its head waters, down to North Fork, where we met Big Jake s band, and then moved south across the Arkansas River ; and when we got to the Cimarron, George Bent and I left them, and went to our homes on the Purgatoire. "EDMUND GUERIERRE. " Witness: " J. SCHUYLER CROSBY, " Bvt. Lieut. Col. U. S. A., Aide-de-Camp. " There was no provocation on the part of the whites or of the Government to justify the Indians in commencing hostilities, except an allegation that the agent would not deliver guns and ammunition to the tribe; and it is time that the Indians should know that any act of the Government or people will not justify murder, rape, and pillage. "We found in Black Kettle s village photographs and daguerreotypes, clothing, and bedding, from the houses of the persons massacred on the Solomon and Saline. The mail which I had sent by the expressmen, Nat Marshal and Bill Davis, from Bluff Creek to Fort Dodge, who were murdered and mutilated, was likewise found; also a large blank book, with Indian illustra tions of the different fights which Black Kettle s band had been engaged in, especially about Fort Wallace and CLOSE OP THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 253 on the line of the Denver stages; showing when the fight had been with the coloured troops when with white; also, when trains had been captured and women killed in wagons. Still a hue and cry was raised, through the influence of the Indian ring, in which some good and pious ecclesiastics took part, and became the aiders and abettors of savages who murdered, without mercy, men, women, and children; in all cases ravishing the women, sometimes as often as forty and fifty times in succession, and while insensible from brutality and exhaustion forced sticks up their persons, and, in one instance, the fortieth or fiftieth savage drew his sabre and used it on the person of the woman in the same manner. I do not know exactly how far these hu manitarians should be excused on account of their ignorance, but surely it is the only excuse that gives a shadow of justification for aiding and abetting such horrid crimes. " Although Ouster had struck a hard blow, and wiped out old Black Kettle and his murderers and rapers of helpless women, I did not feel that our work was done yet, but desired that the Indians should see fully how helpless they were even at this season, when the Government was in earnest. So on the 7th of De cember, after getting the Kansas regiment as well set up as possible, we moved toward the head waters of the Washita, with thirty days rations for the men and about one quarter rations of forage for the animals. " The snow was still on the ground and the weather very cold, but the officers and men were cheerful, al though the men had only shelter tents. We moved due south until we struck the Washita, near Ouster s fight of November 27th, having crossed the main Ca nadian with the thermometer about eighteen degrees below zero." THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. It is reasonably safe to say that campaigning in weather eighteen degrees below zero is not apt to be undertaken save and only from stern necessity. " After reaching the Washita, my intention was to take up the trail of the Indians and follow it. We rested one day and made an examination of the ground; found the bodies of Major Elliott and his small party, and examined the Indian camps or villages which had been abandoned when General Custer struck Black Kettle s band. They extended about twelve or thirteen miles down the river, and from the appearance of things they had fled in the greatest haste, abandoning pro visions, robes, cooking utensils, and every species of property, and it appeared to me they must have at last begun to realize that winter was not going to give them security. " On the next day we started down the Washita, following the Indian trail; but finding so many deep ravines and canons, I thought we would move out on the divide; but a blinding snowstorm coming on, and fearing to get lost with a large command and trains of wagons on a treeless prairie without water, we were forced back to the banks of the Washita, where we at least could get wood and water. Next day we contin ued down the river, following the trail of the Indians, and crossed numerous ravines by digging and bridging with pioneer parties. This was continued until the evening of the 16th [December], when we came to the vicinity of the Indians principally Kiowas. They did not dream that any soldiers could operate in such cold and inclement weather, and we marched down on them before they knew of our presence in the country; after night they saw our fires, and by means of relays com municated with General Ilazen, and obtained a letter from him saying that the Kiowas were friendly. I had CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 255 just followed their trail from Ouster s battlefield, and a portion of this band had just come from Texas, where they had murdered and plundered in the most barba rous manner; while in the previous spring their outrages on the Texas border are too horrible to relate, one item of which is that, in returning to their villages, fourteen of the poor little captive children were frozen to death. " The Cheyennes broke their promise and did not come in, so I ordered General Ouster to move against them; this he did, and came on the Cheyennes on the head waters of Eed River, apparently moving north; it is possible they were on their way to Camp Supply, as in some of the conversations I had with Little Robe I had declared that if they did not get into the Fort Cobb reservation within a certain time they would not be received there, but would be received at Camp Sup ply; this was because I expected to stay only for a lim ited time at Fort Cobb, intending to return to Camp Supply. " Custer found them in a very forlorn condition, and could have destroyed, I think, most of the tribe, certainly their villages, but contented himself with tak ing their renewed promise to come into Camp Supply, and obtained from them two \vhite women whom they held as captives. The most of the tribe fulfilled this latter promise so far as coming into the vicinity of Camp Supply and communicating with the command ing officer; but Tall Bull s band again violated the promise made, and went north to the Republican, where he joined a party of Sioux, who, on the 13th of May, 1869, were attacked and defeated with heavy loss, whereupon the whole tribe moved into Camp Supply. "Meantime, while the Arapahoes and Cheyennes were negotiating with me to surrender, the Quahrada or Staked Plains Comanches sent a delegation over to 256 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Bascom, offering to surrender themselves, under the expectation, perhaps, that they could get better terms there than with me; but General Getty arrested the delegation, which was ordered to Fort Leavenworth, and finally returned to their people on condition that they would deliver themselves up on the reservation at Medicine Bluff or Fort Sill. This \vas complied with, and I am now able to report that there has been a ful filment of all the conditions which we had in view when we commenced our winter s campaign last No vember namely, punishment was inflicted; property destroyed; the Indians disabused of the idea that winter would bring security; and all the tribes south of the Platte forced on to the reservations set apart for them by the Government, where they are in a tangible shape for the good work of civilization, education, and reli gious instruction. " I can not speak too highly of the patient and cheerful conduct of the troops under my command; they were many times pinched by hunger and numbed by cold, sometimes living in holes below the surface of the prairie dug to keep them from freezing; at other times pursuing the savages, and living on the flesh of mules. In all these trying conditions the troops were always cheerful and willing, and the officers full of esprit. " I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, " P. H. SHERIDAN, " Lieutenant General. " General W. T. SHERMAN, " General in Chief of the Army, Washington, D. C." I have only quoted from the report extracts enough to give the reader a general idea of this Indian war and what caused it, and of some of the hardships incident to CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OP 1868- 69. 257 a winter s campaign against the Indians, as well as the final outcome of this one of 1868 and 1869. There was also a great deal of hard work and some sharp fighting by smaller bodies of troops north of the Canadian Eiver before the Indians were finally forced on to their reser vations, but sufficient has been written and quoted to give the reflective reader food for thought as to whether the frontiersman has not sometimes had good cause for his hate of the Indian. The punishment of the marauding Indians south of the Platte River did not, however, deter or intimidate those in the far North. Certain bands of the Blackfeet Indians living in the extreme northern or almost un settled districts of the Territory of Montana had during the years immediately succeeding the close of the civil war that is to say, from 1865 to 1869 for three suc cessive years raided the thinly settled upper portion of the Gallatin Valley, killed the frontiersmen, murdered or carried off their wives and little children, burned their ranches, and then, driving their horses and cattle before them, escaped through the mountain passes of the Little Belt Range to the borders of the British pos sessions hours before word could be sent to the nearest villages or any hastily organized pursuit could be made by the inhabitants of the inlying settlements that could, or at any time did, succeed in accomplishing anything in the way of rescue or reprisals. One great trouble that prevented the troops from accomplishing anything was the fact that it was generally days before the news of the raid reached them, and unfortunately at that time we did not have any cavalry stationed on that section of our frontier. These raids were made by two bands of the Black- 258 ME STORY OF THE SOLDIER. feet known as Piegans and Bloods, and it is to be sup posed that the commanding general of the department (Major-General W. S. Hancock) debited them in full for what they had at various times succeeded in accom plishing in the hope that on some future day he might be able to force a complete settlement of the account. In the summer of 1869 a battalion of four troops of the Second Cavalry was sent for service in Montana and stationed at Fort Ellis. Midwinter was the time decided upon for a blow at the Piegans and Major E. M. Baker was the officer selected to command the expedition. The utmost secrecy was preserved in re gard to the movement, and when the troops started from Fort Ellis on the 6th of January, 1870, with the thermometer at ten degrees below zero, only the senior officers of the command were aware of their des tination. At Fort Shaw they were joined by fifty mounted infantry and one company of infantry as a train guard, and then the united command plodded on up through the mountain passes, breaking trail through deep snows with the thermometer ranging from ten to forty degrees below zero, hunting for the winter camps of the Piegans and Bloods, which they knew were somewhere near the line of the British pos sessions. On the 22d of January the scouts located the camp of the Piegans, which was, as they had supposed it would be, located in a gorge of the Marias River, near the British line. The weather was intensely bitter, but the command marched nearly all that night and halted just before daylight within a mile or so of the Indian village. It was so very cold that the savages had neglected to put out even a vedette, and so just at day- CLOSE OF THE SIOTTX CAMPAIGN OF 1868- 69. 259 light the troops dashed in upon them, effecting a com plete surprise, for they had not deemed it possible that our soldiers could move in such weather. There was little or no time for defence; our troops were in and through the village almost before the Indians were fair ly awake, so although some of them sprang to arms and made for a few moments something of a stand, the whole band soon stampeded, for, knowing their guilt, they were wild with terror, breaking from their tepees and flying in all directions, the soldiers riding over and shooting them down wherever they could over take them. Our loss was comparatively very little, two or three killed and about twenty wounded, while one hundred and seventy-three of the Piegans lay dead on the field. It was an awful retribution, but the Piegans had brought it on themselves. The women and chil dren who were captured were turned loose, as there was no way of bringing them into any of our posts. Over three hundred captured horses were brought to Fort Shaw, and many of them returned to their former own ers from whom the Piegans had stolen them. General Hancock, in his report of this affair, says: " It is to be regretted that in the attack on the camp some women and children were accidentally killed. As is well known to all acquainted with Indian fighting a certain proportion of accidental killing will always occur in affairs of this kind, especially when the attack is made in the dim light of early morning,, and when it is a necessary element of success to fire into the lodges at the outset to drive the Indians out to an open contest. It is believed that not a single woman or child was killed by our own people outside of the lodges, although, us is also well known, a good many 260 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. of the women on such occasions fight with and as well as the men. " As much obloquy was heaped upon Major Baker, his officers, and men, owing to the exaggerations and misstatements published in relation to the number of women and children killed, I think it only justice to him and his command that the truth should be made fully known to the public." (It was said over one hun dred women and children were killed. As a matter of fact, less than forty were killed by the volley firing of the troops, as they fired into the tepees to drive the warriors out on the opening of the action.) " Recol lecting the season of the year in which the expedition was made, the terrible cold through which it marched day after day (forty degrees below zero), and the spirit with which the troops engaged an enemy which they deemed as strong as themselves, I think the command is entitled to the especial commendation of the mili tary authorities and the thanks of the nation. At all events, the lesson administered to the Indians has been salutary in its effects, and highly beneficial to the in- interests of Montana. I predict it will be a long time before serious trouble may be again apprehended from the Blackfeet." This last paragraph from General Hancock s pen was written in 1870. The splendid soldier who wrote it is one of the silent majority, but in the light of the last thirty years it reads like prophecy. Thirty long years have passed since Major Baker struck the Piegans on the Marias River, but the Blackfeet have never again attempted a raid on our Montana border. CHAPTER XII. ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. THE treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the re public of Mexico and the United States in 1848, to gether with the supplementary one in 1853. generally known as the Gadsden purchase,, by which, on the pay ment of ten million dollars, our Government obtained that part of modern Arizona south of the Gila River, not only gave us all the claim Mexico had to the terri tory mentioned, but incidentally gave us a quit claim, so far as the Mexicans could do so, to a tribe of Indians called Apaches. In that part of his history of the Pacific slope relating to Arizona and New Mexico the historian Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft says that " nearly all of what we now call Arizona has no other history be fore 1846 than the record of Spanish and Mexican exploring entradas [expeditions] from the south and east. The exception is the small tract of not more than sixty miles square from Tucson southward." The glory of discovering this territory (Arizona) must be given to a negro and a Franciscan friar in 1539. Ac cepting this statement, we have a starting point from which to date our knowledge of the Apache in what is known as Arizona, and we find him to have been quite a difficult factor for the next three hundred years in 18 261 262 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. this frontier community of Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Mexicans. For the first century of Spanish occupation and misrule in this portion of what is to-day the state of Sonora in Mexico little is accurately known. That the Spaniards sent several exploring expeditions into this newly discovered country is substantiated by Spanish records showing that the first one was under the direc tion of Fray Marcos de Niza of the Franciscan friars, who, with another friar, Onorato, and black Estevan- cio, together with some native Mexicans from Culiacan, set out from San Miguel on March 7, 1539, to explore this (then) unknown country. Onorato fell ill and was left behind. After fifteen days travel they came to a native town called Vocapa. There the friar remained and sent forward the negro Estevancio to explore. He sent back glowing reports of what he heard of the Pueb lo cities, especially of the city of Cibola. On or about the 6th of April, 1539, Father Niza set out after his black advance guard, and in five or six days came to a well-watered settlement near the borders of a desert. Bancroft says: " Between Vocapa and this place, with out much doubt they had crossed w r hat is now the southern bound of Arizona." Niza pushed on steadily after the negro Estevancio, who kept straight on his way for Cibola, but on reaching the town Estevancio was forbidden to enter, and soon set upon and killed. However, Father Niza kept on until he was in sight of Cibola, and there erected a cross on a heap of stones and took formal possession of the whole country in the name of the Spanish Governor Mendoza for the King of Spain, and then hurried back to proclaim his discov ery. It seems thus that without doubt the first Euro pean to enter Arizona was the black man Stephen, ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 263 or Estevancio, Father Niza being a close second. The occupation of this country in 1540- 50 by the Spanish soldier Coronado with an armed exploring party and its occupation by Spanish troops and Spaniards turned out to be a distinct disappointment as far as their finding great wealth among the Pueblo Indians was concerned. About 1672 the various Apache tribes became trou blesome, destroying in their raids one of the Zuni towns and six of the pueblos. In 1682, in the civil wars and discords under the Spanish, " the Apaches and Yutes took advantage of the situation to renew their raids for plunder/ In 1684 a force of fifty Spaniards and one hundred Indians were sent against a rancJieria of apostate and gentile Apaches to kill the men and cap ture the women and children. In 1698 it appears of record that the French almost annihilated a Navajo force of four thousand men. There was also a Spanish campaign against the Faraon Apaches, but it was futile, and nothing was accomplished. " In 1755 depredations by Apaches were frequent." Again, in 1750, " the Na- vajo conversion was a failure." Of the Yutes and Apaches we know nothing definitely except that in most years " they gave trouble in one way or another." From 1751 to 1756 " the Apaches were continuously troublesome, and many expeditions were undertaken against them, . . . but only a few are recorded, and those very meagrely. . . . The only success achieved was the killing of a few warriors and the capture of some women and children, . . . and it finally came to be seriously questioned by many whether these cam paigns were of the slightest advantage." In 1786 Gen eral Ugarte introduced a radical change in the Apache Indian policy. The Apaches were to be forced by an 264 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. unceasing Spanish campaign aided by friendly Pima! and Opata Indians to accept and enter into a treaty of peace never before permitted with that nation. If they observed its requirements they were to be kindly treat ed, furnished with certain supplies, encouraged to settle near the presidio, ianglit to drink intoxicating liquors, and to depend on Spanish friendship for their needs. This worked fairly w r ell under the management of the Franciscan friars for nearly or quite twenty years, or as long as the Spaniards did not attempt the Apaches en slavement, and then, naturally, the treaty went to pieces, and, as we shall see further on, the Apaches again took to the war path. From 1581 to 1840 both the Spaniards and the Mexicans had tried to subjugate and complete the conquest of these Indians and signally failed. For a few years some of the Jesuit fathers by unvarying kindness, sterling integrity, good and fair treatment, unwearied patience, and great forbearance did actu ally obtain a strong hold on them and had a large part of the tribe well started on the road toward Christianity. Then the cupidity of the miners, the ranchmen, and the small local governors of New Spain, within whose districts these Indians dwelt, upset and destroyed all the work of the fathers in an attempt to enslave the entire tribe. Baron Humboldt states that the Apaches entered upon a war of extermination upon the Spaniards when they discovered that all their peo ple captured by the king s troops had been either trans ported to Cuba to work and die as slaves on the sugar plantations or else sent to work their lives out in the mines of Guanajuato. From that time the hand of the Apache was against both the Spaniard and the Mexican ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 265 and opposed to civilization as well. In vain were troops sent to hunt him from his mountain lair, in vain were ambuscades laid, traps set, and surprises planned, for the Apache was ever alert and could not be taken un awares, and furthermore he fought only where success seemed within his grasp. Finally the Mexicans de clared him an outlaw and entered upon a war of ex termination against him, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua offered a standing reward of three hundred silver dollars for each and every scalp of an Apache man, woman, or child that should be de livered at certain designated army posts, and actually entered into written contract with several desperate frontier adventurers for the furtherance of the bloody work. It goes without saying that many an Apache scalp eventually found its way to the stated headquar ters and was duly paid for, but for every individual Apache scalp taken, whether of man, woman, or child, it is reasonably safe to aver that in the course of time more than threescore Spaniards or Mexicans bit the dust, for the Apache was ever seeking revenge, and was as tireless as fate in its pursuit. Furthermore, he sent down his ancient grudge to his descendants, who gladly took up the heritage of hate, and the lapse of years and the passing of generations failed to weaken the Apache s desire for revenge or sate his thirst for the blood of his enemies. The late Major John G. Bourke, of the United States army, one of the ablest ethnologists as regards the aborigines of this country, says: * " In the * On the Border with Crook. By John G. Bourke, Captain Third Cavalry, U. S. A. New York : Charles Scribner s Sons, 1891. Page 114. rr -<?. \ ;."?;.. I , r J 266 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Apache the Spaniard, whether as soldier or priest, found a foe whom no artifice could terrify into sub mission, whom no eloquence could wean from the su perstition of his ancestors. Indifferent to the bullets of armor-clad soldiers and serenely insensible to the arguments of friar and priest, who claimed spiritual do minion over all other [Indian] tribes, the naked Apache with no weapon save his bow and arrows, lance, war club, knife, and shield, roamed over a vast empire, the lord of the soil fiercer than the fiercest of tigers, wilder than the wild coyote he called his brother." His habitat, over which he swept almost at will in defiance of the Spaniards and Mexicans for over two hundred years, included the Mexican states of Sonora and Chi huahua, the western portion of the State of Texas, and the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, an area greater than that of France and the German Empire combined. It is but scant justice to say that when the United States first obtained possession of the Terri tories of Arizona and New Mexico, which were occupied by certain Apache bands, that, so far as the record shows, they were not unfriendly and seemed disposed to live peaceably with our people, and it was a most wanton, brutal, and unprovoked murder of an Apache warrior by a Mexican teamster who was employed by the United States commissioner, a Mr. Bartlett, who deliberately and wilfully shot an Apache warrior dead without the slightest excuse, that was the origin of our Apache wars. Even then the Apache chiefs made no attempt at reprisals, but appealed to the com missioner for justice, and patiently awaited his decision. For this unprovoked, wilful, and deliberate murder Commissioner Bartlett thought a fine of thirty dollars, ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 267 to be retained in monthly instalments from the team ster s pay and turned over to the warrior s family, was sufficient compensation. Forty-eight hours after the promulgation of Bartlett s decision the Apaches swept the whole Arizona frontier, burning and killing wher ever they could find a settler s ranch, an isolated trav eller, or a group of prospecting miners, and the fire- blackened and desolated border for hundreds of miles established the fact that in the opinion of the tribe an Apache warrior s life was worth decidedly more to them than thirty dollars. It is, of course, impossible to say what the result would have been if Mr. Bartlett had shown the nerve and keen sense of justice to im panel a border jury, try the teamster, and if he was con victed have executed him; but it is among the possi bilities that such action upon his part might have saved us years of border warfare and the lives of hundreds of frontiersmen and their families, to say nothing of many of our best and bravest soldiers as well as millions of Government treasure. The Apaches are of two distinct types. Some of of them are tall, slight, exceedingly well formed, with aquiline noses, long heads, well-rounded chins, well- shaped lips, firm mouths, and bold flashing eyes. Oth ers are short, with broad shoulders, deep chest, flat broad noses, with open nostrils, small keen dark eyes, thin lips, stern mouth with projecting chin, and with the skull flattened behind the ears. They all have well- developed and most muscular legs and rather small feet. All of the male Apaches whom I have met have cruel faces, and the determined mouth shows that no mercy need be expected by his enemies. The Apache is an able soldier, in that he never takes an unneces- 268 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. sary risk if he can avoid it, and never lets his passion get the better of his good judgment; is patient, per severing, tireless, abstemious, and can subsist and make available for food material upon which not only the Caucasian, but the ordinary American plains Indian would surely starve. No enemy can conceal a trail so that he will not discover and follow it, and when the knows that he is pursued he covers his own trail so that only another Apache can discover and trace it. In a few words the case of the Apache may be summed lip thus: He was an Indian mountaineer with the average mountaineer s love of personal liberty, and undoubtedly with all the good and bad qualities of one of the best specimens of the North American aborigine, but the persistent attempts of the Spaniards and Mexicans for more than two hundred years to enslave him devel oped his worst qualities, and eventually as the Indian Ishmaelite with the hand of civilization against him he became an Indian bandit with his hand against civ ilization, and, in the words of the late General George Crook, he developed into the human tiger, and as such we fell heir to him. Major Bourke thinks that the Apache is the southernmost member of the great Tin- neh family, which originally stretched across the cir- cumpolar portion of the American continent from the shores of the Pacific to the western line of Hudson Bay, and this family the Tinneh are still, and always have been, the ablest of the American Indian tribes, and wherever they have come in contact with other of the Southern Indian tribes they have invariably, sooner or later, obtained control over them owing to their diplo matic astuteness, personal daring, and their incessant and unwearying work to gain the ascendency. In a ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 269 report of Father Benavides to the King of Spain, dated at Madrid in 1630 and written on the priest s return from New Spain (Mexico), he says of these Indians, classified as "Apaches de Xila (Gila), Apaches de Na- vajo, and Apaches Vaqueros," that they had caused no serious disturbance, and in the Xila (Gila) province, where he (Benavides) had been a missionary working with much success as well as among the Apaches de Navajo, everything was then at peace. This was the condition of affairs in 1630, and two hundred and fif teen years later, in 1848, we fell heir to the Apache, and as the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona slowly fell in line with the advance guard of civilization, in order to protect our settlers and prevent their being anni hilated or else driven from the country, our army was compelled to take up the task the Spaniards and Mexi cans had laid down, and to enter on a campaign having for its object the subjugation of the untamed Apache. A campaign against the Apaches in their eyrie fast nesses among the ragged Sierra Madres could but be a series of detached fights. In fact, for many years and until the various bands of the whole tribe were finally rounded up, that was all there was to it, but it involved nearly twenty years heartbreaking work, ex hausting privation, bitter disappointment, and the loss of many a gallant soldier, and was eventually accom plished only when our own troops, by persistent en deavour and repeated scouts, had mastered the general trend of valley, stream, and canon, learned the loca tion of the few water holes in the beds of the dry water courses, the rare springs in the hills, and the isolated passes through the unexplored mountain ranges, to gether with the stern fact that a trail once discovered 270 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. must never be abandoned, but doggedly hung to and searched out, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, until their quarry was run to earth and compelled to turn and fight, or on very rare occasions cornered and obliged to fight to a surrender or annihilation. Trailing the Apache when he had covered his trail was practically an impossibility to white men, but Gen eral George Crook, who was, without doubt, one of the very best and ablest Indian campaigners our Govern ment has ever had, and at the same time one of the most absolutely just and true friends the Indian has ever known, when he was assigned to the command of the Department of Arizona adopted and put in practice a new course toward this people. First, he personally went over the country and obtained all possible knowl edge of it and of the Apaches. Then, by guaranteeing their safety, he finally, after much trouble, succeeded in getting some of the leading Apache warriors to come in for a talk. His reputation as an honest and true man had reached even this people in the fastnesses of the Sierras, and finally, after much hesitation, a few of them came. He told them that their stay on the war path meant eventual extermination. That things were changing in their section of country and civiliza tion was advancing, and would continue to do so, and set forth the advantages of peace, offered them immu nity for the past, and protection for the future if they would surrender and settle down to a peaceful life. Otherwise, he must and would fight them to extermina tion. Furthermore, if all the bands would not accept the offer of the United States Government and come in he would gladly offer immunity to those who would ac cept it, and wished them, in case the bad Indians would ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 271 not give up the war path, to assist him in their cap ture; that there were both good and had white men and good and had Indians, but the good white men forced the bad ones to obey the law, and he expected that the good Indians would assist him, just as the good white men assisted the officers of the law in keeping peace and maintaining order. Runners were sent out to the various bands, and in a few months all the well- disposed Indians came in and surrendered. After a suitable length of time he put his troops in motion against the defiant bands. But when our troops moved against them it was with this tremendous difference: Each small command moved with eight or ten friendly Apaches, duly en rolled, clothed, equipped, and paid as United States scouts. It was the entering wedge that enabled us eventually to conquer and subdue the Apache. From 1865 to 1871 the troops in Arizona had been in al most constant turmoil with the Indian tribes. They seemed to be constantly on the alert to attack the settlers, and Major Bourke s description of the con dition of affairs at Peter Kitchen s border ranch is graphic enough to answer for the whole Arizona fron tier. Bourke writes: * " Peter Kitchen has probably had more contest with the Indians than any other settler in America. He comes from the same stock which sent out from the lovely vales and swales in the Tennessee mountains the contingent of riflemen who were to cut such a conspicuous figure at the battle of New Orleans, and Peter finds just as steady employment for his trusty rifle as ever was essential in the delta. Approaching * On the Border with Crook, p. 78. 272 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Pete Kitchen s ranch, one finds himself in a fertile val ley, with a small hillock near one extremity. Upon the summit of this has been built the house from which no effort of the Apaches has ever succeeded in driving him. There is a sentinel posted on the roof, there is another out in the cienega [a marshy meadow] with the stock, and the men ploughing in the bottoms are obliged to carry rifles, cocked and loaded, swung to the plough handles. Every man and boy is armed with one or two revolvers on his hip. There are revolvers and rifles and shotguns along the walls and in every corner. Every thing speaks of a land of warfare and of bloodshed. The title of Dark and Bloody Ground never fairly be longed to Kentucky. Kentucky was never anything ... in comparison with Arizona, every mile of whose surface could tells its tale of horror were the stones and gravel, the sagebrush and mescal, the mesquite and the yucca only endowed with speech for one brief hour. Between Pete Kitchen and the Apaches a ceaseless war was waged with the advantages not all on the side of Kitchen. His employees were killed and wounded, his stock driven away, his pigs filled with arrows, and every thing that could be thought of done [by the Apaches] to drive him away, but there he stayed, unconquered and unconquerable. Men like . . . Pete Kitchen merit a volume by themselves. Arizona and New Mexico were full of such people, not all nor nearly all as determined and resolute as Pete. Strangest of all ... is the quietness of their manner and the low tone in which they usually spoke to their neighbours." Just here I wish to present a few statistics to show the actual necessity that compelled the army to hunt out, de stroy, or capture this people. In Pima County, Ari^ ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 273 zona, in 1868- 69 the Apaches killed fifty-two white settlers and wounded eighteen, and in the next year killed forty-seven and wounded six, and this in only one county. In 1870 the Territorial Delegate in Congress, Mr. McCormick, presented a list of one hundred and forty-four citizens recently murdered by the Apaches. A petition was sent to Congress by the inhabitants of Arizona praying for protection from the Indians, giv ing the names, dates, and localities of over four hundred American citizens killed within less than three years. From these statements it can be seen why the army had to keep moving incessantly in small scouting parties to hunt these Indians down. In 1868 there were no less than forty-six scouting expeditions sent against them in Arizona, in which one hundred and fourteen Indians were killed, sixty-one wounded, and thirty-five captured, but all this was not accomplished without heavy losses to our troops in both officers and men. Hunting them out was terribly rough work; and wiping them out when brought to bay and after they had refused to surrender, though it was an act imposed by military necessity, was nevertheless a most dangerous, grisly, gruesome, and revolting task. When the War Department wisely decided to send General George Crook to take command of the Depart ment of Arizona it showed equally good judgment in not changing the troops on duty there at the same time it changed the department commanders, for the regi ments then stationed in Arizona had learned by bitter experience just how to handle themselves while cam paigning against the wily Apaches, and best knew in what way to go about hunting them down. When our troops moved out from the posts or camps in pursuit 274 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. of the Indians they divested themselves of every super fluous garment, and did not load themselves down with even a single ounce of impedimenta that they could pos sibly do without. In summer they were almost as naked as the savages themselves,, and were sunburned to the colour of mulattoes, while in place of boots and shoes they wore buckskin moccasins or rawhide sandals tied to their feet with thongs of the same material, which enabled them to follow their foes on the rocky trail at night silently, and with such sleuthlike movements that on several occasions, all undiscovered, they traced them to their very lair. It was with these seasoned and experienced troops that General Crook began his winter campaign of 1871- ? 72 against the bands of hostile Apaches, who, despite all he could do to bring them to peaceful terms by offers of immunity for past misdeeds and protection for the future, refused to come in to the agencies, and still defiantly remained on the war path. They had already attempted his assassination at a peace talk at Camp Date Creek, and he now knew positively that for those who rejected all overtures of peace only one course was open so far as the Government was con cerned, and he must fight them to surrender or anni hilation. Accordingly he divided his forces into five or six fairly strong detachments under most capable officers. Each one of these detachments had a number of Apache scouts accompanying it. They were directed to take station within certain specified districts, to estab lish a rendezvous, and from that point send out friendly Apache trailers and on their report move against the hostile Apaches, striking and hunting them down from five or six different points at nearly the same time, thereby keeping the Indians constantly on the alert to ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 275 prevent themselves from being surprised, and subject ing them to such a continued apprehension of death and disaster that he hoped the continued mental strain might, in the course of time, break down their defiant spirit and induce them to finally sue for peace. All of these separate detachments did good work during the ensuing winter, but it is only with one of them that we will have to do; and I follow the fortunes of that es pecial detachment simply because it will give iny readers an account of one of the two most desperate fights of that campaign, and show how the troops had to ferret out and practically annihilate some of the Apache bands before the hostiles would give up the war path for the reservation system. Brevet Major William H. Brown, captain of the Fifth United States Cavalry, was ordered from old Camp Grant to take the field against the hostiles, and, like all the rest of the detached commands, he was to move over and operate against the Indians in the Tonto Basin, which in a general sense includes all the country between the head waters of the Gila and the Salt Rivers in the valley or plain that lies between the Mogollon and Pinal ranges of mountains in southeastern Arizona. Major Brown was a most capable officer (a promotion from the ranks) and a man of sound judgment and much experience in Indian affairs. His force consisted of two companies of the Fifth Cavalry and thirty Apache scouts, and he had as his junior officers Captain A. B. Taylor and Lieutenant Jacob Almy of the Fifth Cavalry, Lieutenant J. M. Ross of the Twenty-first Infantry, and Lieutenant John G. Bourke of the Third Cavalry. Crossing the Pinal Mountains, which at that season were covered with snow, Major Brown encamped 276 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. in a small valley near the northwestern extremity of the range. From this place the troops moved over the various Apache trails, sending their Indian scouts in advance under their guides and Indian interpreters, Mclntosh, Felmar, and Antonio Besias; but, although the advance had one or two small skirmishes with the hostiles, the main body of the command did not get near them. On Christmas Day Major Brown s detachment was joined by Captain James Burns of the Fifth Cav alry, in command of Troop G of that regiment and eighty Pima Indian scouts, with Lieutenant Earl I). Thomas of the same regiment as his subordinate. Two days later Major Brown announced to his officers that he was about to undertake the capture of one of the Apache strongholds, located somewhere in the caiion of the Salt River, and which had been frequently sought for by the troops, but its location had never yet been discovered, although for a long time it had been sus pected that there were two or three large Apache ran- cherias or strongholds somewhere within that gloomy defile. Major Brown had with his command a friendly Apache scout called Nantjce, who had at one time lived at this stronghold, and he had agreed to guide the troops there if they would make a night march, as other wise they would most surely be seen and destroyed upon the trail, for the Apaches, if forewarned, could easily de fend it against any number that could be sent to attack them. Leaving his pack train in his camp, with an ample guard to protect it, together with every man of the command not in the highest physical condition, Major Brown and his troops, led by Nantjee and the scouts and interpreters, took the trail at eight o clock on a cold starlight December night, and started up anil ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 277 over the Mazatzal Mountains for the hitherto undis covered Apache path in the canon of Salt River. Each man had his belt freshly refilled with cartridges, and a number of unopened packages of cartridges were also placed in his tightly rolled blanket, which passed over his right shoulder, and in which was also a small allow ance of coffee, bread, and bacon, and on the outside of it, wrapped up carefully to prevent it hitting against the rocks and making a noise, was a canteen full of precious water. Strict orders were issued that not a match should be struck, a pipe lighted, a loud word spoken, or even a cough allowed to escape from any one while on the march, and all orders were passed back from the head of the column in a whisper from one man to another down the long line which, Indian fashion, followed on the narrow trail in single file. It was a very bitter night, and the men shivered somewhat as they toiled silently upward through the almost total darkness, each man seeking to plant his feet in the foot steps of the man who preceded him. Now and then the head of the column halted until the rear guard came up, and toward morning the scouts reported that they had seen a light ahead of them. So the command was stopped on the trail to wait for further developments. In a short time scouts Mclntosh and Felmar came back with the information that the light they had seen must have been made by a band of Apaches who had evidently been raiding the whites and peaceful Pima Indians in the Gila Valley, and had just passed through the mountain above on their return to their stronghold with their plunder; that they had left a number of played- out horses and mules in a little depression on the moun tain side and gone on to their rancheria, and from all 19 278 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. indications probably within a very short time. Major Brown ordered Captain Burns, with Troop G of the Fifth Cavalry and his Pima Indian scouts, to go to where the abandoned horses were and hark back on the trail in case any more Apaches were coming up. He then ordered Lieutenant Ross of the Twenty-first In fantry to take fifteen enlisted men, together with all the mule packers who had come along as volunteers and who were excellent shots, to go ahead on the trail, led by Nantjee and scouts Mclntosh and Felmar, to prevent any attempt at a surprise in that direction, as it would soon be light, and the situation was not par ticularly reassuring. In the meantime he would form up his command and await a report from Lieutenant Ross as to what was in his immediate front. Nantjce, who seemed confident enough, led the advance down along the steep and dangerous trail into Salt River Canon. It was a dark, gloomy, and cavernous place, with just the flickering glimmer of light that foreshad ows dawn to indicate the narrow path that zigzagged down along the face of the cliff, but Nantjee trod it boldly and confidently, even if silently and anxiously. He was closely followed by the scouts Mclntosh and Felmar, while Lieutenant Ross, at the head of his trailers, followed quietly on a few feet in their rear. They had not gone much more than six hundred yards from the main body when Nantjee suddenly held up his hand in warning, and the command instantly stopped on the trail. Standing perfectly still, Nantjee leaned forward, evidently listening intently. A moment later he turned to Mclntosh, who was almost touching him, and whispered " Apache." Motioning the others to stand fast, Nantjee, Mclntosh, and Felmar crept ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 279 slowly forward to where there was a turn in the trail, knelt down, and glanced carefully around it. Then they drew back and motioned Lieutenant Ross forward. One quick glance, and Ross had taken it all in. Less than forty yards beyond the angle in the trail behind which he was crouching was the Apache stronghold. About four hundred feet from the crest of the rocky wall of the canon was the wide mouth of an open cavern. A few feet in front of this opening was a natural rampart of almost continuous great blocks of stone ten to twelve feet higher than the trail that led up to it, and just at the mouth of the cavern, in full view by the light of a camp fire, was a band of warriors singing and dancing, while half a dozen squaws were busy cooking them a meal on their return, red-handed, from their raid in the Gila Valley. After a whispered consultation the men silently crept forward on the trail, and, under in structions from Lieutenant Ross, each man carefully cocked his piece, then by the light of the Indians camp fire he singled out the Indian that was his best mark, and at the word all fired together. The crack of the rifles and the deafening echo of the canon was succeeded by wild shrieks from the startled Indians as six of their braves fell dead at the first fire. The frightened savages for a moment or two sought only safety in the interior of the cavern and behind the natural stone rampart in front of it, but Lieutenant Ross and his men continued to fire as rapidly as possible into the open cave and at any Indian brave whom they could see. Within less than three minutes, however, the astonished Apaches began to rally, and, grasping their rifles, commenced to reply to the fire of their assailants, whom as yet they could only dimly see in the early morning light. About this 280 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. time, however, Lieutenant Bourkc, at the head of forty or fifty men, came rushing and leaping down the narrow and dangerous trail with a recklessness only warranted by the desperate need that Eoss might have for re-en forcements, Major Brown having thrown Bourke and his men forward instantly on hearing the echoing roar from Salt River Canon that told them Ross was engaged with the Apaches, and Bourke came none too soon to save Lieutenant Ross and his men from a counter-attack by the savages. In a few moments Ross and Bourke had taken position on either flank of the Apaches cave and sheltered their men behind the adjacent rocks, so that they were comparatively safe from the Apaches fire. It soon became evident that some of the Indians were about to try to make their way out of the cave by one flank or the other, probably with the intention of communicating with some one of the other rancherias which was supposed to be somewhere in the Salt River Canon, probably within a few miles of the one now being attacked. Lieutenant Bourke had been told by Major Brown not to attempt to do anything more than hold the Indians, in case he found they had attacked Lieutenant Ross, until he could get up with the rest of the troops. So Bourke and Ross simply kept up a sharp fire on the enemy s flanks and waited. They did not have to wait long, for the major soon made his appear ance with the rest of his command, and at once assumed control. Just as the reserve had appeared one of the Apaches endeavoured to crawl through the rocks around the right flank. He had almost succeeded, but he could not resist giving a war whoop of defiance from a high rock, w r hich drew a shot from some one of the men that instantly killed him. After realigning his ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 281 troops behind the rocks directly fronting the enemy s position, Major Brown formed a second line in their rear and on their flanks, completely covering them in front and flank. Besides, he wished his second line to be able to turn and face a new enemy in case of a rear attack by any Apaches who might come to the rescue of these beleaguered ones from any rancherias that might possibly be located within a few miles, especially as he realized that the tremendous echo of the canon carried the sound of the combat for a long distance. Having invested the ranclwria so strongly that escape for the savages was practically impossible, he ordered all firing to cease, and through his interpreters summoned the Apaches to an unconditional surrender. Yells of rage, defiance, and threats was the only reply. A second time he called upon them to surrender, the interpreters tell ing them how hopeless it was for them to think of escape. The Apaches again defied him, saying that they would fight to the death, and daring the troops to come on. Major Brown then asked them to let the women and children come out, assuring them that he \vould see that they were protected and treated kindly. This the savages jeered at, and again defied the troops. It is probable that they expected help before long, and it may be that otherwise they would have permitted their women and children to come into our lines and surrender, no matter what course they might have de cided upon for themselves. For the next hour or so the two combatants closely watched each other, the expert riflemen of either side seeking an opportunity for a shot, but so well were both sides covered by lying behind rocks that there were very few, if any, casualties on either side. The major now decided upon another 282 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. course. A direct assault would have been too costly. The rampart behind which the Apache warriors lay was a smooth wall or line of rock too high to successfully escalade without ladders, and even then it would have been almost an impossibility. The cave where the In dians lay was not very deep, and it was now nearly or quite eight o clock in the morning, and light enough to see that the roof of it ran at such an angle that rifle bullets fired at it would deflect and glance so as to injure the occupants. Accordingly, the first line was ordered to open upon it and rain bullets into the mouth of the cave, so as to hit the roof of rock at the desired angle to make them glance downward, especially so as to tell upon the Apache warriors who lay massed close up to the rocky rampart in front of the cave. In less than five minutes our fire began to tell. The Apache warriors soon rose up and began to fire over the rampart at our men, who hit more than one of them as they thus ex posed themselves. Soon the wailing cry of women and children was heard, and Major Brown ordered the men to cease firing, and as soon as it was quiet enough to make his interpreters heard he again demanded their surrender; or, in case the warriors would not surrender, he asked that they at least let the women and children come out. For a few moments no reply was made, and all was silent. The Indians had also ceased firing, and it seemed as though they might be consulting as to what course to take. Soon, however, a wild, wailing song or chant was heard, and the interpreters shouted: " That s the death song! They are going to charge. Look out! They are coming! Here they are!" And twenty or more superb-looking warriors, fully armed, suddenly sprang on to the ramparts and delivered a volley at the ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 283 men nearest them, while from their rear another party of warriors quickly sprang down and tried to get around the right flank, where the warrior who so nearly got away in the morning tried to escape. Scarcely had they mounted the rampart, however, when nearly every man on the front line dashed from his cover and made straight for them, opening fire upon them as they ad vanced, killing five or six of them and driving them headlong off the ramparts and back into the cave, while the second line headed off and drove back those who tried to escape by the right flank. The instant that they were behind their ramparts, however, they again renewed the fight, still singing and chanting the death song. Major Brown now brought all his men up on to the first line, and sent a perfect hail of bullets against the roof of the cave, the incessant discharge of the rifles sending up an echoing roar through the canon that w r as heard for miles away. While this was going on Captain Burns and his command, who had been sent back on the raiding trail of the Apaches at daylight, and who had heard the firing and was now on his way to take part in the action which he knew was taking place, reached the top of the precipice just above the Apache stronghold, and stopped his men there to get their breath after the exhausting climb. The uproar beneath was so tremen dous that Captain Burns and Lieutenant Thomas leaned over the top of the cliff to try and see what it was all about. They could just make out that about four hundred feet below them there was a shelf of rock, on which, behind a natural rampart, a mass of Apaches were closely crowded, fighting a force in front of them which they could not see. Within five minutes Captain 284 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Burns had stripped the ammunition belts off of half a dozen of his men, buckled them together, and had two of his men swung out over the precipice, while eight or ten muscular fellows held them there as they opened fire on the Apaches huddled behind the ramparts below with their revolvers. This, however, was too slow work, and-so, when they had emptied their pistols, they hurled them after the bullets. This gave the captain another idea, and soon the whole command was gathering up and sending great boulders and masses of rock down the sides of the precipice into the now writhing mass of the entrapped Apaches. Still the Indians refused to sur render, and held on desperately, continuing their de fence against the troops, especially from their left, where their medicine man and two or three braves kept up a steady fire. Finally even this gave out, and with it their shouts of defiance and war songs gradually ceased. Signalling Captain Burns to discontinue send ing down boulders, Major Brown waited for the dust and smoke to subside, and then ordered an assault. As the troops, rifle in hand, sprang forward and entered the cave by the trail on each flank of the rampart they saw that the fight was over. The places behind the ramparts and the cave were both filled with a dead and writhing mass of humanity. Thirty-five living people were taken out, but numbers of them were mortally wounded. All the warriors were dead, dying, or badly wounded. Large quantities of plunder and supplier were found here, among which were articles taken from the ranches in the Gila Valley which had been attacked, plundered, and the inhabitants killed only two days before by the very band whose home-coming trail Lieutenant Eoss had followed to the cave that very morning. ARIZONA AND THE APACHE. 285 A campaign against the Apache with men of the calibre of those who trailed up and attacked these Indi ans could have but one termination. Eventually they all came in and surrendered, for they realized that with some of their own people to trail them, and the Ameri can troops to follow, it was only a question of time when those who were hostile would be exterminated. On the surrender of the tribe they were put at work under army officers to raise grain and earn their own living. This they proceeded to do successfully. Then the peace commissioners interfered, removed them to a reservation totally unsuited to them, and the final outcome was that in 1885, twelve years later, another Apache outbreak gave us great trouble, and seventy- three white settlers were killed in New Mexico and Arizona, and it took over two years of incessant cam paigning in the two Territories and across the Mexican border to finally round up Geronimo and the renegades, which was eventually accomplished by the troops under General Miles s command. CHAPTER XIII. THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON". THE Modoc war in Oregon in 1872 and the Nez Perce campaign, which began in the same State in 1877, stand out so prominently in the history of border war fare in the West that they can not well be ignored in a sketch of the work of the army on our frontier within the last thirty years. I shall, however, only write of the Modoc campaign in this chapter. The Modocs are an offshoot of the Klamath tribe of Indi ans, and when the trouble between them and the Gov ernment developed into war they were living in what is known as Lost River Basin and located in camps on both sides of Lost River, which is in the extreme south ern edge of the State of Oregon, close to the California line, and not very far from the old trail, on which had been established the first Government road between Oregon and California. For many years preceding the Modoc war this section of country had been the scene of bloody en counters between the Indians and the white settlers, eventuating in brutal massacres on the side of both the whites and Indians, with the result that both peoples learned to distrust each other, and conse quently bad blood had existed between them for a long time. In 1864 a treaty was made between the THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 287 Klamaths, the Yakoskin Snakes, and the Modocs by which, for certain considerations, these three tribes agreed to give up the country that they then occupied and remove to a certain allotted portion of Oregon set aside for them and termed the Klamath Eeservation. Now the Klamaths were a very much larger and more powerful tribe than the Modocs and very unfriendly toward them in fact, they were almost at war with each other; consequently when the Modocs, in compli ance with the treaty, took up their residence on the Klamath Keservation and began to build huts and till the ground, the Klamaths threatened, insulted, and annoyed them to the very verge of actual war, telling them that they were too poor to have a reservation of their own and had to live upon the lands of the Kla maths. Their actions became so unbearable that the Modocs left the reservation and went back to their old homes in the Lost Eiver Basin. Naturally this in censed the settlers, who had come into that section and occupied it as soon as the Indians had left it, and who distrusted all Indians, especially the Modocs, who roamed around a great deal and were restless and at that period unsettled in their daily life. The treaty of 1864 was not ratified until 1869, and in the meantime the Modocs remained in the Lost River Basin country, but always against the protest of the whites living near there, who wished to get rid of them as neighbours. Finally, on renewed promises from the Indian agent that he would protect them from the Klamaths, they agreed to go back to the Klamath Eeservation and take up their abode there. This they did in 1869, and went to work to hut themselves, cultivate the ground, and make their homes there. Again the Klamaths began 288 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. to persecute and insult them, and on the Modocs complaint of the Klamaths to the Indian agent, in stead of disciplining the Klamaths, he coolly re moved the Modocs to another locality, thereby causing them to lose all their labour, and, worse than all, established the fact that the Indian agent favoured the Klamaths as against the Modocs. How ever, they again went to work to establish them selves comfortably on the new location assigned them by the agent. But the Klamaths for the third time followed them up, threatened, and insulted them, taunting them as outcasts, unable to live upon land that belonged to them, but compelled to ask charity at their hands (when, as a matter of fact, the Modocs had equal rights with the Klamaths upon the reserva tion), and became so unbearable that the Modocs once more appealed to the Indian agent for protection. In stead of protecting them, he directed them to look up another locality upon the reservation. The leader or chief of the Modocs could not find a suitable place, so they left the reservation again, and the tribe went back to their old home in the Lost Eiver Basin and once more took up their residence there. In the meantime, this country having been thrown open to settlement with the assurance that the In dians had finally surrendered all claim to it, had, dur ing the time the Modocs had lived on the Klamath Eeservation, been occupied more extensively than ever by new settlers, who were, perhaps naturally enough, indignant and angry at the Modocs for returning to it. Complaints and petitions were sent to the Indian agent, the Indian Bureau in Washington, and to Brigadier- General E. R. S. Canby, then stationed at Portland, THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 289 Ore., the commander of the Department of the Co lumbia, within whose jurisdiction these Indians were located, alleging that the Modocs were insolent, over bearing, and threatening, stating that they had de stroyed some of the property of the settlers, and that their presence in that section was a constant menace, and asking for their removal to the Klamath Reser vation, where they properly belonged under the pro visions of the treaty of 1864. General Canby, a splen did soldier and a wonderfully well-balanced man, after careful inquiry saw that there was the Indian side of the question as far as regarded these Modocs being sent back to the Klamath Reservation. He suggested that perhaps it would be best to apportion a small reserva tion to the Modocs outside of the Klamath Reservation, where they would not be subjected to the insults of the Klamaths and might live peaceably and content edly, safe from Klamath persecution. This action on the general s part did not meet with the approval of the Indian agent, the settlers, nor the Indian Bureau. The Superintendent of Indian Af fairs, however, sent commissioners to the Modocs to try and induce them to once more go back to the Klamath Reservation. This they positively refused to do, and asked that they might be allowed to stay where they were until the Superintendent of Indian Affairs could come out himself and see them, so the commissioners returned without accomplishing the object of their mission. The pressure from the settlers for their re moval continued, and the Indian agent urged that they be compelled to go back to the Klamath Reservation, even if it involved their being forced on to it by the military authorities. 290 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. On January 25, 1872, Mr. A. B. Meacham, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, wrote General Canby urging that the Modocs be removed to Yainax Station, on the Klamath Eeservation, if necessary, by force, and inclosed a petition signed by nearly all the settlers in Lost Kiver Basin urging the same thing. General Canby replied courteously, but said that in his opinion " it would not be expedient or politic to send a military force against these In dians, or at least until [they were] notified of the de termination of the Government of the point at which they are to be established, and fully warned that they will be treated as enemies if, within a reasonable and specified time, they do not establish themselves as re quired." This mode of action was too slow for the agent and the settlers, and, notwithstanding General Canby did all that he consistently could to urge a new and separate reservation for the Modocs, it was not done. On the 25th of November, 1872, Mr. F. B. Odeneal, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Wheaton, who was in com mand of the District of the Lakes, that he had come to the Klamath agency for the purpose of putting the Modoc Indians upon the Klamath Reservation; that he was acting under the written authority of the honourable Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a copy of which is as follows: " You are directed to move the Modoc Indians to Camp Yainax on Klamath Reserva tion, peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must "; and he called upon the district commander to be ready to aid him with the United States troops in case the Indi ans refused to go. THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 291 Colonel Wheaton wrote to the commanding offi cer at Fort Klamath, authorizing him to furnish the agent a sufficient force to carry out his instructions in case it became necessary. On November 27th Mr. Odeneal wrote to the commanding officer at Fort Klamath, stating that " the Modocs defiantly de cline to meet me at this place." They authorized him (Odeneal s messenger to the Modocs) " to say that they did not desire to see or talk with me, and that they would not go upon the Klamath Reservation." He then requested the commanding officer at the fort to send a sufficient force to attain the object in accordance with the orders of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, hop ing that the military might be able to accomplish the removal without the shedding of blood If, however, force had to be used, he requested the arrest of Captain Jack, the head of the band, Black Jim, and Scar-faced Charley, who were to be held subject to his orders. Captain Jack s band of Modocs probably contained at the time rather more than fifty warriors. Without notifying General Canby or Colonel Wheaton of his contemplated action, the commanding officer at Fort Klamath detailed Captain James Jackson s Troop B, of the First Cavalry, to carry out the instructions of the Indian agent. Captain Jackson, in his official report, says: " I jumped the camp of Captain Jack s Modoc Indi ans yesterday morning soon after daylight, completely surprising them. I demanded their surrender and dis arming and asked for a parley with Captain Jack. Captain Jack, Scar-faced Charley, Black Jim, and some others would neither lay down their arms nor surren der. Some of them commenced making hostile demon- 292 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. strations against us, and finally opened fire. I imme diately poured volley after volley among the hostile Indians, took their camp, killed eight or nine warriors, and drove the rest into the hills. During the engage ment I had one man killed and seven wounded, three of the last severely and perhaps dangerously. The band that I attacked was on the south side of the river. An other smaller band on the north side was attacked by a party of ten or twelve citizens and their surrender demanded, but when the firing commenced in Captain Jack s camp these Indians opened on the citizens and drove them to the refuge of Crawley s ranch. One citi zen was killed during the fight, and two others coming up the road, unconscious of any trouble, were shot, one (Mr. Nuss) mortally wounded, and the other (Joe Pen- nig) badly. My force was too weak to pursue and cap ture the Indians that made off, owing to the necessity of taking immediate care of my wounded and protect ing the few citizens that had taken refuge at Crawley s ranch. The Indians were all around us, and, apprehen sive of a rear attack, I destroyed Captain Jack s camp and crossed to the other side of the river by the ford, a march of fifteen miles, taking post at Crawley s ranch, where I now am. I need re-enforcements and orders as to future course," etc. The Modoc war was now on, and Captain Jack s band immediately fell upon some of the nearest settlers and murdered them and then fled into their fastness in what was known as the lava beds south of and near Tule Lake. These lava beds had been the roaming ground of the Modocs for many years, and they knew them thor oughly, and no one else knew anything about them. In fact, it is doubtful if any white man had penetrated THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 293 this section of country at any time before the Modoc war, and it was so peculiar and unusual in its forma tion that it took our troops many days after they had campaigned in it to comprehend its great natural ad vantages as a place of refuge and defence for the Mo- docs. At the first glance it appears to be a level stretch of country, four or five miles wide and nearly eight miles in length, covered with sagebrush, but on at tempting to travel over it one finds that it is broken now and then by a series of low rocky ridges that occur here and there in groups and rise from ten to twenty feet above the surrounding country. These ridges are split open at the top, leaving a space from five to eight feet wide between the two almost solid rock walls of the split ridge, so that a man can walk or crawl from one end to the other without being seen by any one in his immediate vicinity. Many of these rocky ridges are connected with each other by small transverse rocky ridges of an exactly similar nature, so that any one could pass from one group of ridges to another in perfect safety from the bullets of an enemy if he thor oughly understood the nature of the ground. Some of these transverse ridges, however, are a perfect cul-de- sac, terminating in ravines more than a hundred feet deep, which sometimes lie between the ridges, but are absolutely invisible until one is within a few feet of them. Selecting the most difficult of these ridges, and building stone walls five or six feet in height to better connect the transverse ridges with his stronghold, Cap tain Jack got together his people and prepared to de fend himself against the troops, which he knew would soon be sent against him. He probably had with him 20 294: THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. in his stronghold at least eighty well-armed warriors, with an abundance of ammunition, a fair amount of provisions, and perhaps nearly or quite two hundred women and children. The seepage through the lava beds of the three adjacent lakes Clear, Tule, and Klamath which are about eight miles apart, gave him an abundance of pure water, and it was not at first a very difficult thing for some of his warriors to steal out through the ravines and crevices toward the set tlements and return with information and food. In the meantime the district commander, General Frank Wheaton, a most capable and experienced officer, was ordered to find, attack, and capture Captain Jack and his band of Modocs, and turn them over to the Indian agent. On December 26, 1872, he writes to the depart ment commander: " I shall move up with the troops on the west side, three miles from the Modoc stronghold, and camp, . . . and eventually close on the Modoc cave or fortifica tion." On January 5, 1873, he writes again: " After all our annoying delays we are now in better condition. . . . We leave for Captain Jack s Gibraltar to-morrow morning, and a more enthusiastic, jolly set of regulars and volunteers I never have had the pleas ure to command. If the Modocs will only make good their boast to whip a thousand all will be satisfied. . . . Our scouts and friendly Indians insist that the Modocs will fight us desperately, but I don t understand how they can think of attempting any serious resistance." His force consisted of three troops of the First United States Cavalry (B, F, and G), two companies (C and B) of the Twenty-first Infantry, and a detachment THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 295 of twenty men of F Company of the same regiment, supplemented by two companies of Oregon Volunteer Infantry (A and B) and one other infantry company, the Twenty-fourth California Volunteer Kiflemen. These volunteers were all good men, very fair rifle shots, and, generally speaking, frontiersmen of consid erable border experience. The vicinity of the strong hold of the Modocs had already been located by friendly Indian scouts, and General Wheaton issued a carefully prepared order of attack, which, as after observation proved, was admirably drawn, and left little or nothing to chance. In conformity with these instructions the troops moved on January 16th for twelve miles in the direc tion of the Modoc stronghold. Here part of the in fantry, the mountain howitzer battery, and Captain Perry s troop of the First Cavalry went into camp about three miles from the Modocs position and southeast of it. In the meantime another part of the force under Captain Bernard, of the First Cavalry, consisting of Troops B and G and the Klamath Indian scouts, moved up from the east side of the Modocs position; the in tention being to attack them from both the east and west side simultaneously. He was ordered to encamp within three miles of their stronghold the night preced ing the general attack, but the fog was so dense that he ran upon the Indian outposts and had a sharp little action, as the Modocs attacked him and tried to capture his supply train. Captain Bernard drove them back, however, and withdrew his command to the place origi nally intended and went into camp for the night, hav ing had several men wounded in the affray. At six o clock on the morning of the 17th the troops on the 296 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. cast and west moved down into the lava beds, and, in conformity to the written instructions of the command ing officer, pushed steadily forward to the attack. It was very foggy, the ground was absolutely unknown to the troops, cut up with rocky ridges and deep ravines, with sagebrush high enough to conceal the foe when he dropped beneath it, and from every coign of vantage a lurking Indian lay watching for an opportunity to shoot the skirmishers as they toiled slowly on, not see ing an Indian until they were fairly upon him, or else found themselves opposite the muzzle of his rifle as he poked it through a rocky crevice and fired it almost in their very faces. Still from both sides the troops stead ily drove the Modocs from ridge to ridge back to their stronghold, reaching within three or four hundred yards of the place in about four hours skirmishing, it being one o clock in the day when they could fairly see it and were able to comprehend its great natural strength and the manner in which it was protected by deep ravines and gorges on both sides of it. This is what General Wheaton says of it: " The position was on an almost inaccessible ridge, flanked on the east and \vest by ravines and gorges, and in the midst of a mass of boulders and irregular fis sures, rocky elevations, and depressions, evidently the result of a volcanic upheaval that had rent and torn a belt of country ranging in width north and south from five to eight miles and in length from sixteen to twenty- two miles. " At 1.30 P. M. Major Green informed me that unex pected obstacles on the right of our west line had been encountered, and that this portion of his command THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 29? rested near a deep gorge occupied by the enemy that could not be flanked or carried without an immense sac rifice,, and that up to this late hour in the day, though Bernard had evidently been warmly engaged on the east side since 8 A. M., his bullets frequently passing over us, there seemed little or no hope that we could connect the right of our west with the left of our east line ... as had been intended. It was then decided to change the original plan of attack by moving the west skirmish line to the left, near the lake shore [Little Klamath Lake], north of the Modocs, connecting, if possible, with Captain Bernard s right, and assault the enemy s position from the north or lake side. . . . This move ment was gallantly made, the enemy contesting every inch of ground and fighting behind their natural forti fications, firing only through cracks and crevices in the rocks as our troops crawled toward them, exposing nothing but a puff of smoke for our men to fire at, and picking off our most advanced skirmishers with deadly aim. It was found impossible with the force engaged to carry the enemy s position. ... At 5 P. M. it was determined to withdraw the troops. . . . Our opera tions in the lava beds immediately around Captain Jack s camp were in such a rough and broken country, and among rocks and boulders varying in size from a matchbox to a church, that it was only with the great est difficulty that our wounded, twenty-eight in number, could be moved." The dead, ten in number, were left where they lay. In another part of his report General Wheaton says: " I have been twenty-three years in service and have been employed a greater portion of that time on our remote frontier, and generally engaged in operating against hostile Indians. In this service I have never before encountered an enemy, civilized or savage, occu- 298 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. pying a position of such great natural strength as the Modoc stronghold, nor have I ever seen troops engage a better armed or more skilful foe." The attack on the east side of the stronghold had been made with equal persistence by Captain Bernard, who had fulfilled all the requirements of the order of battle and reached his designated position, driving the Indians steadily before him back upon their fortifica tions; but here he encountered a deep gorge, which was filled with Indians and practically impassable with his small force, and furthermore, until after one o clock, he was fighting in a dense fog, which overhung the lake and its vicinity. After the fog raised he was able to extend his right so as to connect with the troops attack ing on the west, but the Modocs position was too strong for the attacking force. Captain Bernard says of it in his report: " I have wished respectfully to say that the place the Indians occupy can not be taken by a less force than seven hundred men, and to take the place by an assault with this force will cost half the command in killed and w r ounded." Major Mason, of the infan try, says at the conclusion of his report: "I will leave it to others to find language to convey an adequate idea of the almost impassable character of the country over which these operations were conducted, and which make the Modoc position a second Gibraltar." Major John Green, of the First Cavalry, says: " It is utterly impossible to give a description of the place occupied by the enemy as their stronghold. Everything was done by officers and men that could be done. Troops never behaved better. They contended gallantly with an enemy hidden by rocks, deep gorges, and fogs. We tried it on every side with the same result." The loss THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 299 io the troops engaged in the attack on the Modocs was forty-one killed and wounded a little more than ten per cent of the men engaged. The spirited defence of the Modocs and the attendant loss of life was evi dently a great surprise to the Indian Bureau, and they at once took steps to stop further action on the part of the army by appealing to the President and asking that the troops be used only for the protection of the set tlers, while an effort was made by the bureau through a peace commission to try and avert further blood shed and prevail upon the Modocs to go upon the Kla- math Eeservation. This view of the matter was submitted to General Canby, but he replied in substance that while he had urged that no military force should be used in their case, and another reservation should be selected and given the Modocs, now that trouble had ensued and the Modocs had raided the settlers and killed some of them, he thought it would be best to defeat them first, and then the Government could finally settle the ques tion at issue in its own way. He was overruled, how ever, ordered to use the troops only for protection of the settlers, and a peace commission appointed to con fer with the Modocs under a white flag. In order to be on the spot and see for himself how matters would develop through the peace commission ers, General Canby joined his troops in the lava beds on the 16th of February. Furthermore, the Indian Bureau had begun to appreciate the sound sense of the man and to doubt whether their commissioners were as well qualified to settle the trouble as was the department commander, and on the 24th of March General Sher man telegraphed General Canby as follows: 300 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. " Secretary Delano [Secretary of the Interior De partment] is in possession of all your despatches up to March 16th, and he advises the Secretary of War that he is so impressed with your wisdom and desire to fulfil the peaceful policy of the Government that he author izes you to remove from the present commission any members you think unfit, to appoint others to their places, and to report through us to him such changes. This naturally devolves on you the management of the entire Modoc question, and the Secretary of War in structs me to give you his sanction and approval." The peace commission, however, had arrived on the ground, opened negotiations with the Indians, and was in almost daily communication with them through Frank Eiddle, an interpreter, w r ho had married a Modoc squaw, a most reliable and excellent woman, who accompanied her husband to and from the Mo doc stronghold. Judge Steele, of California, who had always been a great friend of the Modocs, went to their stronghold twice and urged upon them to come out, have a council, and see if they could not reach a peaceful solution of their troubles, but on the last occa sion if it had not been for two or three especial friends among the Indians he would undoubtedly have been killed. He accordingly warned the commissioners and told them that he thought that the Modocs meant treachery, and said that in his opinion if they could get the commission, Colonel Gillem, and General Canby in their power they would kill them. On one occasion Captain Jack s sister Mary came in and said that if wagons were sent out to the stronghold all the Indians would come in and surrender in accord ance with certain terms that the commissioners hud THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 301 offered them. Her proposition was at once agreed to, but it was negatived by another delegation who said that they wished further time for consideration. In this way the Indians and the commissioners con tinued their negotiations, but nothing was really ac complished. Finally, on April 2d, a meeting between the commissioners and some of the Indians was effected, and it was agreed that a council tent should be erected about halfway between the camps and the stronghold, where unarmed parties might meet for discussion. The commissioners met the leading Indians at two different times in this tent for consultation. The head of the commission was Mr. A. B. Meach- am, the other members being the Eev. Dr. Thomas and L. S. Dyer, an Indian agent. On the 4th of April, at Captain Jack s request, Mr. Meacham met him, with his wives and six of his warriors, Mr. Meacham being accompanied by Judge Roseborough, J. A. Fairchilds, and the interpreter Riddle and his Modoc wife, Tobe. Captain Jack was very bitter, and the meeting availed nothing in the way of an agreement on the part of the Indians to surrender. On the 8th of April an Indian arrived saying that six unarmed warriors were at the council tent for a peace talk and wished to see the commissioners, but the man at the signal station reported armed Indians lying concealed in the rocks just back of the tent. In the meantime Riddle, the interpreter, and his wife, the Modoc Tobe, had become convinced that treachery was intended and had repeatedly warned the commissioners and General Canby and Colonel Gil- lem to that effect, so the commissioners on this occa sion declined to go. On the 10th of April, however, 302 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. two of the Modocs, Boston Charley and Bogus Charley, arrived at General Canby s headquarters and stated that Captain Jack wished a meeting the next day to agree upon terms of surrender, and desired that all the members of the commission, General Canby, and Colo nel Gillem, who was the senior line officer in immediate command of the troops, should also be present. Five unarmed Modocs headed by Captain Jack would meet them to arrange terms of surrender. Mr. Meacham, the head of the commission, was absent, but the Rev. Dr. Thomas agreed for him that they would all go (unarmed) and meet the unarmed Modocs. The next morning the signal station reported the arrival of five unarmed Modocs at the council tent. Col onel Gillem was sick abed and could not go, but Riddle, the interpreter, and his Modoc w r ife protested strongly against the meeting. They had no evidence to go upon, but they sensed danger to the whites. Dr. Thomas and General Canby, however, thought it best to go. Dr. Thomas, conscientiously anxious for peace and fearful that if the commission failed to attend the meeting the peace negotiations might fail, and the failure might arise from their overcaution; General Canby, not that he believed the Modocs were not treacherous, but that he thought that they had too much good sense to court the retribution that would surely follow in case they attempted the assassination of the commission ers, and furthermore he \vas equally anxious with Dr. Thomas for peace; Mr. Meacham, because he thought it his duty; and Mr. Dyer, because he did not wish to show the white feather, although he distrusted the savages. So General Canby, Mr. Meacham, the Rev. Dr. Thomas, Mr. Dyer, and Riddle, the interpreter, THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 303 and his wife Tobe went to the council tent. An hour later the lookout at the signal station west of the camp signalled " Shooting at the council tent." The troops were thrown forward at once. Kiddle, the interpreter, and Dyer, the Indian agent, came running toward them, but on reaching the vicinity of the tent they found the dead bodies of General Canby and the Kev. Dr. Thomas, and Mr. Meacham badly wounded and sense less. The Indians had fled. It had been a deliberately planned assassination; all the Indians who were present had revolvers concealed beneath their clothing, and it was patent to all of the whites that they were entrapped before they had been there ten minutes. They tried to appear as cairn as usual and were as conciliatory as possible, but knew that they were doomed. Captain Jack shot General Canby in the head with his pistol. He ran about forty yards and was brought down by a rifle shot from Ellen s Man. The Eev. Dr. Thomas was shot through the breast by Boston Charley, to whom he had given break fast that very morning. He rose to his knees after falling and said to his murderer, w r ho was recocking his gun: " I shall die any way. Don t shoot again, Boston! " " God damn ye! Maybe so you believe what squaw [Tobe] told ye next time," and Boston shot him through the brain. Commissioner Meacham was shot while running away by Schonchin, Shacknasty Jim, and Black Jim, and left for dead, but he afterward re covered and testified against his assailants before the military commission on their trial. Dyer escaped un harmed as well as Riddle, the interpreter, but Tobe, Riddle s Modoc wife, was knocked down and badly hurt. Of course this action on the part of the Modocs 304 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. ended all peace negotiations. There was an almost unanimous cry for vengeance from the whole country. The troops were soon in motion, and on April 15th Colonel A. C. Gillem of the First Cavalry ordered a second attack on the Modoc stronghold. This action lasted three days, and Captain Jack was driven from his fastness, but the troops were too much exhausted to follow, and he again took up a new position in the lava beds. On the 26th of April a reconnaissance consisting of detachments of Batteries A and K, Fourth Artil lery, Company E, Twelfth Infantry, and fourteen friendly Indians, under command of Captain Evan Thomas, Fourth Artillery in all, seventy men were sent out from Major Green s camp on the west side of the lava beds to scout to a certain designated point and return. They reached the spot about twelve o clock without seeing an Indian, and were resting, when they were suddenly attacked. All of the officers and non commissioned officers and most of the old soldiers stood squarely up to their work and were all killed or wound ed, but the majority of the men became panic-stricken and fled. Captain Thomas and three of his lieutenants and thirteen enlisted men were killed and two lieuten ants and sixteen enlisted men were wounded. The only possible excuse for the men who broke and ran is that many of them were recent recruits and had never before been in action, but to this day their conduct is felt as a stigma upon the service. On the 2d of May a new de partment commander came upon the scene. General Jefferson C. Davis, one of the ablest and most energetic officers in the army, had been assigned to the Depart ment of the Columbia, vice the late General Canby. He THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 305 took the field in person and found the troops labouring under considerable depression of spirits, owing to their repeated failures, their cheerless winter camps, and the recent disaster to Captain Thomas s command. Cap tain Mendenhall, of the artillery, with his dismounted battery, soon after arrived from San Francisco, and General Davis began to reorganize the command. He sent two friendly Modoc squaws into the lava beds, who returned in two days and reported that the Modocs had abandoned the country and fled. He sent out Cap tain Hasbrouck s and Jackson s companies with the Warm Spring Indian scouts to try and find the Modocs. Signs were found near Sorass Lake, where the troops encamped for the night. The next morning the Mo docs attacked the camp at daylight. It was a surprise, but not for long. The troops grasped their arms and returned the fire in gallant style and soon advanced and attacked the Modocs with great impetuosity, who, after some sharp fighting, broke and began to slowly retreat to the lava beds, contesting the ground hotly for three miles. It was a fight in the open, and for the first time during the campaign the Modocs were fairly and squarely whipped and the spell was broken. To be sure they were back in the lava beds, but that was better than having them roam over the country and devastate the ranches. General Davis now moved all his troops into the lava beds and formed a series of bivouacs from which they could fight or rest, but they were always within touch of the Indians, who were constantly apprehensive of attack. Captain Jack could no longer keep his men up to their work. They soon became exhausted, and as he was very tyrannical in his treatment dissensions 306 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. arose, and finally the Land broke into two nearly equal parties, and they both finally left the lava beds bitter enemies. No sooner was this move discovered than the troops were after them hot foot. At last they had them in the open country. Captain Has- brouck had a running fight with one of the bands for seven or eight miles, and then the Indians scat tered in all directions. On the 22d of May this band came in and surrendered. It contained men, women, and children about one hundred and fifty people. On the 29th of May Captain Jack and his band were at tacked on Willow Creek, which is the head water of Lost River, and is near the old emigrant road. It was a complete surprise, and the Indians fled in all direc tions. The troops hunted them down singly and in groups everywhere they went, and on the 3d of June Captain Jack was surrounded and captured, together with a few warriors who had stood by him to the last. He was seated on a log when his assailants came up, looking worn and very tired. His only remark was, " My legs have given out," and after that he was sto ically silent. Little remains to be said. The murderers of General Canby and the Rev. Dr. Meacham of the peace commission were brought to trial before a military commission convened at Fort Klamath by order of the President. The testimony of Peace Commissioners Meacham and Dyer and inter preter Riddle and his Modoc wife, Tobe, established the facts of the assassination, and several of the Modocs turned State s evidence and testified as to the agreed plan of the assassination by the Indians the day before the meeting at the council tent. Captain Jack, Schon- chin, Boston Charley, Black Jim, Barncho, and Schlo- THE MODOC WAR IN OREGON. 307 luck were all found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. The findings of the military commission were duly approved by the President, and the sentence ordered carried into execution. Accordingly on Friday, October 3, 1873, Captain Jack, Schonchin, Boston Charley, and Black Jim were hanged at Fort Klamath, Oregon, but the sentence in the cases of Barncho and Schloluck was commuted to imprisonment for life. The rest of the Modocs men, women, and children were deported from Oregon to a section of Indian Territory not far from the Kansas line, and were there settled on Government land by the Indian Bureau. The Modoc war cost the Government large sums of money and the lives of some of our best officers and bravest enlisted men all of which could have been avoided if the suggestions of General Canby had been heeded and carried out at the proper time. CHAPTER XIV. THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. THE result of the winter s campaign of 1868 and 1869 against the Indians within the Department of the Missouri may be summed up in the following official statement: Three hundred and fifty-three officers, citi zens,, and soldiers killed, wounded, or captured by the Indians. Three hundred and nineteen Indians killed, two hundred and eighty-nine wounded, and fifty-three captured by the troops. The number of Indians who, as a result of this winter campaign, finally came in and surrendered at the different Indian agencies and other places agreed upon between the department command ers and themselves was nearly twelve thousand. These Indians included the majority of those who had been devastating the frontier along the Republican, Smoky Hill, and Arkansas Rivers, but it did not, of course, include many thousands of the wild tribes, and consequently raiding by small bands and detached In dian hunting and scouting parties was an almost weekly occurrence along the sparsely settled frontiers from the northwestern British border to the Rio Grande River on the Mexican frontier. From 1869 to 1876 there was scarcely a week during the late spring, summer, and early fall months that cases of raiding, plunder- 308 THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 309 ing, outraging, and murdering isolated ranchmen and their families by roving bands of Indians was not re ported somewhere within the geographical limits of the various military departments of the far North, the West, or in the far Southwest. During the years 1869 to 1875 the official records of the War Department show that within the Department of the Missouri, which included all of the North, the West, and the Southwest east of the Eocky Mountains, no less than two hundred and three actions occurred between the United States troops and the wild Indians, each one being the out come either of an attack by the Indians on the troops guarding Government trains or made by the troops in pursuit of Indians who had attacked the frontiersmen and run off their stock or else killed the settlers and then plundered and burned their ranches. Some of the fighting during these years, especially that by small detached parties of troops, was worthy of all praise, but I shall only quote two actions which will, I think, give the reader something of an idea of what the army had to do and how the settlers suffered on the border less than a generation ago. On July 8, 1869, Corporal Kyle, with a detachment of four men of the Fifth Cavalry, while going to the camp of General Carr s command on the Republican Eiver, was attacked by a large band of Indians, but he successfully cut his way through it, wounding two of the Indians without any casualties to his own men. The next day General Carr took up the Indian trail and followed it rapidly for two days, and early on the morning of June llth completely surprised the Indian camp at Summit Springs. He instantly charged it with five troops of the Fifth Cavalry and three companies 310 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. of mounted Pawnee scouts, killing fifty-two Indians, among them " Tall Bull," the head of the band and one of the most prominent Sioux chiefs. So complete was the surprise and so sudden and unexpected was the attack, that the Indians only had time to spring on to their ponies and flee for their lives. Our loss was only one man wounded and a few horses. In this camp were two unfortunate white women, who had been cap tured in the raids by the Indians on the Kansas set tlements. One of them, a Mrs. Alderdice, had been captured with her baby, whom the Indians strangled before her eyes. The other, a Mrs. Weichell, had seen her husband horribly mutilated and then killed just before she was carried off by the savages. When the Indians realized that the troops were upon them and these women would be rescued, they killed Mrs. Alder- dice by braining her with a war club and shot Mrs. Weichell in the breast and left her for dead; but the army surgeon who was with the troops extracted the bullet from her back, and she was tenderly carried by the soldiers back to Fort Sedgewick, where she eventu ally recovered. Her pitiful story of the treatment of Mrs. Alderdice and herself by the Indian braves was simply heartrending and too awful to put in print. Besides capturing two hundred and seventy-four horses and one hundred and forty-five mules in this Indian camp, the enlisted men found nearly fifteen hundred dollars in money, which they promptly and cheerfully donated to Mrs. Weichell as an expression of their sym pathy for her in her great grief and terrible misfortune. One instance of the coolness, courage, and splendid endurance of a small party of enlisted men is well worthy of mention here. In the month of September, THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 31 1 1874, Colonel (now Lieutenant-General) Miles, desir ing to communicate with Major Price, while campaign ing in Indian Territory, sent out a detachment of four enlisted men and two scouts with despatches to that officer. These men were completely surrounded and attacked by a large body of Indians, but, throwing themselves into an old buffalo wallow and lying behind their dead horses, they kept them off for two whole days until rescued by the opportune arrival of a body of our soldiers. When the troops reached them one of their number was dead and three of the others badly wounded, and all suffering fearfully for want of water. This almost incessant border warfare for five consecu tive years gradually led up to a general movement of the army against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and other com bined wild tribes along the Northwestern frontier, which only culminated when they were forced on to their reservations by the incessant work of the army from 1876 to 1881. The year 1876 was in some respects one of the most unfortunate for the troops of our army of any of the campaigns against the Indians that have taken place within the last generation. So great and so in cessant were the complaints of the settlers on our North western border of the repeated robberies, raids, and attacks by the wild tribes upon that frontier that in the fall of 1875 an investigation of the matter was authorized by the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior, with the result that all the wild tribes were notified by that department that they must re move to the Government reservations set aside for them, and remain on said reservations thereafter, by or before the 1st of January, 1876, or, in the event 312 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. of their failure to do so, they would be turned over to the War Department. This demand on the part of the Indian Bureau had scarcely any perceptible effect; consequently, in the month of February, 1876, the Sec retary of the Interior turned the whole matter over to the War Department for such action as would com pel these Indians to come in to the reservations. In justice to some of these Indians, it ought to be stated that a number of the tribes had never ac cepted the reservation system, and had always averred that they would not come in, and positively refused to agree to anything looking to such an end. Among these was Sitting Bull, who at that time was not a prominent chief and whose following was probably less than fifty lodges, and Crazy Horse, an Ogallalla Sioux who had about a hundred and twenty-five lodges in his immediate following; but the rest of the Ogallalla Sioux, as a body outside of Crazy Horse s following, were supposed to belong to Keel Cloud agency, and agency issues had been made there to them. It was about these two leaders, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, that the disaffected Indians began to con centrate. As all of the Northern hostiles were within the division of the Missouri, which at that time was under the command of Licutenant-General P. II. Sheri dan, the commanding general of the army, General W. T. Sherman turned the whole matter over to him, and he ordered two of his department commanders Briga dier-General A. H. Terry, of the Department of Da kota, and Brigadier-General George Crook, of the Department of the Platte within whose respective departments these hostile Indians were living, to con centrate their troops and proceed against them. Be- THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OP 1876. 313 fore taking this action, however, runners were sent to the hostile Indian camps, telling them of the deter mination of the Government, and every possible argu ment was advanced to induce them to abandon the war path and come in to the reservations and be at peace with the whites, but it was not of the slightest use; and as argument could not avail, recourse had to be had to sterner measures. General Crook s first move was to concentrate his cavalry at Fort Fetterman, for all his information led him to believe that the hostiles would be found located somewhere on the head waters of Powder River, Tongue River, or along the valley of the Rosebud. On the 17th of March Colonel J. J. Reynolds, with five troops of the Second Cavalry and four troops of the Third Cavalry, left Fort Fetterman on an expedition against the hostiles. The weather turned bitterly cold soon after he started on the march, and so cold was it that the mercurial thermometer failed to register its intensity; notwithstanding which the command pressed on vigorously to the mouth of Little Powder River, where it surprised and attacked a large village of the Sioux and Cheyennes, which it captured, together with a pony herd of eight hundred animals. Our loss was four enlisted men killed and one lieutenant and five men wounded. This village was a perfect magazine of fixed ammunition and supplies of all sorts. Everything in it went to show that these hostiles were in constant communication with the agency Indians at Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, and obtained their war material and supplies directly from them. One hundred and five lodges were burned, and then the troops set out on their return to Fort Fetterman, driving the 314 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. pony herd with them, with the result that they were followed by the Indians, who stampeded the herd and so got their ponies back. It is not known how many Indians were killed in this action, but as they fled at the first attack it is safe to conclude that they did not lose any more men than we did. The destruction of the village, with its provisions and war supplies, was a very good thing, but the loss of the pony herd was a serious misfortune at the beginning of an Indian campaign. On the return of these troops to Fort Fet- terman, so inclement was the weather that they had to be sent back to their various winter posts for shelter. The spring of 1876 in the north was an unusually backward one, and in fact the entire summer was a most inclement one, the whole country being flooded with terrible rains and swept with wind storms of un usual severity. It was not until the 29th of May that General Crook, the department commander, was en abled to concentrate his troops and take the field in person against the Indians. On that date, with five troops of the Second Cavalry, Major H. E. Noyes com manding; ten of the Third Cavalry, Colonel W. B. Eoyall commanding; and two companies of the Fourth and three of the Ninth Infantry, Major Alexander Chambers commanding; together with a splendid pack train of more than a thousand mules, he left Fort Fet- termaji for Goose Creek, upon which he proposed to establish his depot of supplies, from where he intended to operate against the hostile Sioux, whom he expected to find somewhere about the head waters of the Tongue, the Rosebud, the Powder, or the Big Horn Rivers, but in what precise locality he would find them or whether they would meet him on the way there he had no idea. THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 315 His whole command numbered a little more than eleven hundred fighting men. It was Chief Crazy Horse and his Sioux allies that he expected to meet and fight in the campaign he was about to inaugurate. If the re peated statements of the Indian agents at Eed Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies could be believed, few if any of their young men had left the agencies, and they were constantly issuing Government rations to all of them. But, as after events proved, while they undoubt edly charged the Indian Bureau for full issues, nearly or quite ninety per cent of their fighting braves were on the war path and had gone to join Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull; so that when General Crook finally did meet the hostiles he was confronted by more than three times as many warriors as he expected to meet. On the night of the 31st of May the thermometer fell to zero, and a terrific wind storm swept down the tents of the command from one end of the camp to the other, and the troops shivered around their camp fires until daybreak. It was the precursor of many more storms like it, for this summer s campaign was one that tried the men s patience to the utmost limits. It was not until the 17th of June that General Crook s forces met the hostiles. On the preceding night he had en camped in the valley of Rosebud Creek, with the pack train and cavalry horses placed in the middle of the command, for he well knew that the hostile Sioux could not be very far distant. In fact, he expected to find their village upon the head waters of the Rosebud. All day long his Indian scouts of Snakes and Crows had been killing buffaloes, vast herds of which were quietly feeding on both sides of his marching col umn, and until late in the night they had been feasting 316 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. and singing, much to his annoyance; but under the cir cumstances it would have been poor policy to have for bidden the feast and thereby have disgruntled them just at this particular juncture. Before daylight, however, the whole command was up, had groomed and fed its horses and pack mules, breakfasted, and was standing to horse. Just as dawn lit up the eastern hills the Indian scouts disappeared over the northern bluffs, and soon after the whole command inarched steadily north ward until the sun was well above the horizon. Here it halted in a little valley surrounded by low-lying hills in every direction, through which the Rosebud was silently flowing, and orders were given to unsaddle and graze the horses, as the grass was unusually good. The troops were on both sides of the stream, the right bank being occupied by the five companies of the Sec ond Cavalry under Major Noyes, and one battalion of the Third Cavalry under Captain Mills. On the left bank was the infantry under Major Chambers, with Colonel Guy V. Henry s and Van Vliet s battalions of the Third Cavalry, together with the pack train and such of the Indian scouts as had not gone out in the morning. It was a little after eight o clock when a few shots were heard over beyond the northern hills that hemmed in the valley in that direction, and almost immediately the Indian scouts who had been sent on in advance in the early morning came pouring over the hills in wild and precipitate flight toward the troops, shouting as they recklessly plunged down the steep slope at breakneck speed, " Sioux, Sioux! Heap Sioux! " and pointing back to the hills whence they had come. At their first appearance every trooper had in- THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 317 stantly saddled and bridled his horse, mounted and taken his place in ranks without waiting for orders, and they now sat silent and grim, with their eyes fixed on the northern hills. They did not have long to wait, for in a brief space of time these hills were covered with mounted Sioux, who instantly opened fire upon them from their rifles and then rode up and down the crest, shouting, waving their guns over their heads, and defying them by words and gestures to come on. General Crook had promptly thrown forward his infan try to the foot of the hills, and they were advancing as skirmishers when Adjutant Lemly, riding at a gallop, dashed up to Captain Anson Mills (now Brigadier-Gen eral Mills, retired), shouting as he came on: "The commanding officer s compliments, and your battalion will charge those bluffs on the centre." Captain Mills gave but two commands, " Eight into line," and as his four splendid troops of cavalry promptly swung into battalion front he raised himself in his stir rups and shouted " Charge ! " Every trooper in ranks drove home his spurs, and the superb body of horsemen swept up the steep slope in a mad rush for the defiant Sioux, who, as the troops came galloping on, opened upon them with their rifles, sending down a horse and man here and there, but not in the least checking the weight of the charge; for, as they gained the crest in splendid alignment and saw the Sioux drawn up to meet them two hundred yards away, the whole command burst into a tremendous cheer and, breaking into a dead run, made straight for them; but before they were within fifty yards of the Indians the Sioux broke wildly and fled down the oposite slope in every direction. The battle of the Rosebud was on. 318 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. Scarcely had Captain Mills started on his charge when orders were given Captain and Brevet Colonel Guy V. Henry, who commanded the second battalion of the Third Cavalry, to support our infantry, which the Sioux, who had begun to develop in wonderfully strong array, were now advancing upon and attempting to surround. Colonel Henry hurled his battalion upon them with all the impetuosity of his nature, and the Indians gave way in great confusion, and the infantry and cavalry together pressed their line steadily back for more than half a mile. Here, however, the Indians seemed to be heavily re-enforced and held their own with great te nacity; nor was our force strong enough to dislodge them from their position on the crest of some outlying hills. About this time General Crook sent forward the two remaining troops of the Tenth Cavalry to occupy the bluffs to his left and rear, anticipating that possibly the Indians might attempt a flank movement. It was now clearly evident that instead of meeting Crazy Horse with a few malcontents which if the statements of the Indian agents at Eed Cloud and Spotted Tail agen cies had been true could not possibly have exceeded a thousand warriors the command was facing not less than twenty-five hundred and probably three thousand well-equipped and finely armed mounted warriors, who had undoubtedly been sent out to cover the retreat of their villages, which probably had been located several miles up the stream and at the other end of the canon in which the fight was now taking place. General Crook still held the five troops of the Second Cavalry, under command of Major Noyes, in reserve; and Cap tain Mills having taken the first line of heights, he sent THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 319 the Crow and Snake scouts to his support, at the same time detaching one of Captain Mills s troops to the support of Colonel Henry s battalion on the right. The Sioux had now rallied and reformed on the second line of heights, and it was decided to attack them without delay. Accordingly, the whole line of cavalry was or dered to charge them, which it did with great impetu osity, the Indians breaking just before the troops reached them and immediately occupying a third line of hills which rose on the other side of the valley, just beyond the line of hills that the command had driven them from. Orders were now given for the cavalry to dis mount and fight on foot, and the men were soon ad vancing on foot as skirmishers while the horses were held by every fourth man well back and partially under cover from the fire of the enemy. In the meantime the troops on the right, under the immediate command of Colonels Royall and Henry, were facing the Chey- ennes, who fiercely opposed their advance at every point and disputed the ground foot by foot. One of the companies of the Third Cavalry, under Captain Yroom having pushed forward beyond the line, was at one time completely surrounded by the Indians, and only extri cated by the coolness of its captain and the good man agement of Colonels Royall and Henry. The Cheyennes made a most determined attack upon Colonel Henry s (dismounted) battalion, and in repelling this advance Colonel Henry was badly wounded by a bullet which passed through both cheek bones, destroyed the sight of one eye, and broke the bridge of his nose, but he bravely sat his horse until the enemy was repulsed. About this time the Sioux made a most determined 320 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. charge down some intervening ravines on General Crook s centre. Here they were met by the Crow and Snake scouts, under command of Major Randall and Lieutenant Bourke, of General Crook s staff, and a sharp fight between the two bodies of Indians ensued, in which, by the aid of our troops, the Sioux were finally forced back. General Crook now determined to make an effort to reach the Sioux village and, if possible, force mat ters to a conclusion. Accordingly, he ordered Captain Mills to mount his battalion (he had only three com panies, one having been detached) and, supported by Major Noyes with five troops of the Second Cavalry, to find and attack the Sioux villages, supposed to be somewhere beyond in what was known as the Dead Canon of the Eosebud Valley. Mounting his com mand, Captain Mills set out at once in search of the villages. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Bourke, of General Crook s staff, and Frank Gruard, the In dian scout and interpreter. A body of Sioux posted on a bluff to hold the entrance to the canon having been dislodged by a charge of cavalry, the troops, guided by Gruard, entered the canon and started on their quest. It was a wild and dangerous defile, narrow and shut in by high rocks and overhung by gloomy woods. It was said to be eight or ten miles in length, and it was thought that the main encampment of the Sioux would be found near the north end of it. The troops had probably advanced a third of its length when they were overtaken by orders from General Crook to return at all speed, as the Indians were surely pressing the rest of the command, and, under the circumstances, it would not do to divide his forces. THE SIOITX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 321 As soon as possible the cavalry retraced its course, and by a slight detour near the end of the canon came out in full view of the contending forces just as the Sioux were about to attack our troops in overwhelming force; but the sudden and unlooked-for charge of the re turning cavalry, who came to the rescue, cheering wildly as they charged, completely stampeded the Indians, who broke away to the hills in all directions, leaving our troops in possession of the field and thirteen of their dead whom they were unable to carry off in their haste. This was the end of the action, for the Sioux fell back into the hills; and General Crook was compelled to ad mit that the object of his campaign viz., the surprise and destruction of the hostile Sioux villages was a failure, as they were in all probability already packing up to join Sitting Bull s encampment farther north. Moreover, he knew also that Crazy Horse s following was too large for him to attack and defeat with his present force. That night he fell back to his camp of the preceding night, and the next day he reached his base of supplies at Goose Creek. Our losses in the battle of the Rosebud were nine men killed and one officer (Colonel Guy V. Henry) and twenty-three en listed men wounded, two Indian scouts killed and six wounded. Thirteen of the Indian dead fell into our hands; beyond that nothing is known, although it is safe to say that there were others killed and many wounded. It is now time to take a look at what was being done in the way of a campaign against the hostiles in the Department of Dakota. It was understood that Generals Crook and Terry would take the field against the Indians at about the same time. On June 21st 322 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. General Terry, with the Seventh Cavalry, four troops of the Second Cavalry, six companies of the Seventh Infantry, and six of the Seventeenth, and a battery of three Gatling guns, was encamped on the Yellowstone River, preparatory to moving on Sitting Bull s force, which had been relatively located somewhere in the vicinity of the Little Big Horn Eiver. After consulta tion with Generals Gibbon and Custer, the following plan of operation was decided upon: Custer, with the whole of his regiment the Seventh Cavalry should proceed up the Rosebud until he cut the Indian trail, discovered by Major Reno, of the Seventh Cavalry, a few days previously. If it led directly to the Little Big Horn he should not follow it, but deflect consid erably to the south before turning toward that river in order to intercept the Indians should they attempt to slip between him and the mountains, and also to give time for General Gibbon s column to come up. General Gibbon, with six companies of his own regiment the Seventh Infantry and four troops of the Second Cav alry, was to cross the Yellowstone River near the mouth of the Big Horn and march for the mouth of the Little Big Horn, with the expectation of reaching that place by June 26th. If this could be successfully accomplished they would have Sitting Bull s forces be tween the two commands. But the written instructions given General Custer gave him great latitude. Custer started up the Rosebud on June 22d, while Gibbon s command, accompanied by General Terry, moved the same day for the mouth of the Big Horn. Custer reached and crossed Tullock s Creek on the after noon of June 24th. On June 22d he made a march of twelve miles; June 23d he marched up the Rosebud THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 323 thirty-three miles; June 24th he marched twenty-eight miles and encamped. At eleven o clock that night the command marched up one of the branches of the Rose bud, turning to the right from the main stream,, which branch headed out at the summit of the " divide " be tween the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn. At two o clock on the morning of the 25th the command halted for three hours, made coffee, and resumed the march, crossed the " divide," and at eight o clock was in the valley of one of the branches of the Little Big Horn. Ouster pushed down the valley of the creek he was upon directly toward the Little Big Horn. He believed he had been seen by the Indians, and evidently thought his best course was to attack. Taking personal com mand of Troops G, E, F, I, and L, he marched down the right bank of the creek. He had given Major Reno command of Troops A, G, and M and Captain Benteen command of Troops IT, D, and K, and both Reno and Benteen were marching along the left bank of the creek. Captain McDougall, with B troop, was guard ing the pack train and in rear of the entire command, and also following down on the left bank of the creek, but out of sight of the rest of the regiment. About eleven o clock Reno crossed to the right bank of the creek and joined Custer s column. A little after twelve o clock Custer s scouts reported the Indian village only two miles ahead, and stated that the Indians were run ning away. Custer ordered Reno to move forward and charge the village, with the understanding (according to Reno) that he, Custer, was to support him. Reno moved at a fast trot for about two miles, reached the river, crossed it, halted a few moments to form up his 324: THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. command, deployed, and charged. lie states that he drove the Indians for two miles or over down the river toward the village, which still stood, the tepees not having been taken down. In the meantime he could not see or hear anything of either Ouster or Benteen, and the Indians began swarming toward him in great numbers. Accordingly, he took position in the edge of some timber, which made a protection for his horses, dismounted his men, and began to fight on foot from behind the trees. Very soon, however, he realized that he would be overcome by the immensely preponderating force of Indians. Accordingly, he mounted his troops, charged through the Indians, recrossed the river, and took up a position on the crest of a bluff on the opposite side. In this charge two of his lieutenants and his as sistant surgeon, together with twenty-nine enlisted men, were killed, and seven men wounded. Here he was joined by Benteen s battalion of three troops, Benteen having, according to orders, gone well out on the left and rear to cover any approach of Indians from that direction, but not finding any he returned toward the main column and was met by an orderly directing him to come on at once, as the Indian village was in sight. A few moments after Benteen had joined Reno Cap tain McDougall came up with Troop B and the pack train. These three detachments gave Reno a command of seven troops, making an aggregate of nearly four hundred officers and men. Nothing having been seen or heard of Ouster and his command, Reno moved down the river along the crest of the bluffs on the side oppo site the Indian village. Notwithstanding that firing had been heard over beyond the village, nothing was now THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 325 seen or heard to indicate where Ouster and his men might be. Accordingly, Eeno halted on a high bluff and sent out Captain Weir with his troop to try and open communication with Ouster. Weir sent back word that it was impossible to advance, as he was heav ily attacked by a large force of Indians. He was therefore ordered back and Eeno moved his command back up the river and took position on the bluff he had first occupied. It was especially well adapted to defence, as there was a depression into which he placed his horses and pack train, and occupied the surround ing crest with his dismounted cavalry. The Indians now came up, surrounded, and attacked him in force, keeping up the assault from six to nine o clock at night, at which time they drew off. In this affair Eeno s casualties were eighteen killed and forty-six wounded. Eeno now proceeded to deepen his rifle pits and to strengthen his lines by using boxes of supplies from the pack train and the bodies of such of his mules and horses as the Indians had killed during their attack. Between two and three o clock the next morning July 26th the Indians opened a heavy fire from several points in Eeno s vi cinity that overlooked his position, so completely sur rounding it that men were hit in the rifle pits from the opposite side from which they were fighting. About half past nine o clock the savages made a des perate assault upon that portion of the line held by Troops H and M, almost reaching the rifle pits, when Captain Benteen suddenly sprang forward and led the men against them in a gallant and unexpected counter-charge, driving them back in great confusion. 22 326 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Reno also led Troops D and K against them in a coun ter-charge from the other side of the position when they had charged up to the earthworks so close as to be particularly dangerous. The men, especially the wounded, were now suffering greatly from thirst, it having been sixteen hours since they had last had any drinking water. Accordingly, volunteers were called for, and a number of the men promptly responded. Loaded with pails and canteens and protected by a skirmish line thrown forward under Benteen, they de scended to the stream and filled them, but unfortu nately several of the men were killed and wounded in the attempt, which resulted in their obtaining enough water to somewhat alleviate the sufferings of the com mand. About noonday the Indians began to withdraw and cease firing, going off in the direction of their villages, and during this lull in the action the men rushed down to the river arid filled their canteens and every other vessel they had with water, although a few of the Indian sharpshooters annoyed them some what by firing at them. Early in the afternoon the Indians fired the grass in the lowlands, and under cover of the smoke began to move off with their villages, and later in the day a good view was had by the troops of the immense cavalcade, numbering at least four, if not five thousand warriors, as it slowly wound over the hills toward the Big Horn Mountains. Nothing had been heard from Ouster since Reno left him, and many w r ere the surmises as to where he had gone and what had become of him. The night of the 26th passed without any notice able event, Reno having slightly changed his location Arrival of Tcrrv s column on the Caster battlefield. THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 327 so as to insure a water supply. On the 27th the dust of a moving column was seen to be approaching, and shortly a scout arrived with a note from General Terry (who was coming up with Gibbon s column), saying that Crow scouts had reported Ouster whipped, but their re port was not believed. At eleven o clock General Terry rode into Reno s intrenchments. Two hours later the fate of Ouster and his command was known. General Sheridan, in his official report, tersely sums up all that we actually know of the affair in these words: " The only real evidence of how they came to meet their fate was the testimony of the field where it overtook them, ... no officer or soldier who rode with him into the valley of the Little Big Horn having lived to tell the tale." From the point where Eeno crossed the river Ous ter s trail led down the right bank of the stream, be hind the bluffs, for nearly three miles, where he evi dently attempted a crossing. Here it turns upon itself, and after almost completing a circle crosses. It was lined by the bodies of dead officers, men, and horses just as they fell beneath the deadly bullets of the Sioux, now and then accentuated at the foot of a ravine or on the top of a knoll with a line of dead men and horses, showing where some one of the troops had made its last stand. As a general thing, all the bodies had been stripped, badly mutilated, and scalped. Our losses in this action were General Ouster and thirteen com missioned officers and two hundred and fifty-six men killed and two officers and fifty-one men wounded, a total of three hundred and twenty-three killed and wounded. General Ouster has been the subject of much adverse criticism in this his closing campaign. Without 328 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. impugning the motives of any of his critics, the writer asks their attention to the following facts: General Custer joined his regiment after the cam paign was well under way. The last newspaper articles about the affairs at Eed Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other Northern Indian agencies that he could have seen be fore he left civilization for the upper Missouri stated that none of the agency Indians had gone to join the hostiles under Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull, but that they were still at the agencies drawing rations. Cer tainly upon the day when he received his final instruc tions from General Terry he could not possibly have known of General Crook s fight on the Rosebud and the fact that Crazy Horse and his following had joined Sitting Bull on the Little Big Horn. If the agency Indians had not joined Sitting Bull it was safe enough to conclude that he could not bring a thousand warriors into the field. Was General Terry s order to Custer of sufficient latitude to permit him clearly within its scope to at tack Sitting Bull s force? Let us see. "The depart ment commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy." Now, from Custer s standpoint, how must things have impressed him? He had a regiment seven hun dred strong, well and capably officered. Sitting Bull could not, in all probability, muster a thousand war riors.* If the published reports from the Indian agen- * On July 22, 1876, at the repeated and earnest request of General Sheridan, the Honorable Secretary of the Interior au thorized the military to assume control of all t the Indian agencies THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 329 cies were true, five hundred would be nearer the mark. It was almost certain that some of Sitting Bull s war riors had seen or would see Ouster s column before he could communicate with Terry or Gibbon, in which case he would probably decamp. He was "nearly in con tact with the enemy." Under the peculiar condition of affairs, bearing in mind the only information he could possibly have had concerning Sitting Bull s forces, was Ouster justified, in a military sense and within the scope of his orders, in making the attack? In the opinion of the writer, he was within his orders and fully justified from a military standpoint in so doing. in the Sioux country. A careful count was made as soon as pos sible. The Indians at Red Cloud agency numbered only forty- seven hundred and sixty, nearly one half less than had been re ported by the agent and to whom issues were made. The count at Spotted Tail s agency developed less than five thousand, whereas nearly double that number had been constantly issued to. A count at the Missouri River agencies exhibited the fact that there were present from one half to one third less than had been reported present and (ostensibly) issued to. It was then easy to see where the small bands originally, and upon whom the war was being waged, obtained their strength and supplies. CHAPTEE XV. THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN AND THE NEZ PERCES WONDERFUL FLIGHT. AT this late day it is difficult to get an absolutely cor rect idea of the Sioux campaign of 1876 and its attend ant difficulties, together with the hardships endured by the men, as well as all the risks and hard knocks of the campaign, so in addition to the War Department official reports covering the operations of the troops in this movement I am also under obligations for graphic descriptions of the fight at Slim Buttes and some inci dents of the hardships of the march to both the Hon. John F. Finerty (former correspondent of the Chicago Times, and author of War Path and Bivouac; or, The Conquest of the Sioux, published for the author, 79 Dearborn Street, Chicago, 1890) and Captain Charles King, U. S. A. (author of Campaigning with Crook. Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, New York, 1890), as well as to officers and enlisted men who have occa sionally given me information bound up in personal experience not to be found in official reports or re corded in published narratives. General Crook had refitted his command since the battle on the Rosebud, and on August 3d, while on Goose Creek, he was joined by General Merritt with the 330 THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 33! Fifth Cavalry, making Crook s effective force nearly two thousand fighting men. On August 4th the com mand moved out, each man with the suit he had on only no change of clothing being allowed but each sol dier carried on his person four days rations, one hun dred rounds of ammunition,, a single blanket, and a poncho (a waterproof piece of rubber-covered canvas). On this new march General Merritt became chief of cavalry. Colonel Royall retained his old command of the Second and Third Cavalry. General Carr led the Fifth Cavalry. The twenty-five companies were formed into five battalions. Frank Gruard and Buffalo Bill were in advance with a select body of scouts. Colonel Stanton, paymaster, had chief command of the irregu lars (enlisted Indians), while Major Randall, with Chief Washakie, directed the Shoshone Indians. On August llth Finerty writes: "We had no tents, and had to sleep in puddles. The rain kept pouring down until the afternoon of the succeeding day, retarding our march and making every man of the command feel as if possessed of a devil. Officers and men slept in rain and dirt, drank coarse coffee and ate hardtack and raw bacon." August 13th: " The rain and mud made the marching terrible, and some of Terry s young infantry (recruits) they had met General Terry s command, and remained and marched with it for some days lay down exhausted in the dirt. Many of them had to be placed on pack mules or carried on travois. . . . Every company of the Second, Third, and Fifth Cavalry had to abandon or shoot used-up horses. . . . We made thirty miles over a most infernal country before halting. Chambers s 332 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. astonishing infantry made the full march not a man fell out of ranks. . . . The Roman legions or the army of Austerlitz never made better time than the splendid detachments of the Fourth, Fourteenth, and Ninth In fantry. . . . There was very little wood. We had to sleep at night in pools of water, thankful to get a chance to lie down." On August 15th he says: " The horses staggered in the columns by scores. Very frequently a played-out horse would fall as if shot. Dozens of dismounted cavalrymen toiled painfully along over steep, rugged hills in the rear of the col umn. . . . Our whole line of march was dotted with dead or abandoned horses. Some of the newly enlisted infantry grew desperate, their feet bleeding and their legs swollen from the continuous tramp. . . . Many of the young foot soldiers seemed injured for life. " Gibbon s men marched like Romans, Chambers s men rivalled O Leary and Weston (but these were all veterans)." August 24th: " Thunder and everlasting wet had pursued us, but the night of August 23, 1876, was the most utterly miserable so far experienced. We went into camp about two hundred yards from our first bivouac in some low lands under a range of sand hills flooded with water and fully a mile from wood. Clothing and blankets thoroughly soaked, having neither tents nor camp fires. To keep dry was impossible; to keep warm equally so, for a cold north wind set in at nightfall." August 27th: "The rain and heat of the bivouac fires had so shrunken my boots that I could not remove them. I was afraid to do so because I would have been unable THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 333 to get them on again. Several men did not have their boots off for two weeks at least." August 28th: " That night we had thunder, lightning, and a deluge. The horses sank in the mud up to their knee joints. Soldiers shoes were pulled off in trying to drag their feet through the sticky slime. ( Can hell be much worse than this? said an officer to me next morning. He was cleaning about twenty pounds of wet clay from his boots with a butcher knife. His clothes were drip ping, his teeth chattering, and his nose a cross between purple and indigo. If looking like the devil could make a man fit for the region he inquired about that young lieutenant was a most eligible candidate. " If any reader considers this picture overdrawn I call upon any man in that column, from General Crook down to the humblest private, to contradict me. I wish to let the American people know what their gal lant army had to undergo in fighting these red scoun drels who have too long been treated as chiefs and equals. . . . Crook is severe, and I d rather be with Terry as regards food, shelter, and clean flannel, but he goes for the Indians as one of themselves would do, and has shown that an American army can stand without much growling or the slightest approach to mutiny more than any other troops upon this earth." Nevertheless worse was to come. Up to this time General Crook s command had always had enough to eat, such as it was; but hunting the Sioux through Mon tana had exhausted the rations of the command. On the 4th of September it was decided to move to Dead- wood, in Dakota, where supplies would be sent to meet them. It was two hundred miles distant, and the com mand had only two and a half days half rations on 334 TIIE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. hand. They must he made to last seven days somehow, so the troops were put on quarter rations, and the column was put in motion for the Black Hills. But instead of the weather becoming better it seemed to grow worse. The rain was incessant, and the country through which the troops were now marching was very rough. The grass had been burned off by the Sioux, firewood was very scarce, and what could be found was so water soaked that it was next to impossible to kindle a fire with which to cook the poor remnant of their rations, and the rations of both sugar and salt were finally completely washed out of the pack saddles. The men ate their last hardtack on September 6th, and so on that day the horses which had to be shot or abandoned on the trail were butchered and the flesh issued as a meat ration. It was very tough meat, but very much better than nothing, in fact, it was that or nothing. The next night, September 7th, Captain King writes as follows: " We were halted near the head of Grand River. Here a force of one hundred and fifty men of the Third Cavalry, with about all the serviceable horses of that regiment, were pushed ahead under Major Anson Mills, with orders to find the Black Hills, buy up all the sup plies he could in Deadwood, and then hurry back to meet us." Before the command had broken camp on the next morning after Major Mills had started for the Black Hills settlements to obtain supplies for the hungry troops a courier came post haste to General Crook with the information that Mills had cut the trail of some Sioux, followed it, and attacked and captured a village of forty lodges, the Indian pony herd, and a large amount of supplies, and was now THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 335 holding it against an attempt by the Sioux to recap ture it. Here was a good specimen of an American officer. He was on his way with a detachment of one hundred and fifty men to bring supplies to an almost starving command. His own men were without rations, and his horses worn to the bone and so weak that it was a ques tion whether they could all get through to Deadwood. But here was an opportunity for a blow at the Sioux, whom the whole command had been hunting for weeks past. It involved hard fighting with a small force, with an equal chance of victory or defeat. Mills was not the man to hesitate on an equal chance, and he knew that even if he should be defeated General Crook s forces would get through to Deadwood somehow, and so he abandoned the road to Deadwood, and promptly took up the trail for the enemy. It was soon evident that he was approaching an Indian village, and he moved carefully and cautiously, sending his scout Frank Gruard ahead on the trail to reconnoitre. At dark he went into camp, and then felt his way forward with Gruard and a few soldiers until he had located the village, which was several miles beyond where his own men lay. Before daylight his command had quietly moved up to within a mile or so of the Indian village, where he dismounted all his men except twenty-five, under Lieutenant Schwatka. With these dismounted men he crept up to the ravine in which the village was located, and as soon as his dismounted men were in position he ordered Lieutenant Schwatka to charge in and capture the pony herd, which was grazing outside of the Indian encamp ment. The herd stampeded, and before Schwatka could capture them all part of them rushed into the Indian 336 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. village and awoke the sleeping warriors. At the same time Lieutenants Von Lcutwitz and Crawford, each at the head of fifty dismounted troopers, rushed into the village from either side and opened fire on the tepees, and quickly drove out the surprised Sioux, who after a desultory fight broke for the neighbouring hills and ravines, in which they took refuge and cover, and in turn opened fire on the troops, who had now occupied and were holding their captured village. As soon as Major Mills had secured possession of it he found it was filled with an abundance of dried meat and other Indian supplies, and he also realized that he would have hard work to hold it, as the Sioux were already beginning to increase in number on the adjacent hills, and he knew that this camp must be only an outlying one of the main body of Sioux, which was probably within less than a day s journey. Accordingly, he hur ried off despatches to General Crook, threw up rifle pits on the outskirts of the village to protect his men, brought forward his own pack train, and corralled his horses, the pack mules, and Indian ponies under guard in the middle of the village, and proposed to hold on all he knew until General Crook s arrival. In a few moments after receiving Mills s despatch General Crook, at the head of one hundred and fifty cavalrymen, was in the saddle and on the way to Mills s assistance, with orders for the rest of the command to push on steadily after him. In the meantime the Sioux were most tena cious in their attempt to regain their village, and Mills had to use all his ability and skill to keep possession of what he had captured. A little after eleven o clock, however, General Crook came riding in to his assistance with his re-enforcement of one hundred and fifty men ; THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 337 much, to Mills s relief, for, with plenty of ammunition, which the re-enforcements brought up, three hundred soldiers, and forty armed packers, which now made up the united forces, they could stand off all the warriors that the Sioux could bring against them until the ar rival of the main column, which they knew was some where on the road steadily plodding on in their direc tion. General Crook had scarcely dismounted when his attention was arrested by a sharp action that was going on between a small part of Major Mills s command which was trying to force the surrender of some Indians who had taken refuge in a small cavern located in a deep bush-overgrown gully at one end of their village, thrown up rifle pits at its mouth with their hands and knives, and, despite the fact that the troops had already had several casualties in killed and wounded, were still holding their own against them. Stopping the fight, he first (through the interpreters) demanded their sur render, but he got the same reply that they had given Major Mills jeers and defiance; for the Indians believed that if they could hold out that succour would surely reach them from their friends, who they knew would soon come to their rescue. General Crook, who was undoubtedly the most experienced Indian fighter on the ground, and who had seen much of this sort of fighting, brigadier general and department commander though he was, promptly assumed command of the attacking force, and as Finerty, who witnessed the fight, says, " he displayed to the fullest extent his eccentric contempt for danger. No private soldier could more expose him self than did the general and the officers of his staff. I expected to see them shot down every moment." It was 338 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. a hot fight. The savages simply would not surrender. Some of the pluckiest and best officers on the frontier outside of General Crook took part in it. Major Mills, Lieutenants Charles King, Philo Clarke, and J. G. Bourke of the cavalry, and Majors J. H. Powell, Burke, and Munson of the infantry, were all there leading the men and fighting by their side, carbine in hand, and time and again they swarmed up around the little ravine only to realize that it would be death to attempt to go in to the mouth of the cave. Finally General Crook, annoyed and exasperated at the casualties among his men, formed a cordon of both infantry and cavalry around the mouth of the ravine and opened an incessant rain of fire into it. In a few moments the squaws began chanting the death song, and the wails of the children were piteous. A suspension of the attack was immedi ately ordered, and the interpreters offered quarter and good treatment for the women and children if the war riors would let them come out. In a few moments this was accepted, and General Crook stepped up to the mouth of the ravine and gave his hand to the first squaw who came out. She was a tall, fine-looking woman, with a papoose strapped to her back. Evidently very much frightened, and probably from some Indian s descrip tion, she instantly recognised the Gray Fox, as all the Indians termed General Crook, and clung to his hand with all her strength, knowing from his reputation that he would protect her, and undoubtedly fearing that some of the now thoroughly angered enlisted men might take vengeance on her. Eleven other squaws and six children soon followed her, but the warriors re fused to surrender, and as soon as the women and chil dren were safely away, courageously if desperately Surrender of American Horse. (See page 339.) THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 339 opened fire on the troops and once more began the fight. For two long hours the soldiers sent bullets into the little ravine, and then, noticing a partial re laxation in the volume of fire on the part of the Indians, General Crook ordered a third cessation of hostilities, and once more summoned them to surrender. After a few moments of evident consultation, American Horse, a tall, broad-shouldered Sioux chief, with a chest and neck like a bull buffalo, came slowly out of the mouth of the cave, and, noticing where General Crook stood, came haltingly forward and presented him his rifle, butt foremost, in token of complete surrender, and asked for the lives of the warriors who had fought with him. As for himself, he was mortally wounded, having been shot through the abdomen. Through his interpreter Gen eral Crook assured him that if they would surrender neither he nor his warriors would be harmed; ac cordingly, American Horse beckoned to them, and the few warriors that were left came out and gave up their arms and the fight was over. Among the men whom we lost in this affair was quite a noted scout, Jim White, a man who used to follow around W. F. Cody Buffalo Bill like his shadow, and so far as he could do so imitate him in dress and bearing. White was plucky and brave, but without anything like the ability or experience of Cody as a guide, fighter, and frontiers man. Dried buffalo meat was found in abundance in the Indian tents and distributed to the main command as it defiled into the Indian village at about two o clock in the afternoon, just as the fight with American Horse was over. Crook now had nearly two thousand fighting men for duty, and no apprehension was felt as to Crazy Horse and his warriors, so the whole command was un- 340 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. saddled and the horses turned out to graze on the first mouthful of fairly good grass that they had seen for many days. The superhly brave chief American Horse was taken to the hospital tent, and the surgeons did what they could to assuage his sufferings, but before the light of another day his soul had sought the happy hunt ing grounds of his race and people. As a chief he stood high, and deservedly so, among the Sioux, and his death was a distinct loss to his tribe at this especial juncture. In this Indian village were found five horses of the Seventh Cavalry and one of the regimental guidons carried by Ouster s ill-fated command, together with Colonel Miles Keogli s gauntlets and several other relics of the annihilated battalion of the Seventh Cav alry. At about four o clock in the afternoon Crazy Horse and six or eight hundred warriors made an at tack on General Crook s forces with the intent to rescue American Horse and his village. lie had probably hur ried to the rescue with what warriors he had near him at the first information that reached him from Ameri can Horse, and as the Indians who had notified him had counted Mills s forces only, he now came dashing down from the hills confident in his own strength and determined to make short work of Mills and his com mand. In a few moments the whole of General Crook s forces were moving to meet him. It was too late, and the worn-out horses were too tired to follow the In dians that day, so everything in the way of animals was quickly put under cover in one of the inlying ravines, and the infantry and all the cavalry dis mounted promptly moved out and hurried up the hill sides as skirmishers. At first Crazy Horse and his mounted warriors moved boldly upon them, but in THE CLOSE OF THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN. 341 about an hour the astonished and discomfited savages gave way and took cover. Where all the men that suddenly poured out of the little valley and con fronted him came from must have sorely puzzled the doughty Indian chief, but after he had lost a few killed and a number wounded he recognised the fact that General Crook s forces were too strong for his command to fight successfully, and, accordingly, he gave orders to retreat, and at dark the Sioux sullenly fell back into the hills and gave up the contest. It had been a skirmishing fight only, with about thirty casualties altogether upon our side, but Mills s plucky fight of the morning had given the whole com mand something to eat, and it held the Indian village with all its paraphernalia and three hundred fine In dian ponies besides, while the Indians, killed and wounded outnumbered ours two to one. It had been the best day of this campaign, and all the well men bivouacked contentedly. But in this book we can spend only a few lines more on this Sioux campaign. General Crook s troops met supplies sent out to meet them while they were encamped on Willow Creek on the morning of September 13th, and a few days later they were in the frontier settlement of Deadwood, Da kota, and the hardships of this year s campaign against the Indians were over. Once on the war path, however, the Sioux had to be fought to a finish, and on October 21, 1876, Colonel Miles (now Lieutenant-General Miles), in a council near Big Dog Eiver, held at the request of Sitting Bull, offered him peace if he would come into the reservation on the terms offered by the Indian Bureau. This he flatly refused to do, and, on being told that his S3 342 THE STORY OF TUB SOLDIER. refusal would be regarded as an act of hostility, he and his warriors instantly took up a position for a fight. General Miles, notwithstanding Sitting Bull s forces greatly outnumbered his command, promptly attacked, defeated, and drove the Indians in a running fight for nearly forty miles. Sitting Bull, however, with part of his warriors escaped across the lines into British ter ritory, but on October 27th over four hundred lodges of Sitting Bull s following with about two thousand men, women, and children surrendered to General Miles and were placed on one of the Indian reservations. On January 8, 1877, General Miles had a san guinary fight on the Tongue Kiver with Crazy Horse and six hundred warriors, the Indians occupying a canon in a spur of the Wolf Mountain range. The ground was covered with snow and ice to a depth in some places of over three feet, and the latter part of the engagement was fought in a blinding snowstorm, " the troops stumbling and falling in scaling the ice- and snow-covered cliffs," from which the Indians were finally driven by repeated charges, with a serious loss to them in killed and wounded, and were followed by the troops through the Wolf Mountains toward the Big Horn range. As a direct result of this winter s campaign, Crazy Horse, Little Wolf, and others of the hostiles came in and surrendered at Spotted Tail and Red Cloud agencies during the months of April and May of that year, Crazy Horse bringing in and surren dering with himself at the Red Cloud agency over two thousand Indians. During the ensuing four years there was almost constant trouble with some of the bands of hostile Sioux, but our troops steadily followed them on the THE NBZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 343 war path, and, after severe fighting, they were com pelled to surrender to our forces and come into the Indian agencies and take up their abode on the reserva tions. Sitting Bull himself, however, for a long time kept within the British possessions and well beyond our reach until July 20, 1881, when, worn out with anx iety, his influence gone, and his following reduced to comparatively a mere handful, he came into Fort Bu- ford, Dakota, and surrendered to the commanding offi cer, together with forty-five warriors, sixty-seven women, and seventy-three children, glad to abandon the war path on assurance of his personal safety. To recount in detail the Indian fighting upon our fron tier during the last thirty-five years would carry this book far beyond the limits within which it must be kept, and as one Indian fight is in many respects simi lar to another it would only weary the reader. The Fez Perce campaign of 1877, of which I am about to write, began in the Territory of Idaho on the Pacific slope west of the Bitter Root Mountains, and finished at the north end of the Bear Paw Mountains in the Territory of Dakota, the Indians in their flight and the soldiers in their pursuit having in the mean time crossed three ranges of mountains (the Bitter Root, the Rocky, and the Snow ranges) and passed through portions of the Territories of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to Dakota. The campaign was the outcome of Chief Joseph of the nontreaties ISTez Perce Indians refusing to give up the Wallula Valley in Idaho to settlement by the whites and with the other bands of the Nez Perce In- 344 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. dians go upon and occupy either the Nez Perce or the Lapwai Keservations. As a matter of fact, the Wallula Valley was not the fixed residence of Chief Joseph, White-Bird, or Too-hul-hul-Sote, the head men of the nontreaty Nez Perces that is, of those Indians of the Nez Perce tribes who would not accept the reservation system. It was a splendid hunting ground, though, and capable of fine development agriculturally. Brigadier- General 0. 0. Howard, the commander of the Depart ment of the Columbia, which included the Nez Perce tribe within its geographical limits, was somewhat ap prehensive of trouble with the nontreaty Indians, and did all in his power to persuade these Indians to accept the treaty as agreed to by the main body and come and live upon the Lapwai Reservation. Chief Joseph seemed at the time to have made up his mind to do so in fact, he tacitly agreed to do so, but asked for thirty days, or until June 14th, in which to persuade his people to that end, and everything seemed to be fairly and peacefully settled, but on the date named (June 14, 1877), instead of entering upon the Lapwai Reservation, his following began murdering, plundering, and outraging the set tlers and their families at Cottonwood, Idaho, and along the banks of the Salmon River. General Howard, who was at Fort Lapwai, at once threw forward Captain Perry with two small troops of cavalry, numbering ninety men, all the available force then at the post, to the defence of the settlers at Mount Idaho, upon which hamlet they were concentrating, with orders to find and attack Chief Joseph and his band if he was in the vicinity. Captain Perry with his command and pack train left Fort Lapwai on the night of the 15th of June, and, having crossed Craig s Mountain, he reached THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 345 Grangeville, fifty-eight miles distant, on the afternoon of the 16th. Here he received information that Chief Joseph was at White Bird Canon, sixteen miles dis tant. Accompanied by ten armed citizens, he made a night march for that place, and came in sight of Jo seph s camp a little after daybreak. It was about four miles distant, and he at once moved down the moun tain to the attack. Joseph s force, which outnumbered his nearly if not quite three to one, and was equally as well armed, perceived his advance, and at once made preparations to meet him. Joseph sent White Bird to attack Captain Perry s force in flank, while he lay in ambush, covering the place that Perry s men would most likely attempt to occupy. The result was that after a severe fight Perry s troops were beaten and driven back, losing Lieutenant Theller and thirty-three men killed. Captain Perry got the rest of his men to gether, however, and fell back coolly so much so that the Indians had no stomach to follow him far. He went to Grangeville to give protection to the people assem bled there, refit his command, and ask for re-enforce ments. Chief Joseph had shown himself a capable leader, and naturally his following was very much elated over their first fight with the soldiers. General How ard hurried forward what troops he could get, and on June 22d he took the field in person at the head of one company of the Fourth Artillery, Captain Marcus P. Miller (now Brigadier-General M. P. Miller, retired), armed and operating as infantry five companies of the Twenty-first Infantry and two troops of cavalry, the whole force aggregating two hundred and twenty-seven men for duty. On the 26th he reached White Bird 346 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Canon and buried Captain Perry s dead of the action on June 17th. On the 28th he moved to the crossing of the Salmon River, where he was joined by four com panies of the Fourth Artillery, acting as infantry, and Captain Burton s company of the Twenty-first Infan try, giving him an effective force of four hundred men. Department commander though he was, and lacking an arm that he left on one of the battlefields of our civil war, General Howard now took up in person the pursuit of Chief Joseph, who was to show himself one of the ablest and most astute Indian warriors of this century and to exhibit a military intuition as to evading his pursuers, taking up almost unassailable positions when attacked, always fighting his forces with sound judgment and keeping up his flight with a tenacity of purpose that was little short of marvellous in an un trained savage. In this sketch of Chief Joseph s fighting and pro tracted flight I can only give the bare outline of the campaign for want of space, and I shall therefore quote from time to time only the condensed official report. On July 3d, while near Cottonwood, Cap tain Whipple, of the First Cavalry, sent forward Lieu tenant Rains, a most capable officer, with ten men to ascertain the strength of the Indians, who were said to be advancing in his direction, and to aid a citizen scout named Blewett, whom it was reported was last seen with the Indians in full pursuit of him. Lieuten ant Rains and his men were ambuscaded and all killed. Chief Joseph and his following at this time numbered about three hundred warriors and probably two hun dred or more women and children, with a herd of not less than fifteen hundred ponies and horses, which the THE NEZ PERCES WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 347 squaws drove ahead of the command, took care of, and kept in good condition for constant remounts for the warriors. In fact, the squaws were as good as another hundred men, as they did all the camp work, cooked the food, and set up the tepees at night, thereby en abling Joseph to use all his men on the fighting line. As Joseph swept across the country he harried the ranches for new remounts, carrying with him all the fresh horses and leaving the troops, who w r ere following him, only his own worn-out animals as remounts when their own horses gave out. For ten or twelve days Jo seph doubled constantly on the troops in pursuit of him, and the country was mountainous and extremely diffi cult to operate in. General Howard says: " The 2d of July we ascended the mountain after forming junction with Captain Trimble s command, now consisting of his own company and McConville s twenty volunteers. Another small company of mounted volunteers, under Captain Hunter, had joined me from the vicinity of Dayton, Wyoming Territory. The ascent was by a blind trail, exceedingly steep and difficult, and rendering a march of not more than ten miles equiva lent to three times as much on an ordinary road. " A heavy rain followed by thick clouds so impeded the command that several pack mules were killed by rolling down the mountain, and the greater part of two days spent in completing the ascent. Several caches of Indian supplies were found about halfway up and de stroyed. Abundant Indian trails showed which way the enemy had gone viz., toward our right." On July llth, after following Joseph over and through the forests and hills, and hunting for him in all directions, he and his command were discovered in 348 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. a deep ravine near the mouth of Cottonwood Creek. General Howard says: " My guide, Mr. Chapman, assures me that they can escape only by a canon on my left, which makes a small angle with the river and leads toward my rear. " The next bluff in that direction was beyond a deep and rocky transverse ravine perpendicular to this canon. I instantly order my howitzer battery and Gat- ling guns, supported by Winters s cavalry, to go thither with all speed. "Around the head of the ravine our distance was over a mile, the enemy having less than a third to go, so we found him dismounted and in position already on our approach, beyond the second bluff, while some thirty or forty mounted Indians galloped just beyond range to compass my left. For a few minutes I feared the result of this attempt, when just in time Major Mason, Twenty-first Infantry, department inspector general, appeared close by with Burton s company of infantry, having anticipated my order (at every junc ture Major Mason thus has supplemented my efforts). This company deploying to the right enabled Winters to take care of his left. Firing now became very brisk. My line was extended to the left by the cavalry and to the right by the infantry and artillery battalions, gradually refusing my flanks until the whole was en veloped. Four hundred men held a line of two miles and a half in extent. My main pack train had passed by this position. A small train with a few supplies was on the road nearer us. " The Indian flankers by their rapid movement struck the rear of the small train, killed two of the packers, and disabled a couple of mules loaded with howitzer ammunition. The prompt fire from Perry s THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 349 and Whipple s cavalry saved the ammunition from capture. " The enemy manifests extraordinary boldness, planting sharpshooters at available points, making charges on foot and on horseback with all manner of savage demonstrations. These attempts are success fully resisted at every part of the line. At 3.30 p. M. a spirited counter-charge is made on the right, down into a ravine, by Companies H (Haughey s), D (Pol lock s), E (Miles s), and B (Jocelyn s), Twenty-first In fantry, A and part of E, Fourth Artillery, participating. Captain Miles, commanding the infantry battalion, sup ported by Captain Miller s artillery battalion, led in this charge. Captain Bancroft, Fourth Artillery, and Lieutenant Williams, Twenty-first Infantry, were wounded about this time. A number of Indians were killed and several wounded in this charge, and the ravine cleared. " Captain Miller a little later led a second charge near the centre, Burton, Haughey, Eltonhead, and Winters with their companies participating. Lieuten ant Wilkinson, aide-de-camp, by my direction, mean while, led a demonstration on the right, using artillery and infantry and every available man from the cavalry, horse holders, orderlies, extra-duty men, and train. Lieutenant Fletcher, acting aide-de-camp, also using a howitzer at this and at several other times during the battle, did effective service by lodging shells within the enemy s barricade. " Miller s charge gained the ridge in front and se cured the disputed ravine near Winters s left. Further spasmodic charges on the left by the enemy were re pelled by Perry s and Whipple s cavalry, dismounted, and Morris s artillery, Company G. Yet a few Indian sharpshooters managed to so annoy every man who ap proached the spring, our water supply, that in spite of 350 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. our successful charges matters were not very bright at dark. During the night stone barricades and rifle pits were constructed by ourselves and the enemy. At day light the 12th every available man was on the line. I directed that food should be cooked and coffee made at the centre and carried to the front, but we had first to get complete possession of our spring, as sufficient water was not secured in the night. This was executed by Captains Miller and Perry, using Lieutenant Otis s battery, supported by Rodney s company. The sharp shooters were driven from their hiding places and the spring secured against recapture. As soon as every man had been provided with food, I directed that the artillery battalion be withdrawn entirely from the lines, thin though they were already, and that the lines be held by the infantry and cavalry battalions. It may be remembered that the number of the Indian warriors and the number of men that I could put on the line were about equal, owing to the fact that with us a large number are necessarily absorbed in holding the horses and in performing extra duty. " Captain Miller withdrew his battalion at about 2.30 P. M. (the time I had selected), and was preparing to execute this movement viz., to push out by the left flank, piercing the enemy s line just left of the centre, cross his barricaded ravine, then face suddenly to the right and charge, striking the Indian position in re verse, assisting himself by a howitzer. " As he was about to move, a dust appeared in the distance beyond the Indians position. Our glasses re vealed it as an expected supply train, escorted by Cap tain Jackson s company, B, of the First Cavalry. Im mediately the artillery battalion is sent to meet the newcomers. With a little skirmishing and delay of an hour, the train was brought in in safety. " Then at once Captain Miller, instead of returning THE NEZ PERCYS WONDEBFUL FLIGHT. 351 to our position with the train, is marching slowly in column by the right flank toward us; when just at the right point he faces quickly to the left, moves steadily for nearly a mile across our front, and charges the enemy s position. The usual attempt to double his left is made by the Indians, when a reserved company (Rod ney s) in Miller s rear deploys and flanks the flankers. For a few minutes there is stubborn resistance at the enemy s barricades. Then the whole line gives way. Immediately the pursuit is taken up by the infantry and artillery and Winters s cavalry company, dis mounted, and the remaining cavalry as soon as they can saddle and mount. Captain Jackson s company, just arrived, followed the Gatling gun in support at a trot as far as the bluff overlooking the river. The howitzers are brought to the same point with Trimble s company, and shot and shell poured into the retreating masses of Indians and ponies. " They are closely pursued through the ravines into the deep canon, thence to the river, over rocks, down precipices, and along trails almost too steep and craggy to traverse. The footmen pursued them to the river opposite the Indian camp. " The cavalry worked its way as rapidly as it could from its position on the left down the rugged mountain steeps to the deep ford, and crossed slowly into the Indian camp, and was strongly posted beyond it, while the Gatling guns and the howitzers, near which I was observing, were doing their best to reach the Indians, who were fleeing in every direction up the heights to the left of Cottonwood Creek and beyond the Clear- water. " The Indian camp, abandoned in haste, had their lodges still standing filled with their effects, buffalo robes, cooking utensils, food cooking on the fire, flour, jerked beef, and plunder of all description." 352 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. The Indians lost twenty-three warriors killed be sides their wounded, the troops captured twenty-three warriors and seventeen women and children. Our loss was thirteen enlisted men killed and two officers and twenty-two enlisted men wounded. Chief Joseph and his band, however, mounted upon fleet and fresh ponies, were already away over the hills and heading boldly for the old Lo Lo Trail. Joseph, still followed by General Howard and his troops, was on August 9th at Little Big Hole Valley, Montana. Word had been sent forward to Brigadier-General John Gibbon, the commander of the District of Montana, and he in person had instantly taken up the pursuit. The force at his command was very small, but without the slightest hesitation he took the trail with all the officers and men he could collect, and I append here with an account of the battle of the Big Hole as given in his official report. Can anything more thoroughly show the spirit that animates the officers of the United States army than this official report, which exhibits the commanding general of the district (a division commander, too, ten years previously in our civil war), owing to the paucity of his force, himself in line of battle supplying the place of a needed private, as, rifle in hand, he leads the attack of the savages, with the result that he is one of the wounded in the desperate action that follows? " It was nearly sunset before we reached Lieuten ant Bradley s position, and the Indian camp was still four or five miles distant. The train was now brought up, closely parked amid the brush of the little valley down which we were travelling, and the animals turned out to rest and feed. No fires were built, and after THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 353 posting pickets, all laid down to rest until eleven o clock. At that hour the command, now consisting of seven teen officers, one hundred and thirty-two men, and thirty-four citizens, started down the trail on foot, each man being provided with ninety rounds of ammuni tion. The howitzer could not accompany the column in consequence of the quantity of fallen timber ob structing the trail and the noise which would have to be made in removing it. Orders were therefore given that at early daylight it should start after us with a pack mule, loaded with two thousand rounds of extra ammunition. The thirty-four citizens who volunteered to accompany us being joined to Lieutenant Bradley s command, the advance was given to him, and the col umn moved in silence down the trail, the night being clear and starlight. After proceeding about three miles the country opened out into the Big Hole Basin, and still following the trail, guided by one of the citizens who knew the locality, we turned to the left, and fol lowing along the low foothills, soon came in sight of fires. After proceeding about a mile from where we emerged from the mountains we passed through a point of timber projecting into the valley, and just beyond encountered a large herd of ponies grazing upon the hillside. As we silently advanced they commenced neighing, but fortunately did not become alarmed, and by the time we had passed through the herd the outline of the tepees could be made out in the bottom below. The command was now halted and all laid down to wait for daylight. Here we waited for two hours in plain hearing of the barking dogs, crying of babies, and other noises of the camp. Just before daylight Sanno s com pany and then Comba s were sent down into the valley and deployed as skirmishers. As day began to break and enable me to make out the ground beneath us, I found that the tepees, in the form of an open V, with 354 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. the apex toward us, extended along the opposite side of a large creek some two or three hundred yards from us. " The intervening space between the camp and the foot of the slope upon which we stood was almost en tirely covered with a dense growth of willow brush in the grassy spaces between which herds of ponies were grazing. A deep slough, with water in places waist deep, wound through this bottom from right to left, and had to be crossed before the stream itself could be reached. As the light increased Comba and Sanno were ordered to move forward, then Bradley and his citizens on the left, with Rawn and Williams in sup port. All pushed in perfect silence, while now scarcely a sound issued from the camp. Suddenly a single shot in the extreme left rang out on the clear morning air, followed quickly by several others, and the whole line pushed rapidly forward through the brush. Logan s company being sent in on the run on the extreme right, a heavy fire was at once opened along the whole line of the tepees, the startled Indians rushing from them in every direction, and for a few moments no shots were returned. Comba and Sanno first struck the camp at the apex of the V, crossed them in a stream, and de livered their fire at close range into the tepees and the Indians as they passed from them. Many of the Indians broke at once for the brush, and, sheltering themselves behind the creek bank, opened fire on the troops as they came into the open ground. This was especially the case on the right or upper end of the camp where the creek made a bend toward our line. As Logan and the right of the line swept forward our men found themselves directly at the backs of these In dians, and here the greatest slaughter took place. In less than twenty minutes we had complete possession of the whole camp, and orders were given to commence de stroying it. But the Indians had not given up the THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 355 fight, and while a portion of the command was engaged in setting fire to the tepees, other portions were occu pied in replying to the rifle shots which now came upon us from every direction the brush, the creek bank, the open prairie, and the distant bills. The fire from these latter positions, although at long range, was by far the most deadly, and it soon became evident that the enemy s sharpshooters, hidden behind trees, rocks, etc., possessed an immense advantage over us, in so much that we could not compete with them. At almost every crack of a rifle from the distant hills some member of the command was sure to fall. My acting adjutant, Lieutenant C. A. Woodruff, and myself, with our horses, were wounded at this time. Under these circum stances the only remedy was to take up some position where we would be more on an equality with the enemy. Orders were therefore reluctantly given to withdraw through the brush to a position under the hill from which we had first started, and then push for the timber through which we had passed in the night. This move ment was successfully accomplished, such of our wounded as we could find being carried with us, and the few Indians who occupied the timber being driven out. Here we took up our position, and, sheltering ourselves behind the trees, fallen logs, etc., replied to the fire of the sharpshooters, who soon gathered around us, oc cupying the brush below and the timber above. For a time their fire was very close and deadly, and here Lieutenant English received a mortal wound, Captain Williams was struck a second time, and a large number of men killed and wounded. The Indians crawled up as closely as they dared to come, and with yells of en couragement urged each other on; but our men met them with a bold front, and our fire, as we afterward learned by the blood and dead Indians found, punished them severely. 356 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. " Just as we took up our position in the timber two shots from our howitzer on the trail above us were heard, and we afterward learned that the gun and pack mule with ammunition were on the road to us inter cepted by the Indians. " The noncommissioned officers in charge, Sergeants Daly and Frederics and Corporal Sales, made the best resistance they could, while the two privates cowardly fled at the first appearance of danger, and never stopped until they had put a hundred miles between themselves and the battlefield, spreading, of course, as such cow ards always do, when they reached the settlements, the most exaggerated reports of the dire calamity which had overtaken the entire command. The piece was fired twice, and as the Indians closed around the men used their rifles. Corporal Sales was killed, the two sergeants wounded, the animals shot down, and private John 0. Bennett, the driver, entangled in their fall. Cutting himself loose, he succeeded in reaching the brush and escaped to the train, which the two sergeants, Blodgett, the guide, and William, a coloured servant of Lieutenant Jacobs, also reached. In the meantime our fight in the timber continued, with more or less activity, all day. But every hour was increasing the strength of our position, when a new danger threatened us. A strong wind was blowing from the west, and, taking advantage of this, the Indians set fire to the grass, intending, doubtless, to follow up the fire and make a dash upon us while we were blinded by the dense smoke. But, fortunately, the grass was too green to burn rapidly, and before the fire reached any of the dead timber lying about us it went out. The Indians remained around us, firing occasionally nearly all night. They had, however, broken camp immediately after we abandoned it, and sent off their women, children, and herds in a southernly direction. During the night I THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 357 sent a runner to the train, and two others to Deer Lodge, via French s Gulch, for medical assistance and supplies, fearing our train had been captured. This fear was increased early the next morning, on the ar rival of a courier from General Howard, who said he had seen nothing of it. He had passed it in the dark ness of the night without seeing it. Later in the day we communicated with the train; but the Indians, in small parties, still appearing in the interval which sepa rated us from it, I sent Captain Browning, with twenty- five men, to bring it in, and it reached us just before sundown, bringing us our much-needed blankets and provisions, not, however, until we had partially con sumed the flesh of Lieutenant Woodruff s horse, brought wounded to our position and conveniently killed by the Indians inside our lines. The Indians gave us a parting shower of bullets about eleven o clock that night, and we saw no more of them afterward. " In closing this report, I desire to speak in the most commendatory terms of the conduct of both offi cers and men (with the exception of the two cowards who deserted the howitzer). With the exception of Cap tain Logan and Lieutenant Bradley, both of whom were killed very early in the action, every officer came under my personal observation at some time or other during the fight, and where all were so active, zealous, and courageous, not only in themselves fighting and in cheering on the men, but in prompt obedience to every order, I find it out of the question to make any attempt at discrimination, and will simply mention the names of those who were present in the battle. They were: " Captains C. C. Rawn, Richard Comba, George L. Browning, J. M. J. Sanno, Constant Williams (wounded twice), and William Logan (killed); First-Lieutenants C. A. Coolidge (wounded three times), James H. Brad ley (killed), J. W. Jacobs, regimental quartermaster, 24 358 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER, Allan II. Jackson, George II. Wright, and William L. English, (mortally wounded, and since dead); and Sec ond-Lieutenants C. A. Woodruff, acting adjutant (wounded three times), J. T. Van Orsdale, E. E. Har- din, and Francis Woodbridge. " A complete list of casualties is appended to this report, showing a loss of the aggregate engaged (one hundred and ninety-one), including the howitzer party, of twenty-nine killed and forty wounded. Captain Comba, who had charge of our burial party, reports eighty-three dead Indians found on the field, and six more dead warriors were found in a ravine some dis tance from the battlefield after the command left there." Despite the rough handling General Gibbon s force had given him, Chief Joseph and the remnant of his band once more got away from his pursuers, and, after leaving the Big Hole battlefield, proceeded south past the town of Bannock, murdering settlers and stealing stock as they went, crossed the main divide of the Eocky Mountains east of Fort Lambie, then moved across the divide again at Henry s Lake, down to the Madison Eiver, up that stream to the Geyser Basin, through that to the Yellowstone Eiver. This stream they crossed below Yellowstone Lake, and moved down the right bank of the stream to the East Fork; then, after some delay, up that to the head of Clark s Fork and down that to the Yellowstone. After crossing the Yellowstone Biver they came down the right bank as far as Baronette s bridge, which they burned, and then moved slowly up the East Fork. Striking the head of Clark s Fork on the 4th, General Howard repaired the bridge and crossed it on the 5th, continuing the pursuit. Pushing steadily and determinedly forward on Jo- THE NEZ PERCYS WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 359 seph s trail, General Howard kept sending word of his whereabouts to the various department and district commanders on our northern frontier east of the Rocky Mountains, in which direction, plundering as he went, Chief Joseph was tending, probably with the hope of eventually reaching the British possessions and joining Sitting Bull and his hostiles on the other side of the line. The following extract from a field despatch of Gen eral Miles (then colonel of the Fifth Infantry) shows with both brevity and accuracy the close of this won derful retreat of the Nez Perces for one hundred and ten days, and at the end of a pursuit of more than four teen hundred miles from its starting point, over and across three mountain ranges, with a record of eleven engagements between the Indians and the troops: " HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE YELLOWSTONE, "!N THE FIELD, CAMP NEAR NORTH END OF "BEAR PAW MOUNTAINS, MONTANA, October 6, 1877. " SIR: I have the honour to report having received on the evening of the 17th ultimo a communication dated the 12th, from General Howard, then on Clark s Fork, stating that the ISTez Perces had evaded the com mands to the north of them and were pushing north ward. I at once organized all the available force of my command for a movement to intercept or pursue them. The command left the cantonment on the morning of the 18th; the different orders regarding escort for the commission had already put en route the battalion Second Cavalry and one company (Hale s) Seventh Cavalry; these were taken up on the march. " The command reached the Missouri at the mouth of Musselshell on the 23d day of September, but learn ing on the 25th that the Nez Perces had crossed at Cow 360 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Island on the 23d, destroying the depot there, and moved northward, I immediately crossed the Missouri. The command moved on the 26th northward from mouth of Mussclshcll, and on the 27th, leaving my train to follow, pushed on rapidly by the northern side of the Little Rockies; thence across to the northern end of the Bear Paw Mountains, which point I reached on the evening of the 29th. On the same evening the trail was discovered by my scouts, entering the range to my left. " Starting at four o clock on the 30th, and moving around the northern end of the mountains, the trail was struck at 6 A. M., near the head of Snake Eiver; the village shortly afterward was discovered on Eagle Creek, and immediately charged, the battalion Seventh Cavalry (Captain Hale) and Fifth Infantry (Captain Snyder) attacking in front, the battalion Second Cav alry (Captain Tyler) by circuit attacked in rear, and se cured the stock to the number of seven hundred horses, mules, and ponies. The fighting was very severe and at close quarters. The Indians took refuge in some deep ravines, and their firing was accurate and well kept up. Having at the first onset surprised and shut up the greater part of the Indians in the village and cut off and secured the greater part of their stock, and per ceiving that the position could be carried by storm only with very great loss, I determined to maintain my lines about them, keep them under fire, and at the same time give them an opportunity to surrender if they desired. ** The positions taken up on the 30th were, with slight modifications, maintained during the four suc ceeding days and nights. Meantime a few shells from a 12-pounder Napoleon were thrown in from time to time, and a sharpshooting fire kept up whenever it could be effective. The Indians had from time to time displayed a white flag, but when communicated with THE NBZ PERCYS WONDERFUL PLIGHT. 361 had refused to surrender their arms; but on the morn ing of the 5th they surrendered Chief Joseph leading, surrendering his arms and ammunition, followed by his band and their village is now in our possession. " The fighting, as reported, was sharp, and the losses on both sides considerable. Inclosed is a list of casualties on the part of the troops. The Indians ad mit a loss of Chief Looking-Glass, Too-hul-hul-Sote, Ollicut, a brother of Joseph, and two others of their principal men, and twenty-five killed and forty-six wounded. " The endurance and courage of the command, as tested by the forced marches and hardly contested fight at short range, are worthy of highest commenda tion. A severe storm of snow and wind, which set in on the 1st instant, added greatly to their hardships, which have been borne without murmuring. The op portune arrival of the train, under escort commanded by Captain Brotherton, enabled me to protect the wounded from the worst effects of the storm. " I propose, to-morrow, to march hence toward the Missouri. The force of General Howard (including the command of General Sturgis), following the trail of the Nez Perces, is approaching from the Missouri. The general arrived on the evening of the 4th, having come forward in advance with a small escort. " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, " NELSON A. MILES, " Colonel Fifth Infantry, Brevet Major General " United States Army, Commanding. "ASSISTANT ADJUTANT GENERAL, " Department of Dakota, St. Paul, Minn" Our losses in this action were two officers and twen ty-three enlisted men killed and four officers and thirty- eight men wounded. 362 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. General Howard, who had arrived at General Miles s field headquarters on the 4th instant, stood by his side when Chief Joseph surrendered. He had steadily fought and followed the wily and able Indian chief for nearly three months, hanging to his trail like a sleuth- hound, and had traced him over three Territories, across three mountain ranges, through valleys and rivers and canons and mountain streams and deep forests, and as he stood by the side of the younger man, grim and worn and gray, with his armless sleeve pinned to the breast of his coat, it is little wonder that Chief Joseph thought him his Nemesis, and addressed himself to him instead of his captor, General Miles: " Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fight ing. Our chiefs are killed. Looking-Glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-Sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever." CHAPTER XVI. THE ARMY OFFICER, THE PEOPLE, AND THE SOLDIER. WHY really able and thoughtful men in political life will continue to allude to the regular army as inimical to the best interests of, and dangerous to, the perpetuity of the republic is, to those who know it best, and have served in it, simply incomprehensible. Its existence depends upon the life of the nation, and ceases with it. It was created for its defence and the enforcement of its laws, and being the absolute crea ture of law, the power that made it can dissolve and annihilate it at will. A concurrent resolution of Con gress passed by a two-thirds vote, or passed by a bare majority of both houses and approved by the Presi dent, would legally and within constitutional limits in stantly effect its dissolution; and from the moment of the passage and approval of said resolution the army would cease to exist. NOT could any officer or enlisted man establish good and lawful claim against the General Government for his services beyond the time that he re ceived due legal notice of the passage of such a resolu tion. So long, then, as the United States Congress correctly represents the concentrated expression of the will of the people, there need not be any fear of the regular army of the United States. But outside of and 363 364 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. beyond the power of Congress the army is intensely loyal and absolutely devoted to the nation. In no gen eral sense are the officers or men politicians. The fact that unless they are at their homes they can not cast a vote takes them completely out of political affilia tions. As a general thing, they have an intelligent idea of the drift of national affairs, and have their personal preferences for one of the two prominent political parties of the day, and occasionally will discuss certain political movements; but the discussion is rarely acri monious, for the disputants can usually see the good points of both parties, and are willing to admit them. Then, again, if some impetuous youngster in his early years of service is inclined to go too far in his ex pressions one way or another some one of the older officers, after the hot words have cooled, will good- humouredly open the Army Kegulations at the Articles of War, and with a smile point to "AKTICLE XIX. Any officer who uses contemptu ous or disrespectful words against the President, the Vice-President, the Congress of the United States, or the Chief Magistrate or Legislature of any of the United States in which he may be quartered shall be dismissed the service or otherwise punished as a court- martial may direct. Any soldier who so offends shall be punished as a court-martial may direct," with the result that the next time the youthful politician enters into a political discussion, no mat ter how strongly or earnestly he may argue, he is safe to be not at all vituperative. It is a good arti cle of war, and is apt to make one thoughtful and broaden one s ideas somewhat as to men and political parties. THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 365 At the same time that the army recognises the fact that it exists at the pleasure of Congress, it also knows that Congress has no authority to compel it to do an illegal act. The first paragraph of the first article in Army Eegulations declares that " all persons in the military service are required to obey strictly and to execute promptly the lawful orders of their superiors." Therefore/ beyond a lawful order the army can not be induced to go.* Up to this time I have not said anything as to staff organization and the administrative bureaus of the War Department at the head of the army, from the fact that they scarcely come within the scope of this book, but I think it best to touch somewhat upon them for the information of my civilian readers. Constitution ally, as all know, the President is the commander in chief of the army. The Secretary of War has control of the appropriations made by Congress for the pay and support of the army, which are expended by the vari ous bureaus of the War Department subject to his approval. He also has charge of its recruitment, and, as directly representing the President, looks after and supervises the appointment of officers of the army other than the annual class of graduates of the Mili tary Academy, and exercises a close supervision in all that pertains to estimates for its expenses and its gen- * Beyond briefly chronicling some of the splendid work of the artillery acting as infantry during the Modoc war on the Pacific slope in 1873, the writer has not alluded to that branch of the service, from the fact that until recently, from 1867 until 1898, nearly all its duties kept it within the seacoast fortifications. No military man of his acquaintance has a higher opinion of, or more thorough respect for the corps, and, as a matter of fact, few, if any of them, know less about it. 366 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. eral welfare in every direction outside of strictly mili tary matters. The commanding general of the army has the rank of lieutenant general. Next in rank come two major generals and six brigadier generals of the line, who are the officers in immediate command of the field forces of the army. The departments or administrative bureaus of the War Department are ten in number. They are: The adjutant general s department, which issues all orders affecting the army as a whole, by direction of the President through the Secretary of War, or by the commanding general of the army; has con trol of all records, the recruitment or enlargement of the army (through the Secretary of War); issues com missions to officers, accepts resignations, grants dis charges, and has a general supervision of all that per tains to the army, the administrative bureaus of the War Department, and the State National Guard or Militia. The inspector general s department, which inspects the army, all the military bureaus of the War Depart ment, all military depots, arsenals, posts, forts, general hospitals, army transportation, all money accounts, and everything pertaining to and belonging to the army. The judge-advocate general s department, which is the bureau of military justice, supervises the records and findings of all general courts-martial, has charge of all court-martial records, and control of all papers rela tive to land titles of forts, posts, reservations, etc, held under authority of the War Department. The quartermaster s department, which has control of all transportation by land or sea in the service of THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 367 the army, furnishes its clothing, camp and garrison equipage, builds its barracks, quarters, storehouses, and other buildings, constructs and repairs its military roads, docks, and wharves, and furnishes all public ani mals needed by the army and all forage consumed by them. The subsistence department, which has charge of all purchases for the subsistence of the army and the proper distribution of its rations. The pay department, which has charge of the funds appropriated for the pay of the army and pays the offi cers and troops of the army and the civilian employees of the War Department. The medical department, which is charged with the care of the sick and wounded of the army, has control of all army hospitals and medical supplies and every thing pertaining to the sanitary condition of the troops and the health of the army. The corps of engineers, which has charge of the con struction of all the forts and military defences of the country, as well as the execution of all river and harbour improvements authorized and appropriated for by law, together with the construction of military roads, bridges, etc., and also makes up the estimates for coast and harbour defences and for the improvements of all rivers and harbours throughout the country. The ordnance department, which is charged with the manufacture or purchase of small arms, light ar tillery, heavy ordnance, and ammunition, and their dis tribution at proper points. It also has charge of all arsenals and depots for their manufacture and safe keeping. The signal corps, which is charged with instruction 368 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. in military signalling, and is in control of all field telegraphy, military telegraph lines and cables, field telephone lines, and everything pertaining to the collec tion and dissemination of needed information on the field of battle. These ten departments constitute what is known as the staff corps in our army. The officer at the head of the adjutant general s department has the rank of major general. The official heads of the other nine departments have the rank of brigadier general. That our staff corps is not, strictly speaking, organized on the basis of a European staff corps is a fact; still, it is the best we have, and very much better than that of most European nations, despite the flood of adverse criticism that poured in upon it at the outbreak of the recent Spanish war. Notwithstanding all that was said against it, the War Department and its various bureaus rose splendidly to the occasion, and now that the nation has had time to take a sober second thought and realizes what a tre mendous task it had to accomplish in enrolling, equip ping, arming, encamping, and feeding a volunteer army of two hundred and fifty thousand men within less than ninety days, and all of which it did accomplish, when its magazine of supplies contained a reserve for an army of twenty-five thousand men only, our people must at least be just enough to admit it was a colossal work, well and quickly done in spite of a few errors and draw backs, arising principally from the ignorance of vol unteer officers and the cupidity of a few dishonest Gov ernment contractors. As for the officers of the various departments, from the adjutant general down through all the various bureaus, including also every clerk of THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 369 the War Department, the writer, from personal obser vation, can bear testimony to their constant and in cessant work day and night to meet the crisis that sud denly and unexpectedly confronted them, and although he believes in the reorganization of our staff corps, and can, he thinks, see where improvements can be intro duced, nevertheless there is much that is good in our system, and certain portions of it are much more capable of quick expansion in war times than are those of some European nations which have been held up and referred to as models for us to imitate. A serv ice of many years in the United States army, and an unusual opportunity to compare it with the troops of all the European armies twenty-five years ago, and again four years since, has convinced the writer that in all the essentials of a fighting force it has not its equal, man for man, in any army in the world. Of course, he can not say as to the discipline, drill, and effi ciency on the firing line of our regulars of to-day, con sidering the immense number of recruits brought in two years ago by the new three-battalion formation in the infantry and the expansion of each cavalry troop to its maximum, and he recognises how impossible it has been during an active campaign to work up these new men to the old standard; but the material is all there, and able and capable officers to develop it, and all that is needed is time. The ten regiments of cav alry and the twenty-five regiments of infantry that represented our cavalry and infantry prior to the Span ish war were, in the opinion of the writer, unquestion ably the best troops in the world, and when it is taken into consideration that the officers were West Point men and brilliantly educated soldiers, or else men who 370 THE STORY OP THE SOLDIER. had made distinguished military reputations, first in our civil war and afterward on the great plains of the West, and the enlisted men had been carefully selected for their intelligence and fine physique, and all or nearly all of them were qualified marksmen, perfectly drilled, and in a fine state of discipline, while many of them had the experience that years of frontier cam paigning against the wily North American savage gives, it would have been a strange thing if they had not developed into the best fighting men in the world. As far as the personality of the officers and en listed men is concerned, the standard is unusually high. From the moment that a cadet enters the Mili tary Academy or an enlisted man enters his regi ment he is taught two things by both precept and example, and they are the honour of the service and the necessity of always and under all circumstances doing his duty. Service and duty in time become the two watchwords of the soldier, and in the end build up and strengthen the character of many an ordinary man into something that on the field of battle has enabled him to face death in an Indian combat, and dauntlessly and desperately hold his own against fear ful odds something at times so near akin to heroism that his companions in arms have failed to draw the line, and, unwritten and unsung, he has for many a day been the unlaurelled hero of the barracks of the en listed men of his regiment. As for the officer, those same two words service and duty are with him always and to the end. They help him out on many a tire some day, and nerve him to gallant deeds in many an Indian campaign: and, better than that, they keep him THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 371 straight in repeated scenes of frontier riot and dissipa tion. The young officer who goes to the frontier has scores of weary years to face and many a hardship to endure before he can hope to get his company or troop. It is weary waiting, but very excellent military experi ence, and always develops a good youngster into a manly, thoughtful man. He has days and weeks of comparative inactivity, and then again months of in cessant Indian campaigning. As the years go by and he serves at different posts of his regiment he is de tailed as an acting commissary at one, an acting quar termaster at another, and as he gains age and experi ence he is made an acting post adjutant at another. In time it may be that he is made regimental adju tant, and if so he is particularly fortunate, for it shows capacity, and the experience at regimental headquar ters is worth much to him in later years. If he marries, and marries well and happily, as most offi cers do, he gradually drops out of bachelor gaieties and devotes himself to home life. In time, as he becomes a family man, he has to carefully gauge his expenditures and begin to save for the educa tion of his children. The regimental moves now be come somewhat matters of anxiety to him, as they are expensive, but, like all the rest, he usually succeeds in keeping his head financially above water. If fond of travel he manages by three years consecutive service without leave to accumulate a four months leave on full pay. This he supplements by two months on half pay, and applies for and gets a six months leave with per mission to go abroad. In the meanwhile he has brushed up his French and 372 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Spanish, and picked up enough German to enable him self and wife to pass six happy and delightful months in Europe. Then they return and take up post life again, but, oh, so much broadened by what they have seen! and just that much happier, because the horizon is wider. In the course of time he becomes rather more of a student, and recognises the fact that he is growing older and a bit more staid. The children have to be sent back East to the grandparents to school, and an Indian campaign worries the dear wife more than it used to do. In time he gets his troop or company, and at last becomes a captain in the line. It means much, too, this promotion to the head of a company or troop. It means better quarters, more pay, larger responsibilities. He can now work out some of his pet theories as to company management, and in time the new rank may mean the recruiting detail of two years in civilization. That will mean all the children at home and at a good school, and all the family together once more. His days no longer hang heavy on his hands, for an ambitious captain has plenty to do in keeping everything up to a high standard in his company. As time slowly wings its flight he takes his thirty days leave each year to get back to his old home, especially if his parents still live. He realizes, too, that he is almost forgotten by his old comrades unless he does so. The movements of his regiment carry him North or South or out to the Pacific coast, and he learns to know the whole country well, and gradually loses touch of localities. State lines soon mean little or nothing to him save as political demarcations. He tries to get to Washington occasionally, and when he does so sits for a few hours in the galleries of both THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 373 houses, and he is man enough of the world at the first glance over either house to see that, despite all news paper squibs and cheap criticism to the contrary, that the average of intelligence and trained ability is high in both houses, and far above the ordinary. Some day precisely at noon he goes to the Supreme Court room to see the justices enter, and sits an hour or two watching the proceedings, and then quietly withdraws with an intense respect for what he regards as the most august body in the world. He is creeping up toward the head of the list of captains now. Every retirement and pro motion and death takes him nearer the head of the list. It looked a long way ten or twelve years ago, but now he begins to realize that one year, or at most two years, may make him a field officer. At length, after twenty-five years service as a sub altern and captain in the line, he has reached his pro motion, and receives his appointment as a major in one of the regiments of the army. The years pass quickly. He is a post commander at last. His hair and mustache are heavily tinged with gray. Now and then he finds himself at headquarters in command of his regiment in the absence of the colonel and lieutenant colonel. His opinion is occasion ally asked by the War Department, even, as to cer tain changes in tactics, discipline, and accoutrements, and what he says has weight with the whole regiment. He is one of the oldsters now. He goes home from regimental drill one day, to be met on the porch of his quarters by his wife, whose cheeks are flushed and whose eyes are fairly ablaze with delight. "What is it, little woman?" "0 Harry what do you think the colonel s wife heard the commanding general say 25 374 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. when she dined at his house in Washington? " " I haven t an idea. What? " " He said you were one of the very hest duty officers in the army." " Possibly he may not be a good judge." " Harry! How dare you! " But he puts his arm around her and kisses her as they enter the house, and go in to luncheon with the children, two very happy people. After luncheon he comes out on his porch for his noonday smoke, and as he lights his brierwood pipe let us look at the man as he stands before us, for you may rest assured that, with the training he has received and the service he has rendered, he will average well. He is generally from forty-five to fifty-two years of age. Stalwart of build, splendidly erect, neat in person, temperate in habits, and low of voice save when upon drill. Apt to be sparing of speech, and as a general thing not given to discussion or argument. Tenacious of his own opin ion, but always willing to listen to those who disagree with him, and with a thorough respect for all legally constituted authority, as well as a decent respect for his own position and himself. Considerate of his juniors, and unquestioningly obedient to his superiors in rank. Thoughtful over orders, but always promptly obedient to their tenor. In times like these that are upon us, mayhap he might be a little anxious as he sees the General Gov ernment debate and outline a policy somewhat dif fering in consonance with its heretofore trend of de velopment, but at the same time he would be confi dent in the ultimate wisdom of Congress and satisfied to accept its decision with unswerving and unquestion ing loyalty, and ever with a belief in the legal equity of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 375 States, second only to his belief in the Bible. His love for his country is almost beyond comprehension, and his belief in the National Government as the best that was ever devised for humanity is absolute and not to be debated, while his devotion to the flag has grown to be a part of his being. He is generally an avowed nationalist, with only a Constitutional tolera tion of a State line and the very highest opinion of the New England township organization. When his country shall need him on the tented field it will find in him all that a soldier should be brave, courteous, patient, willing, tolerant, uncomplaining, splendidly drilled and disciplined, holding himself up to the very highest ideal of a soldier, and understanding his work in every detail and shirking nothing; patient in time of trouble, always accepting with grim resignation that which he can not mend, but ever fertile in resource, and bending every energy, mental and physical, to the parting point of tension, to right any wrong or blunder that it is legally within his scope to control. It is a clear sunny morning in April as an orderly taps on the door of his quarters, and as the major, who has heard his footsteps, opens it he says: "The col onel s compliments, sir, and he wishes to see the major at headquarters." " My compliments to the colonel, and I will be with him in a moment." He steps back into the hall, buckles on his sword, places his cap on his head, and crosses the parade at a rapid step, and as he does so sees that from all parts of the garrison officers are hurrying toward the adjutant s office. On reaching the room he notices that the adjutant stands close to the door with a check 376 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. list in his hand, and the colonel is standing near his desk with a telegram pasted at the head of a sheet of foolscap, and from where he stands he can see from the serried lines and squares on the writing paper that it is evidently a secret code despatch which has just been deciphered. As the officers enter they salute and remain standing. The colonel courteously but me chanically returns the salute without looking up as he intently studies the paper. As the last officer comes hurriedly in the adjutant checks his arrival, steps to ward the colonel, salutes, and reports, " The officers are all here, sir." Looking up from his despatch, which is of unusual length, and facing his officers, the colonel says: " Gentlemen, to-day, at twelve o clock, the Presi dent will recommend and Congress declare war against Spain. I am advised that I am to be appointed a major general of volunteers, and our lieutenant colonel a brigadier. Consequently, the regiment will take the field under command of its major." Then, stepping forward, he reaches out his hand heartily, grasps that of the major, and says, " Major, I congratulate you on your regiment "; and, turning to the assembled line officers, he continues: " Gentlemen, I congratulate you on your regimental commander. I sincerely hope that I may have the honour of having you assigned to my division." When next we see him it is in the supreme hour of battle, as he placidly accepts his responsibility without a tremor, justly confident in himself and his knowl edge of his profession, and with the same unquestioning faith in the drill discipline and bravery of his troops that they have in him he leads his regiment gallantly THE PEOPLE AND THE SOLDIER. 377 and confidently. He knows that they will not fail him, and they know that he will not fail them. Quick to see and prompt to act, he grasps the situation boldly, and presses steadily forward. Personally he has no fear. He has thought this situation over and out years before, and that this might be his duty has come to him many a time and oft during his thirty years of frontier service. At night on the starlit stretches of the Western plains, among the towering crags of the Kocky Mountains, on the banks of the mighty streams of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Columbia; looking out across the sunlit valley from the vine- covered porch of his quarters in Arizona, or watching the blue waves of the Pacific curl and break on the shores of the Golden Gate from the door of his cottage at the presidio on San Francisco Bay this, the crucial hour of his life, has been ever before him. Perhaps for an instant the thought of the dependent wife and chil dren whom he may never see again wrings his heart and dims his eyes, but no one sees him falter. For long years he has never failed in his devotion to duty, and held himself strictly amenable to rules of discipline, and neither the one nor the other will fail him now. He has the centre, and steadily the line presses onward. His flashing blade and ringing cry of " Forward! men, forward! " accentuating the crack of rifles and shriek of bursting shell as the line moves slowly, wearily, bloodily upward. But what is this? The line hesitates! It staggers! It halts! In front of the centre the crest of the hill is crowned with rifle pits, bristling with men. Can the line advance? Can it carry the crest? A quick glance backward, and he sees his reserves within supporting distance. Like an inspiration comes 378 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. the thought: If the line can reach the crest the reserve can carry it. But will the line advance? A flash of thought answers, "Yes, if I lead it!" and then comes the shuddering, sickening truth: It will be almost annihilation for the line, and certain death to the leader! Watch him now. For one instant he hesitates, stands like one half bewildered, and seems to quiver in every muscle of his body; then, suddenly pulling himself together, he turns and faces his line. The eye of every soldier on the line rests on him, but he appears to be looking beyond them. What is it he seems to see? What is it that has come to him? In memory s eye he is again reading his first commission. How the words stand out now! "Reposing special trust and confidence in your patriotism, valour, fidelity, and ability I have nominated, and by and with the advice of the Senate do appoint you." Stay! Has he justi fied that special trust and confidence? He removes his cap, bends his head for an instant in silent, heart-wrung prayer for his family and for mercy on his soul, re places it, gives one last sweeping glance around the horizon, raises his sword, turns his face to the enemy, and in a voice that rings like a trumpet call shouts: "Forward! Forward the whole line! Forward, men, -forward!" And then, amid a storm of cheers and a hail of shot and shell, he leads the glorious line un falteringly onward and upward to his death. INDEX. Alden, Captain, of the Shubrick, at San Juan Island, 71. Alderdice, Mrs., murdered by In dians, 310. Alexander, Colonel, with the Utah expedition, 76, 77. Almy, Lieutenant Jacob, 275. American Horse, surrender of, 339 ; death of, 340. Apaches, the, 246 ; campaign of General Crooke against, 261-285 ; history of, 263-265; character of, 265-269 ; depredations of, 272, 273 ; surrender and settlement of, 285. Apache wars, origin of, 266. Arapahoes, 150, 172, 187, 203, 205, 207, 246, 255. Arizona, discovery of, 261-263. Armies, standing, resolutions of the Continental Congress concerning, 17, 18. Army life, early, on the frontier, 38-40. Army, the regular, an object of suspicion, 6 ; the Continental dis banded, 16-19; strength of, Oc tober 2, 1788, 20; the United States, alternate increase and re duction of, 15, 30; appointment of officers, 35-37 ; beginning of, 30 ; the creature of Congress, 363 ; is loyal and devoted to the na tion, 364 ; can not be forced to do an illegal act, 365 ; organization of, 365; the Secretary of War, 365; the commanding general (rank ing as lieutenant general), 366 ; brigadier general, 366; qualities of the army as a fighting force, 369, 370 ; personality of its officers and men, 370. Artillery, the, 365 (note). Ashburton, Lord, 72. Augur, General, 201. Baker, Major E. L., 258, 260. Bancroft, Captain, wounded, 349. Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 261, 262. Bankhead, Colonel, at Fort Wal lace, 228, 229 ; Colonel Forsytes despatch to, 229. Bannister, Mr., letter of Washing ton to, 12, 13. Barncho, 306, 307. Bartlett, Mr., 226. Beaver Creek, 203. Beecher, Lieutenant F. H., 206 et seq. ; death of, 226. Bell, Major, brings ammunition, 246. Bennett, John O., 356. Bent, George, 252. Benteen, Captain, 323 et seq. Benteen, Colonel, protects settlers on the Solomon, 207. 379 380 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Bernard, Captain, 295 ; at the Mo- doc stronghold, 298. Besias, Antonio, 276. Big Hole, battle of, 352-358. Big Jake s band, 252. Big Piney Creek, 182. Bingham, Lieutenant, killed, 181. Blackfeet, 186; raids of, upon the upper Gallatin Valley, 257. Black Fork, disasters at, 78. Black Jim, 291, 303 ; trial and exe cution of, 306, 307. Black Kettle, 245 et seq. ; cruelties of his band, 251-253; death of, 246. Black s Fork, Camp Scott at, 79. Blewett, citizen scout, 346. Blockhouses or stockades, 110. Blodgett, guide, 356. Bloods, 258. Bogus Charley, 302. Border wars, early, 39. Boston Charley, 303 ; trial and exe cution of, 306, 307. Boston massacre, the, 5. Bourke, Lieutenant, 275, 280, 320, 338. Bourke, Major John G., on the Apaches, 265, 266. Bowers, Sergeant, killed, 181. Braddock, General, and Franklin, 4. Bradley, Lieutenant J. H., 352, 354 ; killed, 357. Brant, Joseph (Thayendanega), 27. Bridger, Fort, 78, 104, 106 ; burned, 78. Brock, General, 50. Brotherton, Captain, 361. Brown, Captain F. H., 181, 182; death of, 185. Brown, Brevet Major William, op erations of, in the Apache cam paign, 275-285. Browning, Captain, 357. Buffalo Bill (W. F. Cody), 331, 339. Buffalo, the destruction of, 171. Bull Bear s band, 252. Burke, Major, 338. Burns, Captain James, 276, 278, 283, 284. Burton, Captain, 346. Butler, General, mortally wounded, 28. Cadets, 31-35 ; pay of, 33. California Joe (scout), 241. California, seizure of, 60. Camp, a sleeping, 160. Campbell, A. (boundary commis sioner), 71. Canby, General E. R. S., 288 ; pro poses a separate reservation for the Modocs, 289, 290, 299; joins his troops in the lava beds, 299 ; with the Modoc Peace Commis sion, 300 ; assassination of, 303. Canteen, the post, 135, 136 ; beer at, 136 ; prosperity of, 137 ; merits of, 138. Capitol, the, at Washington burned, 50. Captain Jack, 291 et seq. ; capture of, 306 ; trial and execution of, 306, 307. Carpenter, Colonel L. H., 230 ; re lieves Colonel Forsyth, 232. Carr, General, surprises Indians at Summit Springs, 309, 331. Carrington, Colonel, in the Sioux country, 175, 181. Carson, Kit, 60. Casey, Lieutenant Colonel Silas, relieves Captain Pickett at San Juan Island, 71. 72. Chalmers, George W., killed, 230. Chambers, Major Alexander, 314. Chemakano mission, massacre of, 72. INDEX. 381 Cheyennes, 117, 156, 171, 187, 203, 205, 207, 229, 246, 255 ; Northern and Southern, 172, 175; North ern, 187. Cibola, city of, 262. Cimarron Eiver, outrages on, 150 ; crossing, attack at, 204. Cities risen from former army posts, 40. Clatsop, Fort, 42. Cobb, Fort, reservation, 255. Comanches, 150, 205, 207, 246; Quahrada, or Staked Plains, 255. Comba, Captain Kichard, 354, 357, 358. Comstock, William, 206 ; killed, 208. Concord, the uprising at, 8. Confederation, Articles of, 20. Congress, the Continental, reso lutions of, June 15, 1775, 8; ap points a committee on a military academy, 13, 14; action of, re specting the army, 17-20. Cooke, Lieutenant-Colonel P. St. George, 60, 61 ; complimentary order of, at San Diego, 62, 63. Corbin, Major-General H. C., 37 (note). Corbin, scout, 241. Coronado, 263. Corporal, the, 89, 90. Corral), a, of iron-lined wagons, 189. Cottonwood Creek, action at, 348- 351 ; flight of the Indians, 351. Crawford, Governor, reports mas sacre by Indians, 204. Crawford, Lieutenant, 336. Crazy Horse, 312, 340; disaffected Indians concentrate about him and Sitting Bull, 312, 315; re treats after action with General Crook s forces, 341; defeated at Tongue Kiver, 342 ; surrenders, 342. Crook, General George, parleys with the Apaches, 270 ; takes command in Arizona, 273; in the Sioux campaign of 1876, 312-342. Crosby, J. Schuyler, 209, 210, 252. Crow scouts, 315, 320. Custer, General George A., 236 et seq. ; ordered to lead the winter campaign against the Sioux, 236, 237; attacks and burns Black Kettle s village, 242-247; on the Little Big Horn Kiver, 322-327; death of, 327 ; his course reviewed, 328, 329. Cutter, Mr. L. E., 65. Dallas, Mr., 65. Daly, Sergeant, wounded, 356. Darke, Colonel, 28. Davis, Bill, murdered, 252. Davis, General Jefferson C., as signed to the Department of the Columbia, 304. Deserters, 129. Discipline, 89, 90. Doane, Lieutenant, G. C., 46 ; at the geysers of the Yellowstone, 47. Dodge, Colonel R. I., 198; on the character of the Indians, 199, 200. Dodge, Fort, 205, 252. Dog soldiers, 220, 252. Donovan, 230. Douglas, Fort, 81. Douglas, Colonial Governor, 66, 71. Drills, 159. Drinking, decline of, in the army, 135. Dunbar, Colonel, retreat of, 4. Dyer, L. S., peace commissioner, 301-303. Ellen s Man, 303. Elliott, Major, 239, 240, 254 ; death of, 247. 382 THE STORY OF TUB SOLDIER. Ellis, Fort, 258. Eltonhead, Captain, 349. Emigrants, English and Dutch, 2. English, Lieutenant W. L., mor tally wounded, 355, 358. Enlisted men, character of, 134 ; pay of, in 1785, 17 (note). Escort duty and routine work, 146- 167. Estevancio, 262. Expeditions, unpublished reports of, 46. Fairchilds, J. A., 301. Felmar, guide, 276, 278. Fetterman, Brevet - Lieutenant- Colonel W. J., attacked by In dians, 180-187 ; death of, 185. Fetterman, Fort, General Crook concentrates cavalry at, 313. Finerty, Hon. John F., 330 ; extracts from the journal of, 331-333. Fisher, frontiersman, 182, 186. Fletcher, Lieutenant, 349. Forsyth, Brevet Colonel George A., 209; his troop of scouts, 210-212; moves to Beaver Creek and Fort Wallace, 212; follows Indians on the Republican River, 214-216; his eight days siege and fighting with the Indians, 216-232; is wounded, 220 ; sends to Fort Wal lace for aid, 227, 228; losses of his troop, 227 ; report of, to Colo nel Bankhead, 229, 230; is re lieved by Colonel Carpenter, 232. Fortress Monroe, Artillery School at, 35. Forts, frontier, 102-145 ; the line of, 104; building of, 105; the sol dier s home, 105 ; life in, 106, 108 ; ruins of, 106 ; cemeteries of, 106 ; friendships and hospitality at, 109; the, of to-day, 109 ; post barracks, 111, 114, 115; officers quarters, 111, 113; daily routine at (cav alry), 115-126; reveille, 116,161; mess call, 117; stable call, 117; sick call, 118; fatigue call, 118; Sunday morning inspection, 119; guard mounting and inspection, 120; officer s orderly, 121; pris oners in guardhouse, 123; guard relief, 123; guard duty, 124; let ters, 124; password, 125; adju tant s call, 125; post bugler, 125; dress parade, 125, 126 ; policing, 126; Saturday, 126; Sunday, 126; target practice, 126; corps spirit, 126, 127; barrack room, 127; breaking monotony, 128; desert ers, 129; hunting, 129; athletic games, 129. Franklin, 4. Frederics, Sergeant, wounded, 356. Fremont, Captain, in California, 60. Gadsden purchase, the, 261. Gallatin Valley, massacre in the, 257. Game, extinction of, 170. Gardens, post and company, 97. Garrison, officers life in, 144, 145. General, a, appointed by the Con tinental Congress, 8. Getty, General, arrests a Comanche delegation, 256. Gibbon, Brigadier-General John, marches for the mouth of the Little Big Horn, 322 ; his report of the battle of Big Hole, 352-358 ; is wounded, 355. Gillem, Colonel A. C., 300, 302, 304. Glenn, Mr., at Santa Fe, 149. Gold, the discovery of, 63, 104; effect of, on the army, 64. Gordon, General J. B., 212. Green, Major John, 296, 298. INDEX. 383 Grover, Sharpe, 206, 212, 213, 217, 220, 221, 224, 229. Gruard, Frank, scout, 320, 331, 335. Grummond, Lieutenant, 185 ; death of, 18G. Guadalupe Hidalgo, treaty of, 63. Guerriere, Edmund, affidavit of, 251, 252. Hale, Captain, 359, 360. Hall, Acting-Governor, reports dep redations by Indians, 204. Hall, Fort, 104, 106. Hamilton, Captain, killed at Black Kettle s village, 248. Hampton, General, command of, 50. Hancock, Major-General W. S., 258; his report of the attack on the Piegans, 259, 260. Hardin, Colonel, surprised, 22, 23. Hardin, Lieutenant E. E., 358. Harker, Fort, 207, 210. Harmer, Brigadier-General, expe dition of, against the Indians, 22, 23. Harney, Brigadier-General W. S., 65, 71, 76; orders Americans on San Juan Island protected, 66. Haughey, Captain, 349. Hayes, President, and the sale of liquors in the army, 139. Hays, Fort, 211. Heintzelman, Major, builds Fort Yuma, 104. Henry, Brevet Colonel Guy V., 318 ; is wounded, 319. Henry s Fork, camp at, 79. Hines, Assistant-Surgeon, 183. Ho-eh-a-mo-a-hoe (The-man-who- breaks-the-marrow-bones), 252. Hog ranches, 140-142. Hornby, Captain, 69, 71. Howard, Brigadier-General O. O., 344 et seq. ; takes the field against Chief Joseph, 345 ; leads the at tack at Little Big Hole Valley, and is wounded, 352, 353 ; at the surrender of Chief Joseph, 362. Hudson Bay Company, the, 64, 65, 68. Hull, General, surrender of, 49, 50. Hunt, Governor, reports Indian depredations, 204. Hunter, Captain, 347. Indian border warfare, 1869-1875, 309-311. Indians, massacres by, and repri sals, 72, 75 ; troubles with, on the Pacific coast, the great plains, and the Texan border, 1848-1860, 72-74; wrongs of, 74; troubles with, in Minnesota and Dakota, 1862, 168 ; on the Western fron tier, 1866, 1867, 168-198; from 1869-1876,308-311 ; opposition of, to the Pacific Kailroad, 169 ; alli ance of, against the whites, 171 ; list of tribes of the plains and the eastern Rocky Mountains, 172; character of, 199-201 ; in winter camp, 233-235; wild tribes or dered to their reservations, 311. Indian trail, the, 146 ; becomes a road, 147. Indian war, the, of 1790- 91, 21. Infantry, the First United States, 29. Jackson, Captain, 291, 350, 351 ; at tempts to arrest the Modoc lead ers, 291, 292. Jackson, General Andrew, 51. Jackson, Lieutenant A. II., 358. Jacobs, Lieutenant, 356, 357. Jefferson, President, and the Lou isiana purchase, 41. Jenness, Lieutenant, death of, 197. 384 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Jocelyn, Captain, 349. Johnston, Colonel Albert Sidney, takes command of the Utah ex pedition, 78. Joseph, Chief, 343 et seq. ; pursuit of, 345 ; wonderful flight of, 358- 361 ; surrender of, 361 ; his ad dress, 362. Kearny, Colonel, conquers New Mexico, 58, 60 ; marches to Cali fornia, 60. Kearney, old Fort, 104, 106, 178. Kennedy, Sergeant Major, killed, 247. " Killed by Indians," 107. King, Captain Charles, 330, 334, 338. Kiowas, 172, 205, 207, 246, 254. Kitchen, Peter, and his ranch, 271, 272. Klamath Reservation, the, estab lished, 287. Klamaths, the, 286 ; and Yakoskin Snakes and Modocs, treaty with, 287. Kyle, Corporal, attacked by Indi ans, 309. La Lande in Santa F6, 148. Laramie, Fort, 104, 106, 173, 202. Lamed, Fort, 207. Lava beds, the, 292; the Modoc stronghold in, 293-298. Leavenworth, Fort, 104, 209. 256 ; post-graduate school at, 35, 36. Lee, Richard Henry, letter of Wash ington to, 11. Lewis and Clark, expedition of, 41-43. Lexington, battle of, 7. Li pans, 150. Liquors, alcoholic, sale of, at army posts forbidden by President Hayes, 139; effect of the prohibi tion, 139-143 ; an experiment at Fort Cummings, 141-143. Little Big Horn River, movements of Terry, Gibbon, and Custer near 321-328. Little Powder River, Indian village on, burned, 313. Little Robe, 255. Little Rock, 246 ; killed, 248. Little Wolf, 342. Lodge Trail Ridge, 181 et seq. Logan, Captain William, 354; killed, 357. Looking- Glass, Chief, killed, 361. Louisiana purchase, the, 40. McCall, W. II. II., 212, 213, 219, 221, 224, 225, 231. McCormick, Mr., Territorial Dele gate, 273. McDougall, Captain, 323, 324. Mclntosh, scout, 276, 277, 278. McNees, murder of, by Indians, 150. March, on the, 158-165. Marching in the snow, 237. Marshal, Nat, murdered, 252. Mason, Major, 298. Meacham, A. B., urges forcible re moval of the Modocs, 290 ; peace commissioner, 301 ; meets Indians for conference, 302 ; is wounded, 303. Medicine Arrow, 252. Medicine Bluff, 256. Medicine guns, 196. Medicine Lodge Creek, treaty of, 206. Mendenhall, Captain, 305. Merriam, Brigadier- General H. C., 37 (note). Merritt, General, joins General Crook, 330, 331. Messes, company, 98, 99. INDEX. 385 Mexican War, the, 48, 54-57 ; West Point men in, 55. Mexico, northern, overland trade with, 148-150. Miles, Captain, 349. Miles, Colonel and Brevet Major- General N. A., messengers of, at tacked by Indians, 311 ; offers peace to Sitting Bull, 341 ; defeats Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, 342 ; report of the pursuit of Chief Joseph, 359-361. Miles, Lieutenant-General Nelson A., 37. Military Academy, contemplated by the Continental Congress, 13, 14 ; recommended by Washington, 30; authorized by Congress, 31 ; es tablished at West Point, 31 ; dis cipline of, 32 ; curriculum of, 33. Military instruction in colleges and State and private schools, 36, 37. Militia, the colonial, 7, 8. Miller, Captain M. P., 345, 349, 350. Mills, Captain Anson, 316-319; (major) sent to the Black Hills for supplies, 334 ; attacks a Sioux village, 334; is joined by General Crook, 336 ; battle with Indians in a cave, 337 ; surrender of the Indians, 339, 340. Minute men, the, 7. Modoc assassins, trial and punish ment of, 306, 307. Modoc war, the, 286-307 ; begin ning of hostilities, 291. Modocs, the, 286 ; assigned to the Klamath Reservation, 287 ; driven away by the Klamaths, 287, 288 ; return to their old home, 288 ; settlers oppose their return, 289 ; attempts to negotiate with, 299, 300; treachery of, 300, 302; bat tles with, in their stronghold, 295-299, 304, 305; surrender of, 306. Monroe, murder of, by Indians, 150. Mooers, Dr. J. II., 212, 220 ; death of, 221. Mormon battalion, the, march of, to California, 60-63. Morris, Captain, 349. Morrison, James, sends goods to Santa F6", 148. Mountain Meadow massacre, 81. Mule trains, escort of, 153-155. Munson, Major, 338. Nantjee, Apache scout, 276. Navajo, 263. New Mexico, conquest of, 58-60. New Orleans, campaign and battle of, 51-54. New York State, British invasion of, 51. Nez Perce" campaign, the, 286, 343- 362. Niza, Fray Marcos de, 262. North Platte, 202. Noyes, Major H. E., 314 et seq. Odeneal, Superintendent F. B., letter of, to Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Wheaton, 290 ; directs pres sure used upon the Modocs, 291. Officer, army, the, mode of appoint ment of, 35-37 ; expenses of, 143 ; habits of, 144 ; not a politician, 364 ; life and schooling of, 371 et seq. ; personality of, 374, 375 ; pro motion of, 375, 376 ; in battle, 376, 377 ; self-devotion of, 378. Oldham, Colonel, 26. Ollicut (brother of Chief Joseph) killed, 361. Onorato, Friar, 262. Oration, memorial, of Dr. Joseph Warren, 5. 3SG THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER, Oregon, British claim to, 64. Osage scouts, 241. Otis, Lieutoiiant, 350. Otis, Major-Generul, E. S., 37. Ox trains, escort of, 151, 152. Parr, Mr., 206. Pawnee Fork, 203; massacre at, 204. Peno Creek, 181. Perry, Captain, 295 ; sent against Chief Joseph, 344; attacked by White Bird, 345. Phil Kearny, Fort, 174 et seq. ; build ing of, 177; siege of, 180-187; tight at, 188-197 ; abandoned, 203, 235. Pickett, Captain George E., at San Juan Island, 66-71. Picgans, the, expedition against, 258 ; surprise and punishment of, 259 ; the act defended by General Hancock, 259, 260. Pike, Zebulon M., the two expedi tions of, 43-48 ; extracts from the journal of, 44, 45. Pilot Hill, 179. Pi mas, the, 264, 276, 277. Pioneers, the earliest, of North America, 2. Pliley, 230. Pollock, Captain, 349. Powder River road, the building of, opposed by the Sioux, 202 ; abandonment of, recommended, 203, 235. Powell, Major James, 187; at Fort Phil Kearny, 188-197. Powell, Major J. H., 338. President of the Continental Con gress, letter of Washington to, 11. Price, Major, 311. Purslcy, James, settles in Santa F6, 148. Queenstown, battle of, 50. Railroads, opposition of the Indians to, 170, 173 ; the Pacific , and the Indian mode of life, 170. Railway constructors, guards to, 155. Rains, Lieutenant, ambuscaded and killed, 346. Randall, Major, 320, 331. Rawn, Captain C. C., 354. Recruit, the, 84-88. Red Cloud, alliance of Sioux tribes under, 172, 181, 193 et seq. Red Nose, 252. Regulars, British, and the colonists, 3, 4 ; home ties of, weak, 56. Reno, Fort, and its abandonment, 174, 178, 201, 203, 235. Reno, Major, on the Little Big Horn, 323 et seq. Reynolds, Colonel J. J., 313. Riddle, Frank, 300 et seq. Rifle practice, 85, 86, 135. Robinson, Lewis, 77. Rodney, Captain, 350, 351. Rogue River Valley, Indian uprising in, 73. Roman Nose, 220 et seq. ; death of, 225. Roseborough, Judge, 301. Rosebud, the, battle of, 315-321. Ross, General, capture of Washing ton by, 50, 51. Ross, Lieutenant J. M., 275, 279, 280. Royall, Colonel W. B., 314, 319, 331. St. Clair, Major-General Arthur, campaign of, against the Indians, 23-29. Sales, Corporal, killed, 356. Saline, the, massacre at, 237, 251, 252. INDEX. 387 Salt River Canon, the, Apache stronghold in, 276-279; capture of, 279-284. San Juan Island, dispute over, 65- 72. Sunno, Captain M. J., 354, 357. Santa Fe trail, the, trouble with Indians on, 149, 150. Santa Fe" Railway, the, 151. Scar-faced Charley, 291. Schermerhorn, Mr., 207. Schloluck, 307. Schonchin, 303; trial and execu tion of, 306, 307. Schwatka, Lieutenant, 335. Scott, General Winfield, 55. Search, right of, 48. Sedgewick, Fort, 310. Shacknasty Jim, 303. Shaw, Fort, 258. Sheridan, General P. H., 202, 205, 235; report of, on Indian relations, 205-209 ; takes the Held against the Sioux in person, 209. Sherman, Lieutenant-General W. T., report of, on the military divi sion of the Missouri, 1858, 201- 205; 356. Shubrick, the, 71. Simpson s Hollow, supply trains burned at, 77. Sioux, 44, 117, 168, 179, 181 ; bands of, at Fort Phil Kearny, 186 ; the campaign of 1868 and 1869, 199- 260 ; the campaign of 1876, 308- 329 ; General George Crook in, 312, 321 ; Minneconjous, 186 ; Upper Brule, 186 ; Sans Arcs, 186 ; Ogallalla, 220, 312. Sitting Bull, 173, 312, 315 ; refuses terms of peace, 341 ; escapes into British territory, 342 ; returns and surrenders, 343. Slim Buttes, fight at, 330. Smith, Captain, relieves Major Pow ell at Fort Phil Kearny, 197. Smith, Fort C. F., abandoned, 201, 203, 235. Smith, General P. F., 76. Smith, Major, 197. Smoky Hill River, skirmish near, 156, 157. Snake scouts, 315, 320. Snyder, Captain, 360. Soldier, qualities of a good, 90. Soldier, the American, individuality and self-reliance of, 82 ; character of, 83, 84; thirty years ago and to-day, 91, 92 ; qualifications of, 93, 94 ; pay of, 94 ; on the retired list, 94; clothing allowance and rations of, 94-96 ; savings and de posit accounts of, 100; advan tages of the life of, 101. Solomon, the, attack on the settle ments on, 207, 251, 252. Stages, the, passing of, 155. Stanton, Colonel, 331. States, jealousies of, 19, 20. Steele, J udge, seeks to confer with the Modocs, 300. Stillwell, Jack, 227. Stockton, Commodore, and Captain Fre mont, revolutionize and seize California, 60. Sturgis, General, 361. Sullivant s Hill, action near, 181- 187. Sumner, Major, 60. Supply, Camp, 236. Swearing, decline of, 135. Sweetwater, the, disasters at, 77, 78. Tall Bull, 255. Taylor, Captain A. B., 275. Taylor, General Zachary, 55, 58. Ten Eyck, Captain, 183-185. Tents, 166. 388 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. Terry, General A. II., 201, 312; in the Little Big Horn campaign, 321, 322, 327. Theller, Lieutenant, killed, 345. Thomas, Lieutenant Earl D., 276. Thomas, Rev. Dr., peace commis sioner, assassinated by the Mo- docs, 303. Tobe, 301, 303, 306. Tongue River, tight on, 342. Touto Basin, operations in, 275. Too-hul-hul-sote (White Bird), 245, 344 ; killed, 361. Townsend, Major-General E.|D., 205. Trade caravans, escort of, 150. Treaty, a mistaken, 174. Trimble, Captain, 347. Trudeau, 227. Turkey Leg camp, 208. Tyler, Captain, 360. Ugarte, General, 263. Utah expedition, the, of 1857, 75-81. Van Orsdale, Lieutenant J. T.,358. Veteran, the, 130-132. Volunteers, 8 ; behaviour of, 55 ; and their home ties, 56 ; and regulars as letter writers, 56, 57. Von Leutwitz, Lieutenant, 336. Vroom, Captain, 319. Wade, Brigadier-General James F., 37 (note). Waggoner massacre, the, 73. Walnut Creek, massacre at, 251. Wands, Lieutenant, 181. War Department, the, administra tive bureaus of, 365, 366 ; adjutant general s, 366 ; inspector-gen eral s, 366 ; judge-advocate gen eral s, 366 ; quartermaster s, 366 ; subsistence, 367 ; pay, 367 ; med ical, 367 ; engineers , 367 ; ord nance, 367, 368 ; the department in the Spanish war, 368, 369. Ward, Major-Gencral Artemas, 8. War of 1812, the, 48-51. War, the Secretary of, 365. Wars, European and Asiatic, 1607- 1765, 3. Washakie, Shoshone chief, 331. Washburne, General II. D., 47. Washington, George, elected gen eral, 9 ; character and qualifica tions of, 9, 10, 14 ; extracts from letters of, 10-13. Weichell, Mrs., wounded by Sioux, 310. Weir, Captain, 325. Wells, Lieutenant- General D. H. (Mormon), 77. Wheatly, 182, 186. Wheaton, Lieutenant - Colonel Frank, operations of, in the Mo- doc campaign, 290-298. Whipple, Captain, 346, 349. White, Jim, scout, killed, 339. Wilkinson, General, expedition of, against Montreal, 50. Wilkinson, Lieutenant, 349. William, coloured servant, 356. Williams, Captain Constant, 357. Williams, Lieutenant, 349, 354. Wilson, William, killed, 230. Winder, General, 50. Winter campaign, the, against the Sioux, of 1868 and 1869, 233-253 ; is denounced, 249 ; General Sher idan s report of, 249-251 ; the pur pose of, 250, 251 ; its success, 256 ; a second campaign, 253-260; re sults, 308. Winters, Captain, 349, 351. Women at army posts, 112, 113, 132, 133, 159. Woodbridge, Lieutenant Francis, 358. INDEX. 389 Woodford, Colonel William, letter of Washington to, 10. Woodruff, Lieutenant C. A., wound ed, 355, 358. Wright, Captain Ben, 72, 73. Yakoskin Snakes, 287. Young, Brigham, forbids advance of troops, 77 ; yields, 80. Zuni towns, 263. THE EKD. RETURN This hoc Rene\v THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW 14 DAY USE S RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED N LOAN DEPT. -H RENEWALS ONLY TEL. NO. 642-3405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or __ on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. &UG1 .uu* 9Ad of WINTER Subject to recall a r JAM 287J ,- pb i* *Mft 2 .1 ;o? f . .. 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