Jerome A. Greene

by 1864-1898 Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life;Campaigns in the West

  A few days after the command had left Kearny, more excitement was caused in camp, this time by two boys, myself being one of them, the other a boy named Will Aughey, whose father was in Troop B. The command was making noon camp on Cherry Creek. Chokecherries were abundant around camp, and women and children were busy picking them, Aughey and I among them. We noticed a clump of cherry bushes just outside the guard line. We had not gathered many before we saw—a little way up the creek—another patch where the fruit seemed still larger than what we were picking, and as we were out of sight of the guard, it was not hard to get to this patch. By this time we had forgotten about camp lines, Indians, or anything else except big cherries, and we kept on discovering better (in our estimation) and bigger cherries, each patch being a little bigger farther from camp. Suddenly, Will said, “Wasn’t that a bugle call? Maybe camp is going to move and we had better get back quick.” We started to return and realized that camp was not in sight anywhere. We didn’t really know which way to go, but, by good luck, we started down the branch which we thought was the one the camp was on. After going what we thought was at least ten miles, we found our creek emptying into another one and we stopped. We could not remember having seen this creek before. We were at a loss as to which way to return, when we saw a line of horsemen come in sight along a little ridge to our right and we recognized them as soldiers. Pretty soon the line seemed to show up a mile long. Then we showed ourselves and the trumpet sounded “Rally.” It was Troop B in a skirmish line looking for us. When we were missed at camp, our absence was reported at once and “Boots and Saddles” was sounded. That was the call that Will had heard that brought us to realization that we were lost.

  A few days after the cherry episode, we made camp on Goose Creek and here occurred the second fatality of the trip. It was found that there was plenty of fish in Goose Creek, and permission was given the troops to catch some. One party of soldiers made a makeshift seine out of gunny sacks and was meeting with fair success. While they were dragging the seine in a bend of the creek where the water was deep, one of the soldiers stepped into a deep hole and went out of sight. He failed to come to the surface and the others attempted to find him. He was found in ten minutes, about twenty-five feet below where he had disappeared and was caught in the roots of some old drift logs beneath the surface. He was dead. I do not remember his name, but I remember he was a trooper of K Troop. This cast a gloom over the camp. From Goose Creek, we moved to Prairie Dog Creek and went into camp for a couple of days, and we could see that some new arrangements were being made and it was found that the command would move in two parts when we left. Part of the troops and transportation were to go to Fort Custer and part to [Fort] Keogh. The balance of the regiment, with the band, went to Fort Custer, which was to be the headquarters of the Second Cavalry, Fort Keogh being the headquarters of the Fifth Infantry.

  The troops for Custer began their journey the third morning after we had pitched camp on Prairie Dog, and the Keogh contingent were to leave the following morning. That night it was found that the wife of a trumpeter of Troop E was in no condition to move for possibly a week and a new problem faced our commanding officer. It was decided to leave our doctor and a detachment of soldiers at that camp while the command went to Keogh from where an ambulance and other transportation were to be sent back for them. The commanding officer called for a volunteer from among the women to stay with the sick woman and though there were about twenty-five married women in our camp, my mother was the only one who volunteered to stay. A detachment of twenty-five men under command of my stepfather, Charles White, was left to guard camp. It was with misgivings that the little group watched the rest leave. We were alone in a wild country overrun with hostile Indians and no one knew when a war party would show up. Mrs. John Clancy’s baby was born that night. White divided his small command into two guards. One guarded camp during the day and one at night. It seemed to me as though he (White) was on guard all the time. He seemed to be up at all times of the day and night.

  An infantry sergeant and his wife sit for the cameraman at an unidentified post, ca. 1880s. Editor’s collection

  The third day after the troops left our camp [we] experienced the worst scare of the whole trip, and for a time everyone thought we were due for an Indian attack. My mother sent me to the creek, not over twenty yards away, for a bucket of water. The creek was guarded on both sides. I went to the water hole to fill my pail when I thought another water hole a short distance below looked better (the same as the cherry patches had a short time before). When I got to this hole, I noticed a trail which seemed to lead to a thick clump of trees. My curiosity got the best of me, and leaving my pail, I went up the trail. When I got to the top of the bank, I was petrified with fright. There in a little opening in the trees and in plain sight stood an Indian tepee. For a few seconds, I seemed paralyzed, then I ducked back and gained the creek bed again. I grabbed my pail and hurried back to camp. I sought my stepfather and told him what I had seen. He immediately got the men together and by some signal notified those who were on guard of danger. A hurried council of war was held. I told him again what I had seen and where I had gone up the bank. White finally decided he would investigate. [He] gave orders to the men and started alone the way I had gone. The rest stood ready around the tents. The women had not been told what was going on, the only intimation they had was to keep the children inside the tents. It seemed ages before anything was seen or heard of White, when suddenly he appeared from the timber and came on into camp. The tepee was an old one and had been deserted for at least a year. I came in for questioning then, as to why I went so far from camp to get the water. The timber was over three-quarters of a mile from camp. I got an emphatic promise from White that I would suffer if I ever did such a trick again. Everyone wondered why it was that the tepee hadn’t been seen before, as the whole command had been in that camp three days before it split up. No one, it seemed, had gone near that bunch of trees until I blundered into it. Vigilance around our little camp was redoubled for some thought this place might have been a regular camping place for the Indians, as numerous signs were found of old camps. The children, of whom there were six, four of Clancy’s, my sister, and myself, were not allowed to go farther than fifty feet from the tents, and that in front of the tents.

  The evening of the sixth day after the troops had left us, we heard the sound of a military trumpet from down the creek sound, “Halt.” White, who was at the tents, ordered Clancy to sound “Advance,” and the entire camp was alive. In a minute or so, from across the creek came a body of horsemen followed by a Red Cross ambulance and two four-mule jerk-line teams. It was a detachment of soldiers from Keogh who had come for us. One of the fort doctors, Rosten G. Redd, was with them, and they had medicine for the sick. Camp was lively that evening. We children had a fine time with the new soldiers, who were from the Fifth Infantry. They were mounted on captured Indian horses. Two of them were of our own troops, who had been sent with them as guides. Dr. Redd found that Mrs. Clancy was in condition to be moved and the next day we started for Fort Keogh. Mother went in the ambulance with Mrs. Clancy, while we children were placed in the wagons carrying camp equipment. We moved a lot faster now than we did with the main command. After we struck Tongue River, the country was smoother and the cavalry and all the wagons that had preceded us were kept on a trot whenever practical.

  About 2 o’clock p.m., October 5, 1877, we came in sight of Fort Keogh, our future home. We surely were an excited band of boys and girls. We made all sorts of conjectures as to where we were going to live and what we were going to do, and could hardly wait for the mules (who now seemed to us to be creeping along) to get us to the fort. We went directly to the new fort, which was not yet entirely built, and the tents for the two laundresses of Troop E, my mother, and Mrs. Clancy were pitched about 200 yards east of the troop quarters. We stayed in tents all winter, as no quarters had been built for the enlisted men’s wives as yet. But all the fine double frame buildings
for the officers and their families were about completed. Each married soldier had two 10 x 14 wall tents to live in. These were pitched, one directly in front of the other, and both topped by a large government tarpaulin. They proved to be comfortable, and we lived in ours until the following spring, when log houses were built apart from the fort and were laid out in regular formation. The houses were about fifty feet apart with a back yard of 100 feet. A sort of street sixty feet wide separated the line of dwellings. There were about sixty-five of these dwellings in this section of Fort Keogh, which was known to the soldiers as Tub Town, and Sudsville, because most of the women who lived there were regular company laundresses.

  Fort Keogh, when the Second Cavalry arrived, was a busy place. Colonel Nelson A. Miles, in command of the Fifth Infantry, the year before had built a cantonment at the junction of the Yellowstone and Tongue rivers and, as soon as men and material could be obtained, began building Fort Keogh. The cantonment was about two miles east of the new fort. As I have said, the new fort was a busy place when we arrived. There was a small army of civilians there, carpenters, bricklayers, and the like, a great many quartermaster employees, packers, and teamsters. Teams were coming and going all day hauling from the boat landing on the Yellowstone and from the cantonment, moving troops up as fast as quarters were finished. There were fourteen companies of soldiers stationed there, the entire regiment of the Fifth Infantry and four troops of the Second Cavalry. Detachments of troops with either a string of pack mules or several wagons could be seen almost any day, either leaving the fort in pursuit of some raiding band of Indians or coming into the fort with a bunch of captives who were put in camp just west of the fort.

  Indians were roaming everywhere to see what they could pick up or what they could beg to eat. One thing I never saw among all the Indians there—and there were nearly 4, 000 of them in 1881—and that was an Indian who would refuse to eat. They were always hungry. When we came to Keogh, I thought every Indian I saw was ready to scalp me, and it was at least two weeks before I would venture 100 yards from our tent. One time mother sent me to the store just after guardmount about 9 a.m. [p.m.?] The store was on the southeast corner of the fort, nearly three-fourths of a mile from our tent. I made the trip and got back safely just before retreat at sundown. I dodged Indians all day. Another time shortly after, I went out of our tent and ran squarely into three Indians. One of them said, “How, John.” I immediately had urgent business in our back or bed tent and whatever it was I was looking for was under the bed and I hunted for it faithfully. Pretty soon I heard my sister laughing and got bold enough to peep out and I saw she was playing with an Indian baby or papoose. My three ferocious warriors were three squaws who were enjoying themselves eating bread and potatoes. There were so many Indians and I couldn’t hear of anyone being scalped by them at the fort, so the fear of them wore off, and I soon became acquainted with a great many, all chiefs, if you would take their word for it.

  Among those whom I got to know and with whom I became fast friends were Two Moon, Wolf Voice, High Walking, Fire Crow, Sand Stone, and Stump Horn, of the Cheyennes. I also knew quite a few of the Sioux—Hump, Two Roads, American Horse, Spotted Elk, and many others. I remember Rain-in-the-Face well. He was a sullen, morose fellow, hardly ever spoke, and was always on a horse. He was crippled from a gunshot wound, and one leg was shorter than the other so he rarely walked. During 1878 and 1879, the troops had quite a few brushes with the Indians and lost a number of men. I remember two of the soldiers who were killed were from the troop to which my stepfather belonged. Their names were Leo Baader and Milton F. Douglas. Douglas had only thirty-two days to serve to finish his five-year enlistment when he was detailed to go after some Indians and met his death. The detachment which Douglas was with was under command of Sergeant Thad [Thomas B.] Glover of Troop B, Second Cavalry. One Indian was killed and one wounded. One soldier (Douglas) was killed, and one trooper (Corporal Charles W. Gurnsey) was wounded. Seven Indians were captured and brought in to Fort Keogh. Captain Andrew S. Bennett of Company B, Fifth Infantry, was killed in a fight with Bannock Indians in 1879 [1878]. Quite a few other soldiers whose names I cannot now recall were killed by the Sioux. First Lieutenant William Philo Clark, in command of E Troop of the Second Cavalry and some of B and I troops of [the] same regiment in 1880 [1879] had a fight with a band of Cheyennes under Little Wolf on the head of Custer Creek and captured the entire band, about 175 men, women, and children, and 300 head of ponies, without the loss of a single soldier. Seven were wounded, but none seriously. The Indians lost twenty-five of their number. This was about the last engagement between the army and the Indians of the Sioux War. [sic—There was no engagement at the time Little Wolf yielded his people to Lieutenant Clark on March 25, 1879. The troops involved consisted of Troops E and I besides a body of Indian scouts.]

  One incident that occurred at Fort Keogh will live in my memory all during life. One day in the fall of 1879, a large number of the soldiers’ children were playing on a level flat between the military stables and the married soldiers’ dwellings. I was with a number of the boys playing baseball. Suddenly one of the boys said, “What is that man doing on that hill? There aren’t any pickets out now.” We looked in the direction he indicated, and on the top of one of the countless little buttes about two miles south of the fort we could see the figures of a man and horse. While we looked wonderingly, the horseman moved and began riding around on the top of the butte in a circle. We children all knew that this was a signal to his companions, whoever they might be. Some of the children became frightened and started running to their houses. Just at this time, the sentry, who was on post at the stables, came around the corner, and we called his attention to the horseman who was again riding in a circle. The sentry stopped and gave out the call, “Corporal of the Guard—Post No. 5.” In about a minute’s time he repeated the call and discharged his rifle in the air. About that time, I heard another sentry give out his call (I don’t remember the number of his post or beat) followed by the report of his rifle. In about two minutes, we heard the bugle sound “Boots and Saddles” from the trumpeter on guard duty, and then every trumpeter in the fort was out sounding that significant bugle call. By this time, all was excitement around the laundresses’ village—women running here and there looking for their children—married soldiers who were at their homes hurrying as fast as they could to their respective company quarters or to their stables carrying their rifles or carbines, with their ammunition belts and six shooters buckled around them. All thought that an attack on the fort by Indians was imminent. In a very short space of time we heard the trumpet sound “Forward March,” and around the northwest corner of the stables came a column of three troops of cavalry, A, E, and I, under command of Captain Eli L. Huggins of Troop E. The mysterious rider by this time had dismounted and was lying on the ground. The troops advanced and when about a half mile distant from the fort we heard the trumpet sound “Load Pieces.” Then the call, “Deploy,” and the three troops swung into a skirmish line formation. Then came the call, “Trot,” and at a trot they advanced toward the man on the butte who, by this time, was on his horse again and was apparently watching the advancing soldiers. When the troops reached the first line of buttes, the rider rode two or three times around in a circle, then disappeared from sight. We at the fort could see the long line of soldiers enter the rough stretch of land, and soon could see the soldiers on the hills still advancing. About four hours afterward, we saw them returning in column formation. No trace of the rider could be found. A camp of seven hunters was found about five miles from the hill the rider had disappeared from. They were on their way to the Musselshell [River] to trap. They said they had seen no one at all, and an inspection of their horses indicated none of them had been ridden that day. No one else could be found by the troops. The seven trappers camped close to the fort that night and left early next morning. Who the man on the hill was, or what his object was in being there was never found out. Most of the people who saw
him agreed that it was not an Indian. A picket guard was placed around the fort for several nights, but no sign of any danger was seen. To this day, the identity of that rider has never been found, nor could anyone figure out what he was on the butte for, giving the U. S. danger signal of a picket guard.

  One morning in the early part of June, 1881, Major Guido Ilges, who was then in command at Keogh, sent one of the government scouts whose name was John Bruguier to the Indian camp with a message to the Indians to break camp and move to a point one and one-half miles east of the fort, and put up their camp there where they would embark on the steamboat for Standing Rock. The Indians had grown to be a bit arrogant and sent back word that if the white chief wanted their tepees down to send some soldiers to take them down. Major Ilges ordered “Boots and Saddles” to be sounded, and in less than twenty-five minutes every soldier in the fort was in the saddle awaiting orders. Trumpets sounded and the troops advanced toward the Indian camp and formed a battle line across the flat in front of the camp. Three pieces of artillery—two revolving Hotchkiss guns and one Rodman, which shot an exploding cartridge and was called by the Indians “shoot today, kill tomorrow”—were placed in position. My stepfather was in charge of the Rodman, and a member of H Company, Fifth Infantry, named Private John McHugh had one of the Hotchkiss guns. The third man I cannot recall. Again, Bruguier was sent to the camp to tell the Indians to have their tepees down and be ready to move within an hour or they would open fire on the camp. A good many of the soldiers said afterward that the Indians had the tepees down and were ready to move with twenty minutes to spare.