by 1864-1898 Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life;Campaigns in the West
The troops escorted the Indians to the new camp site and two troops were left on guard. Soon all the tepees were up and all was in readiness for the coming of the boats. There were to be five of them to take nearly 3, 000 Indians aboard. If I remember rightly, the five boats were the Fanny Bachelor, General Rucker, Katie P. Kountz, Nellie Peck, and Far West. Within four days, four of the boats were at the landing, but the Far West had not put in its appearance. The troops waited four days and the commander became anxious, as the water in the Yellowstone was falling and should it get much lower the boats would not be able to make the trip. On the morning of the fifth day, the Far West came in sight. Engine trouble had delayed her just after she had entered the Yellowstone. As soon as possible the loading began. For awhile, pandemonium seemed to reign. Every Indian in camp—men, women, and children—were talking and shouting and it was a task to get them on board properly. A great many from the fort had come to see the Indians aboard, and many squaws were running hither and yon, shaking hands with the white squaws whom they knew. As fast as the boat got its load, it would start down the river, and loading another would begin. I remember one laughable incident: one of the boats had gotten well out in midstream, and every Indian was talking and shouting, when we saw an Indian jump off the boat out in the river and swim ashore. He was looking for his family, and found after he got to shore that they were all on the boat he jumped from. He was put on the next one, and I don’t believe he got to his family until he got to Standing Rock. The Indians’ horses were driven overland in charge of Captain Ezra P. Ewers of E Company, Fifth Infantry.
This was the last act in the Great Sioux War, and many a person who saw the last boat leave the bank of the Yellowstone that day in June breathed a deep sigh and said, “Thank God, Montana is done with the Indians.” After the Indians were sent from Keogh, its importance as a military protection began to wane. Soon troops were sent to different posts and it was not many years till merely a handful of soldiers were left to guard it. Today [1943], the big flat where it stood and which was often the scene of military maneuvers is a big farm and what is left of the old fort is a remount station for the government.
The happiest days of my life were spent at Fort Keogh, and I often sit and think of the old times and scenes there, and in my mind’s eye I can see many well-known men of the days of 1877-1882. Among them, Colonel Nelson A. Miles (I went to school with his two children, Celia and Sherman), “Yellowstone” (Luther S.) Kelly, John Bruguier, Bill LaCross, all scouts; Captain Thomas B. DeWees, Captain James T. Peale, and Captain Huggins of the Second Cavalry; and many others. I sit for a while and think of the old home and then come back to earth and say, “Never again. Keogh, Miles, all of you…goodbye.”
The Border-to-Border March of the Eighth Cavalry, 1888 (By William G. Wilkinson, formerly of Troop G, Eighth U. S. Cavalry. From Winners of the West, October, 1938)
In May, 1888, the Eighth U. S. Cavalry, then stationed in western Texas, received orders to march to Dakota and take the stations occupied by the Seventh Cavalry. The Seventh Cavalry was to take stations in Kansas and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and the Third Cavalry was to occupy the stations vacated by the Eighth Cavalry in Texas. The headquarters of the Eighth Cavalry was at Fort Davis, Texas, located in the Davis Mountains, in the western part of the state, and not far from Marfa. Marfa at that time consisted of a freight shed and six or seven adobe shacks. The regiment was scattered over the western part of the state, in the following posts: Fort Davis, Fort Concho, Fort Hancock, and Camp Pena Colorado (near Marathon). The orders were for the regiment to concentrate at Fort Concho, located in the central western part of the state and on the edge of the town of San Angelo, which at that time was wild and woolly, but has now [1938] grown to be a good sized modern city and the largest wool and mohair buying market in the state. The new headquarters of the regiment was to be at Fort Meade, Dakota Territory, which is situated at the foot of the Black Hills and about twelve miles northeast of Deadwood.
The regiment as a whole marched approximately 1, 700 miles, from Fort Concho to Fort Meade, but some of the troops, notably L and G, marched an additional 500 miles, or a total of 2, 200 miles, in going to the concentration point and then to their new stations beyond Fort Meade. The hardships endured in a march of this description in those early days cannot be visualized by the present generation, because they are accustomed to travel in luxurious trains, fast airplanes, and high-powered motor cars over good roads, where there are good, comfortable sleeping berths, fine hotels, or good tourist camps, so that they may enjoy a good, comfortable bed, first-class meals, and scarcely ever out of sight of a town.
Our equipment was crude and very limited; our rations were hardtack, bacon, and black coffee, except when we reached a post like Fort Reno, Fort Riley, or Fort Sidney, then we would get some fresh beef and real bread, and that was a real treat. Railroads were few and far apart; in fact, we did not touch a railroad after we left Marathon, which was our starting point, until we reached Fort Reno in the Indian Territory, 600 or 700 miles distant. The two things which caused most of the hardship and suffering which we had to endure were the intense heat and lack of water. After getting out of Texas our troubles, so far as water was concerned, were at an end, as from there on we had an abundance of water, not always of the best, but it was water.
Troop G, Eighth Cavalry, of which the writer was a member, was stationed at a small, one-company post called Camp Pena Colorado. This post was situated in what is known as the Big Bend country of Texas. It derives its name from the great bend made by the Rio Grande River, and at the time of which this article was written it was one of the wildest and least traveled sections of Texas. Game in this section was very plentiful. There were black tail deer, bear, mountain lion, herds of antelope, lobo wolves, and a great number of coyotes.
On May 20, 1888, the troop moved out from the post and the long march was started. As it was mid-afternoon when we started, we marched only three or four miles, to Marathon, a freight shed on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and made our first camp. The second day we marched about thirty-five miles, and as it was very hot and having had very little water except that which we had in our canteens when we broke camp in the morning, it was rather a hard day. Everybody was pretty sore and very tired when we went into camp, and to make matters worse we had to make a dry camp—that is there was no water. As soon as we halted and dismounted, Captain Edmond G. Fechet, the troop commander, gave orders to have all of the canteens collected and placed under guard, so that whatever water there was in them could be used in making coffee for supper and breakfast. The horses and mules had to go without water until we found some the next day. No one can appreciate the value of water until one has marched all day in the hot sun, over dusty, stony ground, without it. In those early days the only means that troops on the march had for carrying water was the men’s canteens and sometimes a small keg slung under a wagon. Marching across Texas in those days was always a severe hardship, as there were very few streams of water, and the water in many of them was so full of alkali as to make it unpalatable. Of course, we found a few springs of good water, some pools that had been formed by previous rains, in which cattle had stood, and some small pockets of water in among the rocks. In many cases this was covered with a green scum, which we skimmed off and then scooped out with a spoon, then put in some vinegar to kill the taste; after all, it was water, and many days we went without it.
The only stream that we crossed between our starting point and Fort Concho, a distance of over 200 miles, was the Pecos River. We were traveling over almost barren grounds, in an almost uninhabited district, following a wagon trail, not over well-paved roads, but across country nearly as the crow flies. About the third or fourth day we arrived at old Fort Stockton and the town of Stockton. Here was a splendid spring of water, but not a living thing was in sight. The fort and the town had been abandoned. When the fort was built it was in the heart of the Comanche Indian country, but as the Indians had sin
ce been moved up into the Indian Territory, there was no further use for troops in that section and they had been moved to other stations and the fort abandoned. As the town was almost wholly dependent on the troops for its existence, when the troops were moved [and] their means of livelihood gone, there was nothing for the people to do but move also, which they did, abandoning the buildings, taking only that which was easily moved. The fort buildings were constructed of stone and adobe, surrounded by a wall with loopholes every few feet so that the troops could repel an Indian attack without exposing themselves. Some of the buildings in the town were good and substantial, especially a stone store building that had been occupied by a man named Friedlander. His large sign was still on the building. Fort Stockton today [1938] is a town of about 3, 000 inhabitants.
Leaving Fort Stockton the next morning, we continued our march. Two days later we crossed the Pecos River. This river gave us no trouble, as it is not very wide and only about waist deep, so that it was very easily forded, but crossing it down near where it empties into the Rio Grande, which we did a year previously, is not only very difficult but dangerous, as it was necessary to float the wagons and swim the horses and mules across. About one week later we arrived at Fort Concho, the concentration point. The next day, L Troop arrived from Fort Hancock under command of Captain Morris. The whole regiment being now assembled, we remained there a couple of days while the organization was being completed and details worked out for the long march ahead. San Angelo, which adjoined Fort Concho, was wide open; its principal industry was saloons and gambling joints. The boast of The White Elephant was that it was never closed, that it had no front to close. The writer himself was lucky enough to make a small stake playing poker in The White Elephant before leaving. A trumpeter from one of the troops had been around town all day borrowing the price of a drink wherever he could, but could not make connection often enough to get drunk. Late that night he was pestering one of the bartenders in The White Elephant, until finally the bartender said, “Here, I’ll give you a drink.” Then he put a large tumbler on the bar and filled it with whiskey and said, “Now, damn you, drink that and get out of here.” The man looked at it and it almost sobered him, for the quantity really scared him momentarily, but he finally drank it like so much water. Taken so much at one drink, it is a wonder that it did not kill him. Some time later he was lying up against a building, completely unconscious, but he was all right the next day and apparently suffering no ill effects.
In a couple of days, the organization and complete details having been worked out, the march was started. The regiment was composed of twelve troops of sixty-five men each, a band of about twenty-five men, and the headquarters staff. There was a total force of about 900 officers and enlisted men, and about 110 animals. Colonel Elmer Otis, the regimental commander, being in poor health and unable to take command, went on sick leave and Lieutenant Colonel John K. Mizner took command, First Lieutenant Charles M. O’Connor was regimental adjutant, First Lieutenant Quincy O. Gillmore regimental quartermaster. The regiment was divided into three battalions of four troops each, Major John A. Wilcox in command of the First Battalion, Major Reuben F. Bernard in command of the Second Battalion, and Captain Louis T. Morris acting as a major in command of the Third Battalion. The arrangement of troops and the order in which they marched was the best and fairest for everyone that could have been devised, and was as follows: the ranking captain and his troops was first troop, first battalion, the next ranking captain and his troop was first troop, second battalion, the third ranking captain and troop was first troop, third battalion, and the others arranged in the battalions according to their rank, but on the march their position was changed daily. On the first day, G Troop was first troop, first battalion, or the head of the line; the second day the first battalion dropped back to third position and G Troop was the last troop in the line; on the third day the first battalion was in second position and G Troop in third place within the battalion. Each day saw the same kind of change, so that every twelfth day each troop had its turn to lead the line. The importance of this arrangement can be appreciated when one remembers that the road might be ankle deep in dust, or the same with mud, and the troop lucky enough to be in the lead escaped the worst of it.
The daily routine was: 4:45 a.m., reveille and stable call; 5:00 a.m., mess call; 5:30, the general call. No tents were allowed to be taken down until the general call sounded. At the first note of the trumpet, all canvas was dropped almost as one tent. Each man had an allotted task; each man had already rolled his bedding, carried it to the wagon and laid it on the ground; two men were in each wagon (each troop had two six-mule wagons) to pack the equipment, rations, and forage as it was handed to them. As the tents dropped, one man took the poles, two others folded and rolled the tent. The other men had taken all of the horses off of the picket line and were holding them, so that the picket line could be put into the wagon in its proper place, for it was a nice job to pack the equipment of a troop of sixty-five men, together with ten days’ rations and forage for the horses and mules, in two wagons and do it in fifteen minutes. At 5:45 “Boots and Saddles” sounded. The men loading the wagons had their horses saddled for them by some of the other men. At 5:55 the order to “Fall In” was given, and after counting fours, the order “prepare to mount, mount,” and on the dot of 6:00 a.m., regardless of weather conditions, the orderly trumpeter sounded “Forward, March,” and the column moved out. Everyone was given to understand that excuses for not being ready to move promptly at 6:00 a.m. would not be accepted, and as a matter of fact none were necessary during that long, hard march.
Leaving Fort Concho, we marched northeast, passing through Buffalo Gap, Abilene, Fort Griffin, Albany, and Henrietta, all of which were very small villages. In the meantime, we had crossed the Colorado River, the south fork of the Brazos and the main Brazos. Of all the rivers that we crossed during the whole march, none were so dangerous or gave us so much trouble as the Brazos. We reached it late in the afternoon. It was then in flood, and crossing that day was out of the question. By morning it had subsided considerably. After breaking camp, two men succeeded in getting across and carried a line across with them, finally getting a heavy picket line across and fastening the end to a tree, the other end being fastened to a tree on the opposite side. Then two troops were ordered to cross, keeping on the upper side of the rope so that in case a horse went down the man could grab the rope and save himself. The water was not over five feet deep but was running like a race horse. After the two troops crossed, the writer being a member of one of them, the men stripped and went back into the river, holding on to the rope for support. Then a six-mule team and wagon was driven into the river, a line was hooked on to the lead mules and the men in the water pulled the team across. Once the team was in the water, they had to be gotten across quickly, as the bottom of the river was quicksand and had the team been allowed to stop they would have quickly sunk in the sand. We succeeded in getting across with only the loss of a small two-horse wagon on which the officers had some supplies. It took all of one day to make the crossing. In addition to the Brazos, Pecos, and Colorado, during the march we crossed the Trinity, Red River, Ouachita, Canadian, Cimarron, Blue, South and North Forks of the Platte, main Platte, Niobrara, White, South and North Forks of the Cheyenne, Belle Fourche, Moreau, and Grand Rivers.
One of the lessons to be learned in marching across a section like western Texas was how to conserve the water supply. If we were lucky enough to have camped alongside of a stream of good water, we could start out with full canteens, but there was no assurance that we would get any more that day and it behooved each man to drink very sparingly of his small supply. The old soldier had learned how to do this from past experience, but the recruit on his first march would not heed the advice of the older men and had to learn through bitter experience. The older men, if they did not chew tobacco, would put a small pebble in their mouths, which kept their mouths moist. Occasionally they would rinse their mouths out and
take a very small swallow of the water, and regardless of how hot and dusty the day, they would still have plenty of water in their canteens when we went into camp that night. But not so with the recruit. He had drunk all of his water in about two hours after starting, and then had to suffer the rest of the day, for the older men would not give them any from their meager supply. But after a day or two of this the recruit learned his lesson.
The heat was intense, and both men and horses suffered greatly at times. We lost seventeen horses in one day from exhaustion through lack of water and the heat. After crossing the Red River into Indian Territory, our troubles so far as water was concerned were at an end, as we had plenty from there on. Upon entering the Territory the whole character of the country changed. Through Texas there was little vegetation other than cactus, chaparral, and mesquite, the grass being short and sparse, the ground being stony or sandy, with few trees except a few cottonwoods along the streams. Here in the Territory the soil was a black loam, the grass as high as a man’s head, and plenty of timber, mostly oak. Through Texas we had had no rain, in the Territory we had frequent showers. One afternoon after making camp, we witnessed the spectacle of two storms meeting. It was a wonderful sight to see the lightning shooting from the black clouds into the blue sky until the clouds came together. Then the rain came down in torrents; the thunder and lightning was terrific. What a wonderful change has taken place in that section since we crossed it. Then, the country was practically in its virgin state, just as it had been created, and we little dreamed of the fabulous wealth that was under us as we rolled up in our blankets at night and lay asleep on the ground. Today, there are fine farms, modern cities, and untold wealth has been taken from the ground over which we marched and camped. One evening we camped near a Kiowa Indian village, and one grizzled old fellow who visited our camp made a rather grotesque figure. He was dressed in moccasins, breechclout, blanket, and high silk hat. We rested one day at Fort Sill and another day at Fort Reno, both of which we thoroughly enjoyed. Our trip through the Territory was the easiest part of our whole journey.