Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876 tp-10

by Terry C. Johnston

  Even Lieutenant Adolphus H. Von Luettwitz, E Troop, Third Cavalry, was caught unawares of the power of the stern-wheeler as he was laundering some of his clothing at the edge of the water. The steamer’s powerful wakes tumbled one right after the other against the bank and caused the lieutenant to topple into the river, shouting his untranslatable German oaths as he sputtered up from the choppy Yellowstone, having lost half his uniform to the mighty river’s current.

  That following morning, Friday, the eighteenth of August, the sky dawned clear and mercifully blue as Crook’s men went aboard the Far West to unload two days of forage and very little rations for two large armies. It wasn’t long before the men began to spread the rumor that they might well be resuming their chase of the hostiles at any moment—rumors seemingly given official credence in dispatches brought up from Fort Buford. General Sheridan was instructing his two field commanders to construct stockades in the heart of the hostiles’ hunting ground.

  Sheridan wrote:

  The [congressional] bill for increasing the company strength of [regiments of] cavalry in the field passed Congress …

  I will give orders to General Terry today to establish a cantonment for the winter at Tongue River and will send supplies there for 1500 men, cavalry and infantry. I think also of establishing a cantonment for the winter at Goose Creek, or some other point on your line, for a force of 1000 men. I will send you 100 of the best Pawnee scouts under Major [Frank] North, regularly enlisted, as Congress has increased the number to one thousand.

  We must hold the country you and Terry have been operating in this winter, or else every Indian at the agencies will go out as soon as we commence dismounting and disarming them …

  “At first light Terry’s Rees come back from scouting those trails scattering to the east of the Rosebud and found the grass burned off,” Donegan told Bill that Friday afternoon. “Only thing that means is the hostiles moved through this country at least a week ago.”

  Nodding, Cody replied, “Right. Shows the Sioux crossed over that ground before these heavy rains started.”

  “So tell me what Crook and Terry hope to learn by sending you down the Yellowstone on that riverboat.”

  “Crook doesn’t want any part of this,” Cody stated, blowing on his tin of coffee. “He only wants that boat to go up to the Rosebud and get his supplies.”

  “But Terry has the rank,” Seamus said. “And even more important: it’s Terry’s boat, and Terry’s supplies—so Crook’s got to go along with everything Terry wants.”

  “Including Terry’s idea to send me and Louie Reshaw down to the mouth of Glendive Creek to see if we can figure out what the hostiles are planning to do.”

  “Mr. Cody!”

  They both turned to find one of Terry’s staff hailing them, hurrying their way. Bill flung the lukewarm dregs of his coffee at the fire. “Looks like they’re ready to give me a ride on that goddamned boat.”

  “Watch out, Bill. See for yourself all the bullet scars in that iron they riveted up around the pilothouse.”

  Cody held out his hand and shook the Irishman’s. “I didn’t come back out here to scout for the army just to be killed while taking a lark of a ride on some goddamned riverboat. I intend to make it back home to Lulu and the children.”

  “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind to cash in your chips and go back east.”

  Pulling on his fringed gloves, Cody said, “Just as soon as this ride on the river is damned well over.”

  Sioux Attacking Steamboats—Terry Falling Back

  ST. PAUL, August 7—A Bismarck special to-day to the Pioneer Press and Tribune, says the steamer Carroll arrived this morning from General Terry’s camp, having on board General Forsythe and twenty sick and wounded soldiers. The Carroll on her way up, when near the mouth of the Powder river, found the Indians on both sides of the river, and for two and a half hours they kept up a running fire upon the boat, only wounding one soldier slightly. The steamer Far West, after leaving Fort Buford for Terry’s camp found her load too heavy and discharged part of her cargo, principally grain. At this same point the Indians attacked the Far West … The Indians stood on both banks of the river and with oaths dared Col. Moore with his troops to leave the boat and land. A few shells were fired from a twelve-pounder which scattered the Indians and they disappeared from the south bank.

  Dave Campbell, pilot of the Far West with two Ree scouts, then landed and went out to reconnoiter, but finding the Indians were endeavoring to cut them off, they turned and started as fast as was possible for the boat. Seven Sioux had circled as to intercept them, and it became a race for life. The horse of one of the scouts began to fall behind and was soon shot, when the rider started on foot, but it was no use. The same Sioux who had killed the horse soon reached him and put a bullet through his lungs. Dave Campbell heard the shot. Looking behind and seeing the wounded scout laying on the ground, he said to the other scout, “We must go back and get that man.”

  Although it was as much as their lives were worth, they turned, and as they did so they saw the Sioux dismounted from his pony, fired, and the Indian fell with his scalping knife in his hand. Dave and the Ree then scalped the Sioux and started with the wounded man for the steamer. During this time Col. Moore, although with three companies, sent no one to the relief of these three men. Finally Grant Marsh, captain of the Far West called for one hundred volunteers, and fifteen soldiers immediately offered their services, but Col. Moore ordered them not to leave the boat. However, eight of them, contrary to orders, went with Capt. Marsh and brought in Campbell and the two scouts. Colonel Moore threatened to courtmartial these eight men then and there, and the steamboat men don’t hesitate to pronounce Col. Moore’s conduct cowardly in the extreme.

  Terry has fallen back eighty miles from his camp on the Big Horn, and is now camped near the mouth of Rosebud. A scout from Gen. Crook reached Gen. Terry July 22, barefooted and almost destitute of clothing. Crook was but seventy-five miles from General Terry’s command and trying to reach him. The Indians, however, kept picking off his men, driving in his scouts, and stealing his stock, so that his advance was very much retarded, only being about six miles a day. The men in both commands are reported very much disheartened.

  On the afternoon of the eighteenth Seamus sat on the south bank of the Yellowstone and watched as a Bozeman City trader floated downriver in his Mackinaw boat, hailing the soldiers.

  “Homemade ale and dry goods!” the peddler bellowed as he rose to his knees in his rickety craft. “Come and get what’s left of my homemade ale!”

  As he came in sight of the army’s encampment, the civilian proclaimed that he had sold half his wares to the soldiers left to garrison the depot at the mouth of the Rosebud and wished to sell the rest of his heady beer and dry goods before pushing back upriver for home.

  Like a flock of goslings swarming around a farmwife’s ankles as she scatters corn, officers and enlisted alike nearly swamped the poor man’s little boat as they rushed into the water to be the first to have call on his ale, as well as his other goods.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a frying pan,” he answered one officer’s request.

  “How about a coffeepot?”

  “Yes, one of them too.”

  “You have any canned fruit?”

  “A little. Got more of tinned vegetables.”

  “Shirts? You got any?”

  “A few hickory shirts left. And some canvas britches too.”

  “Give me one of each!”

  “Save a pair of them pants for me!”

  The bearded, sunburned men huddled round that trader’s boat, exchanging what little money they had for what the Bozeman merchant sold at exorbitant prices, men forced to buy with their own funds clothing that the army hadn’t seen fit to provide its ragged, nearly naked soldiers.

  While they waited for Cody and the Far West to return from his scout downriver to the mouth of Glendive Creek, Crook and Terry held a curious correspondence, discussing just how read
y Crook really was to resume his chase, since he steadfastly repeated that he still required a full fifteen days of rations and forage. The latter was proving to be the most crucial—plainly there wasn’t enough grain to recruit Crook’s broken-down horses.

  Early on the evening of the eighteenth, Terry wrote to Crook, saying:

  Since I saw you, I have found that our supplies of subsistence are larger than I supposed … your commissary still needs 200 boxes of hard bread. Of these, I can furnish 100 boxes … The difference between this amount and the 15 days’ rations, of which you spoke, is so slight that I think it ought not to detain us. But perhaps your animals are in such a state that a further supply of forage and a longer rest would be desireable for them. If such be your wish, I am certainly willing to wait until the forage can be obtained.

  P.S. Col. Chambers mentioned to me today that his men need shoes badly. If the steamer goes to the Rosebud, I can give him the shoes which he needs.

  This correspondence presented a most unusual circumstance—to find the cautious Terry suddenly impatient to be at the chase once more; and to discover that the tenacious Crook had begun to find excuses to delay.

  But as far as Seamus Donegan was concerned, the wily George Crook was merely maneuvering so that once he had what he considered enough supplies, he was going to break free of his superior, Alfred Terry.

  Exactly as the survivors of the Seventh Cavalry said Custer had talked of doing before they left Gibbon and Terry behind at the mouth of the Rosebud and marched south for their rendezvous with destiny.

  That was enough to give a brave man pause.

  Donegan prayed Crook was not about to march his Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition into the very same maw of hell that had devoured Custer and five companies of cavalry beside the Little Bighorn.

  Chapter 30

  19-26 August 1876

  Work Suspended

  ST. PAUL, August 7—In consequence of low water in the Yellowstone and the inability of troops at this time to afford protection to building parties, the order for the construction of new forts on the Yellowstone has been countermanded.

  Terry About Ready to Move

  NEW YORK, August 7—A correspondent telegraphs that Gen. Terry hopes to be able to begin his march by the 9th inst. Under date of July 31st, the correspondent says: “We have just met the Steamer Far West, on her way down to bring the supplies left at Powder river, which we found in possession of the Indians. Capt. Thompson, of the Second cavalry, committed suicide just before the troops left the Big Horn river.”

  Late in the morning of the nineteenth, Bill Cody surprised everyone by riding in alone on his buckskin instead of returning on the Far West, having made the dangerous trip upriver on horseback so that he could more closely study any sign he might come across along the south bank of the Yellowstone.

  After receiving the scout’s unproductive report, Terry sought out Crook, finding the general seated on a rock at the edge of the river, scrubbing his only pair of longhandles in the muddy water.

  “I’ve decided to send the boat upriver to fetch forage and supplies for you at the Rosebud,” Terry told him. “And the shoes Chambers requested.”

  “Once I’m reprovisioned, I’ll set out at once,” Crook vowed.

  A few hours later the Far West reappeared, chugging beneath afternoon skies to tie up against the north bank. Even from the vantage point of the steamer’s wheelhouse, Louie Reshaw hadn’t spotted any sign that the hostiles had crossed the Yellowstone. Terry ordered Captain Grant Marsh and pilot Dave Campbell to leave at once for, the mouth of the Rosebud, where they were to take on all the supplies previously left in depot there before returning to the Powder. That evening many of the newspapermen went along to enjoy the moonlit trip upriver.

  “It was beautiful,” John Finerty gushed as he strode up to Lieutenant Bourke’s fire at Crook’s headquarters the next morning. “Nearly a full moon—”

  “I don’t have time to listen to stories about your riverboat ride right now,” Bourke interrupted snappishly, watching how his words brought the newsman up short.

  “What—”

  “Things aren’t good right now: Washakie just told Crook that he’s leaving.”

  “All of them?” Finerty turned this way and that, saying, “The Shoshone? They’re leaving?”

  “Back to their reservation at Wind River.”

  “Whatever for?”

  John shrugged. “Shit, my only guess is they really don’t want to fight the Sioux as bad as Crook does.”

  “No, John. There’s something more to it than that,” Finerty pressed, grabbing hold of Bourke’s arm. “Tell me what Washakie said to the general when he broke the news.”

  Bourke didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want any newsman to know, really. But with the way the general was going to be butchered by Davenport when the correspondent reported this setback, John felt there should be at least one other newsman who could put enough slant on things to counterbalance Davenport’s nasty, anti-Crook point of view. It could only be Finerty.

  John sighed and looked at the correspondent. “The Shoshone don’t think we’re going to catch the Sioux.”

  “Hell! Truth is, I don’t think we’re going to, either! So what else did he tell Crook?”

  “They didn’t like Tom Moore’s slow-moving mule train.”

  “Those can’t be the only reasons. Why, most of Washakie’s warriors rode with that ‘slow-moving mule train’ all the way to the Rosebud earlier this summer!”

  “All I can say is they don’t like it now, Finerty. Besides, like Crook says—there just seems to be no stopping them because it’s getting close to annuity time.”

  “Annuity?”

  Bourke answered, “The provisions they get from the government agent there at Wind River. Washakie wants to be there when his people come in to receive their goods.”

  “Well, we’ve still got Cody and Grouard and the rest.”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “That’s some more bad news: Cody resigned this morning. I just heard about it myself. I haven’t even told the general yet because he’s been in a dither about the Snakes … and now Cody’s calling it quits.”

  “Cody? Why, in God’s name?”

  “He told General Terry about the same thing Washakie did: that it appeared the soldiers did not want to fight, that he had worn himself out chasing Indians who had cleared out of the country a long time ago. He really let Terry have it, telling the general all about his scouting ability, how he took that Cheyenne’s scalp at the Warbonnet— but that Crook and Terry didn’t want to listen to him when he pointed out fresh trails that needed to be followed.”

  Finerty shook his head with confusion and asked, “W-wait. You said Cody found some fresh trails?”

  Bourke sought to wave it off. “That’s just what I’ve heard—he probably didn’t. But he complained that the generals were relying too much on their Indian scouts and not enough on fellas like him and Grouard, Donegan, and Buffalo Chips.”

  “So he’s leaving for sure? No one able to talk him into staying on?”

  “Yeah, the Irishman is down in Terry’s camp right now, trying to convince Cody to stay on for a few more weeks at least. But Cody says he’s convinced the army doesn’t want to find any Indians.”

  “John,” Finerty replied, “you know, Cody might just be right. I myself thought of joining some of the fellows cashing it in.”

  “You, John? Why—you’ve been with us since the winter campaign!”

  “And you don’t think a man gets tired of all this Injun hunting?”

  “But you’re a veteran campaigner now,” Bourke protested.

  “Frankly, I see little prospect for catching the enemy now. Nothing to be gained by my remaining out here but more mud, more misery, and a lot more miles crawling through rough country.”

  “One good battle, that’s all Crook needs—”

  Finerty interrupted. “One good battle and things would suit me, John. But I fear
the last shot of the campaign has already been fired.”

  “We’re going to take on supplies and resume the march—”

  “No,” Finerty interrupted again, shaking his head. “Supplies aren’t what we need. We need to leave the green infantry behind so they won’t slow us up. Just the hardened foot soldiers who can keep up with the cavalry. Beyond that, what we need most from the army is horses for the cavalry that aren’t ready for the glue factory!”

  Bourke bristled visibly as he said, “The mark of a good soldier is always doing the best he can do with what he’s been given.”

  Finerty tried out a weak grin. “Listen, John—don’t take my criticism personally. I just think the circumstances have turned this expedition into nothing but a theatrical campaign.”

  “Theatrical?”

  “Exactly—just like a Chinese stage battle I once saw in Chicago: the combatants constantly rushing about in an excited manner, chasing after unseen enemies they can’t ever catch. What was amusing, though—the enemies seem to find and harass their pursuers.”

  “Chinese stage play, eh?” Bourke grumbled. “That’s what you think of Crook’s summer campaign?”

  “Perhaps—”

  “Sounds as if you’ve been listening to the likes of Reuben Davenport and his cowards’ school of back stabbing!”

  “Back stabbing? Who?”

  “You, and that Davenport. Why, we even found out Davenport offered a hundred dollars to a courier Crook hired to carry his dispatches, if the courier would deliver Davenport’s stories first and delay Crook’s dispatches by at least twelve hours!”

  “I’d never do a thing like that, John!”

  “Nonetheless, it sure sounds like you have worn out your welcome, John Finerty,” Bourke snapped with a flourish of indignation. “Perhaps you’ll be better served by returning to Chicago. Good day!”