Gordon’s sad cavalcade returned to Red Cloud Agency a little after eleven P.M. beneath a lowering sky which threatened snow. While the warriors were immediately housed in a large warehouse building, Red Cloud and Red Leaf were both escorted to the guardhouse, there to be held until Crook would determine their status as prisoners of war.
The troopers hadn’t eaten a meal or had a cup of hot coffee in more than twenty-four hours, and their horses had been pushed close to their endurance in completing last night’s lightning march and the return journey—a round trip of just over fifty miles.
Yet those troopers, a full half of which were raw, green recruits, had succeeded in capturing the two villages—without a single casualty.
“Now,” Mackenzie declared to his scouts and those officers riding near the van of their march back to Camp Robinson with the women and children, “all we need to do is bring in Crazy Horse!”
* Fetterman Massacre, Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory, Sioux Dawn, Vol. 1, The Plainsmen Series.
† Wagonbox Fight, Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory, Red Cloud’s Revenge, Vol. 2, The Plainsmen Series.
Chapter 14
25–26 October 1876
General Crook Rounds up Red
Cloud & Co.
Disarms Them, and Puts
Spotted Tail in Command.
WYOMING
Important Indian Movement.
CHEYENNE, October 24.—Gen. Crook being satisfied that Red Cloud and Red Leaf’s bands of Sioux were about to depart with a view of joining the hostiles in the north, they having refused to comply with the orders to come into the agency to receive rations, stubbornly remaining in camp on Shadron Creek, from whence it is known that they were communicating with the northern Indians and receiving into their camps such as come in, he, without awaiting the arrival of Gen. Merritt’s troops, determined on disarming them, and at daylight on the morning of the 23d Gen. McKenzie, with eight companies of the Fourth Cavalry, one battalion of which was commanded by Major Gordon, and another by Captain Mauck, successfully surrounded these two bands consisting of 3,000 lodges, and captured bucks, squaws and ponies without firing a shot. They were marched into the agency after having been disarmed and dismounted. Spotted Tail, who has evinced an unswerving loyalty to the whites, was made head chief and Red Cloud deposed. Spotted Tail and Little Wound have agreed to furnish Gen. Crook with all the warriors he may need to co-operate with him in the coming campaign, which will be inaugurated at once. Gen. Crook feels that a great object has been attained in this last movement and that we shall now know our enemies from our friends.
“The Bear Coat Chief wants to talk to you again,” Johnny told the despairing Sitting Bull seated alone at his small fire after the half-breed had dismounted near the Lakota leader’s lodge.
For the last two days Bruguier had been away from the Hunkpapa band, hanging back with the other chiefs when the village split apart during the chase.
“It is good. Let him talk to the others. I have nothing more to say to a soldier chief who will not listen.”
Sitting Bull was isolated now. Unlike the other chiefs, he alone had chosen to keep on running, to keep on fighting, putting the feet of his people on that hard path the day the soldiers harried their big village right up to the banks of the Yellowstone. While Gall, Red Skirt, Small Bear, and Bull Eagle decided to cross the river, beginning to talk of surrender, of heading in to the agencies, of giving up the fight they had been waging since spring, the Hunkpapa leader instead turned his people north to escape the Bear Coat and the army who came trudging along behind him.
Johnny had wrapped up his blanket and robe, riding off to follow the trail of the Bull and his thirty lodges while the soldiers continued their pursuit of the big village. Perhaps for some it was better to talk than to fight those long-reaching rifles and that big gun the Bear Coat’s troops had used to drive the Lakota people south across the Yellowstone.
Four days ago Johnny had fought bravely in attempting to hold the soldiers at bay while the village retreated. Even Sitting Bull’s nephew White Bull had been injured, shot through the elbow, his arm wrapped in a crude sling the past few days. And in their retreat the chiefs had argued more and more on what path to take—to surrender, or to stay on the free road.
It must surely hurt the old chief, Johnny brooded, now that even White Bull had elected to stay with Red Skirt’s Miniconjou and the rest.
But for Sitting Bull there was but one path. Once more he vowed he would never give up, even if it meant running north to the land of the Grandmother. Even if it meant he had to live on the scrawny flesh of prairie dogs.
As the sun came down and the wind came up, Johnny Bruguier gazed around him at the miserable camp of those who had elected to stay with Sitting Bull two days ago when the villages splintered. Those fortunate enough to get their lodges down before the soldiers invaded their camp had been taking in all of the very old and the very young they could, while the rest made do under bowers of blankets and robes, anything at all that would turn the frost of another night of running from the relentless pursuit of Bear Coat.
The morning after Gall, Red Skirt, and the others had crossed to the south side of the Elk River, Sitting Bull sent Johnny back to learn what would become of them once the soldiers pressed their advantage. By luck Bruguier had happened onto a dozen of the village’s young men who themselves had recrossed the river to keep an eye on the soldiers: to see if the Bear Coat Chief would cross the river with his men, or simply retreat west to his post at the Tongue River. But in a run of more bad luck, the scouting party was spotted by a group of the Corn Indians,* who were the eyes and ears for Bear Coat’s soldiers. They and many of the white scouts immediately gave chase after Johnny’s group, making for a noisy running fight of it. On their escape back to the Yellowstone ford, a handful of the Lakota horsemen spotted a lone herder gone out to kill some of the stray Hunkpapa ponies unable to keep up with the fleeing herd. It was a funny thing to watch the squat, bearded white man clamber bareback atop his mule and flog it back toward the soldier lines, yelping and screeching at the top of his lungs as the young warriors closed in on him.
Within moments some of the walk-a-heaps came bustling out to the rescue, and soon more of the soldiers made that long-reaching big gun talk—throwing one of its charges so that it exploded right in front of the Hunkpapa horsemen chasing the solitary herder. It wasn’t hard for Johnny to convince them it was time to turn back for the river and make their escape.
Not one of those young warriors liked turning his back on the rescue detail, hoping as they were for some spoils if not to count coup. But it was plain that they were clearly outnumbered—every bit as plain was the fact that the Bear Coat was intent on following the wounded village. With the others Johnny forded the Elk River, intent on warning Gall and the others, and to learn what he could for Sitting Bull.
Such a sad thing to carry in one’s heart, Johnny had thought: to know that the white man had once again succeeded in dividing Indian against Indian.
In the last seven suns the walk-a-heap wagon soldiers had succeeded in so much more: they had all but broken Sitting Bull’s reputation as the only Indian strong enough to hold together a powerful confederation; twice they had beaten the finest Hunkpapa warriors Gall had rallied to harass the wagon road between the soldier posts on Elk River; in the end they denied the entire body of those fractured Lakota bands the robes, blankets, and meat vital to survival with the imminent approach of another high-plains winter.
And through his use of a little talk coupled with a headlong pursuit, now the Bear Coat had succeeded in splintering even more those confederated tribes clustered around the mystic visionary who brought about the utter and complete destruction of the soldiers at the Greasy Grass.
Then the wavering chiefs had had another parley with the soldier named Miles yesterday afternoon on the south side of the river. Johnny had been called to interpret the demands of Gall, Red Skirt, Bull Eagle, Small Bear, and the r
est; the soldiers must leave the Indians alone, for the bands promised they would go into the agency after hunting buffalo for meat enough to see them through the winter. As well the soldiers must return to the Tongue River post and not cross to the north of the Yellowstone anymore, because they would disturb the buffalo the Lakota depended upon. Was it not plain enough to see that many of the people were destitute and in need of both food and blankets—made poor by the soldiers’ capricious attack on their village at Cedar Creek?
“The U.S. Army will go wherever it wants to go,” the Bear Coat replied to Gall’s long list of demands. “If your young men take offense at that—then we will be happy to oblige them with a fight. Otherwise, you headmen are to make sure your people comply with the orders of the government to go into your agencies and stay there.”
Bull Eagle held firm on the needs of his people, saying, “We must hunt the buffalo so that our people will have something to eat when the Cold Maker comes, when the snow is deep, when our men cannot hunt.”
“Yes,” Small Bear agreed. “But we are not the only ones who will go hungry, soldier chief. If your walk-a-heaps continue to chase our villages, come the cold and the snow, your soldiers will not have hunted the meat you need to last the winter.”
With some difficulty Bear Coat tried to explain, “My soldiers do not need to hunt the buffalo to survive. You must explain this to the chiefs, half-breed,” Miles told Bruguier. “Explain to these men that our supplies for the winter have already reached my Glendive depot. Tell them I have provisions enough to chase their villages right on through the winter if need be … a long, hard winter while their young men are unable to hunt, and their children’s bellies cry out in hunger.”
Black Hills Gold
CHEYENNE. October 24.—C. V. Gardner, of Deadwood, reports that the Black Hills Mining Co.’s quartz mill commenced operations on the 16th inst. On the following day they ran through seven tons of ore from the Hidden Treasure, which cleaned up $5,000. Gulch mining is still in operation and the quartz mines show better results every day.
“Where the blue-ball blazes did Sitting Bull slip off to?”
Luther Kelly watched the face of the half-breed called Big Leggings as he tried to explain to an angry Nelson A. Miles where the great Hunkpapa chief had gone.
It was at that meeting between the Sioux leaders and Nelson A. Miles on the twenty-fifth that the chiefs first admitted that Sitting Bull had managed to elude the soldiers, splintering off with no more than thirty lodges, crossing Bad Route Creek to sneak away down the north bank of the Yellowstone while the soldiers were in hot pursuit of the greater part of that fleeing village.
“Is he running for Canada?” Miles demanded angrily.
“No,” the half-blood replied. “He wants only to hunt buffalo in that country close by the Missouri.”
While the chiefs themselves had asked for the conference, it frustrated the colonel that they had still not seen the light. Gall stood adamantly against surrendering, wanting the soldiers gone from his country. And while Pretty Bear and the others were not as stone-faced as Gall, neither were they ready to surrender. The best that they offered was to talk some more the following day. Which suited Miles just fine. He sent his wagons on east to cover the twenty-four miles to the Glendive Cantonment for supplies.
Before the conference resumed on Thursday, the supply train was already back, carrying enough rations to permit Miles to continue his chase another twenty days. The arrival of those wagons would prove to be the straw that broke the Sioux will to resist.
Again Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs said their people lacked clothing and their horses were poor, but that they eventually intended upon going in to the agencies.
“Look upon my wagons,” Miles told the Sioux. “You will see I can follow you wherever you go.”
Kelly watched the dark eyes of the headmen in council with Miles, studied their faces as they regarded the wagons filled with boxes and barrels and kegs of supplies, while their people cried out in hunger, suffered with the cold as the season advanced and the creeks rimed with ice.
“I think you just may have them this time, General,” Luther said quietly to the colonel.
Miles spoke out of the corner of his mouth in a whisper, “But—goddammit—I’m afraid that if I’m forced to escort this bunch all the way over to the Cheyenne River Agency, I can’t turn about and pursue Sitting Bull.”
The colonel’s adjutant, Hobart Bailey, suggested, “General, what of returning the village to Tongue River with some of the men for an escort while the rest of us keep after Sitting Bull?”
Miles considered that only a short time before saying, “It won’t work. We have limited supplies at our Tongue River Cantonment and this village would tax us beyond our resources. No. Instead I think I may have a plan that will accomplish all I want to accomplish with these chiefs, and still allow me to go after the biggest fish of them all.”
So it was that Miles ended up proposing that the Indians give their vow to turn themselves in to their agents at Cheyenne River. In addition, five of the chiefs would volunteer to stay behind with Miles, those men to be delivered to an army prison in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a means of guaranteeing the surrender of their people.
“I will provide rations for your people to make the trek to your reservation. And I will allow you thirty-five days to make the trip. In addition, I agree to give you five additional days to stay where you are now presently camped to hunt buffalo.”
For a long time the chiefs talked among themselves, then finally Red Skirt stood to present himself before Miles.
“I will go with the Bear Coat, to show the goodwill of my people.”
One by one the others rose in turn. The older White Bull, a Miniconjou and father of Small Bear. Foolish Thunder, Black Eagle, and Rising Sun, all three Sans Arc. At the same time, Bull Eagle and Small Bear agreed to be responsible for getting their people to the reservation on time. In this, more of the headmen vowed they would not fail: Tall Bull, Yellow Eagle, Two Elk, Foolish Bear, Spotted Elk, and Poor Bear. Better than two thousand Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Hunkpapa, accounting for some three hundred lodges, had surrendered without the Fifth Infantry firing another shot.
That night of the twenty-fifth Miles had much in which to rejoice as he finished a letter to Mary, apologizing for not having written her sooner, blaming the delay on the rigors of the campaign, declaring that one mistake on his part might cause a massacre the sort of which had overwhelmed his friend Custer. Sleep had been coming fitfully, he reminded her, but boasted that the rigors of the chase had caused him to lose a few pounds.
Next, the colonel wrote a letter to Mary’s uncle, William Tecumseh Sherman, complaining about what he saw as conspiracy within the army against his interests. Because he had seen firsthand that the Sioux were running short on ammunition and staples, Miles wrote, “I believe we can wear them down.” Then he wheedled for more cavalry, blaming his own lack of it on the wastefulness of Crook’s past and present campaigning, saying his lack of horse soldiers was all that stood in the way between him and his victory over Sitting Bull—“It is not easy for infantry to catch them, although I believe we can whip them every time.”
Last on his list of correspondence was a dispatch to General Alfred H. Terry:
I consider this the beginning of the end. [The Indians] are very suspicious, and of course [are] afraid that some terrible punishment will be inflicted upon them While we have fought and routed these people, and driven them away from their ancient homes, I cannot but feel regret that they are compelled to submit to starvation, for I fear they will be reduced to that condition as were the southern tribes in 1874.
“What of Sitting Bull, General?” asked Captain Wyllys Lyman.
After a moment of reflection that dark night as icy points of snow lanced down from a lowering sky, Nelson A. Miles sighed. “Yes. Sitting Bull. He’s still out there waiting for me, isn’t he?”
Captain Edmond Butler inquired, “Will w
e go after him now?”
“We’ll march the command back to Tongue River, recoup, then set out again—yes. By all means,” Miles replied. “Although my nemesis is still out there, roaming free … I have accomplished one thing I set out to do. I have succeeded in dividing the enemy against itself, whittling away at my enemy’s forces where I can find and engage them.”
“That’s more than the other columns have been able to accomplish in this country,” declared Andrew S. Bennett.
“We won’t name names here, Captain Bennett,” Miles replied, flatly waving off that comment pointed at both Terry and Crook. “From the reports of their disgraceful failures of late, I judge that the nation sooner or later will understand the difference between doing something and doing nothing.”
Luther Kelly refilled his coffee tin, then asked, “Will we fight on into the winter, General?”
Miles turned to regard his chief of scouts. “You’ll have a job for as long as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are free, Mr. Kelly. I will endeavor to keep the tribes divided and take them in detail. Never more will the hostiles band together. Make no mistake about it—I consider what we have, done to be the beginning of the end for their people.”
* Ree, or Arikara, scouts.
Chapter 15
Late October–4 November 1876
Ann Eliza to Get Her Alimony
at Last.
UTAH
Ann Eliza Gets Her Money.
SALT LAKE, October 25.—This morning, the ten days having expired which had been allowed Brigham Young in which to pay alimony to Anna Eliza, his nineteenth wife, and it not having been paid, Brigham appeared in court before Judge Shaffer, who ordered that A. K. Smith be appointed as special commissioner without bonds and ordered to seize property, sell the same and pay the sum required with costs, and special authority to be issued to the commissioner under the seal of the court; and it was further ordered that the defendant be discharged. The amount due as alimony up to the present time is about $4,000.
A Cold Day in Hell Page 18