by Drury, Bob
Conquering Bear, however, remained a “chief” in name only among most Brules, further proof to the tribes that accommodation with the United States was a fool’s game. The newcomers took, and took, and then demanded more. As the Lakota-born historian Joseph M. Marshall III wryly notes, “The whites had one truth and the Lakotas another.” Further hostilities, if not all-out war, with the land-grabbing whites must have seemed inevitable to the Western Sioux. For the astute Red Cloud it was merely a question of when and how. It would take a concerted strategy—never an Indian strong point—to defeat these invaders, as well as a true sense of unity among the squabbling tribes. This, too, was a doubtful proposition. Thus it no doubt occurred to Red Cloud that his best strategy was to stall for time. He was still young and held no official tribal leadership position. If the goal was to check the American flood tide, there was no way, right now, that the Indians could challenge the might of the U.S. Army. He knew well that aside from his own relatively well armed akicita, perhaps one in a hundred Sioux braves owned a gun that worked. As it turned out, when the first deadly shots were loosed in what would become the decades-long Indian wars on the High Plains, it was the soldiers who fired them.
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1. Most pure-blood Native Americans, like Australian Aborigines, lack the gene that causes baldness.
10
A BLOOD-TINGED SEASON
In June 1853 nearly 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne arrived at Fort Laramie to stake their lodges amid the ripening blades of blue grama extending like a thick, manicured lawn in all directions from the white man’s lonely outpost. The Lakota contingent included large delegations of Brules and Oglalas, among them the Bad Faces, as well as a small band of Miniconjous down from the Upper Missouri. All were awaiting delivery of the promised government annuity. The fort, never fully manned to begin with, was garrisoned by only thirty or so soldiers, as a good third of the 6th Infantry had completed their tours and been discharged at the spring thaw, despite the fact that their replacements had not yet arrived. The post was also missing a detachment of mounted infantry that had been deployed to escort one of the summer’s first Mormon wagon trains rolling into the territory.
It had been a glorious spring, and on the brisk, clear morning of June 15 several Miniconjou braves asked to join a boatload of emigrants who were being ferried across the swift-running North Platte, nearly bursting its banks with snowmelt. The leader of a small squad of Bluecoats assisting the emigrants refused the request, a small scuffle ensued, and a Miniconjou fired a shot, freezing the Indian dogs frolicking in the prairie grass. The musket ball missed its mark, and the offending brave disappeared into a ravine intersecting the prairie.
This seemingly irrational provocation had become familiar Miniconjou behavior since the death of their longtime Head Man, The One Horn. He was by all accounts a strong and judicious chief, wary and wise in the ways of the whites. He was also a handsome man, if we judge by the three Catlin paintings for which he sat, with a broad forehead, sharp cheekbones, a Roman nose, and piercing oval eyes. But when illness took his favorite young wife, so heavy was his grief that in a kind of ritual suicide he attacked a bull buffalo, alone, on foot, with only a knife. The two-horned animal gored The One Horn to death. Since then, observed the fur trader Edwin Denig, the tribe had fractured into several “quarrelsome and predatory” factions of “murderous character” toward the whites.
The soldiers stationed at Fort Laramie were certainly aware of this “Miniconjou problem,” and later that afternoon a platoon of twenty-three dragoons led by a callow second lieutenant named Hugh Fleming rode to the Miniconjous’ isolated camp and shot to death at least five braves. It is not known if the troublemaker was among them. Word spread among the Lakota, and war councils were convened. The Oglala Head Man Old-Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horses was able to persuade his furious tribesmen—including an influential medicine man who was the father of the eleven-year-old Crazy Horse—not to retaliate. Still, members of the arriving Mormon train could feel the tension. “The Indians no more look smiling, but have a stern solumn [sic] look,” a homesteader’s wife noted in her diary. “We feel this evening that we are in danger. We pray the kind Father to keep us safe this night.”
Her prayer was answered, but not those of another emigrant family camped farther away from the main body of wagons. That night a party of Sioux crept up to their isolated encampment and killed a husband and wife and their two children. When news of these “most terrible butcheries” reached the fort another squad of enraged soldiers galloped out of the gates and fired on the first Indians they saw, killing one and wounding another. This led to an age-old Indian conflict—again young warriors thirsted for vengeance; again older and wiser heads counseled caution.
It is not difficult to imagine the soldiers’ shooting spree as the visceral response of resentful, ill-disciplined, and possibly drunken troops isolated in hostile territory. Personal revenge has occurred in armies throughout history, and these overreactions foreshadowed American atrocities at Sand Creek, at Biscari, at My Lai, at Abu Ghraib. Moreover, the few officers stationed at Fort Laramie were young and inexperienced, unable to control their enlisted men, most of whom considered the Indians subhuman. The instigator of the killings was not even a soldier, but a hard-drinking half-blood interpreter named Wyuse, employed by the Army. Small, swarthy, and foul-tempered, Wyuse was the son of a French trader and a woman from the conquered Iowas, and he had a searing hatred for the Sioux. One of the soldiers who fell under his sway was the shavetail Second Lieutenant John Grattan, a twenty-four-year-old eager to prove his mettle in battle against the Indians—to “see the elephant,” in a colloquial phrase that was to become popular during the Civil War. A recent West Point graduate, Grattan drank to excess and boasted incessantly about “cracking it to the Sioux.” He became a constant drinking partner of the scheming interpreter Wyuse.
Before more blood ran, two companies of mounted riflemen that were returning to the United States from the Oregon Territory arrived at Fort Laramie. So too did the trusted government Indian agent “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick persuaded the veteran cavalry commander from Oregon to linger, and between his straightforward apologies to the Miniconjous, his long-standing friendship with several Lakota Head Men, and the overwhelming firepower of the Oregon contingent, a fight was averted. The unusually punctual arrival of the annuity train served to ease the tension—for the moment. The continuous beat of war drums provided the sound track for the restless winter that followed as Lakota Head Men and war chiefs rode to and from one another’s camps to discuss the growing difficulties with the arrogant whites, particularly the murderous soldiers, and to argue over possible solutions.
The Miniconjous were bent on vengeance. Their sentiments were echoed, not surprisingly, by Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapas. The headstrong Sitting Bull, now thirty-two, had counted his first coup at the age of fourteen, when he’d disobeyed his father and joined a raiding party against the Crows. He had since grown into a skilled fighter as well as a holy wicasa wakan, or “vision seeker,” who had performed the Sun Dance numerous times. His voice carried weight, but not enough to convince the Oglalas and Brules—who were much more familiar with the Army’s firepower and who urged accommodation. In the end, the old “chief” Conquering Bear, perhaps wiser than some gave him credit for being, proposed a radical solution. The Lakota, he said, should petition the Great Father in Washington to reconsider his policy of stationing such small, ill-trained, poorly led, and easily spooked garrisons in the middle of a territory granted to the Western Sioux by the white man’s own treaty.
Red Cloud was not happy with this compromise, which he perceived as a groveling response. His influence over the Lakota would carry much greater force a decade hence, but now he remained silent as he went along with the plan with a mixture of disappointment and anger. Given the apparent timidity of so many of the Sioux Head Men, as well as their inability to reach a consensus, a part of him recognized that this was not the polit
ic moment to speak up for Indian provocations. As it happened, the blood-tinged events of the following summer proved beyond his control.
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In August 1854, the Lakota returned to the grasslands on the North Platte, again in anticipation of the Army freight wagons hauling the seasonal annuity. This time they staked camp a cautious distance south of Fort Laramie. The post’s duty roster had increased to forty troopers and two officers—the twenty-eight-year-old garrison commander Fleming, since promoted to first lieutenant, and his hard-charging subordinate Grattan. The same small band of Miniconjous were again present; they had the foresight to camp close to a large contingent of Brules. One afternoon a Mormon wagon train was passing nearby when a worn-out, footsore cow broke its tether and wandered in among the Miniconjou lodges. A pack of dogs cornered the lame animal in a dry arroyo, from where its terrified owner dared not retrieve it. A Miniconjou man shot the cow, butchered it, and shared the stringy meat with his band.
In the white man’s eyes, Conquering Bear was still the “chief” of all the Lakota, and when word of this seemingly inconsequential event reached him he sensed trouble. He acted immediately to head it off by riding into Fort Laramie and offering payment for the cow. Lieutenant Fleming instead insisted that the offending Miniconjou turn himself in. Conquering Bear was incredulous. Not only was the scrawny animal not worth a fight, Conquering Bear was also acting in accordance with the document he and the Army officials had signed three years earlier. A provision of the Horse Creek Treaty stated that in the case of an Indian offense against a white civilian, the offending tribe, through its chief, should offer satisfaction. Conquering Bear suggested they wait for the arrival of the Indian agent Fitzpatrick, who usually came to the post around this time of the year. The Lakota, he said, would abide by whatever compensation “Broken Hand” deemed fair. Lieutenant Fleming was surely aware that Fitzpatrick had died of pneumonia six months earlier in Washington while on a mission to plead the Indians’ case. Whether or not he informed Conquering Bear of this remains unrecorded. In any case the Head Man’s attempted compromise failed to mollify Fleming and the Mormons, who were obviously itching for a fight.
In a last-ditch effort at reconciliation, Conquering Bear told Fleming that he would try to persuade the offending Miniconjou to turn himself in. This was an extraordinary offer, and Conquering Bear must have known it was useless. No Indian, and especially no Sioux, would willingly allow himself to be taken to the Bluecoat jail. An Indian would rather die fighting. Conquering Bear’s incredible offer indicates that he was aware of what could happen if the soldiers provoked another confrontation. But young Fleming was in a lather. The next morning, egged on by Grattan, Fleming ordered his subordinate to lead a troop to the Brule-Miniconjou village and seize the cow-killer. In hindsight more than 150 years later, what followed is no surprise. But no Army officer serving on the godforsaken western frontier in the 1850s, let alone an officious graduate of the Military Academy, could be faulted for such hubris. In Grattan’s view the white race would always trump the red, no matter the numerical odds. It was his Christian God’s intended order of things.
Grattan requisitioned a twelve-pound field piece and a snub-nosed mountain howitzer, and called for volunteers. All forty infantrymen stepped forward. He selected twenty-nine to mount up. He also summoned the interpreter Wyuse, who was so drunk he had to be lifted onto his saddle. Along the trail this motley cavalcade halted at a small trading post operated by a stout little “Missouri Frenchman” named James Bordeaux. Grattan tried to convince the veteran trapper to join him. But Bordeaux, who had married a Brule, was too wise in the ways of the Indians. He knew that when they drove their herds in from the grasslands they were preparing for a fight. He eyed the clusters of mounted Sioux flanking the troop on the red-earth bluffs overlooking the rutted road—including, by his own admission, Red Cloud’s Bad Faces—and declined to join the soldiers. Bordeaux did offer Grattan one piece of advice: gag your drunken interpreter.
Between the gates of Fort Laramie and Grattan’s destination stood at least 300 Oglala lodges, another 200 Brule lodges, and finally the 20 Miniconjou lodges next to a smaller contingent of 80 Brule tepees. Five thousand Indians. Twelve hundred warriors. Still, on nearing the Miniconjou camp, Wyuse galloped ahead roaring insults and threatening to eat the heart of every Lakota before sundown.
Conquering Bear, again exhibiting a jarring independence, attempted one final intercession. He met Grattan at the edge of the Miniconjou camp as the officer positioned his artillery and asked him to hold the guns while he made a last appeal to the offending man who had killed the cow. Later, there were reports that the half-blood Wyuse intentionally mistranslated these last words. In any case, as the old chief rode away Grattan lost what little patience he had started with, particularly after seeing half a dozen Indians leave a tepee and begin to prime their muskets. He ordered his men to form a skirmish line. One went a step further, aimed his rifle, and fired. A brave tipped over dead. At this Grattan ordered a volley loosed into the village. The rifle reports surprised Conquering Bear, who turned and tried to wave Grattan off. The old man was standing tall in the center of the camp, exhorting his tribesmen not to return fire, when the howitzers boomed and another rifle volley echoed. Grapeshot splintered several lodgepoles, and Conquering Bear fell, mortally wounded.
It was over in minutes. Rifle balls and clouds of arrows as thick as black flies sailed into the American line. Grattan and most of his men were killed on the spot. A few wounded Bluecoats managed to swing up onto horses or crawl into the artillery wagon to try to flee back up the trail. One, punctured by seven arrow and musket holes, made it as far as Bordeaux’s trading post, where he staggered inside and hid in a closet. He later died from his wounds. The rest were engulfed by Brules and Miniconjous galloping up the road and a separate wave of Oglalas led by Red Cloud and his akicita sweeping down from the bluffs. The soldiers were dead by the time the whirling dust clouds kicked up by the horses had settled. Odds are Red Cloud killed his first white man that day.
Wyuse darted into an empty tepee, a “death lodge” whose owner had been buried a few days earlier. The Lakota found him and dragged him out. He writhed in the dirt and wailed for mercy as they sliced out his forked tongue and replaced it with his severed penis. When what was left of his body had ceased twitching, two Oglala boys ran up to his corpse and offered him the ultimate Sioux insult by jerking up their breechcloths and waggling their own penises before his empty eyes. One of them was the fair-skinned Crazy Horse.
After the soldiers’ bodies were stripped of uniforms, boots, guns, and ammunition, the customary orgy of atrocities ensued. Scalps were collected and limbs hacked away. Some of the bodies were flayed and skinned, others rolled into a roaring bonfire. Grattan, pierced by twenty arrows, died splayed across his cannon; his boots were filled with manure and shoved down the big gun’s barrel. Back at Fort Laramie, Fleming and his remaining ten infantrymen could only await the same fate. They were too distant to have heard Grattan’s first rifle volley. But when the sound of cannon fire confirmed that a fight had begun they hurried the emigrants and their livestock into the stockade and barred the double gates. When no one from Grattan’s troop returned they prepared for the inevitable attack.
Meanwhile, when the last of Grattan’s dead Bluecoats had been picked over and chopped to pieces, the Lakota warriors and their Cheyenne allies gathered at Bordeaux’s trading post. The Brules had carried the bleeding, unconscious Conquering Bear to the mean adobe structure, and while the life oozed from his body their bloodlust ran hot. Some Head Men, predominantly Oglalas, urged temperance, and it is a measure of their authority and their powers of persuasion that a war party did not immediately start up the trail to storm the fort. Yet with most warriors still arguing for a fight, Bordeaux suddenly materialized among them like a ghost. At the snap of the first shots he had climbed onto his roof, flattened himself, and watched the slaughter. Now he clambered down to address the seeth
ing warriors. He knew well that he was arguing for his own life.
Bordeaux told the Indians that if they overran the fort more white troops would come: hundreds, thousands, with their long knives and their guns that shoot twice. The Indians, both the guilty and the innocent, would be hunted to the four corners of the earth. He coaxed and he wheedled. He drained his stock of trade goods, bestowing gifts on important fighters. As the western sky purpled to the color of a mussel shell and then to sooty black, he talked in a voice that became increasingly hoarse, imploring the Head Men to consider their responsibilities to their tribes, to their bands, to their women, and to their children. When the first rays of sunrise glinted off the dew-flecked branches of a nearby stand of dog ash the Indians were still, amazingly, listening to Bordeaux’s exhortations.
Bordeaux later testified that when the Indians rode off, not to attack the fort but instead to plunder the nearby American Fur Company warehouse, he collapsed in an exhausted, trembling heap onto the beaten brown grass. The man had previously carried a reputation as something of a coward, stemming from an incident years earlier when he managed what was then still called Fort John and had refused to engage in a rifle duel with a drunken mountain man. When the trapper called him out from the front steps of his own bunkhouse, Bordeaux refused to leave his bedroom until the man sobered up and departed, and such was his humiliation that even his squaw wife had been disgusted with him. On this night he erased that stigma forever.
By the time the tribes broke camp the next morning the story of the “Grattan Massacre” was already curdling. It was now the devious Conquering Bear who had lured the innocent soldiers into a trap. The Council Bluffs (Iowa) Bugle reported that Grattan was attempting a peaceful parley with the Indians when Conquering Bear poked him with a lance, “calling him a squaw and a coward, and charged him with being afraid to fight.” Lieutenant Fleming went along with the lie, his career and reputation at stake. The white traders, who should have known better, said nothing. No doubt their government shipping contracts influenced their silence. Messengers were sent east with news that the Western Sioux nation had risen, and frenzied calls for a retaliatory Army force reverberated from the Platte to the Missouri and, eventually, on to the Potomac. White attitudes hardened. When the rare voice was raised asking why, if the Sioux had taken to the warpath, there had been no follow-up raids on trading posts or emigrant trains, it was shouted down with the all-purpose charge “Indian lover.”