Swimming underwater in the cross current, Hartwell reached an island covered with small willow saplings. The water was high from flooding and the warriors refused to enter, sending a shower of arrows and bullets toward him. Hearing a splashing from above, William saw Barney, shot through both arms, struggling to swim toward the island. Hartwell swam to the man and asked about his brother. Barney did not know.
The pair decided to remain in the river and make for a Mexican caravan coming up a half mile below on the South side. A Mexican guard almost shot them as they swam toward the wagons, but a white man rushed up and took the gun from his hands. Under the protection of the wagons, Hartwell saw the Indians riding the high bluff to the north waving scalps and taunting the survivors.
Fearing for his brother’s life, Hartwell tried to swim back to where he thought Frank might be. After some searching he found some moccasins that he reasoned belonged to his brother. Shortly, he found Sam’s body lodged against a small island, scalped and shot through the head. William’s search for his brother was futile and it wasn’t until October that Frank’s body was found with the same wounds as Sam’s.
On a small tombstone in Drewsville, New Hampshire, there is the inscription:
John Francis
son of Derick
& Mary Ann Hartwell
killed by Indians at
Cimmaron crossing, Kansas
July 18, 1867
ac. 32 years
Robert M. Wright
William had enough of ranching on the Cimarron and sold his shares in August, 1867, to A. J. Anthony and Robert M. Wright. Anthony was an experienced stagecoach man and Wright had operated other stations in the area for Barlow, Sanderson & Company. At the time of purchase Wright had recently recovered from a bout of cholera, the greatest cause of death in the area. Because of the cholera epidemic Indian activity fell off dramatically during this period.
Anthony and Wright immediately began a large haying operation, paying common hands from seventy-five to one hundred dollars a month. Indian raids began anew and the partners lost so much stock that they turned to ponies to continue the haying operation. They proved too small and slow for the work. During this period, it was common practice for haying crews to each carry a pair of revolvers on their person or hanging from the equipment.
By the middle of September, reports were rampant of a consolidated force of more than two thousand Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa being on the warpath. A westbound caravan with military escort was attacked near the crossing on September 11. Four men were killed and five wounded with a loss of twelve mules.
As if the Indian raids weren’t enough, an incident with drunken soldiers created another problem at the ranch. At 7:30 a.m., intoxicated Sergeant John McGovern (using the alias of William Gleason) entered the ranch’s main building and demanded a drink from Mrs. Anthony. She gave him one on the condition that he behaved himself and ask for no more. McGovern had his drink, left, and returned fifteen minutes later with Private John Smith demanding another. Mrs. Anthony refused him entry whereupon Smith broke open the door and threatened to shoot Mrs. Anthony and a contractor named George Woods unless he was given whiskey. Mrs. Anthony relented and gave the drunkards their drinks. Woods left the building and went to the river.
At ten o’clock fifteen men of Company I, 37th infantry, under the command of Sergeant Iveson arrived. McGovern and Smith got into a quarrel with a Corporal Cortigan, and chased him from the building upon the premise that they intended to kill him. Soon afterward, a third man, Corporal Thomas Gavan, joined Smith and McGovern in their drinking spree.
Just after noon two eastern coaches arrived and the drunken soldiers got into an argument with a driver, John Huggins. Huggins and McGovern exchanged revolver shots but neither was injured. Shortly later, Smith knocked a stage conductor, Andrew Wright, in the head with a rifle butt.
That was enough for the stage travelers and ranch hands. They ordered the gang from the premises and were promptly rewarded by a hail of gunfire through the doors and windows. Iveson’s men saw what was going on and opened fire on the drunkards from a range of three hundred yards, accidentally shooting poor George Woods as he tried to make the cover of the building. McGovern, Smith and Gavan entered the building, ransacked the store and stole twenty dollars worth of postal currency and some canned fruit. Sometime during the fracas, stage driver Frank Harris took a bullet in the chest while sleeping in the northeast tower.
In spite of the fact that there were thirty-two soldiers in the vicinity, the sergeants could not get them to attempt a capture. While attempting to close in on the drunks, they were fired upon and “scattered like rabbits” according to Robert Wright.
Another military escort with a newly arriving caravan formed a skirmish line and waved a white flag. McGovern and Smith opened fire upon the soldiers and were fired upon. McGovern was hit in the shoulder and Smith was killed. Gavan and McGovern were taken into custody and charged with riotous conduct and murder. That evening Woods and Harris died of their wounds. A short time later McGovern escaped custody in Fort Dodge and deserted the army.
Near October 1, the Kiowa hit the ranch with a determined attack. Anthony was in charge of the hay crew and was able to form a defense on the spot, forming a defensive configuration with the hay wagons. The men made a strategic retreat toward the river, dropping to their knees and forming a skirmish line on every Indian assault. Once at the river, the hay crew withdrew to the island and held off the warriors until dark. In the meantime, Wright barricaded the buildings and tried to get a relief party to the hay crew. The Indians managed to drive them back on every attempt.
About three o’clock, a United States paymaster and several companies of soldiers were ambushed while approaching the ranch. They formed a defensive corral and held their position until dark.
Major Horace Moore and his command of the 18th Kansas cavalry were dispatched from Fort Dodge to conduct a search for the hostiles between Cimarron Crossing ranch and Bluff Ranch. Capt. David Payne was ordered to take Company B of the 18th Kansas infantry to Cimarron Crossing to protect the haying crew. All was quiet until another peace treaty was negotiated on October 28.
In January, 1868, a party of Arapaho, Apache and Cheyenne had a fight with a Kansas alliance with Pawnee near Cimarron Crossing. Charley Bent, half-breed son of William Bent of Bent’s Fort, Colorado, and 20 Cheyenne were reported killed in the engagement. Full-scale war among the Indians broke out along the Trail which in turn spelled disaster for any small white settlements in the area. Cimarron Crossing and Bluff Ranch were abandoned by July, 1868. The day after the ranch was abandoned, Indians burned the buildings and haystacks. All stage traffic in the area was ceased. Before the summer was over, several caravans were attacked in the area of Cimarron Crossing. It would be another year before the region was safe enough for stage travel.
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe surveyors marked the site of the old stage ranch on a map in October, 1871. According to their map, the ranch was located approximately one-and-a-half miles west of present-day Cimarron, Kansas. Today, there is nothing left of the old site, and the grave markers have long been lost to the elements. Only the old hay meadow remains as a cattle pasture to mark the general location where men lost their lives trying to settle the Cimarron Crossing of the Santa Fe Trail.
Chapter 19
Winter Campaign
Bill Cody
While George Custer found glory along the banks of the Washita River during the winter of 1868-69, a force of soldiers left Fort Lyon, Colorado, for a campaign of suffering and starvation. Some of the most legendary names in the West were involved in this forgotten saga of survival.
Bill Hickok
The failure of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 and several Indian depredations along the Kansas frontier the following spring brought about the War Department’s decision to sweep south of the Deadline or Arkansas River in an effort to either force the tribal alliance onto reservations or destroy its effe
ctiveness. Officers commanding the posts assigned to guarding the Santa Fe Trail had developed the strategy of heavily manning the garrisons during the spring and summer and sending the troops back to Fort Riley, Kansas, during the late fall and winter because it was known that the tribes drifted south into the Nations to hole up along the waters of the Cimarron, Beaver, Canadian, Washita and Red Rivers in cold weather. Such a strategy allowed the tribes to literally raid at will during the summer whenever they could find a weakness in military defenses and enjoy a rejuvenating “truce” during the winter. General Philip Sheridan, commander of the Department of the Missouri, developed the strategy of a Winter Campaign to surprise the tribal alliance while Indian families were concentrated in camps during the bleakest time of the year. By hitting the unsuspecting camps in mid-winter, tribal mobility would be greatly reduced, valuable resources could be destroyed and survivors would be left to the mercy of the harsh elements. The starving escapees could then be rounded up and sent to reservations with relative ease.
Lt. Col. Alfred Sully was ordered to the banks of the North Canadian, deep inside the Nations, in September, to establish a camp of supply. Camp Supply, as the outpost became known, was to be the anchor for military maneuvers throughout the winter. Sully deployed his troops south from Fort Dodge in a broad pincer designed to clear the Indians from Crooked Creek and along the upper waters of the Red Fork of the Arkansas. The following month another sweep along the Arkansas River and the headwaters of the Cimarron found no large concentrations of villages. With Camp Supply well established and relatively safe from attack from the north, Col. George A. Custer left Fort Larned to sweep south of Fort Dodge and reconnoiter the Medicine Lodge River area before advancing on to Camp Supply to rendezvous with other forces, including the 19th Kansas Vol. Cavalry.
Meanwhile, at Fort Wallace, Kansas, and Fort Bascom, New Mexico, two major forces where organized and equipped to form the pincers from the west that would drive the hostiles to the south and east where Sheridan hoped to smash the alliance as an effective power. Hopefully all forces would meet for this final victory somewhere along the upper waters of the Washita or Red River. Elements of the 3rd Cavalry from Fort Bascom, 5th Cavalry from Fort Wallace, 7th Cavalry south from Fort Dodge and Sheridan’s own forces from the east would box the Indians in for a final battle from which the tribes could escape without serious damage being inflicted.
***
On December 1, 1868, General Eugene A. Carr assembled his command at Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory. Carr’s force included his 5th Cavalry Regiment together with elements of the 10th Cavalry and service and supply units comprising seven hundred men. Three weeks before, Captain William H. Penrose led a force of 10th Cavalry and a mule pack train to march southeast toward the Cimarron, Beaver River and wait to rendezvous with Carr’s force along a small creek known as the San Francisco. From that base the entire command would sweep southeast toward the Washita and hopefully meet up with the other elements of the campaign. None of the units had any idea of the terrible enemy that awaited them as they swept toward the Washita. The winter of 1868 would prove the worst of all enemies for the troops to encounter.
Carr’s force crossed the Purgatoire River and marched southeast slowly as cold weather set in. On the night of December 5, on Two Butte Creek in a place later named Freeze-out Canyon, a blizzard struck with vengeance. Horses and cattle were scattered, tents collapsed and the force immobilized by the fury of the storm. For two days the men struggled to dig themselves and their animals out of the snow, reorganizing and attempting to locate the lost herd of cattle. Only 60 head of the original herd of 150 were ever found, cutting meat supplies by almost two-thirds. This was an especially difficult situation for the forces under Captain Penrose. These black troopers had only carried the basic necessities on their mule train in order to be able to move quickly. It was essential that Carr’s later advance could re-supply the 10th with badly needed food and supplies. To further complicate the situation, the loss of wagon mules in the blizzard and some cavalry horses in Carr’s command meant that grain wagons had to be abandoned for lack of animals to pull them.
Carr’s command, so carefully provisioned and equipped, was now short of beef, fodder and grain for the wagon teams and cavalry horses. The short grass plains were covered with six to eight inches of snow, making grazing a slow and difficult process for the animals. Carr ordered the men on short rations and tried for a drive to meet with Penrose before his entire command collapsed from under him.
Carr sent his young scout, William F. Cody, on a broad sweep twenty miles ahead looking for Penrose’s command. Snow obliterated all tracks and the only place Cody could even hope to find sign was on the high lands where it had blown clear. After working his way across the Cimarron River valley and crossing the Beaver River, Cody came across three members of the 10th some twenty-five miles in advance of Carr’s main force. The men told him that they had become so starved and confused that they had started back to Fort Lyon and were completely lost. Cody and other scouts backtracked along these men’s trail until they found Penrose’s command on San Francisco Creek. Penrose’s men had been on quarter rations for more than two weeks and were in a state of near starvation. Cody then returned to Carr’s struggling column to relate Penrose’s condition. Carr immediately sent Cody back to Penrose with two companies of the 5th under Major William H. Brown to relieve the starving troopers. Carr was able to join up with Penrose on December 19, but the hardships that the force had endured had so sapped its strength that Carr decided to establish a main depot somewhere in the vicinity and proceed on south with only the strongest of his remaining forces. It became his plan to establish a junction with Col. Andrew W. Evans, 3rd Regiment of Cavalry, who was marching east along the Canadian River from Fort Bascom. The combined force would then be made up with similar elements and a combination of supply resources. Carr had no idea that Evans had suffered equally from the elements. He had lost most of his cattle and was also short of fresh meat for his men.
Evans’ command had been supplied late and much was of inferior quality. The two hundred Ute and Apache warriors, who had started with him as a support force, had scattered on the Cimarron and abandoned the army to its fate. Evans had only been able to salvage sixty-two of his original one hundred thirty-five beef cattle. His own force was on half rations and was struggling through the snow hoping for relief from Carr. Evans force ground to a halt a few miles east of the site of the Bent Brothers old abandoned trading post, Adobe Walls. He established a main supply depot on Monument Creek. This depot was designed to quarter Evan’s sick and wounded and hold a lot of stores. It was dug into the ground and fortified with revetted logs and sandbags to repel Indian attack after Evans’ main command advanced on to make his rendezvous with the rest of the campaign forces. Before leaving with four hundred sixty men and more than five hundred animals, Evans sent twenty-two of his supply wagons back to Fort Bascom to pick up additional supplies. General Carr dispatched Cody and other scouts to the north along the Beaver River to locate a desirable site to establish his own main supply depot. The scouts recommended a well-protected place along Palo Duro Creek a few miles north of the Beaver River where several water sources formed a confluence. There was good water, groves of hardwood trees for the construction of dugouts and fuel. There was significant winter range for the stock and a plentiful supply of antelope. Cody took several animals for added mess supplies.
Taking advantage of the location Carr dug in and built fortifications before setting forth toward the Canadian River with the healthy remainder of his command. The sick, lame and weaker men were to remain behind. Carr was hoping that once joined with Evans’ command they could combine rations. A second depot near the confluence of Mule and Turkey Creeks that fed into the Canadian was established. From this point Carr sent scouts east and west in an attempt to locate Evans. In short order the scouts located Evans’ depot on Monument Creek.
As Cody reached Evans’ depot he was greeted by h
is friend James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok who was acting as a scout along with several Mexicans. Cody learned that a Mexican bull train was coming from the south with a load of beer for Evans’s command. Cody left the camp and intercepted the train, sending them to Carr’s command instead. During a rollicking beer blast that followed, Cody and Hickok became involved in a brawl with several Mexican scouts over Cody’s appointment as chief of scouts. Carr threatened disciplinary action but relented because it was generally felt that the Mexicans were as much at fault as Cody and Hickok. Both men were let off with a stern warning.
When Carr returned to the Palo Duro, he sent Hickok, Ed Guerrier and three other scouts to Camp Supply to determine Indian strength along the Beaver River and Wolf Creek. The scouts returned to report that there was little movement or strength among the alliance. Since Carr’s orders were for him to contain the western frontier to prevent Indian escape toward the mountains, he elected to remain in place and wait. It was a difficult decision considering the condition of his troops but he really had no alternatives. His decision soon became more difficult as winter weather became more adverse and his command was again threatened with starvation. Heavy snows, increasing storm activity and a scarcity of game forced men to endure periods of more than a week without fresh meat. Forty civilian teamsters quit even though it meant forfeiting all pay. By mid-January, what few supplies came in from Fort Lyon were entirely inadequate.
Heroes of the Santa Fe Trail Page 18