by Tim Slessor
Throughout the now shortening summer days, the digging, sawing and hammering went on. The Colonel was anxious to get his men out of their tents and under solid cover before the first snows. Everything was secondary to the construction; there was certainly no time to send patrols into the country around; there was not even time given to drilling the men in the effective handling of their weapons
In fact, of course, just as they had watched Carrington’s slow westward march, the Sioux now watched the building of his fort. Indeed, only two days after those wagons had flattened the grass, a small party of warriors approached under a truce flag. Carrington saw his opportunity to make an impression. While the band played, the visitors were escorted past a small parade and welcomed by the Colonel and his officers in hurriedly donned full-dress uniforms. A howitzer fired some rounds onto a nearby hill. The visitors seemed impressed. The visitors were Cheyenne. They said that they had come for an assurance that, if they were attacked by any Sioux, they could expect protection from the army. In fact, we know from later accounts that, within hours of their departure from the embryo fort, the Cheyenne were being debriefed by Red Cloud. His reaction to what they told him was immediate. He attacked early the next morning.
Even if he did not lead the raid himself, Red Cloud was certainly the author of it. In a galloping swoop, a small band of Oglala Sioux drove off 175 mules and horses. When, eventually, a detachment had saddled up to give chase, the soldiers rode out in a straggle. This was just as the Sioux had planned and, in a series of running skirmishes over 15 or so miles, they killed two soldiers and wounded three others. The cavalry managed to recover just four horses. The first graves were dug that evening.
The Sioux had made the first move. To say that the Colonel had lost the initiative would be to imply that he ever had it in the first place. But what else could he do? Certainly, the fort he planned and into which he now put so much energy was (with hindsight?) too elaborate. He would probably have argued that he was following a standard military principle: first establish a secure base from which, later, to move out to patrol and pacify. But the fact remains that he ignored two other important principles: first, if at all possible, gain and then hold the initiative; second, find time for training - especially if one’s soldiers are green.
Training: from it flow discipline, confidence in oneself and in one’s comrades and, thus, morale. For example, to load and fire the Civil War’s Springfield rifle required, according to one manual, seven sequential actions. A highly trained soldier might fire three shots a minute; a green recruit might get the thing jammed. And many of Carrington’s men were very green. They got hardly any training drills, and no target practice. Carrington’s subsequent reasoning was that there was a shortage of ammunition. Maybe. But his underlying problem was that all his thinking was focused on building his fort.
It soon became apparent that the Colonel had another problem: there was not enough timber in the immediate area to supply the construction crews. Furthermore, there was the need to start laying in a large store of firewood for the coming winter. Soon, logging parties would have to work well away from the protection of the fort. But, for the time being, Carrington may have been lulled into a sense of some security; the Sioux had disappeared.
Colonel Carrington’s meticulous plans for the ammunition magazine. Incidentally, he misspelt it Fort Kearny – with an extra “e”
In fact, they were busy elsewhere. Several war-parties had moved off to the south in order to harass the single supply line that led from Fort Connor (now renamed Fort Reno) to the fort that Carrington was building on the Piney. The narrative of one of their ambushes could have been written as a screenplay. Indeed, it has been - many times. But, be that as it may, the story of this one small incident is worth examining because it demonstrates some of the inadequacies exhibited by both sides in what was to follow over the next few months. And years.
A small detachment of reinforcements was making its way up the trail: nine wagons and drivers, five officers, ten enlisted men, three civilians hoping to reach the Montana gold diggings, a chaplain, a surgeon and a young photographer. There were three women - two army wives and a black maid. The officers had saddle horses. They had had a tiring but uneventful journey of a week or so from Fort Laramie to Fort Reno/Connor. Now, after a couple of days’ rest, they set off on the last 70 miles. On the afternoon of the first day they came on the mutilated remains of a cavalryman, presumably a courier. This, quite apart from the warnings that they had been given only that morning at the fort, should have alerted them.
Now, early on the second day, they came over a low divide and could see, a mile or so ahead, the cottonwood trees that marked the line of Crazy Woman Creek (a tributary of the Powder). On the far side of the creek, they could see some buffalo. So two of the officers decided to ride ahead, to shoot fresh meat. Lieutenants Daniel and Templeton were half a mile ahead and out of sight among the creek-side trees when the main party heard war-whoops. In alarm, they managed to scramble their wagons into a rough circle on a low hill.
Presently, Lieutenant Daniel’s horse came tearing back to the wagons; its saddle was flapping under its belly and a couple of arrows were lodged in its neck. A few seconds later, Lieutenant Templeton came galloping in; he had an arrow in his back. He fell from his horse in a state of collapse. As best they could, the men started to dig scrapes under the wagons. Extraordinarily, the photographer looked around for a good spot from which to shoot the anticipated action. “I desired”, he later wrote, “to make some good instantaneous views.” One imagines that the enthusiastic Mr. Glover was told that there were other priorities.
The Indians had a few muskets, but mostly relied on their bows. Small groups would race in to 70-80 yards away. Then, circling the wagons at a gallop, they would drop down to the further side of their ponies and loose off arrows from under the horse’s neck. This style of attack was characteristic; it was seldom accurate. But it did not need to be. If only one arrow in fifty found a mark, it was enough. Every now and then a soldier’s curse told that a target had been found.
At one point, a brave pranced about just out of accurate rifle range. He was wearing Lieutenant Daniel’s tunic and hat. By now despair must have been very close: a sergeant had been killed and more than a third of the defenders were wounded; they had little water and the temperature would have been in the high 90s. They were surrounded by more than 200 Sioux. They knew that to surrender was not an option; prisoners were only taken so that their living bodies might then be mutilated until they died in (and of) agony. With that terrifying prospect, even the greenest soldiers knew that they had to hold on till the last bullet - which they kept for themselves. By late afternoon four more men had been seriously wounded; coughing and spitting blood, they were dragged out of the rifle scrapes and laid under that central wagon where the women were already doing the best they could for those wounded earlier.
“Our condition was now so desperate that a council of war was held. It was decided that in case it came to the worst that we would mercifully kill all the wounded and then ourselves.” The chaplain, who by all accounts had been a rifle-toting inspiration all day, was not keen on this decision and, even though slightly wounded, suggested that while there was still an able horse, he should try to break out and race back to Fort Reno for help. A private volunteered to go too.
Only the most brazen screenplay would dare to invent all this: the circling Sioux, the dead Lieutenant’s clothes, the diminishing ammunition, the women tearing up their petticoats for bandages and, finally, the escape of this Man of God. With the dusk, the people at the wagons watched as their two messengers disappeared at full gallop over a ridge, pursued by a small band of braves. Lieutenant Wands, the man in charge, would have estimated that if either of the two messengers got through to Fort Reno it would be well into the next morning before a relief column could arrive. The Sioux, even if they did not attack during the night, would
start again at first light. The exhausted band set about deepening their scrapes, checking their rifles, reinforcing the wagons, and making the wounded as comfortable as possible. They could hear ululations down by the creek.
Then, in the last glimmer of the day, someone pointed to a dust cloud away to the north. Yes, it was a detachment of cavalry. They had been sent south from the embryo Fort Kearny to find and escort an expected supply convoy. It was chance that brought them, at just that moment, to Lieutenant Wands and his party. After the hubbub of relief and welcome, the newcomers took over the night guard. The Sioux had gone. In the morning, down by the river the soldiers found Lieutenant Daniel - stripped naked, full of arrows and with a stake driven into his anus. Later that morning, they were joined by another detachment of cavalry, from Fort Reno. The chaplain and his companion were with them.
With a military historian, Robert Murray, I have wandered among the cottonwoods of Crazy Woman Creek, and while we both pondered the exact geography of the engagement, there were other more fundamental questions that my knowledgeable companion raised. In working out the answers, he pointed to certain conclusions, truths even, about the different “cultures” of the combatants - which is why this small incident is worth narrating.
First, what were those two officers thinking when they rode out ahead of the main party? After all, only that morning they had come upon the bloody remains of a courier. Second, why, in a fight that lasted most of the day and in which the Sioux outnumbered the soldiers by seven to one, did they only manage to kill two soldiers - and one of those (Lieutenant Daniel) before the action had even begun?
The answers explain much of what followed over the next 20 years in the frequently muddled encounters between the Army and the Hostiles. First, most of the officers and men now being posted for duty on the western plains were quite unfamiliar with what was involved in “Indian fighting”. If they had any military experience, it had been gained in the relatively large-scale engagements of the Civil War. Consequently, too many officers had little feeling (if any) for these seemingly empty plains; they had little appreciation of the way the Sioux could suddenly appear from nowhere. So, those two officers could blunder forward to look for their buffalo. It was not the first time and it was certainly not the last that officers would be prompted by a blend of over-confidence and inexperience. Indeed, out west, such “blundering forward” - and not just by junior officers - was to become something of a habit. It would cost lives.
And the answer to the second question? That the main party survived in the face of probably as many as 200 Sioux is largely due to the fact that it was up against an enemy who had little taste for direct assault. The most notable exception to this generalization occurred if, when under enemy attack, warriors found themselves compelled to defend their women and children; under those circumstances they were prepared to fight to the death. Otherwise, when out on an all-male war-party, the individual brave rated glory as more important than collective victory. And glory depended on being alive at the end of a fight in order to win the admiration of his fellows. Such prestige was not much good if you were too dead to enjoy it. So, against even a hurriedly prepared defense, there was usually a lack of volunteers to charge into a final and inevitably bloody assault - one could get killed that way. Additionally, their weapons were relatively primitive. The killing range of their small bows, designed for handiness on a horse, was surprisingly short: about 70 yards. Beyond that distance, an arrow might inflict a nasty flesh wound but it seldom had enough penetration to kill.
In short, the fight at Crazy Woman Creek was a fairly typical encounter: a blunder by some over-confident officers, a quickly mounted ambush by an ad hoc war-party, some ordered panic by the whites, a great deal of shooting and shouting by the warriors, a fair number of wounded (but relatively few fatalities) among the besieged and, finally, as each side eventually withdrew, an outcome which was inconclusive. So, while the Sioux could be lethal when attacking stragglers or small parties of careless travelers, when up against a force of any strength, they seem - like most guerrillas then and since -to have relied on two main tactics: a quick hit-and-run raid or a decoy-and-ambush. But, as often as not, their war-parties were too impetuous for a hidden and patient wait by a trail or a river crossing.
All the same, despite those deficiencies (and who is to say what might have been the outcome if the cavalry had not come riding to the rescue), the fact is that the Sioux had everyone guessing. Their skirmishing accelerated to become a constant, if ragged, war. With the cooler days of September, they really increased the pressure, as the catalog of just one week demonstrates...
At dawn on Monday 10 September, a raiding party drove off 42 mules from an army supply column that had arrived at the fort from Fort Laramie the evening before. That same afternoon, picking on another herd, they made off with more than 100 horses and mules. As usual, a mounted detachment galloped out in pursuit, only to return bad-tempered and empty-handed. On Wednesday, the Sioux attacked again - twice. First, they rode in on a party of hay-cutters; they killed three of them and wrecked one of the mowing machines. The same day they stampeded one of the beef herds, and 200 steers were lost. On Friday, they turned their attention to the horses again and drove off a number of cavalry mounts; two sentries were wounded. Saturday passed quietly. On Sunday, another haying party was ambushed and one man lost. That afternoon, Mr. Glover, the young photographer, wandered off from a wood-cutting crew. His body was found later; he had been scalped and his back split open by a tomahawk.
The next few weeks were not much different, but toward the end of October the tempo of attacks eased off. Maybe the Sioux were away hunting buffalo against the coming winter. Now, inside the fort, there was muttering among some of the officers that their Colonel was wasting his chance for retaliatory action. But his mind was still on other things. He had ordered a wood-cutting detail to find two particularly high pines; lashed end to end, they would make a 120-foot flagpole. At the same time, the band was commanded to practice various patriotic airs. Over in the stores, the quartermaster’s staff were opening bales of new serge jackets. The carpenters were building a platform at one side of the parade ground. The wives were cooking cakes and pies, and shaking out their best dresses and shawls.
Despite all his problems and anxieties, Colonel Carrington was pleased. By any standards, his fort was a remarkable achievement - though whether, in detail or in principle, it was appropriate to the needs of that time and place is surely (even without the benefit of hindsight?) doubtful. Anyway, the Colonel was determined that now, before the first snows, would be the right time for a ceremony.
The afternoon of Wednesday 31 October was cloudless. The garrison wheeled onto the parade ground; the band played; guidons flapped; brasswork flashed in the sun. The Colonel, chaplain and ladies stepped up onto the platform. The proceedings began with the chaplain asking the Lord’s blessing on the work just completed. Next, the Colonel stepped forward and unfolded the speech he had been preparing over the last several days. His wife had helped him - which is how we know what was said. He began by paying tribute to the battalion’s dead: Lieutenant Daniel, Infantrymen Terrel, Livelsberger, Gilchrist, Johnson, Fitzpatrick, Oberly, Wasser.
“They have given their lives to redeem our pledge never to yield one foot of advance, but to guarantee a safe passage to all who seek a home in the lands beyond... The steam whistle and the rattle of the mower have followed your steps in the westwards march of empire...” He talked in similar tones for a further half hour; one can guess that some of the troops fidgeted inside the stiffness of their new jackets. Then, when he had finished, the band played the national anthem, an artillery piece fired a salute, and the flag was slowly raised. It was huge: 20 by 36 feet. Waving gently in the breeze, it was the highest and the biggest flag that anyone had ever seen.
The Sioux saw it too. Attracted by the noise, some of them had ridden in from their camps and now, in clear view
but out of range, they flashed their mirrors at each other and into the fort. The adjutant knew that he would have to order a strengthened guard that night.
That evening, the officers and wives were received by their Colonel and his lady. Amidst the small talk, one can reasonably surmise that some of the officers wandered across the room to ask “what now?” of their commander. Did their questions embarrass him? After all, throughout his army career, he had been a headquarters officer; he had never fired a shot in anger. Perhaps, just within his hearing, some of his subordinates reminisced (a little too loudly?) about their active service at Shiloh, Kennesaw Mountain, Stone’s River, Jonesboro, Gettysburg, the march through Georgia... The not-so-subtle implication would have been that the Colonel should now let them get on with their proper work: taking the fight out to the Sioux.
Lack of confidence was seldom a problem in the frontier army.
No Survivors
Give me eighty men and I will ride through the whole Sioux nation.
A comment allegedly made by Captain Fetterman a few days after he arrived at Fort Kearny
***
Two days after the speeches and the flag raising, reinforcements arrived. Among them was the man appointed as Carrington’s second-in-command: Captain William Fetterman. Here was an officer with an impressive combat record who, during the latter part of the Civil War, had temporarily commanded this very regiment. Indeed, he had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and had frequently been cited for courage and zeal under fire. That first night, in the officers’ quarters, he would have been given a warm welcome.