“Not an Indian has been killed since the Custer disaster, and nearly a fifth of the United States Army has been out here trying to kill some…. It is not our fault that no Indians have been killed. They have the [head] start and keep ahead of us in the race. We are stripped down to less baggage than the enemy carry, but it is hard catching an Indian in his own country when he does not want to be caught.” —Cuthbert Mills, In Camp on Beaver Creek, Montana Territory, August 30, 1876, New York Times, September 14, 1876
“The country is too extensive and valuable to be given over longer to such a worthless set of vagabonds as the Sioux.” —Joe Wasson, Camp on the Little Missouri, Dakota Territory, September 4, 1876, New York Tribune, September 15, 1876
“You cannot make war without hardship; put the command on half rations.” —General Crook (as quoted by Cuthbert Mills), September 5, 1876, New York Times, September 28, 1876
After parting ways with General Terry, Crook made his way east toward the Little Missouri River, reaching that point on September 4, the same day that a “long, dark storm began.”1 It was to last for ten days. Scouting parties had been going out daily, but there was generally nothing to report other than scattered or insignificant trails. Referring to the daily marches, correspondent Cuthbert Mills stated simply, “[W]e are, so to speak, feeling out for the enemy, and looking for a trail.”2 On the morning of August 30, in the vicinity of Beaver Creek, scouts had brought word to Crook of a trail of thirteen lodges about two or three days old. But that was small game. Mills succinctly summed up the disappointment: “Trails of thirteen lodges only we are not looking for.”3
Later that same day, scouts Frank Grouard, “Captain Jack” Crawford, and Louis Richard reported to Crook the result of another reconnaissance. Davenport wrote:
[The three scouts had] proceeded about thirty miles from camp, and reported on their return many scattering trails in the neighborhood of Beaver Creek. The large trail which we had followed from the Rosebud to the Powder River was undoubtedly dissipated.4
Not only had their quarry scattered and all but disappeared, but the scorched-earth policy of the Sioux was making Crook’s pursuit rather difficult. Mills observed:
It is significant that as the command has moved east, it has everywhere found the country burned off. Had not the heavy rains quenched the fires, there would hardly be a blade of grass left…. It is perfectly clear the vast extent of country which we find burned over, has been burned for one of two purposes, or possibly both—first, to drive the buffalo eastward, and next, to prevent us following the trail from want of feed for the horses.5
Wasson added:
The Indians had burned the grass east of Powder River for fifty miles, and as wide as the eye could see. Doubtless they thought no troops would follow them.6
But Crook clung tenaciously to whatever hopes remained of finding the Sioux and stayed the course. This was in accord with what Captain Burt had stated back on August 23:
There is one man in the command who still has hope, who still thinks there is a chance to catch some, if not all, [of] the hostile Sioux. General Crook still believes we may have work to do before going into winter quarters, before we reach any agency; before, in fact, this campaign is over for us.7
With Grouard’s discovery of a “principal” trail on Beaver Creek on September 2, it appeared that Crook’s doggedness may well be paying off. Davenport noted, “General Crook determined to follow it as far as practicable, although then satisfied that the Sioux were no longer united to offer him battle.”8 But as they continued their march north along Beaver Creek, Davenport declared that even this trail had dispersed:
The trail was found to dwindle as we advanced, until it appeared that we were on the heels of but twelve lodges. We therefore abandoned it, and on September 3 moved about twenty miles eastward toward the Little Missouri River.9 It was supposed, from the opinions given by the scouts, that the scattered bands might reunite there and fight.10
That same day, Crook sent two Arikara (Ree) couriers to Terry on Glendive Creek, informing him of the Wyoming Column’s whereabouts and the scattered trails south of the Yellowstone. O’Kelly, with Terry’s column, reported:
General Crook is following up a fresh trail, which shows some 150 lodge poles. This trail is thought to be no more than two days old. General Crook will continue the pursuit along this trail, and hopes to be able to overtake the Indians. His rations are nearly exhausted.11
On the night of September 3, some of Crook’s scouts were involved in a minor scuffle with a small party of Sioux. Davenport supplied the most graphic of the accounts:
Eleven of the scouts, who had gone about nine miles ahead of the troops and halted to cook their supper, were surprised by eight Indians appearing on a hill and shouting to them in Dakota, “Are you Sioux?” Louis Richards was about to answer “Yes,” when they said, “Speak or we will shoot!” Thereupon the other scouts discharged their rifles and were answered by the Indians. They fired again and the latter fled. In the morning when the column approached the spot the scouts discovered a wounded pony, which had been shot in the evening.12
The following day, September 4, the command marched about eighteen miles, trekking from a point along Andrews Creek to the east side of the Little Missouri, “over a very rough divide” and “through a deep and picturesque canyon walled with slate, clay, lignite and sandstone.” Davenport wrote that the path was “covered with fresh trails of Indian ponies, and in the mud were the tiny prints of the feet of papooses.”13
But the day’s true significance centered on George Crook. The general was at a crossroads, having to face a situation that had been in the making ever since he left Terry at the Powder River Depot on August 24. The problem? He didn’t have sufficient provisions for an extended march, exactly the type of peregrination he was then engaged in. With sunrise, the command would be down to three days’ rations.14 On top of that, the troops lacked proper clothing and bedding. “Not a man of the command is prepared for bad weather, so that should cold overtake us the suffering will be intense,” wrote one correspondent.15 Crook had three options. He could: (1) continue south to the Black Hills settlements (which meant entering the Great Sioux Reservation), a trip estimated at seven days and 180 miles “according to the best authenticated map of the country,”16 where he could purchase supplies and hope to close in on the Indians; (2) retire with his command to Fort Lincoln, perhaps a four-day/one-hundred-mile trip to the east,17 for some much-needed R&R (rest and rations); or (3) send only his pack train to Fort Lincoln for supplies and wait for its return, at which time he could consider his next move. But the decision had to be made now.
Rabbit Hunting with Crook’s Command
New York Times, September 14, 1876
In Camp at Beaver Creek, August 30, 1876.
Game of all kinds seems to be scarce, as if it had been driven away, for this is in other years a splendid game country. The enemy has, however, left us some, to wit, jack rabbits. An officer, speaking of what men will do, said that, after the longest kind of a march, if a rabbit starts up in camp the whole outfit will jump up and give chase in a moment. It happened this way in our last camp. A stretch of bottomland was found to be swarming with jack rabbits. When the men began to move about in the sage brush they started them out in all directions. A rabbit meant a full dinner of fresh meat—no light thing to men living as we do—and earnest indeed was the chase that followed a find. Shooting is strictly forbidden, but with anything that a blow could be given with the men rushed around, tumbling over each other and over the brush, wildly screaming and yelling at each frantic rabbit, who was the centre of a hurricane of stones, clubs, bridles, picket pins, lariats, canteens, hats, and miscellaneous articles generally. More rabbits got away than were caught, but of those that were [caught] there was nothing but their skins left when dinner was over. Sage hens are not scarce, but they can only be had by shooting, and they aggravatingly fly about our camps as if they knew all about the orders [not to shoot] which makes the place safe.
— Cuthbert Mills
Wasson, who described the general at this time as being “at sea in an open boat,” “silent and determined,” and “desperately resolved on ‘doing something’ with the means at hand,”18 explained Crook’s choice over the course of several dispatches (all written on September 5!):
New York Tribune, September 9, 1876: Including today there are only three days’ rations for the command, and the General decided to make them reach six and take the chances, with what game could be killed, of reaching the Black Hills settlement[s]—certainly a distance of 150 miles. A courier goes to [Fort] Lincoln tonight19 with an order via [Fort] Fetterman for the wagon train at old Fort Reno to move down toward Custer City to meet this column.20 It is hoped that on the march from here some of the hostiles will be overtaken.
New York Tribune, September 15, 1876: All the Indian signs lead to the conclusion that they have scattered in the direction of the Hills, and may be hovering about and harassing the people there, so that the situation justifies Gen. Crook in taking this step. To go to Lincoln and march back again, either taking the pack train or sending it thither and awaiting its return, will involve more hardships than will be encountered in marching to the Hills. Meantime word will be sent to Fetterman for the wagon train to move as rapidly as possible from old Reno by the nearest route toward Custer City.
Daily Alta California, September 17, 1876: The three days’ full rations were to be stretched to six, and the Black Hills settlements our first resort for more. Everyone realizes that this is better than waiting and starving while the pack train goes to Fort Lincoln, on the Missouri River…. The bulk of the [Indian] sign goes toward the Hills, and it is not unlikely they will need looking after there-aways.
Davenport, writing from Deadwood on September 16, offered another view of Crook’s verdict:
According to the best authenticated map of the country the distance from the camp on the Little Missouri to the Black Hills was 180 miles, to traverse which would consume at least seven days…. Nothing was apparently to be gained by moving on the Black Hills, except to the pride of the commander of the Department of the Platte, who would thus avoid being again under the tutelage of his senior brigadier [Terry] and would be nearer his own posts.21
When Finerty broached the subject with Crook at the end of the campaign, the general defended his decision:
To have taken the troops to Fort Lincoln to rest and recuperate would have been a very unfortunate move, in my judgment. The trail of a large body of Indians led toward the Black Hills, and there was none leading toward Fort Lincoln. It was impossible to tell what depredations these Indians might be committing on the miners and settlers, and I considered it my duty to march in that direction, notwithstanding the shortness of supplies…. Fort Lincoln is out of my own department and hundreds of miles from the points threatened by Indians. To have gone there would have been to abandon to the Indians the Black Hills settlements, the roads leading to them, and the frontier farther south.22
Closing out his September 4 dispatch to the Daily Alta California, Wasson voiced his displeasure with Terry’s unhurried method of campaigning and declared that the burden of the campaign had fallen on Crook’s Wyoming Column:
Crook is doing now what he would have done two weeks ago but for the junction with Terry and the delays. He would have followed up, rations or no rations, until the Indian “sign” determined a new plan of operations…. At all events, the Department of the Platte seems destined to do all the hard work for that of Dakota.23
For better or worse, on the morning of September 5, the command began its march toward the Black Hills on half-rations. Not exactly brimming with confidence, Davenport wrote, “We are marching on Deadwood City…and shall barely escape starvation before reaching there.”24 To be fair, Davenport was not the only one having doubts.
On the same day, scout Jack Crawford had written, “Starvation stares us in the face.”25 While hunger was a very serious issue, correspondent Mills pointed out another calamity for the troops:
To make the matter worse, the men had been unable to obtain any supplies of tobacco at the Yellowstone, and had now completely exhausted all the little stores they had husbanded. No one who knows what a life in the field is, and what a soldier’s duties are there, but will understand how severe was this deprivation. It caused more actual suffering for the time being than even the shortness of food.26
The trail that day was “long and muddy,”27 between twenty-six to thirty miles, to the headwaters of Heart River. According to Mills and Wasson, the command had now marched some four hundred miles since leaving Goose Creek on August 5.28 But the big news was that for the second time in three days, the scouts encountered the Sioux. Wasson reported:
About 11 o’clock a party of twenty or thirty Sioux were discovered to the right by some of the scouts. There were about ten warriors; the rest were women and children. They had better ponies than the scouts, and were soon out of range, although it is reported that “Little Bat,” one of the scouts, shot one of the warriors. The direction of the savages goes to confirm the general impression of their scattering toward the Black Hills.29
In another dispatch, Wasson added, “The campaign is again getting more interesting [in] every way, and I hope it will prove more decisive.”30 Mills added that the incident was “at least a small grain of consolation to see at last something of the enemy we had been so long in vain chase of.”31
That night in camp, Davenport composed a letter to the New York Herald that made it into print just five days later. Readers back east could not have been too enthusiastic about a positive outcome after reading his report:
It is impracticable to further hunt the enemy with the troops now in the field, who are worn and weakened by exposure, starvation and hardship. They have been thirty-two days with no other shelter than one blanket for each man, in repeated cold storms of wind, rain and hail. Scurvy, fever and dysentery have prostrated about 300 soldiers, who have from time to time been carried on litters. Insufficiency of medical supplies is a still more alarming fact. Milder weather has been the Godsend which has prevented terrible mortality. In ten days later the average temperature of this climate will have become low, and the troops have yet to make a march of 300 miles southward, in summer clothing, with no tents. They have now only food for two [more] days.32
But Davenport also pointed out that the Indians were, in all likelihood, not faring any better than the troops:
Many fresh traces of hunting parties of the Sioux are found each day. Their condition is probably more destitute than that of the troops. Were General Crook now equipped to pursue them rapidly they must be forced to surrender. They must hunt or they starve, and hunting implies slow flight.33
Davenport was correct. Crook’s only hope of contact lay in the “slow flight” of the Sioux.