CHAPTER TEN

1. Regarding military jurisdictions, by the beginning of September, Wasson was to complain that the “Platte Department ought to have extended at least to the Yellowstone River, which is the natural base of supplies of a campaign against the hostile Sioux. General Crook's operations have all been outside of his own department so far.” Joe Wasson, “The Sioux War—General Crook's March,” New York Tribune, September 15, 1876.

2. O'Kelly, “The Sioux War—Sketch of Army Movements on the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers.”

3. If Crook had sent a courier, it probably would not have changed a thing. The Indians were already more than a few steps ahead of the pursuing troops.

4. O'Kelly, “The Sioux War—Sketch of Army Movements on the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers.”

5. Regarding Crook's manner of dress, an article printed shortly after his death in March 1890 said: “When Gen. Crook is around his headquarters he rarely wears enough uniform to designate his high rank, and when in the field he dresses more like a rough cowboy than a general officer, but when he starts east, or comes to Washington on business, Mrs. Crook takes him in hand and makes him wear good clothes—well fitting and becoming ones, too—and a high silk hat replaces the broad brimmed slouch he loves so well.” “A Lewis County Boy,” Journal & Republican (Lowville, New York), April 24, 1890, repr. from the National Tribune, Washington, D.C.

6. Cuthbert Mills, “The Indian Campaign—he Part Taken by General Crook's Command,” New York Times, October 11, 1876.

7. Hedren, Great Sioux War Orders of Battle, 118.

8. O'Kelly, “The Sioux War—Sketch of Army Movements on the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers.”

9. Ibid.

10. Under date of August 14, 1876, Lieutenant Godfrey included the following update in his diary regarding the goings-on with Colonel Miles: “A courier came from Genl Miles saying Indians had not crossed Yellowstone—one company at Tongue, two at Powder River and one on St. boat [steamboat] patrolling river.” Stewart and Stewart, eds., Field Diary of Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey, 36.

11. Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 1876 (dispatch dated August 14), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 371.

12. Ibid.

13. James J. O'Kelly, “Operations of the Combined Columns under Terry and Crook,” New York Herald, September 12, 1876.

14. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” On the other hand, near the close of the campaign, Cuthbert Mills remarked, “Officers and men have been all on equal footing. Few in this command had any advantage in living over the mass, and, be it said, that the commander of this little army has lived exactly as the poorest soldier in it.” Cuthbert Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux,” New York Times, September 28, 1876. Additionally, an anonymous trooper with the Fourteenth Infantry was to reminisce twenty-five years later: “[General Crook] was an unassuming man, nothing vain or haughty in his makeup; in fact in those days we did not have that kind of men in the West. His dress was more like that of a packer instead of a general in the army. When on the march he wore a canvas suit, with a cartridge belt containing 100 rounds of ammunition, a plain sombrero—we had no regular field hat—his face covered with a thick beard, and a fine Springfield rifle swung across the pommel of his saddle. You could always see him riding at the head of the column accompanied by his adjutant, Capt. J. G. Bourke and Frank Gourard [Grouard], his chief of scouts. No matter how fiercely the bullets rained about him he would never lose his head, and more than that, he never asked a man, be he private or officer, to do something which he, Crook, wouldn't do himself. Many a night, upon this very expedition…I saw him with a blanket thrown over his shoulder sitting by the blazing camp fire, his frame outlined against the dark night, with a piece of bacon on a spit, cooking it over the fire for his supper.” “A Campaign with Crook—Fighting Indians in the Seventies Under ‘Old Grey Fox,’” (Washington) Times, February 17, 1901.

15. John Finerty, “The Fellows in Feathers: An Interview with General Crook,” Chicago Times, November 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 389.

16. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

17. Reuben Davenport, “General Terry's March to the Yellowstone,” New York Herald, August 24, 1876.

18. Ibid.

19. Regarding the Indian trail at this time, Gibbon wrote, “There were no indications leading to the belief that we were anywhere close to them.” Gibbon, “Hunting Sitting Bull,” in Gaff and Gaff, Adventures on the Western Frontier, 163–164.

20. Wasson, “Hunting the Sioux.” If Crook's meeting up with Terry was accidental, it appears to have been the reverse for Terry. Under date of August 5, while still on his journey to Terry's Rosebud camp, correspondent Charles S. Diehl had written, “But little is definitely known concerning the proposed movement of the command, beyond the fact that General Terry will follow the course of the Rosebud south until a junction is formed with Crook.” Charles S. Diehl, Chicago Times, August 16, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 394.

21. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” The correspondents lacked agreement on precisely when the Indian scouts left Crook and Terry; the dates range from August 20 to 22.

22. James Joseph Talbot, “Camping with Crook—The Fruitless Marches and Countermarches,” New York World, September 17, 1876.

23. Cuthbert Mills, “Wearying Drag of the Pursuit,” New York Times, September 14, 1876, dispatch dated “In Camp, Beaver Creek, August 30, 1876.”

24. Talbot, “Camping with Crook—The Fruitless Marches and Countermarches.”

25. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

26. Ibid.

27. Wasson, “Hunting the Sioux.” This dispatch was written prior to the departure of the Indian scouts; it was dated “Camp at Junction of Yellowstone and Powder Rivers, Montana, August 18, 1876.”

28. O'Kelly, “Operations of the Combined Columns under Terry and Crook.”

29. Davenport, “General Terry's March to the Yellowstone.”

30. Quote from Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

31. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

32. Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 11, 1876 (dispatch dated August 23), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 372.

33. Cuthbert Mills, “Steaming up the Yellowstone,” New York Times, September 12, 1876. On August 19, Mills had accompanied Captain Burt of the Ninth Infantry on his mission to secure about 250 Crow Indians to serve as scouts. About the venture, Mills recorded: “At the last accounts received of them the Crows were pow-wowing after their usual manner on the question of whether they should or should not go into the campaign against the Sioux; and from his long acquaintance with this tribe, Captain Burt was selected as the proper man to convince them that it would be to their profit in ponies and scalps to come in and join their brother Indians already with the ‘Gray Fox’ [Crook].” From his closing statement, it is clear that Burt was then unaware that the other Indian scouts had just abandoned the expedition. As for the outcome of Burt's undertaking, Mills bluntly stated, “Our Crow expedition was a failure.” Ibid.

34. Wasson, “Hunting the Sioux.”

35. Ibid. James Gordon Bennett was the publisher of the New York Herald.

36. O'Kelly, “Operations of the Combined Columns under Terry and Crook.” It was O'Kelly's opinion that “Terry can be trusted to carry out the disarmament without undue severity, and yet with firmness. All his instincts are on the side of humanity, and if it is possible to accomplish this necessary work without bloodshed he may be relied upon to do it.”

37. Edward M. Hayes, Fifth Cavalry.

38. Mills, “Wearying Drag of the Pursuit.” At the end of the campaign, Mills noted that it had been an “unprecedented rainy season.” Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

39. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 230. About the Wyoming Column's departure, Talbot wrote, “They had one week's rest (for three days of which they had a limited supply of forage), but they were so utterly worn out by the hard, continuous marching of the previous month, and many of them much longer, that even one week's rest could not wholly recuperate them.” Talbot, “Camping with Crook—The Fruitless Marches and Countermarches.” Crook afterward told a reporter, “I was perfectly satisfied to serve under General Terry as long as the public interests could be benefited thereby. When it was considered expedient to divide the commands, they were divided.” Finerty, “The Fellows in Feathers: An Interview with General Crook,” Chicago Times, November 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 388. Regarding their time in camp on the Yellowstone, Lieutenant Bourke confided in his journal that a description of one day would just as well answer for the others. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 67. About the delivery of supplies via steamer, Bourke wrote: “[W]e had been grievously disappointed in not finding on the Yellowstone the amount of supplies expected and in having to fritter away a whole week's time until this steamer brought up forage and that steamer brought down shoes. The administration of the supply corps on the Yellowstone was unsatisfactory.” Ibid., 96.

40. This cantonment, temporarily designated Post No. 1, was renamed Fort Keogh in November 1877. It was one of two military posts for which Sheridan received $200,000 from Congress to build in the Yellowstone country in the wake of the battle of the Little Big Horn. As one correspondent pointed out in early July, “Summer campaigns against Indians in this country, until permanent supply posts are established, will amount to nothing.” “The Indian War—Crook's First Fight.” This quote may be from an unnamed correspondent of the Helena (Montana) Herald. The second fortification, Post No. 2, was established in July 1877, at the mouth of the Little Big Horn. It was officially designated Fort Custer four months later. The Tongue River Cantonment was high priority for Sheridan, who had declared that “the Yellowstone country must be occupied at all hazards.” “Latest from Terry and Crook,” New York Times, September 5, 1876.

41. Lieutenant Edmund Rice, Fifth Infantry.

42. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

43. James J. O'Kelly, “The Sioux War—General Terry and Crook in Hot Pursuit of the Indians,” New York Herald, September 5, 1876.

44. Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 14, 1876 (dispatch dated September 5), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 375.

45. James J. O'Kelly, “The Sioux Campaign—The Expedition to the North Bank of the Yellowstone,” New York Herald, September 8, 1876.

46. Dispatch from General Terry's camp near the Yellowstone, August 30, Deseret News, September 27, 1876.

47. O'Kelly, “The Sioux Campaign-The Expedition to the North Bank of the Yellowstone.”

48. James J. O'Kelly, “The Sioux War-Terry's Movement along the Yellowstone,” New York Herald, September 12, 1876. Around this time, Benteen left the expedition, being assigned to recruiting duty in the East. James J. O'Kelly, “General Terry after the Indians,” New York Herald, September 5, 1876. However, shortly after, he asked to be relieved of that duty, which was granted. He was replaced by Captain Weir. Charles K. Mills, Harvest of Barren Regrets (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1985), 285–286. It was to be Weir's last assignment. He died in December 1876, and was buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. There is little doubt that Weir took a lot of valuable information about the battle of the Little Big Horn to the grave.

49. Charles S. Diehl, Chicago Times, September 12, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 406.

50. James J. O'Kelly, “Crook Following Up an Indian Trail,” New York Herald, September 12, 1876.

51. James J. O'Kelly, “Terry's Operating Column Dissolved,” New York Herald, September 12, 1876. Another correspondent noted, “Now that all active operations have been abandoned for the year, the utter failure of the campaign is felt by everyone. The humiliation of defeat is shared by the soldiers and officers alike.” Charles S. Diehl, Chicago Times, September 16, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 409.

52. On September 11, two of these companies left the Glendive Depot to join Miles at Tongue River. Jerome A. Greene, Yellowstone Command: Colonel Nelson A. Miles and the Great Sioux War, 1876–1877 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 61.

53. “The Sioux Campaign-Virtual Suspension of Offensive Operations.” The number of miles between Glendive and the cantonment was estimated using Google Earth. The land route with wagons would have been slightly longer.

54. “Terry's Command Divided Up and Returning Except Two Regiments,” New York Times, September 16, 1876, repr. from the Chicago Times, original dispatch dated September 8, at Fort Buford. Originally, Sheridan had intended for some part of the Fifth Cavalry to spend the winter on the Yellowstone, too, but by mid-September, acknowledging the difficulty in keeping them properly supplied, he countermanded the order.

55. Ibid.

56. “The Uncapapas Sioux Moving Toward Canada-Troops in Pursuit,” New York Herald, September 19, 1876. Another source stated that Moore's battalion consisted of three companies. Ronald H. Nichols, In Custer's Shadow: Major Marcus Reno (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 233.

57. “Major” Thomas J. Mitchell was the agent at Fort Peck, at the confluence of the Milk and Missouri rivers in Montana.

58. James J. O'Kelly, “The Campaign Officially Announced at an End-A Futile Pursuit of Indians Closes It,” New York Herald, September 21, 1876. The author reversed the first two sentences of this dispatch from their original sequence. As for the troops not being able to cross the Missouri at Wolf Point, it did not seem to stop the Indians.

59. Ibid.

60. For more on the Sioux in Canada in the wake of the Great Sioux War, see David Grant McCrady, Living with Strangers: The Nineteenth Century Sioux and the Canadian-American Borderlands (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). Useful here was page 66.

61. “The Sentiments and Opinions of Sitting Bull,” New York Herald, August 19, 1876.

62. “What Returned Officers Say,” Deseret News, September 27, 1876.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

1. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

2. Mills, “Wearying Drag of the Pursuit.”

3. Ibid.

4. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

5. Mills. “Wearying Drag of the Pursuit.”

6. Wasson, “The Sioux War-General Crook's March.” In another dispatch, Wasson added, “When the Indians saw the pursuit extended east of their burned belt of grass, this side of Powder River, they seem to have become stampeded-fleeing in every direction.” Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

7. Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 11, 1876 (dispatch dated August 23), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 372.

8. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” Beaver Creek runs south to north until it joins with the Little Missouri. Crook was then camped along the southern reaches while the scouts were advancing to the north searching for trails.

9. Lieutenant Bourke was more precise. Under date of September 3 he wrote, “Marched twenty miles to Andrews Creek, near Sentinel Buttes.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 94. This was about where the Dakota Column had camped on June 1, 1876, on its outward march from Fort Abraham Lincoln.

10. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

11. O'Kelly, “Crook Following Up an Indian Trail.”

12. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

13. Ibid.

14. About the diminishing rations, Wasson declared: “The diet of bacon and hard tack and sugar and coffee is monotonous, and most every one says his hunger is not appeased thereby, however much he may eat. The soldiers say there is a disproportionate amount of hard bread-not enough for the bacon-and that the army board should remedy the matter.” The good news was that they were finding large quantities of “ripe choke cherries and buffalo berries,” which will “serve to fend off scurvy, which occasionally crops out.” Wasson, “The Sioux War-General Crook's March.”

15. “Crook's Command in a Bad Way,” Deseret News, September 27, 1876. Sounding a bit like Davenport, Wasson wrote: “The troops of this command and all connected with it have already suffered considerably on account of limited bedding, clothing, &c. Cool nights have prevailed, interspersed with a good many wet ones.…Today [September 4]…a cold rain storm set in, and it promises to hold out. Many of the men left their overcoats in the wagon train, and nearly every man of the command brought no change of underclothing, and no soap to wash what they had.” Wasson, “The Sioux War-General Crook's March.”

16. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” Regarding the uncertainties of the march, Cuthbert Mills declared, “None of our scouts had ever been over the country, and our maps were not encouraging or trustworthy.” Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

17. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

18. Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

19. Rather than a lone courier, Crook had sent two Arikara Indians with dispatches. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

20. The wagon train, under command of Captain Furey, had since been moved from Goose Creek to old Fort Reno, about 250 miles southwest of Crook's current position north of the Black Hills. For mention of the wagon train having been moved, see Cuthbert Mills, “The Hostile Savages-The Campaign against the Sioux,” New York Times, September 9, 1876.

21. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

22. Finerty, “The Fellows in Feathers: An Interview with General Crook,” Chicago Times, November 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 388–389.

23. Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

24. Reuben Davenport, “The Hostile Sioux-Crook's March,” New York Herald, September 10, 1876.

25. Reuben Davenport, “The Indian Campaign Virtually Over,” Deseret News, September 20, 1876, repr. from the Omaha Daily Bee.

26. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

27. Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

28. Mills, “The Hostile Savages-The Campaign against the Sioux,” and Wasson, “The Sioux War-General Crook's March.”

29. Wasson, “The Sioux War-General Crook's March.” Concerning the statement that the Sioux had better ponies than the scouts (who were therefore unable to give pursuit), an unknown correspondent wrote, “This column is in an unserviceable condition, utterly unfit to do more than act as infantry. The horses are too poor and broken down for active pursuit of the enemy.” “Crook's Command in a Bad Way.”

30. Wasson, “Crook's Command.”

31. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

32. Davenport, “The Hostile Sioux-Crook's March.”

33. Ibid.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

2. Describing a previous night's dinner of antelope that he was lucky to partake in, Davenport wrote, “No banquet spread on silver and illumined with diamonds had the relish of this savage repast, for such it was, and its recurrence was imbued with greater zest by the long intervals during which ill luck restricted us to the bacon and ‘hard tack’ of the soldier.” Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Reuben Davenport, “Crook's Victory,” New York Herald, September 17, 1876.

6. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

7. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

8. Ibid.

9. “north fork of the Grand River” is from Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 361; “to send back relief” is from Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

10. These numbers come from Captain Mills' official report of the Slim Buttes affair, printed in Greene, Slim Buttes, 132. For the record, Wasson said there were forty mules, and Davenport said fifty-one.

11. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

12. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

13. Ibid.

14. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.” According to Mills, it was later learned that these Indians were returning to the Standing Rock Agency. Cuthbert Mills, “The Indian Campaign-Attack upon a Camp of Sioux,” New York Times, September 17, 1876.

15. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

16. Joe Wasson, “Capture of the Village.” New York Tribune, September 18, 1876.

17. In his official report, Captain Mills said twenty-five men were left behind to guard the horses.

18. According to Davenport, Crook “was supposed to be on the march about twenty miles in our rear.” Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

19. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

20. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.” Regarding the name of the stream: In his official report, Captain Mills called it Rabbit Creek (a tributary of the Moreau River). However, as afterward discovered by Walter M. Camp, an Indian Wars historian who searched the area for the battle site, the fight took place on Gap Creek, which is a tributary of Rabbit Creek. Jerome A. Greene, Slim Buttes, 1876: An Episode of the Great Sioux War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), 143. For a map of the battlefield, see Greene, Slim Buttes, 62.

21. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

22. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

23. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

24. Ibid. Schwatka wrote, “The dismounted men followed up the mounted charge rapidly with a deadly fusillade into the village.” Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 363.

25. Regarding the Indians having to cut their way out of the lodges, Schwatka explained, “The night having been very rainy, the Indians had securely fastened the openings in their lodges, and it was with evident impediment that they made their exits.” Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 363.

26. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

27. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 363.

28. Wasson, “Capture of the Village.” Lieutenant Schwatka stated that the ravine was located at the “head of the village.” The statement is vague but implies a very short distance. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 364. Describing the ravine, Captain Burt wrote, “[It] is only about thirty feet long and a few feet down at its deepest; so narrow and insignificant one could cross it without thinking it was the grave of eight beings in the end.” Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 17, 1876 (dispatch dated September 9), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 376. Lieutenant Bourke stated the ravine was about ten feet wide and fifteen to twenty feet deep. John G. Bourke, “The Battle of Slim Buttes,” printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 381.

29. “pell mell” is from “Another Account of the Encounter,” New York Herald, September 17, 1876 (the author believes this dispatch was written by Robert Strahorn); “secreted themselves” is from Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

30. Greene, Slim Buttes, 60–61. Kirkwood received the Medal of Honor in October 1877 for bravery in action this day, but it was not for helping to save Von Luettwitz. Instead it was for valor in trying to dislodge a party of Sioux Indians from a ravine.

31. Wasson stated that they captured 140 ponies. Davenport put the number at 200.

32. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

33. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

34. Ibid. As Davenport had not yet arrived on the battlefield with Lieutenant Bubb, this incident was related to him by Frank Grouard. The story was published in the New York Herald on October 2, 1876, and was soon after found out by Mills and his subordinates. Schwatka, Crawford, and Bubb all declared the story false and sent out counterstatements. In June 1878, Davenport rebutted his own story in a letter to Mills, apologizing for too easily believing Grouard (whom he did not mention by name). These details are from John D. McDermott's introduction to Anson Mills, My Story (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole, 2003), xvi-xvii. Grouard mentioned this incident with Mills in his biography (dictated to Joseph DeBarthe in 1891) but used language far less inflammatory. The story may well have been based on some scrap of truth but exaggerated in Grouard's telling to Davenport, or by Davenport himself. In any event, Anson Mills's solid reputation survives intact.

35. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

36. Ibid. Cuthbert Mills, who arrived on the scene later that day, said that the initial fighting lasted about thirty minutes. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

37. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

38. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

39. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

40. Ibid.

41. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 364.

42. Mills's official report.

43. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

44. Ibid. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, the correspondents lacked unanimity on the number of lodges. Davenport said thirty-five, Strahorn forty-one, Cuthbert Mills thirty-three, and Wasson forty. Based on these numbers, the number of warriors could have been anywhere from fifty to one hundred.

45. On September 8, Lieutenant Bourke pensively noted in his journal: “General Crook celebrated his [forty-eighth] birthday this evening. He drew out from the breast-pocket of his coat, a pint flask of whiskey which he had concealed there the day before we left the Yellowstone, and passing it around to the members of his mess and the other officers present-Colonel Evans and Colonel Chambers, called upon them to drink [to] his health. There were (13) or fourteen in the group and the flask held a little short of sixteen ounces, making just a taste for each one. Then those of us who had a piece of cracker in their pockets ate them; those who had none, went without. Take it for all and all, it was decidedly the ‘thinnest’ birthday celebration I have ever attended.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 102.

46. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” At the time, Davenport was under the impression that the ravine at the head of the village contained only one man.

47. “sections from the cavalry” is from “Another Account of the Encounter”; the number of men that advanced with Crook is from Lieutenant Colonel Carr's official report of the fight, dated September 15, printed in Greene, Slim Buttes, 136. Also see Greene, Slim Buttes, 68.

48. “Another Account of the Encounter.”

49. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.”

50. It should be noted that the sequence of events at Slim Buttes is somewhat vague, as no two accounts match up precisely. In the end, it comes down to interpretation.

51. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

52. Wasson, “Capture of the Village.”

53. Ibid.

54. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

55. Ibid. The “mortally wounded” soldier may have been Private Edward Kennedy, Fifth Cavalry. His leg had to be amputated, and he was dead before morning. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.” Another soldier, Private J. W. Stephenson/Stevenson, Second Cavalry, was shot in the ankle; despite being seriously wounded, he survived the battle.

56. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid. This man's real name was Jonathan White. In August, Cuthbert Mills had written about him: “A great feature of the expedition is the corps of scouts. There are some eleven or twelve of them and their chief is Cody, better known as ‘Buffalo Bill.’ Like all great men, he has his imitators. One of the fellows in the corps has obtained the sobriquet of ‘Buffalo Chips,’ because he acts as ‘striker’ to Bill, and wears his hair long, after the fashion of that famous individual. ‘Chips’ is not a bad scout, and probably dreams of the time when he, too, shall go East, and as the great scout of the Big Horn pocket his thousands from nightly crowded houses. He killed the first buffalo seen on the march, but it was an awfully tough old bull.” Mills, “The Indian Campaign—From Fetterman to Goose Creek.”

59. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

60. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

61. Ibid. About this incident, Lieutenant Bourke recorded: “I don't know how it happened but Captain Munson and myself found ourselves in the ravine on one side, while similarly, Big Bat and another guide, Cary, occupied the other. Alongside was a pile…of squaws and little papooses, covered with dirt and blood and screaming in a perfect agony of terror. The oaths and yells of the singing soldiers, pressing in behind us made the scene truly infernal. Just in front, three or four dead bodies lay stretched, weltering in their own gore.…[I]n response to Bat's encouraging call of Washte-helo (‘All right’ or ‘Very good’), the women and children came up to us, [and] it did not take much time to get them out, following down the bends of the ravine.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 109–110.

62. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

63. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

64. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.”

65. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

66. Regarding this man's identity, Davenport, in three dispatches, stated he was known by two different names: American Horse and Iron Shield. Lieutenant Schwatka noted, “The tribe was that of Roman Nose, Brule Sioux, with American Horse in direct command.” Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 364. According to a Hunkpapa Sioux named Has Horns, the fatally wounded man was a Sans Arc Sioux named Iron Shield. Richard G. Hardorff, Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark, 1991), 162n9. Also, see the sidebar titled “Black Bear Speaks.”

67. Wasson, “Capture of the Village.”

68. The scout was a Ute Indian called “Ute John.” Regarding this incident, Finerty wrote: “Ute John, the solitary friendly Indian who did not desert the column, scalped all the dead, unknown to the General or any of the officers, and I regret to be compelled to state a few—a very few—brutalized soldiers followed his savage example. Each took only a portion of the scalp, but the exhibition of human depravity was nauseating.” Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 289.

69. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

70. Valentine T. McGillycuddy (1849–1939) held various jobs in the West, including topographer, doctor, and Indian agent. He was the attending physician at Camp Robinson when Crazy Horse was killed in September 1877.

71. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” Wasson wrote that the Indian prisoners told Crook that Sitting Bull had gone “down east and north to Antelope Buttes to trade with peaceable Indians.” Joe Wasson, “Sent ahead for Supplies,” New York Tribune, September 18, 1876.

72. Both quotes are from Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.” For more on Von Luettwitz, see the interlude, “The Brothers Von Luettwitz.”

73. “Another Account of the Encounter.”

74. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

75. Ibid.

76. Ibid.

77. Wasson, “Capture of the Village.”

78. Ibid.

79. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

80. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” Cuthbert Mills wrote that the scout's body was “lying muffled up in a buffalo robe,” and that one of his fellow scouts had been digging his grave. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

81. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.” About this incident, Captain Burt stated: “They think probably to find only Mills' command of one hundred and fifty men. Mistake, for doughboys are up, and lots of critterback. The matter is soon settled, and the Indians are driven off, wiser men.” Burt, Cincinnati Commercial, September 17, 1876 (dispatch dated September 9), printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 377.

82. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.”

83. This appears to be the same Black Bear who described his pictographic representation of the battle of the Little Big Horn at the end of chapter 6.

84. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

85. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

86. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

87. Ibid.

88. Eugene A. Carr (1830–1910).

89. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

90. Wasson, “Capture of the Village.”

91. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

92. Davenport listed the names of the wounded in his September 16 dispatch: Lieutenant Von Luettwitz, Third Cavalry; William B. Dubois, Third Cavalry; Sergeant Edward Glass, Third Cavalry; Charles Foster, Third Cavalry; Edward McKiernan, Third Cavalry; Sergeant John A. Kirkwood, Third Cavalry; August Dorn, Third Cavalry; J. M. Stevenson, Second Cavalry; Sergeant Edmund Schreiber, Fifth Cavalry; Daniel Ford, Fifth Cavalry; Michael H. Donnelly, Fifth Cavalry; William Madden, Fifth Cavalry; George Cloutier, Fifth Cavalry; Robert Fitz Henry, Ninth Infantry. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.” This list includes the names of two or three men who were wounded in a skirmish on September 10. Heitman's Historical Register shows that Von Luettwitz retired May 5, 1879, and died on March 29, 1887 (see page 989).

93. Cuthbert Mills, “Among the Black Hills.” New York Times, October 12, 1876.

94. “Another Account of the Encounter.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

2. Greene, Slim Buttes, 93.

3. Davenport, “Crook's Victory.”

4. Joe Wasson, “Off for the Black Hills,” New York Tribune, September 18, 1876.

5. These distances were determined using Google Earth.

6. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

7. Ibid.

8. Wasson, “Off for the Black Hills.”

9. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

10. Wasson, “Off for the Black Hills.” Davenport stated that seven of the Indians were killed. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

11. “General Carr's Strategy,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, October 1, 1876. Although this dispatch was unsigned, Crawford, by his own admission, rode a mule, at least for part of the campaign (he mentions this in “The Story of a Scout Bearing the Herald Despatches,” New York Herald, September 18, 1876). This detail and the fact that he served as a correspondent for the Omaha Bee make it fairly certain that this description came from his pen.

12. Davenport, “The Indian Campaign—Attack upon a Camp of Sioux.” To add to the confusion, Lieutenant Bourke's journal entry for the day states, “We made some eighteen or twenty miles across a rough trail, bivouacking on a branch of what I should call the north fork of Owl Creek.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 114.

13. Wasson, “Off for the Black Hills.”

14. Reuben Davenport, “A Forlorn Hope,” New York Herald, September 17, 1876.

15. Greene, Slim Buttes, 98, and Joe Wasson, “Sent Ahead for Supplies,” New York Tribune, September 18, 1876.

16. Wasson, “Sent Ahead for Supplies.”

17. Davenport, “A Forlorn Hope.”

18. Wasson, “Sent Ahead for Supplies.”

19. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 364.

20. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

21. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 365. Also see “Movements of Crook's Command,” New York Herald, September 19, 1876. The dead man's name was Miller or Milner.

22. Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 304.

23. “Movements of Crook's Command.”

24. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 364–365.

25. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

26. Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 307.

27. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 120.

28. Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 307. About Crook City, Mills was to write: “Crook City receives the main portion of its supplies from Bismarck and Fort Pierre. Prices are not at all unreasonable. I had an excellent dinner in a very neat restaurant for seventy-five cents, and other meals at the same rate. Shaving costs twenty-five cents, and cigars…, the same price.” Mills, “Among the Black Hills.”

29. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

30. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

31. Ibid.

32. Regarding the infantry, Cuthbert Mills remarked: “On the march they may be said to have actually walked down the cavalry. They only want some rest, and new boots, to be ready for the field again. I remember the jeer that a long-legged infantryman threw out as the cavalry column passed at the close of a long day's march. ‘Two days more of this,’ he shouted, in reference to some soldier's witticism from the mounted men, ‘two days more of this and we’ll fetch the whole lot of you.'” Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

33. Davenport, “Crook's Campaign.”

34. Mills, “The Pursuit of the Sioux.”

35. “to proceed at once to Fort Laramie” is from Mills, “Among the Black Hills”; “a vigorous prosecution” is from “Sheridan on the Way to Meet Crook,” New York Herald, September 15, 1876.

36. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 129.

37. Schwatka, Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 4, 1876, printed in Cozzens, ed., Long War for the Northern Plains, 366.

38. Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 320–321.

39. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

40. Mills, “Among the Black Hills.”

41. Details are from Willert, March of the Columns, 594; Finerty, War-path and Bivouac, 313; and Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 130. For mention that all four correspondents departed with Crook, see Oliver Knight, Following the Indian Wars (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 280.

42. “Movements of Crook's Command,” and “Movements of the More Prominent Officers Engaged in the Recent Campaign,” New York Herald, September 28, 1876.

43. Reuben Davenport, “Crook's Command in the Black Hills,” New York Herald, September 21, 1876. According to Mills, “Among the Black Hills,” Deadwood's population was then about two thousand, which would mean that close to half of them signed the petition. However, according to Bourke, the petition contained 713 names. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 135.

44. Mills, “Among the Black Hills.”

45. Ibid. Later in the same dispatch, Mills followed through on this subject: “As to the Indians coming in [to the Black Hills] worse than ever after the departure of the Army, it is all nonsense. From what we can hear of the matter, it is supposed that there are some forty or fifty Indians, scattered in small bands around the outskirts of the Hills, who have been stealing and killing whenever they could do so with safety. This has been going on all the summer, while the mass of the Sioux nation were up in the Powder River country. Small parties and individuals have been attacked and killed on the roads leading to the Hills, but the settlements themselves have never been in danger.”

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. “The Indian Campaign,” New York Herald, October 15, 1876.

49. Details from “A Supply Train for Crook's Command,” New York Herald, September 12, 1876, and Captain Harry C. Cushing, “In the Black Hills,” Daily Alta California, October 2, 1876.

50. Cushing, “In the Black Hills.”

51. “Generals Sheridan and Crook in Council,” New York Herald, September 22, 1876.

52. Joe Wasson, “Gen. Crook's Campaign—His Arrival at Fort Laramie,” New York Tribune, October 2, 1876.

53. For more on how the multipronged military campaign had affected the Indians, see the end of chapter 10.

54. “Frontier settlements” was a euphemism for “illegal gold-mining towns.”

55. Editorial, “Terry's Sioux Campaign,” New York Herald, October 2, 1876.

56. Mills, “Seeking an Indian Fight.”

57. Wasson, “Gen. Crook's Campaign—His Arrival at Fort Laramie.”

58. Jerome A. Greene, Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyennes, 1876 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 11, and Greene, Slim Buttes, 110. The distance between Crook City and Custer City is about forty-seven miles, as the eagle flies.

59. Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.”

60. Editorial, “Terry's Sioux Campaign.”

61. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 126. On October 15, 1876, the Cheyenne Daily Leader printed some outtakes from an interview between General Sherman and a Chicago newspaperman. In the piece, the Leader quoted Sherman as saying, “I am sorry that I can't express an opinion regarding the summer campaign against the Indians, but you understand that as a public man I am not at liberty to tell all I think or know. It wouldn't do for me to begin to criticize Crook or Terry.” Of course, that last sentence more than expressed his opinion.

62. Describing Carr's marksmanship on the trip from Fort Fetterman to Crook's camp on Goose Creek in late July and early August, Cuthbert Mills had written: “Another hunter is old Gen. Carr, Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifth Cavalry, who until we got into very dangerous country has been trotting about the flanks of the column and banging away with a double-barreled shot-gun at sage hens and rabbits with uniform non-success. Indeed, the old gentleman could not apparently hit a barn door, but he shoots and shoots as if something dropped at every discharge, while most of the time the only effect has been to make nervous people jump in the saddle when they hear the reports.” Mills, “The Indian Campaign—From Fetterman to Goose Creek.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1. “by the officers of the War Department” is from “President Grant—The Indian War,” New York Herald, September 2, 1876; “and thus prevent any possible controversy” is from “Indian Agents Directed to Turn Over Their Charges to the Military,” New York Herald, July 25, 1876. The civilian agent at Red Cloud was James S. Hastings, and the civilian agent at Spotted Tail was E. A. Howard. Also on July 22, Congress approved building two new posts in the Yellowstone country (these were to become Forts Keogh and Custer).

2. “Reply to Criticism on the Action of the Indian Office,” New York Herald, July 31, 1876.

3. Colonel Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, Fourth Cavalry.

4. “Troops for the Agencies,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, July 26, 1876.

5. “considerable on the fight” is from Jerry Roche, “The Winter Expedition on the Eve of Departure,” New York Herald, November 10, 1876; District of the Black Hills is from “The War Against the Sioux,” New York Tribune, August 24, 1876.

6. Joe Wasson, “Interview with Captain Mears, Direct from the Indian Country,” Daily Alta California, October 6, 1876.

7. George W. Manypenny, a well-known humanitarian, headed the government commission that was sent to the Sioux reservations to gain, what one historian called, “fictive legal title” to the Black Hills. Jeffrey Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U. S. Colonialism (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 66.

8. Although the 1876 agreement was deemed official by the US government, it lacked the minimum number of signatures required in article 12 of the Sioux Treaty of 1868, specifically three-fourths of all adult male Indians on the Great Sioux Reservation. To read the 1876 agreement and see the list of signatories, see “Report of the Sioux Commission,” in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1876 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1876), 349–357. Use of the term “agreement” instead of “treaty” is intentional; the act of making treaties with the Indian tribes was terminated by an act of Congress in March 1871.

9. Ted Morgan, A Shovel of Stars: The Making of the American West (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 307. Also see Hedren, Fort Laramie, 155–158.

10. Concerning a move to Indian Territory (present Oklahoma), the locals were not exactly waiting with open arms, as expressed in this news item: “Speaking of the proposed removal of the Sioux to the Indian Territory, the Oklahoma Star cries, ‘Save us from our friends!'” Untitled, Deseret News, November 1, 1876.

11. “The Council at Red Cloud,” New York Times, September 23, 1876. For more on these proceedings, readers can see James C. Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 224–230.

12. “The Treaty Consummated with the Sioux at Spotted Tail Agency,” New York Herald, September 27, 1876.

13. “The Treaty Signed—Hesitancy of the Indians Overcome Through the Influence of a Squaw Man,” New York Herald, September 27, 1876. Whether Enoch Raymond (1824–1909) had an ulterior motive in getting Spotted Tail to sign the agreement or was truly looking out for the best interest of the Sioux was unstated.

14. In fact, Red Cloud's son, Jack, had joined the northern holdouts for a time and fought in the battle of the Rosebud, in which he lost a prized rifle that his father had received on a trip to Washington in May–June 1875. Richard E. Jensen, The Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker, 1903–1919 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 84 (interview with William Garnett).

15. “Gen. Crook's ‘Gleam of Light,’” Daily Alta California, October 27, 1876. On the topic of Red Cloud's faithfulness to the government, one news clipping stated that “old Red Cloud has been ‘carrying the water on both shoulders’ all summer. While his actions have been peaceable and he has been guilty of no overt act, yet he could undoubtedly have stopped many of his young men from joining the hostile bands, as Spotted Tail did.” Untitled, Cheyenne Daily Leader, October 27, 1876.

16. O'Kelly, “Operations of the Combined Columns under Terry and Crook.”

17. “Gen. Crook Heads Off a New War,” New York Tribune, October 25, 1876. Gordon was in the Fifth Cavalry and Mauck in the Fourth. Details from the lead-in sentence also from the New York Tribune.

18. The first two items are from “The Late Capture a Large One,” New York Tribune, October 26, 1876; the number of captured guns, which sounds a bit too low, is from an October 26 interview with Crook in “The Indian Question—A Correspondent's Travels to the Seat of War,” New York Herald, November 4, 1876, dispatch dated “Fort Laramie, Wy. T., Oct. 27, 1876.”

19. Roche, “The Winter Expedition on the Eve of Departure,” quoting Crook's report. In an interview several years later, Major Thaddeus Stanton, in response to whether or not Red Cloud had joined the “hostiles,” said, “He was on his reservation but early in the campaign indubitable evidence was received by General Crook that Red Cloud, although making professions of friendship, was furnishing all his young men and all the materials of war that he possibly could to Sitting Bull and the hostile tribes to carry on their war against the government.” “Red Cloud's Ponies—Why They Were Seized and Sold by Command of General Crook,” Omaha Daily Bee, February 14, 1883.

20. Regarding the sale of the horses, a dispatch to the New York Herald on November 3, 1876, said: “Over 350 of the ponies captured at Red Cloud were sold at auction yesterday, and averaged about $5 each. They were mostly a poor half-starved lot, but were not dear at the price to ranchmen and others who could turn them out to grass for a while and give them a chance to improve. But they will need close watching, or the Indians will steal them back again. About 300 of the most serviceable ones were picked out before the sale for the enlisted Indians [the Pawnees], and will be given them before we start. The money received for those sold will be turned in to the Department of the Interior and applied in some way to the benefit of the former owners of the animals. Among the captured lot were found several American horses stolen from ranches about here. These were identified by their owners and turned over on proof of ownership. This is an instructive commentary on the ‘honest Injun’ professions of Mr. Red Cloud's braves.” Roche, “The Winter Expedition on the Eve of Departure.”

21. Use of the term “Old Spot” is from “Spotted Tail's Mission,” New York Herald, February 23, 1877; “unswerving loyalty” is from “Red Cloud and His Band [Made] Prisoners,” Daily Colorado Chieftain, October 25, 1876.

22. “Gen. Crook's Report,” New York Tribune, October 25, 1876.

23. Jerry Roche, “A Correspondent's Travels to the Seat of War,” New York Herald, November 4, 1876.

24. “What Red Cloud Says,” Deseret News, December 6, 1876, repr. from Omaha Daily Bee, dateline Red Cloud Agency, November 12.

25. “Red Cloud Captured at Last,” Deseret News, November 15, 1876, repr. from the Omaha Herald, October 26.

26. “Gen. Crook's Address to His Men,” New York Times, November 22, 1876.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

1. “Sketch of General Crook,” New York Daily Graphic, May 7, 1873.

2. Concerning Crazy Horse, recall what Crook told Cuthbert Mills in an interview on September 13 (Interlude: “An Interview with General Crook in the Black Hills”): “Our next objective point is Crazy Horse. He should be followed up and struck as soon as possible.” Mills, “The Indian Campaign—The Part Taken by General Crook's Command.” Crook revealed the official name of the expedition in an interview in late October. Roche, “A Correspondent's Travels to the Seat of War.”

3. These details are from Jerry Roche, “March of the Powder River Expedition under General Crook,” New York Herald, November 27, 1876.

4. Ibid.

5. Greene has slightly different numbers than those given by Roche, stating there were 61 officers, 790 cavalry and 646 infantry. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 28–29.

6. Details on the supply train are from Roche, “March of the Powder River Expedition under General Crook.” Roche noted that there were supplies for an additional seventeen days waiting for them at Cantonment Reno.

7. “Crook's Campaign,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, November 28, 1876.

8. Usually referred to as “Major” Frank North, in deference to an honorary rank he held in 1867, his rank for the current campaign was captain. Accompanying him was his younger brother Luther, with the rank of lieutenant. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 15–16, 85. Like his brother, Luther also had a long history with the Pawnees. Donald F. Danker, Man of the Plains: Recollections of Luther North, 1856–1882 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961). For the Shoshones preceding Crook to Cantonment Reno, see Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 77.

9. Roche, “March of the Powder River Expedition under General Crook.” Interestingly, it was previously written of Crook, “He will capture a ‘hostile,’ and, with the offer of good food, clothes, gun, horse, &c., in addition to authority, will buy him into turning against his own household. This is the grand secret of Crook's universal success.” “Sketch of General Crook.”

10. Lieutenant Bourke stated that this man's name was Charging Bear and that he was an Oglala Sioux. The name difference may be nothing more than an alternate translation, and the tribal affiliation may be an error on Bourke's part. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 110n and 154 (for the Oglala reference).

11. “The Indian War—Conflicts with the Savages,” New York Tribune, December 23, 1876.

12. “Crook's Campaign.”

13. Roche, “The Winter Expedition on the Eve of Departure.” Some of the items that Crook requested for the expedition were sealskin caps, overshoes, blankets, woolen mittens, ponchos, and shelter tents. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 31.

14. Roche, “The Winter Expedition on the Eve of Departure.”

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. Roche, “A Correspondent's Travels to the Seat of War.” Commenting on Roche, Bourke wrote, “[Mr. Roche is] a far more presentable, scholarly and genial gentleman than his predecessor, Mr. Davenport.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 177. Bourke's comment must have come before he read what Roche had to say about the soldiers' marksmanship.

18. Jerry Roche, “Our Indian Allies—Crook's Talk with his Red Soldiers,” New York Herald, November 16, 1876. Although Roche referred to the Indian scouts as barbarians at this time, less than two months later his opinion had softened: “Of their conduct…nothing can be said but in praise. They put forth every effort to aid us and indulged in every scheme known to their crafty and untiring natures, and from first to last were wholly and zealously faithful.…All were eager as our own men to make the surprise complete.” Jerry Roche, “The Powder River Expedition—The Progress and Finish of the Last Indian Campaign,” New York Herald, January 14, 1877, dispatch dated “Fort Laramie, Wy. T., Jan. 4, 1877.”

19. Roche, “Our Indian Allies—Crook's Talk with his Red Soldiers.”

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid. As things turned out, the trip to Washington did not take place until September 1877.

22. Ibid. Sharp Nose was known for his battlefield prowess and his distinctive appearance. On a visit to New York in 1877, he was described as “by far the noblest Indian of them all in appearance…his face is more expressive and intelligent than those of his associates.” “Farewell to the Braves—The Sioux and Arapahoes Go Home,” New York Times, October 6, 1877.

23. Roche, “Our Indian Allies—Crook's Talk with His Red Soldiers.”

24. Roche, “March of the Powder River Expedition under General Crook.”

25. Ibid. About the Shoshones, Davenport had stated that they were “regularly disciplined in imitation of the white soldiers.” Davenport, “Battle of Rosebud Creek.” Davenport's dispatch is reprinted in chapter 4.

26. Roche, “March of the Powder River Expedition under General Crook.”

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid. The text has been edited for ease of reading and to eliminate references by New York Herald correspondent Jerry Roche in the article in which it appeared. As for the Spotted Tail and Red Cloud Indians being allowed to continue living outside the bounds of their reservation, both agencies were relocated in 1878 to within present-day South Dakota, where they were renamed Rosebud and Pine Ridge, respectively.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. On August 30, 1877, Cantonment Reno was upgraded to fort status and renamed Fort McKinney. Frazer, Forts of the West, 182.

34. “The Indian War—Conflicts with the Savages.”

35. The quote is from Jerry Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight,” New York Herald, December 11, 1876; the number of scouts is from Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 170.

36. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

37. “The Fight with the Cheyennes,” New York Times, December 24, 1876.

38. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

39. Jensen, The Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker, 23 (interview with William Garnett), and Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 81. Sometimes he is referred to as just Beaver Dam. The Arapahoes let him escape on a horse before the upcoming battle; he then returned to the vicinity of the Cheyenne village while the battle was in progress, only to be accused of scouting for the soldiers. But he was able to talk his way out of it. Grinnell, Fighting Cheyennes, 377–378.

40. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 177.

41. Ibid., 177.

42. According to Lieutenant Bourke, the distance to Crazy Woman's Creek was twenty-three miles. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 178.

43. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. The company of cavalry that remained behind with Crook was Company K of the Second. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 85.

47. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

48. “in mud” is from “The Fight with the Cheyennes”; other details are from Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

49. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

50. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

51. Ibid. Another eyewitness recorded: “It seems that among the Sioux, whenever one has discovered the enemy, or any certain sign of him, he gives, upon coming in sight of his friends, an imitation of the howl of the prairie wolf. Our allies, therefore, instantly comprehended that their scouts were returning with news of the village.” “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

52. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

53. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 181.

54. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

55. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

56. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

57. Ibid.

58. It was perhaps because of this incident that Roche later remarked: “That the Indian can discern and distinguish distant objects better than a white man is an undoubted fact of which the slightest experience will convince any unprejudiced observer.” Roche, “The Powder River Expedition—The Progress and Finish of the Last Indian Campaign.”

59. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.” The New York Times correspondent also commented on the collapse of Jackass's horse: “As they were approaching, one of their horses stumbled slightly and toppled over from sheer exhaustion. His rider, however, treated his fall as a good joke, coming up in good humor.” “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

60. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

61. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

62. Ibid. On November 24, a Cheyenne man named Sits-in-the-Night was out looking for his horses not too far from the village and saw indistinct figures driving them away. He also heard a “rumbling noise” in the distance and for some reason concluded that soldiers were nearby. When he went back to the village and reported what he had seen and heard, Crow Split Nose, the chief of the Crooked Lances, a Cheyenne military society, feared an attack. He suggested that the women take down the lodges and that the tribe build breastworks in a nearby cut bank. However, Last Bull, chief of the Fox soldiers, a rival military society, refused to allow these precautions to take place. Instead, he insisted that everyone stay up and dance all night. It was this dancing and drumming that some of Mackenzie's scouts heard just hours before the attack on the morning of the twenty-fifth. Grinnell, Fighting Cheyennes, 374.

63. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

64. Ibid.

65. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

66. “last deep cut” is from Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.” For mention of Mauck's battalion in reserve, see Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 109.

67. Roche, “The Powder River Expedition—The Progress and Finish of the Last Indian Campaign.”

68. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

69. “The Fight with the Cheyennes.”

70. Roche, “General Mackenzie's Fight.”

71. Roche, “Mackenzie's Victory,” New York Herald, December 1, 1876.

72. Corporal Ryan is identified in Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 126.

73. From “After the Battle,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, December 29, 1876: “Besides some fresh Shoshone scalps found in the lodges there was also discovered a little buckskin bag filled with children's right hands. A Shoshone Indian found these horrible trophies, and believing them to be the hands of some of the children of his people burned them and the scalps at once.”

74. It's not certain why Baird was the only soldier buried on the field. According to one soldier's reminiscence (sixty-four years later), the burial was a mistake. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 247–248n1.

75. McKinney's body was sent back to his home in Memphis, Tennessee. Ibid., 158.

76. Sergeant Thomas H. Forsyth, Company M, Fourth Cavalry. His head was grazed by a bullet. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 111.

77. Private John Sullivan, Company B, Fourth Cavalry. Ibid., 119.

78. Also known as William Garnett.

79. Sergeant Allen's death was detailed in Lieutenant James E. H. Foster, “Battle of the Rosebud,” New York Daily Graphic, July 13, 1876, reprinted in chapter 4 (fourth from the last paragraph).

80. Little Wolf visited Washington, DC, in 1873.

81. Willis “Bill” Rowland. Greene, Morning Star Dawn, 35, 121.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

1. Peter J. Powell, Sweet Medicine: The Continuing Role of the Sacred Arrows, the Sun Dance, and the Sacred Buffalo Hat in Northern Cheyenne History, vol. 1 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 166–167.

2. A report dated “Red Cloud Agency, Neb., May 2, 1877,” from an anonymous correspondent said, “Thirty of their warriors were killed and forty wounded, while next only to that in severity was the loss of nearly two-thirds of their herd of ponies killed, wounded and captured by the troops.” “The Surrendered Hostiles.” Lieutenant Colonel Dodge wrote, “How they can exist in this bitter weather without anything is a problem for them to solve.” Wayne R. Kime, ed., The Powder River Expedition Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 95. Dodge missed the fight, having stayed behind with Crook and the infantry, but based on the number of lodges, he estimated there were about six hundred warriors in the village. That sounds like too many, but he considered all men from the age of twelve to be warriors. Ibid., 96.

3. “The Sioux War—Hump, the Cheyenne Chief,” New York Herald, June 4, 1877. According to the reporter, Hump (or, more likely, Buffalo Hump) had previously said, “Alas! for my race; it is passing away from among the peoples of the earth, and the last of the red men will soon perish under the setting sun.” Ibid. Admittedly, it sounds like a line out of The Last of the Mohicans, but perhaps it was true to Hump's sentiments.

4. Marquis, Wooden Leg, 287.

5. “The Surrendered Hostiles.”

6. Marquis, Wooden Leg, 287–288.

7. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 250–251.

8. “The Surrendered Hostiles.”

9. Eleanor H. Hinman, interviewer, “Oglala Sources on the Life of Crazy Horse,” Nebraska History 57 (Spring 1976), 39, interview from 1930.

10. For the view that the Sioux were as generous as they could be, see Harry H. Anderson, “Indian Peace-Talkers and the Conclusion of the Sioux War of 1876,” Nebraska History 44 (December 1963), 245–246n24. Anderson stated that the Cheyennes under Little Wolf who surrendered in mid-March 1877 made negative statements against the Sioux because they were bitter toward Crazy Horse for trying to prevent them from surrendering.

11. “The Sioux War—Gen. Crook's Winter March,” New York Tribune, December 25, 1876.

12. In fact, this turned out to be inaccurate. The expedition moved south before turning east then north down the Belle Fourche. Any plans for going to the Little Powder River, now or later, never materialized.

13. Crook was mistaken in thinking that Crazy Horse had moved his village to the east. The Cheyennes had found him camped along a tributary of the Tongue River, and Colonel Miles was to find him along that same river, about twenty miles north of the Montana line, in early January.

14. Jerry Roche, “Return of General Crook—The Command to Set Out after Crazy Horse's Band,” New York Herald, December 6, 1876.

15. Kime, ed., Powder River Expedition Journals, 103–104.

16. “The Sioux War—Gen. Crook's Winter March.”

17. Ibid.

18. Jerry Roche, “Powder River Expedition,” New York Herald, February 5, 1877. This dispatch was dated “Camp on Belle Fourche, Dec. 19, 1876,” but was very late in reaching the office of the Herald. What may have been Roche's last dispatch on the Crook—Mackenzie campaign had already been printed some three weeks earlier.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 202.

22. Roche, “Powder River Expedition.”

23. Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 202.

24. Kime, ed., Powder River Expedition Journals, 113–114.

25. “Conflicts with the Savages—A Force of Two Thousand to Be Kept Harassing the Indians,” New York Tribune, December 23, 1876.

26. Roche, “Powder River Expedition.”

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Jerry Roche, “General Crook's Return to Fort Fetterman,” New York Herald, December 26, 1876.

31. Julius Mason was previously a captain in the Fifth Cavalry.

32. Kime, ed., Powder River Expedition Journals, 131–132. As a point of interest, the two Sioux spies arrived at Fort Fetterman on January 1. “They had been on the Rosebud and Tongue rivers, and saw no signs of hostiles at either place.” “The Powder River Expedition,” New York Herald, January 4, 1877 (this dispatch consisted of one short paragraph, probably written by Roche).

33. “Gen. Crook at Fort Fetterman,” New York Tribune, January 11, 1877. Bourke noted that there were considerable cases of frostbite, but that only “one poor fellow will have to lose his toes.” Robinson, Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 2, 232.

34. “Gen. Crook at Fort Fetterman.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1. For a thorough study of Colonel Miles's campaign against the nonreservation Sioux and Cheyennes, see Greene, Yellowstone Command.

2. The seventy-five miles was measured using Google Earth. One contemporary dispatch stated that the distance between the two points was about one hundred miles and described the route as “running partly along the Yellowstone bottom and partly back over the high prairies and through the mauvaises terres [bad lands] of the Yellowstone.” “Attack of Redskins on a Supply Train,” New York Herald, November 27, 1876.

3. “Sitting Bull—Operations of the Hostiles against Military Convoys,” New York Herald, November 6, 1876.

4. Cedar Creek is a northern tributary of the Yellowstone, joining the latter river about ten miles east of the mouth of the Powder River.

5. “After Sitting Bull—Good Work of the Fifth Infantry in Driving the Sioux,” New York Herald, November 30, 1876.

6. “Sitting Bull—Operations of the Hostiles against Military Convoys.”

7. “General Miles' Chase of the Hostile Indian Bands through Montana's Snows—Sitting Bull Forced to Retreat,” New York Herald, February 19, 1877. On the other hand, the Sioux do not seem to recall anything special about this fight. For instance, see Vestal, Warpath, 222–223.

8. Also see Greene, Yellowstone Command, 103 and 266n21.

9. Ibid., 136–144.

10. “General Miles' Chase of the Hostile Indian Bands through Montana's Snows—Sitting Bull Forced to Retreat.”

11. Joseph Manzione, “I Am Looking to the North for My Life”: Sitting Bull, 1876–1881 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991), 36.

12. The scouts included Luther Sage “Yellowstone” Kelly, Thomas Leforge, and Buffalo Horn, a Bannock. Greene, Yellowstone Command, 157–158. Four of the seven companies had preceded Miles into the field, three on the twenty-seventh and one on the twenty-eighth. Ibid., 157. Mention of the wagons being disguised is in ibid., 157–158, and Miles's official report dated “Cantonment on Tongue River, Montana, January 23, 1877,” printed in Annual Report of the Secretary of War on the Operations of the Department for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1877, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877), 495.

13. “General Miles' Victory,” New York Herald, February 6, 1877.

14. This engraving can be found in Greene, Yellowstone Command, 167.

15. Three men did die on the expedition, but only one died in the fight on the eighth, Corporal Augustus Rathman. Private William H. Batty was killed by Indians on January 3 while herding oxen, and Private Bernard McCann died on the twelfth of a wound received at the fight. All three men were in the Fifth Infantry. Greene, Yellowstone Command, 171, 162, 178, respectively.

16. “General Miles' Expedition against Crazy Horse,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, May 5, 1877. All of the officers named were in the Fifth Infantry.

17. See Miles's report dated “Cantonment on Tongue River, Montana, January 23, 1877,” printed in Annual Report of the Secretary of War (for the year 1877), vol. 1, 495.

18. “The Custer Massacre—An Indian Chief's Account of It,” New York Times, March 15, 1877.

19. These details from Greene, Yellowstone Command, 176.

20. For newspaper coverage of Crazy Horse's surrender, see “Surrender of Crazy Horse,” New York Tribune, May 7, 1877, at the end of this chapter.

21. Crazy Horse's enlistment paper can be viewed at http://www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/CrazyHorse.htm. Accessed November 29, 2011.

22. Thomas R. Buecker, Fort Robinson and the American West, 1874–1899 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 104.

23. Lieutenant Henry R. Lemly, “The Death of Crazy Horse,” New York Sun, September 14, 1877, and Jesse M. Lee, “The Capture and Death of an Indian Chieftain,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 54 (May-June 1914), 339.

24. John F. McBlain, “The Last Fight of the Sioux War of 1876–77,” Journal of the United States Cavalry Association 10 (June 1897). Other details are from Greene, Yellowstone Command, chapter 9, and, “The Little Muddy—Details of General Miles' Last Brilliant Victory,” New York Herald, June 11, 1877.

25. “The Little Muddy—Details of General Miles' Last Brilliant Victory.”

26. Ibid.

27. “A Band Defeated by General Miles on Little Muddy Creek,” New York Tribune, May 30, 1877, and “The Little Muddy—Details of General Miles' Last Brilliant Victory,” respectively.

28. Greene, Yellowstone Command, 210.

29. “The Little Muddy-Details of General Miles' Last Brilliant Victory.”

30. “A Band Defeated by General Miles on Little Muddy Creek.”

31. Major Henry M. Lazelle's report, dated “Camp on Yellowstone River, near Tongue River Cantonment, September 5, 1877,” printed in Annual Report of the Secretary of War (for the year 1877), vol. 1, 574; also Greene, Yellowstone Command, 221–222.

32. Deseret News, September 12, 1877, untitled dispatch dated “Camp Robinson, September 4.”

33. Ibid.

34. “Surrender of Lame Deer's Band,” New York Times, September 13, 1876. Also see Thomas Powers, The Killing of Crazy Horse (New York: Knopf, 2010), 510n2, and Charles M. Robinson, The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, vol. 3 (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2007), 507.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

1. This excerpt is from an article headlined “Montana's Indian Puzzle,” written by Thompson P. McElrath, a newsman and former soldier. His father, Thomas McElrath, was a partner with Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune. Thompson McElrath died in December 1898. “Death List of a Day,” New York Times, December 11, 1898. Thanks to Paul L. Hedren for identifying McElrath as the writer of this article from the initials T. P. M.

2. “Funeral of Jerome B. Stillson,” New York Times, December 30, 1880.

3. Knight, Following the Indian Wars, 32, and California State Mining Bureau, Third Annual Report of the State Mineralogist for the Year Ending June 1, 1883 (Sacramento, 1883), 18.

4. “Six Ribs Broken,” New York Times, August 1, 1884.

5. “A Soldier's Career,” New York Times, March 22, 1890.

6. “Maj. Gen. George Crook Dies of Heart Disease,” Fort Worth Daily Gazette, March 22, 1890.

7. Jerome Stillson, “Sitting Bull—Graphic Picture of the Powwow at Fort Walsh,” New York Herald, October 23, 1877.

8. “Gall Signs the Treaty—Sitting Bull's Band Grunt Disapproval,” New York Times, August 7, 1889.

9. The Ghost Dance was a harmless religious dance that generated a deadly overreaction from the US government and resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890.

10. Of course, this story was untrue. However, it is interesting to note that just about everybody west of the Missouri River and east of the Rockies in late June 1876 almost rescued Custer on the Little Big Horn River (whether by their own word or some newspaper editor's years later, as in this case).

11. Dan L. Thrapp, Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, vol. 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 491.

12. These details are from a twenty-one-page PDF document at http://www.littlebighorn.info/Articles/Martino.pdf.

13. “Custer's Last Scout Dead,” New York Times, May 25, 1923.

14. Knight, Following the Indian Wars, 319, and Thrapp, Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, vol. 1, 377.

15. St. Paul Daily Globe, July 8, 1886.

16. These monetary details are from “Custer's Life Insurance,” New York Herald, July 16, 1876, and Colorado Mountaineer, December 20, 1876.

17. “The Custer Massacre—Memories of the Terrible Little Big Horn Battle,” Nebraska Advertiser, June 26, 1896.

18. Morris enlisted on September 22, 1875, and gave his birth date as May 1, 1854. Nichols, Men with Custer, 235.

19. Custer's five companies were divided into two battalions, one each under captains Keogh and Yates.

20. Quote and date of death from “John M. Carnahan—Telegrapher Flashed the News of Custer Massacre in 1876,” New York Times, October 25, 1938.

21. Charles House, “How the Herald Revealed Custer Massacre,” New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1957.

22. Strahorn wrote to a friend circa 1878, “I could write a book about our trials and tribulations on those marches [in 1876], and sometime in the future the half-formed fancy of the present moment may take shape.” Robert Vaughn, Then and Now; or, Thirty-six Years in the Rockies (Minneapolis: Tribune Printing, 1900), 307. Whether Strahorn followed through and wrote about his time with Crook in 1876 is unknown; if he did, it has not come to light.

23. Knight, Following the Indian Wars, 323–324, and Dan L. Thrapp, Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, vol. 3 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 1376.

24. The seventy-seven men statistic is from Nichols, Men with Custer, 155.

25. Mills, Harvest of Barren Regrets, 367.