PART I.
THE BIG HORN AND YELLOWSTONE
EXPEDITION.
CHAPTER I.
BOUND FOR THE PLAINS.
In the beginning of May 1876, I was attached to the city department of the Chicago Times. One day Mr. Clinton Snowden, the city editor, said to me, "Mr. Storey wants a man to go out with the Big Horn and Yellowstone expedition, which is organizing under Generals Crook and Terry, in the departments of the Platte and Dakota. There is apt to be warm work out there with the Indians, so if you don't care to go, you needn't see Mr. Storey."
"I care to go, and I'll see Mr. Storey," was my answer.
The famous editor of the Chicago Times did not, at that period, show any significant indication of that " withering at the top" which subsequently obscured his wonderful faculties. He was a tall, well-built, white-haired, white-bearded, gray-eyed, exceedingly handsome man of sixty, or thereabout, with a courteous, but somewhat cynical, manner.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
"You are the young man Mr. Snowden mentioned for the Plains?" he asked, as soon as I had made my presence known by the usual half shy demonstrations, because everybody who did not know him well, and who had heard his reputation on the outside, approached the formidable Vermonter in somewhat gingerly fashion.'
I replied in the affirmative. "Well, how soon can you be ready?" he inquired.
"At any time it may please you to name," was my prompt reply.
"You should have your outfit first. Better get some of it here—perhaps all. You are going with Crook's column," said Mr. Storey, with his customary decisiveness and rapidity.
"I understood I was to go with Custer," I rejoined. " I know General Custer, but am not acquainted with General Crook."
"That will make no difference, whatever," said he. "Terry commands over Custer, and Crook, who knows more about the Indians, is likely to do the hard work. Custer is a brave soldier—none braver—but he has been out there some years already, and has not succeeded in bringing the Sioux to a decisive engagement. Crook did well in Arizona. However, it is settled that you go with Crook. Go to Mr. Patterson (the manager) and get what funds you may need for your outfit and other expenses. Report to me when you are ready."
It did not take me long to get ready. I called first upon General Sheridan and asked him for a letter of introduction
OR THE CONQUEST OF THE SIOUX
to General Crook, and also for a general letter to such officers as I might meet on the frontier.
The gallant General very promptly, and in a spirit of the most generous cordiality, acceded to my request. He gave me some advice, which I afterward found valuable, and wished me every success in my undertaking.
"I'll try and do your kindness no discredit, General," I ventured to remark, as I took my leave.
"I am fully confident of that, but let me warn you that you will find General Crook a hard campaigner," said he, laughingly.
My next care was to purchase arms and a riding outfit, and, having said farewell to friends and received the final instructions of Mr. Storey, who enjoined me to " spare no expense and use the wires freely, whenever practicable," I left Chicago to join General Crook's command on Saturday morning, May 6, 1876.
The rain fell in torrents, and the wind shrieked fiercely, as the train on the Northwestern road, well freighted with passengers, steamed out of the depot, bound for Omaha. I reached the latter city on Sunday morning, and found General Crook at his headquarters, busily engaged in reading reports from officers stationed on the Indian frontier. He was then a spare but athletic man of about forty, with fair hair, clipped close, and a blonde beard which seemed to part naturally at the point of the chin. His nose was long and aquiline, and his blue-gray eyes were bright and piercing. He looked, in fact, every inch a soldier, except that he wore no uniform.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
The General saluted me curtly, and I handed him the letter of introduction which I had procured in Chicago from General Sheridan, who then commanded the Military Division of the Missouri. Having read it, Crook smiled and said, " You had better go to Fort Sidney or Fort Russell, where the expedition is now being formed. You will need an animal, and can purchase one, perhaps, at Cheyenne. Can you ride and shoot well?"
"I can ride fairly, General. As for shooting, I don't know. I'd engage, however, to hit a hay-stack at two hundred yards."
He laughed and said, "Very well. We'll have some tough times, I think. I am going with my aide, Mr. Bourke, to the agencies to get some friendly Indians to go with us. I fear we'll have to rely upon the Crows and Snakes, because the Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes are disaffected, and all may join the hostiles. However, I'll be at Fort Fetterman about the middle of the month. You can make messing arrangements with some officer going out from Fort Russell. You had better be with the cavalry."
I thanked the General, and proceeded to my hotel. Next morning found me en route, over the Union Pacific road, to Cheyenne. The weather had greatly improved, but, after passing the line of what may be called Eastern Nebraska, nothing could beautify the landscape. Monotonous flats, and equally monotonous swells, almost devoid of trees, and covered only partially by short, sickly-looking grass, made up the main body of the " scenery." In those days the herds of antelope still roamed at will over the plains of Nebraska
OR THE CONQUEST OF THE SIOUX
and Wyoming, and even the buffalo had not been driven entirely from the valley of the Platte; but there was about the country, even under the bright May sunshine, a look of savage desolation. It has improved somewhat since 1876, but not enough to make any person mistake the region between North Platte and Cheyenne for the Garden of Eden. The prairie dogs abounded by the million, and the mean-looking coyote made the dismal waste resonant, particularly at night, with his lugubrious howls.
That night I stood for a long time on the rear platform of the Pullman car, and watched the moonbeams play upon the rippled surface of the shallow and eccentric Platte. I thought of all the labor, and all the blood, it had cost to build the railroad, and to settle the country even as sparsely as it was then settled; for along that river, but a few years previously, the buffalo grazed by myriads, and the wild Indians chased them on their fleet ponies, occasionally varying their amusement by raiding an immigrant train, or attacking a small party of railroad builders. The very ground over which the train traveled slowly, on an upgrade toward the Rocky Mountains, had been soaked with the best blood of the innocent and the brave, the air around had rung with the shrieks of dishonored maids and matrons, and with the death groans of victims tortured at the stake. Nathless the moonlight, the region appeared to me as a "dark and bloody ground," once peopled by human demons, and then by pioneers, whose lives must have been as bleak and lonesome as the country which they inhabited. Filled with such thoughts, I retired to rest.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
"We're nearing Sidney, sah," said the colored porter, as he pulled aside the curtain of my berth. I sprang up immediately, and had barely dressed myself, when the train came to a halt at the station. The platform was crowded with citizens and soldiers, the barracks of the latter being quite close to the town. Nearly all the military wore the yellow facings of the cavalry. I was particularly struck by the appearance of one officer—a first lieutenant and evidently a foreigner. He wore his kepi low on his forehead, and, beneath it, his hooked nose overhung a blonde moustache of generous proportions. His eyes were light blue; his cheeks yellow and rather sunken. He was about the middle stature and wore huge dragoon boots. Thick smoke from an enormous pipe rose upon the morning air, and he paced up and down like a caged tiger. I breakfasted at the railroad restaurant, and, as the train was in no hurry to get away, I had a chance to say a few words to the warrior