CHAPTER EIGHT

Two Interesting Affairs

I. The Fight on the War Bonnet

Before entering upon a detailed description of the larger events of the campaign after the Battle of the Rosebud and Little Big Horn, two smaller affairs are worthy of mention. One, though nothing but a skirmish, was of great importance in determining the final result. The other well illustrates something of the adventurous life and perilous duty of a soldier in Indian warfare.

On Saturday, July 15, 1876, the Fifth Cavalry, under General Wesley Merritt, was marching toward Fort Laramie, under orders to join Crook. At noon word was received from the agency that a body of Cheyennes, numbering, perhaps, one thousand warriors, who had heretofore remained quiet on the reservation at the Red Cloud Agency, on the White River, South Dakota—the Pine Ridge Agency—was about to break away and join the Indians in the field. Their minds had been inflamed by the story of Crook’s defeat and the account of the disaster to the Seventh Cavalry. They thought they saw unlimited opportunities for plunder, scalp-taking, and successful fighting—therefore they decided to go on the war-path without delay. There were not troops enough near the agency to prevent this action, which was entirely unsuspected anyway.

The orders for Merritt to join Crook were imperative; but, in view of this news, the general decided to disregard them for the present. He realized that he could perform no better service than heading off this body of Cheyennes, and either defeating and scattering them or, better still, forcing them back to the agency.

The trail they would have to take would cross a creek in the extreme southeast corner of South Dakota, called the War Bonnet,[96] some eighty-five miles, by the only practicable route, from where the Fifth Cavalry then was. The Indians were a much shorter distance from it. Merritt would have had to march around, practically, three sides of a square, owing to the configuration of the country, to reach that point, which was the best place for miles around, within the knowledge of W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), his chief scout, to intercept the flying Cheyennes.

Merritt did not hesitate an instant after learning the news. He put his command in motion immediately, and by a forced march of thirty-one hours, got to the crossing in good time. There was no evidence that the Cheyennes had passed. The troopers concealed themselves in ravines under the bluff’s, and waited for the Indians.

Early on the morning of July 17th, the pickets, commanded by Lieutenant Charles King,[97] observed the approach of the Indians. At about the same time Merritt’s wagon train, under Lieutenant Hall, with two hundred infantrymen spoiling for a fight, concealed in the wagons as a guard, was observed toiling along, some four miles to the southwest, in an endeavor to reach the rendezvous on the War Bonnet. The regiment remained carefully concealed, and the Indians, in high glee, thought they had the train at their mercy.

So soon as he sighted the Cheyennes, Lieutenant Hall despatched two troopers of his small cavalry escort ahead to the crossing to apprise Merritt that the Indians were at hand. An advance party of Cheyennes, superbly mounted and led by a gorgeous young chief, determined to intercept these troopers, who were ignorant of their peril. The two soldiers came down one trail which led through a ravine, the Indians came up another which led through another ravine. The troopers and the Cheyennes were hidden from each other, but both were in plain view of the picket on the hill. The two trails joined at the foot of the hill. The plain back of the wagon-train was black—or red, rather—with Indians coming up rapidly, although they were not yet near enough to attack.

Merritt and one or two other officers, with Buffalo Bill and a few of his scouts and several troopers, joined King on the hill. The main body of the Indians was too far away to attack, so the little advance party determined to wait until the Cheyennes, who were endeavoring to cut off the two soldiers, were close at hand and then fall upon them. Everybody withdrew from the crest of the hill except Lieutenant King, who was to give the signal, when the party below should sally around it and fall on the Cheyennes.

King, who has described the situation with masterly skill in his “Campaigning with Crook,” flattened himself out on the brow of the hill, with nothing showing but the top of his hatless head and his field glass, and watched the soldiers rapidly galloping up one trail and the Indians more rapidly rushing down the other. He waited until the Indians had almost reached the junction. Then he gave the signal. Merritt’s escort and Cody’s scouts raced around the base of the hill, and dashed slap into the faces of the astonished Cheyennes. Two Indian saddles were emptied in the twinkling of an eye. Such was the impetus of their charge that the Indians scarcely had time to rein in their steeds before the white men were upon them.

Buffalo Bill shot the leader of the war party, a famous young chief named Yellow Hand, through the leg. The bullet also pierced the heart of the pony Yellow Hand was riding. Both crashed to the earth. In spite of his pain, Yellow Hand dragged himself to his feet and fired at the scout, killing his horse. The two, not twenty paces apart, exchanged shots the next instant. The Indian missed, but Buffalo Bill sent a bullet through Yellow Hand’s breast. The Indian reeled, but before he fell Cody leaped upon him and drove his knife into his gallant enemy’s heart. Yellow Hand was a dead Indian when he struck the ground. “Jerking the war bonnet off,” he says, “I scientifically scalped him in about five seconds.”[98]

Yellow Hand had recognized Buffalo Bill, and had virtually challenged him to this duel. “The first scalp for Custer!” shouted Cody, waving his trophy in the air.

Some of the other Indians had now come within range. They opened fire upon the little party; the bullets zipped around them in every direction, one narrowly grazing General Merritt. They nicked a horse here and there, but, as usual, their marksmanship was execrable.

As the little party charged the Indians, Merritt had directed King to order the rest of the regiment to advance. In the midst of the firing, the splendid troops of the dandy Fifth came bursting through the ravines and over the hills, making for the Cheyennes on the gallop. At the same time Lieutenant Hall’s infantrymen scrambled out of their wagons and sent a few volleys at the Cheyennes at long range. A more astonished body of Indians the United States has probably never contained. They hadn’t the slightest idea that there was a soldier within five hundred miles, except those in the wagon train which they had expected to capture. They had anticipated no trouble whatever in joining Sitting Bull, and now they found themselves suddenly face to face with one of the finest cavalry regiments in the service. What were they to do? They hadn’t much time to decide, for the cavalry were after them at full gallop. They turned and fled incontinently. They stood not on the order of their going, but went at once.

If they could get back to the reservation, they would be free from attack. They fled at the highest possible speed of their horses, throwing aside everything they possessed, save their guns and ammunition, in their frantic desire to get away. For thirty miles Merritt and his men pursued them with the best will in the world to come up with them; but the horses of the soldiers were more or less tired from their long march of the day before, and the Indians, lightly equipped and on fresh horses, finally succeeded in escaping. By nightfall the whole party was back on the reservation. Thereafter care was taken that they found no further opportunity to go on the war-path.

The coöperation of this splendid body of Indians with that under the command of Crazy Horse might possibly have turned the scale in some of the hotly contested battles, and Merritt’s promptness was greatly commended by the authorities. Buffalo Bill received the chief glory of the little adventure from his dramatic duel with Yellow Hand, in full view of soldiers and Indians.

II. The Sibley Scout

The other event is known in army records as The Sibley Scout. While General Crook was waiting for reinforcements and additional supplies at his camp on Goose Creek, near the Tongue River, he decided to send out a scouting party to see what had become of his friend, Crazy Horse, who had handled him so severely at the Rosebud a few weeks before.

Lieutenant Frederick W. Sibley, of E Troop, of the Third Cavalry, an enterprising but cool-headed young officer, was given command of twenty-five picked men from the regiment. With him went scouts Frank Gruard and Baptiste Pourier, commonly known as “Big Bat,” to distinguish him from another scout, Baptiste, a smaller man. To the party also were attached John Becker, mule packer, and the indefatigable Finerty, the war correspondent of the Chicago _Times_, making a total of thirty men.

Each man carried one hundred rounds of ammunition on his person, and a few days’ rations in his saddle-bags. They started on the 6th of July. On the 7th they had reached the Rosebud, some fifty miles away from Crook’s camp. There they came across the Indians. Gruard and Pourier observed them from the top of a hill, behind which the rest of the expedition halted. There were hundreds of them, apparently, and the scouts rejoined the command immediately. To take the back track was impossible. Therefore, they struck westward over the mountains, leading their horses. The Indians, marching slowly southward, soon came upon the trail of the party, and followed it at some distance. Urged by the imminence of their peril, the men, led by the unerring Gruard, who was familiar with all the ramifications of the Big Horn Range, since he had often hunted there during his captivity with the Sioux, did some rapid mountain climbing, and finally thought they had escaped pursuit, especially as no one could ride up the trail up which they had climbed, and these Indians were poor trailers when on foot. Having progressed some five miles over terrific trails, they halted in a little glade under the shade of some trees, unsaddled their horses, made coffee, and ate dinner. Feeling themselves safe from pursuit, they rested for several hours, and it was not until late in the afternoon that they took up their march again.

The going here was easier than before, and they could mount their horses once more. Presently they trotted into a level, thickly wooded valley. The trail led along the right side of the mountain, which was broken and rugged. There were woods to the left and in front of them, and high rocks and open timber on the right. John Becker, who brought up the rear, suddenly alarmed everybody by the shout of “Indians, Indians!”

The next instant the timber and boulders to the right were alive with a war party of Sioux and Cheyennes, not two hundred yards away—not the same party they had seen in the valley, by the way. So soon as the Indians appeared they opened fire. Again their shooting was bad. Not a trooper was hurt, although a number of horses were hit, some seriously. Sibley acted with prompt decision. A word with Gruard determined him in his course. Under a spattering fire from the Indians, the party turned to the left and raced for the thick timber as fast as they could go. They threw themselves to the ground in a semi-circular line so soon as they reached the woods, tied their horses to the trees back of them, and taking advantage of fallen logs and boulders as a breastwork, opened fire upon the Indians, who, on their part, sought concealment and commenced firing in earnest. The soldiers were well protected in the forest, however, and although the Indians killed many of the horses, they did not hit any of the troopers.

The party was now overwhelmingly outnumbered. There were already several hundred Indians engaged. Their leader was a magnificent young Cheyenne chief, dressed in a suit of white buckskin. It was afterward learned that his name was White Antelope. Gruard was recognized by the Indians, who were desirous of taking him alive. After firing for perhaps half an hour, White Antelope led the Indians on foot in a direct charge on the woods.

Sibley ordered his men to hold their fire until they could make every shot tell. They mowed the advancing Indians down in scores. White Antelope was seen to leap into the air and fall. He had been pierced, it was afterward learned, by several bullets, and started for the happy hunting grounds then and there. The charge was handsomely repulsed, and the Indians retired in confusion, although still keeping up a severe fire.

It was evident to every one that the Indians would hold the soldiers in play until they were joined by other war parties—indeed, their numbers were increased already—when Sibley’s detachment would be surrounded and exterminated. Gruard, therefore, proposed abandoning the horses—most of them had been killed anyway—and that the whole party should steal away through the timber and endeavor to escape over the mountains on foot. Firing two or three volleys and then keeping up a scattering fire for a short time to make the Indians think they were on the alert, the troopers, exercising the greatest caution, one by one crawled through the underbrush until they were hidden by the forest trees. Then everybody got up on his feet and ran like mad.

Gruard, whose instincts as a guide were of the highest order, led them over magnificent mountains, through gloomy cañons, past overhanging cliffs, along impossible trails on the sides of tremendous precipices, one of which stretched for several hundred feet below them and three hundred feet above them, almost sheer. Not being mountaineers, they would have been utterly unable to have followed the scout had it not been for the Red Terror that lurked behind. They had succeeded in getting, perhaps, a mile away from and some distance above the valley, when they heard several heavy volleys, followed by a series of wild yells, which apprised them that the Indians had at last rushed their camp. They were so confident of escape now that they actually burst into roars of laughter at the thought of the Indian disappointment when the attackers found their victims had decamped. Those Indians were not accustomed to hunt on foot. An Indian off a horse is about as awkward as a sailor on one. The pursuit was soon abandoned, and the soldiers left to follow their course unmolested. Theirs had been a lucky escape. Without Gruard, they had all been killed.

The day was frightfully hot. The fast going caused by the exigencies of the occasion and the desperate nature of the climbing increased their discomfort. The men threw away everything in the way of superfluous clothing which would impede their progress or tire them in their hurry, save their weapons and ammunition. They camped that night, or halted, rather, for there was nothing with which to camp, on the crest of the range. It turned very cold, a terrible storm arose, and they suffered severely. They had nothing to eat; their provisions had been in their saddle-bags, and they had not dared to take them in their attempt to escape, lest the suspicions of the Indians should be excited by their efforts.

The next day, the 9th of July, they started down the mountain. Gruard’s instincts were not at fault. He led them to the foot-hills overlooking Crook’s main camp far away. In order to reach the plain they had to cross a rapid mountain brook, the water of which came almost up to their necks. Two men who could not swim and who were in a very nervous condition from their exciting adventures, stubbornly refused to try to cross the stream, even with the assistance of their comrades. They chose rather to hide themselves where they were, and begged that help might be sent back to them. The rest of the party managed to cross and started for the camp, still about fifteen miles distant. They were met in the evening by a scouting party of soldiers, who brought them back to camp.

Their clothing and shoes were torn to ribbons, and they were greatly exhausted from the terrible strains and hardships to which they had been subjected. That they escaped at all was a miracle, due to the coolness of young Sibley and the marvelous skill of Gruard. A detachment went back for the two men who had remained behind and brought them back to the camp.

Lieutenant Sibley reported to General Crook that he had found the Indians, but whether that statement is accurate is a question. It would, perhaps, be more truthful to say that the Indians had found him. Sibley and Gruard were highly complimented by Crook; and Mr. Finerty, who had displayed great courage, wrote a graphic account of it, from which this brief sketch has been abridged.

Footnote 96:

The frontiersmen translate this to “Hat Creek”; and that is the name it bears to-day—more’s the pity!

Footnote 97:

Afterward brigadier-general of volunteers in the Spanish-American War, and the author of many fascinating romances of army life.

Footnote 98:

“The Adventures of Buffalo Bill.” By Colonel William F. Cody. Harper & Brothers, 1904.