CHAPTER NINE

The First Success

I. Crook and Mills at Slim Buttes

After the defeat of General Custer, and the successful retreat of the Sioux and Cheyennes from the Little Big Horn, the government hurried reinforcements into the field, and ordered Crook and Terry to press the pursuit of the Indians with the greatest vigor. It was not, however, until nearly a year after the disaster on the Little Big Horn that the Sioux war was concluded, and it was not until after the Indians had met with several crushing defeats and had been pursued until they were utterly exhausted that peace was declared.

The greatest individual factor in bringing about this much desired result was General George Crook, a celebrated cavalryman during the Civil War, and a more celebrated Indian fighter after its close. With unwearied tenacity and vigor he pursued the savages, striking them through his subordinates whenever and wherever they could be found. The terrible persistence with which he urged his faint, starving, foot-sore, tattered soldiers along the trail, to which he clung with a resolution and determination that nothing could shake, entitles him to the respect and admiration of his countrymen—a respect and admiration, by the way, which was fully accorded him by his gallant and equally desperate foes.

After Crook, the men who brought about the result were, first and foremost, Nelson A. Miles—singularly enough not a cavalryman, but the Colonel of the Fifth Infantry; and, next to him, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, of the Fourth Cavalry, and Captain Anson Mills, of the Third, whom we have already noted doing gallant service at the Battle of the Rosebud. Miles had been ordered into the field to reinforce Terry’s shattered and depleted column.

After much marching and scouting, the columns of Terry and Crook combined; but Terry’s forces were in bad condition, and his command was soon withdrawn from the field. What was left of the Seventh Cavalry was sent back to Fort Lincoln, whence they had started out with such bright hopes a few months before. Gibbon’s command was returned to Montana, where it had been made up, on account of the threatening aspect of things in that quarter, and Terry retired from active campaigning to resume command of his department. Miles, as we shall see, was sent to the Yellowstone.

Crook was left alone in the active pursuit. Space and time are lacking to describe the details of the wonderful marches he made on the trails of the Indians—now under burning suns, which parched the ground until it was as bare as the palm of a hand; again through torrents of drenching rains, which succeeded the fierce heat; and, finally, through the snows and cold of a winter of unexampled severity. During the summer there was no forage for the horses of the cavalry nor for the very small pack train, and rations for the men became shorter and shorter. Finally, early in September, the supply of provisions was reduced to two and a half days’ rations. Crook calculated that they could march two weeks on that amount.

They supplemented the rations by living on horse and mule meat and a few wild onions which they could gather from time to time in spots which had escaped the universal baking of the summer. At last the command literally reached the end of its resources. The Indians were in bad condition, too, but their situation was not nearly so desperate as was that of Crook and his men. The Indians were worn out and exhausted by the energetic and relentless pursuit which had been hurled after them by the indomitable commander, but they still had plenty to eat, and they had managed to keep ahead of him, and to avoid various scouting columns.

On the 7th of September, 1876, Crook realized that his men had reached the limit of their endurance, and that forage and food must be procured or they would all die in the wilderness. The Indians had swept the country bare of game, and the sun had swept it clean of fodder. One hundred and fifty of the best men—that is, those who showed the fewest signs of the hardships they had undergone—with the best horses and the last of the mules, were formed into an advance party under Captain Anson Mills, of the Third Cavalry. Mills had instructions to push on to Deadwood City, one of the new towns in the Black Hills, to get provisions, “Any kind of provisions, for God’s sake!” which he could bring back to the rest of the army, now in a destitute condition.

Mills was not expected to hunt for, or to fight, Indians—primarily, that is. He was to go for food in order to keep the army from starving; but as he marched southward, his scouts discovered a large village of forty or fifty lodges at a place called Slim Buttes, in the northwest corner of South Dakota. The tepees had been pitched on a little rising from the banks of a small stream called Rabbit Creek. The place was inclosed on three sides by a series of tall cliffs, whose broken sides seemed here and there to have been cut in half-formed terraces, making the ascent easy. Little ravines and small cañons ran through the buttes, gradually ascending until they met the plateau on top.

Mills instantly determined to attack the camp—a wise and soldierly action on his part. He made his dispositions with care. Reaching the vicinity of the camp, he halted in a deep gorge on the night of September 8, and prepared for battle early the next morning. The night was dark, cold, and very rainy, and the tired men suffered greatly. Marching out at dawn, Mills succeeded at daybreak in surprising the camp, which proved to be that of a band of Sioux led by American Horse, one of the most prominent chiefs. Leaving Lieutenant Bubb with the pack train and the lead horses, Mills directed Lieutenant Schwatka, afterward so well known from his Arctic explorations, to charge directly into the village with twenty-five mounted men. The remainder of his force he dismounted and divided into two parties, under Lieutenants Von Luettwitz and Crawford, respectively, with orders to move on the camp from different sides.

The attack was a complete success. The village was taken with but little loss. Some of the Sioux were killed and others captured, but most escaped through the ravines to the plateau surrounding the valley. One heroic but unfortunate little band, consisting of American Horse and four warriors, with fifteen women and children, was driven into one of the cañons which ended in a cave. One or two of the soldiers had been wounded in the attack. Lieutenant Von Luettwitz, who had fought all through the Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and who was a veteran of the Civil War, was shot in the knee and so badly wounded that his leg had to be amputated on the field.

Being now in complete command of the village, the pack train was ordered up and the captured village was examined. To the joy of Mills and his soldiers, an immense quantity of provisions, in the shape of meat, forage, and other stores, was discovered.

There still remained the little band of savages in the ravine to be dealt with. A detachment was ordered to drive them out. The Indians had been busy making rifle-pits, and as the soldiers advanced to storm the cave, they were met with a rapid and well-directed fire. Two of them were shot dead and others wounded.[99] The Indian position appeared to be impregnable. An interpreter crept near enough under cover to make himself heard, and asked their surrender. They replied to his command with taunts and jeers. They incautiously informed him, however, that Crazy Horse with his warriors was in the vicinity, and on being apprised of their situation by some of the fugitives, he would undoubtedly come to their rescue. Crazy Horse could have made short work of Mills and his hundred and fifty. Meanwhile the survivors of the village, which had contained a hundred warriors, formed an extended line on the buttes and opened fire on the soldiers.

Mills acted promptly. He despatched a courier to Crook on the best horse in the command, to report the situation and ask him for reinforcements at once. Incidentally, he mentioned that a great quantity of provisions had been found. Then he made preparations to hold the place, and at the same time to prosecute his attack against the cave, all the time keeping up a smart fight with the men on the buttes. So soon as Crook received the message, he started forward, intending to take with him a select body of men; but the whole army, spoiling for a fight and hungry for a square meal, insisted on going along. They made a forced march, and reached Mills about half after eleven in the morning.

Crook immediately proceeded to dislodge the Indians in the cave. The men were led forward under a galling fire, to which the general, in spite of the entreaties of his staff, exposed himself with indifference. When they got in a position to command the cave, Crook, willing to spare his brave foemen, again asked them to surrender. His request was met by a decided negative. The men opened fire, and searched every cranny and recess of the cave with a storm of bullets. Gruard, one of the scouts, taking advantage of cover, crept to the very mouth of the cave, remained there unobserved, watched his opportunity, seized a squaw who incautiously exposed herself, and with her as a shield dashed forward and shot one of the warriors, escaping in safety himself.

II. The Death of American Horse

After two hours of firing, the death-chants of the squaws induced Crook to order a cessation for another parley. This time his request that the Indians surrender met with some response; for the squaws and children, to the number of thirteen, came reluctantly forth on his positive assurance that they would be protected. The braves refused to give up. They were confident that Crazy Horse would succor them. The engagement at once began again, but after it had lasted some little time the fire of the Indians ceased.

The offer of mercy was made a fourth time. A young Indian stepped out and received additional assurance that no harm should come if they surrendered. He went back into the cave and presently reappeared with another young warrior, supporting between them the tall, splendid figure of brave old American Horse. He had been shot through the bowels, and his intestines protruded from the wound. He was suffering frightful agony, and was biting hard upon a piece of wood to control himself. He handed his gun to Crook and gave up the contest. The surgeons with the command did everything they possibly could for him, but his wound was beyond human skill. That night, surrounded by his wives and children, he died, as stoically and as bravely as he had lived.

Inside the cave the rocky walls were cut and scored by the rain of bullets which had been poured into it, and lying on the floor were the bodies of the two Indian warriors, together with a woman and a child, who had been killed. The soldiers had not known, until the squaws came out, that there were any women or children there. The little band had sold their lives dearly. Even the women had used guns, and had displayed all the bravery and courage of the Sioux.

Too late Crazy Horse, with some six hundred warriors, appeared on the scene. Imagining he had only to deal with Mills’ small force, he galloped gallantly forward to the attack at about five o’clock. He was greatly astonished at the number of antagonists developed thereby. He retired to the top of the buttes, and the soldiers in gallant style dashed after him. They scaled the cliffs, finally gaining the level plateau. Crazy Horse made one or two attempts to break through the line, but it was impossible, and seeing himself greatly outnumbered, he wisely retired, having sustained some loss.

The battle was one of the most picturesque ever fought in the West. Crook and his officers stood in the camp, the center of a vast amphitheater ringed with fire, up the sides of which the soldiers steadily climbed to get at the Indians, silhouetted in all their war finery against the sky. The loss of life on either side was not great, but the capture of the village and the provisions which had been accumulated for the winter was a serious one.

In the camp were discovered many articles that had belonged to the Seventh Cavalry—a guidon, money, one of Captain Keogh’s gauntlets, marked with his name, orderly books, saddles, etc. Among other things, were letters written by officers and soldiers to friends in the East, some of them still sealed and ready for mailing. They must have come like voices from the dead when they reached those to whom they had been written.

Footnote 99:

One of the scouts killed in this battle was a great admirer of Buffalo Bill, whose manners, methods, and appearance he aped as well as he could. He rejoiced in an unfortunate sobriquet, which was received in this wise: General Sheridan, seeking Buffalo Bill to lead a hunting expedition on one occasion, was met by this swaggerer, with the remark that Buffalo Bill was gone away, and when Buffalo Bill was gone he was Buffalo Bill himself. “The h—l you are!” said Sheridan contemptuously. “Buffalo Chip, you mean!” The poor braggart never got away from the name of “Buffalo Chip Charlie.” He was a brave man for all his vanity, and the soldiers were sorry enough for their mockery when they buried him that night at the foot of the buttes, where he had fallen in the attack on the cave.