Part 27

The General had assembled the hospital around him and the infantry, also two battalions near him. In visiting my wounded, Captain Henry heard my voice and called me. I did not know until then that he had been wounded, and going to him, found his breast all covered with clotted blood, his eyes swollen so he could not see, and a ghastly wound through both cheeks under the eyes. I said, "Henry, are you badly wounded?" and he replied, "The doctors have just told me that I must die, but I will not." And he did not, although nine out of ten under such circumstances would have died. Henry and I were rival captains in the same regiment, but always friends.

Though the Third Cavalry had less than one-half of the soldiers engaged, their loss in killed and wounded was about four-fifths, principally of Henry's and Van Vliet's squadrons and Andrews' company of mine, that of Vroom's company being the greatest in proportion, this owing to their isolated exposure on level ground where the Indians could pass through them.

The officers then mingled and talked over the fight. I learned that Royal, with Henry's and Van Vliet's squadrons and my troop E had gone to the extreme left, where the ground was open, and that when the 1,000 or 1,500 Indians had refused to fight in the rocks they had swung around and overwhelmed them, charging bodily and rapidly through the soldiers, knocking them from their horses with lances and knives, dismounting and killing them, cutting the arms of several off at the elbows in the midst of the fight and carrying them away.

They then swung around and passed over the halting ground we had made at 9.30 in the morning, capturing some horses and killing an Indian boy left there. We then all realized for the first time that while we were lucky not to have been entirely vanquished, we had been most humiliatingly defeated, and that the village which Custer was to meet only seven days later, fourteen miles west on the Little Big Horn, contained probably 15,000 or 20,000 souls, perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 warriors, and that perhaps only half of them had met us in battle, and that had my command remained at the village not one of us would have returned.

In fact, I, with General Crook, visited this village site in our fall campaign, and he told me I ought to have been thankful to him for returning me from that canyon as they were as well or better equipped to destroy me as they were to destroy Custer and his command, and here I want to pay a tribute to both Colonel Custer and Captain Henry. I knew both as long as they lived, and have been acquainted with nearly all prominent cavalry officers during my service, and they were always in my mind typical cavalry soldiers of the U. S. Army. I always resented criticisms that were made against Custer by men from General Terry down, who had little or no knowledge of Indian warfare. While a good man, Terry was not familiar with Indian warfare.

The next day we returned to our camp on Goose Creek, where General Crook and all of us made very brief reports of the battle, having little pride in our achievement. General Crook asked for reinforcements, and went into camp awaiting them, meanwhile we amused ourselves by hunting and fishing in the Big Horn Mountains, both General Crook and I being very fond of hunting. We spent much time in the mountains, and some two days later, after the Custer engagement, I and my Lieutenant, Schwatka, went to the peak of the Big Horn Mountains, the northernmost point, thinking we might observe something in that direction, it being about thirty-five or forty miles to the Rosebud. About 2 p.m. we observed a great smoke, and realized that there had been a fight. Returning to camp in the night, we reported to General Crook. About June 30th, I, with my squadron, being the outpost on the lower Goose Creek, observed at sunrise some smoke which created suspicion, and looking down the valley I saw three mounted men coming toward me, which I first thought were Indians, but later discovered that they were white men on mules, Privates James Bell, William Evans, and Benj. F. Stewart, Company "E," 7th Infantry (who were awarded medals on December 2, 1876), and I rode to them. They handed me a dispatch from General Terry to General Crook, stating that Custer and his command had been massacred and that they had been sent by General Terry to carry his message to General Crook. Crook was in the mountains hunting. I carried the dispatch to Colonel Royal, commanding the camp, who opened it, and read the dispatch, which horrified the assembled officers.

He ordered me with my full company to carry it as rapidly as I could to General Crook, and after climbing about eighteen miles in the mountains I found him returning with his pack mules loaded down with elk, deer and big horn sheep. He read the dispatch, and while all of us were horrified and oppressed with mortification and sympathy for the dead and wounded, there was with all, particularly in General Crook's expression, a feeling that the country would realize that there were others who had underrated the valor and numbers of the Sioux.

While General Crook was a cold, gray-eyed and somewhat cold-blooded warrior, treating his men perhaps too practically in war time, there yet ran through us a feeling of profound sympathy for his great misfortune, while at the same time we had a still more profound sympathy for the other gallant and more sympathetic Custer--at least, most of us. There were some there, I regret to say, who had ranked him and over whom he was promoted, that would insinuate, "I told you so," and for these sentiments the majority of us had no respect.

Finally, we were joined by General Merritt and the entire Fifth Cavalry, and the fall campaign ensued. After its termination I was returned to the command of Camp Sheridan, my former post, and was directed by General Crook to enter into communication with Chief Touch the Clouds of the Minneconjous, whose tribe still remained hostile, and I proposed to approach him through Spotted Tail and try to induce him to surrender. He approved, and I fitted up Spotted Tail with about thirty of his friendly Indians, rations and pack mules, and he proceeded to the camp of Touch the Clouds, and after some protracted negotiations induced him to return and surrender at a given time, about thirty days in advance, stipulating, however, that he was to be received with honors when he joined Spotted Tail's band. This reception, according to Indian tradition, consisted of the following program:

When a hostile band agrees to return to peace and join its former friends, the hosts are supposed to be captured by them; the tribe to be joined is notified when the tribe joining will approach; the approaching tribe is drawn up in war paint in apparent hostile array, and with great shouts and whooping, charge through the receiving village, who stand out receiving them with cheers, apparently of joy; the charging Indians firing their pieces in every direction save toward their supposed make-believe enemies. After charging fully through the village they return again, dismounting, and shake hands with their newly-made friends, and direct their squaws to pitch their tepees around those of the village. Chief Touch the Clouds sent in word that he would like to make a formal surrender, and if General Crook and his staff would appear on the parade ground of the military post, he, with his principal chiefs--about thirty in number--would gallop in, mounted as with hostile intent, and when arrived within a few yards of the General, would cast their arms on the ground. And this ceremony was actually gone through by General Crook and his staff officers. The arms they threw down were pieces of no value.

It will be observed that the ethics of the North American Indians did not differ materially from the ethics of the barbarians now fighting in Europe, in that they wanted no peace without victory.

Touch the Clouds surrendered about 1,500 Minneconjous, which increased Spotted Tail's tribe to nearly 6,000.

Transcriber's Note:

1. All obvious spelling and punctuation errors corrected.

2. Italics are shown as _text_ and bold is shown as =text=.