The Paintings
Chronologically, the first of the paintings ([fig. 2]) is that of the Indian attack on General Marcy's train escorted by Company K on September 23, 1867. This attack took place on the Arkansas River about nine miles west of Cimarron Crossing, Kansas. It was an insignificant action as such, similar to hundreds of other such fights in the West, but, in the days of wet-plate photography and low-speed camera shutters, the painting is significant as a rare eye-witness drawing and tells us far more than might any written description. General Marcy's report is somewhat cursory:
Yesterday at about 9 o'clock a.m. as we were approaching a bluff near the Arkansas River thirty-five miles above here we suddenly discovered a great many Indians approaching us from various different directions. I immediately halted our train and after arranging our escort in proper order for action went forward. The Indians circled around us at full speed firing as they ran but did not come very near us. I would not allow our men to fire at the long range, believing that the Indians would come nearer but they did not. Some of the men fired and it is believed that two were wounded as groups collected around them. They wounded Lt. Williams severely in the leg and one soldier who has since died.
Near the point where the affair occurred was a large train of wagons en route to New Mexico with valuable freight. The train had two hundred mules driven off by the Indians about twelve days ago, and it had been guarded by twenty-five men since, and it is probable that the Indians were there for the purpose of capturing the train as they had been firing into it previous to our arrival.[24]
Stieffel tells us much more in his painting. Upon being attacked the train has pulled off the road, visible in the left foreground, and corralled. The horses remain hitched, witness to the suddenness of the attack. That the Indians did not venture overly close, as stated by Marcy, is indicated by the fact that Brotherton's men have not been forced to take cover behind the wagons. That the Indians appear closer than Marcy indicates is due to the artist's lack of perspective. They are firing muzzle-loading rifles, several men being in the act of ramming home charges. Stieffel is doubtless correct in this detail. The Chief of Ordnance reported in October 1867 that nearly all the infantry in the Departments of the Missouri and the Platte had been issued breech-loaders.[25] It seems more than probable that Company K, in transit as it was from the distant Department of New Mexico, had never seen the new weapons.
In the matter of uniform, Stieffel may have been indulging his fancy somewhat when he pictured the men as wearing the long frock coat and black campaign hat. A miscellany of dress with the short fatigue jacket and kepi predominating would seem far more reasonable for an outfit which had just finished six rough years in the desert Southwest and was even then nearing the end of a 500-mile march. The artist, as did most observers of the period, has patently overestimated the number of Indians who must have carried firearms in the attack. Fully 50 percent or more of the Indians are pictured as so armed, a point which—understandable as it may be in the case of an observer participating in what may well have been his first Indian fight—is not borne out by the record. In the Fetterman Massacre of the previous December, of the 81 white men killed only six bore gunshot wounds,[26] and the best evidence indicates that the force which overwhelmed Custer on the Little Big Horn River in 1876 was at least 50 percent armed with bow and arrow.[27] Then again, General Marcy's report would seem to bear this out. Had the Indians been well armed, the freight wagon train, which Stieffel pictures corralled in the right background, could hardly have held out for twelve days against a force estimated at 300 or more warriors defended by only 25 men, at least a part of whom were Mexicans described by Marcy as badly frightened.[28] The soldier in the center background making a dash for the corralled wagons is probably a flanker cut off by the sudden attack, possibly the Lt. Williams who was wounded, since only officers in the infantry were mounted. The group of Indians around the fire (in the right centerground) cannot be accounted for.
Figure 7.—Fort Harker, Kansas; south side. (USNM 384186; Smithsonian photo 38986.)
Stieffel's two pictures of the meeting of the Government's peace commissioners with the Indians at the general tribal rendezvous on Big Medicine Lodge Creek in October 1867 ([figs. 3], [4]) are his most important from a historical standpoint, especially the one of Satanta, the Kiowa chief, addressing the meeting.[29]
Indian unrest during and immediately after the Civil War caused by the ever-increasing white migration to the West had grown to such proportions that in 1867 the Congress launched an all-out effort to establish a lasting peace on the frontier. The plan was to persuade the warring tribes to sign treaties whereby they would move onto reservations where they would be undisturbed by the whites and, in turn, would cease to molest the frontier settlements.[30] The Indians concerned with the Medicine Lodge treaty were the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe. This treaty is unusually important, as it changed the entire status of these tribes from that of independence with free and unrestricted range over the entire plains area to that of dependence on the Government with confinement to the limits of a reservation with constant civilian and military supervision. For the Indians it was the beginning of the end.
Figure 8.—Fort Keogh, Montana. (USNM 384189; Smithsonian photo 37925.)
Upon its arrival at Fort Harker following the action of September 23, Company K had been assigned as escort for the commissioners, thus Stieffel's presence at Council Grove. It was a colorful gathering, with some 5,000 Indians on hand. First came a series of speeches. Then the treaty was drawn up and explained to the Indians. They were to retire to assigned reservations, cease attacking the whites, and permit railroads to be built across the plains. In return the reservations were to be closed to the white buffalo hunters and the tribes were to be issued certain annuities and provided with farming implements, seeds, churches, and schools. In short, the Indians were to be forced to "walk the white man's road."
When the turn came for the Indians to reply, several chiefs responded, the most notable being the Kiowa chief, Satanta, or "White Bear" ([fig. 11]), one of the most remarkable individuals in his tribe's history. Speaking for all, Satanta made an unusually strong impression on most of those present, Stieffel among them, for this is the incident which he chose to depict[31] [(fig. 3]).
Satanta is pictured in the act of speaking to the commissioners, three of whom can be identified as the military members, Generals Terry, Augur, and Harney from left to right,[32] plus one of the civilian commissioners, possibly N. G. Taylor, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. A daring and successful warrior, Satanta's eloquence and vigor of expression had already won for him the title "Orator of the Plains." Every feature on his strong face, every line, showed his character—a forceful, untamable savage of a tribe as well known for its lack of honor, gratitude, and general reliability as for its bravery.[33] With great dignity and impact he first denounced bitterly and scornfully the killing for mere sport of a number of buffalo near the council site by some troopers of the 7th Cavalry:
Has the white man become a child, that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve.
In direct relation to the treaty, he continued with obvious sincerity:
I love the land and the buffalo.... I don't want any of the medicine lodges [schools and churches] within the country. I want the children raised as I was.... I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I am free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.... A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that my heart feels like busting.
Little wonder Stieffel and all those present were impressed. It is appropriate to add that neither the Indians nor the Government of the United States observed the provisions of this treaty.
Figure 9.—Miles City, Montana. (USNM 384190; Smithsonian photo 37925-B.)
The remainder of Stieffel's paintings have no such impact as the earlier ones, but nonetheless they are important, especially for their almost meticulous detail of camp and post life and terrain in the West. In that of the camp of peace commissioners he accurately depicts the various types of tentage of the Army at the time—the small slanting wall tents of the enlisted men, the wall tents of the individual officers, the large wall headquarters and officers' mess tents, and the familiar Sibleys, one of which is obviously being used for the guard. The escort wagons and ambulances are regulation transport of the period. The artist has even included a sentry walking post at the ration dump with fixed bayonet, a sound precaution against sticky red fingers. Two Indian camps are shown in the background, and the Indians, as would befit the atmosphere of a treaty council, are moving freely through the military camp to the apparent unconcern of the military.
Figure 10.—The Yellowstone River near Fort Keogh, Montana. (USNM 384191; Smithsonian photo 37925-A.)
The landscape of the Wichita Mountains from Medicine Bluffs ([fig. 5]) on the present-day Fort Sill reservation is noteworthy as a terrain sketch to anyone who has served at that post. I have ridden over this country many times, and the undulating prairie, the meandering of Medicine Creek, the Bluffs themselves—over the highest of which (left centerground) the Apache Geronimo did not ride his horse with the 7th Cavalry in full cry behind—Mount Hinds and lofty Mount Scott are remarkable in their accuracy when one considers that the painting must have been done from sketches made when Stieffel was on escort detail to the Indian Territory in 1869.[34]
The two views of Fort Harker, Kansas ([figs. 6], [7]), now Ellsworth, must have been painted during 1870 and 1871 while Stieffel was on extra duty as a hospital attendant there. From an artistic standpoint they are the poorest of his work. His detail, however, more than compensates for any deficiencies as a draftsman and gives us an excellent concept of the physical layout and daily routine of a small post in the Southern Plains. The two views are from the east and south, and complement one another nicely. Headquarters, officers' quarters, and barracks, all of typical clapboard construction, are readily discernible, as are the stables, the latter being the long unfenestrated buildings. Even the barrack privies, an outdoor bake oven alongside a mess hall, and earth-covered powder magazines can be easily identified. The long rows of cordwood for cooking and heating were to be seen on any post of the period. In the view from the east ([fig. 6]) may be seen a detail of cavalrymen with led horses moving out for animal exercise past the camp of a transient unit with its standard tentage and transport. The high white paling fence is difficult to place, being either an animal corral, in which case it would be much too high, or a forage yard, since no hay piles are visible elsewhere. Stieffel seems to have been considerably fascinated by the railroad ([fig. 7]) with its accompanying telegraph line running southwest of the fort, for again he paints in some detail, although this time with an almost childish conception. The "U.P.R.W.E.D." which he so carefully letters in identifies the line as the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division.[35] The naming of the engine "Osage" was as typical of the period as the naming of individual commercial aircraft is today.
Figure 11.—Kiowa Chief Satanta, or White Bear. (Smithsonian photo BAE 1380-A.)
The last three paintings ([figs. 8][-][10]) fall in the period of Stieffel's service at Fort Keogh in the Department of Dakota. The fort, named for Captain Miles Keogh (who died with Custer in the Little Big Horn massacre) and originally called Cantonment Tongue River, was located at the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers near present-day Miles City, Montana.
The pictures of both the fort ([fig. 8]) and Miles City ([fig. 9]) are subject to check against extant photographs; they are amazing in their detail and accuracy. The over-all layout of the fort conforms, and such minute details as the gable windows and chimneys of the officers' quarters on the left of the parade ground and the two-story verandas on the enlisted barracks opposite are absolutely correct.[36] The familiar stables, corral, wood piles, and hay piles—the latter surrounded by a stone wall as protection against grass fire in the dry months—are readily discernible ([fig. 8]). The low stone buildings and corral in the right centerground probably are part of the original structures of Cantonment Tongue River. The small shacks to the left of them probably are the homes of the civilian hangers-on who founded Miles City in 1876 after being ejected from the post by Col. Nelson Miles, the commander of the 5th Infantry. The first site of Miles City can be seen in the upper right corner on the banks of the Tongue. The town was moved across the river in 1877. The mounted drill in the foreground is difficult to explain in a period when and in an area where the troops were almost constantly in the field under combat conditions. Perhaps it is mere window dressing by the artist. It is entirely possible, however, that Stieffel has pictured elements of his own regiment, which was mounted from 1877 until after the surrender of Sitting Bull in 1881. Being basically infantry they would be most in need of training in mounted tactics. Then again, these could be legitimate cavalry whose commander thought had wandered too far from regulation movements during the unorthodox winter warfare they had been waging against the Indians.
The view of Miles City ([fig. 9]) has little importance in a military sense, but it is a fine contemporary view of a frontier town of the period. It is probably the product of a spring afternoon Stieffel spent along the banks of the Tongue. It was painted before 1880—a wooden bridge had replaced the ferry by that year[37]—and probably as early as 1878, for the town grew rapidly and Stieffel pictures only two streets, Main and Park, running at right angles. The town is correctly placed in a grove of cottonwoods, and low to the river as evidenced by the almost annual flooding of the streets.[38] Structures which can be readily identified, reading from left to right on Main Street, are the Diamond D corral visible near the ferry landing; the town stockade which Stieffel has either misplaced or which was later moved; Major Bochardt's store, the white two-story building; Broadwater, Hubbel and Co., the brown two-story structure next right; the Cottage Saloon at the corner of Main and Park Streets, just to the right of the flag pole; and Morris Cahn's drygoods emporium on Park Street, in the right centerground, that can be identified by Cahn's name on the false front.[39]