Fort Robinson: Outpost on the Plains

by Roger T. Grange

THE SIOUX EXPEDITION

Very shortly after Frank Appleton’s death, Agent Saville requested that troops be sent to Red Cloud Agency, but his communications, sent to Colonel Smith at Fort Laramie, were contradictory ones. He told Colonel Smith that Crazy Horse had declared for war. Saville also told the Colonel that although some of the hostiles were leaving and all was quiet at the agency he wanted to have troops to protect the agency and its personnel because affairs among the Sioux were too complex to trust the Indians for protection. He suggested that because of the departure of the hostiles it was a good time to get troops to the agency without trouble but cautioned the Colonel to send a force sufficient to deal with an estimated 2,000 warriors. The agent detailed a plan of march by which he thought the military column could avoid detection by the Indians. However, he admitted that Indian scouts were stationed all along the Platte.

A request for troops to be stationed at the agency was an admission of the failure of the Peace Policy. Saville’s reluctance to ask for help was apparently overcome by his alarm over the serious troubles at the agency. His action was later investigated and approved by Bishop Hare.

The Sioux Expedition was organized by the Army in response to Saville’s request for troops. The arrival of the troops at the agency was delayed by the intense cold, but the tension there had eased enough that officers, as well as Saville himself, felt that they could hold out until the soldiers arrived.

Cold weather was not the Army’s only problem; the call for extra supplies and ammunition had caught them unprepared. Two hundred rounds of ammunition per man were specified in the orders. To get this amount, Fort Leavenworth was drained of supplies, and requisitions had to be forwarded to Frankfort Arsenal. The lack of ammunition set off some bitter correspondence between responsible officers. The Chief of Ordnance reported to the Adjutant General “... that the want of ammunition in the present seeming emergency can not be attributed to the failure of this bureau to provide, but rather to the neglect of the users to make the proper requisition at the proper time.”[8]

The Sioux Expedition got under way when eight infantry and four cavalry companies marched from Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming Territory, to Fort Laramie. The troops reached Fort Laramie on February 26 and 27, 1874 after suffering severely from frost bite in the 38° below zero cold. At Fort Laramie four more companies of cavalry were added to the expedition. At Fort D. A. Russell the Sioux Expedition had been divided into two battalions, one cavalry and one infantry.[9]

The 547 cavalrymen, led by Major Baker, left Fort Laramie on March 2, 1874 and reached Red Cloud Agency on the fifth. Captain Lazelle and his battalion of 402 infantrymen left Fort Laramie on March 3, arriving at the agency on the seventh. Each battalion had a Gatling gun, and the column was provisioned by a supply train of fifty civilian and seventy government wagons. The supply train carried ten days’ rations and five days’ forage and included a beef herd.

Generals Sheridan and Ord were on hand for the departure of the Sioux Expedition from Fort Laramie. The officers considered keeping the expedition route a secret, but it was apparent that the Indians were certain to discover such a large force. The troops took the obvious route, following the well known Fort Laramie to Fort Pierre fur trade trail. On reaching the headwaters of the White River the expedition was forced to ford the stream thirteen times.[10] As the expedition neared the agency the troops passed abandoned Indian camps and when they reached Red Cloud they found the northern troublemakers had all departed for a new camp on nearby Hat Creek.

When the troops arrived at the agency Saville was undecided about the establishment of the military camp. His first suggestion was that a single camp be established at a point equidistant from the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies. By the next day he had changed his mind and wanted the soldiers at Red Cloud, so the tent camp was established alongside the blockhouse of the agency.

Four companies of infantry and one of cavalry were left at Camp Red Cloud Agency, and the remainder of the Sioux Expedition marched on to Spotted Tail Agency to establish a camp there. The camp at Spotted Tail was named Camp Sheridan and on March 29, 1874, the name of Camp Red Cloud Agency was changed to Camp Robinson in honor of Lt. Levi H. Robinson, who had been killed at Little Cottonwood Creek the previous month.

Owing to heavy snow and lack of grass for cavalry horses, most of the cavalry did not stay at the agencies. Each camp was garrisoned by four companies of infantry, one of cavalry, and a Gatling gun was left at each camp.[11] The other six cavalry companies returned to Fort Laramie on March 16. Lieutenant Ray and the supply train left with the returning cavalry to get another load of supplies for the two garrisons at the agencies.

The garrisons left behind at the agencies began the work of getting settled. By mutual agreement Spotted Tail and Captain Lazelle, post commander at Camp Sheridan, forbade intercamp visits at that agency. Lazelle had his men dig rifle pits in front of their tent camp. Although the Brule leaders Spotted Tail, Swift Bear, Standing Elk, and Two Strike said they would not help the troops in the event of war with the hostile faction, Colonel Smith reported that the Brules at Spotted Tail Agency seemed resigned to the presence of soldiers.

In contrast, Colonel Smith reported that a sullen attitude towards soldiers persisted at Red Cloud Agency where apparently even the friendly faction was being difficult. When Dr. Saville ordered all friendly Indians to camp on the south side of the White River he had to threaten the loss of issue rations to enforce his order. The Indians declared the north bank of the White River a deadline for all white men, thus making necessary a longer wagon haul for needed wood supplies.

The hostiles broke camp on Hat Creek and moved to Spotted Tail Agency. Colonel Forsyth’s official report of the Sioux Expedition lists Lone Horn of the North, White Bull, Roman Nose and Stooping Bear as the principal chiefs among the northern Indians at Spotted Tail Agency. The principal warriors among this faction were also listed by Colonel Forsyth; they were Turtle Ribs, Thunder Hawk, High Bear, Dog Back, and Crazy Horse.[12] Despite the return of the hostiles, the relative quiet at the agencies and ease of occupation by the troops prompted General Sheridan erroneously to predict “any war we may have with Sioux Indians will be simply the pursuit of small raiding parties.”[13]