CHAPTER III
THE CONQUEST OF THE PLAINS
The Indians had long since ceased to be a serious menace to the United States, and the policy of the government for many years had been to settle them upon various selected tracts of land west of the Mississippi. But the population of the West was increasing very rapidly, the completion of the railway to the Pacific having given it a great impetus.
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
FINISHED, MAY 10, 1869
"And a Highway shall there be."
'Tis "Done"—the wondrous thoroughfare
Type of that Highway all divine!
No ancient wonder can compare
With this, in grandeur of design.
For, 'twas no visionary scheme
To immortalize the builder's name;
No impulse rash, no transient dream
Of some mere worshipper of Fame.
Rare common sense conceived the plan,
For working out a lasting good—
The full development of Man;
The growth of human brotherhood!
And lo! by patient toil and care,
The work with rare success is crowned;
And nations, yet to be, will share
In blessings that shall e'er abound.
Across a continent's expanse,
The lengthening track now runs secure,
O'er which the Iron Horse shall prance,
So long as earth and time endure!
His course extends from East to West—
From where Atlantic billows roar,
To where the quiet waters rest,
Beside the far Pacific shore.
Proud commerce, by Atlantic gales
Tossed to and fro,—her canvas rent—
Will gladly furl her wearied sails,
And glide across a continent.
Through smiling valleys, broad and free,
O'er rivers wide, or mountain-crest,
Her course shall swift and peaceful be,
Till she has reached the farthest West.
And e'en the treasures of the East,
Diverted from their wonted track,—
With safety gained, with speed increased,—
Will follow in her footsteps back.
And thus the Nations, greatly blest,
Will share another triumph, won,
That links yet closer East and West—
The rising and the setting sun!
This glorious day with joy we greet!
May Faith abound, may Love increase,
And may this highway, now complete,
Be the glad harbinger of Peace!
God bless the Work, that it may prove
The source of greater good in store,
When Man shall heed the law of Love,
And Nations shall learn war no more.
C. R. Ballard.
During the autumn of 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills Sioux reservation and explorers rushed in; a still worse grievance was the wanton destruction of bison by hunters and excursionists. Driven to frenzy, at last, tribe after tribe of savages took up arms, and started on a career of murder and rapine.
AFTER THE COMANCHES
Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Mount, mount, and away!
Over the dim green prairie,
Straight on the track of day;
Spare not spur for mercy,
Hurry with shout and thong,
Fiery and tough is the mustang,
The prairie is wide and long.
Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Leap from the broken door,
Where the brute Comanche entered,
And the white-foot treads no more!
The hut is burnt to ashes,
There are dead men stark outside,
And only a long torn ringlet
Left of the stolen bride.
Go like the east wind's howling,
Ride with death behind,
Stay not for food or slumber,
Till the thieving wolves ye find!
They came before the wedding,
Swifter than prayer or priest;
The bride-men danced to bullets,
The wild dogs ate the feast.
Look to rifle and powder,
Buckle the knife-belt sure;
Loose the coil of the lasso,
And make the loop secure;
Fold the flask in the poncho,
Fill the pouch with maize,
And ride as if to-morrow
Were the last of living days.
Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Redden spur and thong,
Ride like the mad tornado,
The track is lonely and long,
Spare not horse nor rider,
Fly for the stolen bride!
Bring her home on the crupper,
A scalp on either side.
It was decided to transfer the Sioux to another reservation, but, under the advice of Sitting Bull, they refused to stir. A detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer was sent against them, and came suddenly upon their encampment on June 25, 1876. A terrific fight followed, in which Custer and all of his men were killed.
June 25, 1876
Down the Little Big Horn
(O troop forlorn!),
Right into the camp of the Sioux
(What was the muster?),
Two hundred and sixty-two
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer,
Went out at a breath,
Stanch to the death!
[Just from the canyon emerging],
Saw they the braves of [Sitting Bull] surging,
Two thousand and more,
Painted and feathered, thirsting for gore,
Did they shrink and turn back
(Hear how the rifles crack!),
Did they pause for a life,
For a sweetheart or wife?
And one in that savage throng
(His revenge had waited long),
Pomped with porcupine quills,
His deerskins beaded and fringed,
An eagle's plume in his long black hair,
His tall lance fluttering in the air,
Glanced at the circling hills—
His cheeks flushed with a keen surmise,
A demon's hate in his eyes
Remembering the hour when he cringed,
A prisoner thonged,
Chief Rain-in-the-Face
(There was a sachem wronged!)
Saw his enemy's heart laid bare,
Feasted in thought like a beast in his lair.
Cavalry, cavalry
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
Horses prancing, cavorting,
Shying and snorting,
Accoutrements rattling
(Children at home are prattling),
Gallantly, gallantly,
"Company dismount!"
From the saddle they swing,
With their steeds form a ring
(Hear how the bullets sing!),
Who can their courage recount?
Do you blanch at their fate?
(Who would hesitate?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Immortals in blue,
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
Like some granite boulder
You must blast to displace
(Were they of a valiant race?)—
Two hundred and sixty-two,
And never a man to say,
"I rode with Custer that day."
Give the savage his triumph and bluster,
Give the hero to perish with Custer,
To his God and his comrades true.
Closing and closing,
Nearer the redskins creep;
With cunning disposing,
With yell and with whoop
(There are women shall weep!),
They gather and swoop,
They come like a flood,
Maddened with blood,
They shriek, plying the knife
(Was there one begged for his life?),
Where but a moment ago
Stood serried and sternly the foe,
Now fallen, mangled below.
Down the Little Big Horn
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
A single steed in the morn,
Comanche, seven times hit,
Comes to the river to drink;
Lists for the sabre's clink,
Lists for the voice of his master
(O glorious disaster!),
Comes, sniffing the air,
Gazing, lifts his head,
But his master lies dead.
(Who but the dead were there?)
But stay, what was the muster?
Two hundred and sixty-two
(Two thousand and more the Sioux!)
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer;
For never a man can say,
"I rode with Custer that day—"
Went out like a taper,
Blown by a sudden vapor,
Went out at a breath,
True to the death!
Francis Brooks.
LITTLE BIG HORN
[June 25, 1876]
Beside the lone river,
That idly lay dreaming,
Flashed sudden the gleaming
Of sabre and gun
In the light of the sun
As over the hillside the soldiers came streaming.
One peal of the bugle
In stillness unbroken
That sounded a token
Of soul-stirring strife,
Savage war to the knife,
Then silence that seemed like defiance unspoken.
But out of an ambush
Came warriors riding,
Swift ponies bestriding,
Shook rattles and shells,
With a discord of yells.
That fired the hearts of their comrades in hiding.
Then fierce on the wigwams
The soldiers descended,
And madly were blended,
The red man and white
In a hand-to-hand fight,
With the Indian village assailed and defended.
And there through the passage
Of battle-torn spaces,
From dark lurking-places,
With blood-curdling cry
And their knives held on high,
Rushed Amazon women with wild, painted faces.
Then swung the keen sabres
And flashed the sure rifles
Their message that stifles
The shout in red throats,
While the reckless blue-coats
Laughed on 'mid the fray as men laugh over trifles.
Grim cavalry troopers
Unshorn and unshaven,
And never a craven
In ambuscade caught,
How like demons they fought
Round the knoll on the prairie that marked their last haven.
But the Sioux circled nearer
The shrill war-whoop crying,
And death-hail was flying,
Yet still they fought on
Till the last shot was gone,
And all that remained were the dead and the dying.
A song for their death, and
No black plumes of sorrow,
This recompense borrow,
Like heroes they died
Man to man—side by side;
We lost them to-day, we shall meet them to-morrow.
And on the lone river,
Has faded the seeming
Of bright armor gleaming,
But there by the shore
With the ghosts of no-more
The shades of the dead through the ages lie dreaming.
Ernest McGaffey.
CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE
[June 25, 1876]
Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,
Far from our battle-king's ringlets of light!
Dead, our young chieftain, and dead, all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!
Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There on the hilltop he halted and saw them,—
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;
Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.
All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat!—
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!
Numbers! What recked he? What recked those who followed—
Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?
Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;
Then down the hillside exultingly thundered,
Into the hordes of the old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew,
Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion,—
Then closed around, the grim horde of wild Sioux!
Right to their centre he charged, and then facing—
Hark to those yells! and around them, O see!
Over the hilltops the Indians come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire around them;
No hope of victory, no ray of light,
Shot through that terrible black cloud without them,
Brooding in death over Custer's last fight.
Then did he blench? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturing fiends for his life?
Was there a soldier who carried the Seven
Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing!
There in the midst of the Indians they close,
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers, all 'bayed amid foes!
Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing;
Down go the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes gleaming from forests of mane;
Quivering lances with pennons so airy,
War-painted warriors charging amain.
Backward, again and again, they were driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death circle growing,
Ever the leader's voice, clarion clear,
Rang out his words of encouragement glowing,
"We can but die once, boys,—we'll sell our lives dear!"
Dearly they sold them like Berserkers raging,
Facing the death that encircled them round;
Death's bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking their tracks by their dead on the ground.
Comrades, our children shall yet tell their story,—
Custer's last charge on the old Sitting Bull;
And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory
Needed but that death to render it full.
Frederick Whittaker.
CUSTER
[June 25, 1876]
What! shall that sudden blade
Leap out no more?
No more thy hand be laid
Upon the sword-hilt smiting sore?
O for another such
The charger's rein to clutch,—
One equal voice to summon victory,
Sounding thy battle-cry,
Brave darling of the soldiers' choice!
Would there were one more voice!
O gallant charge, too bold!
O fierce, imperious greed
To pierce the clouds that in their darkness hold
Slaughter of man and steed!
Now, stark and cold,
Among thy fallen braves thou liest,
And even with thy blood defiest
The wolfish foe:
But ah, thou liest low,
And all our birthday song is hushed indeed!
Young lion of the plain,
Thou of the tawny mane!
Hotly the soldiers' hearts shall beat,
Their mouths thy death repeat,
Their vengeance seek the trail again
Where thy red doomsmen be;
But on the charge no more shall stream
Thy hair,—no more thy sabre gleam,—
No more ring out thy battle-shout,
Thy cry of victory!
Not when a hero falls
The sound a world appalls:
For while we plant his cross
There is a glory, even in the loss:
But when some craven heart
From honor dares to part,
Then, then, the groan, the blanching cheek,
And men in whispers speak,
Nor kith nor country dare reclaim
From the black depths his name.
Thou, wild young warrior, rest,
By all the prairie winds caressed!
Swift was thy dying pang;
Even as the war-cry rang
Thy deathless spirit mounted high
And sought Columbia's sky:—
There, to the northward far,
Shines a new star,
And from it blazes down
The light of thy renown!
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
July 10, 1876.
The Indians were led by Rain-in-the-Face. The year before, he had been arrested by Captain Tom Custer at Standing Rock, and had threatened to eat the latter's heart. The Captain was among the killed, and Rain-in-the-Face is said to have made good his threat. Mr. Longfellow is mistaken in saying that Colonel George Custer was thus mutilated. His body was not disfigured in any way.
THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE
[June 25, 1876]
In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenge upon all the race
Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags reëchoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.
In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and river-side
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.
In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
[In ambush the Sitting Bull]
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.
The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.
But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight,
Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
[The brave heart], that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.
Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
One survivor there was, and only one, Comanche, the horse ridden by Captain Miles Keogh. He was found several miles from the battlefield, and had been wounded seven times. By order of the Secretary of War, a soldier was detailed to take care of him as long as he lived, and no one was ever afterwards permitted to ride him.
MILES KEOGH'S HORSE
On the bluff of the Little Big-Horn,
At the close of a woful day,
Custer and his Three Hundred
In death and silence lay.
Three Hundred to Three Thousand!
They had bravely fought and bled;
For such is the will of Congress
When the White man meets the Red.
The White men are ten millions,
The thriftiest under the sun;
The Reds are fifty thousand,
And warriors every one.
So Custer and all his fighting men
Lay under the evening skies,
Staring up at the tranquil heaven
With wide, accusing eyes.
And of all that stood at noonday
In that fiery scorpion ring,
Miles Keogh's horse at evening
Was the only living thing.
Alone from that field of slaughter,
Where lay the three hundred slain,
The horse Comanche wandered,
With Keogh's blood on his mane.
And Sturgis issued this order,
Which future times shall read,
While the love and honor of comrades
Are the soul of the soldier's creed.
He said—
Let the horse Comanche
Henceforth till he shall die,
Be kindly cherished and cared for
By the Seventh Cavalry.
He shall do no labor; he never shall know
The touch of spur or rein;
Nor shall his back be ever crossed
By living rider again.
And at regimental formation
Of the Seventh Cavalry,
Comanche draped in mourning and led
By a trooper of Company I,
Shall parade with the Regiment!
Thus it was
Commanded and thus done,
By order of General Sturgis, signed
By Adjutant Garlington.
Even as the sword of Custer,
In his disastrous fall,
Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world
And glorified his pall.
This order, issued amid the gloom,
That shrouds our army's name,
When all foul beasts are free to rend
And tear its honest fame.
Shall prove to a callous people
That the sense of a soldier's worth,
That the love of comrades, the honor of arms,
Have not yet perished from earth.
John Hay.
The government rushed a large force to the scene, and finally, after painful fighting and toilsome marches stretching over many months, the Indians were brought to terms. Rain-in-the-Face afterwards professed himself a man of peace, and in 1886 tried to enter Hampton Institute. He was killed during the Sioux outbreak in 1890.
ON THE BIG HORN
[1886]
The years are but half a score,
And the war-whoop sounds no more
With the blast of bugles, where
Straight into a slaughter pen,
With his doomed three hundred men,
Rode the chief with the yellow hair.
O Hampton, down by the sea!
What voice is beseeching thee
For the scholar's lowliest place?
Can this be the voice of him
Who fought on the Big Horn's rim?
Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?
His war-paint is washed away,
His hands have forgotten to slay;
He seeks for himself and his race
The arts of peace and the lore
That give to the skilled hand more
Than the spoils of war and chase.
O chief of the Christ-like school!
Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool
When the victor scarred with fight
Like a child for thy guidance craves,
And the faces of hunters and braves
Are turning to thee for light?
The hatchet lies overgrown
With grass by the Yellowstone,
Wind River and Paw of Bear;
And, in sign that foes are friends,
Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends
Its smoke in the quiet air.
The hands that have done the wrong
To right the wronged are strong,
And the voice of a nation saith:
"Enough of the war of swords,
Enough of the lying words
And shame of a broken faith!"
The hills that have watched afar
The valleys ablaze with war
Shall look on the tasselled corn;
And the dust of the grinded grain,
Instead of the blood of the slain,
Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!
The Ute and the wandering Crow
Shall know as the white men know,
And fare as the white men fare;
The pale and the red shall be brothers,
One's rights shall be as another's,
Home, School, and House of Prayer!
O mountains that climb to snow,
O river winding below,
Through meadows by war once trod,
O wild, waste lands that await
The harvest exceeding great,
Break forth into praise of God!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
In 1886 another somewhat serious uprising took place among the Apaches, a band of hostiles taking the war-path under the chief, Geronimo. General Nelson A. Miles, after a long pursuit, succeeded in capturing them.
THE "GREY HORSE TROOP"
All alone on the hillside—
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Nothin' to see but the sky an' the plain,
Nothin' to see but the drivin' rain,
Nothin' to see but the painted Sioux,
Galloping, galloping: "Whoop—whuroo!
The divil in yellow is down in the mud!"
Sez Larry to Barry, "I'm losin' blood."
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Second Dragoons!" groans Larry;
Hurrah! hurrah! for Egan's Grey Troop!
Whoop! ye divils—ye've got to whoop;
Cheer for the troopers who die: sez I—
"Cheer for the troop that never shall die!"
All alone on the hillside—
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Flat on our bellies, an' pourin' in lead—
Seven rounds left, an' the horses dead—
Barry a-cursin' at every breath;
Larry beside him, as white as death;
Indians galloping, galloping by,
Wheelin' and squealin' like hawks in the sky!
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Second Dragoons!" groans Larry;
Hurrah! hurrah! for Egan's Grey Troop!
Whoop! ye divils—ye've got to whoop;
Cheer for the troopers who die: sez I—
"Cheer for the troop that never shall die!"
All alone on the hillside—
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Two of us livin' and one of us dead—
Shot in the head, and God!—how he bled!
"Larry's done up," sez Barry to me;
"Divvy his cartridges! Quick! gimme three!"
While nearer an' nearer an' plainer in view,
Galloped an' galloped the murderin' Sioux.
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Cheer—" an' he falls on Larry.
Alas! alas! for Egan's Grey Troop!
The Red Sioux, hovering stoop to swoop;
Two out of three lay dead, while I
Cheered for the troop that never shall die.
All alone on the hillside—
Larry an' Barry an' me;
An' I fired an' yelled till I lost my head,
Cheerin' the livin', cheerin' the dead,
Swingin' my cap, I cheered until
I stumbled and fell. Then over the hill
There floated a trumpeter's silvery call,
An' Egan's Grey Troop galloped up, that's all.
Drink to the Greys,—an' Barry!
Second Dragoons,—an' Larry!
Here's a bumper to Egan's Grey Troop!
Let the crape on the guidons droop;
Drink to the troopers who die, while I
Drink to the troop that never shall die!
Robert W. Chambers.
Geronimo was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, where he was kept in captivity for the remainder of his life.
GERONIMO
Beside that tent and under guard
In majesty alone he stands,
As some chained eagle, broken-winged,
With eyes that gleam like smouldering brands,—
A savage face, streaked o'er with paint,
And coal-black hair in unkempt mane,
Thin, cruel lips, set rigidly,—
A red Apache Tamerlane.
As restless as the desert winds,
Yet here he stands like carven stone,
His raven locks by breezes moved
And backward o'er his shoulders blown;
Silent, yet watchful as he waits
Robed in his strange, barbaric guise,
While here and there go searchingly
The cat-like wanderings of his eyes.
The eagle feather on his head
Is dull with many a bloody stain,
While darkly on his lowering brow
Forever rests the mark of Cain.
Have you but seen a tiger caged
And sullen through his barriers glare?
Mark well his human prototype,
The fierce Apache fettered there.
Ernest McGaffey.
In 1889 the territory known as Oklahoma was opened to settlement, and again the Indians saw their hunting-grounds invaded by the white man, while they themselves were compelled to remove to a new reservation. Sitting Bull again advised resistance, and was killed while trying to escape arrest. A squaw of the tribe, made desperate by the removal, killed her baby and committed suicide.
THE LAST RESERVATION
Sullen and dark, in the September day,
On the bank of the river
They waited the boat that would bear them away
From their poor homes forever.
For progress strides on, and the order had gone
To these wards of the nation,
"Give us land and more room," was the cry, "and move on
To the next reservation."
With her babe, she looked back at the home 'neath the trees
From which they were driven,
Where the smoke of the last camp fire, borne on the breeze,
Rose slowly toward heaven.
Behind her, fair fields, and the forest and glade,
The home of her nation;
Around her, the gleam of the bayonet and blade
Of civilization.
Clasping close to her bosom the small dusky form,
With tender caressing,
She bent down, on the cheek of her babe soft and warm
A mother's kiss pressing.
There's a splash in the river—the column moves on,
Close-guarded and narrow,
With hardly more note of the two that are gone
Than the fall of a sparrow.
Only an Indian! Wretched, obscure,
To refinement a stranger,
And a babe, that was born, in a wigwam as poor
And rude as a manger.
Moved on—to make room for the growth in the West
Of a brave Christian nation,
Moved on—and, thank God, forever at rest
In the last reservation.
Walter Learned.
That was the last of the Indian outbreaks. Although there are still more than two hundred thousand Indians in the United States, by far the greater part of them have adopted the dress and customs of the white man and are engaged in peaceful occupations. The remainder are content to live in idleness upon the government's bounty.
INDIAN NAMES
Ye say they all have pass'd away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanish'd
From off the crested wave;
That, 'mid the forests where they roam'd,
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.
'Tis where Ontario's billow
Like ocean's surge is curl'd;
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world;
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tribute from the West,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia's breast.
Ye say their conelike cabins,
That cluster'd o'er the vale,
Have fled away like wither'd leaves
Before the autumn's gale:
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore;
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
'Mid all her young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse,
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust:
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney.