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:
All obvious spelling and punctuation errors corrected.