Each house was furnished with two sheet iron stoves for burning wood, and had stove pipes passing through the roof. The officers' houses were the same, except that they were smaller and were divided into two rooms by a thin board partition. These houses were very easily set up. There was but little work on them except driving nails. They had been previously painted a dark red color, both inside and out. Whoever designed these cardboard houses—for they proved to be but little better—had but a small conception of the requirements of that climate. The winters were long, with deep snow and frequent blizzards. The architect of these shelters was indirectly the cause of much suffering. We built log huts for company kitchens, but we had no mess-rooms.
On the day before the steamboat Genoa left on her return trip to St. Louis, partly loaded with furs, a paymaster, who returned on her paid us for four months. We did not see a paymaster again until the following May or June. A sutler had established a store, with a miscellaneous stock of goods such as soldiers needed, also goods for trading with the Indians. But the prices were so high that we could not afford to buy much. This was due to the high cost of steamboat transportation, which amounted to about fifty dollars per ton from St. Louis.
About two weeks after our arrival at Fort Pierre, a courier from Brigadier General William S. Harney, commander of the Sioux expedition, arrived from Ash Hollow with an order for four companies of the Second Infantry to be sent to him as re-enforcements.
It appeared that General Harney had fought a battle with the Brulé and Ogalalla tribes of the Sioux, on September 3rd, 1855, at Ash Hollow on the Blue Water creek. This is a tributary of the Platte River, about two hundred and fifty miles south-west of Fort Pierre.
These were the Indians who had massacred Lieutenant Grattan and twenty-one soldiers more than a year before, and for whose punishment the Government had organized the Sioux expedition.
General Harney had started out from Fort Laramie with six small companies of infantry and two of cavalry. After a march of nearly one hundred and fifty miles, he skillfully approached the Indians' camp, without the presence of his troops being suspected.
The Indians had been buffalo hunting during the summer, acquiring many skins, and much dried buffalo meat. About seventy lodges had encamped on the Blue Water in a sheltered valley, where they probably expected to pass the coming winter.
The troops surprised the camp at day break, and attacked it simultaneously from two sides. The Indians, unable to make any organized resistance, fled in the direction where their ponies were herded, but were pursued by the cavalry. Many were killed, among them a number of squaws, for in the confusion it was difficult to distinguish them from the warriors.
The chief, Little Thunderer, made his escape. The soldiers lost few in this action, but the punishment to the Indians was very severe; and it had its effect, for as long as we remained among the Sioux, only small skirmishes took place.
The loss of all their lodges, provisions, arms, furs and other property, which the general caused to be burned, was a severe blow to them. They were also deprived of many of their ponies. After the battle, the troops were encamped in a stronger position nearby. There they awaited re-enforcements from Fort Pierre, where they intended to winter, as the general deemed it imprudent to march his small force to the fort, across the enemy's country, fearing that other tribes to the north and east might form a coalition with the vanquished Indians.