The council went on in this way for three to four days. On the fourth or fifth day the meeting commenced earlier, and nearly all the warriors, to the number of several thousand, were present. They were painted, and their lustrous dark skins glistened in the bright sunlight when they had cast off their robes and blankets. It was a sight long to be remembered, and the like of it was probably never seen in after years. On this day a treaty of peace was concluded. The Indians buried the hatchet, as it was customary to say. The Sioux War was over, and during our stay in their country we had no more serious trouble with them. It was only after the withdrawal of the regular soldiers to take part in the Civil War that they became unruly again, and committed atrocities among the settlers of Minnesota in 1862.
On the night of the day when the treaty had been concluded there seemed to be a great "pow-wow" in the Indian camp. We could hear the tom-toms, and the voices of the bucks and squaws until early morning. On the following afternoon we were treated to a remarkable sight. Two thousand Indians marched to the stockade, where General Harney had his headquarters, and saluted his appearance by blowing on reed musical instruments made from willows which grew abundantly along the river. At the same time a large number of squaws beat on drums. The curious noise could be heard for miles around.
While the council was on, the first steamboat of the season or "wa-ta-pe-ta-choo-choo," as the Indians called it, arrived. It was the Genoa, which had brought my company up the river the previous summer. With her arrived a paymaster and Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren, who later commanded the Fifth Army Corps in the Civil War. He was to make surveys in the Dakota country and was accompanied by some scientists. My regiment furnished him with an escort, who traveled with him until fall. He returned the following season and continued his surveys.
Many of the Indians present had never seen a steamboat. Hundreds of them and their squaws lined the river bank, when the Genoa was sighted. They noted the puffs of steam ejected by her engines, and declared that the wa-ta-pe-ta was puffing, out of breath, and tired out after her long journey.
The Indians had brought great quantities of furs with them, and trading with the American Fur Company and the sutler was brisk. The Genoa on her return trip could carry only a part of the vast quantity of furs the company had accumulated. Some of the Indians departed a few days after the treaty was made. Others lingered for a while, but in about two weeks nearly all had disappeared. When their numbers had materially diminished, restrictions against visiting their camps were withdrawn, and I had interesting experiences in observing the customs and manners of some far away tribes, whom I was not likely ever to see again.
About the first of June orders were issued to abandon Fort Pierre, as it was most unsuitable for a military post. The troops who had come from Fort Laramie in the fall returned there, and of my regiment four companies and the band took up their march to a point on the Missouri, a few hundred miles below Fort Pierre, where they built a post called Fort Randall. The other two companies, B and D, marched to a place on the Missouri, midway between Forts Pierre and Randall, to establish Fort Lookout.
The remaining portable houses at Fort Pierre were taken down and with other materials were put on rafts and floated down the river to be re-used in building quarters at the two new posts.
Our experience since we arrived at Fort Pierre had been very trying through the incompetency or carelessness of someone in authority. We were ill prepared for the rigors of so severe a climate as to clothing, food, quarters and medical stores. Men died from exposure and from scurvy, and many animals succumbed to starvation. Officers and soldiers suffered alike. The miserable huts in which we lived during the winter were unfit for stables. We almost froze in them, and when the spring came, the mud roofs leaked like sieves.
I look back upon the winter passed at Fort Pierre as one of great suffering and hardship, by far the worst that I went through during my service.