[96]. The frontiersmen translate this to “Hat Creek”; and that is the name it bears to-day—more’s the pity!
[97]. Afterward brigadier-general of volunteers in the Spanish-American War, and the author of many fascinating romances of army life.
[98]. “The Adventures of Buffalo Bill.” By Colonel William F. Cody. Harper & Brothers, 1904.
CHAPTER NINE
The First Success
I. Crook and Mills at Slim Buttes
After the defeat of General Custer, and the successful retreat of the Sioux and Cheyennes from the Little Big Horn, the government hurried reinforcements into the field, and ordered Crook and Terry to press the pursuit of the Indians with the greatest vigor. It was not, however, until nearly a year after the disaster on the Little Big Horn that the Sioux war was concluded, and it was not until after the Indians had met with several crushing defeats and had been pursued until they were utterly exhausted that peace was declared.
The greatest individual factor in bringing about this much desired result was General George Crook, a celebrated cavalryman during the Civil War, and a more celebrated Indian fighter after its close. With unwearied tenacity and vigor he pursued the savages, striking them through his subordinates whenever and wherever they could be found. The terrible persistence with which he urged his faint, starving, foot-sore, tattered soldiers along the trail, to which he clung with a resolution and determination that nothing could shake, entitles him to the respect and admiration of his countrymen—a respect and admiration, by the way, which was fully accorded him by his gallant and equally desperate foes.
After Crook, the men who brought about the result were, first and foremost, Nelson A. Miles—singularly enough not a cavalryman, but the Colonel of the Fifth Infantry; and, next to him, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, of the Fourth Cavalry, and Captain Anson Mills, of the Third, whom we have already noted doing gallant service at the Battle of the Rosebud. Miles had been ordered into the field to reinforce Terry’s shattered and depleted column.
After much marching and scouting, the columns of Terry and Crook combined; but Terry’s forces were in bad condition, and his command was soon withdrawn from the field. What was left of the Seventh Cavalry was sent back to Fort Lincoln, whence they had started out with such bright hopes a few months before. Gibbon’s command was returned to Montana, where it had been made up, on account of the threatening aspect of things in that quarter, and Terry retired from active campaigning to resume command of his department. Miles, as we shall see, was sent to the Yellowstone.
Crook was left alone in the active pursuit. Space and time are lacking to describe the details of the wonderful marches he made on the trails of the Indians—now under burning suns, which parched the ground until it was as bare as the palm of a hand; again through torrents of drenching rains, which succeeded the fierce heat; and, finally, through the snows and cold of a winter of unexampled severity. During the summer there was no forage for the horses of the cavalry nor for the very small pack train, and rations for the men became shorter and shorter. Finally, early in September, the supply of provisions was reduced to two and a half days’ rations. Crook calculated that they could march two weeks on that amount.