Indian Fights and Fighters: The Soldier and the Sioux

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

III. The Trail in the Snow

It had grown somewhat warmer during the day. The top crust of the snow became soft, and the horses sank through it to their knees. There was no road or trail, of course, but the command advanced straight across the open prairie toward the point where Corbin had indicated that Elliott had picked up the trail. The several troops were successively placed in the advance for the fatiguing and arduous labor of breaking up the road. There was every desire to spare the horses, but they were nevertheless urged to the last limit to overtake Elliott. Under such circumstances it was problematical whether they would find him alive; for the Indians, who were believed to be in great force, might discover him, ambush him, attack him, and wipe him out as Fetterman had been annihilated, or as Forsyth had been overwhelmed.

During the afternoon Custer and his command struck Elliott’s trail, but it was not until nine o’clock at night that they overtook him. They found him encamped on the banks of a little stream and thoroughly concealed in the timber. With relief the regiment halted, and taking advantage of the deep ravine through which the creek ran, they managed to build a few fires, which, being well screened, were invisible a short distance away. Over the fires the men made coffee, which, with the hardtack, constituted their only meal since morning—a Thanksgiving dinner indeed.

Elliott had followed the trail, which was still well defined, until eight o’clock, and then had halted in accordance with the orders of Custer, and had waited for his commander. A hasty council was held and some were for taking up the advance at once. But it was pointed out that the moon would rise in one hour and by waiting they would have the benefit of the moonlight in following the Indian trail. Besides, the short rest would do the command good. Saddles were taken off, the horses rubbed down and sparingly fed from the scanty supply of forage. At ten the march was once more resumed in this order:

First of all, riding some distance ahead of the main body, were two Osage Indian scouts. One of these was Little Beaver, who was chief of a small band of Indian auxiliaries which had volunteered for the campaign. Next to them came other Indians, several famous frontiersmen, California Joe and Scout Corbin, and a hideous half Negro, half Indian interpreter whose name was Romero, but whom the soldiers facetiously dubbed Romeo, because he was so ugly; then General Custer and his staff, and then, some distance in rear, the successive troops of the regiment in a column of fours. About three miles from their camping place Little Beaver came back to Custer in considerable agitation and declared that he smelled fire. Nobody else smelled anything, but at his insistence the command was halted, and he and one of his men went forward with Custer and one or two of the scouts until they had gone a mile from the halting place.

Sure enough, after surmounting a little hill, they saw ahead of them and some distance away the embers of a fire. The advance party halted. Little Beaver and the other Indians snaked their course over the ground, taking advantage of every cover to learn what they could. With beating hearts the general and the others watched them. Would they stumble upon the foemen then and there? They waited, concealed beneath the hillock, until Little Beaver returned to tell them that the fire had evidently been kindled by the boys guarding the herds of ponies during the day. At any rate it had almost gone out, no one was there, and the way was safe for the present, although the main camp was probably not far distant.

Orders were sent back to the regiment to advance but to keep its present distance behind Custer and the scouts. The command proceeded with the utmost caution, with an excitement in their veins at the stealthy approach with its possible consequences which made them almost insensible to the frightful cold. About half after twelve o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Custer saw the leading Indian suddenly sink down behind a hill and wave his hand quickly backward. The whole party dismounted, and the commanding officer with one of his scouts crawled to the hill where the Indian lay. Whispering a word or two, Little Beaver pointed straight in front of him.

Half a mile away a huge black blotch was tremulously moving on the snow in the moonlight. Experienced eyes recognized a herd of ponies. Where the ponies were there were the Indians also. Custer watched the scene for a moment, and upon the still air—the wind had died and the night though bitter cold was intensely quiet—he heard the sound of a bell, evidently tied to the neck of the leader of the herd. Dogs barked, and as they waited they marked the thin, shrill cry of a little child. It was an Indian camp beyond peradventure. Beyond it, among the bare and leafless trees, gleamed in the moonlight the ice-bound shores of a half-frozen river—the Washita.

The general, as tender-hearted a man as ever lived, and as kindly for all his fights, tells us how strangely that infant’s cry heard on that bitter winter night moved him, appealed to him. It filled his mind with natural regret that war had to be waged and an attack delivered upon a camp in which there were women and children; but the stern necessities of the case permitted no other course.