The little group that were listening to the couple laughed, for Grant, Sherman and Sheridan never came together without chaffing one another. Besides the illustrious heroes named, there were Carl Schurz, W. M. Evarts, fully a score of United States Senators and Congressmen, and several British noblemen, as well as German professors, railway magnates and journalists.
This is a reproduction of one of the aboriginal autographs:
You will have no difficulty in reading the signature, which is that of a Sioux "medicine man," who, a few years ago was perhaps the most notable of his race. Sitting Bull was born in Dakota, in 1837. He inherited a deep hatred of the white people, and the tribe to which he belonged is to-day the most powerful on this continent. It can put five thousand bucks or more in the field, and every one of them would prove himself a sturdy fighter.
A bloody outbreak of the Sioux in Minnesota took place in the summer of 1862. We were in the throes of our Civil War at that time. The crimes of the Indians were of the most horrible nature, but the military force sent thither, together with the volunteers steadily drove the hostiles to the wall and captured a large number. Thirty-seven of the leaders were tried by a military commission and found guilty of such fearful outrages that they were hanged.
Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief, was not frightened by this exhibition of a nation's anger.
GENERAL CROOK'S APACHE GUIDE
He was then a young warrior, but he gathered about him a large number of Indians, who had been friendly to the whites. In 1874, they attacked the Crows and drove them from their reservation. Notice was sent to him by the Interior Department, to remove with his band by January 31, 1876. Sitting Bull paid no attention to the order, and the business was put in the hands of the War Department. General Crook destroyed the village of Crazy Horse in the following March, but the severity of the weather compelled a halt in military movements.
The discovery of gold in the Black Hills led to an invasion of the section by emigrants. The section belonged by treaty to the Sioux, and the authorities warned all white people to keep away. No heed was given to the notice, and the enraged Sioux left their own reservation and began to plunder and massacre the people of Wyoming and Montana. Generals Terry and Cook, with a strong force of regulars moved into the region of the Upper Yellowstone, and drove Sitting Bull with several thousand hostiles toward the Big Horn Mountains and the river. Generals Custer and Reno with the Seventh Cavalry set out to locate the Indians. They found their camp, three miles in length, on the left bank of the Little Big Horn River. Custer sent Reno with three companies to attack the rear, and without waiting for support, charged the Sioux.