This was the “Lincoln column.” Up from Wyoming were marching the Crook column—ten companies of the Third Cavalry, and five of the Second, and six companies from the Fourth and the Ninth United States Infantry: 1300 men under General George Crook, the “Gray Fox” who had fought the Apaches in Arizona. In from western Montana were marching the “Montana column”—four companies of the Second Cavalry, and two of the Seventh Infantry: 400 men under General John Gibbon, who had won rank and honor in the Civil War. Twenty-seven hundred soldiers under three famous generals ought to whip Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
The Lincoln column made first camp a short distance out from the fort. Early the next morning Mrs. Custer and Mrs. Calhoun said good-by to their husbands and friends and must go back to Lincoln.
As long as they were in sight they waved their handkerchiefs; the general and Lieutenant Calhoun from their positions waved back. When this ceased, then did it seem to Ned as though at last the campaign into the enemy’s country had actually begun.
[XXIII]
LOOKING FOR SITTING BULL
“How many Injuns will there be, do you think?” invited “Autie” Reed, excitedly, of Ned.
This was the evening of June 21. The expedition had been out from Fort Lincoln over a month. Now they were in camp at the mouth of the Rosebud River, on the south side of the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana—just beyond the Tongue River where in the summer of 1873 General Custer had first met the Sioux in battle and had almost been cut off, and Doctor Honzinger and Sutler Baliran had been killed by Rain-in-the-Face.
No Indians had been met. Many of the officers and men were of the opinion that none would be found, and that all would escape. But when here the searchers were, at last, right in the enemy’s home, it looked as though a fight was likely to occur soon. General Gibbon’s “Montana column” was encamped across the Yellowstone. They had marched from the west down the north bank, and had reported that no Sioux had traveled north, but that they had seen hostile Indians watching them from the south bank. Therefore in the opinion of General Gibbon the Sioux were still south of the Yellowstone, in the wild hunting-grounds of the Big Horn and the Powder Rivers.
General Crook the Gray Fox was down there, with his soldiers. He had not been heard from, but it was expected that as he approached he would be driving the Sioux before him. Nobody knew that on June 17 General Crook had been met on the upper Rosebud by Sitting Bull’s warriors and had been forced back. The red general had out-matched the white general. The Sioux were better warriors than the Apaches.