He assured them that he was in earnest, and should strike the Indians a terrible blow as soon as he could overtake them. He told the volunteers that they should have an honorable place in the fight, if one occurred; that they might have all the horses that could be captured, save enough to mount his command, and that meantime his men would divide their last ration with their citizen comrades. This announcement created great enthusiasm among soldiers and volunteers alike, and the latter at once decided to follow their gallant leader until the Indians should be overtaken, no matter where or when that might be.
Lieutenant Bradley, with eight men of the Second Cavalry, and all of the mounted volunteers, was now ordered to push on, strike the Indian camp before daylight the next morning, if possible, stampede the stock and run it off. If this could be done, and the Indians set on foot, then their overwhelming defeat would be certain. Lieut. J. W. Jacobs asked and obtained permission to go with Bradley and share in this hazardous undertaking. This detachment, amounting, all told, to sixty men, made a night march across the mountains, while the main command camped at the foot of the divide on the night of the 7th, and at 5 o'clock the next morning, resumed the march. The road up the mountain, a steep and difficult one at best, was seriously obstructed at this time by large quantities of down timber that had to be cut out or passed around, so that the ascent was very slow and trying to men and beasts. The wagons were but lightly loaded, and by doubling teams and using all the men at drag ropes, the command succeeded in reaching the summit, a distance of three miles, in six hours, and by the performance of such labor and hardship as only those can realize who have campaigned in a mountainous country.
| 1. Lieut. J. H. Bradley. | 6. Lieut. J. W. Jacobs. |
| 2. Lieut. W. L. English. | 7. Lieut. C. A. Woodruff. |
| 3. Lieut. G. H. Wright. | 8. Lieut. J. T. Van Orsdale. |
| 4. Lieut. C. H. Coolidge. | 9. Lieut. E. E. Hardin. |
| 5. Lieut. A. H. Jackson. | 10. Lieut. F. Woodbridge. |
From the summit the road leads down a gentle incline for a mile, when it reaches the head of Trail Creek, and follows down that stream a distance of ten miles into the Big Hole basin. It crosses the creek probably fifty times, and the banks being abrupt, and the road obstructed in many places by down timber, the progress of the command was extremely slow and tedious.
While ascending the mountain on the morning of the 8th, General Gibbon received a courier from Lieutenant Bradley, with a dispatch stating that, owing to the difficult nature of the trail and the distance to the Indian camp, he had been unable to reach it before daylight, and that the Indians had broken camp and moved on. Later in the day, however, another courier brought news that they had again gone into camp, after making but a short march, at the mouth of Trail Creek, and that, not deeming it safe to attack in daylight, Bradley had concealed his command in the hills, and was now awaiting the arrival of the infantry.
Upon receipt of this information, Gibbon took his men from the wagons (leaving twenty men to guard the train), gave each man ninety rounds of ammunition and one day's rations, and pushed, on on foot, having ordered that the wagons should come up as fast as possible. The gallant General with his faithful little band moved quietly but rapidly forward, but owing to the bad condition of the trail, it was nearly sundown when they reached Bradley's camp. Bradley informed his chief that he believed the Indians intended to remain in their camp several days, for he had secretly observed their movements from the top of a neighboring hill, and found that the squaws were engaged in cutting and peeling lodge-poles to take with them for use on the treeless plains of the buffalo country.
On arriving at Bradley's camp, the men filed into the gulch, ate a scanty supper of hard tack and raw pork, and, without camp-fires or blankets, laid down to rest. Having conferred with Lieutenant Bradley and his scouts as to the best disposition of the proposed attack, General Gibbon ordered his adjutant to call him at 10 o'clock at night, and lying down under the spreading branches of a pine tree, slept as peacefully as a child.
He knew there was bloody work at hand for him and his veterans; that the rising sun would see them contending against a savage foe that outnumbered his own command more than three to one; that ere nightfall many of his noble men, and perchance he himself, would sleep their long sleep; yet he had a solemn duty to perform. It was a sad one; an awful one, but it was nevertheless a duty. He and his men were there to fight their country's battle. They were to avenge the blood of innocent men and women, whom these savages had wantonly murdered but a few days before in a neighboring Territory. He had been ordered to strike and to punish them. He would strike, and the blow would be a telling one. Yet, in the face of these facts—facts that would chill the blood of any man unused to wars and scenes of carnage—this old warrior, this veteran of twenty bloody fields at the South, whereon he had behaved so gallantly as to receive merited promotion and congratulatory recognition from his superiors, was as cool, as self-collected, and could lie down and sleep as peacefully as though no enemy were within a thousand miles of him.
"Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just."