We now went up a stream called Wolf Creek, General Connor in close pursuit. Soon after we left the village General Connor advised me to instruct Captain North to take his battalion of Indians and get all the stock he could possibly gather. General Connor pursued the savages fully ten miles from camp, when he found himself accompanied by only fourteen men. Our horses were so worn out that it was impossible for the men to keep up. The Indians noticed his movements and turned upon him and his soldiers. They fell back as fast as possible. Captain North and myself had succeeded in coralling about a thousand ponies. Scores of buffalo-robes, blankets, and furs were heaped up on lodge-poles, and on these we placed our dead, and burned their bodies to keep the Indians from mutilating them. Our attack on the village began at 9 a. m. We remained until 2:30 and had destroyed a great deal of Indian property. At 2:30 we took up the line of march for the corralled train. Captain North with his eighty Indians undertook to drive the captured stock. They were soon a great ways ahead, while the rest of the force was engaged in beating back the Indians. The Indians pressed on every side. They seemed to have plenty of ammunition, but they did most of their fighting with arrows. Before dark we were reduced to forty men, and had only a little ammunition. The Indians showed no signs of stopping the fight, but kept on charging on us, dashing away at the stock, and keeping us constantly on the move until fifteen minutes of twelve, when the last shot was fired by our pursuers. The incidents of this fight would make very interesting reading. Every man was a general. Not a man in the company but realized that his life was in the balance. We must either whip the Indians and whip them badly or be whipped ourselves. We could see that the Indians greatly outnumbered us, but we were better armed than they. As for fighting qualities the savages proved themselves as brave as any of our men. We had accomplished a great deal; 250 Indian lodges and their contents had been burned, with the entire winter's supplies; the son of Black Bear was killed: sixty-three Indians were killed, 1,100 ponies were captured, and a lot of women and children were taken prisoners.
General Connor's report of this battle was burned in Utah, and consequently was never forwarded to me or to the Government, so we do not know what the loss on his part was; but it was severe.
General Connor now moved down the Tongue River to make a connection with Colonel Walker and Colonel Cole, at the appointed rendezvous. His scouts discovered that Colonel Cole in moving north had endeavored to reach the mouth of Powder River and had failed, and after six days' fighting had marched south, expecting to go to Port Laramie, not knowing that there were supplies at Fort Connor.
Colonel Cole, who with his column had started from Omaha, had made reasonable progress, following out the routes laid down, and did not discover any Indians until he reached the Little Missouri River, on a branch of the Piney that he was coming down. Lieutenant-Colonel Walker, of the center column, visited his camp and was two days behind him. He should have immediately joined him, to carry out his instructions. Cole was headed toward the Tongue River, near the Wolf Mountains. When he got into the brakes of the Powder River, he discovered many signs of Indians. This is a very rough country, and he had great difficulty in getting his long trains through it; however, he dropped into the valley about fifty miles above the mouth of Powder River and sent a detachment with his best guide fifty miles across to Tongue River and Panther Mountains and discovered nothing of Connor. In Cole's instructions he was told that there would be a supply-depot at Panther or Wolf Mountains, but General Connor had changed this and made the supply-depot at what was known as Camp Connor, on Powder River, and he did not notify either Cole or Walker of this change, which he should have done, as had he done so it would have avoided all the trouble that these two columns encountered. Cole's detachment of cavalry discovered no signs of Connor on Tongue River and so followed down the river, while they should have gone up; and failing to find any sign of any depot at Panther Mountains, reported back to Cole. Cole's rations were now exhausted, or nearly so, as he had not been as careful of them as he should have been, expecting as he did to find a depot where he could get plenty at the end of his sixty days' march. It shows that he was not up to the woodcraft of the country. In examining Powder River towards its mouth he found it destitute of grass and full of canyons. He, therefore, made up his mind to move south up the Powder River valley, with a view to either meeting Connor or making for Fort Laramie. The Indians, seeing this retreat, became very bold. There were at least 2,000 of them, Cheyennes and Sioux, and without making an attack they simply harassed him, sometimes forcing a fight; but very few were hurt. Colonel Cole should have parked his train, placed it in a defensive position under a good guard, and then mobilized the rest of his force, and, with what rations he had, gone after the Indians, giving them battle and forcing the fight with them. He had plenty of men.
Cole had not advanced very far towards Port Connor when, on September 6th, Colonel Walker and his command joined him. Then he had plenty of men to meet all the Indians in the country, if his force was properly handled. When this fighting commenced he was not over thirty miles from where Connor fought his battle, and Captain Palmer states that they heard a cannon, but could not tell which direction the noise came from. Connor, hearing nothing from Cole, sent out Major North with a couple of Indian scouts and with Bridger as guide. They got over into the Powder River country and discovered Cole's trail. During Cole's retreat up the Powder there came a fearful snow-storm. The animals having marched so far without grain, were already very much exhausted, and the storm lasting three days, they became so weak that they were not fit to use, and they were therefore shot, just as they stood at the picket-line, to prevent them from falling into the Indians' hands. This destruction of the animals and the burning of all their equipment was about the first thing that Major North struck, and of course he experienced a great anxiety, fearing that Cole had met with great disaster, and immediately reported to General Connor, who at once sent Sergeant C. L. Thomas with two Pawnees with dispatches to Colonel Cole to march on up Powder River to Fort Connor, where he would find supplies. Cole's troops seem to have started out not fully prepared for such a trip, especially in the line of shoes and leggings, although they were carefully instructed by me to be sure to take a surplus, as I knew the country. Cole's excuse is that while he made ample requisition, the Quartermaster never shipped them, and so when he reached Omaha he had to buy such as he could find. Colonel Cole's troops seem to have kept up their organization and their fighting qualities, for whenever they met the Indians they always whipped them; but they were on the retreat, which gave every advantage to the Indians. When Cole's troops reached Port Connor they were in a deplorable condition—ragged, barefooted, and almost without rations and ammunition.
The Indians surrounding Fort Connor at this time had become so numerous that the commanding officer thought it prudent to intrench the post, which shows good judgment; but Colonel Cole complains in his report that the troops were made to help do this intrenching. Speaking of this he says:
While camped here (Fort Connor) an occurrence took place, strange but most true, which as an integral part of the closing history of the command must have full relation. Some thirty-six hours after reaching this post, a fatigued detail of 400 men was ordered from the Second Missouri Light Artillery to work on the earthworks being thrown up around the place. If the spirit that prompted the detail expected to force its principles through insubordination or rebellion, it was disappointed. What a sight was here! Four hundred ragged, bare-footed men, emaciated with fatigue, who had met and worsted the enemy on three several occasions, marched up in the face of a garrison of 2,000 or more.
I don't know where he got the 2,000 troops, as all the troops when he reached Fort Connor were two companies of Michigan cavalry, General Connor then not having reached that post; and when he did, all told there were not 2,000 troops there. Cole's loss was very light,—nine killed,—while he claims to have killed from 200 to 500 of the Indians.
It was very evident to me that there was no very severe fighting here; it was simply a skirmish on a retreat.
Lieutenant-Colonel Walker's column, which started from Fort Laramie on August 2d, moved up the west base of the Black Hills, and struck Cole's column on August 20th on what was known as Piney Creek. After striking Cole's trail he followed it a short distance, and then left it and struck Powder River, much farther south than Cole had, and on reaching the river he fell right into the same band of Indians that were gathered along the Powder River to harass Cole. He, too, was short of provisions, although he was equipped to travel very rapidly, having all his supplies on pack-mules. As soon as he got in touch with Cole he joined him and followed him to Fort Connor. General Connor's idea was to make up a rapid-moving column of about 1,000 men, using the pack-mules of Walker, and then combine his and Cole's troops to move on a line farther to the west and follow these Indians to the British Possessions if necessary. He had the ammunition, equipment and everything at Fort Connor to fit out these columns with. As near as they could estimate there were about 6,000 Indians all told.