“The government appropriations are supposed to be liberal; but it so happens that by the time they reach their destination, they have, and not mysteriously either, dwindled down into a paltry present.”—Henry A. Boller, in “Among the Indians.”
“This system of issuing annuity goods is one grand humbug.”—Report of Gen. Alfred Sully, August 18, 1864.
Evidence like the foregoing could be presented by the volume.
[68] “I saw, while at Sioux City, Captain La Barge, who had just returned with his boat from the upper Missouri. Captain La Barge has been in the American Fur Company employment for twenty-five years, and says that never before this trip have the Indians been unusually hostile. He says that now the whole Sioux nation is bound for a war of extermination against the frontier, ... and that the British government, through the Hudson Bay Company, are in his opinion instigating all the Indians to attack the whites. He says British rum from Red River comes over to the Missouri, and British traders are among them [the Indians] continually. I have great confidence in his judgment and opinion.”—H. C. Nutt, Lieutenant Colonel Iowa State Militia, to Hon. S. J. Kirkwood, Iowa City, dated Council Bluffs, September 15, 1862.
[69] See page [277] for an account of the massacre of a party of miners from Montana by these Indians.
[70] It has been asserted that the Far West bore the first news of the Custer massacre to the world; but this is not so. General Terry’s dispatch to General Sheridan, written in camp on the Little Big Horn June 27, was sent by courier to Fort Ellis, 240 miles distant, and there put on the wire.
The following graphic account of the voyage of the Far West is well worth preserving in spite of its many errors of fact. As a word picture of what was really a notable performance, it is a fine example of journalistic writing. It is from the pen of M. E. Terry, and was published in the Pioneer Press of St. Paul in May, 1878:
“The steamer Far West was moored at the mouth of the Little Big Horn. The wounded were carried on board the steamer and Dr. Porter was detailed to go down with them. Terry’s adjutant general, Colonel Ed Smith, was sent along with the official dispatches and a hundred other messages. He had a traveling-bag full of telegrams for the Bismarck office. Captain Grant Marsh, of Yankton, was in command of the Far West. He put everything in the completest order and took on a large amount of fuel. He received orders to reach Bismarck as soon as possible. He understood his instructions literally, and never did a river man obey them more conscientiously. On the evening of the 3d of July the steamer weighed anchor. In a few minutes the Far West, so fittingly named, was under full head of steam. It was a strange land and an unknown river. What a cargo on that steamer! What a story to carry to the government, to Fort Lincoln, to the widows!
“It was running from a field of havoc to a station of mourners. The steamer Far West never received the credit due her. Neither has the gallant Marsh; nor the pilots, David Campbell and John Johnson. Marsh, too, acted as pilot. It required all their endurance and skill. They proved the men for the emergency. The engineer, whose name is not known to me, did his duty. Every one of the crew is entitled to the same acknowledgment. They felt no sacrifice was too great upon that journey, and in behalf of the wounded heroes. The Big Horn is full of islands, and a successful passage, even on the bosom of a ‘June rise,’ is not an easy feat. The Far West would take a shoot on this or that side of an island, as the quick judgment of the pilot would dictate. It is no river, in the Eastern sense of that word. It is only a creek. A steamboat moving as fast as a railway train in a narrow, winding stream is not a pleasure. It was no pleasant sensation to be dashing straight at a headland, and the pilot the only power to save. Occasionally the bank would be touched and the men would topple over like ten-pins. It was a reminder of what the result would be if a snag was struck. Down the Big Horn the heroine went, missing islands, snags, and shore. It was a thrilling voyage. The rate of speed was unrivaled in the annals of boating. Into the Yellowstone the stanch craft shot, and down that sealed river to pilots she made over twenty miles an hour. The bold Captain was taking chances, but he scarcely thought of them. He was under flying orders. Lives were at stake. His engineer was instructed to keep up steam at the highest pitch. Once the gauge marked a pressure that turned his cool head and made every nerve in his powerful frame quiver. The crisis passed and the Far West escaped a fate more terrible than Custer’s. Once a stop was made, and a shallow grave explained the reason. He still rests in that lone spot. Down the swift Yellowstone, like shooting the Lachine Rapids, every mile a repetition of the former. From the Yellowstone she sped into the broad Missouri, and then there was clear sailing. There was a deeper channel and more confidence. A few minutes were lost at Buford. Everybody at the fort was beside himself. The boat was crowded with inquirers, and their inquiries were not half answered when the steamer was away. At Berthold a wounded scout was put off, and at Fort Stevenson a brief stop to tell in a word what had happened. There was no difference in the speed from Stevenson to Bismarck. The same desperate rate was kept up to the end. They were approaching home with something of that feeling which always moves the human heart. At eleven o’clock on the night of the 5th of July they reached Bismarck and Fort A. Lincoln. One thousand miles in fifty-four hours was the proud record.”
[71] Charles Larpenteur, who was interpreter for the Commission in their negotiations with the Assiniboines at Fort Union, says in his journal, “The great Peace Commission was a complete failure.” Such was the general sentiment along the valley.