On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Schuyler returned, leading to the tree under which Crook was seated a band of officers at whose head rode Terry himself. The meeting between the two commanders was most cordial, as was that between the subalterns, many of whom had served together during the war and in other places. We made every exertion to receive our guests with the best in our possession: messengers were despatched down to the pack-trains to borrow every knife, fork, spoon, and dish available, and they returned with about thirty of each and two great coffee-pots, which were soon humming on the fire filled to the brim with an exhilarating decoction. Phillips, the cook, was assisted on this occasion by a man whose experience had been garnered among the Nez Percés and Flat-Heads, certainly not among Caucasians, although I must admit that he worked hard and did the best he knew how. A long strip of canvas was stretched upon the ground and covered with the tin cups and cutlery. Terry and his staff seated themselves and partook of what we had to offer, which was not very much, but was given with full heart.

Terry was one of the most charming and affable of men; his general air was that of the scholar no less than the soldier. His figure was tall and commanding; his face gentle, yet decided; his kindly blue eyes indicated good-nature; his complexion, bronzed by wind and rain and sun to the color of an old sheepskin-covered Bible, gave him a decidedly martial appearance. He won his way to all hearts by unaffectedness and affability. In his manner he was the antithesis of Crook. Crook was also simple and unaffected, but he was reticent and taciturn to the extreme of sadness, brusque to the verge of severity. In Terry’s face I thought I could sometimes detect traces of indecision; but in Crook’s countenance there was not the slightest intimation of anything but stubbornness, rugged resolution, and bull-dog tenacity. Of the two men Terry alone had any pretensions to scholarship, and his attainments were so great that the whole army felt proud of him; but Nature had been bountiful to Crook, and as he stood there under a tree talking with Terry, I thought that within that cleanly outlined skull, beneath that brow, and behind those clear-glancing blue-gray eyes, there was concealed more military sagacity, more quickness of comprehension and celerity to meet unexpected emergencies, than in any of our then living Generals excepting Grant, of whose good qualities he constantly reminded me, or Sheridan, whose early friend and companion he had been at West Point and in Oregon.

That evening, General Crook and his staff dined with General Terry, meeting with the latter Captains Smith and Gibbs, Lieutenants Maguire, Walker, Thompson, Nowlan, and Michaelis. From this point Terry sent his wagon-train down to the Yellowstone, and ordered the Fifth Infantry to embark on one of the steamboats and patrol the river, looking out for trails of hostiles crossing or attempting to cross to the north. All the sick and disabled were sent down with this column; we lost Cain and Bache and a number of enlisted men, broken down by the exposure of the campaign. The heat in the middle of the day had become excessive, and General Terry informed me that on the 8th it registered in his own tent 117° Fahrenheit, and on the 7th, 110°. Much of this increase of temperature was, no doubt, due to the heat from the pasturage destroyed by the hostiles, which comprehended an area extending from the Yellowstone to the Big Horn Mountains, from the Big Horn River on the west to the Little Missouri on the east.

In two things the column from the Yellowstone was sadly deficient: in cavalry and in rapid transportation. The Seventh Cavalry was in need of reorganization, half of its original numbers having been killed or wounded in the affair of the Big Horn; the pack-train, made up, as it necessarily was, of animals taken out of the traces of the heavy wagons, was the saddest burlesque in that direction which it has ever been my lot to witness—for this no blame was ascribable to Terry, who was doing the best he could with the means allowed him from Washington. The Second Cavalry was in good shape, and so was Gibbon’s column of infantry, which seemed ready to go wherever ordered and go at once. Crook’s pack-train was a marvel of system; it maintained a discipline much severer than had been attained by any company in either column; under the indefatigable supervision of Tom Moore, Dave Mears, and others, who had had an experience of more than a quarter of a century, our mules moved with a precision to which the worn-out comparison of “clockwork” is justly adapted. The mules had been continuously in training since the preceding December, making long marches, carrying heavy burdens in the worst sort of weather. Consequently, they were hardened to the hardness and toughness of wrought-iron and whalebone. They followed the bell, and were as well trained as any soldiers in the command. Behind them one could see the other pack-train, a string of mules, of all sizes, each led by one soldier and beaten and driven along by another—attendants often rivalling animals in dumbness—and it was hard to repress a smile except by the reflection that this was the motive power of a column supposed to be in pursuit of savages. On the first day’s march, after meeting Crook, Terry’s pack-train dropped, lost, or damaged more stores than Crook’s command had spoiled from the same causes from the time when the campaign commenced.

When the united columns struck the Tongue, the trail of the hostile bands had split into three: one going up stream, one down, and one across country east towards the Powder. Crook ordered his scouts to examine in front and on flanks, and in the mean time the commands unsaddled and went into camp; the scouts did not return until almost dark, when they brought information that the main trail had kept on in the direction of the Powder. Colonel Royall’s command found the skeletons of two mining prospectors in the bushes near the Tongue; appearances indicated that the Sioux had captured these men and roasted them alive. On this march we saw a large “medicine rock,” in whose crevices the Sioux had deposited various propitiatory offerings, and upon whose face had been graven figures and symbols of fanciful and grotesque outline.

In following the main trail of the enemy it seemed as if we were on a newly cut country road; when we reached a projecting hill of marl and sandy clay, the lodge poles had cut into the soft soil to such an extent that we could almost believe that we were on the line of work just completed, with pick, spade, and shovel, by a gang of trained laborers. Trout were becoming scarce in this part of the Tongue, but a very delicious variety of the “cat” was caught and added to the mess to the great delight of the epicure members. The rain had increased in volume, and rarely an hour now passed without its shower. One night, while sitting by what was supposed to be our camp-fire, watching the sputtering flames struggling to maintain life against the down-pouring waters, I heard my name called, and as soon as I could drag my sodden, sticky clothes through a puddle of mud I found myself face to face with Sam Hamilton, of the Second, whom I had not seen since we were boys together in the volunteer service in the Stone River campaign, in 1862. It was a very melancholy meeting, each soaked through to the skin, seated alongside of smoking embers, and chilled to the marrow, talking of old times, of comrades dead, and wondering who next was to be called.

The Indian trail led down the Tongue for some miles before it turned east up the “Four Horn” Creek, where we followed it, being rewarded with an abundance of very fine grama, called by our scouts the “Two-Day” grass, because a bellyful of it would enable a tired horse to travel for two days more. An Indian puppy was found abandoned by its red-skinned owners, and was adopted by one of the infantry soldiers, who carried it on his shoulders. Part of this time we were in “Bad Lands,” infested with rattlesnakes in great numbers, which our Shoshones lanced with great glee. It was very interesting to watch them, and see how they avoided being bitten: three or four would ride up within easy distance of the doomed reptile and distract its attention by threatening passes with their lances; the crotalus would throw itself into a coil in half a second, and stay there, tongue darting in and out, head revolving from side to side, leaden eyes scintillating with the glare of the diamond, ready to strike venomous fangs into any one coming within reach. The Shoshone boys would drive their lances into the coil from three or four different directions, exclaiming at the same time: “Gott tammee you! Gott tammee you!” which was all the English they had been able to master.

We struck the Powder and followed it down to its junction with the Yellowstone, where we were to replenish our supplies from Terry’s steamboats. The Powder contrasted unfavorably with the Tongue: the latter was about one hundred and fifty feet wide, four feet deep, swift current, and cold water, and, except in the Bad Lands near its mouth, clear and sweet, and not perceptibly alkaline. The Powder was the opposite in every feature: its water, turbid and milky; current, slow; bottom, muddy and frequently miry, whereas that of the Tongue was nearly always hard-pan. The water of the Powder was alkaline and not always palatable, and the fords rarely good and often dangerous. The Yellowstone was a delightful stream: its width was not over two hundred and fifty yards, but its depth was considerable, its bed constant, and channel undeviating. The current flows with so little noise that an unsuspecting person would have no idea of its velocity; but steamboats could rarely stem it, and bathers venturing far from the banks were swept off their feet. The depth was never less than five feet in the main channel during time of high water. The banks were thickly grassed and covered with cottonwood and other timber in heavy copses.

Crook’s forces encamped on the western bank of the Powder; the supplies we had looked for were not on hand in sufficient quantity, and Lieutenant Bubb, our commissary, reported that he was afraid that we were going to be grievously disappointed in that regard. General Terry sent steamers up and down the Yellowstone to gather up all stores from depots, and also from points where they had been unloaded on account of shallow water. Crook’s men spent a great deal of the time bathing in the Yellowstone and washing their clothes, following the example set by the General himself: each man waded out into the channel clad in his undergarments and allowed the current to soak them thoroughly, and he would then stand in the sunlight until dried. Each had but the suit on his back, and this was all the cleaning or change they had for sixty days. The Utes and Shoshones became very discontented, and “Washakie” had several interviews with Crook, in which he plainly told the latter that his people would not remain longer with Terry’s column, because of the inefficiency of its transportation; with such mules nothing could be done; the infantry was all right, and so was part of the cavalry, but the pack-train was no good, and was simply impeding progress. The steamer “Far West,” Captain Grant Marsh, was sent up the river to the mouth of the Rosebud to bring down all the supplies to be found in the depot at that point, but returned with very little for so many mouths as we now had—about four thousand all told.

A great many fine agates were found in the Yellowstone near the Powder, and so common were they that nearly all provided themselves with souvenirs from that source. Colonel Burt was sent up the river to try to induce the Crows to send some of their warriors to take the places soon to be vacated by the Shoshones, as Crook foresaw that without native scouts the expedition might as well be abandoned. Burt was unsuccessful in his mission, and all our scouts left with the exception of the much-disparaged “Ute John,” who expressed his determination to stick it out to the last.