On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Mackenzie’s column numbered twenty-eight officers and seven hundred and ninety men; Dodge’s, thirty-three officers and six hundred and forty-six enlisted men. There were one hundred and fifty-five Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and Sioux; ninety-one Shoshones, fifteen Bannocks, one hundred Pawnees, one Ute, and one Nez Percé, attached as scouts; and four interpreters.

The supplies were carried on four hundred pack-mules, attended by sixty-five packers under men of such experience as Tom Moore, Dave Mears, Young Delaney, Patrick, and others; one hundred and sixty-eight wagons and seven ambulances—a very imposing cavalcade. Major Frank North, assisted by his brother, Luke North, commanded the Pawnees; they, as well as all the other scouts, rendered service of the first value, as will be seen from a glance at these pages. General Crook had succeeded in planting a detachment of infantry at old Fort Reno, which was rebuilt under the energetic administration of Major Pollock, of the Ninth, and had something in the way of supplies, shelter, and protection to offer to small parties of couriers or scouts who might run against too strong a force of the enemy. This post, incomplete as it was, proved of prime importance before the winter work was over.

We noticed one thing in the make-up of our scouting force: it was an improvement over that of the preceding summer, not in bravery or energy, but in complete familiarity with the plans and designs of the hostile Sioux and Cheyennes whom we were to hunt down. Of the Cheyennes, I am able to give the names of “Thunder Cloud,” “Bird,” “Blown Away,” “Old Crow,” “Fisher,” and “Hard Robe.” Among the Sioux were, in addition to the young man, “Charging Bear,” who had been taken prisoner at the engagement of Slim Buttes, “Three Bears,” “Pretty Voiced Bull,” “Yellow Shirt,” “Singing Bear,” “Lone Feather,” “Tall Wild Cat,” “Bad Boy,” “Bull,” “Big Horse,” “Black Mouse,” “Broken Leg,” a second Indian named “Charging Bear,” “Crow,” “Charles Richaud,” “Eagle,” “Eagle” (2), “Feather On The Head,” “Fast Thunder,” “Fast Horse,” “Good Man,” “Grey Eyes,” “James Twist,” “Kills First,” “Keeps The Battle,” “Kills In The Winter,” “Lone Dog,” “Owl Bull,” “Little Warrior,” “Leading Warrior,” “Little Bull,” “No Neck,” “Poor Elk,” “Rocky Bear,” “Red Bear,” “Red Willow,” “Six Feathers,” “Sitting Bear,” “Scraper,” “Swift Charger,” “Shuts The Door,” “Slow Bear,” “Sorrel Horse,” “Swimmer,” “Tobacco,” “Knife,” “Thunder Shield,” “Horse Comes Last,” “White Face,” “Walking Bull,” “Waiting,” “White Elk,” “Yellow Bear,” “Bad Moccasin,” “Bear Eagle,” “Yankton,” “Fox Belly,” “Running Over,” “Red Leaf”—representing the Ogallallas, Brulés, Cut Offs, Loafers, and Sans Arcs bands.

The Arapahoes were “Sharp Nose,” “Old Eagle,” “Six Feathers,” “Little Fox,” “Shell On The Neck,” “White Horse,” “Wolf Moccasin,” “Sleeping Wolf,” “William Friday,” “Red Beaver,” “Driving Down Hill,” “Yellow Bull,” “Wild Sage,” “Eagle Chief,” “Sitting Bull,” “Short Head,” “Arrow Quiver,” “Yellow Owl,” “Strong Bear,” “Spotted Crow,” “White Bear,” “Old Man,” “Painted Man,” “Left Hand,” “Long Hair,” “Ground Bear,” “Walking Water,” “Young Chief,” “Medicine Man,” “Bull Robe,” “Crying Dog,” “Flat Foot,” “Flint Breaker,” “Singing Beaver,” “Fat Belly,” “Crazy,” “Blind Man,” “Foot,” “Hungry Man,” “Wrinkled Forehead,” “Fast Wolf,” “Big Man,” “White Plume,” “Coal,” “Sleeping Bear,” “Little Owl,” “Butcher,” “Broken Horn,” “Bear’s Backbone,” “Head Warrior,” “Big Ridge,” “Black Man,” “Strong Man,” “Whole Robe,” “Bear Wolf.”

The above will surely show that we were excellently provided with material from the agencies, which was the main point to be considered. The Pawnees were led by “Li-here-is-oo-lishar” and “U-sanky-su-cola;” the Bannocks and Shoshones by “Tupsi-paw” and “O-ho-a-te.” The chief “Washakie” was not with them this time; he sent word that he was suffering from rheumatism and did not like to run the risks of a winter campaign, but had sent his two sons and a nephew and would come in person later on if his services were needed. These guides captured a Cheyenne boy and brought him in a prisoner to Crook, who learned from him much as to the location of the hostile villages.

In the gray twilight of a cold November morning (the 25th), Mackenzie with the cavalry and Indian scouts burst like a tornado upon the unsuspecting village of the Cheyennes at the head of Willow Creek, a tributary of the Powder, and wiped it from the face of the earth. There were two hundred and five lodges, each of which was a magazine of supplies of all kinds—buffalo and pony meat, valuable robes, ammunition, saddles, and the comforts of civilization—in very appreciable quantities. The roar of the flames exasperated the fugitive Cheyennes to frenzy; they saw their homes disappearing in fire and smoke; they heard the dull thump, thump, of their own medicine drum, which had fallen into the hands of our Shoshones; and they listened to the plaintive drone of the sacred flageolets upon which the medicine men of the Pawnees were playing as they rode at the head of their people. Seven hundred and five ponies fell into our hands and were driven off the field; as many more were killed and wounded or slaughtered by the Cheyennes the night after the battle, partly for food and partly to let their half-naked old men and women put their feet and legs in the warm entrails. We lost one officer, Lieutenant John A. McKinney, Fourth Cavalry, and six men killed and twenty-five men wounded; the enemy’s loss was unknown; at least thirty bodies fell into our hands, and at times the fighting had a hand-to-hand character, especially where Wirt Davis and John M. Hamilton were engaged. The village was secured by a charge on our left in which the companies of Taylor, Hemphill, Russell, Wessells, and the Pawnees participated. The Shoshones, under Lieutenant Schuyler and Tom Cosgrove, seized a commanding peak and rained down bullets upon the brave Cheyennes, who, after putting their women and children in the best places of safety accessible, held on to the rocks, and could not be dislodged without great loss of life.

Mackenzie sent couriers to Crook, asking him to come to his help as soon as he could with the long rifles of the infantry, to drive the enemy from their natural fortifications. Crook and the foot troops under Dodge, Townsend, and Campbell made the wonderful march of twenty-six miles over the frozen, slippery ground in twelve hours, much of the distance by night. But they did not reach us in time, as the excessive cold had forced the Cheyennes to withdraw from our immediate front, eleven of their little babies having frozen to death in their mothers’ arms the first night and three others the second night after the fight.

The Cheyennes were spoken to by Bill Roland and Frank Gruard, but were very sullen and not inclined to talk much; it was learned that we had struck the village of “Dull Knife,” who had with him “Little Wolf,” “Roman Nose,” “Gray Head,” “Old Bear,” “Standing Elk,” and “Turkey Legs.” “Dull Knife” called out to our Sioux and Cheyenne scouts: “Go home—you have no business here; we can whip the white soldiers alone, but can’t fight you too.” The other Cheyennes called out that they were going over to a big Sioux village, which they asserted to be near by, and get its assistance, and then come back and clean us out. “You have killed and hurt a heap of our people,” they said, “and you may as well stay now and kill the rest of us.” The Custer massacre was represented by a perfect array of mute testimony: gauntlets, hats, and articles of clothing marked with the names of officers and men of the ill-fated Seventh Cavalry, saddles, silk guidons, and other paraphernalia pointing the one moral, that the Cheyennes had been as foremost in the battle with Custer as they had been in the battle with Crook on the Rosebud a week earlier.

All the tribes of the plains looked up to the Cheyennes, and respected their impetuous valor; none stood higher than they as fierce, skilful fighters; and to think that we had broken the back of their hostility and rendered them impotent was a source of no small gratification. They sent a party of young men to follow our trail and see whither we went; these young men crawled up close to our camp-fires and satisfied themselves that some of their own people were really enlisted to fight our battles, as Ben Roland had assured them was the case. This disconcerted them beyond measure, added to what they could see of our column of scouts from the other tribes. “Dull Knife” made his way down the Powder to where “Crazy Horse” was in camp, expecting to be received with the hospitality to which his present destitution and past services entitled him. “Crazy Horse” was indifferent to the sufferings of his allies and turned the cold shoulder upon them completely, and this so aroused their indignation that they decided to follow the example of those who had enrolled under our flag and sent in word to that effect.

At first it was not easy to credit the story that the Cheyennes were not only going to surrender, but that every last man of them would enlist as a soldier to go out and demolish “Crazy Horse;” but the news was perfectly true, and in the last days of December and the first of January the first detachment of them arrived at Red Cloud Agency; just as fast as the condition of their ponies and wounded would admit, another detachment arrived; and then the whole body—men, women, and children—made their appearance, and announced their desire and intention to help us whip “Crazy Horse.” “Crazy Horse” happened to be related by blood or by marriage to both “Spotted Tail” and “Red Cloud,” and each of these big chiefs exerted himself to save him. “Spotted Tail” sounded the Cheyennes and found that they were in earnest in the expressed purpose of aiding the Americans; and when he counted upon his fingers the hundreds of allies who were coming in to the aid of the whites in the suppression, perhaps the extermination, of the Dakotas, who had so long lorded it over the population of the Missouri Valley, he saw that it was the part of prudence for all his people to submit to the authority of the General Government and trust to its promises.