On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

The Sioux and Cheyennes whom we were soon to face were “horse” Indians, who marched and fought on horseback; they kept together in large bodies, and attacked by charging and attempting to stampede the herds of the troops. They were well armed with the newest patterns of magazine arms, and were reported to be possessed of an abundance of metallic cartridges. Their formidable numbers, estimated by many authorities at as many as fifty thousand for the entire nation, had given them an overweening confidence in themselves and a contempt for the small bodies of troops that could be thrown out against them, and it was generally believed by those pretending to know that we should have all the fighting we wanted. These were the points upon which the pessimists most strongly insisted. The cloud certainly looked black enough to satisfy any one, but there was a silver lining to it which was not perceptible at first inspection. If a single one of these large villages could be surprised and destroyed in the depth of winter, the resulting loss of property would be so great that the enemy would suffer for years; their exposure to the bitter cold of the blizzards would break down any spirit, no matter how brave; their ponies would be so weak that they could not escape from an energetic pursuit, and the advantages would seem to be on the side of the troops.

Crook took up his quarters in Cheyenne for a few days to push forward the preparations for the departure of the column of cavalry which was to compose the major part of the contemplated expedition. Cheyenne was then wild with excitement concerning the Indian war, which all the old frontiersmen felt was approaching, and the settlement of the Black Hills, in which gold in unheard-of sums was alleged to be hidden. No story was too wild, too absurd, to be swallowed with eagerness and published as a fact in the papers of the town. Along the streets were camped long trains of wagons loading for the Black Hills; every store advertised a supply of goods suited to the Black Hills’ trade; the hotels were crowded with men on their way to the new El Dorado; even the stage-drivers, boot-blacks, and bellboys could talk nothing but Black Hills—Black Hills. So great was the demand for teams to haul goods to the Black Hills that it was difficult to obtain the necessary number to carry the rations and ammunition needed for Crook’s column. Due north of Cheyenne, and ninety miles from it, lay old Fort Laramie, since abandoned; ninety-five miles to the northwest of Laramie lay Fort Fetterman, the point of departure for the expedition. To reach Fort Laramie we had to cross several small but useful streamlets—the Lodge Pole, Horse, and Chug—which course down from the higher elevations and are lost in the current of the North Platte and Laramie rivers.

The country was well adapted for the grazing of cattle, and several good ranchos were already established; at “Portuguese” Phillip’s, at the head of the Chug, and at F. M. Phillips’s, at the mouth of the same picturesque stream, the traveller was always sure of hospitable, kind treatment. The march of improvement has caused these ranchos to disappear, and their owners, for all I know to the contrary, have been dead for many years, but their memory will be cherished by numbers of belated wayfarers, in the army and out of it, who were the recipients of their kind attentions. The road leading out of Cheyenne through Fort Laramie to the Black Hills was thronged with pedestrians and mounted men, with wagons and without—all en route to the hills which their fancy pictured as stuffed with the precious metals. Not all were intent upon mining or other hard work: there was more than a fair contingent of gamblers and people of that kind, who relieved Cheyenne and Denver and Omaha of much uneasiness by their departure from those older cities to grow up with the newer settlements in the Indian Pactolus. There were other roads leading to the Black Hills from points on the Missouri River, and from Sidney and North Platte, Nebraska, but they offered no such inducements as the one from Cheyenne, because it crossed the North Platte River by a free Government bridge, constructed under the superintendence of Captain William S. Stanton, of the Corps of Engineers. By taking this route all dangers and delays by ferry were eliminated.

Much might be written about old Fort Laramie. It would require a volume of itself to describe all that could be learned regarding it from the days when the hardy French traders from Saint Louis, under Jules La Ramie, began trading with the Sioux and Cheyennes and Arapahoes, until the Government of the United States determined to establish one of its most important garrisons to protect the overland travel to the gold-fields of California. Many an old and decrepit officer, now on the retired list, will revert in fancy to the days when he was young and athletic, and Fort Laramie was the centre of all the business, and fashion, and gossip, and mentality of the North Platte country; the cynic may say that there wasn’t much, and he may be right, but it represented the best that there was to be had.

Beyond Fort Laramie, separated by ninety-five miles of most unpromising country, lies the post of Fort Fetterman, on the right bank of the North Platte. Boulders of gneiss, greenstone, porphyry, and other rocks from the Laramie Peak lined the bottoms and sides of the different dry arroyos passed on the march. Not all the ravines were dry; in a few there was a good supply of water, and the whole distance out from Fort Laramie presented no serious objections on that score. In the “Twin Springs,” “Horse-shoe” Creek, “Cave” Springs, “Elk Horn” Creek, “Lake Bonté,” “Wagon Hound,” “Bed-tick,” and “Whiskey Gulch” a supply, greater or less in quantity, dependent upon season, could generally be found. Much of the soil was a gypsiferous red clay; in all the gulches and ravines were to be seen stunted pine and cedar. The scenery was extremely monotonous, destitute of herbage, except buffalo grass and sage brush. An occasional buffalo head, bleaching in the sun, gave a still more ghastly tone to the landscape. Every few minutes a prairie dog projected his head above the entrance of his domicile and barked at our cortege passing by. Among the officers and soldiers of the garrison at Fort Fetterman, as well as among those who were reporting for duty with the expedition, the topics of conversation were invariably the probable strength and position of the enemy, the ability of horses and men to bear the extreme cold to which they were sure to be subjected, and other matters of a kindred nature which were certain to suggest themselves.

There, for example, was the story, accepted without question, that the Sioux had originally shown a very friendly spirit toward the Americans passing across their country to California, until on one occasion a man offered grievous wrong to one of the young squaws, and that same evening the wagon-train with which he was travelling was surrounded by a band of determined warriors, who quietly expressed a desire to have an interview with the criminal. The Americans gave him up, and the Sioux skinned him alive; hence the name of “Raw Hide Creek,” the place where this incident occurred.

Another interesting story was that of the escape of one of the corporals of Teddy Egan’s company of the Second Cavalry from the hands of a party of Sioux raiders on Laramie Peak; several of the corporal’s comrades were killed in their blankets, as the attack was made in the early hours of morning, but the corporal sprang out in his bare feet and escaped down to the ranchos on the La Bonté, but his feet were so filled with fine cactus thorns and cut up with sharp stones that he was for months unable to walk.

“Black Coal,” one of the chiefs of the Arapahoes, came in to see General Crook while at Fetterman, and told him that his tribe had information that the hostiles were encamped on the lower Powder, below old Fort Reno, some one hundred and fifty miles from Fetterman. Telegraphic advices were received from Fort Laramie to the effect that three hundred lodges of northern Sioux had just come in at Red Cloud Agency; and the additional information that the supplies of the Indian Bureau at that agency were running short, and that no replenishment was possible until Congress should make another appropriation.

This news was both good and bad, bitter and sweet; we should have a smaller number of Sioux to drive back to the reservation; but, on the other hand, if supplies were not soon provided, all the Indians would surely take to the Black Hills and Big Horn country, where an abundance of game of all kinds was still to be found. The mercury still remained down in the bottom of the bulb, and the ground was covered deep with snow. In Wyoming the air is so dry that a thermometer marking zero, or even ten degrees below that point on the Fahrenheit scale, does not indicate any serious discomfort; the air is bracing, and the cold winters seem to have a beneficial effect upon the general health of the inhabitants. We have no sturdier, healthier people in our country than the settlers in Wyoming and Montana.

Winter campaigning was an entirely different matter; even the savages hibernated during the cold months, and sought the shelter of friendly cliffs and buttes, at whose feet they could pitch their tepees of buffalo or elk skin, and watch their ponies grazing upon the pasturage. The ponies of the Indians, the mares and foals especially, fare poorly during this season; they have no protection from the keen northern blasts, but must huddle together in ravines and “draws,” or “coulées,” as the French half-breeds call them, until the worst is over. They become very thin and weak, and can hardly haul the “travois” upon which the family supplies must be packed. Then is assuredly the time to strike, provided always that the soldiers be not caught and frozen to death by some furious storm while on the march, or after being wounded. Crook wanted to have our animals kept in the best condition, at least in a condition somewhat better than that of the Indian ponies. He knew that the amount of grass to be depended upon would be very limited: much of the country would be burned over by the Indians to prepare for the new growth; much would lie under deep snow, and not be accessible to our horses; much would be deadened by wind and storm; so that the most prudent course would be to move out from Fetterman with a wagon-train loaded with grain, which could be fed in small quantities to supplement the pasturage that might be found, and would keep our mules and horses in strength and health. A depot would be established at some convenient point, and from that scouts and explorations into all sections of the surrounding country could be made by light, swift-moving columns. Officers and men were informed that so long as with the wagon-train they would be allowed plenty of warm bedding and a minimum supply of “A” and “dog” tents, but upon starting out for any movement across country they would have to do without anything but the clothing upon their backs. Particular attention was bestowed upon this subject of clothing; and when I say that the mercury frequently congeals in the bulb, and that the spirit thermometers at Fort Fred Steele, Wyoming, that winter registered as low as 61° below, Fahrenheit, the necessity of precaution will be apparent. The most elastic interpretation was given to the word “uniform,” so as to permit individual taste and experience to have full play in the selection of the garments which were to protect from bitter cold and fierce wind.