On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

For the information of readers who may never have seen such lodges or “tepis,” as they are called in the language of the frontier, I will say that they are large tents, supported upon a conical frame-work of fir or ash poles about twenty feet long, spread out at the bottom so as to give an interior space with a diameter of from eighteen to twenty-five feet. This is the average size, but in each large village, like the present one, was to be found one or more very commodious lodges intended for the use of the “council” or for the ceremonies of the “medicine” bands; there were likewise smaller ones appropriated to the use of the sick or of women living in seclusion. In the present case, the lodges would not burn, or, to speak more explicitly, they exploded as soon as the flames and heat had a chance to act upon the great quantities of powder in kegs and canisters with which they were all supplied. When these loose kegs exploded the lodge-poles, as thick as a man’s wrist and not less than eighteen feet long, would go sailing like sky-rockets up into the air and descend to smash all obstacles in their way. It was a great wonder to me that some of our party did not receive serious injuries from this cause.

In one of the lodges was found a wounded squaw, who stated that she had been struck in the thigh in the very beginning of the fight as her husband was firing out from the entrance to the lodge. She stated that this was the band of “Crazy Horse,” who had with him a force of the Minneconjou Sioux, but that the forty new canvas lodges clustered together at the extremity by which we had entered belonged to some Cheyennes who had recently arrived from the “Red Cloud” Agency. Two lodges of Sioux had arrived from the same agency two days previously with the intention of trading with the Minneconjoux.

What with the cold threatening to freeze us, the explosions of the lodges sending the poles whirling through the air, and the leaden attentions which the enemy was once more sending in with deadly aim, our situation was by no means agreeable, and I may claim that the notes jotted down in my journal from which this narrative is condensed were taken under peculiar embarrassments. “Crazy Horse’s” village was bountifully provided with all that a savage could desire, and much besides that a white man would not disdain to class among the comforts of life.

There was no great quantity of baled furs, which, no doubt, had been sent in to some of the posts or agencies to be traded off for the ammunition on hand, but there were many loose robes of buffalo, elk, bear, and beaver; many of these skins were of extra fine quality. Some of the buffalo robes were wondrously embroidered with porcupine quills and elaborately decorated with painted symbolism. One immense elk skin was found as large as two and a half army blankets; it was nicely tanned and elaborately ornamented. The couches in all the lodges were made of these valuable furs and peltries. Every squaw and every buck was provided with a good-sized valise of tanned buffalo, deer, elk, or pony hide, gaudily painted, and filled with fine clothes, those of the squaws being heavily embroidered with bead-work. Each family had similar trunks for carrying kitchen utensils and the various kinds of herbs that the plains’ tribes prized so highly. There were war-bonnets, strikingly beautiful in appearance, formed of a head-band of red cloth or of beaver fur, from which depended another piece of red cloth which reached to the ground when the wearer was mounted, and covered him and the pony he rode. There was a crown of eagle feathers, and similar plumage was affixed to the tail-piece. Bells, ribbons, and other gew-gaws were also attached and occasionally I have noticed a pair of buffalo horns, shaved down fine, surmounting the head. Altogether, these feather head-dresses of the tribes in the Missouri drainage were the most impressive and elegant thing to be seen on the border. They represented an investment of considerable money, and were highly treasured by the proud possessors. They were not only the indicia of wealth, but from the manner in which the feathers were placed and nicked, the style of the ornamentation, and other minute points readily recognizable by the other members of the tribe, all the achievements of the wearer were recorded. One could tell at a glance whether he had ever stolen ponies, killed men, women, or children, been wounded, counted “coup,” or in any other manner demonstrated that his deeds of heroism were worthy of being chanted in the dances and around the camp-fires. In each lodge there were knives and forks, spoons, tin cups, platters, mess-pans, frying-pans, pots and kettles of divers shapes, axes, hatchets, hunting-knives, water-kegs, blankets, pillows, and every conceivable kind of truck in great profusion. Of the weight of dried and fresh buffalo meat and venison no adequate idea can be given; in three or four lodges I estimated that there were not less than one thousand pounds. As for ammunition, there was enough for a regiment; besides powder, there was pig-lead with the moulds for casting, metallic cartridges, and percussion caps. One hundred and fifty saddles were given to the flames.

Mills and Egan were doing excellent work in the village itself; the herd of ponies was in Noyes’s hands, and why we should not have held our place there, and if necessary fortified and sent word to Crook to come across the trail and join us, is one of those things that no man can explain. We had lost three killed, and had another man wounded mortally. General Reynolds concluded suddenly to withdraw from the village, and the movement was carried out so precipitately that we practically abandoned the victory to the savages. There were over seven hundred ponies, over one hundred and fifty saddles, tons upon tons of meat, hundreds of blankets and robes, and a very appreciable addition to our own stock of ammunition in our hands, and the enemy driven into the hills, while we had Crook and his four companies to depend upon as a reserve, and yet we fell back at such a rate that our dead were left in the hands of the Indians, and, as was whispered among the men, one of our poor soldiers fell alive into the enemy’s hands and was cut limb from limb. I do not state this fact of my own knowledge, and I can only say that I believe it to be true. We pushed up the Powder as fast as our weary horses could be made to move, and never halted until after we had reached the mouth of Lodge Pole Creek, where we awaited the arrival of General Crook.

The bivouac at the mouth of the Lodge Pole was especially dreary and forlorn; the men nicknamed it “Camp Inhospitality”: there was a sufficiency of water—or ice—enough wood, but very little grass for the animals. There was nothing to eat; not even for the wounded men, of whom we had six, who received from Surgeon Munn and his valuable assistant, Steward Bryan, and Doctor Ridgeley all the care which it was possible to give. Here and there would be found a soldier, or officer, or scout who had carried a handful of cracker-crumbs in his saddle-bags, another who had had the good sense to pick up a piece of buffalo meat in the village, or a third who could produce a spoonful of coffee. With these a miserable apology was made for supper, which was not ready until very late; because the rear-guard of scouts and a handful of soldiers—which, under Colonel Stanton, Frank Gruard, “Big Bat,” and others, had rounded up and driven off the herd of ponies—did not join until some time after sundown. A small slice of buffalo meat, roasted in the ashes, went around among five or six; and a cup of coffee would be sipped like the pipe of peace at an Indian council.

The men, being very tired with the long marching, climbing, and fighting of the past two days, were put on a “running guard” to give each the smallest amount possible of work and the greatest of sleep. No guard was set over the herd, and no attempt was made to protect it, and in consequence of this great neglect the Indians, who followed us during the night, had not the slightest trouble in recovering nearly all that originally belonged to them. Even when the loss was discovered and the fact reported that the raiders were still in sight, going over a low bluff down the valley, no attention was paid, and no attempt made to pursue and regain the mainstay of Indian hostility. The cold and exposure had begun to wear out both horses and men, and Doctor Munn had now all he could do in looking after the numerous cases of frost-bite reported in the command; my recollection is that there were sixty-six men whose noses, feet, or fingers were more or less imperilled by the effects of the cold. Added to these were two cases of inflammatory rheumatism, which were almost as serious as those of the wounded men.

Crook reached camp about noon of the 18th of March, and it goes without saying that his presence was equal to that of a thousand men. He expressed his gratification upon hearing of our successful finding of “Crazy Horse’s” village, as that chief was justly regarded as the boldest, bravest, and most skilful warrior in the whole Sioux nation; but he could not conceal his disappointment and chagrin when he learned that our dead and wounded had been needlessly abandoned to the enemy, and that with such ample supplies of meat and furs at hand our men had been made to suffer from hunger and cold, with the additional fatigue of a long march which could have been avoided by sending word to him. Crook, with a detachment from the four companies left with him, had come on a short distance in advance of Hawley’s and Dewees’s battalions, and run in upon the rear-guard of the Cheyennes and Sioux who had stampeded so many of the ponies from Reynolds’s bivouac; the General took sight at one of the Indians wearing a war-bonnet and dropped him out of the saddle; the Indian’s comrades seized him and took off through the broken country, but the pony, saddle, buffalo robe, blanket, and bonnet of the dead man fell into our hands, together with nearly a hundred of the ponies; which were driven along to our forlorn camp at the confluence of the Lodge Pole and the Powder.

There was nothing for Crook to do but abandon the expedition, and return to the forts, and reorganize for a summer campaign. We had no beef, as our herd had been run off on account of the failure to guard it; we were out of supplies, although we had destroyed enough to last a regiment for a couple of months; we were encumbered with sick, wounded, and cripples with frozen limbs, because we had not had sense enough to save the furs and robes in the village; and the enemy was thoroughly aroused, and would be on the qui vive for all that we did. To old Fort Reno, by way of the valley of the Powder, was not quite ninety miles. The march was uneventful, and there was nothing to note beyond the storms of snow and wind, which lasted, with some spasmodic intermissions, throughout the journey. The wind blew from the south, and there was a softening of the ground, which aggravated the disagreeable features by adding mud to our other troubles.

The Indians hung round our camps every night, occasionally firing a shot at our fires, but more anxious to steal back their ponies than to fight. To remove all excuse for their presence Crook ordered that the throats of the captured ponies be cut, and this was done on two different nights: first, some fifty being knocked in the head with axes, or having their throats cut with the sharp knives of the scouts, and again, another “bunch” of fifty being shot before sun-down. The throat-cutting was determined upon when the enemy began firing in upon camp, and was the only means of killing the ponies without danger to our own people. It was pathetic to hear the dismal trumpeting (I can find no other word to express my meaning) of the dying creatures, as the breath of life rushed through severed windpipes. The Indians in the bluffs recognized the cry, and were aware of what we were doing, because with one yell of defiance and a parting volley, they left us alone for the rest of the night.