On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Here we were visited by messengers from a party of Montana miners who were travelling across country from the Black Hills back to the Yellowstone; the party numbered sixty-five, and had to use every precaution to prevent stampede and surprise; every night they dug rifle-pits, and surrounded themselves with rocks, palisades, or anything else that could be made to resist a charge from the Sioux, whose trails were becoming very thick and plenty. There were many pony, but few lodge-pole, tracks, a sure indication that the men were slipping out from Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies and uniting with the hostiles, but leaving their families at home, under the protection of the reservations. It always seemed to me that that little party of Montana miners displayed more true grit, more common sense, and more intelligence in their desperate march through a scarcely known country filled with hostile Indians than almost any similar party which I can now recall; they were prepared for every emergency, and did excellent service under Crook at the Rosebud; but before reaching their objective point, I am sorry to say, many of their number fell victims to a relentless and wily foe.

To prevent any stampede of our stock which might be attempted, our method of establishing pickets became especially rigid: in addition to the mounted vedettes encircling bivouac, and occupying commanding buttes and bluffs, solid companies were thrown out a mile or two in advance and kept mounted, with the purpose of holding in check all parties of the enemy which might attempt to rush down upon the herds and frighten them off by waving blankets, yelling, firing guns, or other tricks in which the savages were adepts. One platoon kept saddled ready for instant work; the others were allowed to loosen the cinches, but not to unsaddle. Eight miles from the ruins of old Fort Kearney, to the east, we passed Lake De Smet, named after the zealous missionary, Father De Smet, whose noble life was devoted to the advancement of the Sioux, Pawnees, Arapahoes, Crows, Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Cœurs d’Alenes, and Nez Percés, and whose silent ministrations refute the calumny that the American Indian is not responsive to efforts for his improvement. The view of this body of water, from the roadside, is very beautiful; in length, it is nearly three miles; in width, not quite a mile. The water is clear and cold, but alkaline and disagreeable to the taste. Game and ducks in great numbers resort to this lake, probably on account of the mineral contained in its waters, and a variety of pickerel is said to be abundant. Buffalo were seen near this bivouac—at old Fort Kearney—and elk meat was brought into camp with beaver, antelope, pin-tailed grouse, and sickle-billed curlew.

Our camp on Prairie Dog Creek, at its junction with the Tongue River, was memorable from being the scene of the killing of the first buffalo found within shooting distance of the column. Mosquitoes became troublesome near the water courses. Prairie-dog villages lined the trail in all places where the sandy soil admitted of easy digging. The last hour or two of this march was very unpleasant. The heat of the sun became almost unbearable. Dense masses of clouds moved sluggishly up from the west and north, while light flaky feathers of vapor flitted across the sky, coquetting with the breeze, now obscuring the sun, now revealing his rays. Low, rumbling thunder sullenly boomed across the horizon, and with the first flash of lightning changed into an almost continuous roar. The nearest peaks of the Big Horn were hid from our gaze. The heavy arch of clouds supported itself upon the crests of the bluffs enclosing the valley of our camp. It was a pretty picture; the parks of wagons and pack-mules, the bright rows of tentage, and the moving animals and men gave enough animation to relieve the otherwise too sombre view of the elements at war. Six buffaloes were killed this day.

On the 7th of June we buried the soldier of Meinhold’s company who had accidentally wounded himself with his own revolver while chopping wood. Besides the escort prescribed by the regulations, the funeral cortege was swollen by additions from all the companies of the expedition, the pack-train, wagoners, officers, and others, reaching an aggregate of over six hundred. Colonel Guy V. Henry, Third Cavalry, read in a very feeling manner the burial service from the “Book of Common Prayer,” the cavalry trumpets sounded “taps,” a handful of earth was thrown down upon the remains, the grave was rapidly filled up, and the companies at quick step returned to their tents. There was no labored panegyric delivered over the body of Tiernan, but the kind reminiscences of his comrades were equivalent to an eulogy of which an archbishop might have been proud. Soldiers are the freest from care of any set of men on earth; the grave had not closed on their comrade before they were discussing other incidents of the day, and had forgotten the sad rites of sepulture in which they had just participated. To be more charitable, we were seeing so much that was novel and interesting that it was impossible to chain the mind down to one train of thought. Captain Noyes had wandered off during the storm of the night previous, and remained out of camp all night hunting for good trout pools. A herd of buffaloes had trotted down close to our bivouac, and many of our command had been unable to resist the temptation to go out and have a shot; we knocked over half a dozen or more of the old bulls, and brought the meat back for the use of the messes.

The conversation ran upon the difficulty experienced by the pioneer party under Captain Andrews, Third Cavalry, in smoothing and straightening the road during the marches of the past two or three days. General Crook had been successful in finding the nests and the eggs of some rare birds, the white-ringed blackbird, the Missouri skylark, and the crow of this region. He had all his life been an enthusiastic collector of specimens in natural history, especially in all that relates to nests and eggs, and had been an appreciative observer of the valuable work done on the frontier in that direction by Captain Charles Bendire, of the First Cavalry.

During the 8th of June there was some excitement among us, owing to the interchange of conversation between our pickets and a party of Indians late the previous night. It could not be determined at the moment whether the language used was Sioux or Crow, or both, but there was a series of calls and questions which our men did not fully understand; one query was to the effect that ours might be a Crow camp. A pony was found outside our lines, evidently left by the visitors. Despatches were received by General Crook notifying him that all able-bodied male Indians had left the Red Cloud Agency, and that the Fifth Cavalry had been ordered up from Kansas to take post in our rear; also that the Shoshones had sent one hundred and twenty of their warriors to help him, and that we should look for their arrival almost any day. They were marching across the mountains from their reservation in the Wind River range, in the heart of the Rockies.

June 9, 1876, the monotony of camp life was agreeably broken by an attack upon our lines made in a most energetic manner by the Sioux and Cheyennes. We had reached a most picturesque and charming camp on the beautiful Tongue River, and had thrown out our pickets upon the hill tops, when suddenly the pickets began to show signs of uneasiness, and to first walk and then trot their horses around in a circle, a warning that they had seen something dangerous. The Indians did not wait for a moment, but moved up in good style, driving in our pickets and taking position in the rocks, from which they rained down a severe fire which did no great damage but was extremely annoying while it lasted. We had only two men wounded, one in the leg, another in the arm, both by glancing bullets, and neither wound dangerous, and three horses and two mules wounded, most of which died. The attacking party had made the mistake of aiming at the tents, which at the moment were unoccupied; but bullets ripped through the canvas, split the ridge poles, smashed the pipes of the Sibley stoves, and imbedded themselves in the tail-boards of the wagons. Burt, Munson, and Burroughs were ordered out with their rifles, and Mills was ordered to take his own company of the Third Cavalry and those of Sutorius, Andrews, and Lawson, from Royall’s command, and go across the Tongue and drive the enemy, which they did. The infantry held the buttes on our right until after sundown.

This attack was only a bluff on the part of “Crazy Horse” to keep his word to Crook that he would begin to fight the latter just as soon as he touched the waters of the Tongue River; we had scoffed at the message at first, believing it to have been an invention of some of the agency half-breeds, but there were many who now believed in its authenticity. Every one was glad the attack had been made; if it did nothing else, it proved that we were not going to have our marching for nothing; it kept vedettes and guards on the alert and camp in condition for fight at a moment’s notice. Grass becoming scarce on Tongue River Crook moved his command to the confluence of the two forks of Goose Creek, which is the largest affluent of the Tongue; the distance was a trifle over seventeen miles, and during the march a hail-storm of great severity visited us and continued its pestiferous attentions for some time after tents had been erected. The situation at the new camp had many advantages: excellent pasturage was secured from the slopes of the hills; water flowed in the greatest profusion—clear, sweet, and icy cold, murmuring gently in the channels on each side; fire-wood in sufficiency could be gathered along the banks; the view of the mountains was beautiful and exhilarating, and the climate serene and bracing. Goose Creek was twenty-five yards wide, with a uniform depth of three feet, but greatly swollen by recent rains and the melting of the snow-banks up in the mountains.

We had to settle down and await the return of Frank Gruard, Louis Richaud, and “Big Bat,” concerning whose safety not a few of the command began to express misgivings, notwithstanding they were all experienced frontiersmen, able to look out for their own safety under almost any contingencies. The more sanguine held to the view that the Crows had retired farther into their own country on account of the assembling of great bands of their enemies—the Sioux and Cheyennes—and that our emissaries had to travel much farther than they had first contemplated. But they had been separated from us for ten or twelve days, and it was becoming a matter of grave concern what to do about them.

In a bivouac of that kind the great object of life is to kill time. Drilling and guard duty occupy very few minutes, reading and writing become irksome, and conversation narrowly escapes the imputation of rank stupidity. We had enjoyed several pony races, but the best plugs for that sort of work—Major Burt’s white and Lieutenant Robertson’s bay—had both been shot during the skirmish of the 9th of the month, the former fatally, and we no longer enjoyed the pleasure of seeing races in which the stakes were nothing but a can of corn or a haunch of venison on each side, but which attracted as large and as deeply interested crowds as many more pretentious affairs within the limits of civilization. The sending in of the mail every week or ten days excited a ripple of concern, and the packages of letters made up to be forwarded showed that our soldiers were men of intelligence and not absolutely severed from home ties. The packages were wrapped very tightly, first in waxed cloth and then in oiled muslin, the official communications of most importance being tied to the courier’s person, the others packed on a led mule. At sundown the courier, Harrison, who had undertaken this dangerous business, set out on his return to Fort Fetterman, accompanied by a non-commissioned officer whose time had expired. They were to ride only by night, and never follow the road too closely; by hiding in little coves high up in the hills during the day they could most easily escape detection by prowling bands of Indians coming out from the agencies, but at best it was taking their lives in their hands.