With Sully into the Sioux Land

by Joseph Mills Hanson

"How many men are in your brigade?" Al asked.

"I believe between fifteen and sixteen hundred," Wallace replied, "not, of course, including the teamsters with the wagon train. Let me see. There is our entire regiment, the Eighth Infantry; we are all mounted for this campaign. Minor T. Thomas is our Colonel, but as he is in command of the brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Rogers is actually commanding the regiment. Then there are four companies of the Thirtieth Wisconsin, under Colonel Dill, and six companies of the Second Minnesota Cavalry under Colonel McLaren, besides the artillery and a train of ninety-three wagons and twelve ambulances, each drawn by a six-mule team. We have quite a herd of beef cattle, too. So you see there are enough animals with us alone to eat up all the grass in this country for miles around in short order; and I suppose there are about as many with your brigade."

"Yes, there are a lot of them," agreed Al. "We can't stay very long in one place and find forage enough, unless rain comes to make the grass grow."

The boys, very happy to meet one another again, talked for several hours and then at last they separated for the night, each promising to see the other as often as possible. The camp had quieted down, and most of the men of both brigades, weary with the marching and other work of the past few days, were wrapped in deep slumber; but all around the camps were heavy guards, and the sentries, alert and watchful, were pacing their beats. They looked shadowy and ghost-like under the starlight as Al passed along, making his way through the company streets of little white dog-tents, each backed by its long picket-line of horses, standing or lying almost motionless in the gloom. It was not many minutes after he had reached his own cot in one of the big Sibley tents of headquarters before Al, too, was sleeping the profound and dreamless sleep of youth and health.

General Sully's orders from General Pope were to establish a fort on the Missouri River somewhere near the point where the Long Lake River entered the stream. The plan of the Government at this time was to erect and maintain a chain of military posts, of which the new fort should be one, extending from Minnesota to central Montana, which should serve not only to hold the Indians in check but also to protect emigrants going through the Sioux country from the East, across Dakota, to the new Montana gold-mining districts. A well marked trail had become established through this section since 1862, but the hostility of the Indians was such that none but very strong parties of emigrants could make use of it. The Government wished to render the route more safe; and the new fort on the Missouri, as well as the one General Sully was expected to build on the Yellowstone, was part of the chain, which began at Fort Abercrombie, Minnesota, on the Red River of the North.

For four days after the junction of the two brigades, the entire command lay in camp for the purpose of resting both men and animals. The time passed quietly and not unpleasantly, but with no unusual incidents. Several summer thunder showers came, greatly improving the grass and relieving the discomfort which the expedition had previously suffered from the dust. Though nearly every one was idle most of the time, Al found plenty to keep him busy. The camp was seven miles from the Missouri, where the steamboats lay, and the Dakota Cavalry was ordered to the river as a guard for them. Then the wagon-train, in sections, went down to reload from the reserve supplies on the boats. Thus Al was frequently obliged to go back and forth on Cottontail between the encampment and the river, sometimes finding a chance while at the latter point to spend a little time with his friends of the Dakota Cavalry or with those acquaintances among the steamboat men whom he had come to know during the long trip from St. Louis to Fort Sully.

At length, on the third of July, General Sully put the First Brigade in motion for the mouth of Long Lake River, distant about one hundred miles, and, after instructing the Second Brigade to proceed thither also on the next day, he set out himself on the Island City to examine the river banks for a suitable site on which to build the new fort. As an escort for the boat he took a company of troops, and most of the members of his staff also went with him; but Al remained with the column, as his duties demanded his presence there. The marches were long but not exhausting, and by the eighth of July all the forces were assembled on the Missouri a short distance above the mouth of Long Lake River. Directly opposite, on the west bank of the Missouri, was the site on which the General had decided to build Fort Rice, as the new post was to be called.

The location was an ideal one. It was a level tableland with a permanent bank along the river nearly one hundred feet high, and behind it rose a majestic range of sandstone bluffs, which, just below the post swept out boldly to the brink of the Missouri and followed it down to the mouth of the Cannonball River, eight miles south. Along the base of the bluffs extended a long, narrow belt of heavy timber, and another and much larger forest covered the wide valley above the post. Immediately in front of the latter the river was narrow, insuring a good crossing at nearly all seasons, its only disadvantage being that, owing to the high bank on which the fort stood, the ferry and steamboat landing had to be made about half a mile down stream.

On the arrival of the army, a ferry, consisting of a long cable stretched from bank to bank across the Missouri, on which a flatboat was guided back and forth, was immediately put in operation. Some of the troops, including the Dakota Cavalry, crossed on it and went into camp near the site of the fort. The steamers were then unloaded and put to work crossing the rest of the troops and the wagon-train, and the army was soon all assembled on the west bank. Two sawmills, one operated by a steam-engine and the other by horse-power, the entire equipment for which had been brought along, were now started and began rapidly getting out building materials, the timber being brought from the near-by forests. Great cottonwood logs for the walls were squared to dimensions of six by eight inches, and planks and boards were sawed for the interior work. The stockade, with bastions on the northeast and southwest corners, was also built of cottonwood.

The four companies of the Thirteenth Wisconsin, under Colonel Dill, which were to be left to garrison the completed work, also constructed it. They were composed of men from the Wisconsin lumbering districts, who knew their business thoroughly; and with so many hands to do the work it proceeded rapidly. In an incredibly short time barracks for eight companies, officers' quarters, hospital, and storehouses, began to take on an appearance of permanency which must have filled the scouts of the hostile Indians with anger and dread, as they lay watching day by day from distant ridges and buttes.