Little Pills, an Army Story / Being Some Experiences of a United States Army Medical Officer on the Frontier Nearly a Half Century Ago

by R. H. McKay

We captured a young antelope, the last day out, and one of the troopers carried it on the saddle in front of him into camp. It lived until we were back at Fort Sill some time, but that kind of life was too hard for it and it gave up the struggle.

There was plenty of game in the country around the camp at Cache creek. Turkeys were very abundant and duck shooting was good in season, and the fishing was fine. I have always regretted my impulsive disposition when thinking of my first shot at turkeys near this camp. When the command was nearing the mouth of Cache creek from Fort Sill, I had taken my last observation with the compass and directed the ambulance driver to a point indicated, and went ahead of the command to select the camp. Having decided on a desirable place I went down stream a little distance and heard some turkeys making a great ado about something. I got down on a sand bar and slipped along the river bank until I thought I was at the right place for a shot. On looking over the bank I discovered that there was quite a bunch of turkeys standing around in a circle and making a great chatter. I fired into them without waiting to see what caused such a commotion, and when I was near where two of them lay an immense diamond rattler uncoiled and glided away. What would have happened if I had waited? Would the turkeys have killed the snake, or the snake some of the turkeys, or would the turkeys have gotten tired of the game and quit? I have often asked myself these questions. Does anybody know? If so I would like to hear their comment. While in that camp we killed two diamond rattlers, one six feet and the other six feet, four inches in length. It may be that one of them was among my first acquaintances in that camp.

There was a turkey roost some three miles above camp where we generally got our supply of turkeys. A young son of General Grierson, having returned from school for his summer vacation, came down to our camp, and was enthusiastic for a visit to the turkey roost, so we arranged to go the following evening, and got permission to take a couple of troop horses for the purpose, a thing not provided for in the regulations. When we had reached the timber we left the trail and hunted for a secure place to tie our horses, as dense a thicket as we could find. We found a place where we thought they would be secure and from there walked to the roost, a short distance away, and sat down and waited for the birds to come in. We did not have long to wait until we could hear the sound of wings, and they commenced lighting in the tree tops above us. We waited until they were well settled before shooting. It had been a warm day and by this time was murky and getting quite dark, and we had difficulty in marking our birds, but we soon had four handsome ones and gathered them up and started to find our horses. I was confident I had observed closely the directions and distance we had gone from the trail and also from the horses to the roost, but we failed to find them where we expected. It was pitch dark by this time and very still and we tramped the neighborhood where we thought we had left them, and then sat down and waited, hoping they might neigh or make some noise and thus guide us to them. When this failed we went to the trail and by lighting matches found where we had left it, and from there we followed the course that we thought would take us to the thicket where we had left the horses. We found it, or thought we had, and tramped it over thoroughly without finding them. We carried our guns and turkeys with us, not daring to put them down for fear we would lose them. We finally concluded some thieving Indians had watched us and had followed us into the timber and stolen our horses, and so we started for the camp on foot. It was a hot, sultry night and I soon began to think three turkeys and a shotgun a good deal of a load and when I inquired of my companion how he was making it he admitted that he was getting a little tired. We rested a little bit and started again, I having taken his bird, much against his protest, and by frequent rests on the way we got into camp between ten and eleven o'clock, a very tired pair of hunters. I sent for the sergeant of the guard and told him I wished to be awakened at four o'clock in the morning. The young lad insisted that he would go with me but I told him no, that he was too tired and had better sleep and that I could get the horses if they were there. At four o'clock, however, he was up as quick as I was and we were soon on the way afoot to the turkey roost. We found the horses just where we had tied them and I felt greatly relieved, not only because it saved me the price of two valuable horses but because it saved the captain of the company who loaned them, as well as myself, a severe reprimand. I came to have a great admiration for the pluck and manliness of my young hunter friend, and if he is an officer in the service now, as many of the sons of my army acquaintances are, and he should ever see this story of army life on the frontier, I wish here and now to present him my compliments, and would like to hear from him.

We had an abundance of fish while at this camp. The quartermaster had built us a little boat so we could stretch troutlines across the stream and we not only had the officers' mess well supplied but often had plenty for the men of the command.

A few days after we had returned from the North fork or Red river, Captain Norvel's troop of cavalry was ordered out on a scout down the valley on the north side of the river, and I was ordered to accompany the command. We started late in the afternoon and by evening it commenced a drizzling rain. We went into camp about dark but did not unwrap our blankets as expected to be out some days and did not wish them to get wet. The blankets in a scout like this are made into a roll and wrapped in a poncho or oil cloth covering and fastened up against the cantle of the saddle by straps which are always a part of the equipment of the army saddle. The captain and I placed our rolls of blankets at the foot of a big tree and with our waterproof to protect us against the rain, sat down on them until the shower should be over. It never let up raining during the whole night, and there we sat dozing and talking by spells until morning. Soon after daylight a messenger arrived with orders to return to camp.

We found nearly everything ready for the return trip to Fort Sill and were soon on the way. We had already heard that General Sherman and staff, Colonels Marcey, Audenried and Tourtellotte, were there on an inspection trip of the military posts of the west. They had come by way of Texas and were fully informed of the doings of the large band of Indians with whom we had our little pow-wow and whose horse we had captured, and whose trail we had crossed on our return from the north fork of Red river to the camp on Cache creek. They had also learned that they came very near being in line with the depredations committed. This band had not only burned houses and killed settlers but had also captured a government wagon train and had tied the teamster to the wagon and having looted the train of all they wanted, burned the teamsters with the wagons and contents. The young bucks on their return to the reservation, and feeling secure at Fort Sill had bragged about it. The names of the leaders in the raid were known and the matter could not be overlooked by General Grierson, but he was powerless without the authority of Mr. Tatum, the Indian agent. This always struck me as a ridiculous phase of our Indian policy.

It was a universal feeling in the army that the war department should have the exclusive control and management of the Indian problems, instead of the interior department, but I suppose politics, the bane of the country in so many ways, ruled in Washington then as it does now, and it was to the interests of the politicians to have it where it was. General Grant was at this time President and had served as a young army officer on the frontier and knew better. The Republicans were in control of congress but it would have been the same with any other political party in control, and was probably the worst that could have been done. Mr. Tatum was fully informed of the raid and the leaders in it, and called for a pow-wow at General Grierson's quarters. A number of Indian chiefs came in to talk the matter over, among them being Satanta, the war chief of the Kiowas; Big Tree, a young chief of the same tribe, and Satank, an old and wizzened up and vicious looking Indian, and council chief among the Kiowas; all known to have been in the raid. There was a heavy guard standing around the quarters ready for any emergency. Mr. Tatum had demanded the surrender of the guilty parties. While the pow-wow was in progress Lone Wolf, chief of the Comanches, came among them, a rifle in each hand, and a couple of bows and a quiver full of arrows swung over his back. I suppose it was a pre-concerted arrangement among the Indians for he handed one gun to an Indian near him, and a couple of Indians behind him grabbed the bows and arrows and in an instant these were pointed at the breast of Mr. Tatum, General Grierson, General Sherman, and other officers present. I suppose the click, click, click of the rifles as the guard cocked and brought them to shoulder, gave Lone Wolf a better understanding of the bloody work at hand, for he raised one hand and said "No shoot! No shoot!" and by the interpreter explained that it was only a joke and that he did not intend to hurt anybody. The interpreter reported afterwards that he had also said when presenting these guns to the breasts of those men mentioned, "Now let these men go and we can fix things up all right." During the excitement Big Tree broke away from the crowd and mounted a horse near by, and tried to escape but the garrison was wide awake to the condition of things, and after a shot or two he surrendered. He and Satanta and Satank were put in the guard-house, a newly built one at the new post, and a strong guard placed about the building, until they were removed to Texas to be tried by the civil authorities.

We arrived at Fort Sill from our camp on Cache creek a day or two after these occurrences but I got the details of the incident from officers present and from my wife who remembers them better than I do. Promptly after the depredations had been committed General Mackenzie of the Department of Texas with several troops of cavalry got on the trail of these Indians and had followed it up into the territory and into the Wichita mountains and from there to Fort Sill and arrived at the post shortly after our return from camp.

After resting his troops for a few days General Mackenzie was ready for the march back to Texas with his prisoners. Quite a number of officers were present to witness their departure. I was standing next to Mr. Jones, the interpreter, when they were brought out of the guard-house, all hand-cuffed, and all in the usual blanket attire of the Indians. When old Satank appeared he set up the most weird and doleful sing-song wail I ever heard, and his face I thought was not so vicious looking as usual, but was more solemn and maybe with a trace of sadness in it. I asked Mr. Jones what it meant, and he replied in an undertone, "It means he ain't going far."

Satanta and Big Tree were placed in one wagon with guards sitting behind them and Satank in another wagon with one of the sergeants sitting beside him and guards behind and when the columns were formed troopers rode alongside the wagons and in this formation they left the post. When in the valley south of the post and probably a couple of miles away we heard the report of firearms from that direction. Soon a messenger arrived with the compliments of General Mackenzie and requested that an ambulance be sent for a trooper who had been wounded. He also gave the essential particulars of what occurred. It seems that by some means unknown, Satank had a knife hidden about his person somewhere and although hand-cuffed had got possession of it and stabbed the sergeant sitting next to him and then grabbed the sergeant's gun and shot the teamster. The sergeant's wound was only slight and he went forward with the command, but the teamster was shot through one side of the neck and fell from his saddle and was brought back to the post hospital for treatment. It proved to be only a deep flesh wound and he was soon discharged from the hospital, and returned to his own command. When the guards realized the state of affairs they made short work of it, and Satank was laid by the roadside and General Grierson sent a squad of soldiers and buried him there in his blankets. It was his death song that had so impressed me as they brought him from the guard-house.