Fort Robinson: Outpost on the Plains

by Roger T. Grange

Other activities also occupied the post garrison. For example, in July Lieutenant Crawford spent a great deal of time giving assistance to homesteaders in the Loup Valley of Nebraska where a serious plague of grasshoppers struck.

Since neither of the two agencies was on the permanent Sioux reservation, the military hesitated to begin construction of winter quarters. An Indian commission headed by Bishop Hare arrived to investigate the recent troubles at the agency and to settle this problem, and during July and August troops from Camp Robinson escorted the commissioners. Bishop Hare decided that Red Cloud Agency would remain at its White River location despite the fact that it was not within the limits of the permanent reservation. After considerable discussion Spotted Tail agreed to the relocation of his agency and both the Spotted Tail Agency and its associated military establishment, Camp Sheridan, were moved to a more favorable site on Beaver Creek. With the location question settled, the Army began construction of permanent quarters for the troops.

In June 1874 Capt. W. H. Jordan and Companies A and I of the Ninth Infantry arrived at Camp Robinson, replacing Company F, Eighth Infantry and Company F of the Fourteenth Infantry. Post Commander Jordan soon issued orders to start cutting logs and to begin construction of barracks. Ten wagons and sixty mules were employed in hauling materials, and the sawmill at Red Cloud Agency was made available for use by the troops. By November, although barracks and urgently needed warehouses were ready, only two sets of the adobe officers’ quarters were completed. The post surgeon complained bitterly of “criminal neglect”[14] when the delivery of heating stoves was unnecessarily delayed.

The northern hostiles, absent during much of the summer, began returning to Red Cloud Agency in October 1874 in anticipation of the issue of annuity goods in November. With their arrival came new troubles at the agency, and it almost seemed as if the agent was trying to create problems for himself and the Army. Saville requested the aid of the soldiers at Camp Robinson in arresting those responsible for killing Frank Appleton the previous February, but when he found that the military commander was instructed that his function was to protect the agency and not to make arrests, Saville gave up the idea. It was just as well that military help was denied because an attempt to make such an arrest would surely have had serious results.

Next Saville decided to erect a flagpole at the agency and for this purpose had a tall pine cut and brought inside the agency stockade. The chiefs were opposed to the flagpole, but Saville did not take their objections seriously. The northern faction was strongly opposed to the flagpole and on October 23, 1874 a group of armed warriors entered the agency stockade while Saville was inside his office talking to Red Cloud and Red Dog. He was called out just in time to see the flagpole being chopped to bits by the warriors, led by the same men who had made him a prisoner in his own office the year before.

Saville immediately sent a messenger to Camp Robinson with a request for a troop of cavalry, but he neglected to inform the commanding officer of the serious nature of the disturbance then in progress. Shorthanded because some of the cavalry were off on an escort mission, Captain Jordan sent only twenty-two men, led by Lt. Emmet Crawford. When Lieutenants Crawford and Steever and their men reached the agency they were immediately surrounded by some four hundred Indian warriors.

A group of Akicita or Indian camp police arrived on the scene, led by Sitting Bull of the South who carried a distinctive three-bladed club. These Indians rushed between the troops and the angry warriors and with their clubs beat the hostiles back, clearing a path so that the soldiers could gain the safety of the agency stockade. Old Man Afraid of His Horses then dispelled the crowd after a long harangue, and several other agency leaders were helpful in preventing further trouble.[15]

One report of the affair stated that flagpoles at Indian agencies were both unusual and unnecessary. The flagpole incident caused considerable ill feeling between the agent and the military men, the latter believing the agent had needlessly put the soldiers in a very serious position.

Whether or not it had anything to do with the flagpole incident at Red Cloud Agency in 1874, the American flag was not raised over Camp Robinson until Washington’s Birthday, 1876. The honor of raising the flag on that occasion went to Sgt. John Kailey, Ninth Infantry, whose twenty-seven years of service were the longest of any man then stationed at the post.[16]

Indian Agent Saville’s efforts to get a count of the Indians receiving supplies at Red Cloud were finally crowned with success on November 30, 1874. Two factors combined to produce this result. First, Saville announced that no more rations would be issued until the Indians submitted to counting. In the face of this threat Old Man Afraid of His Horses changed his mind and counting began. He is also reported to have compelled Red Cloud to withdraw his opposition. The enumeration revealed a total of about 12,000 Indians: 9,339 Sioux, 1202 Cheyenne and 1092 Arapaho.”[17]