Campaigning with Crook and Stories of Army Life Part 8

Friday, October 13th--ill-omened day of the week, ill-omened day of the month--and we were to start on a scout down into the valley of the Cheyenne. Perhaps three fourths of our number neither knew nor cared what day it was; but, be that as it may, there was an utterly unmistakable air of gloom about our move. The morning was raw and dismal. "The General" sounded soon after nine, and the stirring notes fell upon seemingly listless ears; no one seemed disposed to shout, whistle, or sing, and just at ten o'clock, when we were all standing to horse and ready to start, Major Sumner's company sent forth a mournful little procession towards the new-made grave we had marked on the hillside at the sharp bend of the creek, and with brief service, but sad enough hearts, the body of a comrade who had died the night before was lowered to its rest. The carbines rang out the parting volleys, and Bradley's trumpet keened a wailing farewell. General Merritt and his staff, coming suddenly upon us during the rites, silently dismounted and uncovered until the clods rattled in upon the soldier's rude coffin, and all was over. Then, signalling us to follow, the chief rode on, the Fifth swung into saddle, and with perceptibly augmented ranks followed in his tracks. A battalion of the Third Cavalry, under Colonel Van Vliet, and a detachment of the Second, under Captain Peale, accompanied us, while the infantry battalion, the rest of the cavalry, the recruits, and the sick or disabled remained in camp under command of Colonel Royall. Where were we going? What was expected? None knew behind the silent horseman at the head of column; but a start on Friday, the 13th, to the mournful music of a funeral march, boded ill for success.

However, not to be harrowing, it is as well to state right here that ten days from that date the scout was over, and, without having lost man or horse, the Fifth rode serenely into Red Cloud Agency. So far as the regiment was concerned that superst.i.tion was exploded.

The march down Amphibious Creek was grandly beautiful as to scenery. We wound, snake-like, along the stream, gliding under towering, pine-covered heights, or bold, rocky precipices. The valley opened out wider as we neared the "sinks," and, finally, turning abruptly to the right, we dismounted and led our horses over a lofty ridge, bare of trees, and commanding a broad valley to the south, over which the road stretched in long perspective till lost in dark Buffalo Gap, the only exit through the precipitous and lofty range that hemmed in the plain between us and the Cheyenne valley beyond. Here we encountered an emigrant train slowly toiling up the southern slope and staring at us in undisguised wonderment. Ten miles away we came once again "plump" upon the boiling waters of the creek, where it reappeared after a twelve-mile digression in the bowels of the earth. It was clear and fair when it left us in the valley behind to take its plunge, and it met us again with a more than troubled appearance and the worst kind of an odor.

Square in between the ma.s.sive portals of the great gap we unsaddled at sunset and encamped for the night.

In the scout which ensued down the valley of the South Cheyenne there was absolutely nothing of sufficient interest to record in these pages.

Nor had we any luck in our partic.i.p.ation in the "round-up" at the Indian reservation on the 22d and 23d of October. Such warriors as had remained near Camp Robinson meekly surrendered to General MacKenzie, and we had nothing to do but pitch our tents side by side with the new-comers of the Fourth Cavalry and wonder what was to come next. General Crook was known to be in the garrison with his aides-de-camp, and we had not long to wait. On the 24th of October our motley array received the welcome order to go into winter-quarters, the Fifth Cavalry on the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and within another twenty-four hours we were _en route_ for the comforts of civilization.

But, before we separated from the comrades with whom we had marched and growled these many weary miles, our chief gave us his parting benediction in the following words:

"Headquarters Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition, Camp Robinson, Neb., _October 24, 1876_.

"_General Orders No. 8._

"The time having arrived when the troops composing the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition are about to separate, the brigadier-general commanding addresses himself to the officers and men of the command to say:

"In the campaign now closed he has been obliged to call upon you for much hard service and many sacrifices of personal comfort. At times you have been out of reach of your base of supplies; in most inclement weather you have marched without food and slept without shelter; in your engagements you have evinced a high order of discipline and courage; in your marches, wonderful powers of endurance; and in your deprivations and hards.h.i.+ps, patience and fort.i.tude.

"Indian warfare is, of all warfare, the most dangerous, the most trying, and the most thankless. Not recognized by the high authority of the United States Senate as war, it still possesses for you the disadvantages of civilized warfare, with all the horrible accompaniments that barbarians can invent and savages execute. In it you are required to serve without the incentive to promotion or recognition; in truth, without favor or hope of reward.

"The people of our spa.r.s.ely settled frontier, in whose defence this war is waged, have but little influence with the powerful communities in the East; their representatives have little voice in our national councils, while your savage foes are not only the wards of the nation, supported in idleness, but objects of sympathy with large numbers of people otherwise well-informed and discerning.

"You may, therefore, congratulate yourselves that, in the performance of your military duty, you have been on the side of the weak against the strong, and that the few people there are on the frontier will remember your efforts with grat.i.tude.

"If, in the future, it should transpire that the avenues[A] for recognition of distinguished services and gallant conduct are opened, those rendered in this campaign will be remembered.

"By Command of Brigadier-General Crook.

(_Signed_) JOHN G. BOURKE, "_First Lieutenant Third Cavalry, A.D.C., and A.A.A. General._"

[A: The avenue was at last opened by the signature of the President to the bill providing that brevet rank might be conferred on officers for gallant conduct in Indian warfare, but it came just too late. General Crook had barely time to express his gratification. He died within the week that followed, and his list of officers recommended or brevets for services rendered in this campaign died with him.]

To use the emphatic vernacular of the frontier, that parting order "just filled the bill." It was as complete a summing-up of the disadvantages of Indian campaigning as could well be written; it indicated plainly how thoroughly our general had appreciated the sufferings of his men on that hideous march from Heart River; it a.s.sured us of the sympathy he had felt for one and all (though I doubt if ever a one of us suffered half so much as he); and, finally, in tendering the thanks of our commander, it conveyed the only reward we could possibly expect, for had he not truly said that, of all warfare, Indian warfare is the most thankless?

Well, it was over with, so far as we were concerned, though brief was our respite, and now came the closing scenes before the rising of the morning's sun should see us split up into battalions or detachments, and, with light feet and lighter hearts, marching away to the south.

All night long, at General Crook's headquarters, his tireless staff were working away at orders and details of the move, and closing his report to the lieutenant-general at Chicago; and here, too, my services were kept in requisition preparing the map which was to accompany the written report, so that, for us at least, there was no opportunity of sharing in the parting festivities and bidding farewell to comrades, cavalry and infantry, separating for the new posts and the duties of recuperation.

Our farewells were hurried, yet even now, how vividly I recall the faces that crowded round headquarters that bright morning of the 25th.

Bronzed and bearded, rugged with the glow of health, or pallid from wounds and illness, but all kindly and cordial. Then, too, the scenes of our campaign seemed pa.s.sing in review before me, and, dream-like, they linger with me still. Glancing over these now completed pages, how utterly meagre and unsatisfactory the record seems; how many an incident have I failed to mention; how many a deed of bravery or self-denial is left untold. I look back through the mists and rain into the dark depths of that b.l.o.o.d.y ravine at Slim b.u.t.tes, and wonder how I could ever have told the story of its a.s.sault and failed to speak of how our plucky Milwaukee sergeant sprang down in the very face of the desperately fighting Indians and picked up a wounded Third Cavalryman and carried him on his back out of further harm's way; and of brave, n.o.ble-hearted Munson, as true a soldier as ever commanded company, rus.h.i.+ng in between two fires to drag the terrified squaws from their peril; of Bache, "swollen, puffed, and disfigured with rheumatism, conquering agony to mount his horse and take part in the action;" of Rodgers, striding down the slopes in front of his skirmish-line, his glorious voice ringing above the clamor, laughing like a schoolboy at the well-meant efforts of the Indian sharpshooters to pick him off; of General Carr, riding out to the front on his conspicuous gray, and sitting calmly there to show the men what wretched shots some Indians could be.

How could half the incidents be told when so little parade was made of them at the time? Who knew the night of the stampede on the Rosebud that Eaton was shot through the hand until he had spent an hour or more completing his duties, riding as though nothing had happened? Who knew, at the Rosebud battle, that Nickerson's exertions in the saddle had reopened the old Gettysburg wound and well-nigh finished him? We thought he looked white and wan when he rejoined us at Red Cloud, but never divined the cause. From first to last throughout that march of eight hundred miles, so varied in its scenes, but so utterly changeless in discomfort, there was a spirit of uncomplaining "take-it-as-a-matter-of-course" determination that amounted at times among the men to positive heroism. Individual pluck was thoroughly tested, and the instances of failure were few and far between.

Despite the fact that our engagements were indecisive at the time (and Indian fights that fall short of annihilation on either side generally are), the campaign had its full result. Sitting Bull's thousands were scattered in confusion over the Northwest, he himself driven to a refuge "across the line," his subordinates broken up into dejected bands that, one after another, were beaten or starved into submission, and in the following year General Crook's broad department, the grand ranges of the Black Hills and Big Horn, the boundless prairies of Nebraska and Wyoming, were as clear of hostile warriors as, two years before, they were of settlers, and to-day the lovely valleys of the North, thanks to his efforts, and the ceaseless vigilance of Generals Terry and Miles in guarding the line, are the peaceful homes of hundreds of hardy pioneers.

ROSTER OF OFFICERS

SERVING WITH THE FIFTH CAVALRY IN THE BIG HORN AND YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1876.

_Colonel_ Wesley Merritt, Brevet Major-General.

_Lieutenant-Colonel_ Eugene A. Carr, Brevet Major-General.

_Major_ John J. Upham.

_Major_ Julius W. Mason, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel.

_Captain_ Edward H. Leib, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel.

_Captain_ Samuel S. Sumner, Brevet Major.

_Captain_ Emil Adam.

_Captain_ Robert H. Montgomery.

_Captain_ Sanford C. Kellogg, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel.

_Captain_ George F. Price.

_Captain_ Edward M. Hayes.

_Captain_ J. Scott Payne.

_Captain_ Albert E. Woodson.

_Captain_ Calbraith P. Rodgers.

_First Lieutenant_ Bernard Reilly, Jr.

_First Lieutenant_ Wm. C. Forbush, A.A.G. Cavalry Brigade.

_First Lieutenant_ Charles King, Adjutant.

_First Lieutenant_ William P. Hall, Quartermaster.

_First Lieutenant_ Walter S. Schuyler, A.D.C. to General Crook.

_Second Lieutenant_ Charles D. Parkhurst.

_Second Lieutenant_ Charles H. Watts (until July, when disabled).