Burning Ground

by D. A. Galloway

  “Wrong camp!” Kipp shouted.

  “What do you mean, wrong camp?”

  “This isn’t Mountain Chief’s village. We’re gonna attack an innocent clan of Piegans!” Kipp pleaded.

  The major wobbled slightly in his saddle. Glaring at Kipp, Baker snarled, “Lieutenant Schofield, have one of your sergeants arrest this man. If he utters another word, shoot him.”

  Some women in the village were awakened by all the activity and alerted Chief Heavy Runner. He calmed everyone and searched for the papers Alfred Sully had issued providing protection for him and his people. The chief emerged from his tepee with the papers, waving them over his head as he confidently approached the line of cavalrymen positioned on the slopes.

  A bullet ripped through Heavy Runner’s chest, spinning him around and killing him instantly. Seconds later soldiers on the ridge opened fire, pouring lead into the hapless occupants of the tepees below. The massacre had begun.

  Bullets rained in from both sides of the river and from the bluffs. While the cavalry lines on the bluff and lower slopes fired indiscriminately into the camp, Sgt. Anderson’s small group opened fire from the opposite direction.

  Terror and chaos reigned in the village. Women and children huddled in their tepees, helpless as the .56-50 bullets pierced the thin buffalo-hide coverings from all angles, maiming or killing the defenseless occupants. They cowered under the gunfire, lying flat on the ground and hoping for it to stop. Six young Piegan men ran up the slopes on the north side of the river, only to be chased by two of Anderson’s men on horseback, who used their revolvers to shoot them in the back.

  Fifteen minutes into the massacre, the cavalry had yet to take any return fire from the camp. The men on the bluff became almost casual in their shooting. With no enemy fire to worry about, the soldiers had ample time to reload. When a soldier on the front line emptied his carbine, he moved to the back line and took the reins of the horses. His shooting partner took his place on the front line and began firing. Meanwhile, the soldier in the back row reloaded while holding the horses. He retrieved a tube from his Blakeslee box, poured seven new cartridges into the butt stock of his carbine, and chambered a round. Because three hundred men staggered the times they reloaded, the frigid morning air was constantly permeated with bullets. An observer viewing only the action on the high ground would have concluded the soldiers were firing at targets on a practice range.

  “Why are they not fighting back?” Baker queried Lt. Schofield as he peered through his field glasses at the cluster of tepees being ripped apart by the fusillade of gunfire.

  “They could be drunk,” Schofield speculated. “Joe Kipp reported whiskey and fur traders visited all the villages along the river a few weeks ago.”

  “Can’t blame ’em for havin’ a drink,” Baker replied as he took another swig from his flask. “Hell, if I had to live out here in a tent all winter, I’d want two things to keep me warm. A squaw and plenty of whiskey!”

  After nearly an hour of firing from a distance, Baker ordered the men on the bluffs to cease fire. Although many bodies could be seen strewn between the lodges, there was no way to determine how many of the enemy were concealed in the tepees perforated with bullet holes. Baker ordered Doane to lead Company F into the camp to engage the Piegans at close range.

  Doane’s troops went from tepee to tepee, firing into the opened flaps and murdering the occupants. Some men shot the tops of the lodges, severing the binding of the poles and causing the tepees to collapse onto the center fire. Piegans taking refuge in a fallen tepee met one of three fates. They burned to death when the buffalo hide ignited, died from smoke inhalation, or were shot when they tried to escape.

  Some cavalrymen could not bring themselves to murder the innocent. They defied orders and herded women, children, and a small number of warriors into an area where they were guarded while the indiscriminate killing continued.

  It was soon evident why the soldiers had not experienced any armed resistance. Not only were there very few men of fighting age in the camp, but also many of the Piegans were sick from smallpox and too weak to fight.

  But Doane pressed on. “Remember our mission! Hit them hard!” he exhorted.

  The men responded by using knives to cut open the tepees so they could take deadly aim at those who sought refuge. They fired into blankets and buffalo robes the sick were using to cover themselves. A nursing mother and her child were gunned down as they hid in a nearby clump of bushes.

  Most of the killing had been completed by Company F when the rest of Baker’s command showed up to finish off any survivors who had not been herded into a group. The moans of the wounded and dying filled the river valley when the gunfire finally stopped. Blood soaked the snow under the bodies of the Piegans who were shot as they ran from their homes. It oozed from inside the tepees where dozens had been murdered at close range.

  Baker rode into the village, surveying the carnage as his horse stepped over dozens of dead bodies. He dismounted and steadied himself before strutting over to Lt. Doane and Lt. Schofield.

  “Any casualties?”

  “We lost one man, sir,” Schofield reported.

  “Where are all the warriors? I don’t see many lying around. And where is Mountain Chief?” the major inquired.

  “We captured a small number of young men. They are with the other prisoners,” Doane replied as he motioned toward the hundred or so shivering women and children huddled together near a tepee. “I don’t believe Mountain Chief is here.”

  “Fetch Joe Kipp. Tell him to interrogate the prisoners and find out where the bastard is,” Baker ordered Schofield.

  Five minutes later, Kipp reported what he already knew and had tried to warn Baker earlier. “This is Heavy Runner’s camp. Some survivors say Mountain Chief’s camp is about fifteen miles downstream.”

  “Damn!” Baker exclaimed. “Doane, your company will stay here. Destroy the village and get me a body count. I’ll lead the other companies to find and kill him. Do you know if anyone got away to warn other camps along the river?”

  “I don’t think so, but we can’t be certain,” replied Schofield.

  “Well, let’s mount up and get going. There’s no time to waste!”

  Schofield and Doane saluted the major. Within minutes, the column was climbing up the snow-covered slopes to the bluffs and snaking down the Marias River in search of their assigned target.

  “Sergeant Anderson, we need an official count of the living and the dead. Keep a tally as the men complete their work,” Doane instructed.

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant responded as he pulled out a small book to tally the Piegan survivors and casualties.

  Doane’s men set to work with the camp’s destruction. They started by tearing down all but six tepees. One hundred fifty survivors were packed into the remaining tepees, and guards were placed around the perimeter of these lodges. Severely wounded Piegans were mercifully killed. The dead were tossed onto the jumbled piles of poles and buffalo hides. After Anderson walked by each fallen lodge and counted the bodies, he ordered them set afire. Soldiers warmed their hands from the blazing ruins of the pole lodges while smoke from the crude funeral pyres billowed into the sky. The stench of burning flesh permeated the ravine.

  Dusk descended upon the devastated camp of Heavy Runner in northern Montana. The fading daylight cast a pall on the macabre scene of a riverbank littered with smoldering ruins of torched tepees and partially cremated bodies. Wounded Piegans lay moaning in crowded tepees with weeping women and crying children. A half-dozen dogs owned by the village residents had scattered into the brush with the initial gunfire. The canines wandered back into camp, their sensitive noses detecting the smell of death as they sniffed the ground.

  Doane ordered a guard placed on the tepees housing the prisoners although he didn’t expect any trouble. Anyone who escaped wouldn’t survive long on a night when the temperature dipped to thirty degrees below zero. The lieutenant thought it would be foolhardy to
attempt an escape. He was wrong.

  Around two o’clock, one of the guards shouted the alarm. He shot at two figures who suddenly emerged from a tepee and scrambled up the slopes. Unfortunately for the escapees, they were captured by the soldiers assigned to watch the herd of ponies.

  Doane was furious with this ill-fated attempt of the warriors to gain their freedom. He hadn’t wanted to take any prisoners in the first place. He needed to send a harsh message by killing all the young warriors. Other than the wounded, this would leave only women, children, and elderly in the prisoner population.

  “Sergeant Anderson!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many fighting-age warriors are not wounded?”

  Anderson opened his book and ran his finger down several pages of entries. “Eight, sir.”

  “I need you to form a detail of five men. Take each of those warriors—one at a time—down by the river and kill him. Throw their bodies onto the frozen river. They will not have the honor of their spirits being sent to the sky by being burned like the others.”

  “Yes, sir,” Anderson said. “If I may say so, we don’t need five men to shoot the cowards. Three men should be plenty.”

  “I don’t want you to shoot them, Sergeant.” Doane’s eyes narrowed as he spoke. “I want you to kill them with an ax. One man to hold each limb while the fifth man wields the ax.”

  Sgt. Anderson flinched at the barbarism but relented.

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant responded with a salute.

  One by one, the warriors were dragged from a tepee in the darkness and forced at gunpoint to march down to the river. After the prisoner was stripped, he was forced to lie face down in the snow. Four soldiers held the man down by his outstretched limbs. The executioner used an ax to sever the victim’s cervical spine, partially decapitating the body. Blood gushed from the fatal wound into the snow and trickled onto the frozen Marias River. The soldiers rolled the body onto the ice before trudging through the snow to seize their next victim.

  An hour after the assassinations, the camp was eerily still. A northerly wind whistled through the ravine, swirling the snow into drifts and gradually extinguishing the smoldering fires of the tepees victimized by arson. Out on the frozen waters of the Marias, a pack of wolves circled around the corpses of the butchered warriors. The low moaning of wounded Piegan prisoners was accompanied by the mournful howling of the village dogs that had lost their masters on this bitterly cold day.

  * * *

  The white settlers in Montana were elated when they heard the news about the complete destruction of the Piegan camp. According to the local press, the rogue Indians had received a thorough and justified punishment. Likewise, the military brass was highly complimentary of the mission, congratulating Baker and his men for their bravery in quelling a dangerous foe. But reports from other sources questioned the veracity of the outcome.

  Although Maj. Baker’s official report had not been filed, details of the encounter and the casualties were leaked. According to Lt. Doane’s preliminary report, one hundred seventy-three Piegans had been killed. One hundred twenty of the victims were men; fifty-three of the dead were women and children. In addition, one hundred forty women and children had been captured and released after smallpox was discovered in the camp.

  A reporter from the Rocky Mountain Gazette visited Bozeman in early February when he attended an impromptu gathering at a local tavern organized by civilians who wanted to meet with some of the heroes from Fort Ellis. Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane delighted the audience by sharing stories about fighting the Indians on the Marias River.

  “I have a question,” a lanky rancher in his sixties said from the back of the small room.

  “Yes, sir,” Doane responded.

  “Just like my neighbors, I’ve had livestock disappear over the last year, and I’m glad you fellas did something. Do you think these Indians got the message, or are they still gonna cause trouble?”

  Doane paused before answering. “Well, I can’t say, but there are certainly one hundred seventy-three very good arguments in favor of their remaining quiet lying out on the Marias!”

  The room erupted in laughter.

  When the Eastern press published the preliminary findings from Baker’s raid, the public was outraged. Not only had the military decimated an entire village that included significant numbers of innocent people, but they had also left the survivors to fend for themselves with no provisions in subfreezing temperatures.

  Lt. Col. Alfred Sully doubted the demographics of the Piegan casualties. He ordered one of his agents, Lt. William Pease, to interview the officers and survivors. The agent’s report painted a vastly different picture: fifteen young men, eighteen old men, ninety women, and fifty children from Heavy Runner’s camp were killed. Mountain Chief’s clan was never attacked.

  Sully wrote to Maj. Baker and gave him a chance to amend his report before filing it with the War Department. When his offer was refused, Sully penned a letter to the commissioner of Indian affairs in Washington detailing his agent’s investigation. A copy of the letter found its way to some influential congressmen, who were incensed at the savagery exhibited by Baker and his officers on a group of friendly Indians.

  Maj. Baker’s report on the notorious raid was issued nearly five weeks after the incident. Although Baker was officially the author, the major had asked Lt. Doane to write the report. Doane cleverly penned a narrative of the massacre that led the reader to believe the soldiers had been engaged in a pitched battle and had met fierce resistance before claiming a complete victory.

  Despite the fallout around the Marias River incident, no formal inquiry was ever convened to call Baker and his officers before a military panel or members of Congress. However, there were political consequences of the Baker massacre. Army officers were forbidden to serve as Indian agents or superintendents. Congress had also been debating whether to place the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the War Department. The army’s annihilation of mostly women and children from a friendly Indian village sealed the argument for keeping the Indian Affairs office in the Department of the Interior.

  These bureaucratic decisions meant nothing to the destitute Piegans whose loved ones were massacred on the Marias River.

  Chapter 20

  August 9, 1871

  Waning crescent moon: 21 nights until the next full moon

  Three groups diverged from the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake on a crisp morning. Wispy cirrus clouds shaped like giant tufts of hair graced the sky above the bustling camp. The first men to depart were those traveling with Capt. Tyler to Fort Ellis. His pack train included half the military escort and five nonessential survey-team members ordered back to Bottler’s Ranch by Hayden. James Stevenson traveled north with Tyler’s group for additional supplies and planned to unite with the Hayden group in a week.

  Shortly afterward, Henry Elliott and Cam Carrington launched the refurbished Annie. They planned to take soundings, and Elliott would complete sketches of the shoreline. The duo would rejoin the main group on the eastern side of the lake in four or five days.

  The third group to leave camp were the core survey team members and a downsized military escort commanded by Lt. Doane. Hayden asked Makawee to ride in the middle of the group, since Doane was the new guide. Taking direction from Albert Peale, Graham and Alec Sibley lined up near the end of the pack train behind Goodfellow’s odometer wagon. Fortunately, it was an uneventful travel day. The route was close to the lake where flat grassy areas predominated. Graham and Alec had to assist with the odometer wagon only once, when the wheels became mired in a marshy area. The landscape and their luck would change dramatically the next day.

  After breaking camp in the morning, Lt. Doane announced he aspired to reach the mouth of Bridger Creek by nightfall. The plan was to climb Flat Mountain, cross the Continental Divide again, and travel east, skirting the South and Southeast arms of the lake. The horses and pack animals struggled with the steep terrain, slipping on rhyolit
e scree as the group climbed above the timberline. After a brief rest, the pack train started down the other side of the Great Divide.

  The group was soon forced to pick its way through thick timber. Graham and Sibley dismounted, as Goodfellow frequently needed assistance to lift the odometer wagon over deadfall. Pack mules burdened with bulky loads repeatedly became wedged between trees. The animals often had to be unloaded to free them from standing timber traps. Progress was painfully slow, and Doane became more impatient with each occurrence.

  “What’s going on back here?” Doane demanded as he rode back down the line where Steve Hovey and Aurelio were working to free another mule wedged between two trees. The hapless creature was frantic and whimpering from the pressure around his ribs.

  “Ain’t it obvious?” the wagon master countered as he urged the mule to step backward to free itself.

  “Tell your men they shouldn’t lead mules through spaces where the packs won’t fit!”

  “Show me where that is!” Hovey retorted, his face red and sweaty from the effort. A minute later the mule was freed, and Aurelio began reloading the packs.

  “I’m only telling you to be more discerning where you lead those mules,” Doane urged while shaking his head.

  “Here’s an idea. How ’bout I ride the lead horse and you manage the mules?”

  “My job is to guide. Your job is to . . .”

  “Gentlemen!” Hayden shouted as he rode up to the arguing men. “We all know this is difficult terrain. Mr. Hovey, if you must take a longer route to find a clear passage for the mules, then do it. Lieutenant Doane, may I speak with you in private?”

  The commanding officer followed the expedition leader as Hayden wove through the dense lodgepole forest until they were out of earshot.

  “Is this the only route to the creek?” Hayden asked.

  “It’s the way I know and the one I recommend as your guide.”