by 1864-1898 Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life;Campaigns in the West
Early in the winter of 1890 it was known that the Sioux were becoming restless and showing signs of going on the warpath. About the first week in December, troops began to assemble at the nearest point to the seat of the trouble. The Twentieth U. S. Infantry and three troops of the First U. S. Cavalry were stationed at old Fort Assinniboine, away up north on the Milk River, about forty miles south of the Canadian border and over 100 miles from the nearest settlement. Orders had come to send two companies of infantry and three troops of cavalry to old Fort Keogh, near Miles City at the mouth of Tongue River where it empties into the Yellowstone. The two infantry companies were G, commanded by Captain Abram A. Harbach, and H, commanded by Captain John N. Coe, the two senior captains of the Twentieth U. S. Infantry at that time. A troop train had been assembled on the railroad about one mile from the fort, where we entrained, and after about three days of rambling down through the Shasta Mountain [sic] and river valleys we arrived at Fort Keogh and went into camp in our Sibley tents on the Yellowstone River, where there were many other troops and one company of Crow [sic—Northern Cheyenne] Indian scouts under command of First Lieutenant Edward W. Casey, [Twenty-second Infantry].
The snow was very deep and the river frozen over. We were compelled to melt snow in our tin cups in order to get water for the company cooks. Now here was a new experience for men. I had never been out on a campaign in Montana in the winter with weather 15 to 30 degrees below zero, and I was destined to learn something. Now to any of you old-timers who have never had to melt snow in a quart cup, it might appear easy, but I’ll say you will have to know your snow before you can do it. We were now in camp in a big forest and fire wood was plenty. We hauled it in with six mule teams, loads at a time. The first sergeant gave the order, “everybody outside.” “Now men, every man melt snow in your cup until you have a quart of water for the cook. Every man who fails to melt a quart of water and turn it over to the cook gets no supper tonight.” Well, some of us sure had a time, and we nearly burned our cups to pieces before our good old First Sergeant Patrick Farrell, who had been on many a campaign in Montana in the winter, showed us how, and after that it was easy.
For three weeks we just had routine duty gathering wood, company inspection, and guard duty. On December 29th there was great commotion in the camp. Word came that the Indians had broken out and there was trouble. Our entire camp on the Yellowstone was ordered out. Everybody was happy and eager to be on the move. Now there was a scene never to be forgotten. Three troops of the First U. S. Cavalry, one troop of Indian scouts, all mounted and in marching formation [rode] ahead, and two companies of the Twentieth U. S. Infantry brought up the rear. Flanking the line of march were newspaper reporters and photographers in action. Then, flanking both sides of the line at a distance of 200 to 300 yards, were Indian squaws with their papooses strapped on their backs, all of them singing a war song, the most weird noise I had ever heard. We crossed the Tongue River and struck out in a southeasterly direction and soon out-distanced the squaws and heard their songs no more, and I am sure any surviving veterans who were on this march will remember this incident.
We marched all day through the deep snow and as the cavalry and mounted scouts had broken the trail it made marching much easier for the foot soldiers. We made only twelve miles the first day, and on account of the excitement no one seemed very tired, although our equipment was heavy, including knapsack, haversack, canteen, and web belt with 100 rounds of ammunition. We made camp in a low valley, set up our Sibley tents, and helped the cooks to build up fires from wood we had brought with us. The next morning, December 30th, was clear and cold with the sun shining bright and we were up early and after a hurried breakfast the old army wagons were loaded up and we were on the march once more. The cavalry and Crow [Cheyenne] Indian mounted scouts soon left the infantry behind, and we did not catch up with them again for nine days.
The two companies of infantry made twenty miles the second day, and eighteen miles December 31, 1890, and made camp upon a wooded ridge of pine trees, and here is where a good many of us made a mistake that we did not soon forget. After setting up our tents and banking up the snow to keep the wind out and from flapping the tents, as it was blowing a gale through the pine trees, we were told to melt snow in our tin cups for water for our coffee. Our squad had built a fire beside a fallen pine tree, and it being very cold we had taken off our overshoes and sat around the fire with our feet probably too close to the coals, and before we knew it the intense heat was cupping the soles of our shoes. The next morning, many of the boys could not get their shoes on and were obliged to march in their overshoes. That was a weird night on “Tin Cup Ridge.” The wind howled, and the timber wolves also. There seemed to us to be thousands of them and they would come very close to our camp as if to attack us. They howled the whole night through and then slunk away at the break of day, and the wind died down as we broke camp at sunrise New Year’s morning, 1891.
Our seventeen miles march and camp that day was uneventful, and on January 2nd we marched nineteen miles, which brought us to camp on the west bank of the Powder River. On the 3rd, we crossed the river on the ice and had to help pull and push our six-mule wagons up the opposite bluffs. Marching was very hard all day, as it was much colder and the snow deeper and much harder to walk on. It rolled up under our feet and we were slipping and falling against each other all day. We were only able to make fourteen miles that day and all were tired and glad to make camp on Timber Creek, although why it was so named we did not know as there was no timber in sight and our only fuel was sage brush. January 4th was the most eventful day we experienced since breaking camp near Fort Keogh on December 29th. We were tired and foot sore, so much so that we could hardly get going at all. We were climbing to a higher level of a rough country where one could look for miles and see nothing but the snow and where the sky and earth seemed to meet. Suddenly, we came in view of a lower ridge running parallel to our line of march [and] which was covered with thousands of antelope, running as they caught sight of us and disappearing in the distance. It was one of the most beautiful sights we had ever witnessed.
We also saw scores of jackrabbits, as white as the snow, and great flocks of sage hens would fly up so suddenly and so close to us they would startle us by their noise. We were now so far from civilization that the wildlife was showing up in all of its splendor. One would wonder how the wild animals could find anything to feed [upon] with the whole plains covered with a blanket of deep snow. By four o’clock in the afternoon the sun had disappeared and it was almost dark when we came to camp in the Blue Mud Hills of the badlands of Montana. We had marched twenty miles that day against a strong wind and flurries of snow that would bite one’s face. It was the most dismal evening we had as yet experienced. We were tired and nearly frozen and supposed to be somewhat in the neighborhood of hostile Indians, although we did not know where we really were. The officers knew, but told us nothing. As we sat in our tents that bitter cold night, with our furs to keep from freezing, one soldier spoke up in a very weak voice and said, “I wonder when we will find them Indians.” Another replied, “I hope we find them soon and don’t care if they kill us all and put us out of pain.” We had experienced much difficulty during the day in keeping some of the men on their feet. We had no ambulance and only one six-mule team to each company. During that long, long night more snow fell and that made our next day’s march more difficult than ever. January 5th we made twenty-two miles toward the dreary Black Hills and made camp on Dry Creek.
On the 6th, after a march of only five miles, we came to camp on the Little Missouri River in company with the three troops of the First U. S. Cavalry and one troop of mounted Crow [Cheyenne] Indian scouts which had preceded us. We had at last reached the end of our trek. On the morning of the 7th, the cavalry and scouts were out early while the infantry lounged in camp and built fires to get themselves thoroughly thawed out. There we remained for two weeks and had a chance to cook some good warm food for the first time on th
e trip. Also, to have a change of clothing and do some laundry work for the first time since leaving Fort Keogh. We cut holes in the ice on the river but did not know it was alkali water, so that the more soap we put in it the greater the accumulation of alkali on the surface. The Indian scouts were camped about 100 yards from the infantry and would remain quiet during the day, but when night came they would sing their weird songs and beat their tom-toms. This was the routine until January 21st. Each day, and in fact, each hour, we were expecting something to happen.
Along about noon on the 21st an object appeared in the distance. The officers discovered it with their field glasses. Soon it came near enough for us to determine that it was a man mounted on a mule. He came riding up to the tent of Captain Harbach, the commanding officer, and delivered him a large envelope. It developed that the man was an orderly from headquarters sixty miles away. We all gathered around him and learned that there had been a battle and that Captain Wallace and his famous K Troop of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry had been almost wiped out. Well, we all know the story of that Battle of Wounded Knee Creek. We learned but little of what had really happened in that battle, but found the object of the long march of the three troops of the First U. S. Cavalry, one mounted troop of Crow [Cheyenne] Indian scouts, and two companies of the Twentieth U. S. Infantry was intended to head off the Indians from escaping to the badlands, where they would have been difficult to dislodge.
The next morning we were ordered to break camp and march back again to old Fort Keogh. We had marched 150 miles through deep snow and weather 25 to 35 degrees below zero, and now we were ordered to march back again with all the weather conditions equally as bad. As before, the cavalry and mounted scouts soon were out of sight of the infantry. We were lonesome, miserable, and a sorry lot of unshaven men. Our overshoes gave out when we still had 100 miles of marching ahead. Then there came a break about the fourth day of our backyard march. The wind changed to our backs and the sun was warmer. It was what the Indians called a Chinook wind. We could now raise the ear flaps on our [muskrat] caps. We were allowed much more freedom going back. Now and then, we could step out of ranks and shoot at game. Company H had some crack marksmen and they brought in quantities of sage hens and rabbits. Well, we finally arrived at our old camp on the Yellowstone and settled down. At Fort Keogh, where the Twenty-second U. S. Infantry headquarters was located, we were able to get shaved and cleaned up and a change of clothing. We felt like new recruits just arrived from Columbus Barracks….
The Leech Lake Uprising of 1898 (By Harry V. Wurdemann, who investigated the incident. From Winners of the West, August 30, 1933)
In 1898 there was an insurrection of the Chippewa Indians, the young bucks of the tribe becoming disgruntled and going on the warpath. This started at Bear Island, Leech Lake, Minnesota, during the month of October—an Indian uprising, which may well be called the last of the long series of bloody encounters in which the red man and the white man have clashed in the struggle for a continent! The War with Spain was then occupying the attention of everyone and a skirmish in the woods in an obscure corner of Minnesota passed with little notice. The incident is really of considerable historical interest, however, not only because of its local significance, but also because the cause was typical of those of many similar Indian uprisings and because it was the last time that a band of Indians actually engaged United States troops in battle and inflicted considerable loss upon them.
The fighting which took place between a disaffected band of Chippewas and a detachment of the Third Regiment U. S. Infantry was of so hot a character that it recalls some of the encounters of Custer’s day against the warlike Sioux. The shores of Leech Lake were the scene of the affair. This lake is a good-sized body of water in the north-central part of the state, the very heart of the lake region. About sixty miles west is Lake Itasca, celebrated as one of the sources of the Mississippi River, and north about forty miles are Cass Lake and Lake Winnibigoshish. The Chippewa reservation practically surrounds Leech Lake on the southwestern shore of which is the town of Walker, at the time of the uprising a place of about five hundred inhabitants. The country was covered with pine woods with occasional patches of hardwood timber, and was very sparsely settled. The lumberjack, the squaw man, and the backwoods farmer were the builders of most of the log cabins and little frame dwellings on the edge of clearings studded with stumps and girdled trees. It was one of our last frontiers, and the men of those backwoods clearings were, for the most part, of that rough but picturesque type of pioneer which has filled so large a place in the American conquest of a continent.
In the case of the Leech Lake uprising, one of the inciting causes was, apparently, certain irregularities in regard to the disposal of the dead and fallen timber on the Leech Lake Reservation. The Indians complained bitterly that they were being defrauded by white speculators, and it seems that on account of these complaints the cutting of dead and fallen timber was stopped shortly after the outbreak, pending an investigation by the Department of the Interior. If the petition of October 22, signed by fifteen Pillager chiefs and 112 of their tribesmen, is an index to the sentiment of the band, this action, also, incensed them, for in this petition they stated that they depended on the continuance of logging operations during the winter to supply their families with groceries and clothing.
Much resentment and bitter feeling had also been occasioned by the rather indiscriminate arrests of Indians by United States marshals and the trouble at Leech Lake was really precipitated by the attempt of a deputy marshal to arrest certain Indians concerned in whiskey-selling practices on the reservation. On September 15, 1898, two Indians were arrested by deputy marshals and were rescued by their comrades. This was an open violation of the authority of the United States and warrants were issued for the arrest of more than twenty Indians who had taken part in the rescue. As the Indians assumed a rather threatening attitude, the marshals asked for troops to arrest them. It was believed that a show of force in the form of a detachment of regular troops would induce submission. Twenty men of the Third Regiment United States Infantry were dispatched to Walker, but as the Indians showed no signs of yielding a request by telegraph was made for more troops and on October 4 eighty additional men of the Third Infantry left Fort Snelling for the scene of the trouble.
Two days later the War and Interior departments in Washington received a bombshell in the shape of the following telegram from the assistant adjutant general at St. Paul:
In answer to a telegram to your marshal at Walker, Minn., have received reply giving location of [Brigadier] Gen. [John R.] Bacon on mainland, southwest corner of Leech Lake and saying:
[“]Commenced fighting at 11:30 yesterday. Indians seem to have best position. Not moving. Maj. [Captain Melville C.] Wilkinson, five soldiers and two Indian Police killed. Awaiting reinforcements.[”]
Press dispatches and private Western Union dispatches seem to support these statements. Reinforcements will doubtless reach the command this evening. Reliable information indicates Indians quiet in vicinity of engineer dams to the northeast. No report yet from Gen. Bacon. No need for further reinforcements unless to send to vicinity of Leech Lake dam to cut off escape of Indians. Would suggest authority be given to utilize one battalion of Minnesota volunteers in case of need. Reports just received of arrival of [Lieutenant] Col. [Abram A.] Harbach’s [Third Infantry] command at Walker about 4 o’clock.
Soldiers of Company E, Third Infantry, deployed near the railroad station at the time of the Chippewa uprising at Leech Lake, Minnesota, in October, 1898. Editor’s collection.
It was fully decided that in any event a force should go to a point on the northwest side of the lake where Bugonaygeship, one of the two Indians rescued from the marshals on September 15, and a number of his rescuers were known to be living. The force consisted of seventy-seven men from the Third Infantry under Captain Wilkinson and Second Lieutenant Tenny Ross, etc. One of the Indians near the hut, Mahqua, was identified by Deputy Marshal Timothy J. Shee
han as a dangerous member of the Pillager band who had taken a leading part in the rescue of the two Indians from the officers. Mahqua resisted arrest most vigorously, twisting the handcuffs from the hands of the marshal and attempting to hit him on the head with them. The marshal parried the blow, the irons bruising his right hand. Sheehan and the Indian grappled, several of the soldiers and deputy marshals joined the fray, and the Indian was overpowered, handcuffed, and sent on board the Flora under guard. While the arrest was being made, five Indians armed with Winchesters left the house and made their way to the nearby woods. But, as none of them were recognized as persons wanted by the authorities, they were allowed to leave unmolested.
After a brief consultation it was decided to scout the adjacent woods for Indians and a skirmish line of twenty-five men was sent out across the clearing and a short distance into the woods with orders to bring in any Indians seen. This searching party returned in about fifteen or twenty minutes, having seen two armed Indians, and those running along the shore at such a distance as to make their capture impossible. There were three small Indian villages on the point and the next step was to visit these and see if any of the men wanted by the marshals might not be apprehended there or in the nearby woods. Lieutenant Ross with about sixty men was left to guard the landing while the detachment of twenty-five soldiers, General Bacon, Captain Wilkinson, Marshal Richard T. O’Connor, three of the deputy marshals, and the four newspaper correspondents set off on a hike across the point. They followed a path which, leading out from the west side of the clearing and along the shore of the lake, came to an inlet about fifty feet wide and two or three feet deep. This had to be forded. They all waded through with the exception of Deputy Marshal Sheehan, who was strongly opposed to a wet-feet campaign and who turned back to the clearing. The others followed the path, which meandered through the woods for about two miles. Three Indian villages were passed, and although numbers of old men, women, and children clustered about the log and birch bark huts looking at the soldiers, no young men and no arms were seen. After a short halt at the last village, the party returned to the clearing.
