The Native American Experience

by Dee Brown

  3. When a train shall have organized, the conductor will present to the post commander a list of the men accompanying the said train, upon which list, if satisfactory, he will endorse, “Permission given to pass to Fort Reno [soon to be named Fort Phil Kearny].” Upon arrival of a train at Fort Reno [Fort Phil Kearny], the conductor will report with his list, indorsed as above mentioned, to the post commander to receive the same indorsed approval as in the first instance to pass to the next post. This examination and approval must be had at each post, so that the last post commander on the Upper Yellowstone will have the evidence that the train has passed all posts.

  4. The constant separation and scattering of trains pretending to act in concert must be stopped; and for the information of emigrants and well-disposed citizens the following reasons are given: viz:

  First, nearly all danger from Indians lies in the recklessness of travelers. A small party when separated, either sell whisky to or fire upon scattering Indians, or get in dispute with them, and somebody is hurt. An insult to an Indian is resented by the Indians against the first white men they meet, and innocent travelers suffer. Again, the new route is short and will be made perfectly secure. The cooperation of citizens is therefore essential for their own personal comfort as well as for the interests of the public at large; and if citizens ask, as they will of course rightly expect, the protection and aid from Government troops, they must themselves be equally diligent in avoiding difficulties with Indians, or among themselves, and the consideration paid to any complaint will be measured by the apparent good faith with which citizens regard the regulations for the management of the route.

  5. When trains scatter and upon reporting at any post there shall be found a substantial variation from the list furnished, all of the remaining teams will be stopped until the residue of the train arrives, or is accounted for; and until this is done they will not be permitted to unite with other trains to complete numbers, which their insubordination or haste has lost or scattered.

  6. The main object being perfect security to travel, all citizens are cautioned against any unnecessary dealings with Indians, against giving or selling ardent spirits, against personal quarrels with them, or any acts having a tendency to irritate them, or develop hostile acts or plans. A faithful and wise regard for these instructions will, with the aid of the Government troops, insure peace, which is all important and can be made certain.

  7. A copy of these instructions will be properly and publicly posted at the office of each post or station commandant, and all conductors of trains will have their attention called thereto, with instructions to notify all who travel in their charge.38

  * Phisterer is best known today as the compiler of Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States, a standard source book for Civil War historians.

  * A more exact translation of the latter: The-Mere-Sight-of-His-Horses-Inspires-Fear.

  * A unique member of these galvanized Yankees at Fort Reno was Private Milo B. Tanner who was actually a Union soldier originally of the 121st New York Volunteers. Captured by the Confederates at Cold Harbor, he was sent to Andersonville prison. Tanner escaped from there in a stolen Confederate uniform and fell in with a Confederate patrol, only to be captured by Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s Federal cavalry raiders. Unable to convince Grierson that he was truly a Union soldier, Tanner was sent to prison at Alton, Illinois, where the authorities also refused to believe his story. In desperation, he finally took the oath of allegiance and eventually found himself in a blue uniform again at Fort Reno.

  IV. July:

  MOON WHEN THE CHOKECHERRIES ARE RIPE

  Whatever my own force I can not settle down and say I have not the men; I must do all this, however arduous. The work is my mission here and I must meet it.1

  A MOST WELCOME VISITOR to Fort Reno on July 3was Major Henry Almstedt, paymaster for the Department of the Platte. Although the men had received no pay for four months, almost any experienced frontier commander would have delayed payment until after the July 4 holiday. But perhaps Carrington did not realize how much contraband whiskey a flood of greenbacks combined with a holiday could attract even at so remote a post as Reno.

  Independence Day was started in proper patriotic fashion by the firing of the fort’s 12-pounder field howitzer. Paymaster Almstedt, being the only artillery officer present, supervised the loading and placed the portfire. A review and a few patriotic orations followed, and the men were free for the day.

  According to Private Murphy there was some bootlegging but not much drunkenness. He described the punishment of one man who imbibed too freely that day: “At the guard tent four stakes were driven into the ground and the drunken soldier was stretched out full length and tied to them. This was called the ‘Spread Eagle.’ The sun was beating down on him when I saw him, and I thought he was dead. Flies were eating him up and were running in and out of his mouth, ears and nose. It was reported that he died, but in the army one can hear all kinds of reports.”2

  After reveille next morning all celebrants—regardless of the condition of their heads—resumed duties. Special details were assigned to remove wheels from wagons, grease axles, secure all nuts. Others inspected harness for flaws. The fort’s six pieces of artillery were cleaned and prepared for movement; in addition to the 12-pounder field howitzer, there were five 12-pounder mountain howitzers.

  Quartermaster Fred Brown kept the headquarters clerks busy invoicing supplies being transferred from warehouses to wagons, and it was already evident that available empty wagon beds could haul only about half the stocks.

  As Carrington had definitely decided to keep Reno active, the depot stores which must be left behind presented no problem. Lieutenant Kirtland’s Company B was ordered to remain at Reno, the post commander to be Captain Joshua Proctor, an aging officer with a full gray beard and a harassed though kindly face. Twenty-two horses were assigned so that Kirtland could mount about one-third of his men for necessary messenger and escort duties.

  At four o’clock the morning of July 9, the seven remaining companies of the 2nd Battalion marched northward out of Fort Reno, exact destination unknown. The day before, a mail courier from Laramie had arrived, and the news from Omaha was not good; the Mountain District could expect no reinforcements before autumn at the earliest.

  Carrington passed the word to his officers and established tentative assignments. Ten Eyck with three companies would command the new Fort Reno; regimental headquarters and the band would also occupy that post. Kinney with two companies would establish a post somewhere on the Big Horn River. Haymond with two companies would proceed to the Upper Yellowstone. It would be a long line, thinly held, but Carrington was determined to carry out his orders.

  The day chosen for the march was the hottest of the summer of 1866. The sun was blinding, the mercury reaching 113 in the shade by afternoon. Even the sagebrush seemed to shrivel under the baking heat. “Many of the soldiers had bad feet,” said Private Murphy. “Add to this the fact that there was only one ambulance available for sick soldiers, as the women and children had all the others in use, and you have a picture of what it meant for a soldier to be sick.”3

  Except for water carried in canteens and barrels, there was none anywhere between Reno and Crazy Woman’s Fork. Drivers were forbidden to use any for wetting wagon wheels which began to shrink, loosening the metal tires. Spares were used up rapidly.

  And for the first time, they saw parties of Indians riding on the flanks, or watching from rises far ahead. Bridger and his guides parleyed with one small party of Sioux. These Indians said they were going across the Big Horns to fight the Shoshoni, but when Bridger reported to Carrington the scout expressed skepticism. He suggested the Sioux were counting soldiers, wagons and livestock—sizing up the strength of the train.

  After twenty-six miles of heat, aching weariness, and wagon wheels falling apart, they reached Crazy Woman’s Fork at dusk, finding sparse grass burned to a crisp and only a trickle of alkali water in the c
reek. From the guides, the soldiers heard two stories as to how the place received its name. One was that a squaw living alone there in a tepee had become demented and died; the other told of a party of whites attacked there, one man being killed and mutilated before the eyes of his wife, who became insane, wandered away, and disappeared forever. After what they had seen of Crazy Woman’s Fork, the men could easily believe either story. It was not a good place to be.

  Next morning the first order of business was a wagon inspection by Carrington and Brown. Almost half the wagons were unfit for another day’s journey, and it was soon apparent that temporary repairs would not suffice. So much damage had been done to axles, spokes, and tires that smithies must be improvised. Details went to work immediately, cutting timber and digging charcoal pits. Every available wheelwright and blacksmith was drafted from both soldier and civilian contingents. One ingenious workman devised a method of cutting gunny sacks in strips, soaking them in water, and tacking them to repaired wooden rims; when a heated tire was placed over one of these strips, it made a perfect seal.

  After forty-eight hours of waiting for sufficient charcoal to be burned, Carrington grew restless. The best days of summer were passing, and he had three forts to build before winter. On the 12th, he ordered Captain Haymond to take command of the temporary camp at Crazy Woman’s Fork. With Captain Ten Eyck and Companies A, C, and H, he would move on toward Tongue River.

  Marching early to avoid the heat, the three companies by sunrise found themselves in a new and different country. “One narrow divide only is crossed, and the transition is like the quick turn of a kaleidoscope,” wrote Margaret Carrington. The air was suddenly delightfully cool. Sagebrush and cactus disappeared, to be gradually replaced by green grass. Forests of evergreens showed dark against the slopes. By noon the first horses were plunging into Clear Fork, a swift mountain-fed stream “so clear that every pebble and fish is well defined.”4

  As they had been traveling steadily for nine hours, Carrington ordered his abbreviated train into camp. Tents were pitched along the banks of the rushing creek, and Mrs. Carrington told of how she, Mrs. Bisbee, and Mrs. Horton—the only women in the advance party—were sitting in camp chairs admiring the scenery when to their horror they discovered rattlesnakes coiled under their chairs. An orderly, hearing their screams, rushed to the rescue.

  During late afternoon a small band of Indians visited the camp, cautiously escorted in by guides Bridger, Williams and Brannan. “We were peacefully inclined,” Lieutenant Bisbee commented, “having nothing as yet to fight for, but suspicions grew strong that they were treacherous and we tied Gene (my son) by a trunk strap to the tent pole to prevent his straying away.”5

  Another of the small boys in camp, six-year-old Jimmy Carrington, afterward recalled these last nights of the long journey to the site of Fort Phil Kearny. “Nightly, we heard the weird and mournful howling of wolves, sometimes the deep rumble of a stampeded herd of buffalo, that fairly shook the earth. And all through the dark, at regular intervals, the reassuring calls of the sentinels on watch.”6

  Somewhat reluctantly next morning tents were struck and march resumed, the snow-covered Big Horns towering in the west, the land growing richer in timber and grass. Mounted Indians appeared suddenly on a high hill to the left, then vanished. After passing Rock Creek, Bridger’s forward scouts came upon two small pieces of wooden cracker box posted by the roadside. Dismounting, they found messages scrawled on the boards, dated one week earlier. Indians had attacked two civilian trains there, driving off oxen and horses.

  Bridger reported his discovery to Carrington. Soldiers were ordered to ready rifles, and flankers were sent farther out on the ridges. Hourly halts were suspended until they were clear of a long ravine. If the Indians had planned an attack, the bristling array of rifles must have discouraged them.

  Before noon they were in more open country, with the glistening blue waters of Lake De Smet off to the east. With every passing mile, the luxuriance of plant growth increased. Stands of tall pines stretched for miles along the mountainsides, and grass was so heavy and thick in the bottomlands that a horse could not be trotted through it. For the first time they began to understand the fierce possessiveness of the Indians for this rich and beautiful country.

  After a halt for nooning, they marched five or six miles and crossed Little Piney Creek. Carrington noted that on the left the ground rose gradually to a flat-topped grassy plateau. From where he sat his horse, the length and width of the rise seemed to be just about right for the dimensions of the headquarters fort he had planned back at Kearney. He pointed the location out to Bridger, indicating the expanse of timber a few miles beyond, and asked the scout’s opinion. Old Gabe insisted that the colonel go on to Goose Creek or Tongue River before selecting a site.

  The column moved on a short distance to Big Piney Creek, and Carrington ordered a halt. It was still early in the afternoon but he wanted to examine this location more closely. “The camp,” according to Mrs. Carrington, “was organized with especial care. Greatly to the annoyance of the teamsters, the colonel had the corral formed three times until it was sufficiently compact and trim to suit.”7 Not until then did the meticulous commander select an escort for a seven-mile reconnaissance up Piney Fork toward the mountains “to determine whether the position was a judicious one for establishment of a post.”8

  “At last we had the prospect of finding a home,” wrote his wife, “and Cloud Peak seemed to look down upon us with a cheerful face as the sunlight made his features glow and glisten.”9 During the next six months, that shining mountain would be her source of strength through hours of minor trials and fierce ordeals.

  Carrington was up before dawn on the 14th, and at five o’clock rode off for a day’s reconnaissance of the Goose Creek and Tongue River country. Captain Ten Eyck, Lieutenants Brown and Phisterer, Jim Brannan, Jack Stead, and twenty enlisted men accompanied him. Jim Bridger—the man who had been so insistent upon the superiority of the upper country—was conspicuous by his absence from the party. Just why Carrington left him behind is not clear; perhaps the colonel wanted to be free of Old Gabe’s persuasive advice for a day, wanted to make the important decision of locating the new post entirely on his own responsibility.

  The explorers rode for thirteen hours in a circuit of nearly seventy miles, sighting bear, buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, rabbits and sage hens. Wild raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, plums and cherries grew in profusion. Along Tongue River they found two brush tepees with signs of recent occupation, but did not see a single Indian all day. “I found less cottonwood on the streams, and that the pine region would be eighteen miles distant,” Carrington later informed Omaha. “Neither in respect of grass, timber, water, or fuel, nor in any military sense, could I find any position even approximately equal to this [the ground between the Big and Little Pineys].”10

  About six P.M., the reconnaissance party returned, to find the camp in a state of great excitement.

  Everything had run smoothly in camp that morning until nine o’clock, at which time it was reported to Lieutenant Adair, officer-of-the-day, that nine men had deserted sometime during the night to head for the gold mines of Montana. Adair immediately sent a mounted detail in pursuit up the Bozeman Trail, but the party returned before noon, reporting they had been stopped about seven miles north by a band of Cheyennes who refused to permit them to go any farther. At the point where the Indians halted the detail, Louis (French Pete) Gazzous and Henry Arrison were camped with their traveling ranche, and were busily trading trinkets, and probably whiskey, for furs and buffalo robes.

  Gazzous and Arrison had passed Fort Reno while the 2nd Battalion was there, and had added four civilians to their group, one a teamster who had left quartermaster employment to try his luck in Montana. The teamster’s name was Joe Donaldson, and when the Cheyennes observed that he was well known to the soldiers, they ordered Donaldson to return to the military camp and deliver a message to Little White Chief,
Carrington.

  The message given to Donaldson by Chief Black Horse, through Gazzous as interpreter, was: “We wish to know does the White Chief want peace or war? Tell him to come to me with a black white man.” Donaldson and the soldiers finally understood through questions and sign language that the “black white man” was the colonel’s interpreter, swarthy Jack Stead.11

  When the pursuit party returned to camp with Donaldson, Lieutenant Adair was at a loss as to what reply he should make to Black Horse. He feared the Cheyenne might take it as a hostile gesture if Donaldson was allowed to return without an answer. Donaldson indicated, however, that he had no intention of waiting around camp all day for the colonel to return, and Adair was forced to order him held in a guard tent.

  During the afternoon a lone Cheyenne appeared outside Adair’s picket lines, and in a few words of English made it known that he was a second messenger from Black Horse, sent to inquire about Donaldson. He asked that Donaldson be sent out, but Adair refused. The Cheyenne vanished, leaving a worried young officer-of-the-day and an excited camp behind him.

  As soon as Carrington returned and learned of the situation, he lost no time in interviewing Donaldson and preparing a reply to Black Horse’s message. The influence of Stead or Bridger is apparent in the style and wording of Carrington’s letter, which ignored Black Horse’s request for the colonel to come to him. Carrington also insisted on a delay of two days before the meeting, so that a show of military strength could be prepared for the visitors, if they came.

  HEADQUARTERS MOUNTAIN DISTRICT

  Piney Fork, July14, 1866

  The Great Chief of the Cheyennes:

  Friend: A young white man tells me that you wish to come and have a talk with me. I shall be happy to have you come and tell me what you wish. The Great Father at Washington wishes to be your friend, and so do I and all my soldiers.