The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend

by Drury, Bob

  Meanwhile the Crows, through the old “chief” Jim Beckwourth, had again offered the Americans their services—250 mounted warriors to join the war against their old enemies the Lakota. These braves knew the countryside intimately; it had once been theirs. They were also wise to the ways of Red Cloud. Colonel Carrington declined. It was not merely a question of expense, although the Crow Head Men would undoubtedly want a hefty fee for their services. Carrington had received no word from General Cooke in Omaha about his request for the return of the Winnebagos, but he still hoped. He reasoned that fifty Winnebagos with rifles trumped five times as many Crows with bows and arrows. The logic seemed sound given the era’s military ethos. If only to a white easterner.

  Captain Fetterman outranked Captain Ten Eyck by several months’ service, and immediately replaced him as Carrington’s principal tactical officer. As part of this role Fetterman conducted his own troop inspection shortly after his arrival, and he was appalled at the condition of the garrison, particularly the inadequate weaponry. Bingham’s cavalry company had been issued a mixture of passable Starr carbines—single-shot, but at least breech-loading—and obsolete Enfield rifles. Though the majority of Carrington’s infantry were equipped with the ancient Springfields, the musicians in his band had managed to hold on to their Spencer rifles until now, when the colonel ordered them turned over to Bingham’s command. This meant at least two-thirds of the horsemen now had proper arms, which lifted their spirits considerably. It was a needed boost, for the trek from Omaha had worn out Company C’s mounts, and by the time they reached the post they were not much more serviceable than the weary remuda in Quartermaster Brown’s corral. Corn and oats were already strictly rationed, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

  Before his departure from Omaha Fetterman had been informed that the Frontier Army was planning yet another reorganization, scheduled for January 1, 1867. On that date the 2nd Battalion would become the nucleus for the new 27th Regiment and, General Cooke hinted strongly, Fetterman would replace Carrington as the battalion’s commanding officer. Fetterman was a hungry soldier, eager for advancement, and not a man to allow his cordial prewar relationship with his superior to stand in the way of his own ambition. To that end he moved quickly to make his presence known, both to Red Cloud and to the War Department. He got his chance on his third day at the fort.

  That evening Fetterman approached Carrington after dinner with a plan to turn the Indians’ own tactics against them. He proposed to hobble a string of mules to serve as decoys near a thicket of cottonwoods along the Big Piney about a mile from the post. He and a company of infantry would conceal themselves in the nearby trees and fall on any Indians who took the bait. He said he had talked over the idea with Brown and Grummond, who wanted to join the ambush. Carrington granted him permission. Fetterman, Brown, Grummond, Bisbee, and about fifty enlisted men settled into the cottonwood stand shortly after dusk. Their rifles were primed and cocked, but the only movements they saw all night were meteors creasing the sky. Near dawn, as they were getting ready to return to the post, they heard shots from the opposite side of the stockade. A mile away from their position Indian raiders, aware of the ruse from the outset, had stampeded a small herd of cattle belonging to Wheatley. It was Fetterman’s first such lesson, and last such effort. A few days later fifty of Bingham’s cavalry departed, ten men escorting a mail rider to Fort Laramie and forty riding with the paymaster to Fort C. F. Smith, where they would remain. With their departure Carrington deemed his troop too stretched for any more ambush schemes. Fetterman seethed.

  Despite the failed trap, in hindsight it is apparent that Fetterman’s arrival had the War Department’s intended effect on Carrington. Two days later, in a dispatch to General Cooke, Carrington described Red Cloud’s increasing strength and concluded, “I hope to be yet able to soon strike a blow.” He had never expressed such a desire before. Meanwhile, as Fetterman acclimated to life at the fort his disdain for Carrington’s passivity intensified into nearly open contempt, and he wrote to his old friend Dr. Charles Sully, “We are afflicted with an incompetent commanding officer.” Yet despite his and the others’ “disgust” with the colonel, the era’s code of conduct, both military and social, prevented open insubordination. One officer noted that “the feeling was not harmonious” between Carrington and the Young Turks, “but there was no open rupture.” At least for the moment.

  • • •

  Following the attack on the emigrant train camped on the Big Piney, Red Cloud intensified his harassment of the post itself, turning loose Crazy Horse and the Strong Hearts to darken the snow-covered ground with American blood. A beef contractor driving a herd up the Bozeman Trail was attacked, and the raids on the wood trains to and from Piney Island escalated. Red Cloud had taught his young warriors that the best time to strike at the whites was either early in the morning, when their minds were still hazy with sleep, or late in the afternoon, when they were exhausted from a day of chopping wood or ice. Crazy Horse followed through with a series of ambushes and hit-and-run forays, which left the fort’s contract surgeons running perilously low on zinc sulfate and roller bandages.

  Red Cloud was satisfied with the physical damage he was inflicting, though he was probably not aware of the psychological toll his guerrilla tactics were taking on the isolated garrison. With every dead or wounded trooper, with every stolen horse or mule, with every whistle of an arrow and crack of a Hawken, the tension at the fort heightened. Bickering among soldiers has gone on since man invented war. But this was different. The troop at Fort Phil Kearny was disintegrating under the weight of petty feuds and traded insults. Even relatively mundane annoyances—the paltry pay, the dearth of promotions, the usurious cost of full uniforms ($100) and new boots ($17)—could set off a quarrel or fistfight. The underlying problem stemmed from Carrington’s refusal to take the fight to the Indians. When the colonel appeared to ignore a direct order1 from General Cooke to do just that, the grumbling increased and the post was further split. Indian attacks continued as the snow piled high; and as the diversion of emigrant trains ceased and the arrival of couriers with news of the outside world grew rare, the remote stillness of Fort Phil Kearny—interrupted only by shrieking war cries—began to fray men’s nerves.

  The soldiers could not know that after five months of raids and ambushes the Indians were nearly as weary of Red Cloud’s slow, fitful campaign. By this time of year the three tribes should have been ensconced in comfortable winter camps, the Sioux and Cheyenne in sheltered wooded hollows near the Black Hills, the Arapaho off toward the Rockies. There men would sleep late after trading stories well into the night around warming fires and pass the dreary afternoons fashioning new bows and arrows in a fug of pipe smoke while boys collected firewood and women and girls attempted to augment the winter larders by adding rose berries, acorns, and even old horsemeat to the buffalo and dog stews. Instead, the warriors now spent their days greasing their limbs against the bitter cold in preparation for creeping around the open prairie or forested hills wrapped in stinking wolf skins and inverted buffalo robes, their high-topped buffalo-fur moccasins soaked through and freezing—all in the hope of running across a straggling Bluecoat and putting an arrow through his throat.

  Ironically, it was now the formerly quiet Crazy Horse whose voice was loudest at the council fires. He exhorted the war chiefs to attack in force, to strike a single, final blow against the soldiers. But Red Cloud was hesitant. He knew exactly how much food and winter fodder the garrison had stored, and he planned to starve and weaken it to a point of impotence that would make its inhabitants as easy to kill as newborns. On the other hand, he recognized that it might not be wise to ignore the words of his best fighter. He had always respected Crazy Horse’s tactics; perhaps it was time to heed his young lieutenant’s strategy as well. Perhaps it was time to test the Americans where they lived.

  * * *

  1. “You are hereby instructed that as soon as the troops and stores are covere
d from the weather, to turn your earnest attention to the possibility of striking the hostile band of Indians by surprise in their winter camps,” Cooke wrote to Carrington. “An extraordinary effort in winter when the Indian horses are unserviceable, it is believed, should be followed by more success than can be accomplished by very large expeditions in the summer.”

  33

  DRESS REHEARSAL

  On December 3, 1866, an elegant horse-drawn carriage arrived at the White House to carry President Andrew Johnson through the marbled canyons of Washington, D.C., to the Capitol, where he would deliver his second State of the Union address. The hour-long speech was lofty, oratory as gilded as the president’s coach, extolling and thanking “an all-wise and merciful Providence” for restoring “peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority” to the war-ravaged nation. Johnson managed to spare 38 of his 7,134 words for the frontier, in remarks wedged between his report on payments to Army pensioners and his listing of the number of patents issued the previous year “for useful inventions and designs.” He assured the political luminaries in attendance, “Treaties have been concluded with the Indians, who, enticed into armed opposition to our Government at the outbreak of the rebellion, have unconditionally submitted to our authority and manifested an earnest desire for a renewal of friendly relations.”

  Three days later, on the morning of December 6, Red Cloud mounted his finest war pony and left his camp on the Tongue at the head of several hundred angry warriors. The temperature was below freezing, creeks flowed beneath thick ice, and wispy gray clouds scudded down from the Bighorns on a biting wind that scoured the prairie. When the Indians reached the small, flat valley carved by Peno Creek on the far side of Lodge Trail Ridge from Fort Phil Kearny, about 100 braves broke west, circled behind the edge of the ridge, and descended into the timber around Piney Island. With ferocious screams and shrieking whistles they immediately fell on a wood train and its escort returning from the pinery. A messenger made the dangerous four-mile ride back to the post to alert Colonel Carrington, who ordered every serviceable horse saddled. If General Cooke wanted offensive action, Carrington would give it to him. What occurred next was a farrago of bravery, recklessness, confusion, cowardice, and stupidity—timeless elements that compose the fog of war.

  Colonel Carrington directed Captain Fetterman and Lieutenant Bingham to lead the cavalry and a squad of mounted infantry, just over fifty men, due west up the wood road to relieve the train and drive the attackers back across the creek. In the meantime he and Lieutenant Grummond, at the head of another squad of twenty-four horsemen, would ride north up Lodge Trail Ridge to intercept the retreating Indians, trapping them in the Peno Creek valley. As Carrington galloped up the south bank of Big Piney Creek he saw Indians above him lining the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge to his right. He signaled his squad to cross Big Piney, but his own mount slipped and floundered on the ice sheet and threw him from the saddle. He remounted and made the crossing, and he and Grummond led the troopers up the steep slope.

  They were greeted at the crest by four Indians, their ponies straddling the wagon ruts of the Bozeman Trail several hundred yards away. More were trying to conceal themselves in thick stands of chokecherry and scrub oak, but Carrington had reached the ridgeline sooner than they expected and he spotted them, counting at least thirty-two. Instead of attacking, he concentrated on the wood road below him to his left, where at this moment he saw another fifty or so hostiles galloping out of the timber. Fetterman’s and Bingham’s detail was in hot pursuit. The colonel drove off the four taunting braves with a volley and pointed downslope. After many frustrating months, it was time to spring his own trap.

  Carrington cautioned his inexperienced riders against scattering, and ordered them to pick their way slowly down the face of the serrated ridge that descended into the Peno Creek valley. As if to prove the military proverb that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy, Lieutenant Grummond ignored him and spurred his mount to a gallop. Events deteriorated from there. Grummond put so much distance between himself and Carrington’s squad that the fuming colonel sent his best rider to overtake him with orders to either halt “or return to the post.” The messenger could not catch Grummond, who disappeared into the valley’s tangle of ravines and draws. The colonel’s anger increased when he reached the bottom of the incline and came across fifteen dismounted cavalrymen from Bingham’s command looking thoroughly confounded. He ordered them folded into his squad and took off at a trot without bothering to look back and see if they had actually saddled up.

  They had not. A quarter mile later he reached a small hill, the only way around it being a thin trail. He expected to find Grummond and Bingham somewhere on the other side. Instead, when he rounded the rise his path was blocked by several dozen Indians on horseback. He turned to give skirmish orders. Only six of his inexperienced riders were still with him. One of them was Bingham’s bugler, a German immigrant named Adolph Metzger. Carrington sputtered to the little bugler, “Where is Lieutenant Bingham?” Metzger, whose command of English was limited, pointed past the Indians. Carrington immediately surmised that the hostiles had doubled back, hidden in the folds of the hill, and allowed Fetterman’s and Bingham’s larger party to ride on in order to confront him. The trap had been turned.

  The Indians whooped and charged, and at the same moment a few straggling soldiers caught up to Carrington. One trooper’s mount was shot out from under him. The man lay trapped beneath the horse as an Indian rushed at him with a raised war club. Carrington swung his horse toward the scene and got off several shots with his Colt. The Indian either fell or turned away; the colonel could not tell which. Indian ponies enveloped his small group, and he ordered the soldiers to dismount and form into a circular defense. Gun barrels and ramrods glistened in the pale December light as Carrington directed a steady stream of bullets and balls into his attackers. He made certain that the men staggered their fire, allowing every other trooper time to reload. Though they rarely appeared to hit either Indians or ponies, the hostiles could not break through. Carrington finally turned to the bugler Metzger. The language barrier was not too great for the little German to understand Carrington’s frantic demand to sound recall. Metzger pursed his lips and blew for his life. The cracked notes carried on the cold wind and echoed off the hills and ridges, and the Indians inexplicably quit. Carrington turned to see his stragglers riding to his rescue. Moments later Captain Fetterman appeared from out of the timber with his fourteen mounted infantrymen.

  The colonel hurriedly briefed Fetterman, informing him that Lieutenants Grummond and Bingham were missing. He guessed that they might be off near Peno Creek, and led the combined troop in that direction. They heard the drumming of hoofbeats before they saw the riders. Grummond and three enlisted men broke through a spinney of scrub oak, galloping straight for them. Seven screaming Indians were a few yards behind them. The Indians veered off, shaking their lances and war clubs as they vanished into a cutbank. Grummond, gulping air, reined in his frothing horse beside the colonel’s and the two seemed to shout at each other. What they said is not known, although Lieutenant Bisbee testified later that Grummond told him he had demanded to know if Carrington was a “coward or a fool” to allow his command to be cut to pieces.

  They were still short an officer. Lieutenant Bingham was undoubtedly in trouble. When Grummond regained his composure he told a troubling tale. He and Bingham were following the raiding party into the valley when hundreds of Indians streamed out of gullies and surrounded them. Grummond said he watched Bingham turn in his saddle, shout, “Come on,” and gallop ahead with four men. But most of his raw, frightened troopers froze in their tracks in the face of the Indian onslaught. A few had begun to turn their mounts to make a run for the fort when Grummond, Captain Brown, and another officer leveled their guns to check the retreat. By the time they re-formed and scattered the Indians, Lieutenant Bingham had disappeared down a narrow, twisting trail that led to the flats along the frozen Peno Creek. Grum
mond rode after him alone. He caught him and his small patrol two miles away, stalking a single warrior. Then, he told Carrington, he joined the hunt.

  What occurred next encapsulated everything that went wrong for the U.S. Army during Red Cloud’s War.

  • • •

  It may have struck Crazy Horse as too easy. Had these naive American officers never fought an Indian before? Red Cloud had taught his warriors to differentiate officers from enlisted men by the strange symbols they wore on the shoulders and sleeves and the long knives the officers carried at their sides. These two had simply taken his bait as if they were trout. Crazy Horse dismounted and pretended to examine his pony’s hind leg, acting as if he were digging a stone from its hoof. On either side he could see the puffs of vapor expelled from the mouths of the Strong Hearts concealed in the shallow draws.

  A soldier fired at him. Crazy Horse did not move. He allowed the little group of Bluecoats, six in all, to come close enough for one of them to draw his saber and charge. He leaped on his pony and rode hard. They followed. And then the Strong Hearts jumped from their hiding places and surrounded them. A gunshot sounded, shattering the face of the officer with the drawn saber. There was supposed to be no shooting.

  • • •

  Lieutenant Bingham slumped over his pommel and was yanked from the saddle. An Indian scalped him; another grabbed his horse. There were no more arrows or gunshots. They wanted the horses. That was what saved the rest.

  Except one. The Indians surrounded the little group and tried to lasso the soldiers and pull them off their mounts. Sergeant Gideon Bowers, a grizzled Civil War veteran, shot three dead with his Colt before they pulled him to the ground. Warriors swarmed him and hacked repeatedly with tomahawks and knives. In the fighting at close quarters the Indians attempted to loop their bowstrings over the remaining four soldiers’ heads. The enlisted men used the butt ends of their rifles as clubs, and Grummond slashed with his saber. He could hear a repulsive click with every skull he cleaved. Finally, he jammed the sword into his horse’s withers. The animal reared up and kicked its forelegs, creating an opening. Grummond broke from the surround and galloped back toward the ridge, the three enlisted men following him. Half a dozen Indians jumped onto their ponies and raced, screaming, after them. They quit the chase, however, at the sight of Carrington’s and Fetterman’s column.