The Commanders

by Robert M. Utley

  Aggravating the tradition of raids was the widespread slaughter of the bison herds by professional hunters. When a group of hunters built a trading post called Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle, Cheyennes and Comanches attacked it on June 27, 1874. The warriors could not match high-powered rifles in the hands of skilled marksmen and were beaten off with severe losses. Angry, they stepped up the pace of raiding.

  The secretary of the interior yielded to the imprecations of the army and dropped the ban excluding the military from the reservations. On July 20, 1874, General Sherman alerted Lieutenant General Sheridan, commanding the Division of the Missouri, to declare war. Registration of the “friendlies” at the agencies led to the flight of “hostiles” west to the Staked Plains of the Texas Panhandle and the intervening country drained by the Washita and Red Rivers. Sheridan directed three columns to converge on this country.

  The campaign involved two departments: General John Pope’s Department of the Missouri and General Christopher Augur’s Department of Texas. Augur launched three commands: Lieutenant Colonel John W. Davidson west from Fort Sill, Lieutenant Colonel George P. Buell northwest from Fort Griffin, and Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie north from Fort Concho. Pope oversaw two commands: Major William R. Price east from Fort Union, New Mexico, and Colonel Nelson A. Miles south from Fort Dodge, Kansas.

  Miles’s command consisted of four companies of his Fifth Infantry and eight troops of the Sixth Cavalry: 744 officers and men, together with a howitzer and a Gatling gun. Of special value was the unit of scouts, commanded by First Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin: 29 Delaware Indians, 17 white frontiersmen, and a detachment of 18 Sixth Cavalrymen. Baldwin was a distinguished Civil War veteran, noted for bravery at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, Georgia. Miles came to rely heavily on him, especially because the Fifth Infantry contained many laggard officers unfriendly to their colonel and others verging on disability because of alcoholism.3

  Miles’s command confronted a more deadly enemy than Indians late that summer: weather and terrain. Drought of unusual length, searing heat, dry riverbeds, and alkaline waterholes plagued the men, who grew so desperate that some opened their veins for blood.

  As Miles’s column approached the base of the Staked Plains on August 30, his advance guard, consisting of Baldwin’s scouts, came under fire from about 200 Cheyennes. The Delaware Indians and the white scouts repulsed the charging Cheyennes, and Miles quickly brought the main force into action. With the infantry in the center and a cavalry squadron on each flank, he advanced from one ridge to another. At each ridge the Indians, now numbering about 600 with the addition of Kiowas and Comanches, spread out to make a stand. As he reached each ridge, Miles unlimbered his artillery and swept the defensive lines, while the infantry and cavalry charged. Abandoning their villages, the Indians retreated up Tule Canyon to the top of the Staked Plains. Lack of supplies stalled Miles’s pursuit, so his command fell back to await supplies after destroying the Indian villages. Even so, Miles had won his first Indian fight.4

  On September 7 the weather abruptly changed. Unrelenting storms pounded the plains, rivers overflowed, and the thinly grassed prairies turned to mud. Immobilized by the drenching rains and deep mud, Miles seethed at the quartermasters’ slow forwarding of supplies, the incompetence of some of his officers, and the criticism of department commander General Pope. Meanwhile, on September 9 about 250 Kiowa and Comanche warriors attacked Miles’s supply train. Captain Wyllys Lyman corralled his thirty-six wagons, and his infantry and cavalry escort threw back repeated warrior charges. The siege lasted three days under cold, drenching rains. Only the approach of Major Price’s cavalry from New Mexico, skirmishing with Indians as they advanced, caused the besiegers to withdraw.

  With Indians harassing his supply line and the weather preventing active operations, Miles settled his command in camps along the Washita and South Canadian Rivers and Sweetwater Creek. From the beginning of the campaign, Miles’s major concern had been that another officer would strike the first blow and deprive him of the honor. He especially feared the aggressive Colonel Mackenzie, then advancing north from General Augur’s department. Miles’s battle of August 30 at Tule Canyon had given him the honor of the first victory, but Mackenzie’s surprise attack on a large village of Kiowas, Comanches, and Cheyennes in Palo Duro Canyon on September 28 robbed Miles of much of the glory. Mackenzie inflicted few casualties but destroyed several hundred lodges and large quantities of stores.

  Miles’s complaints to Pope about the sluggish quartermaster system brought no reform and irritated the department commander. In October, even though the other commands were returning to their bases, Miles resolved to continue the campaign with a winter offensive on the Staked Plains. A routine assignment, however, intervened to reward him with a victory. On November 4, from the headquarters camp on the Red River at the foot of the Staked Plains, Miles dispatched the trustworthy and talented Lieutenant Baldwin to conduct twenty-three empty wagons drawn by six-mule teams to a supply camp on the Washita River. Baldwin commanded an escort of a troop of cavalry, a company of infantry, twelve scouts, and a howitzer, and Miles authorized him to attack any Indians he encountered.

  Encounter them he did. On November 8, in the breaks of McClellan Creek, Baldwin discovered a Cheyenne village estimated to contain 600, including 200 warriors. When they came out to fight, Baldwin handled his men skillfully, attacking with cavalry on one flank and infantry on the other, using his howitzer charged with canister. For four and a half hours, charge and countercharge ranged back and forth on the level plain. Baldwin brought up the wagon train, loaded his infantry in wagons, and led an unorthodox assault that surprised and routed the Indians. In the abandoned village he found not only plunder to be destroyed but two little white girls, named Germain, taken captive in Kansas when the Cheyennes had ambushed their train and killed their parents. The girls reported two other sisters in captivity. The Battle of McClellan Creek gained more notoriety than Miles’s Battle of Tule Canyon and also earned Baldwin a Medal of Honor.5

  With the other columns back in their posts, on January 2, 1875, Miles undertook his final winter operation, a giant swing around the western edges of the Staked Plains. Winter storms pounded the area of operations. Although freezing weather tormented the troops, the infantrymen remained in high spirits, singing “Marching through Georgia” as they trudged across the frozen wastes. A month later, on February 3, the command marched into the Washita supply base. At Camp Supply Miles disbanded the expedition.

  The operations of the five columns accomplished Sheridan’s objective. The Indians began to surrender as early as October, and most of the balance had reported to their agencies by March 1875. Among the last to turn themselves in were Gray Beard and his Cheyennes, who also yielded the two older Germain sisters. Miles labored in behalf of the sisters and finally obtained congressional appropriations for their relief.

  The Red River War ended hostilities on the southern plains and introduced Colonel Miles to Indian fighting and to the American West. He embraced both and profited from them, professionally and personally. The Battle of Tule Canyon and the winter sweep of the Staked Plains contributed to the surrender of the Indians. They also formed the first chapter in the evolution of Colonel Nelson A. Miles into the West’s premier Indian fighter.

  DEPARTMENT OF DAKOTA

  Back at Fort Leavenworth after the Red River War, Miles and Mary settled into the comfortable life that the big fort afforded them. As 1876 opened with a brewing war against the Sioux and Cheyennes of the northern plains, Miles nevertheless restlessly eyed the possibility that he would be left out. The advance into the Powder River country of a column under General George Crook stoked a jealous animosity that would become chronic. Winter weather, however, had forced Crook to give up the expedition and join with two other columns in the same converging strategy that had won the Red River War. Early July 1876 brought news of the annihilation of part of the Seventh Cavalry and the death of the Miles’s friend George A. Cus
ter. Soon orders arrived for Miles to load six companies of the Fifth Infantry on vessels and steam up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers to General Alfred Terry’s base camp. On August 2 the regiment debarked on the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Rosebud River, joining six companies of the Twenty-Second Infantry that had landed there the day before. The rest of the Fifth would arrive later.

  Unlike the relative independence of command that Miles enjoyed in the Red River War, he found himself closely confined on the Yellowstone by a brigadier traumatized by the Little Bighorn. Lieutenant Baldwin recorded in his diary and letters the frustration felt by all of Miles’s command over the slowness of General Terry to move out in search of the Indians’ trail.6

  Finally, the column broke camp on August 8 and marched up the Rosebud. On August 10 Terry’s column moving south met General Crook’s column moving north. The two generals decided to follow the Indian trail east toward the Tongue. Miles could predict how that would end: two cautious generals leading a ponderous army that would fail to close with the enemy. Anxious to distance himself from such a debacle, he persuaded Terry to send him and his six companies back to the Yellowstone. His mission would be to patrol the Yellowstone from the Tongue to the Powder and intercept any Indians seeking to cross to the north.7 For Miles, the mission was not as important as an independent command. This mission was merely a step toward building his record further as an Indian fighter.

  Adding to Miles’s good fortune, General Sheridan decided to occupy the Yellowstone country during the winter. Miles would have the responsibility, with all ten companies of his Fifth Infantry and six companies of the Twenty-Second. He would build a cantonment at the mouth of Tongue River to shelter the troops during the winter. All other troops in the field, as well as General Terry, would return to their stations.8 Still in the field, of course, were the Sioux and Cheyennes. Miles could anticipate that the cantonment would serve not only as a shelter but also as a base for active campaigning, which began even before winter descended.

  Sitting Bull, the reigning chief at the Little Bighorn, had separated from the rest of the fleeing Sioux and on October 10 crossed to the north side of the Yellowstone, seeking bison. Five days later he fell on a wagon train, escorted by infantry, carrying winter supplies from a steamboat landing to Miles’s cantonment. Alerted, Miles led his regiment down the Yellowstone River to rescue the train, which had succeeded in defending itself until Miles arrived. After ensuring the train’s safety, he turned north to give chase to Sitting Bull, who had disengaged.

  The regiment quickly overtook Sitting Bull’s camp, which was halted for the men to take advantage of a large bison herd. Under a flag of truce, a Sioux delegation advanced on Miles. After some awkward contretemps, Miles sat facing his antagonist as a French mixed-blood scout in the Indian camp interpreted. Sitting Bull stated his terms: he would not shoot at the soldiers if they got out of his country. Miles stated his terms: surrender and go to the agencies. Another council convened the next day, with the same result. Neither would yield. On the third day, October 21, both sides prepared for battle. The Sioux drew up on a ridge line as Miles formed his regiment below and attacked, with his foot soldiers advancing and firing their long rifles. Abandoning one line after another, the Indians finally fled the scene. Heading south toward the Yellowstone, they also dropped most of their possessions along the way.

  Miles followed, and for forty-two miles the two sides skirmished. The Indians crossed the Yellowstone and halted for a parley with the soldier chief. On October 26 five chiefs representing four hundred lodges talked with Miles and agreed to surrender. Sitting Bull was not among them. He and thirty lodges had broken off and turned north. The chiefs agreed to leave hostages with Miles to ensure that their people reported to their agencies. For Miles, Sitting Bull was now the quarry.9

  On November 6 the Fifth Infantry turned north again, probing the broken terrain between the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers. Winter set in with a vengeance, blasting the country with “northers,” dropping temperatures far below zero, and freezing the Missouri River. The troops suffered acutely in such winter clothing as the government provided. Miles draped himself in the furry hide of a bear, which led the Indians to name him “Bear Coat.” Reaching the Missouri, he divided his regiment into three battalions and scoured the river bottoms east and west of the Fort Peck trading post, located where the Milk and Musselshell Rivers joined the Missouri. Strengthened by a hundred lodges led by other chiefs, Sitting Bull remained in the area, hoping that the soldiers would leave and he could trade at Fort Peck for ammunition. A runner had brought a message from Crazy Horse, south of the Yellowstone, asking Sitting Bull to obtain ammunition and bring his people to join him.

  Three weeks of maneuvering in freezing, stormy weather failed to pin down Sitting Bull, now the head of about 120 lodges. Leaving the ever-reliable Lieutenant Baldwin on the Missouri, Miles marched the rest of the regiment into the Tongue River cantonment on December 14. Sitting Bull had obtained enough ammunition from traders and friendly Indians to move south for a union with Crazy Horse. On November 18, as Sitting Bull began breaking camp, Baldwin discovered him on Red Water Creek. Baldwin’s three companies stormed into the Sioux village and quickly seized it. The occupants fled without casualties but with only what they wore on their backs. Baldwin burned the village and its contents and acquired enough bison robes to outfit the regiment in genuine cold-weather gear. He brought his command into the cantonment on December 23.10

  Bear Coat’s operations against Sitting Bull from October to December 1876 lifted him to high rank among the army’s Indian fighters. No other field officer could have persisted so steadily against snow, ice, storms, and subzero weather and finally, thanks to Lieutenant Baldwin, claim to have routed Sitting Bull. This was a stellar achievement, and Miles knew it. Even in the midst of the campaign, in camp near Fort Peck, he could not help boasting of it to his wife’s uncle. He could have captured Sitting Bull’s whole outfit, he wrote to General Sherman on November 18 (bypassing both Terry and Sheridan), if he had one battalion of cavalry. “If you expect me to be successful,” the colonel lectured the general-in-chief, “see that I am supported or give me command of the whole region and I will soon end this Sioux war.” He went on to inform Sherman of his ambition to hold one of two positions: secretary of war or commander of a department. For the next eight years, until Sherman retired, Miles never perceived that such effrontery was unwelcome, unseemly, and unmilitary.11

  Miles still had Sioux to contend with. Crazy Horse and his followers had established their winter camp on the upper Tongue River, near the Montana-Wyoming border. The chiefs were divided over whether to surrender or not. Miles had made contact with them and invited leaders into the cantonment to talk peace. On December 16, 1876, a delegation of chiefs accepted the invitation and approached the cantonment. Crow scouts camped nearby greeted five chiefs leading the group, surrounded them, and butchered them. The rest of the delegation fled back to their village. Aware of their offense and of Miles’s furious reaction, the Crows quickly decamped, but the incident quelled the argument in Crazy Horse’s camp.12

  On December 27, 1876, undeterred by the winter weather, Miles marched up the Tongue to do battle with Crazy Horse. The command consisted of his entire regiment and two companies of the Twenty-Second Infantry, four hundred men strong, warmed by the buffalo robes Baldwin had captured at Red Water. The troops forced Crazy Horse to abandon his winter village of six hundred lodges and move up the Tongue into the canyons of the Wolf Mountains. On January 8, 1877, about six hundred warriors drew up to fight the foot soldiers there. Miles deployed his companies in line and for five hours contended with repeated attacks by forces of mounted warriors. Each assault was driven off, with the aid of a cannon hauled up in a wagon. The battle ended when a blizzard swept the battlefield, obscuring vision. Army casualties totaled three killed and eight wounded. Judging from bloodstains on the snow and ice, Miles believed that he had inflicted “severe” losses on t
he Sioux.13

  The Battle of Wolf Mountain, once more in the teeth of a plains winter, added another well-deserved achievement to Miles’s record. Even before dispatching his official report, he boasted of Wolf Mountain in another obnoxious missive to General Sherman, this time also heaping scorn on General Terry:

  I am satisfied that there is criminal neglect of duty at St. Paul or there is a determination that I shall not accomplish anything. . . . Now if I have not earned a command I never will, and if I have not given proof of my ability to bring my command into successful encounter with Indians every time I never will . . . and unless you can give me a command and it should be no less than a department you can order my regiment out of this country as soon as you like for I have campaigned long enough for the benefit of thieves and contractors. If you will give me this command and one half the troops now in it, I will end this Sioux war once and forever in four months.14

  While Miles battled the Sioux north and south of the Yellowstone, General Crook led another expedition north from the Platte. In equally harsh winter weather Crook’s cavalry commander, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, had stormed into a canyon of the Bighorn Mountains and struck a Cheyenne village. About forty Indians died, and the rest fled into the mountains with no clothing or stores. In freezing weather they staggered north to find succor with Crazy Horse. The weather proved too severe for Crook, who disbanded the expedition. The operations of both Miles and Crook fueled the peace sentiment in the Sioux villages, however, and both officers sought to entice the bands into surrender, to Miles at the cantonment or to Crook at Red Cloud Agency.