But they were of the days of yore
In which we had no sharing.
Hated even more how some of the women sang the words aloud as they waved their hankies and trotted along beside the departing column, blowing kisses at the mounted soldiers, hated how the little ones clutched their mothers’ breasts, hated how the toddlers stumbled through the grass and gravel beside the prancing horses, hated how some of the older ones beat on toy drums or only a tin pie plate held before them by a loop of yellow twine around their necks … all of them saying good-bye to the husbands of other wives, to the fathers of other children, that cheering, banging, singing crowd saying good-bye to those men who had no wives and children to bid them farewell, to wish those soldiers all Godspeed.
Good Lord—she bit her lower lip as the tears came down—how she hated this song!
But now our laurels freshly won
With the old ones shall entwin’d be;
Still worthy of our sires each son,
Sweet girl I left behind me!
Notes from Northern Forts
CHEYENNE, July 21—The courier who left General Crook’s camp on the eve of the 16th inst. has not reached Fort Fetterman. As in former instances, his horse may have given out. Seven companies of General Merritt’s Fifth cavalry arrived at Fort Laramie to day, and will leave for Fetterman tomorrow or the day following, together with three additional companies of the same regiment, ten in all.
Missing Courier Arrived—News from Crook’s Command
CHEYENNE, July 22—The courier who left
He left all quiet in camp. The hostile Sioux are believed to be north of Goose creek, about forty miles, and not far from the scene of the late massacre on the Little Big Horn. They have not fired into camp lately nor attempted to burn it out, although the parched condition of the grass rendered this somewhat easy …
The command moved seven miles north on the day of the courier’s departure, to another branch of the Tongue river, near the Big Horn mountains, where they will camp until the 5th cavalry—which will leave Fort Laramie on Monday—reaches it, about the 5th of August. Gen. Crook will make no aggressive movement until this event, and when— if the couriers he dispatched to Terry advising him to join him reach that command—he will have made a junction with Terry, and the next action will prove a decisive one.
Sun and sweat, dust and mud, mosquitoes and flies, rain and heat. And waiting.
Seamus had read those three letters Samantha wrote him, brought up with the rest of the mail and newspapers in an irregular schedule of couriers and supply trains. Life was going on in the world around them. Hell, chances were that even the Sioux campaign was going on without them!
The general chafed more than normal at the wait he himself had imposed on the command. Word was that Merritt should have arrived by now. Where was he? Crook asked, plainly restless, even to the point of anxiety. Sheridan’s messages told Crook that he had ordered the Fifth Cavalry north to reinforce the expedition. So what was taking them so long to get here?
There was no action taking place south of Camp Cloud Peak, that much was for sure. It was all to the north, between them and the Yellowstone where the Montana and Dakota columns waited out reinforcements as well. Somewhere in between them were the Sioux. What Seamus feared most, however, was that while the generals were playing mumblety-peg over what to do with their armies, the enemy was slipping away to the east, right out of their grip.
Back and forth Crook and Terry were dispatching couriers, holding a regular correspondence between Camp Goose Creek and the Rosebud Landing on the Yellowstone. Debating just what to do, and when to do it. To combine their commands? If so, where? What was heard of the hostiles? Was it better to chase with a smaller, more mobile column? Or merely to follow with thousands of men and simply herd the Indians back to their agencies?
Crook wrote to Sheridan:
On Powder, Tongue, and Rosebud rivers the whole country is on fire and filled with smoke. I am in constant dread of attack … I am at a loss what to do … All indications are that the Sioux are in the Big Horn mountains, from which they can see clear to the Yellowstone and discern the approach of Terry’s column … I don’t think they will fight us combined, but will scatter … Should the Indians scatter unhurt, they would have greatly the advantage over us, as we would be obliged to divide accordingly, while their thorough knowledge of the country and rapidity of movement would enable them to concentrate on and destroy our small parties.
One way or the other, Crook soon determined that he would once again strike out with his mule train, abandoning tents and all extra comforts. It was the only way to track the Indians, to move as fast as the Sioux, to be as mobile as his enemy.
And now that Sheridan had concurred with Crook that the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition should wait until Merritt brought up his Fifth Cavalry, Seamus would be sitting right here on his saddle galls with the rest of them.
The Fifth! And Colonel Carr—the fighting turk of the Summit Springs campaign!
At times he squeezed his memory really hard and could remember some of the faces, a few of the names, and even the dim recollection of a woman’s face—the one captive they did get out of Tall Bull’s village alive there at Summit Springs seven summers before.
Eight days back, on the twenty-fifth, Crook ordered out his first formal scouting party of Shoshone. The warriors made it only some four or five miles to the South Fork of the Tongue when they ran into a roaming war party of Sioux and both sides exchanged insults before the Snake returned to camp.
Two days later Crook had camp moved again, five more miles to the northwest, locating some grass that had been too green for the Sioux to burn.
The next afternoon, the twenty-eighth, dispatches arrived from Sheridan, telling Crook that the Fifth was on the road and could be expected by the first of August. Back in Chicago, Sheridan prodded Crook into resuming full- scale scouting operations, urging him to have his camp ready to resume the campaign at the very moment Merritt’s column arrived. As well, the division commander informed the leader of the Wyoming column that Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and six full companies of his Fourth Cavalry had been ordered up from Fort Sill in Indian Territory to plug the void left at Camp Robinson and the Red Cloud Agency when Merritt’s troops departed to reinforce the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition.
The afternoon of the thirtieth Crook finally got his Ute scouts. For better than two weeks they had been held up at their agency in Colorado Territory because the bureau agent would not allow them to answer Washakie’s plea for assistance against their mutual enemy. But then Sherman finally saw to it that some substantial evidence of bribery and fraud against the agent was made available to his superiors in the Indian Bureau. It wasn’t many days before the War Department was given control of all western agencies, whereby Sheridan promptly removed the agent and placed him under arrest, freeing the thirty-five Ute to hurry north.
Upon reaching the Wind River Reservation, however, they discovered Washakie had grown impatient waiting on them and gone ahead. The Ute crossed the Big Horns and rode into Camp Cloud Peak without Crook’s usual pomp and fanfare, due to the fact that at that time most soldiers and Shoshone alike were fighting a grass fire whipped out of control by the wind muscling right through Washakie’s camp of willow-and-blanket wickiups.
Soldier and Shoshone alike used blankets, blouses, and branches to slap at the spreading flames until the meandering wall of fire reached a war lodge where the auxiliaries stored their ammunition. As bullets began whining and whistling through camp, everyone dived for cover until the cartridges had all exploded and they could get back to the dirty job at hand. After a fight of over three hours a change in the wind-finally saved the day, as well
