see that each man in their units is equipped with lariat, sideline, and picket pin.”
With a hacking cough the lieutenant cleared his throat and continued. “In conclusion, each company is to turn over all surplus to Quartermaster Furey, who will be in charge of our train of one hundred sixty wagons and who is under orders once again to fort up his train in this vicinity, to here await our return.”
Schuyler shuffled to the last page and read on. “Reveille will sound at four A.M. At five o’clock the trumpeters will sound ‘The General,’ to strike tents.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Crook said as he again stepped forward and Schuyler backed away into the large ring of officers. “Are there any questions?”
Captain Julius Mason raised his hand.
Crook pointed, saying, “Major Mason?”
“What do we plan to do for rations after the fourteen days is up, General?”
Crook slapped a twig against the side of his leg, then replied, “By that time we should reach the other commands on the Yellowstone. They’re supplied by steamer traffic. We’ll eat off General Terry’s Dakota column.”
There was some stifled laughter before Crook asked, “Is there any other concern?”
Waiting while the men jostled uneasily, looked around the ring at one another, some shuffling their feet anxiously, the general finally concluded, “All right, gentlemen. We are all more than eager to get under way. Use the rest of the day in making your preparations for the march. We’ll be under way at first light.”
Gale-force winds roared off the Big Horns through the expedition’s last night under canvas, leveling most of the tents. Weary men were jolted awake in the maelstrom, clambering to their feet, rubbing their eyes as they stood shivering beneath the force of the wind, struck silent by an awe-inspiring sight. In the foothills west of camp an eerie crimson glow lit the starry postmidnight sky. Stretching for more than a five-mile front along the hills, the leaping flames of fires started by a war party licked like gold tongues against the dark horizon.
“Sonsabitches!” Charlie White spat sourly, pulling his thin army blanket around his shoulders, the gale whipping at the brim of his hat.
“This wind’s gonna do a lot of their work for ’em tonight,” Seamus added, his eyes already smarting with the smoke easily carried aloft miles from the fires.
Here where the scouts had pitched their camp on the northern edge of the army’s bivouac, Donegan listened to the growing rush of wild things scurrying, leaping, lunging out of the darkness, racing through the camp and on to the safety of the prairie beyond. Every little creature seeking safety.
Few men got back to sleep before dawn’s bugle call. A miserable portent of things yet to come.
More Troops Coming
CHICAGO, July 25—Gen. McKenzie, with six companies of United States troops, has been ordered from the Indian territory to Red Cloud agency and vicinity, via Cheyenne and Laramie, to take the place of Gen. Merritt, who goes with the Fifth cavalry to join Crook.
Nearly 2,300 men marched away from Camp Cloud Peak that sunny Saturday morning: 1,500 cavalry, 450 infantry, in addition to Tom Moore’s packers and that Falstaffian assortment of white and Indian scouts.
Once again Crook was cutting himself loose from his supply line. They were leaving Major Furey’s train behind, where more than two hundred discharged soldiers waiting for escort south to Fetterman, along with teamsters and other unattached civilians, all well armed, would chain the wagon wheels together into a corral, putting the creek at their backs, then dig rifle pits inside their bulwarks and sit out the wait, keeping a watchful eye over more than a thousand horses and mules remaining under their care. With so many capable men left in Furey’s command, Crook did not need to deplete his strike force by leaving an escort behind when he marched the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition away toward the Tongue River.
“Lead into line!” came the command, echoed again and again as the dismounted troopers walked their horses into company formation for inspection.
Then the Fifth’s commander ordered, “Bugler—sound the
As the stirring notes floated over Goose Creek there at the peep of day, 20 officers and 515 soldiers swung into their saddles with a rattle and squeak of arms and bridle.
“Column of fours!” was the next call. “By the right— fooor-rad! March!”
Setting out in the rear of all the rest with Carr’s headquarters group, King, as regimental adjutant, raised himself in the stirrups to look ahead at the three columns already wending their way along Goose Creek. Troop by troop of the cavalry fell into line in the wake of those fourteen companies of seasoned infantry that had departed three hours earlier, just past four o’clock. Lieutenant Colonel Carr commanded ten troops of the Fifth, with Captain Henry E. Noyes leading five companies of the Second, and Major Andrew W. Evans riding at the head of ten troops of the Third. The ranks of both the Second and the Third contained some new men, seventy-six in all, troopers Merritt had picked up at either Laramie or Fetterman, bound for Crook’s camp to replace soldiers ending their terms of duty.
On the right flank rode the thirty-five Ute and two Bannock, with Captain George M. “Black Jack” Randall in the lead. Serving as the advance guard were Washakie’s two hundred. The handful of Crow that Gibbon had dispatched from the Yellowstone weeks before rode as a rear guard, covering the exposed flank of the Fifth Cavalry. All the allies wore white strips torn from Quartermaster Furey’s empty flour sacks. Having learned firsthand from the deadly confusion the Indian allies had caused his nervous troops at the Battle of the Rosebud, Crook ordered his brown-skinned auxiliaries to wear the long white flags tied above their scalp locks or in their warbonnets— somewhere easily visible by anxious soldiers in the heat and terror of battle.
Looking over the scorched countryside they entered that August morning as the column followed Prairie Dog Creek down to its junction with the Tongue, King worried over Crook’s decision not to increase the size of his pack- train, using extra animals to haul forage for the horses. As far as the eye could see to the north and east, the blackened, sooty land lay devastated by prairie fire. Truth was, in order to pack even those fifteen days of rations, the command was required to strip itself down to the lightest of marching order.
If they made good time, and the fates were with them, Charles tried to cheer himself as the sun grew hot and the sooty cinders rose in dark clouds under every scuffling foot and plodding hoof—then Crook’s men would be eating from Terry’s stores at the Rosebud depot. But that hope meant Crook was clearly relying on the other columns having enough in their larder to share with the Wyoming expedition.
No two ways about it, the young lieutenant decided, the general was gambling against the house on this one: entrusting the lives of twenty-three hundred men and nearly three thousand animals to no more than their prayers for good weather, good grass, and just plain good luck.
*Site of present-day Sheridan, Wyoming.
Chapter 26
8-10 August 1876
Gen. Miles to the Front—Strength and
Purpose of the Hostiles
BISMARCK, D.T., July 25—The six companies of infantry under Gen. Miles arrived yesterday, and left for the Yellowstone this morning, taking on board here one hundred and sixty recruits, two three-inch Rodman guns, forces and supplies. Army officers generally blame Crook for a failure to cooperate with Terry, believing that he was anxious to win laurels without assistance or interference. One gentleman, but little inferior in rank, insists that Crook knows little of the plans of the enemy, and lacks the experience desireable in one commanding an army
