Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

Terry more than anything. Even more, perhaps, than assuring that his expedition had its full allowance of supplies.

In the days and weeks yet to come the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition would pay for that thoughtless act. And pay dearly.

Donegan and Grouard drove a picket pin into the flaky soil, tying the other end at an angle to a nearby tree. Over this they hung their two blankets, then drove hastily carved stakes through the edges of the wool blankets that continued to whip and flap beneath the rise and fall of the hellish wind. It wasn’t long before those blankets could turn no more water, and the mist began to spray down upon the two scouts.

Despite the crash of thunder accompanying the bright flares of ground lightning, the Irishman had just made himself warm enough in a corner of their crude shelter when the hail began to batter against the taut, soggy blankets, rattling with a racket that reminded Seamus of the grapeshot falling among the leafy branches surrounding those farm fields at Gettysburg.

It wasn’t until long past midnight that the last rumble of thunder passed over them, its echo swallowed off to the east. One by one Crook’s men crawled from beneath their blankets and ponchos, out from under the brush where they cowered, and with trembling fingers tried to light the damp kindling. By dawn’s cold light there were hundreds of pitiful, smoky fires where Crook’s stalwart gathered.

Later that cold morning, Seamus shuffled over to Lieutenant John W. Bubb’s commissary to request some tobacco, even purchase some if he had to part with what little he had left in the way of money.

“This is all?” Donegan asked as Bubb laid the small block of pressed tobacco in the Irishman’s palm. Seamus stuffed his other into the pocket of his britches. “I’ll buy some—pay good money, Lieutenant—just lemme have more.”

“Can’t,” Bubb replied. “Every man’s rationed to that, or less.”

“Rationed, on tobacco?”

“Back at the Yellowstone all I could get my hands on was eleven pounds.”

“You mean this is it for me?”

Bubb nodded. “Likely will be—until we see either one of the Yellowstone River depots again … or Fort Fetterman.”

He watched the lieutenant turn away, going about his other business.

“God bless us,” Seamus muttered sourly as he trudged off into the cold and rain. “And I pray thee—watch over us all.”

*The Plainsmen Series, Vol. 4, Black Sun.

Chapter 31

25-26 August 1876

Courier Headed Off

OMAHA, August 10—The courier sent to Red Cloud agency from Fort Laramie, Monday last, returned there last night, and says that when near Running creek he was met by six Indians, who shot at him and wounded his horse. He hid among the sand hills and escaped.

What General Sheridan Says

WASHINGTON, August 11—Following is General Sheridan’s letter to General Sherman, transmitted by the president to congress to-day, with his message, asking for more cavalry or volunteers:

CHICAGO, August 5, 1876—General W. T. Sherman:—I have not yet been able to reinforce the garrisons at Red Cloud, at Spotted Tail or at Standing Rock, strong enough to count the Indians or to arrest and disarm those coming in. I beg you to see the military committee of the house and urge on it the necessity of increasing the cavalry regiments to one hundred men to each company. Gen. Crook’s total strength is 1,774 and Terry’s 1,873, and to give this force to them I have stripped every post from the line of Manitoba to Texas. We want more mounted men. We have not exceeded the law in enlisted Indian scouts; in fact we have not as many as the law allows, as the whole number in this division is only 114. The Indians with Gen. Crook are not enlisted or even paid. They are not worth paying. They are with him only to gratify their desire for a fight and their thirst of revenge on the Sioux.

P. H. SHERIDAN, Lieut-Gen.

In the forenoon of 25 August the Carroll put off from the north bank of the Yellowstone River where the captain, crew, and passengers had spent an uneventful night, though they took the precaution of keeping armed pickets on shore to alert the steamer should hostiles put in an appearance.

This second day of their trip downriver Bill Cody found himself even more anxious to return to his loved ones, perhaps even more so than any of the others onboard—the sick and disabled, as well as the correspondents who were fleeing back to hearth and home. If to others it seemed he had chosen to rake in his chips and call it a night, so be it. Bill wanted to be as far east as possible, as fast as possible—with not a single reminder of what he might be leaving behind out here in the wilderness he loved with all his heart.

Throughout yesterday’s leg of the journey Cody had paced the upper deck until the reporters cornered him in the afternoon to seek his opinion on every facet of the summer campaign. Just so he wouldn’t have to tell them what he really thought of the army’s hunt for the hostiles, Bill hid the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Not until this morning had he ventured out from the crew’s tiny bunk room, to settle on a bench in the pilot’s wheelhouse as the Carroll sped on down the Yellowstone for Fort Buford, on to Fort Lincoln and beyond—taking him into the rest of his life.

“Smoke,” called the pilot, pointing, then hit the stained outer lip of a brass cuspidor with a flying gob of tobacco juice.

Bill stood, peering downriver, out past the tall capstans, where he saw black columns smudging the sky. “A steamer?”

“Yup. Likely looks to be two of ’em.”

Within minutes the captain had ordered his pilot to put in along the north bank just above the mouth of O’Fallon’s Creek, where they watched the progress of the two steamers churning up the Yellowstone. With their shrill, steamy greetings the Josephine and the Yellowstone whistled and put in near the Carroll as the passengers— civilians and soldiers alike— hollered out greetings, lumbering down gangplanks to go swapping stories.

Two days before, the Yellowstone had been fired upon by hostiles some thirty miles below the mouth of Glendive Creek. One soldier was killed. The next morning during their stop at Lieutenant Rice’s Glendive stockade, the passengers aboard the two steamers learned that war parties had been a constant source of nuisance, attempting to run off the herd and destroy the outfit’s supplies. Perhaps because of those reports of enemy activity farther down the river, instead of continuing his journey out of hostile country, the Carroll’s nervous captain chose to put about and follow the other steamers upriver.

Bill had no sooner begun to register his colorful complaint than a familiar voice called out his name.

“Buffalo Bill!”

Turning, Cody found the face of an old friend and business associate. “Texas Jack!”

Jack Omohundro, a longtime friend on the plains as well as Bill’s recent partner in their stage productions back east, raced up the gangplank just as the Carroll’s crew hoisted it out of the way and put off from the bank.

They shook and pounded one another on the shoulder until Bill asked, “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Coming upriver on the Josephine!” Omohundro replied. “After you run off last spring, I figured I could sit on my ass back east, or I could come out here and get some action for myself. Hell—it’s all over the press back there how you took that Cheyenne’s scalp!”