* Fetterman Massacre, Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory,
† Wagonbox Fight, Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory,
Chapter 14
25–26 October 1876
General Crook Rounds up Red
Cloud & Co.
Disarms Them, and Puts
Spotted Tail in Command.
WYOMING
Important Indian Movement.
CHEYENNE, October 24.—Gen. Crook being satisfied that Red Cloud and Red Leaf’s bands of Sioux were about to depart with a view of joining the hostiles in the north, they having refused to comply with the orders to come into the agency to receive rations, stubbornly remaining in camp on Shadron Creek, from whence it is known that they were communicating with the northern Indians and receiving into their camps such as come in, he, without awaiting the arrival of Gen. Merritt’s troops, determined on disarming them, and at daylight on the morning of the 23d Gen. McKenzie, with eight companies of the Fourth Cavalry, one battalion of which was commanded by Major Gordon, and another by Captain Mauck, successfully surrounded these two bands consisting of 3,000 lodges, and captured bucks, squaws and ponies without firing a shot. They were marched into the agency after having been disarmed and dismounted. Spotted Tail, who has evinced an unswerving loyalty to the whites, was made head chief and Red Cloud deposed. Spotted Tail and Little Wound have agreed to furnish Gen. Crook with all the warriors he may need to co-operate with him in the coming campaign, which will be inaugurated at once. Gen. Crook feels that a great object has been attained in this last movement and that we shall now know our enemies from our friends.
“The Bear Coat Chief wants to talk to you again,” Johnny told the despairing Sitting Bull seated alone at his small fire after the half-breed had dismounted near the Lakota leader’s lodge.
For the last two days Bruguier had been away from the Hunkpapa band, hanging back with the other chiefs when the village split apart during the chase.
“It is good. Let him talk to the others. I have nothing more to say to a soldier chief who will not listen.”
Sitting Bull was isolated now. Unlike the other chiefs, he alone had chosen to keep on running, to keep on fighting, putting the feet of his people on that hard path the day the soldiers harried their big village right up to the banks of the Yellowstone. While Gall, Red Skirt, Small Bear, and Bull Eagle decided to cross the river, beginning to talk of surrender, of heading in to the agencies, of giving up the fight they had been waging since spring, the Hunkpapa leader instead turned his people north to escape the Bear Coat and the army who came trudging along behind him.
Johnny had wrapped up his blanket and robe, riding off to follow the trail of the Bull and his thirty lodges while the soldiers continued their pursuit of the big village. Perhaps for some it was better to talk than to fight those long-reaching rifles and that big gun the Bear Coat’s troops had used to drive the Lakota people south across the Yellowstone.
Four days ago Johnny had fought bravely in attempting to hold the soldiers at bay while the village retreated. Even Sitting Bull’s nephew White Bull had been injured, shot through the elbow, his arm wrapped in a crude sling the past few days. And in their retreat the chiefs had argued more and more on what path to take—to surrender, or to stay on the free road.
It must surely hurt the old chief, Johnny brooded, now that even White Bull had elected to stay with Red Skirt’s Miniconjou and the rest.
But for Sitting Bull there was but one path. Once more he vowed he would never give up, even if it meant running north to the land of the Grandmother. Even if it meant he had to live on the scrawny flesh of prairie dogs.
As the sun came down and the wind came up, Johnny Bruguier gazed around him at the miserable camp of those who had elected to stay with Sitting Bull two days ago when the villages splintered. Those fortunate enough to get their lodges down before the soldiers invaded their camp had been taking in all of the very old and the very young they could, while the rest made do under bowers of blankets and robes, anything at all that would turn the frost of another night of running from the relentless pursuit of Bear Coat.
The morning after Gall, Red Skirt, and the others had crossed to the south side of the Elk River, Sitting Bull sent Johnny back to learn what would become of them once the soldiers pressed their advantage. By luck Bruguier had happened onto a dozen of the village’s young men who themselves had recrossed the river to keep an eye on the soldiers: to see if the Bear Coat Chief would cross the river with his men, or simply retreat west to his post at the Tongue River. But in a run of more bad luck, the scouting party was spotted by a group of the Corn Indians,* who were the eyes and ears for Bear Coat’s soldiers. They and many of the white scouts immediately gave chase after Johnny’s group, making for a noisy running fight of it. On their escape back to the Yellowstone ford, a handful of the Lakota horsemen spotted a lone herder gone out to kill some of the stray Hunkpapa ponies unable to keep up with the fleeing herd. It was a funny thing to watch the squat, bearded white man clamber bareback atop his mule and flog it back toward the soldier lines, yelping and screeching at the top of his lungs as the young warriors closed in on him.
Within moments some of the walk-a-heaps came bustling out to the rescue, and soon more of the soldiers made that long-reaching big gun talk—throwing one of its charges so that it exploded right in front of the Hunkpapa horsemen chasing the solitary herder. It wasn’t hard for Johnny to convince them it was time to turn back for the river and make their escape.
Not one of those young warriors liked turning his back on the rescue detail, hoping as they were for some spoils if not to count coup. But it was plain that they were clearly outnumbered—every bit as plain was the fact that the Bear Coat was intent on following the wounded village. With the others Johnny forded the Elk River, intent on warning Gall and the others, and to learn what he could for Sitting Bull.
Such a sad thing to carry in one’s heart, Johnny had thought: to know that the white man had once again succeeded in dividing Indian against Indian.
In the last seven suns the walk-a-heap wagon soldiers had succeeded in so much more: they had all but broken Sitting Bull’s reputation as the only Indian strong enough to hold together a powerful confederation; twice they had beaten the finest Hunkpapa warriors Gall had rallied to harass the wagon road between the soldier posts on Elk River; in the end they denied the entire body of those fractured Lakota bands the robes, blankets, and meat vital to survival with the imminent approach of another high-plains winter.
And through his use of a little talk coupled with a headlong pursuit, now the Bear Coat had succeeded in splintering even more those confederated tribes clustered around the mystic visionary who brought about the utter and complete destruction of the soldiers at the Greasy Grass.
Then the wavering chiefs had had another parley with the soldier named Miles yesterday afternoon on the south side of the river. Johnny had been called to interpret the demands of Gall, Red Skirt, Bull Eagle, Small Bear, and the rest; the soldiers must leave the Indians alone, for the bands promised they would go into the agency after
