hunting buffalo for meat enough to see them through the winter. As well the soldiers must return to the Tongue River post and not cross to the north of the Yellowstone anymore, because they would disturb the buffalo the Lakota depended upon. Was it not plain enough to see that many of the people were destitute and in need of both food and blankets—made poor by the soldiers’ capricious attack on their village at Cedar Creek?
“The U.S. Army will go wherever it wants to go,” the Bear Coat replied to Gall’s long list of demands. “If your young men take offense at that—then we will be happy to oblige them with a fight. Otherwise, you headmen are to make sure your people comply with the orders of the government to go into your agencies and stay there.”
Bull Eagle held firm on the needs of his people, saying, “We must hunt the buffalo so that our people will have something to eat when the Cold Maker comes, when the snow is deep, when our men cannot hunt.”
“Yes,” Small Bear agreed. “But we are not the only ones who will go hungry, soldier chief. If your walk-a- heaps continue to chase our villages, come the cold and the snow, your soldiers will not have hunted the meat you need to last the winter.”
With some difficulty Bear Coat tried to explain, “My soldiers do not need to hunt the buffalo to survive. You must explain this to the chiefs, half-breed,” Miles told Bruguier. “Explain to these men that our supplies for the winter have already reached my Glendive depot. Tell them I have provisions enough to chase their villages right on through the winter if need be … a long, hard winter while their young men are unable to hunt, and their children’s bellies cry out in hunger.”
Black Hills Gold
CHEYENNE. October 24.—C. V. Gardner, of Deadwood, reports that the Black Hills Mining Co.’s quartz mill commenced operations on the 16th inst. On the following day they ran through seven tons of ore from the Hidden Treasure, which cleaned up $5,000. Gulch mining is still in operation and the quartz mines show better results every day.
“Where the blue-ball blazes did Sitting Bull slip off to?”
Luther Kelly watched the face of the half-breed called Big Leggings as he tried to explain to an angry Nelson A. Miles where the great Hunkpapa chief had gone.
It was at that meeting between the Sioux leaders and Nelson A. Miles on the twenty-fifth that the chiefs first admitted that Sitting Bull had managed to elude the soldiers, splintering off with no more than thirty lodges, crossing Bad Route Creek to sneak away down the north bank of the Yellowstone while the soldiers were in hot pursuit of the greater part of that fleeing village.
“Is he running for Canada?” Miles demanded angrily.
“No,” the half-blood replied. “He wants only to hunt buffalo in that country close by the Missouri.”
While the chiefs themselves had asked for the conference, it frustrated the colonel that they had still not seen the light. Gall stood adamantly against surrendering, wanting the soldiers gone from his country. And while Pretty Bear and the others were not as stone-faced as Gall, neither were they ready to surrender. The best that they offered was to talk some more the following day. Which suited Miles just fine. He sent his wagons on east to cover the twenty-four miles to the Glendive Cantonment for supplies.
Before the conference resumed on Thursday, the supply train was already back, carrying enough rations to permit Miles to continue his chase another twenty days. The arrival of those wagons would prove to be the straw that broke the Sioux will to resist.
Again Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs said their people lacked clothing and their horses were poor, but that they eventually intended upon going in to the agencies.
“Look upon my wagons,” Miles told the Sioux. “You will see I can follow you wherever you go.”
Kelly watched the dark eyes of the headmen in council with Miles, studied their faces as they regarded the wagons filled with boxes and barrels and kegs of supplies, while their people cried out in hunger, suffered with the cold as the season advanced and the creeks rimed with ice.
“I think you just may have them this time, General,” Luther said quietly to the colonel.
Miles spoke out of the corner of his mouth in a whisper, “But—goddammit—I’m afraid that if I’m forced to escort this bunch all the way over to the Cheyenne River Agency, I can’t turn about and pursue Sitting Bull.”
The colonel’s adjutant, Hobart Bailey, suggested, “General, what of returning the village to Tongue River with some of the men for an escort while the rest of us keep after Sitting Bull?”
Miles considered that only a short time before saying, “It won’t work. We have limited supplies at our Tongue River Cantonment and this village would tax us beyond our resources. No. Instead I think I may have a plan that will accomplish all I want to accomplish with these chiefs, and still allow me to go after the biggest fish of them all.”
So it was that Miles ended up proposing that the Indians give their vow to turn themselves in to their agents at Cheyenne River. In addition, five of the chiefs would volunteer to stay behind with Miles, those men to be delivered to an army prison in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a means of guaranteeing the surrender of their people.
“I will provide rations for your people to make the trek to your reservation. And I will allow you thirty-five days to make the trip. In addition, I agree to give you five additional days to stay where you are now presently camped to hunt buffalo.”
For a long time the chiefs talked among themselves, then finally Red Skirt stood to present himself before Miles.
“I will go with the Bear Coat, to show the goodwill of my people.”
One by one the others rose in turn. The older White Bull, a Miniconjou and father of Small Bear. Foolish Thunder, Black Eagle, and Rising Sun, all three Sans Arc. At the same time, Bull Eagle and Small Bear agreed to be responsible for getting their people to the reservation on time. In this, more of the headmen vowed they would not fail: Tall Bull, Yellow Eagle, Two Elk, Foolish Bear, Spotted Elk, and Poor Bear. Better than two thousand Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Hunkpapa, accounting for some three hundred lodges, had surrendered without the Fifth Infantry firing another shot.
That night of the twenty-fifth Miles had much in which to rejoice as he finished a letter to Mary, apologizing for not having written her sooner, blaming the delay on the rigors of the campaign, declaring that one mistake on his part might cause a massacre the sort of which had overwhelmed his friend Custer. Sleep had been coming fitfully, he reminded her, but boasted that the rigors of the chase had caused him to lose a few pounds.
Next, the colonel wrote a letter to Mary’s uncle, William Tecumseh Sherman, complaining about what he saw as conspiracy within the army against his interests. Because he had seen firsthand that the Sioux were running short on ammunition and staples, Miles wrote, “I believe we can wear them down.” Then he wheedled for more cavalry, blaming his own lack of it on the wastefulness of Crook’s past and present campaigning, saying his lack of horse soldiers was all that stood in the way between him and his victory over Sitting Bull—“It is not easy for infantry to catch them, although I believe we can whip them every time.”
Last on his list of correspondence was a dispatch to General Alfred H. Terry:
I consider this the beginning of the end. [The Indians] are very suspicious, and of course [are] afraid that some terrible punishment will be inflicted upon them While we have fought and routed these people, and driven them away from their ancient homes, I cannot but feel regret that they are compelled to submit to starvation, for I fear they will be reduced to that condition as were the southern tribes in 1874.
“What of Sitting Bull, General?” asked Captain Wyllys Lyman.
After a moment of reflection that dark night as icy points of snow lanced down from a lowering sky, Nelson A. Miles sighed. “Yes. Sitting Bull. He’s still out there waiting for me, isn’t he?”
Captain Edmond Butler inquired, “Will we go after him now?”
“We’ll march the command back to Tongue River, recoup, then set out again—yes. By all means,” Miles replied. “Although my nemesis is still out there, roaming free … I have accomplished one thing I set out to do. I have succeeded in dividing the enemy against itself, whittling away at my enemy’s forces where I can find and engage them.”
“That’s more than the other columns have been able to accomplish in this country,” declared Andrew S. Bennett.
“We won’t name names here, Captain Bennett,” Miles replied, flatly waving off that comment pointed at both Terry and Crook. “From the reports of their disgraceful failures of late, I judge that the nation sooner or later will
