“We ought to try catching them before they’re the agent’s good Indians again!” Corporal Wilkinsorr grumbled.
“You just gimme a chance, and I’ll make them all good Injuns!” Sergeant Schreiber bellowed. “Just like Phil Sheridan wants to make all Injuns good Injuns!”
Far, far in the distance the soldiers could see the Cheyenne village of travois clutter and pony herds turning about and beginning to scatter into the morning’s haze that lay against the stark emerald beauty of the Pine Ridge. Little Wolfs people had heard the distant gunfire and, seeing the first of the retreat heading back their way at a gallop, were fleeing in a panic.
“Run, you cowards!” King shouted, his voice joining the rest as they flung their curses at the backs of the retreating Cheyenne. “Run, you beggarly, treacherous rascals!”
Corporal Wilkinson hollered, “You tell ’em, Lieutenant!”
Charles King did feel up to venting his spleen: “For years you have eaten our bread, lived on our bounty. You’re well fed, well cared for. You, your papooses and ponies are fat and independent—but you have heard of the grand revel in blood, scalps, and trophies of your brethren, the Sioux,” he hollered at the dust the Cheyenne left behind. “And now that you have stuffed your packs with the Great Father’s rations, stuffed your pouches with heavy loads of his best metallic cartridges, you hurry north. But run, you cowards! Go—for this is no fight of yours!”
Chapter 22
17-22 July 1876
Details of Merritt’s March
CHICAGO, July 19—The following official report of Colonel Merritt was received at military headquarters today:
RED CLOUDA GENCY, July 18, via Fort Laramie, July 19—As indicated in my last dispatch I moved by forced marches to the main northwest trail on Indian creek, and in thirty-five hours my command made about seventy-five miles, reaching the trail Sunday evening about 9 o’clock. The trail showed that no large parties had passed north.
At daylight yesterday morning I saddled up to move on toward the agency and at the same time a party of seven Indians were discerned near the company, moving with the intention of shooting and cutting off two couriers who were approaching Sage creek. A party was sent out to cut these off, killing one of them. The command then moved out at once after the other Indians in this direction and pursued them, but they escaped, leaving four lodges and several hundred pounds of provisions behind.
After scouring the country thoroughly in our vicinity, we moved at once towards the agency. At a distance of twenty-five miles to the northwest of the agency the Indians broke camp and fled so that we did not succeed in catching any of them. The trail was much worn, and the indications were that hundreds of Indians were driven in by our movement. From the repeated reports which I can’t give in this dispatch, I was certain of striking the Cheyennes, and to accomplish this marched hard to get on the trail, taking infantry along to guard the wagons and to fight if necessary … I am certain that not a hundred Indians—or rather ponies—all told, have gone north on the main trails, in the last ten days.
The Cheyennes whom we drove in yesterday, took refuge on the reservation toward Spotted Tail … Our appearance on Indian and Hat Creeks was a complete surprise to the Indians in. that vicinity, but those farther in were informed by runners so that they got out of the way.
I have just received your dispatches of the 15th. I will move without delay to Fort Laramie and as soon as possible move to join Crook. My men and horses are very tired, but a few days reasonable marching with full forage will make them all right.
Mason, Montgomery, and Kellogg held their three companies at the top of that ridge, waiting for Merritt and Carr to come up with the rest of the regiment after it had secured enough rations from Hall’s wagons to provision the men for two more days.
“It’s going to be a stern chase,” Merritt told his company commanders in those minutes before they set off on the trail of the fleeing Cheyenne. “And I don’t really know just when we’ll see our wagons again.”
Some six miles south of the Warbonnet the Fifth Cavalry marched through the site where Little Wolfs people had been camped the night before. Besides a dozen lame ponies the soldiers found nearby, the escaping Cheyenne left four lodges standing among the jumble of lodgepoles and burned smudges of their fire rings. Scattered for hundreds of yards in all directions lay burlap sacks, canvas pouches, grease-stained blankets, and the heaviest of castiron cookware: all of it discarded in the haste of their flight.
Neither did Merritt’s troopers tarry long.
For another two dozen miles of rolling, nearly treeless, grassy plain they pursued the enemy. Then only four miles short of the northern boundary to the Red Cloud Agency, the Cheyenne trail turned abruptly east.
“They’re skedaddling for Spotted Tail, General,” Cody told Merritt and the rest of those at the head of the column when he rode back up with scouts White and Tait.
“We might still catch them, sir!” Lieutenant King said optimistically.
For several long moments Merritt stared east into the afternoon shadows along that hoof-chewed, travois-scarred trail. Then the colonel turned to his staff.
“No, Mr. King. We likely won’t catch them now.” There arose some quiet grumbling from those in the ranks within earshot near the head of the column. “These men are weary. We pushed hard to reach the Warbonnet on time, and we got there, by damned.”
“Yes, we did that, General,” Carr agreed.
“Besides, the fact is that by now those Indians are already within the control of the Indian Bureau. So—after punishing these men and horses with hard chases for three solid days—I’m taking this regiment south to Red Cloud.”
“Then what, sir?” Lieutenant Forbush asked.
Taking his hat from his head and swiping a gloved finger inside the brow band, Merritt replied, “Why, then we join up with Crook to go whip the Sioux.”
“At least we won’t have to face those Cheyenne warriors,” King said.
“Damn right,” Cody added, pointing off to the southeast. “Yonder goes a few hundred Cheyenne who won’t be joining up with Crazy Horse and ol’ Sitting Bull!”
“I think it’s a job well-done, gentlemen,” Merritt exclaimed, clearly proud of himself. “We can feel good not only that we’ve prevented the Cheyenne from going north, but that now the word will spread: the Sioux will learn that it isn’t wise to break from their reservations. All in all, it was a good day.”
Carr snorted caustically. “But we killed only one of the enemy.”
“Nonetheless it was a successful battle,” Merritt argued.
Eugene Carr shook his head. “With your permission, General—it wasn’t a battle. More of a minor skirmish.”
For a moment Merritt appeared shocked by the stinging criticism. Finally he said with even iciness, “I will extend you the courtesy of reading my report before I submit it. Be that as it may, you can write your own subreport exactly as you see it, General Carr.”
The lieutenant colonel replied with a forced, stony civility, “Thank you. I will.”
After the troopers made camp that night, several brazen Cheyenne warriors cautiously visited the fringes of the Fifth Cavalry bivouac, contrite and far from belligerent while they actively sought out the tall scout dressed in the black velvet costume decked with scarlet braid—that warrior with the long brown curls who had conquered their war chief called Yellow Hair.
While the fight was still fresh in every man’s mind that Monday evening and on into the morning of the eighteenth, Merritt set his officers to penning their separate reports. That duty done, many of the company commanders, as well as the enlisted personnel, took this first opportunity in many days to write home—telling loved ones and friends of their grueling forced march, of the daring surprise they laid for the fleeing Cheyenne, and of Cody’s shoot-out with the warrior whose name Little Bat incorrectly translated as “Yellow Hand.” With every new rendition told around their mess fires or expanded in writing home, the skirmish became a battle, and Cody’s fight with Yellow Hair became Buffalo Bill’s glorious and deadly duel with Yellow Hand, the most fearsome Cheyenne chief on the plains.