The Mammoth Book of the West (43 page)

Some of Red Cloud’s tactics, however, were dangerously novel. He even taught some of his warriors a few words of English and dressed them in captured blue uniforms, all the better to confuse the enemy when they pursued him.

By August, Carrington’s soldiers at Fort Phil Kearny were being scalped and wounded at the rate of one per day. When the photographer-correspondent Ridgeway Glover of
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Paper
wandered away from the post he was found naked, his back cleaved open by a tomahawk (The naive, daydreaming Glover had survived a desperate ambush by 160 Sioux at Crazy Woman’s
Creek only days before and thought he was “Indian-proof”.) But even soldiers inside the growing fort were not safe. One was shot as he sat in the latrine. The garrisons were too besieged to protect traffic. In his first five weeks in the Powder River country, Carrington reported that 33 travellers were killed on the Bozeman road.

Carrington was reduced to ever more desperate orders to tighten vigilance. After a sequence of attacks on his woodcutters, hay mowers and the driving off of the fort’s beef herd, Carrington issued a special order on 13 September (to the Indians, the month of the “Drying Grass Moon”):

1.    Owing to recent depredation of Indians near Fort Philip Kearny, Dak., the post commander [Ten Eyck] will issue such regulation and at once provide such additional escorts for wood trains, guard for stock and hay and the steam saw-mills as the chief quartermaster [Brown] may deem essential. He will also give

2.    Instructions, so that upon Indian alarm no troops leave the post without an officer or under the antecedent direction of an officer, and the garrison will be so organized that it may at all times be available and disposable for exterior duty or interior defence.

3.    One relief of the guard will promptly support any picket threatened at night, and the detail on posts should be visited hourly by a non-commissioned officer of the guard between the hours of posting successive reliefs.

4.    Stringent regulations are enjoined to prevent camp rumors and false reports, and any picket or soldier bringing reports of Indian sign or hostilities must be required to report to the post commander or officer of the day or to the nearest commissioned officer in cases of urgent import.

5.    Owing to the non-arrival of corn for the post and the
present reduced condition of the public stock, the quartermaster is authorized upon the approval of the post commander, to purchase sufficient corn for moderate issues, to last until a supply already due, shall arrive, but the issue will be governed by the condition of the stock, and will only be issued to horses unless the same in half ration shall be necessary for such mules as are daily in use and can not graze or be furnished with hay.

6.    Reports will be made of all Indian depredations, with the results, in order that a proper summary may be sent to department headquarters.

7.    Soldiers while on duty in the timber or elsewhere are forbidden to waste ammunition in hunting, every hour of their time being indispensable in preparing for their own comfort and the well-being of the garrison during the approaching winter.

More Indian attacks brought more instructions from Carrington to tighten defensive measures. The Commander was in a dithering panic, reduced to ever more obsessional treatises on security. A special order of 21 September 1866 read:

The fastenings of all gates must be finished this day; the locks for large gates will be similar, and the district commander, post commander, officer of the day, and quartermaster will alone have keys. Keys for the wicket gates will be with the same officers.

Upon a general alarm or appearance of Indians in force or near the gates, the same will be closed, and no soldier or civilian will leave the fort without orders.

No large gate will be opened, except the quartermaster gate, unless it shall be necessary for wagons. Stock must invariably pass in and out of that gate.

The west or officers’ gate will not be opened without permission, even for wagons, unless for timber wagons or ambulances, or mounted men.

Upon a general alarm the employees in the sutlers’ department will form at the store and wait for orders and assignment to some part of the interior defence, but will not be expected to act without the fort unless voluntarily, and then after sanction is given, and under strict military control.

All soldiers, however detailed or attached, or in whatever capacity serving, will, upon a general alarm, take arms and be subject to immediate disposal with their companies or at the headquarters or department with which serving.

All horses of mounted men will be saddled at reveille.

It is also expressly enjoined that in no case shall there be needless running in haste upon an alarm. Shouting, tale-bearing, and gross perversion of facts by excited men does more mischief than Indians. And the duty of guards being to advise of danger, soldiers who have information must report to the proper officer, and not to comrades.

At the sounding of assembly the troops of the garrison not on daily duty will form in front of their respective quarters.

The general alarm referred to in foregoing paragraph will be indicated by the sound of the assembly, followed by three quick shots from the guard-house, which latter will be the distinction between the general alarm and the simple alarm for turning out the troops of the garrison.

This order will be placed upon a bulletin-board for early and general information.

Officers and non-commissioned officers are charged with its execution, and the soldiers of the 18th Infantry are especially called upon to vindicate and maintain, as they ever have, the record of their regiment.

This will require much hard work, much guard duty, and much patience, but they will have an honorable field to occupy in this country, and both Indian outrages and approaching winter stimulate them to work, and work with zeal and tireless industry.

Their colonel will with his officers share all, and no idling or indifference can, under these circumstances, have any quarters in the breast of a true soldier.

In addition to his instructions on fort security, Carrington kept up a steady stream of complaining missives to his superiors. A report to General Philip St George Cooke, Commander of the Department of the Platte, informed him:

Character of Indian affairs hostile. The treaty does not yet benefit this route [Some tribes did sign the 1866 Fort Laramie agreement] . . . My ammunition has not yet arrived; neither has my Leavenworth supply train . . . My infantry make poor riders . . . I am equal to any attack they [the Indians] may make, but have to build quarters and prepare for winter, escort trains, and guaranty the whole road from the Platte to Virginia City with eight companies of infantry. I have to economize ammunition . . . I sent two officers out on recruiting service, under peremptory orders from Washington, leaving me crippled and obliged to trust too much to non-commissioned officers . . .

Carrington’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Cooke fully understood the impossibility of his Colonel’s position.

But if Cooke was deaf and Carrington a ditherer, the special responsibility for the disaster that was to ensue lay elsewhere.

In November 1866 a young infantry captain named William Judd Fetterman joined Carrington’s staff at Fort Phil Kearny. A dashing Civil War hero who had been breveted Lieutenant-Colonel, Fetterman had little respect for his cautious commanding officer, a former attorney who had served the conflict behind a desk as an administrator. Fetterman had even less regard for the Indians around the fort. “Give me a single company of regulars,” he bragged “and I can whip a thousand Indians. With eighty men I could ride through the Sioux nation.”

By December 1866, Red Cloud and the other senior chief of the Oglala Sioux, Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses (more accurately translated as “the mere sight of his horses inspires fear”), were ready to give Fetterman his opportunity to prove his boast. They were joined by Black Shield of the Miniconjou, Roman Nose and Medicine Man of the Cheyenne, and Little Chief and Sorrel Horse of the Arapaho. Around 2,000 warriors moved into the foothills around Fort Phil Kearny. For two weeks they tantalized the soldiers, riding on the skyline just out of rifle range, creeping around the fort at night howling like wolves, springing small attacks, but always keeping their main force hidden.

The soldiers’ nerves were stretched to breaking point.

Then on 20 December the Sioux and their allies camped on Prairie Dog Creek and began the ceremonies which preceded battle. A hermaphrodite medicine man rode off over the hills and returned to tell of a vision in which he had caught a hundred soldiers in his hands. The warriors beat the ground with their hands in approval and selected the leaders for the next day’s battle. The task of leading the all-important decoy party fell to a young warrior named Crazy Horse.

At daybreak on 21 December, the Indians moved into position. The decoy rode towards Fort Phil Kearny, while the remainder prepared an ambush on either side of Lodge Trail Ridge. The Cheyenne and Arapaho took the west side, and some Sioux hid in the grass opposite. Still more Sioux remained mounted, hidden behind rocks.

Meanwhile, at the fort, Carrington had sent out the customary train of wagons to cut wood. The morning was beautiful, with the snow around the fort sparkling in the brilliant sunshine, but as though he had some premonition of danger, Carrington attached an extra guard to the train. About eleven o’clock look-outs on top of Pilot Hill started signalling frantically that the wood train was under attack.

Carrington ordered a relief party of cavalry and infantry to assemble. As it was about to move out under the command of Captain J. W. Powell, Fetterman stepped before Carrington and demanded permission to lead the relief instead of Powell. Fetterman pointed out that because of his brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel he technically outranked Powell. For a second Carrington hesitated, then gave Fetterman the command.

Knowing Fetterman’s rashness, Carrington warned him that the Indians were a cunning and desperate enemy. Then he gave him exact orders: “Support the wood train, relieve it and report to me. Do not engage or pursue the Indians at its expense. Under no circumstances pursue over Lodge Trail Ridge.”

As the relief started to move out, Carrington sprang up onto the sentry walk by the gate and repeated his order to Fetterman: “Under no circumstances must you cross Lodge Trail Ridge.” Fetterman acknowledged the order, and the relief moved quickly out of sight. Fetterman had with him 80 men – all he needed to “ride through the Sioux nation.”

When Fetterman got to the wood train, the Indians had
apparently disappeared. But moments later, the decoy party under Crazy Horse rushed out of the brush, yipping and waving blankets. The soldiers opened fire, but the Indians merely cantered up close, taunting the White men. At least once, Crazy Horse dismounted within rifle range and admired the view, pretending that the soldiers were not there. Then the warriors began to retreat slowly in a zig-zagging path up the slope to Lodge Trail Ridge, always tantalizingly just out of reach.

The frustrated Fetterman ordered his men to follow them.

The trap worked perfectly. A little before noon, Fetterman’s command followed Crazy Horse over Lodge Trail Ridge.

The earth must have seemed alive with warriors. Two thousand Plains Indians sprang from behind their cover, their cries of “Hoka hey, hoka hey” filling the chill air.

It was over in minutes. Two civilian Civil War veterans accompanying the relief were armed with 16-shot Henry rifles and managed, with several infantrymen, to form a defensive wall that blunted the first charge. Using downed ponies as breastworks they kept up a rattling fire. Dead Indians were ringed around them. Then they were overwhelmed.

Some of the infantry ran back up the slope to a rock formation and held off their attackers for a quarter of an hour before running out of ammunition. Fetterman and a Captain Fred Brown committed suicide, shooting each other in the head with their revolvers.

Above the infantry in the rock formation, a group of dismounted cavalry tried to get over the ice which covered the ridge top – and found Indians on the other side. Few Sioux or Cheyenne carried rifles but they fired up showers of arrows. As the cavalry slipped and scrabbled towards a cluster of boulders they were cut to
pieces. A few knots of survivors took up position in the boulders.

Around this time, Indian scouts reported that soldier reinforcements were riding out from the fort. Desperate for a quick victory, the warriors charged the dismounted cavalrymen. It was now so cold that blood froze as it spurted from wounds. Among the last of the soldiers to die was the bugler Adolph Metzger, who beat off attackers with his bugle until it was a shapeless mass. A dog belonging to a cavalryman came running out of the rock. Even this was killed, a Sioux arrow through its neck.

When the reinforcements from the fort under Captain Ten Eyck reached the top of the ridge at 12.45 all sounds of firing had ceased. Looking down into the Peno valley they could see literally thousands of Indians moving about, some picking up the wounded and their 60 or so dead, others salvaging any of the 40,000 arrows fired which were still usable. A few Indians rode up towards the reinforcements, slapping their buttocks, and calling obscenities.

Gradually, the Indians began to move off westwards. As they cleared the battlefield, one of the reinforcements suddenly pointed to the Bozeman Trail “There’re the men down there, all dead!”

And they were. None of Fetterman’s command survived. They had been annihilated. Warily going down to retrieve the bodies, Ten Eyck’s men found them mutilated beyond their belief. In Colonel Carrington’s official report, suppressed for 20 years after the event, there were no details spared:

Eyes torn out and laid on rocks; noses cut off; ears cut out; chins hewn off; teeth chopped out; joints of fingers, brains taken out and placed on rocks with other members of the body; entrails taken out and exposed; hands cut off; feet
cut off; arms taken out from sockets; private parts severed and indecently placed on the person; eyes, ears, mouth and arms penetrated with spear-heads, sticks, and arrows; ribs slashed to separation with knives; skulls severed in every form, from chin to crown; muscles of calves, thighs, stomach, breast, back, arms and cheek taken out. Punctures upon every sensitive part of the body, even to the soles of the feet and palms of the hand.