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

Chapter 23

23 July-2 August 1876

Another Courier Gobbled Up—The Utes on the War Path

OMAHA, July 20—A message received this morning from the commanding officer at Fort Fetterman, says a private courier has just arrived from the command on the field, who left the night of the 17th. The day previous a courier was started with the mail and official matter, but has not yet arrived. All quiet and well in camp.

Captain Nickerson, aid de camp to General Crook, returned last evening from Rawlins, Wyoming, whither he went on business connected with securing the Ute Indians of the White river and Bear river regions in Colorado, to unite with General Crook in his campaign against the Sioux. Although there was a delay of about twenty days, occasioned by the obstinacy of the employed scout or agent, the Utes will nevertheless be able to reach General Crook in a few days, to take a hand in the war against the Sioux, who are their inveterateenemies, and who have fought and plundered them for years at every available chance.

Sitting Bull Said to be Dead, Sure Enough

ST. PAUL, July 20—APioneer Press and Tribune special from Bismarck says the statement that Sitting Bull was killed in the fight with Custer is confirmed from Indian sources. Crazy Horse and Black Moon were also killed. The statement that Sitting Bull’s band of Uncpapas lost one hundred and sixty killed, and that the total loss of Indians will reach nearly four hundred, is renewed.

“You can entrust your letter with me, Mrs. Donegan.”

Just then the shrill notes of “Boots and Saddles” floated over the Fort Laramie parade in the chill air of dawn.

Sam looked up into the face of the tall plainsman, his dark-brown hair spilling over his collar in curls, just the way Seamus’s did. She realized again that her husband had spent nights and days, miles and seasons, boredom and terror, with this famous man. Shivering with dawn’s chill, she slid the folded pages she had sealed with wax into his open hand and pulled her heavy shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

Cody asked, “Is there anything special you want me to tell him when I see him, before I hand him your letter, or after? Anything I can tell him for you in person?”

Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out, “Tell him to hurry home.” Then her gaze fell to the ground, sorry she had said it. When she finally looked back up, she found Cody grinning softly at her.

He looked down at the folded, sealed pages in his hand. “There is no doubt in my mind, Samantha—that you are in all ways a woman who could surely bring a man home from a distant war.”

She watched the tall man stuff her letter inside his shirt before pulling his fringed gauntlets over the cuffs of his buckskin coat. Everything about him was fringed now. Gone was that theater costume of black velvet he had worn into Laramie two days before. Fort sutler Collins had provided Cody with a box in which the scout packed the scarlet-trimmed outfit before he had Collins tie it up in yellow twine and post it back to Rochester, New York.

“It’s where my wife waits for me,” Cody had explained yesterday to Samantha, that one long and intensely busy day Colonel Wesley Merritt allowed his Fifth Cavalry to prepare before embarking for Fetterman, and on to the Big Horns. “So, you see? I am no greenhorn to this matter of men going off to war.”

“That … New York seems so far away,” Samantha

said.

He nodded, lips pursed beneath that brush-straw mustache. “Yes, but even when Lulu waited back at McPherson for me—it was all the same to me. A mile or ten thousand. A day or a whole campaign. When a war comes between a man and his woman, it matters not how far they are apart, nor does it matter for how long, Samantha. What remains important is that those two people keep one another in their hearts.”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly deciding. “You can remind him of that, Mr. Cody.”

“Bill, please.”

“Bill, yes. Remind Seamus of what I’ve told him and written him so many times: that there are times that I think of him, almost feel him draw near just through the power of what I feel in my heart—and that makes this lonely ache a little more bearable.”

Cody slipped the wide-brimmed sombrero from his head and held it over his own heart as he took up the reins to the big buckskin. Beyond them the bugles were blaring the notes that formed up the ranks. Then with the rattling noise of a child’s wind-up wooden toy clattering across an uneven floor, the sergeants in every one of those cavalry companies yelled and shouted and bawled and hollered out their one-word order.

“Mount!”

Cody leaned close for a moment. “To feel him near you with the power of your love for him—ah, that will make a man like Seamus more happy than you could ever know, Samantha. I am dead certain that your words will drive all the lonely ache from his heart, believe me!”

He planted the hat back atop his long curls, then slipped one tall, knee-high boot into a stirrup.

“Tell him …” Then she suddenly felt shy as Cody turned there in midmounting, waiting for her to continue. She held her fingertips against her lips as she whispered, “Tell Seamus that I love him.”

He nodded and rose to the saddle, bowing slightly at the waist when he said, “By all means, Samantha. To Seamus that will mean the most.”

She came forward a step, her fingers lacing around the reins just short of the buckskin’s bit. Important that here in these last few moments she could stand close to a man who would soon be standing this close to Seamus—she wanted to say so much but could not think of where to begin, how to get it all out.

“Mr. Cody—”

“Bill. I asked you please, Samantha.”

With one hand holding the shawl around her, she now took her other hand from the buckskin’s reins and placed it softly on her swollen belly, rubbing it slightly the way she liked to sense the contact on her taut skin below the layers of clothing, the way she knew the child must like to feel her touching, caressing.

“Yes, Bill. And tell him … tell Seamus that we both love him.”

Cody smiled with his lips pursed for a moment, then blinked his eyes, moving his lips before any words came out. He turned away briefly, swiping his eyes clear. When he turned back to look down at her, the plainsman had to clear his throat before he could say, “That, Samantha … that will mean everything to him.”

She watched him tap the brim of his hat as he squeezed his knees against the buckskin’s ribs and the horse moved off.

“Column of fours!” bawled a loud voice that carried over the entire width and breadth of the grassy parade. “By the right—turn!”

Easing quickly into a lope, the plainsman reined away toward the head of the column that was making its turn four by four by four, the blue-starred and red-striped guidons barely troubled in the still, cold air of that dawn this twenty-third day of July.

Then the infantry band started up. Oh, how she had come to hate the song.

The hour was sad I left the maid,

A ling’ring farewell taking;

Her sighs and tears my steps delay’d—

I thought her heart was breaking.

Something gripped her chest more every time she heard it. Forced to watch more and more men marching off to this God-blessed war against the Indians.

In hurried words her name I bless’d;

I breathed the vows that bind me,

And to my heart in anguish press’d

The girl I left behind me!

How she hated hearing the brass horns, rattling drums, and reedy clarinets pitch into the notes of that mournful song.

Full many a name our banners bore

Of former deeds of daring,

But they were of the days of yore

In which we had no sharing.

Hated even more how some of the women sang the words aloud as they waved their hankies and trotted along beside the departing column, blowing kisses at the mounted soldiers, hated how the little ones clutched their mothers’ breasts, hated how the toddlers stumbled through the grass and gravel beside the prancing horses, hated how some of the older ones beat on toy drums or only a tin pie plate held before them by a loop of yellow twine around their necks … all of them saying good-bye to the husbands of other wives, to the fathers of other children, that cheering, banging, singing crowd saying good-bye to those men who had no wives and children to bid them farewell, to wish those soldiers all Godspeed.

Good Lord—she bit her lower lip as the tears came down—how she hated this song!

But now our laurels freshly won

With the old ones shall entwin’d be;

Still worthy of our sires each son,

Sweet girl I left behind me!

Notes from Northern Forts

CHEYENNE, July 21—The courier who left General Crook’s camp on the eve of the 16th inst. has not reached Fort Fetterman. As in former instances, his horse may have given out. Seven companies of General Merritt’s Fifth cavalry arrived at Fort Laramie to day, and will leave for Fetterman tomorrow or the day following, together with three additional companies of the same regiment, ten in all.

Missing Courier Arrived—News from Crook’s Command

CHEYENNE, July 22—The courier who left Goose Creek on the 16th arrived at Fort Fetterman to night. His delay was caused by having met at Powder river a body of 200 Indians, from whom he escaped, hiding himself in the timber for twenty-six hours. One Indian followed his trail 9 miles. He says they were evidently waiting for him and fears that the couriers who were sent from Fetterman on the 16th instant with despatches for Crook have been interrupted, as he saw their trail this side of the river, but not beyond. His delay ran him out of rations, compelling him to fast two days.

He left all quiet in camp. The hostile Sioux are believed to be north of Goose creek, about forty miles, and not far from the scene of the late massacre on the Little Big Horn. They have not fired into camp lately nor attempted to burn it out, although the parched condition of the grass rendered this somewhat easy …

The command moved seven miles north on the day of the courier’s departure, to another branch of the Tongue river, near the Big Horn mountains, where they will camp until the 5th cavalry—which will leave Fort Laramie on Monday—reaches it, about the 5th of August. Gen. Crook will make no aggressive movement until this event, and when— if the couriers he dispatched to Terry advising him to join him reach that command—he will have made a junction with Terry, and the next action will prove a decisive one.

Sun and sweat, dust and mud, mosquitoes and flies, rain and heat. And waiting.

Seamus had read those three letters Samantha wrote him, brought up with the rest of the mail and newspapers in an irregular schedule of couriers and supply trains. Life was going on in the world around them. Hell, chances were that even the Sioux campaign was going on without them!

The general chafed more than normal at the wait he himself had imposed on the command. Word was that Merritt should have arrived by now. Where was he? Crook asked, plainly restless, even to the point of anxiety. Sheridan’s messages told Crook that he had ordered the Fifth Cavalry north to reinforce the expedition. So what was taking them so long to get here?

There was no action taking place south of Camp Cloud Peak, that much was for sure. It was all to the north, between them and the Yellowstone where the Montana and Dakota columns waited out reinforcements as well. Somewhere in between them were the Sioux. What Seamus feared most, however, was that while the generals were playing mumblety-peg over what to do with their armies, the enemy was slipping away to the east, right out of their grip.

Back and forth Crook and Terry were dispatching couriers, holding a regular correspondence between Camp Goose Creek and the Rosebud Landing on the Yellowstone. Debating just what to do, and when to do it. To combine their commands? If so, where? What was heard of the hostiles? Was it better to chase with a smaller, more mobile column? Or merely to follow with thousands of men and simply herd the Indians back to their agencies?

Crook wrote to Sheridan:

On Powder, Tongue, and Rosebud rivers the whole country is on fire and filled with smoke. I am in constant dread of attack … I am at a loss what to do … All indications are that the Sioux are in the Big Horn mountains, from which they can see clear to the Yellowstone and discern the approach of Terry’s column … I don’t think they will fight us combined, but will scatter … Should the Indians scatter unhurt, they would have greatly the advantage over us, as we would be obliged to divide accordingly, while their thorough knowledge of the country and rapidity of movement would enable them to concentrate on and destroy our small parties.

One way or the other, Crook soon determined that he would once again strike out with his mule train, abandoning tents and all extra comforts. It was the only way to track the Indians, to move as fast as the Sioux, to be as mobile as his enemy.

And now that Sheridan had concurred with Crook that the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition should wait until Merritt brought up his Fifth Cavalry, Seamus would be sitting right here on his saddle galls with the rest of them.

The Fifth! And Colonel Carr—the fighting turk of the Summit Springs campaign!

At times he squeezed his memory really hard and could remember some of the faces, a few of the names, and even the dim recollection of a woman’s face—the one captive they did get out of Tall Bull’s village alive there at Summit Springs seven summers before.

Eight days back, on the twenty-fifth, Crook ordered out his first formal scouting party of Shoshone. The warriors made it only some four or five miles to the South Fork of the Tongue when they ran into a roaming war party of Sioux and both sides exchanged insults before the Snake returned to camp.

Two days later Crook had camp moved again, five more miles to the northwest, locating some grass that had been too green for the Sioux to burn.

The next afternoon, the twenty-eighth, dispatches arrived from Sheridan, telling Crook that the Fifth was on the road and could be expected by the first of August. Back in Chicago, Sheridan prodded Crook into resuming full-scale scouting operations, urging him to have his camp ready to resume the campaign at the very moment Merritt’s column arrived. As well, the division commander informed the leader of the Wyoming column that Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and six full companies of his Fourth Cavalry had been ordered up from Fort Sill in Indian Territory to plug the void left at Camp Robinson and the Red Cloud Agency when Merritt’s troops departed to reinforce the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition.

The afternoon of the thirtieth Crook finally got his Ute scouts. For better than two weeks they had been held up at their agency in Colorado Territory because the bureau agent would not allow them to answer Washakie’s plea for assistance against their mutual enemy. But then Sherman finally saw to it that some substantial evidence of bribery and fraud against the agent was made available to his superiors in the Indian Bureau. It wasn’t many days before the War Department was given control of all western agencies, whereby Sheridan promptly removed the agent and placed him under arrest, freeing the thirty-five Ute to hurry north.

Upon reaching the Wind River Reservation, however, they discovered Washakie had grown impatient waiting on them and gone ahead. The Ute crossed the Big Horns and rode into Camp Cloud Peak without Crook’s usual pomp and fanfare, due to the fact that at that time most soldiers and Shoshone alike were fighting a grass fire whipped out of control by the wind muscling right through Washakie’s camp of willow-and-blanket wickiups.

Soldier and Shoshone alike used blankets, blouses, and branches to slap at the spreading flames until the meandering wall of fire reached a war lodge where the auxiliaries stored their ammunition. As bullets began whining and whistling through camp, everyone dived for cover until the cartridges had all exploded and they could get back to the dirty job at hand. After a fight of over three hours a change in the wind-finally saved the day, as well as saving the rest of camp plainly in danger if nature had enforced its will that day.

On Monday morning, the thirty-first, Louie Reshaw took a dozen Shoshone on his climb over the Big Horns to investigate an Indian rumor that the Sioux had crossed over the mountains and were firmly planted in the Big Horn Basin. The half-breed returned the next afternoon after suffering through a severe snowstorm among the high summits, reporting to Crook that they had found no evidence of the hostiles in the mountains, much less in the western basin, except for small parties gone to hunt for game or lodgepoles.

“They didn’t see no buffalo either,” Baptiste Pourier explained to the rest what he had heard when Reshaw reported to Crook.

“Bad sign, Bat,” Grouard grumbled.

Seamus nodded in agreement. “Plain as the nose on your face that the Sioux won’t be hanging around here— not if the buffalo have wandered to the east.”

“That’s where the Sioux went,” Grouard said. “Follow the buffalo east.”

Minutes later Tom Cosgrove came to fetch Grouard, saying, “Crook wants you to guide for me and some of the Snakes.”

“Where we going?”

“Northwest along the base of the foothills.”

Grouard slowly got to his feet and stretched, the days of cramping and pain in his groin over with, by and large. “He want us to look for anything special?”

“Just the usual.”

Tapping the brim of his hat, the half-breed grinned and said, “Suppose a ride with Cosgrove is better than sitting here being bored by you, Irishman.”

Seamus blew the half-breed a kiss. “I love you too, Frank.”

This wasn’t a snappy army bivouac any longer. All a man had to do to realize that was look around that Tuesday morning, the first day of August. In the weeks since they had marched away from Fetterman to bump into the Sioux at the Rosebud, through all those endless days of waiting here on Goose Creek, this had become a camp of squatters: the very best of them unkempt, wearing only pieces of uniform, their boots gone from shiny black to a dull coffee color, every man of them ragged and shaggy and not giving a good goddamn about it, either.

Why should they? Seamus asked himself. Wasn’t going to make a hill of beans if they sat out the rest of the campaign right here, waiting for autumn and winter to shut everything down like closing the lid on a pauper’s coffin. Nail it shut.

The bugle blew again. Another officers’ call.

Their days were ruled by the bugle: from reveille at sunup through fatigue and stable duty, noon mess and evening retreat, finally ending in “Tattoo” late each summer night. It seemed that if the boredom didn’t kill them, then the rock-solid regularity of the trumpet calls would surely make a man wish he were dead.

So he read her letters over and over until he was afraid the ink would fade and the paper would crumble in his hands. Where once he could smell the scent of her lavender or gardenia perfume she dolloped at the corner of every sheet, now there was only the smell of dust and sweat, only the smear of his dirty, greasy fingerprints at the edges of each page.

He cradled them all in his lap, rereading his favorite lines. Nearby the officers of the infantry were playing the cavalry officers in a well-matched game of baseball. Ringing the field was a crowd not only of enthusiastic enlisted men, but also curious Indians downright stupefied to watch this peculiar pastime of the white man.

“The Fifth is coming!”

At the call Seamus looked up to find Finerty lumbering his way in those clumsy brogans of his, shouting it again.

Grumbling, Donegan said, “I know. We’re all waiting for the Fifth.”

“No,” Finerty said breathlessly as he skidded to a stop. “I mean, a courier just came in from Merritt.”

“A courier?”

“Fella named White. Civilian scout. Carried word from Merritt telling Crook his ten full companies of cavalry are less than a day away.”

His heart pounded. “Gonna be here tomorrow?”

Finerty slapped his thigh. “Damn right they are!”

“Blessed Mither of God—that is good news!” Seamus replied thoughtfully. “Now we can be about getting this goddamned campaign over so I can get back to Samantha.”

“You ought to come meet the guy who carried in the messages for Crook.”

“Why?”

“He’s over at Tom Moore’s camp now, with soldiers and mule skinners hanging on him like flies on a carcass because he’s telling ’em the whole story of how on the way here the Fifth ambushed eight hundred Cheyenne over on a creek called the Warbonnet and drove ’em all right back to the Red Cloud Agency.”

“The Fifth had ’em a fight of it, you say?”

“And you’ve got to hear this Charlie White tell the story of the first scalp for Custer.”

Seamus’s brow knitted quizzically. “The first scalp … for Custer?”

“The one took by Buffalo Bill.”

“B-buffalo Bill?”

“Damn right!” Finerty cheered. “Can you believe it? We’re going to get to meet the famous frontier scout and master showman of the eastern theater, ourselves! Right here!”

“Bill Cody?”

“None other! Won’t it be something for me to tell all my readers about, Seamus—this meeting such a famous man?”

He grinned slightly. “Sure will be, Johnny boy.”

“Won’t you want to meet the famous Buffalo Bill yourself now, Seamus?”

“Oh,” Donegan replied, that impish grin growing into a wisp of a warm smile, “for sure and certain I do want to shake hands with Buffalo Bill Cody!”