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

Chapter 30

19-26 August 1876

Work Suspended

ST. PAUL, August 7—In consequence of low water in the Yellowstone and the inability of troops at this time to afford protection to building parties, the order for the construction of new forts on the Yellowstone has been countermanded.

Terry About Ready to Move

NEW YORK, August 7—A correspondent telegraphs that Gen. Terry hopes to be able to begin his march by the 9th inst. Under date of July 31st, the correspondent says: “We have just met the Steamer Far West, on her way down to bring the supplies left at Powder river, which we found in possession of the Indians. Capt. Thompson, of the Second cavalry, committed suicide just before the troops left the Big Horn river.”

Late in the morning of the nineteenth, Bill Cody surprised everyone by riding in alone on his buckskin instead of returning on the Far West, having made the dangerous trip upriver on horseback so that he could more closely study any sign he might come across along the south bank of the Yellowstone.

After receiving the scout’s unproductive report, Terry sought out Crook, finding the general seated on a rock at the edge of the river, scrubbing his only pair of longhandles in the muddy water.

“I’ve decided to send the boat upriver to fetch forage and supplies for you at the Rosebud,” Terry told him. “And the shoes Chambers requested.”

“Once I’m reprovisioned, I’ll set out at once,” Crook vowed.

A few hours later the Far West reappeared, chugging beneath afternoon skies to tie up against the north bank. Even from the vantage point of the steamer’s wheelhouse, Louie Reshaw hadn’t spotted any sign that the hostiles had crossed the Yellowstone. Terry ordered Captain Grant Marsh and pilot Dave Campbell to leave at once for, the mouth of the Rosebud, where they were to take on all the supplies previously left in depot there before returning to the Powder. That evening many of the newspapermen went along to enjoy the moonlit trip upriver.

“It was beautiful,” John Finerty gushed as he strode up to Lieutenant Bourke’s fire at Crook’s headquarters the next morning. “Nearly a full moon—”

“I don’t have time to listen to stories about your riverboat ride right now,” Bourke interrupted snappishly, watching how his words brought the newsman up short.

“What—”

“Things aren’t good right now: Washakie just told Crook that he’s leaving.”

“All of them?” Finerty turned this way and that, saying, “The Shoshone? They’re leaving?”

“Back to their reservation at Wind River.”

“Whatever for?”

John shrugged. “Shit, my only guess is they really don’t want to fight the Sioux as bad as Crook does.”

“No, John. There’s something more to it than that,” Finerty pressed, grabbing hold of Bourke’s arm. “Tell me what Washakie said to the general when he broke the news.”

Bourke didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want any newsman to know, really. But with the way the general was going to be butchered by Davenport when the correspondent reported this setback, John felt there should be at least one other newsman who could put enough slant on things to counterbalance Davenport’s nasty, anti-Crook point of view. It could only be Finerty.

John sighed and looked at the correspondent. “The Shoshone don’t think we’re going to catch the Sioux.”

“Hell! Truth is, I don’t think we’re going to, either! So what else did he tell Crook?”

“They didn’t like Tom Moore’s slow-moving mule train.”

“Those can’t be the only reasons. Why, most of Washakie’s warriors rode with that ‘slow-moving mule train’ all the way to the Rosebud earlier this summer!”

“All I can say is they don’t like it now, Finerty. Besides, like Crook says—there just seems to be no stopping them because it’s getting close to annuity time.”

“Annuity?”

Bourke answered, “The provisions they get from the government agent there at Wind River. Washakie wants to be there when his people come in to receive their goods.”

“Well, we’ve still got Cody and Grouard and the rest.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “That’s some more bad news: Cody resigned this morning. I just heard about it myself. I haven’t even told the general yet because he’s been in a dither about the Snakes … and now Cody’s calling it quits.”

“Cody? Why, in God’s name?”

“He told General Terry about the same thing Washakie did: that it appeared the soldiers did not want to fight, that he had worn himself out chasing Indians who had cleared out of the country a long time ago. He really let Terry have it, telling the general all about his scouting ability, how he took that Cheyenne’s scalp at the Warbonnet— but that Crook and Terry didn’t want to listen to him when he pointed out fresh trails that needed to be followed.”

Finerty shook his head with confusion and asked, “W-wait. You said Cody found some fresh trails?”

Bourke sought to wave it off. “That’s just what I’ve heard—he probably didn’t. But he complained that the generals were relying too much on their Indian scouts and not enough on fellas like him and Grouard, Donegan, and Buffalo Chips.”

“So he’s leaving for sure? No one able to talk him into staying on?”

“Yeah, the Irishman is down in Terry’s camp right now, trying to convince Cody to stay on for a few more weeks at least. But Cody says he’s convinced the army doesn’t want to find any Indians.”

“John,” Finerty replied, “you know, Cody might just be right. I myself thought of joining some of the fellows cashing it in.”

“You, John? Why—you’ve been with us since the winter campaign!”

“And you don’t think a man gets tired of all this Injun hunting?”

“But you’re a veteran campaigner now,” Bourke protested.

“Frankly, I see little prospect for catching the enemy now. Nothing to be gained by my remaining out here but more mud, more misery, and a lot more miles crawling through rough country.”

“One good battle, that’s all Crook needs—”

Finerty interrupted. “One good battle and things would suit me, John. But I fear the last shot of the campaign has already been fired.”

“We’re going to take on supplies and resume the march—”

“No,” Finerty interrupted again, shaking his head. “Supplies aren’t what we need. We need to leave the green infantry behind so they won’t slow us up. Just the hardened foot soldiers who can keep up with the cavalry. Beyond that, what we need most from the army is horses for the cavalry that aren’t ready for the glue factory!”

Bourke bristled visibly as he said, “The mark of a good soldier is always doing the best he can do with what he’s been given.”

Finerty tried out a weak grin. “Listen, John—don’t take my criticism personally. I just think the circumstances have turned this expedition into nothing but a theatrical campaign.”

“Theatrical?”

“Exactly—just like a Chinese stage battle I once saw in Chicago: the combatants constantly rushing about in an excited manner, chasing after unseen enemies they can’t ever catch. What was amusing, though—the enemies seem to find and harass their pursuers.”

“Chinese stage play, eh?” Bourke grumbled. “That’s what you think of Crook’s summer campaign?”

“Perhaps—”

“Sounds as if you’ve been listening to the likes of Reuben Davenport and his cowards’ school of back stabbing!”

“Back stabbing? Who?”

“You, and that Davenport. Why, we even found out Davenport offered a hundred dollars to a courier Crook hired to carry his dispatches, if the courier would deliver Davenport’s stories first and delay Crook’s dispatches by at least twelve hours!”

“I’d never do a thing like that, John!”

“Nonetheless, it sure sounds like you have worn out your welcome, John Finerty,” Bourke snapped with a flourish of indignation. “Perhaps you’ll be better served by returning to Chicago. Good day!”

He whirled away from the newsman without allowing Finerty another word to his face.

“John! Come back!”

Bourke kept on walking, shouting back at the reporter, “Perhaps you would be more comfortable in one of the cushy bunks on the steamboat—or eating in the dining room of some hotel back in Chicago rather than sleeping in the cold mud and eating raw bacon with the rest of us!”

“I’m not leaving!” Finerty yelled at the lieutenant’s back. “Don’t think you’re going to get rid of me this easily, John Bourke. Anything you soldiers can take—John Finerty can take!”

Indian Rumors of an Engagement— Terry Victorious.

CHICAGO, August 10—The Times Fort D. Sully special says: Indians from hostile camp have arrived with the report that Terry’s command had encountered the hostiles, and the latter had been flanked by Gen. Gibbon and badly beaten. The Indians acknowledged one hundred wounded, and said that Sitting Bull had been shot through both thighs. They are quiet on the subject of the number killed. An Indian can travel by a direct route from Sitting Bull to the agencies sooner by several days than a courier could reach Bismarck from Terry. The report is generally believed here.

“You promise me you’ll write. Tell me when the baby comes,” Bill Cody asked in dawn’s chill light as a mist hung over the mouth of the Powder River.

After a dry Sunday and Monday, during which time Lieutenant Colonel Carr drilled his cavalry, Tuesday saw a renewal of wind-driven rain. And there had been no letup on Wednesday. But this morning the wind refused to put in an appearance as the skies continued to drizzle morosely.

“Promise me,” Cody repeated, squeezing harder.

Seamus felt Bill’s hand tighten on his, refusing to let go for the longest time. “Yes.”

“You have the address in Rochester I gave you?”

The Irishman could only nod. All he thought of was that farewell he had bid Cody back in November of sixtynine—after Bill had saved his life, shooting the huge mulatto who was about to slit open Donegan’s throat.^*

“No matter where the troupe is appearing, I’1l always get your letters through Lulu. Just be sure you write—or have Samantha write if you want.”

“Yes. Samantha.”

Cody pulled Donegan close, and they embraced there in the damp and the cold, pounding one another on the back again, this time in sadness at their parting. As he held the Irishman against him, Cody whispered in Donegan’s ear, “Be sure you let me know if it’s a boy or not.”

“Sam says it will be.”

“Write me.”

Donegan backed away, holding Cody at arm’s length. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again, Bill.”

Cody blinked and tried out that grand smile of his. “We damn well will, Irishman! You can count on that! And if ever you decide you want to come east—I’ll find work for you.”

“I already told you I couldn’t live back—”

“But you haven’t given it enough thought, or talked it over with Samantha. Remember, there’ll always be a place for you at my table, Seamus Donegan. A place for you and yours.”

Dragging his hand under his nose, Seamus tried to smile bravely. This was the second time he was saying farewell to a good, good friend. And—dammit—it just never got any easier.

Reluctantly Cody turned to go and moved off through a throng of well-wishers toward the gangplank that would lead him up to the lower deck of the Carroll where the captain waited, his lantern-jawed pilot leaning out from the window on the wheelhouse above. That Thursday daybreak a thousand soldiers tore off their hats, cheering, those gathered on the fringe of the gauntlet slapping Cody on the back if they could reach him as he walked through their midst. Already Buffalo Chips had Bill’s big buckskin lashed in among some bales of hay on deck. White stopped, shook hands; then the two scouts hugged before Bill shooed his friend down the steamer’s gangplank.

The pilot yanked hard at the whistle cord, giving it three short, steamy squeals over that Powder River depot. Soldiers on shore began releasing the thick hawser ropes, heaving them toward a trio of civilian stevedores at the deck rail. Bill leaped up the steps to the wheelhouse, where he leaned from the window and removed his big sombrero, waving it to the wildly whistling, stamping mob on shore as the pilot worked his wheel hard to port preparing to back into the shallow rapids of the Powder River to make his turn, yelling down the pipe to the engine room, bellowing at his boilermen to stoke the fire to her.

Donegan stood on the bank that morning of the twenty-fourth day of August, trying to blink away the sting of tears as he watched Cody look directly at him, his mouth moving. For all the clamor and cheering, the belching of those greasy stacks and the throbbing hammer of the steam pistons—Seamus could not be sure. Again he carefully watched as Cody said something from up there in the wheelhouse as the Carroll lurched out into the current, ready to put about at the mouth of the Powder.

“Take care of your family, Seamus!”

Donegan smiled and nodded. Then he yelled back, “By God—I will always do that!” Then he joined the rest in giving the famous scout and showman a rousing send-off.

“With God’s help,” Seamus quietly repeated minutes later as he watched the black smoke belching from the twin stacks disappearing around the far sandstone bluff, “I will always take care of my family.”

He didn’t know how long he stood there as the soldiers drifted away, looking downriver. Long after smoke from the steamer’s twin stacks faded from the sky beyond the river bluffs.

Now Cody was gone. Along with the Shoshone and Ute and Bannock as well. What few Crow remained behind were divided between the two columns. The surgeons had loaded eighty-four sick and disabled aboard the Carroll soldiers on their way back to the East, returning home to loved ones. Along with most of the correspondents.

All that remained were the men who would see things through to the bitter end.

At seven that morning bugles blew above Crook’s camp at the mouth of the Powder River, calling out the clear, clarion notes of “Boots and Saddles.” Minutes later “The General” was sounded. There were no tents to come down—only blankets to be rolled up as the last boxes of rations and ammunition were lashed onto the sawbucks cinched to the hardy backs of Tom Moore’s trail-hardened mules. Forage-poor horses whinnied and the mules hawed in protest, not at all ready to plunge back into that wilderness scorched by the enemy. Perhaps those weary, ribgaunt beasts foresaw the ruin yet to come.

“You going with us?”

Donegan turned to find Frank Grouard looking down at him from horseback. The half-breed handed Seamus the reins to the Irishman’s horse.

“Thanks, Frank.”

“Glad you’re staying on, Donegan. Hope I got everything of yours packed.”

Looking over his bedroll and lariat, quickly glancing in the two small saddlebags, Seamus looked up and said, “Ain’t much for a man to look after, is it?”

“If you don’t have it, I figure you can’t loose it,” Grouard said, reining his horse around. “C’mon. Crook wants to cover ground today.”

Swinging into the saddle, Donegan said, “I don’t blame him—what with having us lollygag around here for five days.”

Into the hills the first of Chambers’s infantry followed the headquarters flag recently fashioned for Crook by Captain George M. Randall and Lieutenant Walter S. Schuyler. Although primitively constructed under the crudest of field conditions, it was nonetheless impressive as the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition got about its stern chase of the hostiles: in the general shape of a large guidon, equally divided between a white band on top—a towel contributed by Major Thaddeus Stanton—and a red band below—a gift of Schuyler’s own red underwear—with a large blue star affixed in the center—cut from Randall’s old, faded army blouse. With a drawknife, pack-chief Moore had one of his litter poles carved down to the diameter of a flagpole, and ferrules were made from a pair of copper Springfield .45/70 cases.

That flag was to lead them east, on the trail of the warriors who had slaughtered Custer’s men.

After fleeing Terry for eleven miles up the Powder River, Crook finally dispatched a courier with a note to explain that he had left, intent on pursuing the hostiles who likewise were making their escape. It wasn’t long after that courier had left with the general’s belated farewell that scout Muggins Taylor rode into that muddy midday bivouac with a letter from Terry.

I came up on the boat to see you, but found you had gone. The boat brought up your additional rations, but of course will not land them. I can send your supplies, forage, and subsistence to the mouth of the Powder River, if you wish it; but if you could send your pack train to the landing, it would be better, for the boat is very busy.

A few hours later a second courier from Terry caught up with the escaping leader of the Wyoming column, marching farther up the Powder.

Your note crossed one from me to you. I sent Lt. Schofield out to find you, supposing you were within four or five miles, and intended to go out and meet you if you were near. My note has explained fully all that I wished to say.

I still intend to leave at six in the morning. I hope your march will not be so long as to prevent my overtaking you.

In no way did George Crook want Alfred Terry to overtake him.

After suffering terribly through another night of incessant drizzle, Crook had his command up at dawn, huddling close around smoky fires to chew on bacon and hard bread, drinking steamy coffee to drive away the damp chill that pierced a man to his core. Through mud and the sort of sticky gumbo that balled up on the horses’ hooves, the column crossed and recrossed the Powder throughout a tiring thirteen-mile march and made camp at the mouth of Locate Creek beneath sullen clouds that evening. It wasn’t long before the wind came up and the rain boiled out of the heavens with a vengeance.

All day Donegan had been brooding on the expedition’s plight, unable to shake off his misgivings and his confusion that for some unexplained reason Crook had relented and allowed his expedition to lie in at the Powder River depot for five days, awaiting supplies. Then suddenly, before they had taken on their full fifteen days’ compliment of rations and forage, the general ordered his men to strike camp and depart without giving Terry any word that he was departing.

There could be one and only one reason for this precipitous and unwise act: Crook wanted to shed himself of Terry more than anything. Even more, perhaps, than assuring that his expedition had its full allowance of supplies.

In the days and weeks yet to come the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition would pay for that thoughtless act. And pay dearly.

Donegan and Grouard drove a picket pin into the flaky soil, tying the other end at an angle to a nearby tree. Over this they hung their two blankets, then drove hastily carved stakes through the edges of the wool blankets that continued to whip and flap beneath the rise and fall of the hellish wind. It wasn’t long before those blankets could turn no more water, and the mist began to spray down upon the two scouts.

Despite the crash of thunder accompanying the bright flares of ground lightning, the Irishman had just made himself warm enough in a corner of their crude shelter when the hail began to batter against the taut, soggy blankets, rattling with a racket that reminded Seamus of the grapeshot falling among the leafy branches surrounding those farm fields at Gettysburg.

It wasn’t until long past midnight that the last rumble of thunder passed over them, its echo swallowed off to the east. One by one Crook’s men crawled from beneath their blankets and ponchos, out from under the brush where they cowered, and with trembling fingers tried to light the damp kindling. By dawn’s cold light there were hundreds of pitiful, smoky fires where Crook’s stalwart gathered.

Later that cold morning, Seamus shuffled over to Lieutenant John W. Bubb’s commissary to request some tobacco, even purchase some if he had to part with what little he had left in the way of money.

“This is all?” Donegan asked as Bubb laid the small block of pressed tobacco in the Irishman’s palm. Seamus stuffed his other into the pocket of his britches. “I’ll buy some—pay good money, Lieutenant—just lemme have more.”

“Can’t,” Bubb replied. “Every man’s rationed to that, or less.”

“Rationed, on tobacco?”

“Back at the Yellowstone all I could get my hands on was eleven pounds.”

“You mean this is it for me?”

Bubb nodded. “Likely will be—until we see either one of the Yellowstone River depots again … or Fort Fetterman.”

He watched the lieutenant turn away, going about his other business.

“God bless us,” Seamus muttered sourly as he trudged off into the cold and rain. “And I pray thee—watch over us all.”

*The Plainsmen Series, Vol. 4, Black Sun.