Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

Chapter 1

26 October-3 November 1876

Sitting Bull had given him the slip again.

There wasn’t much that could gall Nelson A. Miles the way that did.

After he had managed to stay right behind the warrior bands he’d flushed and fought at Cedar Creek,^* nearly all the Sioux leaders had given up their flight—some even turning themselves over to the soldier chief as hostages in good faith that their followers would return to their reservations. The arrival of supply wagons on Thursday, 26 October, ultimately convinced chiefs like Pretty Bear and Lame Red Skirt, Bull Eagle and Small Bear, even White Bull and Foolish Thunder, to give up rather than cause their people to suffer the continued harassment of the Bear Coat’s “walk-a-heaps.”

But not Sitting Bull.

The irascible Hunkpapa had managed once again to elude his white nemesis when he splintered off from the other Lakota leaders, taking no more than thirty lodges with him across Bad Route Creek to sneak away, slipping down the north bank of the Yellowstone while the soldiers were in hot pursuit of the greater part of that village continuing to flee south from Miles’s Fifth Infantry.

At first, however, despite the walk-a-heaps’ harassment, the bands remained committed to their traditional philosophy of fighting and fleeing, which enabled them to hunt buffalo and live their lives in the manner of their grandfathers. The best Miles could manage was to get them to say they would talk a bit.

Which suited the colonel just fine … for the moment. In the meantime he had ordered his train of empty wagons on east those twenty-four miles to the Glendive Cantonment for supplies.

By the time that supply train returned, carrying enough rations to permit the Fifth Infantry to continue its chase another twenty days, Miles’s hunch had paid off in a big way: those wagons had indeed proved to be the straw that broke the will of the Northern Sioux to resist.

When they came to the army’s camp to talk terms of surrender, Lame Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs repeated their assertions that their people lacked clothing for a long winter’s march; besides, their horses were far too poor to make the journey—yet they vowed their intention of going in to the agencies.

“Look upon my wagons,” Miles explained to the headmen through his interpreters. “With my supplies I can follow you wherever you attempt to go.”

The dark eyes of those Lakota seated in council with Miles regarded the wagons filled to the gunwales with boxes and barrels and kegs of supplies. They could see for themselves that the soldiers were dressed warmly around their fires, their bellies full while the fragrance of frying pork perfumed the winter air … at the same time their people cried out in hunger, suffered with the cold as the season advanced and the creekbanks began to rime with ice.

Miles had them just where he wanted them. But now that they were ready to surrender, he damn well couldn’t take the massive village back to Tongue River Cantonment with him. There simply wasn’t enough to supply his troops and all these Sioux in hopes of lasting out the coming winter, until the river ice broke up and the first steamer arrived from down the Missouri.

Nor could he dare take the time needed to escort this bunch of Sioux all the way over to the Cheyenne River Agency, a decision that would take his men right out of any chance of catching up to Sitting Bull.

The Bear Coat ended up proposing that the chiefs give him their solemn promise to turn themselves in to their agents at Cheyenne River. In addition, Miles declared that five of their number must volunteer to stay behind with him, those men to be delivered to an army prison in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a means of guaranteeing the eventual surrender of their people at their agency.

Lame Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs repeated their assertions that their people lacked clothing for a long winter’s march and their horses were far too poor to make the journey.

Fuming with indignation, Miles stormed to his feet before the chiefs seated on their robes, which were spread over a thin layer of crusted snow. Clearly impatient to be after the big prize, he slapped one of his thick gauntlets against the side of his leg and said, “This is my final offer: I will see that your people have rations to make the trek to your reservation. And I will allow your bands thirty-five days to make the trip. In addition, I agree to give your people five additional days to stay right where they are now so your men can hunt buffalo for meat and hides.”

For a long time the chiefs huddled, talking among themselves. Finally Lame Red Skirt stood, dour-faced.

“I will go with the Bear Coat, to show the goodwill of my people.”

One by one the other leaders rose in turn from their robes to be counted among those who would fight no more. The older White Bull, a Miniconjou and father of Small Bear. Foolish Thunder, Black Eagle, and Sun Rise, all three Sans Arc. Then, too, Bull Eagle and Small Bear vowed they would be responsible for getting their people to the reservation in the days Bear Coat had allowed them. In that timely journey, more of the headmen vowed they would not fail the soldier chief: Tall Bull, Yellow Eagle, Two Elk, Foolish Bear, Spotted Elk, and Poor Bear.

As each leader stood to make his surrender, Nelson Miles felt his heart leap anew. Better than twenty-five hundred Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Hunkpapa—accounting for more than three hundred lodges—had surrendered without the Fifth Infantry firing another shot.

Maybe now he had a chance to get his hands on the old, elusive Sitting Bull himself.

Maybe tonight Miles would sleep better than he had in a long, long time. Perhaps even a far better sleep than he had experienced since he had come to these northern plains last summer to find both Crook and Terry unable or unwilling to get the job done.^* At the least Miles could boast that the rigors of campaigning and the chase after his archnemesis had caused him to shed a few pounds since leaving Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

What he felt ready to accomplish here in the north would perhaps be even more important than what he had accomplished on the southern plains.^† Miles was looking in the eye of what might well be the greatest test of his military career. Simply put: the commander who defeated Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, the man who corralled and herded the great war chiefs back to the reservations—why, that man would have his general’s stars handed to him on a silver platter. And there might even be a special place in Washington City carved out for him too.

Although he knew it would never be easy for foot soldiers to catch the elusive warrior villages, Miles remained steadfast in his belief that his Fighting Fifth could whip the Sioux horsemen every time the enemy was engaged.

After writing his wife of his success securing the chiefs’ surrender, as well as carefully phrasing some correspondence with Mary’s uncle, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Miles penned a dispatch to General Alfred H. Terry in St. Paul:

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 [should they go in to their agencies]…. 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 now of Sitting Bull, General?” asked Captain Wyllys Lyman as the wind came up, blowing right out of the north, picking up bluster as it roared across the breadth of Montana Territory.

After a moment of reflection that dark Thursday night while 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?”

Miles watched the first snowflakes whirl to the cold ground. “We’ll march the command back to Tongue River, recoup, then set out again—yes. By all means,” he replied gravely. “Although that old Hunkpapa is still out there, roaming free for now … I have nonetheless accomplished one thing I set out to do. I have succeeded in dividing the Sioux against themselves. We’ve damn well whittled away at their forces wherever we can find and engage them.”

“That’s more than either of the other two columns have accomplished in all their marching through this country!” declared Andrew S. Bennett.

“We won’t dare name names here, Captain,” Miles cautioned 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 understand the difference between doing something and doing nothing.”

Kneeling at the edge of the fire, civilian Luther S. Kelly filled his tin with coffee steaming into the sharp autumn air, then stood to ask, “Will we fight on into the winter, General?”

“You have my assurance of that, Mr. Kelly!” Miles said enthusiastically as he turned to regard his chief of scouts. “Along with my guarantee of a job for as long as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are free. Those two may try to hide from me this winter—but we will find them. While they and their criminals take shelter and recoup in their camps, my soldiers will not retire from the chase. On the contrary: I will endeavor to keep the tribes divided, and take them in detail. Never more will the hostiles band together.”

“As you wrote General Terry, sir,” said adjutant Hobart Bailey, “this is surely the beginning of the end for the Sioux.”

Miles nodded, turning back to his chief of scouts. “Make no mistake about it, Mr. Kelly—there’s no other outfit, not one other column, that you will find venturing out until spring. No one else to do what needs doing now as the cold descends around us.”

Kelly took the coffee tin from his lips. “Then I take it you won’t be giving Sitting Bull any rest.”

For a moment Miles stared into the winter clouds blotting out the starry night sky. “Gentlemen, there’s no one else who dares tackle what lays before us this winter. It’s up to us, and us alone, to finish this matter with the Sioux. Once and for all.”

Until the Sioux had all become agency farmers on their reservation plots, Colonel Nelson A. Miles would be the sort of man with the dogged determination to track the warrior bands and wear them down piecemeal.

Luther S. “Yellowstone” Kelly, the Fifth Infantry’s chief of scouts, was beginning to realize just how dogged Miles could be.

“My endeavor has been to convince the Sioux, first, of our superior power, and second, that we will deal fairly and justly with them,” the colonel explained that Tuesday, the last day of October, after his headquarters group had reached their post at the mouth of the Tongue on the Yellowstone River.

Kelly observed, “But Sitting Bull is another matter altogether, isn’t he?”

Miles nodded. “Precisely.” He looked down at those few lines inked on the map to the north and east of his Tongue River Cantonment. “Sitting Bull leads the worst set of rascals I have ever seen together.”

Ezra P. Ewers said, “You’re doing well to break up their confederation, Colonel.”

“We’ve only begun, Captain,” Miles replied. “I will waste no time in laying plans to strike these outlaws … and strike them hard.”

On the following day seven of his companies returned to the cantonment. And on 3 November the last three companies came in. That same day all of the remaining Fifth arrived upriver from Fort Leavenworth, including the regimental band and some additional headquarters staff. The entire party had steamed up the Missouri aboard the General Meade until they had reached Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone back on 22 October. Under the command of First Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin they had marched the rest of the way to the Tongue River on foot. Baldwin, who had served as Miles’s battalion adjutant during August’s fruitless maneuverings under General Terry, had himself been on detached service at Leavenworth. As soon as he arrived at Tongue River, the lieutenant began to grump about missing out on the regiment’s fight with the Sioux at Cedar Creek.^*

“Mr. Baldwin here proved himself more than capable during our campaign against the southern hostiles two years ago,” Miles explained to Kelly.

“The general flatters me,” the bearded Baldwin said in that quiet, unassuming manner of his.

“Balderdash!” Miles cried, turning to look at Kelly again. With emphatic jabs with the stem of his clay pipe, he said, “If it weren’t for Baldwin’s gutsy charge into Gray Beard’s Cheyenne camp with his men in wagons—I don’t think we would have routed them the way we did.”^†

“General, you give me too much credit.”

“Hush, Lieutenant,” Miles replied with a grin. “I want Mr. Kelly to know just who he’s dealing with here. Indeed, with my officers, I feel I have some of the finest Indian fighters a commander could put in the field. Mr. Baldwin, had you not made the charge you did without regard for your own safety—why, I don’t think we would have rescued those two little girls^# alive, snatching them from the clutches of their captors.”

“Mr. Kelly,” Baldwin said, turning to the scout with a smile of admiration and some hopes of steering the conversation away from himself, “is it really true what I hear of how you introduced yourself to the general here?”

Miles snorted, “With that goddamn bear’s paw?”

“So,” the lieutenant said, “the tale is true.”

“It was only a cinnamon bear,” Kelly replied with a shrug.

“Now, don’t you go belittling what you’ve done!” the colonel chided, turning to Baldwin. “See how you two are cut of the same mold?” Miles laid one hand on Kelly’s shoulder, the other on Baldwin’s. “This chief of scouts of mine—I like him because he’s a straight-talking, no-nonsense sort. And the lieutenant here—I admire him because he came up the hard way.”

Baldwin said, “Just like you did, General.”

“Without the starch, and pull, and politics of the academy,” Miles added gruffly. “The way others have greased their way up the ladder!”

“We’re going to find your general’s star out there,” Baldwin declared emphatically. “Out there, maybe even this winter. Why, I’ll bet that old reprobate Sitting Bull himself is the star you’ve been waiting for.”

“If not for Crook and Mackenzie—that star might already be on my shoulder,” Miles grumped, turning back to his desk and taking the pipe from his teeth. “Their column will be on its way north from Fetterman shortly to find and defeat Crazy Horse, if they aren’t on the march already.”

“But in a matter of days we’ll be shadowing Sitting Bull ourselves!” Baldwin said enthusiastically. “The Fighting Fifth will round up the last of the great hostile bands!”

Already the post was alive with preparations for that renewed campaign a restless, discontented Miles was determined to pursue. But on this campaign the Fifth Infantry would be marching north. This time they would be facing a Montana winter.

Kelly hoped Miles and his officers sure as hell knew what they were doing.

^*A Cold Day in Hell, vol. 11, The Plainsmen Series.

^*Trumpet on the Land, vol. 10, The Plainsmen Series.

^†Dying Thunder, vol. 7, The Plainsmen Series.

^*A Cold Day in Hell, vol. 11, The Plainsmen Series,

^†Dying Thunder, vol. 7, The Plainsmen Series.

^#Adelaide and Julia German (Dying Thunder, vol. 7).