The Whirlwind Raid; Great Expectations Reduced to Disappointment, etc.

For several years succeeding to terminations of the Civil War, the whole plains country, as I have said in the previous chapter, from the frontier settlements westward including a great portion of the Rocky Mountains, and from the British line on the north to the Red river of the north line of Texas, was claimed by the Indian by virtue of his title begotten of prior possession, and was used by him as a hunting ground, and also as the theatre in which to stage the settlement of tribal difficulties. As a variation from those internal battles, or wars, as you may wish to call them, they frequently made raids upon the white settlers, killing and scalping the men, kidnapping the women and children, and running off their stock as spoils of war. They roamed that vast expanse of territory at will, seeking their sustenance from the abundance of wild game with which the plains were teeming. Buffalo and deer were there in innumerable quantities and were easily slaughtered. Smaller game abounded everywhere. When the bucks returned from the chase with a buffalo or a deer to show for his efforts, the squaws took possession of the carcass, cutting off huge chunks of meat for provisions, and then tanning the hides at which they were experts. In times of peace they worked faithfully at the task of converting the green hide into something serviceable, but when the war alarm was sounded, they readily threw aside the work at hand to follow their lord and master on the warpath, not as an idle onlooker, but armed with a scalping knife and tomahawk, they followed up the work of slaughter by assisting in the scalping, or mutilating the bodies of the dead. In this last feature of the raid, they seemed to be carried away by a sort of frenzy, and the manner in which they treated the corpses of those slain, was brutal and inhuman in the extreme. In my own experience I have known squaws who were so fascinated by this kind of brutality or rather ghoulishness, that at the first notes of the war song they deserted their white husbands to follow in the wake of the war, although at the time they were drawing rations from the government and were in possession of comfortable homes.

In this connection, it may not be amiss to say something of the Medicine Man, and the part he played in the Indian raids. I might say that he was the most important factor in such undertakings, as well as in the inter-tribal disputes. He seemed to have such an influence over the destinies of the tribe in which he was operating, that the chiefs and their followers placed implicit confidence in his decisions. On him alone, rather than the chiefs in council, depended the undertaking of any raid, or struggle. Whenever there was any prospect of trouble arising, he called the chiefs and warriors and held a seance in which he made inquiries of them as to their opinions and views regarding the matter under discussion. This done, he set about a series of orgies and incantations to discover from some secret agency the advisability of making the venture, or abandoning it. A consultation of this kind often took several days, but when he arrived at some conclusion, it was announced to the chiefs and their followers, and his decision in the matter was final and devoid of any appeal. As soon as the result of his incantation was promulgated, the warriors buckled on their armor, if I may use the expression, though there were few buckles and oftentimes no more armor than a breach-clout and a blanket with some instrument of warfare, and made ready for the raid on some white settler’s cabin and stock, or to engage in a death struggle with some other tribe. The success or failure of his prediction did not affect the medicine man in any great degree as regards his position in the tribe. If the raid was a success, he became the lion of the hour and the tribe looked upon him as something of a supernatural being, but if, on the contrary, things resulted adversely, he had little to lose except his reputation, and that would be so badly shattered that no other member of the tribe would care to wear his mantel of prophesy. To illustrate the case in point, I shall mention what befell chief Black Kettle’s Medicine Man. After holding a seance for several days, he arrived at the very pleasing conclusion that the white man’s gun was no good; that the bullets would fall to the ground close to the muzzle of the gun and consequently would not injure an Indian. When Gen. Custer fell upon him, one winter’s morning, on the Washita and killed more than one hundred of his warriors with Black Kettle himself, and took the remainder of the band prisoners and brought them to Camp Supply, the estimate on that Medicine Man’s ability as a prognosticator was diminished to a vanishing point. We are inclined to smile at the credulity of the Indian in the matter of consulting the Medicine Man, but, in this curiosity to secure a knowledge of future events, especially where they refer to his welfare, they were not much different from the rank and file of white folks who consult some street fakir or clairvoyant, turning over half a dollar to find out whether a business man is dealing fairly or otherwise, or to discover if the partner of one’s joys and sorrows, is travelling the path of rectitude or not, or to discover some secret source of wealth that will place the inquirer beyond the reach of want. Such foolish curiosity is not confined to any race or tribe, as I find in my varied reading that the practice of clairvoyancy, soothsaying, etc., has been in practice and fashion from the days when Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt down through the ages to the present day, and you will find on investigation that the clients of the fakir are not limited to the unlettered class, but embrace members from every grade of society from the proletariat to the Four Hundred. However, to return to the thread of my story, I must say that since the day when the long range gun has been put in the hands of man, the calling of the Medicine Man has become almost obsolete.

In regard to the manner of conducting campaigns, there was no fixed rule, but every chief conducted his fight as circumstances dictated, and some of the later day chieftains manifested an ability in their campaigns that would stamp them as Napoleons of their tribes and times. Precision and alacrity were seldom wanting in the raids. If they came in contact with the soldier, they outclassed him to some degree, as, after the first few volleys, they scattered and disappeared from view with a readiness that was astonishing. Nor could the trained soldier of the line follow up his foe to any advantage as they seldom left a trail behind that would guide him to their hiding place. The untrained eye of the military man militated against any success he might otherwise have had, and it required the scout of the plains to ferret out the marks and signs that would give any opportunity for pursuit. In the meantime the Indian on his fleet-footed ponies would likely be fifty or one hundred miles away from the point of encounter.

The Indian did not always confine his raiding propensities to the white man, but as frequently gave his attention to some of the neighboring tribes with whom they had some matter to adjust. Needless to say, when two tribes met in conflict, the fighting bore a character of savagery that was in keeping with the untamed nature of the participants. Naturally, the Indian was compelled to confine himself to the use of such weapons as his limited ingenuity could provide, but in the use of what he had he was an adept. Before the introduction of fire-arms his chief weapons consisted of the bow and arrow, the tomahawk, and the scalping knife, but if an opportunity presented itself for him to make use of the more up-to-date weapons of warfare, he took advantage of it, as is instanced in the case of the raid made upon the Back and Fox Indians by their more southerly neighbors.

The Sack and Fox Indians were located in Kansas, and by reason of their close proximity to the settlements of white men, and also on account of carrying on trade with them, they came into possession of fire-arms which they used with considerable success in hunting the buffalo. They found it to their advantage to use the weapon for laying up supplies of meat and hides. This opened up an avenue of trade for them as they found a ready market for the buffalo skins they procured, but in their prosperity they nearly were overcome by disaster. The plain Indians learning of the success of the Sack and Fox Indians, became jealous of them and resolved to exterminate them. A conference was called and invitations issued to the different tribes to take part in the general pow-wow. The assemblage was to take place on the Arkansas River, where they were to decide on what measures to take, or, in other words, lay out a plan of campaign. The Kiowas, Comanches, Arappahoes, Apaches, and Chyennes presented themselves on the day appointed, and initiated the proceedings with a Medicine Dance. Then a council of war was called and they came to the unanimous conclusion to go north to the Smoky Hill river and wage relentless war upon the Sack and Fox Indians and thus terminate the slaughter of the buffalo on the plains. The leadership of this expedition was by common consent bestowed upon Chief Whirlwind. They then indulged in their customary war-dance and set forth upon their mission of destruction.

It was Robert Burns who wrote that,

The best laid plans of mice and men
Gang aft aglee,
And lea’ us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.This quotation applies definitely to the Whirlwind raid. He started forth like a “plumed knight” chanting his war song and whooping along the way to instill courage into his braves, each of whom carried a back-load of arrows and a couple of well-strung bows as his weapons of war, and expected to share in the glory of a great victory. Nor did the chanting and roaring of their chieftain fail of its purpose. By the time they reached their destination they were all strung up to the highest tension, in fact they were all but counting the scalps they were about to carry away in triumph, etc. They reached the canyon in the Smoky Hill country where the Sack and Fox Indians had secreted themselves, prepared to give the invaders of their hunting ranges a warm reception. Whirlwind and his band advanced in confidence, knowing they outnumbered their intended victims, but they were not acquainted with the new ally of their foe. They knew absolutely nothing of the use of fire-arms, their efficiency, and death dealing powers. They had not become acquainted with the sound of the carbine, nor of the shot-gun. This was a power they did not to reckon with, nor knew how to estimate its value. The only thing that concerned them just then was to make a sudden whirlwind dash upon their foe, butcher them, and carry off the spoils. They were led up to the mouth of the canyon chanting and shouting, when the muzzles of a hundred guns belched forth thunder and lightning, and a hail of leaden bullets flew around them in death dealing myriads. They turned and fled, stampeded like a herd of antelope toward their starting point. They reached the Arkansas, but oh! how their bright expectations had been rudely shattered. One conclusion they arrived at as the result of their unprofitable venture, and that was that bows and arrows was no weapon to offset the effect of a musket or a carbine. It was a sad return for all their brilliant hopes. Behind them lay the corpses of fifty of their bravest warriors, whilst twice that number came limping back home, crippled by the unthought-of ally of their foes. Nor could the loss be estimated at the death of their fellow braves, nor in the wounds borne by the cripples, nor in the number of horses that had been shot from under them, but in the blow to their tribal pride. There they suffered most, for it was inconceivable to think that one-hundred and twenty-five Sack and Fox Indians should in any manner possible overcome the flower of the various tribes that participated in the raid. It is estimated by those who know, that there were between twelve and fifteen hundred warriors of the southern tribes under the command of the mighty Whirlwind. As a battle, there was little or nothing to it. The chief with all his experience could not get his men to face that leaden hail that smote the ranks so mercilessly. There was nothing to do but turn tail and flee, which he did.

When they returned to the Arkansas, they mutually agreed that the expedition from the view-point of results obtained was a failure. From there they made their way south until they reached the North Canadian river and there disbanded, each tribe seeking its own reservation, or hunting grounds as it saw fit. They never again returned to molest the Sack and Fox tribes in their peaceful occupation.

It was currently reported and believed by many that Whirlwind on his return to the hunting grounds on the North Canadian, said that every feather had been shot from his war bonnet during the engagement, in the Smoky Hill canyon. I never had the pleasure of being intimately acquainted with that doughty warrior, but I have seen him on several occasions and have also seen his war bonnet, and I know something of the amount of feathers required to decorate it. Since he has passed to the Happy Hunting Grounds, I shall take this opportunity of denying that he ever made such a statement, for I do not believe that he ever said it, as the evidence would plainly indicate that he would not be telling the truth, which would be plain to all. Knowing how much the wily old warrior prized the emblem of his former prowess in the field of battle, I feel certain that he would never submit to have it disfigured by the bullets of his foes, particularly, whilst his head was beneath it. So I shall repeat what I said before, “He did not say it.”

The reader may be pleased to have a little insight into the general character of Whirlwind, the leader of the expedition that failed. Like all leaders whether white, black, or bronze, he always made it his motto to win. Kill, conquer and destroy were the methods he employed in his campaigns. In the heat of battle, he was relentless and uncompromising, but when the battle was over and he had returned to his own hunting grounds, he showed a spirit of forgiveness and generosity, as well as many other redeeming qualities, for which he should receive due credit.