by Roger T. Grange, Jr.
NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Reprint from Nebraska History, Volume 39, No. 3,
September, 1958. (Copyright, 1958.)
Fourth reprinting, with minor changes and some new
illustrations, April, 1978.
FORT ROBINSON
OUTPOST ON THE PLAINS
BY ROGER T. GRANGE, JR.
Roger T. Grange, Jr. was formerly Museum Director of the Nebraska State Historical Society.
As men of the Sioux Expedition marched out of Fort Laramie in the cold March weather of 1874 they probably had more than a few misgivings about the outcome of their adventure. They were headed for one of the hottest spots on the Plains—Red Cloud Indian Agency. General Sheridan hoped that the 949 man expedition was large enough to intimidate the Indians and permit a peaceful occupation of the agency, but it was his belief that “were it any other than this inclement season ... hostilities would have commenced at the crossing of the North Platte River.”[1] Even with the large force and bad weather, open war with the hostile Sioux Indians was a distinct possibility and officers warned their men that straggling in camp or on the march might well be fatal. They kept all Indians away from their camps and marching column and warned their men not to fire at either game or Indians, unless in an unmistakable attack, lest injudicious gunfire needlessly start a battle.
RED CLOUD AGENCY
The treaty of 1868 had guaranteed the Sioux and other tribes food and supplies in exchange for lands ceded to the United States. The annuity goods granted the Oglala Sioux by this treaty were issued at the Red Cloud Agency which was located on the Platte River until 1873.[2]
In June 1873 approximately 13,000 Indians were present at Red Cloud Agency to receive issue goods. There were 1,858 lodges, mostly of the Oglala, Wajaja and other Sioux bands regularly supplied at Red Cloud, but including 168 lodges of Cheyenne, 237 lodges of Arapaho, and another 262 lodges of Miniconjou and other northern Sioux.
Among the Indians living at the agency a small faction was friendly to white men while the majority, depending upon the circumstances, wavered between friendliness and hostility. There was also an openly hostile faction consisting primarily of the northern Sioux, but Oglala warriors, including the already famed Crazy Horse, were among the hostile war parties pursued by cavalry patrols from nearby Fort Laramie.
The Platte River location of Red Cloud Agency was in the unceded hunting territory defined by the treaty of 1868. Although the government desired to relocate the agency on the permanent Dakota reservation, the Oglala stubbornly refused to leave the Platte Valley.
During the summer of 1873, while the more recalcitrant Indians were off on a buffalo hunt,[3] Indian Agent Daniels induced those remaining at the agency to agree to move northward to a new site on the White River. Such leaders as Sitting Bull of the South[4] were incensed at losing the line of the Platte River but were unable to prevent it. The accomplishment earned Daniels a promotion by the Episcopal Church, which nominated agents under the Peace Policy, and Dr. J. J. Saville was appointed as the new agent.
Dr. Saville arrived to assume his duties while the move was in progress. During the summer and fall Saville was busy organizing his agency and staff. He removed Jules Ecoffey as agency trader, giving the appointment to his friend J. W. Dear. Construction contracts for buildings at the new site were given to A. R. Appleton, Saville’s brother-in-law.
The summer and fall were relatively quiet at the agency, but winter brought increasing problems for Saville. He was troubled particularly by the hostile, northern Sioux who came to the agency for the winter. They objected to his efforts to obtain an actual count of Indians present so that issue supplies could be ordered.
On one occasion, when Saville rode out on a counting attempt, a group of northern warriors led by Little Big Man and Pretty Bear surrounded him. They forcibly returned him to his office, and there held an impromptu court-martial which might have cost Saville his life had not Red Cloud intervened. Undaunted by this experience, Saville gave a feast for the Indian leaders at the agency on Christmas Day in another effort to gain assent to the counting. At this meeting he found that not only the northern Indians, but the chiefs he thought of as his supporters all opposed the counting. Saville’s other troubles included the jealousies of various chiefs and the overbearing attitude of the younger warriors who raised trouble during the issue of beef, annoyed agency workmen, and demanded payment for wood cut for use at the agency.
On another occasion a group of about three hundred warriors from Red Cloud Agency threatened a group of cowboys returning to the Platte River country to pick up a herd of cattle to be delivered to the agencies. James H. Cook, one of the cowboy group, turned the potentially violent meeting into a friendly encounter by convincing the war leader that an attack on the cattlemen would have serious results. Such incidents, although causing no direct harm, created tensions around the agency.
Saville’s problems were increased by government misunderstanding of the complexities of social organization among the Indians at Red Cloud Agency. Red Cloud, for whom the agency was named, was recognized by the government as its chief, but after the Christmas feast Saville reported to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that Old Man Afraid of His Horses was both the leader of the sincerely peaceful faction and the legitimate head chief recognized by the Oglala. In more than one desperate crisis at the agency Red Cloud either refused to assist the agent or was powerless to act. At such times Saville looked for aid from Old Man Afraid of His Horses, his son Young Man Afraid of His Horses,[5] Sitting Bull of the South, and other friendly Indians. The failure to make more effective use of the political power and social control of the Indian leaders was an important factor in prolonging difficulties at the agency.
Military authorities, aware of the troubles at the agency, discussed stationing troops there as early as mid-January, 1874. General Sheridan opposed the move since he believed such an effort would result in open war. He was also unwilling to dispatch troops until April or May because of the severity of winter weather. Moreover, neither the agent nor the Indian Bureau had yet requested military assistance.
Events in early February made military assistance necessary. A large hostile war party in full regalia rode through the unfinished stockade at Red Cloud Agency, shot out the windows, and left on a raiding expedition. On February 6 teamster Edward Gray, headed for the agency with freight, was killed by Indians on the Running Water (Niobrara River). Three days later, on February 9, while Saville was at nearby Spotted Tail Agency for a conference with Agent Howard regarding the tense situation, Frank Appleton, acting agent at Red Cloud, was shot and killed by a hostile Miniconjou warrior who had entered the agency. On the same night fourteen mules were stolen from a government contractor near the agency. The troubles were not confined to Red Cloud. The Indians at Spotted Tail Agency drove off the beef herders there and did their own issuing. An attempt to shoot Agent Howard was prevented by Black Crow.
Saville reported Frank Appleton’s death and the departure of the large war party to Colonel Smith at Fort Laramie, saying at the same time “I do not anticipate any more trouble.”[6] His employees did not share his optimism as shown by the agency physician, Dr. Grove, who took Appleton’s body to Fort Laramie and declared his lack of desire to return to Red Cloud to be “made a target of.”[7]
On February 9, the same day Frank Appleton was shot, the Army at Fort Laramie experienced losses at the hands of hostiles from Red Cloud Agency when a large war party ambushed Lt. Levi H. Robinson, Corporal Coleman, and Private Noll. The three men had separated themselves from a wood train and were attacked on Little Cottonwood Creek some twelve miles east of Laramie Peak. Lieutenant Robinson and Corporal Coleman were killed, but Private Noll managed to escape from the forty to fifty hostile warriors.
J. W. Dear, the agency trader, reported the situation at the agency to Colonel Smith, commander at Fort Laramie, and to Mr. Unthank, a personal friend and the telegrapher at Fort Laramie. Dear said that the Indians were all going about with guns loaded and bows strung, and even he dared not go outdoors at night. The hostiles had established a war camp called Soldiers Lodge up on the Powder River, and Sioux warriors were reported raiding in every direction. It was clear that Red Cloud Agency had become a virtual powder keg.
While Saville told Colonel Smith that he did not expect any more trouble, he had taken steps to protect the agency. He had his men complete the construction of the stockade and move the steam sawmill inside to prevent its destruction. He also arranged for sufficient arms for his men to protect the agency, and a group of Indian policemen led by Pumpkin Seed was organized to help.
THE SIOUX EXPEDITION
Very shortly after Frank Appleton’s death, Agent Saville requested that troops be sent to Red Cloud Agency, but his communications, sent to Colonel Smith at Fort Laramie, were contradictory ones. He told Colonel Smith that Crazy Horse had declared for war. Saville also told the Colonel that although some of the hostiles were leaving and all was quiet at the agency he wanted to have troops to protect the agency and its personnel because affairs among the Sioux were too complex to trust the Indians for protection. He suggested that because of the departure of the hostiles it was a good time to get troops to the agency without trouble but cautioned the Colonel to send a force sufficient to deal with an estimated 2,000 warriors. The agent detailed a plan of march by which he thought the military column could avoid detection by the Indians. However, he admitted that Indian scouts were stationed all along the Platte.
A request for troops to be stationed at the agency was an admission of the failure of the Peace Policy. Saville’s reluctance to ask for help was apparently overcome by his alarm over the serious troubles at the agency. His action was later investigated and approved by Bishop Hare.
The Sioux Expedition was organized by the Army in response to Saville’s request for troops. The arrival of the troops at the agency was delayed by the intense cold, but the tension there had eased enough that officers, as well as Saville himself, felt that they could hold out until the soldiers arrived.
Cold weather was not the Army’s only problem; the call for extra supplies and ammunition had caught them unprepared. Two hundred rounds of ammunition per man were specified in the orders. To get this amount, Fort Leavenworth was drained of supplies, and requisitions had to be forwarded to Frankfort Arsenal. The lack of ammunition set off some bitter correspondence between responsible officers. The Chief of Ordnance reported to the Adjutant General “... that the want of ammunition in the present seeming emergency can not be attributed to the failure of this bureau to provide, but rather to the neglect of the users to make the proper requisition at the proper time.”[8]
The Sioux Expedition got under way when eight infantry and four cavalry companies marched from Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming Territory, to Fort Laramie. The troops reached Fort Laramie on February 26 and 27, 1874 after suffering severely from frost bite in the 38° below zero cold. At Fort Laramie four more companies of cavalry were added to the expedition. At Fort D. A. Russell the Sioux Expedition had been divided into two battalions, one cavalry and one infantry.[9]
The 547 cavalrymen, led by Major Baker, left Fort Laramie on March 2, 1874 and reached Red Cloud Agency on the fifth. Captain Lazelle and his battalion of 402 infantrymen left Fort Laramie on March 3, arriving at the agency on the seventh. Each battalion had a Gatling gun, and the column was provisioned by a supply train of fifty civilian and seventy government wagons. The supply train carried ten days’ rations and five days’ forage and included a beef herd.
Generals Sheridan and Ord were on hand for the departure of the Sioux Expedition from Fort Laramie. The officers considered keeping the expedition route a secret, but it was apparent that the Indians were certain to discover such a large force. The troops took the obvious route, following the well known Fort Laramie to Fort Pierre fur trade trail. On reaching the headwaters of the White River the expedition was forced to ford the stream thirteen times.[10] As the expedition neared the agency the troops passed abandoned Indian camps and when they reached Red Cloud they found the northern troublemakers had all departed for a new camp on nearby Hat Creek.
When the troops arrived at the agency Saville was undecided about the establishment of the military camp. His first suggestion was that a single camp be established at a point equidistant from the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies. By the next day he had changed his mind and wanted the soldiers at Red Cloud, so the tent camp was established alongside the blockhouse of the agency.
Four companies of infantry and one of cavalry were left at Camp Red Cloud Agency, and the remainder of the Sioux Expedition marched on to Spotted Tail Agency to establish a camp there. The camp at Spotted Tail was named Camp Sheridan and on March 29, 1874, the name of Camp Red Cloud Agency was changed to Camp Robinson in honor of Lt. Levi H. Robinson, who had been killed at Little Cottonwood Creek the previous month.
Owing to heavy snow and lack of grass for cavalry horses, most of the cavalry did not stay at the agencies. Each camp was garrisoned by four companies of infantry, one of cavalry, and a Gatling gun was left at each camp.[11] The other six cavalry companies returned to Fort Laramie on March 16. Lieutenant Ray and the supply train left with the returning cavalry to get another load of supplies for the two garrisons at the agencies.
The garrisons left behind at the agencies began the work of getting settled. By mutual agreement Spotted Tail and Captain Lazelle, post commander at Camp Sheridan, forbade intercamp visits at that agency. Lazelle had his men dig rifle pits in front of their tent camp. Although the Brule leaders Spotted Tail, Swift Bear, Standing Elk, and Two Strike said they would not help the troops in the event of war with the hostile faction, Colonel Smith reported that the Brules at Spotted Tail Agency seemed resigned to the presence of soldiers.
In contrast, Colonel Smith reported that a sullen attitude towards soldiers persisted at Red Cloud Agency where apparently even the friendly faction was being difficult. When Dr. Saville ordered all friendly Indians to camp on the south side of the White River he had to threaten the loss of issue rations to enforce his order. The Indians declared the north bank of the White River a deadline for all white men, thus making necessary a longer wagon haul for needed wood supplies.
The hostiles broke camp on Hat Creek and moved to Spotted Tail Agency. Colonel Forsyth’s official report of the Sioux Expedition lists Lone Horn of the North, White Bull, Roman Nose and Stooping Bear as the principal chiefs among the northern Indians at Spotted Tail Agency. The principal warriors among this faction were also listed by Colonel Forsyth; they were Turtle Ribs, Thunder Hawk, High Bear, Dog Back, and Crazy Horse.[12] Despite the return of the hostiles, the relative quiet at the agencies and ease of occupation by the troops prompted General Sheridan erroneously to predict “any war we may have with Sioux Indians will be simply the pursuit of small raiding parties.”[13]
CAMP ROBINSON
Difficulties continued at Red Cloud. Interpreter Rowland, who had delivered Saville’s message calling for troops, attempted to conceal his part in the arrival of the Sioux Expedition but was unable to do so. A Cheyenne, Crawls in the Water, attempted to shoot Rowland but was himself killed. Rowland fled to the military camp for protection, and agency employees rescued his wife and children while the hostiles burned his house and haystack.
The young warriors amused themselves by shooting over the military tents and Colonel Smith warned that he would attack the Indian village if any of his men were injured. Troops from Camp Robinson generally carried arms, and the daily wood train was under heavy escort.
Gradually the Indians became more reconciled to the presence of troops, and when the annual Sun Dance was held at Red Cloud in the early summer, Lieutenant Carter was able to arrange for J. Tavernier, a French artist employed by Harper’s Weekly, to attend the dance. Unfortunately, lightning struck the sacred pole during the height of the ceremonies. This was interpreted by the Indians as supernatural disapproval of their visitors, and the artist and officer hastily left the scene.
The infantry at Camp Robinson had their camp alongside the agency stockade while Lt. Emmet Crawford’s troop of Third Cavalry camped a short distance away in the bottomlands of the White River. By spring it was evident that the location of Camp Robinson in close proximity to Red Cloud Agency was not an ideal arrangement. Daily contact invited friction between soldiers and Indian warriors, but an even more serious problem was the lack of sufficient grass for the cavalry horses. When warm weather made the rotting refuse of butchered issue beef “difficult to bear” the need for relocating the encampment became critical. In May 1874 Colonel Smith moved Camp Robinson a mile and a half west of the agency; there near the confluence of Soldier Creek and the White River the permanent post was later built. The troops remained in tents throughout the first summer.
Soon after Camp Robinson was moved to its new site the Indian warriors made an attack on the military encampment. This very serious affair occurred as the result of the arrest of an escaped convict, Toussaint Kenssler, by Lieutenants Crawford and Ray at Red Cloud Agency. Kenssler had escaped from a jail in Wyoming Territory and hidden among his Indian friends. While at Red Cloud he threatened the agent, his employees, and the Army officer who had originally arrested him. He attempted to assault a man who had been a witness during his trial and on one occasion delayed the Camp Robinson mail carrier for several hours. When the officers identified Kenssler they tried to apprehend him. He attempted to escape and Lieutenant Ray shot him through the legs. This action incensed many of the Indians and the two officers experienced some tense moments before they got their prisoner safely from the agency to Camp Robinson.
About midnight the Indians made an attempt to rescue the prisoner by attacking the military camp. The soldiers formed a skirmish line and moved out towards the flashing Indian guns. The warriors fell back in the face of the soldiers’ gunfire and the troops withdrew to their camp only to discover that their entire supply of beef on the hoof had been driven off by other Indians during the brief engagement. Lieutenant Crawford and the cavalry troop recovered a large number of the stolen cattle.
The Kenssler affair was a demonstration that despite the small size of the garrisons the troops were not going to allow themselves to be intimidated by the Indian warriors. Rifle target practice was held at Camp Robinson, and at Camp Sheridan target practice with the Gatling gun was held in July. Such impressive demonstrations of military power must have had a tempering effect on the Indians at the agency.
Other activities also occupied the post garrison. For example, in July Lieutenant Crawford spent a great deal of time giving assistance to homesteaders in the Loup Valley of Nebraska where a serious plague of grasshoppers struck.
Since neither of the two agencies was on the permanent Sioux reservation, the military hesitated to begin construction of winter quarters. An Indian commission headed by Bishop Hare arrived to investigate the recent troubles at the agency and to settle this problem, and during July and August troops from Camp Robinson escorted the commissioners. Bishop Hare decided that Red Cloud Agency would remain at its White River location despite the fact that it was not within the limits of the permanent reservation. After considerable discussion Spotted Tail agreed to the relocation of his agency and both the Spotted Tail Agency and its associated military establishment, Camp Sheridan, were moved to a more favorable site on Beaver Creek. With the location question settled, the Army began construction of permanent quarters for the troops.
In June 1874 Capt. W. H. Jordan and Companies A and I of the Ninth Infantry arrived at Camp Robinson, replacing Company F, Eighth Infantry and Company F of the Fourteenth Infantry. Post Commander Jordan soon issued orders to start cutting logs and to begin construction of barracks. Ten wagons and sixty mules were employed in hauling materials, and the sawmill at Red Cloud Agency was made available for use by the troops. By November, although barracks and urgently needed warehouses were ready, only two sets of the adobe officers’ quarters were completed. The post surgeon complained bitterly of “criminal neglect”[14] when the delivery of heating stoves was unnecessarily delayed.
The northern hostiles, absent during much of the summer, began returning to Red Cloud Agency in October 1874 in anticipation of the issue of annuity goods in November. With their arrival came new troubles at the agency, and it almost seemed as if the agent was trying to create problems for himself and the Army. Saville requested the aid of the soldiers at Camp Robinson in arresting those responsible for killing Frank Appleton the previous February, but when he found that the military commander was instructed that his function was to protect the agency and not to make arrests, Saville gave up the idea. It was just as well that military help was denied because an attempt to make such an arrest would surely have had serious results.
Next Saville decided to erect a flagpole at the agency and for this purpose had a tall pine cut and brought inside the agency stockade. The chiefs were opposed to the flagpole, but Saville did not take their objections seriously. The northern faction was strongly opposed to the flagpole and on October 23, 1874 a group of armed warriors entered the agency stockade while Saville was inside his office talking to Red Cloud and Red Dog. He was called out just in time to see the flagpole being chopped to bits by the warriors, led by the same men who had made him a prisoner in his own office the year before.
Saville immediately sent a messenger to Camp Robinson with a request for a troop of cavalry, but he neglected to inform the commanding officer of the serious nature of the disturbance then in progress. Shorthanded because some of the cavalry were off on an escort mission, Captain Jordan sent only twenty-two men, led by Lt. Emmet Crawford. When Lieutenants Crawford and Steever and their men reached the agency they were immediately surrounded by some four hundred Indian warriors.
A group of Akicita or Indian camp police arrived on the scene, led by Sitting Bull of the South who carried a distinctive three-bladed club. These Indians rushed between the troops and the angry warriors and with their clubs beat the hostiles back, clearing a path so that the soldiers could gain the safety of the agency stockade. Old Man Afraid of His Horses then dispelled the crowd after a long harangue, and several other agency leaders were helpful in preventing further trouble.[15]
One report of the affair stated that flagpoles at Indian agencies were both unusual and unnecessary. The flagpole incident caused considerable ill feeling between the agent and the military men, the latter believing the agent had needlessly put the soldiers in a very serious position.
Whether or not it had anything to do with the flagpole incident at Red Cloud Agency in 1874, the American flag was not raised over Camp Robinson until Washington’s Birthday, 1876. The honor of raising the flag on that occasion went to Sgt. John Kailey, Ninth Infantry, whose twenty-seven years of service were the longest of any man then stationed at the post.[16]
Indian Agent Saville’s efforts to get a count of the Indians receiving supplies at Red Cloud were finally crowned with success on November 30, 1874. Two factors combined to produce this result. First, Saville announced that no more rations would be issued until the Indians submitted to counting. In the face of this threat Old Man Afraid of His Horses changed his mind and counting began. He is also reported to have compelled Red Cloud to withdraw his opposition. The enumeration revealed a total of about 12,000 Indians: 9,339 Sioux, 1202 Cheyenne and 1092 Arapaho.”[17]
Events at the agency and the camp still did not go well. Indian leaders were quick to sense the divided opinions of various authorities and would complain to the Army officers about the agent’s handling of their affairs. When officers listened, the agent regarded it as interference on the part of the military. Many soldiers did not agree with the aims and methods of the Grant Peace Policy of agency administration under which various church groups nominated Indian Agents. As one officer put it, the efforts were to “civilize these people immediately whether they are willing or not. This may be good church theory but it is very impractical. These Indians had better by far be left alone at their agency than to be forced into hostilities by being forced to accept civilization and a religion they can’t understand and don’t want to understand.”[18] Another officer assessed the plans to convert the Sioux to peaceful farmers in the following way: “... it is not easy to see how they are to become farmers when they have no good farming land to work on....”[19]
Red Cloud Agency had many visitors, including Professor O. C. Marsh whose paleontological expedition into the nearby fossil area was furnished with a military escort. Professor Marsh was instrumental in focusing national attention on Red Cloud Agency. In the course of securing permission of the Indians to excavate fossils in their land Marsh became acquainted with Chief Red Cloud. He was given samples of particularly foul supplies which he was told were normal issue goods. The professor’s evidence of frauds at the agency was given wide publicity, and Red Cloud Agency became a political as well as a military hot-spot. A full scale investigation of agency affairs followed, and newspaper accounts of the hearings were full of possible frauds by the supply and freight contractors. Although Agent Saville was exonerated, he was removed from his post and replaced by J. S. Hastings.
Although war with the Sioux had been a latent possibility during some of the more serious difficulties at Red Cloud Agency, it had been avoided. While incidents at the agency failed to spark a general conflict, events not too far off were developing into a situation which led to war with the hostile Indians in 1876.
The Sidney Trail was developed to supply the agencies and the military posts; it also became a major route to the Black Hills following the discovery of gold there by the Custer Expedition in 1874. Men from Camps Robinson and Sheridan were called upon to check the illegal influx of miners into the Black Hills, an area guaranteed to the Indians by treaty. Although the soldiers frequently removed parties from the Hills there were far too few troops to cope with the situation. Soldiers from Camp Robinson took regular turns at the base camp near Harney Peak, and at the subpost on Hat Creek.
The Black Hills patrols from Camp Robinson produced one of the heroic marches of the period. On the day after Christmas, 1874, Capt. Guy V. Henry was ordered to take his troop of Third Cavalry, accompanied by Lieutenant Carpenter and fifteen men of the Ninth Infantry, to the Black Hills in search of gold miners. They failed to find the miners, but on their return the command was caught in a severe blizzard and would have perished but for Captain Henry’s leadership. Nearly all of the men were badly frozen and on their return to Camp Robinson in January 1875 the new additions brought the sick list to over 50 per cent of the garrison. As late as January 20 Mr. Raymond, the scout, was still in the hospital.
Some miners, like California Joe, served the Army as scouts and used the time thus spent in the Black Hills to prospect future claims. California Joe served as guide for the 1875 Jenney geological expedition escorted by Col. R. I. Dodge and eight companies of troops.
Indians were not the only persons contributing to the troubles at Red Cloud Agency which occupied the attention of the soldiers from Camp Robinson. Many horse thieves such as “Doc” Middleton’s gang hung out in the area and stole Indian mounts. The agency became “a mighty tough place” according to George Colhoff, an employee at the Yates Trading Company. It was a road agents’ rendezvous, with men like Black Doak, Fly Speck Billy, Lame Johnny, Paddy Simons, Tom Reed and Herman Leisner frequenting the agency between their attacks on the stagecoaches traveling the Sidney-Deadwood and Cheyenne-Deadwood trails.[20]
Excitement still prevailed at Red Cloud Agency during the winter of 1875-76 when the agent, Hastings, reported considerable trouble with whiskey runners. Some of the Army’s valuable scouts, Big Bat Pourier and Frank Grouard, were involved in fights at the agency as well. The camp Robinson mail carriers were killed by Indians on December 25, 1876, and in the spring (1876) Indians not only ran off the agency beef herd in broad daylight but killed Charles Clarke, the civilian mail driver, near the White River. Agency trader J. W. Dear recovered Clarke’s body and mentioned in a description of the affair that the Indians had also run off stock at his ranch and attacked the wagon train of the Yates Trading Company.
WAR WITH THE HOSTILE INDIANS
The attempt by the Allison commission to purchase the gold-rich Black Hills from the Sioux, in a treaty conference near Camp Robinson in September 1875, developed into another incident in the almost incredible series of near disasters which plagued dealings with the Indians at Red Cloud Agency.
The first meeting of the commission was held on September 17 in the council room of the agency, but the Indians refused to attend, saying they would sign no treaty under duress. Despite Spotted Tail’s warnings of possible trouble, the commission agreed to move the treaty site to a point some eight miles east of Camp Robinson where a meeting was held under a lone cottonwood tree. The assembled throng of Indians numbered several thousand, with large numbers from each of the several Sioux agencies. A troop of cavalry lined each side of the canvas shelter provided for the commissioners. Young Man Afraid of His Horses ranged his friendly camp police behind the hostile Indian warriors, and his assistance in the ensuing troubles was credited with preventing disaster once again.
Both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail were scheduled to speak in favor of selling the Black Hills but just as Red Cloud began to make his oration Little Big Man, armed to the teeth, threatened to shoot the first Indian who spoke in favor of ceding the Black Hills to the white men. Spotted Tail advised the commissioners to return to the safety of Camp Robinson immediately—advice which they took.
The dismal failure of the treaty effort almost assured a war with the hostile Sioux. The coming campaigns were to be led by the Army’s supreme Indian fighter, General George Crook, who had taken command of the critical Department of the Platte the previous spring and had immediately set about to bring the companies of the Third Cavalry up to full strength.
General Crook’s first campaign against the hostiles was no more successful than the Black Hills treaty efforts had been. When cavalrymen led by Colonel Reynolds attacked and managed to destroy the greater part of a hostile camp on the Little Powder River on March 17, 1876 they were forced to withdraw rapidly from the captured village. In an ensuing running fight the captured Indian horse herd changed hands so many times that General Crook had the remaining ponies killed to prevent their recapture. The destruction of the property of one camp did not drive the hostiles to the agencies in submission; if anything it stiffened their resistance.
With the spring campaigns inconclusive, Crook prepared for the summer. The summer campaign of 1876 was designed to trap the hostiles between three columns: Gibbon from the west, Terry and Custer from the east, and Crook from the south. Crook’s force numbered 1,774 men and Terry had 1,873. To raise these columns all posts in the Departments of the Platte and Dakota were stripped of their garrisons. Crook’s column met Crazy Horse and the hostiles on June 17, 1876 in the Battle of Rosebud Creek and, although the General claimed a victory when the Indians left the field, he fell back to his base camp to await reinforcements. On June 25 at the Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Black Moon led the same hostiles and crushed Custer’s command. Even before the Omaha Military Headquarters had heard of Custer’s defeat, the Indians at Red Cloud Agency were discussing it. Frank Yates, one of the traders at the agency, was a brother of the Captain Yates who fell with Custer. When the rumors were reported to him he went to Camp Robinson where officers rejected the possibility of such a disaster. They telegraphed Omaha but no word had yet reached officers there.
On July 17, 1876, seventeen officers and 346 men of the Fifth Cavalry commanded by Col. Wesley Merritt passed through Camp Robinson on their way to reinforce Crook. They paused long enough to intercept a group of about eight hundred Cheyenne Indians who were leaving Red Cloud Agency. The Indians claimed to be going on a buffalo hunt, but it was feared that they were attempting to join the victorious hostiles. Met by the troops, the Indians were forced to return to the agency after a brief skirmish. During the fighting Yellow Hand was killed by gunfire and the scout “Buffalo Bill” Cody took his scalp in an incident which was later much publicized and embellished.
The great Indian victories brought an end to the Peace Policy, and on July 22, 1876 control of the Indian agencies was transferred from the Department of the Interior to the War Department and on June 31 Lt. O. Elting of Camp Robinson became the acting agent at Red Cloud Indian Agency. In August the officers discovered a serious shortage in Indian Department funds and the Army had to loan needed supplies for issue to the Indians at the agency.
Crook’s column remained in the field throughout the summer, following the battles of the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn. In September, while marching towards the Black Hills, Crook found that his supplies were exhausted, and his men ate their dying mounts in the famed “Horsemeat March.” A small detachment was sent ahead to obtain supplies. Led by Capt. Anson Mills and including Lieutenant Crawford of the Third Cavalry, the advance party discovered and captured a Sioux camp in the Battle of Slim Buttes, obtaining a considerable supply of meat. Additional supplies were taken by troops from Camp Robinson to meet the expedition in the Black Hills. Crook and his staff left the troops, came in to Robinson, and went on to Fort Laramie. On October 23 and 24, 1876 the men of his command reached Camp Robinson, where the expedition was disbanded. The sick and wounded were placed in the post hospital, and Contract Surgeon Valentine T. McGillycuddy was assigned to duty there.
Col. Ranald Mackenzie had come to Camp Robinson with eight companies of cavalry in August. Mackenzie assumed the command of the post and the additional troops were quartered in three temporary cantonments. One of these, Camp Canby, was the original Sioux Expedition cavalry camp. The others were called Camp Custer and Camp of the Second Battalion, Fourth Cavalry. In October groups of recruits of 85 and 224 men arrived to bring the companies up to strength. Colonel Forsyth reported some companies consisted of nearly two-thirds recruits, owing to recent discharges of disabled soldiers.
For the brief period when the men of both Crook’s and Mackenzie’s commands were there, Camp Robinson and its cantonments were very crowded. General Crook took advantage of the temporary presence of the fifty-three companies of troops at the post to hold a conference with Indian leaders at Red Cloud Agency and in no uncertain terms demanded loyal behavior of them.
Upon the arrival of Mackenzie’s forces, Red Cloud and Red Leaf had moved their camps some twenty-five miles away from the agency to Chadron Creek. In October, in preparation for the coming winter campaign, Colonel Mackenzie sent two battalions of cavalry and the newly arrived Pawnee Scout battalion, led by Nebraskans, Frank and Luther North, to disarm these bands and to prevent their joining the hostiles. Two hundred thirty-nine Indians and 722 ponies were captured. The friendly Arapaho and Cut-Off Sioux were not disarmed. Crook noted that this was the first time in the history of Red Cloud Agency that the friendly Indians were treated better than the stubborn ones.
Preparations for the winter campaign were observed by a visiting delegation of Japanese army officers at Camp Robinson before Crook and Mackenzie moved their forces to Fort Fetterman where the campaign would begin. In the meantime General Miles transported fresh troops to the northern plains by Missouri River steamboat. Miles fought several engagements with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Crook sent Mackenzie and the cavalry and Pawnee Scouts on ahead of his main column and in late November they routed and destroyed Dull Knife’s Cheyenne village, moving relentlessly to crush the hostiles’ resistance.
In September 1876, long before the winter victories, the successful purchase of the Black Hills was negotiated by a new commission headed by George Manypenny. This Black Hills treaty was signed at Red Cloud Agency September 26. The commission met the Indians at each agency separately, thus depriving them of the solidarity of numbers. It also took advantage of the fact that the hostiles were not present to create confusion. The Indians later claimed that the use of whiskey, bribes, threats of loss of all rations and false impressions of the terms of the treaty were methods employed by the commission, and the validity of the treaty was questioned. The treaty of 1868 had provided for a specific proportion of signatures to validate future treaties, and in 1876 only forty Indian signatures were obtained at Red Cloud, whereas it was later estimated some 2,267 were needed. However, the Black Hills passed to U.S. ownership.
THE HOSTILES SURRENDER
The winter successes of the Crook-Mackenzie and Miles campaigns foreshadowed the end of the Sioux War. In April one thousand Sioux hostiles led by Touch the Clouds surrendered at Spotted Tail Agency and Dull Knife brought his Cheyenne in to Camp Robinson. The final total of hostiles who surrendered at Camps Robinson and Sheridan reached almost 4,500 people.[21]
Emissaries to the hostile camps brought back word that Crazy Horse was on the way in and on May 6, 1877 he and his followers, 889 men, women and children, surrendered at Camp Robinson. They gave up some 2,000 ponies, and the 217 men turned in 117 guns and pistols. The impressive surrender march of Crazy Horse’s band was described by the officer who met the hostiles:
When the Sioux Chief Crazy Horse came in and surrendered in 1877, he formed all of his warriors in line, in advance of the women and children; then, in front of this line, also mounted, he had some ten of his headmen; and then in front of these he rode alone. I had been sent with Indian scouts to meet him. He sent me word requesting a similar formation on our part, and asked that I should ride on in advance alone. Then we were to dismount and first shake hands, while seated on the ground, that the peace might be solid. After all this had been done his headmen came up, the peacepipe was produced, and we solemnly smoked. One of his headmen put a scalp-jacket and war-bonnet on me, and presented me the pipe with which peace had been made.[22]
What to do with the surrendering hostiles was a problem. Crazy Horse and some of the other warriors were enrolled as scouts, and a grand review was held for General Crook. Nevertheless, in General Sheridan’s opinion these hostiles should be given the same treatment as troublesome Kiowa and Cheyenne warriors who had been imprisoned at Fort Marion, near St. Augustine, Florida, following previous campaigns.
Too, Crazy Horse acted in a manner which aroused suspicion on the part of the military authorities at Camp Robinson. The soldiers described his attitude as sullen and restless despite his expressed desire to live peacefully. Some chiefs of the agency bands also found his increasing popularity among their followers a threat to their positions.
Indian opposition to Crazy Horse was intensified after a council with seventy leaders was held at Red Cloud Agency on July 27, 1877. General Crook sent word that the Indians were free to go on the forty day buffalo hunt he had promised them, and they in turn were to give their word to return to the agency after the hunt. A delegation to Washington, D. C. was also discussed. A feast was a usual part of such an important meeting, and when Young Man Afraid of His Horses suggested that the feast be held at the camp of Crazy Horse and Little Big Man no one objected, but Red Cloud and his followers left the council room. Later that night the Red Cloud faction voiced their objections to feasting at Crazy Horse’s camp to Agent Irwin. They said Crazy Horse was unreconstructed, tricky, unfaithful and waiting for his chance to escape from the agency. Because the possibility that the hostiles would flee, rejoin Sitting Bull in Canada, and begin the war anew was not a pleasant prospect, the buffalo hunt was cancelled as a precautionary measure.
Crazy Horse had continued to speak in favor of the new northern agency for his people once promised by General Crook. This was contrary to the 1877 government plan to move the agencies to the Missouri River where supplies could be more economically delivered by river boat, an arrangement favored by army officers.
Crazy Horse further alienated the Army, now involved in a new Indian campaign, this time the outbreak of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce tribe. Efforts were made to obtain Indian scouts for the new campaign from among the former hostiles at Red Cloud Agency. At first Crazy Horse opposed their enlistment on the grounds that they would be used to fight Sitting Bull and their Sioux friends rather than Chief Joseph’s people. Finally Crazy Horse consented to fight the Nez Perce but Frank Grouard, acting as interpreter, made an error in translation and reported that Crazy Horse said he would fight until not a white man was left. Whether this error was an honest mistake or a deliberate one,[23] the mistranslation reinforced the rumors that Crazy Horse planned to murder Crook and other officers and that he planned to go on the warpath again. General Crook directed that the famed warrior be apprehended and “sent out of harms way.”[24]
A cavalry battalion from Camp Robinson and a large party of Indians (including Crazy Horse’s personal enemy, No Water, with whom he had had a squabble over a woman) rode to Crazy Horse’s camp nearby to arrest him. They succeeded in capturing many of his band, but Crazy Horse escaped and fled to Spotted Tail Agency, seeking refuge in the camp of his friend Touch the Clouds. His arrival caused considerable excitement in that camp, but loyal Brules interceded and restored order. Touch the Clouds and about 300 warriors then escorted Crazy Horse towards Camp Sheridan. Halfway there they were met by Lt. J. M. Lee, acting agent at Spotted Tail Agency, two other officials, and an interpreter. Just as this group reached the post parade ground Chief Spotted Tail arrived with an equally large number of his Brule warriors. This support for the small Camp Sheridan garrison turned the balance in their favor. With Spotted Tail backing the Americans, Crazy Horse apparently realized his position was not a strong one.
The crowd finally was dispersed and Lee and a few others had a conference with Crazy Horse who explained his desire to transfer to the Spotted Tail Agency. An attempt was made by interpreter Louis Bordeaux to correct Grouard’s mistranslation of Crazy Horse’s statement about fighting the Nez Perce. Lieutenant Lee and Major Burke assured Crazy Horse that he would not be harmed. In response to Lee’s persuasion Crazy Horse agreed to return to Camp Robinson the next day on condition that he be allowed to explain how he had been misunderstood and misinterpreted and that he wanted peace, not trouble. By this time, however, most officers, particularly those at Camp Robinson, completely distrusted him.
On their arrival at Camp Robinson, the post commander, Colonel Bradley, refused to hold a council with Crazy Horse despite Lee’s efforts to arrange one. Bradley’s orders gave him no alternative except to imprison Crazy Horse, and an effort was made to put him in the guardhouse. When he saw the cells inside Crazy Horse drew a knife and attempted to free himself but he was bayoneted by one of the guards during the struggle. Little Big Man was injured while trying to restrain Crazy Horse. Both friendly and hostile Indians were in the excited crowd of witnesses, and the friendly Indians prevented Crazy Horse’s friends from firing at the guard. When another attempt to put the mortally wounded warrior into the guardhouse was made, the Indians seemed so close to an outbreak that Colonel Bradley reluctantly agreed to Surgeon McGillycuddy’s suggested compromise and Crazy Horse was taken next door to the adjutant’s office where he died shortly before midnight on September 5, 1877.[25]
Great excitement developed among the Indians around Camp Robinson as a result of the killing of Crazy Horse and serious trouble was threatened, but the efforts of Indian leaders prevented a violent outbreak. In a report of the incident Lt. W. P. Clarke listed the Arapaho, Black Coal and Sharp Nose, and the Sioux leaders Red Cloud, Young Man Afraid of His Horses, American Horse, Yellow Bear, Little Big Man, Big Road, No Water, Three Bears, and No Flesh as the men who prevented an outbreak by controlling their people. That so important a man as Crazy Horse could be killed in such a way without any more serious consequences than a few days uproar was an indication that the war with the Sioux was about over.
After Crazy Horse was killed the plan to relocate Red Cloud Agency on the Missouri River went ahead rapidly. On October 25, 1877 the move was begun, with troops from Camp Robinson escorting the Red Cloud Indians and those from Camp Sheridan escorting the Spotted Tail Indians and the hostiles of the late Crazy Horse’s camp. Although seemingly subdued, the hostiles still managed to embarrass the soldiers. Before the two columns had proceeded very far the northern Indians broke away from the Spotted Tail column and joined the Red Cloud group. Then they broke away from that column, and, carrying Crazy Horse’s bones, fled north to join Sitting Bull in Canada, pausing on the way to raid in the Black Hills and along the Bismarck stage line. The first report was that some 1,700 Indians had escaped, but a recheck cut the figure to 800.
The soldiers from Camp Robinson who escorted the Indians built and formed the garrison of a military post at New Red Cloud Agency,[26] but the new location was used for only a short time. The Oglala refused to go to the new agency site and set up their camp seventy-five miles away. In 1878 the government gave up the Missouri River plan and the agency was moved west again to become the present Pine Ridge Agency about fifty miles northeast of Fort Robinson in South Dakota.
GARRISON LIFE
Camp Robinson was renamed Fort Robinson in January 1878. It remained an important post and its garrison was called upon in several Indian emergencies after the death of Crazy Horse.
Garrison life was normal at the post, with the officers’ families joining them as soon as quarters were available. The first women to come to live at Camp Robinson in the winter of 1874-1875 were the wives of Capt. W. H. Jordan, the post commander, and Lt. J. M. Lee, both Ninth Infantry officers.
Social activities included picnics, walks to the nearby buttes, long horseback rides, visits to Indian camps and dances, and fossil hunting in the nearby Bad Lands. Company dances were held with some regularity and social calling was an important part of the daily routine of officers and their ladies. Not all of the women were well impressed by the post. When Surgeon Valentine T. McGillycuddy’s wife joined him at Camp Robinson on December 13, 1876 she noted in her diary: “Commenced enjoying the camp. Finished.”[27] Mrs. McGillycuddy later tempered this first judgment of the post with diary entries that indicate her enjoyment of horseback rides and social calls by such notables as General Crook. Surgeon McGillycuddy’s wife even went along with her husband and a detachment of troops on an extended stay in the Black Hills in 1877.
The officers often entertained prominent Indian chiefs like Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, inviting such leaders to join them for lunch. Lt. John G. Bourke, General Crook’s aide, spent hours learning Indian languages from his native friends. Bourke once had an amusing contest with the Cheyenne medicine man High Wolf. Lieutenant Bourke used an old static electricity generator to deliver a shock to Indians he tempted to reach into a pail of water. The trap was baited with coins. In imitation of songs sung by Indian medicine men, Bourke sang “Pat Malloy” while operating the generator and acquired a reputation for having powerful “medicine.” A challenge match was arranged to test the relative powers of Bourke and High Wolf. There was a liberal prize and side bets by spectators. High Wolf received such a strong electrical charge on his first attempt that he fell and damaged Bourke’s machine. He shrewdly demanded a second chance and won the contest.
Despite the efforts of the post surgeon, medical care was sometimes inadequate to cope with the hazards of the frontier; an August whooping cough epidemic in 1876 claimed the lives of two children at Camp Robinson and was much more severe in the nearby Indian camps. The post surgeon noted in his medical history that “among the remedies employed vaccination has seemed to be very serviceable.”[28]
Some deaths at Fort Robinson were due to disease or natural causes, while others were the result of violence. The first burial at Camp Robinson, on July 3, 1875, was that of Pvt. James Brogan, Company A, Ninth Infantry, who died of “congestion of the brain.” Several victims of gunfights were also buried in the post cemetery. In 1876 “California Joe” (Moses Milner), a civilian hired as a scout for the Mackenzie expedition, was shot and killed by Tom Newcomb. The killing was the result of the scout’s efforts to publicly blame Newcomb for a murder he himself had probably committed. Sgt. Frank Owens, Ninth Infantry, killed Pvt. Eugene Carlton of his company while at a ranch nearby, and Surgeon McGillycuddy was unable to save the life of a Sergeant Casey mortally wounded by a trooper at Camp Canby.
The main center of entertainment for the men of the garrison was the post trader’s store and saloon. When the Sioux Expedition first established Camp Robinson, Mr. John T. Collins, post trader at Fort Laramie, was appointed acting trader by the expedition commander Col. John Smith. Later Major Paddock became post trader at Camp Robinson and held the position until the 1890’s. In efforts to control the results of drinking sprees which accounted for most of the courtmartial offenses, the post trader at Camp Robinson was required to keep a list of men buying drinks. Enlisted men were allowed only two drinks a day and those were to be three hours apart. Unauthorized sources of whiskey and entertainment, available just off the military reservation, made enforcement of this rule difficult. Holidays were marked by excesses among officers as well as enlisted men; Mrs. McGillycuddy’s diary records, in connection with the New Year period in 1876, “Outfit all drunk.”[29]
Standards of discipline changed with commanding officers. When he became post commander at Camp Robinson Colonel Mackenzie directed that the officers’ billiard room in the post trader’s store would be closed and no cards or billiards would be played on Sundays. Court-martials of enlisted men were frequent and punishment sometimes went beyond simple hard labor. One thirty day sentence provided that for twelve days the prisoner was to “stand on a barrel from reveille to retreat allowing one half hour for each meal.” Some sentences were for relatively minor infractions. At Camp Sheridan a musician was court-martialed for disobeying an order relative to the key in which he played “First Call.”[30] Men of the garrison worked six days a week, their routine beginning and ending with the rising and setting sun. On Sunday morning there was a full dress parade and inspection.[31]
Beef and bread, supplemented by wild game and vegetables grown by the soldiers in company gardens, were the main items of diet, although the issued foods included pork, bacon, flour, cornmeal, beans, peas, rice, hominy, coffee, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. Beef was often eaten twice a day; steak for breakfast and roast for lunch, with the evening meal consisting of pancakes or stewed dried apples. Both officers and men could purchase additional foods at the post commissary which carried canned tomatoes, raisins, hams and other items. In addition to post trader Paddock’s store at Camp Robinson, Clay Dear’s store at Camp Canby and J. W. Dear’s at Red Cloud Agency were sources of delicacies. Mrs. McGillycuddy describes her efforts to obtain oysters from these suppliers.
A major problem of the Army during the Indian Wars was desertion. Some men enlisted merely to obtain shelter for the winter or transportation to the West and others became dissatisfied with the rigors of Army life. In contrast were the enlisted men who devoted their lives to the service and formed the noncommissioned core of the Army. Sergeants and corporals often had to back up their commands with more than their chevrons when dealing with unruly members of the ranks. One sergeant of the guard at Fort Robinson so stoutly enforced his commands that the recalcitrant private died of a fractured skull.[32] The sergeant’s action was vindicated by a court inquiry.
The officers were an experienced group and devoted to an Army career. Many had risen, like Guy V. Henry, to the rank of general during the Civil War, only to revert to their regular rank when the Army was reduced to its “peacetime” Indian War size of about 25,000 men. Others came “up from the ranks,” as Emmet Crawford who fought through the War between the States as an enlisted man and noncom and was then commissioned. John G. Bourke graduated from West Point after serving through the Civil War as a private.
Promotion was slow in the small army of the Indian War period. It was not at all unusual to spend a decade or more as a lieutenant, and an equal period faced a new captain before he could hope to become a field officer. The families of officers and enlisted men alike shared the rigors and isolation of frontier service. The years of campaigning against hostile Indians required a devotion to duty of the highest order.
CRUSHING THE LAST INDIAN RESISTANCE
In August 1877 Dull Knife and the Northern Cheyenne who had surrendered at Camp Robinson were taken to Indian Territory. During the next twelve months they suffered greatly from lack of food and from diseases to which they had no natural immunity. The Cheyenne had reluctantly accepted removal to Indian Territory on a trial basis, but when they requested permission to return north it was refused in spite of their hardships. On September 8, 1878 they took matters into their own hands when, led by Dull Knife and Little Wolf, they began their almost unbelievable march back to their northern homeland. Their bid for freedom is one of the epics of the frontier.
Leaving their tipis standing, the Cheyenne slipped away from the troops guarding them near Fort Reno and proceeded to fight their way across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, pursued by thousands of infantry and cavalry soldiers. The Indians fought several sharp skirmishes with the troops and managed to elude capture, breaking through lines of intercepting troops along the Kansas Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads. General Crook ordered General Bradley at Fort Robinson to form a third line of defense. Along with soldiers from Camp Sheridan and other posts the Fort Robinson garrison patrolled the sandhills area of Nebraska. Finally a group of 149 men, women and children led by Dull Knife were met and taken into custody by Captain Johnson’s Company from Fort Robinson.
The Cheyenne had planned to seek refuge among their Sioux friends at Red Cloud Agency, not knowing that it had been relocated. They did not want to go to Fort Robinson, but when additional troops and artillery were brought up the Cheyenne were convinced that resistance was useless.
The Indians were taken to the post and imprisoned in the log cavalry barracks at the southeast corner of the parade ground. From their capture in October 1878 until January 1879 the Indians lived at the Fort. Little Wolf and the remaining Cheyenne stayed nearby for some time, then completed their escape to the northern Plains. That group did not surrender for several more months.
The Cheyenne held at Fort Robinson were told that they would have to return to Indian Territory to live on the reservation there. Dull Knife, speaking for his people, said they had returned to their homeland and that they would be killed there rather than return south. In January efforts were made to starve them into submission, and a few of the men were taken prisoner during conferences.
The Indians decided to try to escape. On the night of January 9, 1879 the Cheyenne Outbreak began. Using the few guns they had managed to hide when they were disarmed and imprisoned the previous October, the warriors opened fire on the soldiers guarding their barracks prison. The guards were killed or wounded, and their arms and ammunition captured by the Cheyenne. While the women and children fled towards the river the men fought a stiff delaying action against the hastily aroused garrison. Troops sleeping in nearby barracks went into action in the bitter cold clad only in their underclothing, engaging the fleeing Indians until the cavalry could mount and ride to the scene. Many Cheyenne fell between the parade ground and the sawmill by the river, but some escaped to the hills behind the post.
The Fort Robinson soldiers spent the next two weeks pursuing the Cheyenne in the rough butte country west of the post. Each day their quarry eluded capture. Both the Cheyenne and the soldiers suffered additional casualties in these encounters. On January 22 the last of the Indians were killed or captured.
About sixty-four Cheyenne died in the outbreak and many others were wounded before being captured. Eleven soldiers were killed and ten wounded along with the Sioux Indian scout, Woman’s Dress. In the medical history Post Surgeon E. B. Mosely wrote:
During this whole period the fighting was of the most desperate character being from a hand to hand struggle up to a range almost always inside of fifty yards. The great proportion of fatal wounds is remarkable and their concentration on the trunk of the body shows a deliberation and skill in handling the improved breech-loading arms with which they were liberally supplied, a fact which explains why this particular tribe enjoyed the reputation of being the best warriors on the Plains. The conduct of the white troops is worthy of the greatest praise. Taken by surprise the first night, they rallied in the most prompt manner and followed the flying enemy even barefooted in the deep snow with thermometer at 10° F. until ordered back by their officers.
In the final charge the men advanced under a heavy and fatal fire to the edge of the hole in which the enemy were hidden and in a few minutes of short work finished the affair.
By an unfortunate fatality a large number of the killed were of the very best and most respected men of the command.[33]
In terms of the number of casualties and intensity of the fighting the Cheyenne Outbreak can be regarded as one of the major battles of the Indian Wars,[34] Many of the Cheyenne had been fighting for, rather than against, the Army only two years before. “Among these Indians,” wrote General Crook “were some of the bravest and most efficient of the auxiliaries who have acted under General Mackenzie and myself in the campaign against the hostile Sioux in 1876 and 1877, and I still preserve a grateful remembrance of their distinguished services of which the government seems to have forgotten.”[35]
When the Indians were removed from northwestern Nebraska, ranchers moved in and established big cattle ranches in the desirable lands by 1878. The Graham, Bronson and Newman ranches were some of the first established, but their uncontested hold on the free range was of relatively short duration.
The Freemont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad which reached Fort Robinson in 1886 stimulated settlement. So many homesteaders followed the railroad that the post commander at Fort Robinson was forced to carefully mark the boundaries of the military wood reserve to prevent its settlement. Rancher-homesteader conflicts developed, but the presence of Fort Robinson was a big factor in preventing a large scale range war. The Fort was also a source of assistance to the settlers. For example, “Old Jules” Sandoz was treated in the post hospital by the Surgeon, Walter Reed. The town of Crawford was founded at the boundary of the Fort Robinson reservation and profited from military business.[36]
A typical “wild-west” town, Crawford and its entertainment facilities caused many a headache for the post commander who was forced to cancel the practice of allowing the cavalrymen to have “mounted” passes during off-duty hours. One Ninth Cavalryman was sentenced to a year at hard labor for riding his horse into a Crawford saloon during a “frolic.” In 1906 a 10th cavalry trooper killed Art Moss, one of the town’s law officers, in a gunfight. During one eighteen month period three soldiers from the post, one a holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor, were murdered in the vicinity. All three crimes went unpunished.[37]
The arrival of the railroad at Fort Robinson not only brought settlers to the area but it brought about the end of a famous military post, Fort Laramie. Fort Robinson was easier to supply by rail and it was closer to the Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The expansion of Fort Robinson began in 1887 and Fort Laramie was ultimately abandoned in 1890. The expansion of Fort Robinson resulted in a change in its function and it became a regimental headquarters cavalry post.
Actually the summer of 1885 saw the beginning of this change at Fort Robinson, when the first elements of the Ninth Cavalry arrived to garrison the post. The Ninth was one of the Army’s two all-Negro cavalry regiments.[38] The men of the Ninth continued the routine tasks of repairing telegraph lines, patrolling the area, and pursuing stage-coach and train robbers as well as carrying out their usual military training.
