Walker, Judson Elliott

Campaigns of General Custer in the North-west, and the final surrender of Sitting Bull

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION. 7

Section L- GENERAL VAN CO UVNOR 9

Section TX.-CUSTEKS LAST BATTLE AGAINST SITTING BULL.. 28

APPENDIX TO THE PRECEDING SECTION 56

Section ILL-SURRENDER OF CROW KING 59

Section IV.- SURRENDER OF SITTING BULL. 66

Section V. – CUS TEKS LAST RALL T 1H

RETROSPECTIVE 125

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR (Frontispiece) 2

GENERAL CUSTER 28

CRO W KING, CHIEF WARRIOR UNDER SITTING B ULL 59

CHIEF GAUL, THE GREAT RAIDER OF THE SIOUX NATION. .. 62

SITTING BULL, CHIEF WARRIOR OF THE SIOUX NATION. 66

LOUIS, OLDEST SON OF SITTING BULL 104

INTRODUCTION.

The object of this first venture into authorship on the part of one vrho, until recently, engaged in the engrossing duties of active business life-has had but little leisure for literary pursuits-will be readily apparent to the reader on a perusal of its pages. It purports to be a faithful portrayal of Western life, as experienced by the old settlers at the isolated posts and military stations on the extreme frontier, together with a clear representation of facts concerning the treatment of the Indians of the plains, by the Military and Interior Departments of the Government.

The author, heretofore a stranger to the reading public, deems it not amiss to introduce himself to his readers by stating that, when the war of the [Rebellion broke out, in 1861, he was a conductor on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, having followed that profession since he was twenty-one years of age.

In 1862, just after the siege of Corinth, a request was made from the Army of the Tennessee for experienced men and officers to take immediate charge of the immense transportation. The writer proceeded to Corinth, Miss., and was assigned to duty at Jackson, Tenn., the lamented Major-General James B. McPherson being his immediate superior officer up to the siege of Vicksburg, when, in 1863, just before the surrender of that almost impregnable city, he was captured by the regular Confederate forces, under E. Kirby Smith, whose headquarters were at Shreveport, La. It was soon noised about his quarters that the prisoner had taken a prominent part in railroad management, and the transportation connected with the army under Grant, McPherson and Sherman, and it was decided to banish him so far out of the way that he would not be able to render any further service to the Union cause during the war. His sentence was banishment into Old Mexico, not to return during the war, under penalty of death. The sentence, however, was not read to the writer until he, with his guard, had reached the banks of the Rio Grande, at old Fort Duncan, opposite Predas Nadres, in Old Mexico. He was then thrown across the river among the Greasers, and found himself the only man in that whole section of country who could speak the American language.

To reach home again-ever the first thought of the exile-two routes were available, and to decide which of them was the less dangerous, was an intensely interesting question. The wild Apache Indians at that time were marauding through that portion of Old Mexico, and rendered equally hazardous the northern route through New Mexico, to the seaboard, or the southeasterly to the Gulf of Mexico via Monterey and Matamoras. He, at length, decided to take the latter, the distance being about four hundred miles to Monterey, and at once set-out on foot on his forlorn trip, sustained and upheld by the faint glimmer of a hope that his weary steps, in time, would reach a friendly haven, from whence he might communicate with his far-off northern home.

Winding his solitary way through the unbroken chain of the Rocker Mountains, toward the gates of Monterey, the vision of this home, with the loving wife and little daughter who there awaited him, shone clear and resplendent through the darkness of his gloomy situation, and saved him from despair. Onward he struggled, through the-dreary mountain fastnesses, whose sombre landscape views were unrelieved save by here and there a lone palmetto tree, or the rude headboard of a solitary grave, enclosing the mortal remains of some white wanderer, who had been slain by the wild Apache Indians, or assassinated by the merciless Mexican banditti. Day by day he neared the wished-for haven, and at length discerned the welcome gates of Monterey. Arrived at this city, he sought the American Consul, who sent him to Matamoras, and from thence, by man-of-war, to New Orleans, where General Banks took charge of him and sent him up the river to Vicksburg.

Suffice it, for the purposes of this brief history, to say that in 1867 the author proceeded to Kansas and engaged in a general mercantile business, a portion of the time being engaged in trade with the wild Kiowa and Comanche tribes of Indians. From that time, until recently, he has been engaged on the extreme frontier, in trading with army people, immigrants, settlers and Indians.

His opportunities for observation among these classes of people have been unlimited, and the thought long ago impressed itself upon his mind, that a work of the present nature, presenting truthful sketches of Western life and character, would possess intrinsic value in itself, and be a mine of information to the large body of people in our country, who have not yet beheld that social wonderland of America.-the great. West

J. E. W.,

SECTION I. GENERAL VAN COUVNOR

General Van Oouvnor and a Peace Commissioner Subjugating the Wild Kiowas and Comanches near the. Wichita Mountains.

CHAPTEE L

An Indian Agency. – Mr. Jonathan Broadbrim assumes the dvr ties as Indian Agent, and introduces himself to theleading war chiefs.

One of the most interesting of the oft-recurring farces that characterize the dealings of the government with the untutored savages, is the so-called Peace Commission. As a faithful picture of the frequent " pow-wow," or peace ceremony- "Big Talkee" as the Indians style it in their graphic language-is adduced the following truthful colloquy, that occurred at the Washita River Indian Agency, between Jonathan Broadbrim, Agent of the Comanches and Kiowas, on the part of the Government, and Satanta, Lone Wolf, and Kickingbird, leading chiefs of the Kiowa tribes. The conversation, as carried on through an interpreter, is given almost verbatim, and furnishes a fair illustration of the peculiar mode of dealing with the Indians, adopted by the Government, together with the usual result of such treatment :

A COLLOQUY AT A KIOWA AGENCY.

Agent. Friends, I am here to-day to hear your requests, to listen to your complaints, and to devise means for your welfare.

Satanta. How; how; big white chief, how ? Heap-o'-talkee to-day. Heap-o'-talkee and no good. Heap-o'-talkee me to-day. White folks talkee heap and no good. Me sava, me heap-o'-sava, and no good.

Agent. Well, Satanta, I have been sent here by the United States Government, to see if aDything can be done for you and your tribes in the way of having all of you settle on a reservation of your own, such as may be allotted to you by our Government. We would like to have you settle down with your people, and take hold of farming and raising stock; at the same time have your children go to school.

Satanta. How much land and how many cattle will you give us, and not much talkee about it ?

Agent. I am instructed to say that we will build good school-houses, and also as many houses as may be needed for all of your families to live in. We will set aside a quantity of land for your people to live on, and will furnish farming tools, and all the corn and potatoes they may want to plant, and will send them a good farmer to show them how.

Satanta. Where is the land you talkee so much about ? We want to know where it is ?

Agent We will select the farms for your tribes up and •down this valley, where you will have plenty of water and wood, and most, an excellent place to shelter your stock in the winter.

Satanta. How is it that you white folks own this land ? We have always lived here and made our hunting-grounds up and down the Washita, and no one ever disturbed us until you pale-faces came here with your soldiers. The land is all ours, and always has been.

Agent. We claim the lands all around here by our purchase ; but we will set aside as much as you want for your tribes. I would like to have you and your people talk the matter over among yourselves, and I earnestly hope we can make some arrangement so that the result will be greatly to your interest and improve the future welfare of your people, and save a great deal of trouble and expense to our Oovernment, as well as for yourselves. I would like to hear your views, and want to hear your chiefs and warriors talk.

Satanta. I heard the great father at Washington wanted me to come here and have a big talkee with his agent. You pale-faces say you always want peace. You send your soldiers here to fight and make peace. My brave warriors fight, and your soldiers fight; and I tell you one thing now, that as long as you send your soldiers here to fight, you may expect my braves to fight back again. My braves are all young men, and will keep a-fighting the pale-faces until they keep away from our hunting-grounds.

Agent But, Satanta, we propose to allow your people to hunt all they want to. We don't want to disturb your hunting-grounds.

Satanta. Only a little while ago-may-be-so-four-years, may-be-so-six-years-we lived on the plains in Kansas, and my people were all well-to-do-and-a-heap-o'-good-all-the-time. We had a heap-o'-buffalo-and-antelope to hunt and kill, and make-a-heap-o'-meat for our squaws and papooses. We had a-heap-o'-good times. Heap-o'-good-pale-faced-men come out to us and made heap-o'-good-agents.

Agent. We think we send you good men for your agents now. What is the matter with them ?

Satanta. In those good old days the pale-faced agents were good. Our goods and clothing were brought to us every spring and fall on a-heap-big-wagons-all-the-time-with-heap-big-horses. We had a-heap-o'-buffalo-robes for the swap-chief, and our squaws and papooses had plenty of blankets, calico, sugar, and coffee. All was heap good. They all the time had a-heap-o'-good clothes to wear, and-a-heap-o'-good things to eat. My braves, squaws and papooses heap-o'-good all the time. Young men hunt buffalo, and squaws make-a-heap-good-buffalo-robes, and-make-a-heap-o'-good-swap.

Agent. I see no reason why you cannot do the same now. We try to send good men for agents, and appoint a good class of teachers for you. If there is anything wrong I want to know it, and will try to make it right.

Satanta. May-be-so-two-years, may-be-so-four-years-ago, the white man has cared nothing about the treaties he has signed with us. The pale-faces have acted as if they never had signed any treaty at all. Our goods and clothing, that ought to have been here last October, are not here yet, and it is now in the moon of-two-moons (February).

Agent. Tour annuity goods are now on the way, and, I think, will be here in a very few days.

Satanta. It was just the same slow way last year and the year before ; our squaws and papooses would suffer to-day, only my young braves are able to find a few buffalo, which gives them meat to keep them frdm being hungry, and robes, to cover their naked bodies. The pale-faces have advanced on the red-man, and driven the buffalo and antelope away,, so that our young men can hardly find enough meat to feed our squaws and papooses.

Agent. I think there is plenty of pork, bacon, and corned beef in the storehouse. It really seems to me there is no need of your people going hungry.

Satanta. No good; no good; no like 'em. Pale-face-eat-'em-a-heap-red-man-no-eat-'em. No good. Bed-man and squaws like heap-o'-buffalo-and-antelope-full-o'-blood. The white man has all the time been talkee-peace-peace-heap-o'-talkee-heap-o'-talkee-and-no-peace. I tell you now there will be no peace until the white man does as he agrees, and when he signs a treaty with our tribes he must make his. word good.

Agent I think there will be no trouble about that. I think we can make a treaty that will be satisfactory to all parties.

Satanta We have been driven four hundred miles from our hunting-grounds in Kansas and we have no peace yet. It looks to me as if you might go up and help that wagon train along that has been on the road all winter, trying to get here. You smart pale-faced men know a-heap-better to put oxen on wagons in the winter when such-a-big-snow on the ground. Why not put mules and horses on the wagons and get here sometime before the grass grows in the spring? Bad men. No good. Pale-face-man-no-caree. No good. Bad-medicine-bad-medicine-heap-o'-bad.

Agent I hope you know, Satanta, that we all have more or less trouble in moving over the plains in the winter, and when there is snow on the ground.

Satanta. I have had hard work to keep my young men from going out to meet those wagons and killing, the oxen for beef, and taking the goods out of the wagons and giving them to the squaws and papooses, and then burn the wagons to make a hot fire and make hot coffee and hot tea and roast the oxen for a heap-o'-good-supper for Kiowas.

Agent. Then we would have to send our soldiers out after you. That kind of conduct is just what makes our soldiers fight you.

Satanta. Then my braves will fight back again. My braves were made to fight your soldiers, and before we make any more treaties with you pale-faces, you must have your wagon men bring our goods here in better time, and you must keep the old treaties good. The old treaties are good enough for the red-man and the squaws and papooses. All we want is you pale-faces to keep them good and have less talkee about it, and you must stop your young men from killing our buffalo and antelope for fun.

Agent. I will talk this matter over with my people and see what can be done. I think myself they ought to stop killing the buffalo for fun. I think you are justified in that complaint, and I will give it my attention.

Satanta. You have driven us from our homes and hunting-grounds in Kansas, you may drive us from here away across the staked plains into old Mexico ; your soldiers may fight my braves and your big general may put irons all over me again, but the big red chiefs will always talkee, heap-o'-talkee, and our brave warriors will always fight, until the pale-faces do as they agree when they sign a treaty with us.

Agent. I will confess that I am very sorry such delays have occurred in shipping your supplies in here, and I am satisfied it has been quite a serious annoyance to you and your people, as well as to ourselves, and I will make it my business to report these delays to the proper parties, and will in the future have your supplies shipped in better time. I will further state that we will hereafter send men who will see that your wants are more promptly and properly cared for. We think the delay has been on account of the bad weather and the inactivity of the freighters, and the blame should by no means be placed upon the agent. Trr e are ready and willing to do anything that is consistent and just to make good to you and your people any damages that have occurred. I would like to have you talk with your young men about farming and raising cattle and sheep, and to-morrow I will meet you here with two more white brothers, and we will have another good talk.

Satanta. It is no use to bring any more pale-faces here to talk. What we want is white men to do as they agree. My brave warriors will fight and you may send your dog soldiers here to fight them, and your big general can put irons all over my body again, and then he can go back and tell all the pale-faces you have got that the red-man of the plains will never, never surrender, but will always fight until the great father at Washington makes his pale-faces do as they agree. I am the big chief of the Kiowa tribes, but I am only one man, and I want my young chiefs and warriors to say something. Lone Wolf and Kickingbird are the chief warriors in the Kiowa tribes, and I want them to make their own talk. They can talkee all they please.

Lone Wolf. I have but little to say. I am a poor red-man, with nothing but my squaw and papoose and my three ponies. The pale-faced men have-a-bijg-heap-of-everything. The red-man can never learn as much as the white knows. I would like to have our people settle down here where the water runs clear and the timber grows tall. I think our women, would raise corn and potatoes and we would have our children go to school.

Agent That is just what we want to have them do, and we will do all we can to assist them.

Lone Wdf. If your white people will do what is right and have good hearts for us, I think our tribes will do well for you. I have been on the war-path for thirty years and am tired of it. The white people have got more soldiers than we have, and I know it. We must give up the war-path sooner or later, but we must have good treatment and the pale-faces must stay away from our hunting-grounds and let our buffalo and antelope grow as they always did.

Agent. If your people will settle on a reservation they will have plenty of cattle and will not need any buffalo.

Lone Wolf. The buffalo and antelope were put on the grass for the red-man, and we must have them. If the great father at Washington will keep his pale-face soldiers away from us, I will try and have our people settle on farms and raise corn, potatoes, oxen and sheep and a heap-o'-cows. I would like to hear what Kickingbird has to say. He is a brave young warrior and-a-heap-good-young-chief. He is a heap-big-fighter with the pale-faces when they come for our buffalo and antelope.

Agent. We would all like to hear from you, Kickingbird. .What have you to say ? I think you ought to have a good influence with your people.

Kickingbird. I am a brave young chief in the Kiowa tribes. I have nothing but my squaw and papoose and three ponies. I want to live with my people and look at them and see them do well. We have been fought by your big generals a heap-o'-times and are not dead yet, and we don't want to fight any more. We want the white soldiers to stay away from us, and we will take care of ourselves. I want to go to Washington and have a big talkee-a-heap-big-a-talkee with the great father. I want him to give me some cattle and sheep. I want to raise oxen, cows, and hogs and sheep, and hire our young men to make corn and potatoes.

Agent. That is just what we want to have you do, Kickingbird, and we will do all we can to help you along. I think you would make a good farmer.

Kickingbird. I think I can make a heap good farmer. My squaw can live like a white woman, and my papoose must go to school and learn to read and write and come home and learn the other children, like the white folks do. But we are never going to do all this while your pale-faces stay around us and kill our buffalo for fun. They must stay away and let our braves alone and stop killing the buffalo and antelope, and then we will believe the white man will do what is right and the Kiowas will all be good people.

Agent I will do the best I can to have you go to Washington, where you can talk with the great father. I will do all I can to help you get cattle and sheep and be a good farmer. We will build you good houses for your people to

live in, and school-houses for your children, and send you a good teacher. Our soldiers will not disturb you as long as you keep your young men at home and are a good law-abiding people.

Kickingbird. All is good. Heap good. Heap-o'-good-talkee. You-pale-face-talkee-a-heap-o'-good. All-time-heap-good. May-be-so-mee-yan-na-me-come-and-a-heap-o'-talkee-more-a-heap-o'-good. Good-bye. Good-bye.

All shake hands.

CHAPTEE II

GENERAL VAN COUVNOR. Galled upon to assist – An unexpected drama.

Quite different was the scene enacted on the following day At the military post in the vicinity. While Satanta and his associate chiefs were engaged in " peace talk " with the unsuspecting agent, the wily warriors of the tribe had felt it a befitting occasion to steal forth on a raiding expedition, in which they securely bagged the mules of the post quartermaster's department. At the same time news was received at the post that the same warriors, in a raid into Texas, had killed a worthy settler, and carried off his wife and children as prisoners, as is the custom of the Kiowas, expecting a liberal ransom for their surrender. The scene opens with the sentinels of the post, who proclaim the usual hourly "AWs well" Agent Broadbrim, on hearing of the occurrence, repairs in haste to the military headquarters in the interests of peace.

The Indian attack, as is usual with them, was made at daybreak, as the herd was being driven out to grass. The herder, Squills, rushes to the post nearest the carrol, to give the alarm. The sentry is found asleep at his post, but awakes to the emergency of the case, in time to arouse the corporal of the relief guard.

Post No. 2, Sentinel. Twelve o'clock, and all is well. Post No. 1.

Post No. 2. Twelve o'clock, and all is well. Post No. 2.

Post No. 3. Twelve o'clock, and all is well. Post No. 3.

Herder [excited]. Corporal of the guard ! Corporal of the guard! Get out here! The Indians are running off the mules! Get out here ! All the mules are captured by the Indians!

Corporal. Hallo, Squills! what's the matter with the mules? Wha-wha-what's the matter, anyway ? Say ! See here, old pard; don't for heaven's sake report me for being asleep!

Squills. Oh, that's all right, old pard. You know I'm all O. K. on that score. We'll all keep mum. You know mum is the word with us old veterans.

Corporal. Yes, you know how it is yourself, old pard. I'll run up to headquarters and report Blast the dirty redskins, I wish they would make their steal on us in the day^ time, when we are awake. This hunting after Injuns at mid^ night is no good joke for soldiers. [Corporal of the guard hastens to the commandants quarters to give the alarm.

General. Hallo! Who is there ? What do you want ?

Corporal. General, the Indians have made a raid on the mule corral, and run off the herd, just as it was going out to graze.

General. How do you know they were Indians. Do you know certainly whether they were Indians or white men ? Ring that bell for my orderly.

Corporal. All I know, General, is what the herder said. He called the guard, and said the Indians had captured the herd.

General. Do you know, Corporal, whether the herder was awake or asleep when this happened ?

Corporal. He was certainly awake, General, when he called me.

General. Orderly! [Orderly appears.] Call the Drum-Major, and have him beat the long-roll, and get my field horse and orderly here quick. [Exit Orderly.] Corporal, go and call the Indian scouts, and have them mounted at once. [Exit Corporal.

Re-enter Orderly.

Orderly. General, your field horse and orderly are waiting at the door.

General. I will leave matters with you for a while, adjutant. [Exit General.

Enter Mr. Broadbrim.

Adjutant Good morning, Mr. Broadbrim. Be seated, sir. We had a little raid on our mules last night. I thought those Indians acted and talked like peace at your council yesterday.

Mr. B. I really thought so myself. Did thee think they would act in this manner on such short notice ?

Adjutant. Well, I will tell you, Mr. Broadbrim, we must expect more or less of this kind of trouble. Those wild, thieving fellows have never been punished very severely yet.

Mr. B. Don't thee think we can make peace without fighting? You know it is bad to bring war upon ourselves. Don't thee think so ?

Adjutant. Yes, I know war is bad : but we must give those fellows a good, sound thrashing, and teach them to behave themselves.

Mr. B. Dost thee think the General will have to fight them to-day ?

Adjutant. He will surely give them a fight if he catches them. That is just what he intends to do.

Mr. B. I am really sorry ; I thought I would be able to arrange some kind of terms for peace, in a day or two. [Rising to go.] I will be over again, and see what will have to be done. [Exit.

Enter Captain Winecoop, officer of the day. •

Adjutant. Well, Captain Winecoop, how is the garrison this morning ? All quiet since the raid on the mules ?

Capt. TV. Well, if I don't think that was the finest piece of strategy that I have seen in a long time. It was a most successful game played on the part of the red-skins.

Adjutant. What was it, Captain? let us hear.

Capt. W. Why, don't you know the Broadbrim agent held

a sort of a peace council yesterday, over oh the Washita Biver, and all the while he was entertaining them, and making propositions for peace with old Satanta, their young warriors were getting ready to steal the mules.

Adjutant I am satisfied in my own mind, and I think all of our military men are of the same opinion, that we never will have any peace until we give those warriors amp; good whipping, and make them stay on a reservation, and take their ponies away from them.

Capt. W. That is just what we have got to do. That is General Van Couvner's plan, and he openly and boldly says so. [Enter Mb. Littlejohn, a citizen of Texas.] Be seated, sir; what is the news down in Texas ?

Mr. L. We have had plenty of news down thar; an' most horrid news it is for us citizens: The young Kiowas war down thar yesterday, mounted on theer fleetest ponies, an' run off a lot uv fine blooded horses, an' killed one honest settler, an' tuk his wife an' two children, an' tied all three of 'em on a mule tha'd stole uv nabor Peppersnapps, an' then put 'em 'tween two big buck Injuns, who'd whip the mule first from one side an' then from tuther, an' kep' the mule a kickin', an' a snortin', an' a howlin' as if the hid Texas cavalry wer' arter 'em. They kep' up a big laugh an' a hollerin' all the while, an' thur fleet ponies was a runnin' thur best speed, an' I can tell yer, Capt'in, 'twas a horrid sight to look on-to.

Adjutant. It seems as though the Indians selected yesterday and last night to make their raid. They run off sixty-five mules from our herd last night, and the General is out after them now. You can see him when he returns, and he will render you and your citizens in Texas all the assistance in his power.

Mr. L. [rising to go.] I cen tell yer, Mr. Capt'in, if sum-thin' ain't done to keep them ar savages away from our settlers in Texas, we'll turn our Bangers on-to 'em with our shot-guns, and we'll pepper'em clean through the Brazos tu the Gulf of Mexico, an' will niver let one on 'em cum back here alive; now you may 'pend on thai Good-bye; I'll see the Gin'ral when he comes. [Exit Mb. L.

Enter General.

Adjutant Well, General, what success?

General. Not any success; the pesky red-skins had too much the start of us.

Adjutant. A citizen from Texas came in to-day and reported the Kiowas had been down there and killed one man and captured his wife and two children, and tied them on a mule, and forced it to run and keep up with their fleet ponies, and also stole a lot of fine blooded horses.

General. I heard they had made a raid there. The fact is, the whole Kiowa tribes have got to be surrounded, and the leading chiefs and warriors have got to be whipped. They may have peace councils, and smooth talk, and build school-houses; but I can tell them the warriors have got to be made to stay on their reservations, and stop this murdering and horse-stealing. [Enfer Mr. Broadbrim.] Good morning, Mr. Broadbrim. How are your pet Indians progressing in the way of farming and going to school ?

Mr. B. Well, I don't know why we can't make a complete success of it. The leading chiefs were at the council yesterday, and expressed a very strong desire to settle on farms and have their children go to school.

General Did you hear about the raid they made in Texas yesterday ?

Mr. B. Yes, sir. I hardly know what to do in the premises. Could thee make some suggestions in the case ?

General. Yes, sir; when my cavalry returns I will go out and surround the whole tribe, and make them surrender that woman and her two children, or else whip them right then and there, on the ground.

Mr. B. But you know it would be cruel for thee to bring a on a war!

General. We either want to do that, or take six leading chiefs and hold them as hostages, and then, if they refuse to surrender the captives, we will hang three of the chiefs, and make the warriors select which three they prefer to have hung. That is my way of handling Indians when they commence murdering men and capturing women and children.

Mr. B. But, G-eneral, I believe I can persuade them to bring in the captives for a small sum of money, or some goods in lieu thereof.

General. You may possibly ransom them for a good round price ; but it is a dangerous policy to pursue. My plan is, subjugation by whipping them-that is, if they persist in going on the war-path.

Mr. B. I will talk with the three leading chiefs when they come for rations, and see what can be done.

[Exit Mr. Broadbrim.

Enter General's Wife.

Wife. What pleases you, my dear ? How is it that you are so good-natured all at once ? Have the Kiowas done something to please you ?

General. No; but their school-teacher has. He is beginning to teach school among them before we can stop them from murdering and horse-stealing.

Adjutant [laughingly]. I think Mr. Broadbrim is a good man, and means all for the best; and will, in the outcome, make a very good Indian agent.

Wife. Why, yes; you know he has been here but a few weeks, and has had very little opportunity to get acquainted with them. You officers that have been in the service here for years, have learned their ways, and know better how to manage them.

General. I think he is making splendid progress with his new acquaintances. As Governor Wise would say, " I don't think he has been properly introduced." While he was introducing himself among the leading war chiefs at the council, the young .warriors were on one of their regular tours of rapine and murder. Their system of brigandage has been tolerated too long, and they must be made to desist. The fact is, I will have to take the cavalry and give them a good thrashing.

Enter Mr. Broadbrim.

Mr. B. General, Satanta, Lone Wolf, and Kickingbird are at the agency, for the purpose of drawing their rations, and I think it will be well to make them a proposition to bring

SUBJUGATING

in that woman and her two children they hold as captives ; also, to bring in those mules. What dost thee think about it ?

General. All the proposition you want to make to them is, that they will get no more rations for themselves nor their tribes, and they may look for a fight at any time, if they refuse to surrender that woman and her children, and drive back those mules they stole. Tell them you will withhold their rations until they comply with your demands. You never want to propose to the Indians; you must always make a formal demand, and then make them comply. That is the easiest and the quickest way to settle matters with them.

Mr. B. Dost thee think, General, I had better have the leading chiefs come in and talk with thee ? Dost thee think thee can have a better impression upon their untutored minds ?

General. We don't want to simply make an impression, we must make them comply with every demand that we may be pleased to make upon them. That policy rigidly enforced will soon settle the Indian troubles. They never will want whipping but once, you may depend.

Mr. B. All right. I will go and invite the chiefs here, to confer with thee. [Exit

General. Now we shall have a renewal of the farce. But I, for one, am resolved upon stern measures to force complete compliance on the part of the Indians with our demands.

CHAPTEE III

General Van Couvnor's Headquarters – Conference with leading

Warriors – The Denouement

Agent Broadbrim, the conscientious devotee of peace measures, was so far successful in his mission of good will toward the recreant savages as to induce three influential chiefs, Ten Bears, White Bear and Dogtail, to return with him and hold a conference at the military headquarters with the commandant of the post. As usual, the old chiefs place the blame upon the young warriors, whom they claim they cannot control, and deny all responsibility in an affair that they regret only in so far as it may imperil the certainty of their rations. The matter ends with a display of force on the part of the military, and the subsequent ransom of the unhappy captives, who are restored unharmed to their friends. The conference is opened in the usual way by the agents, the interpreter being present to explain to each party the (to them) unknown language of the other.

Mr. B. General, I have prevailed upon these three chiefs to come and have a talk with thee in regard to those captives and stolen mules.

Ten Bears. We did not know our young men were going to steal mules.

White Bear. I was at the big talkee on the Washita. I didn't know our young men were going out. They have Acted very bad, and we big chiefs don't like it.

General. Well, Dogtail, what can you say for yourself? Can you explain how it is that your young men go out and murder and steal mules and horses ?

Dogtail. We can't always keep our young men at home. Sometimes they act bad and we can't help it. The white men kill our buffalo and antelope, and then our warriors go off and act bad, and we can't help it.

General. Will you bring in that woman and her two children all safe in ten days ?

Dogtail. May-be-so. If you make our hearts good I think ure can. Our hearts must be made good.

Mr. B. I think we can make your hearts good if you will bring them in without any trouble.

General. If you will make your men bring in that woman and her two children and those stolen mules and horses within ten days I will keep my cavalry away from your tribes. If they are not here in ten days I will make a fight for them. Now do you understand what I say ?

Dogtail. I think we can get them. You must make our hearts glad when we do. May-be-so-a-heap-good. Heap-good-big-white-chief.

General. I tell you, Mr. Broadbrim, they are a hard set. There is one thing that ought to be done. The proper authorities should restrain the pleasure-hunters from killing the buffalo for mere sport. Whenever we have trouble with any of the tribes they invariably bring up that excuse. Some action ought to be taken, and I think it comes within the compass of your office.

Mr. B. I hope we will be able to manage them without any trouble. As the last resort, General, I will have to send for thee and thy cavalry. It may produce a good effect.

General. We have but one policy to pursue, and that is to stand firm. I think by stopping their rations we will gain our point. However, if you want my troops to help at any time, let me know. I am at your service with my whole command.

Mr. B. Thanks, General. If I need your services I will send a courier. Good day. [Exit Mr. B. and Indians. An hour later a Courier arrives.

Courier. Here is a request from Mr. Broadbrim. He wants you to send troops at once.

General. Just as I expected. He says he wants troops to protect the public property. Yes, I see. Orderly, call Captain Beardslee. Adjutant, make an order to Captain Beardslee to report with his troop to Mr. Broadbrim at the Indian Agency. He is not to use force of arms only to protect the lives of persons and property.

Enter Captain Beardslee.

Captain, move your troop quietly over to the agency, and use your best judgment in rendering the agent such protec-

tion as he may require. The object of this move is to secure a surrender of that woman and her two children.

Capt B. Very well, General; good day. [Exit.

General. I anticipate some trouble before we get hold of those captives. Now, if neighbor Broadbrim will only stand firm, and not weaken himself into a ransom, we will recover that woman and her children. It is a good plan to send Beardslee there with his troop.

Enter the General's Wife.

Wife. I noticed a troop of cavalry moving out towards the Indian camp. Is there anything the matter with the warriors ?

General. No, there is no outbreak. We are trying to recover that Texas woman and her children. They have them over at the agency, and neighbor Broadbrim expressed some fears in regard to the safety of property, and I ordered out a troop of cavalry.

Wife [laughingly]. Why in the world don't you go over yourself ? Why do you leave neighbor Broadbrim to take hold of such an important matter ? You know how ugly those wild fellows are when they are about to surrender anything they have once captured. Come, go along over, and I will go with you. I want to seo those poor captives.

General. I have no objections to going over; but I was rather inclined to think that neighbor Broadbrim would prefer to make his own arrangements concerning the captives.

Wife. Well, you can go over with me. .1 want to see if that woman and her children are in want of anything to make them comfortable. The ladies in the garrison are prepared to assist in making clothing, and to help take care of them.

[The General and his Wife repair to the Indian Agency Buildings, and witness the close of the f(Mowing conference between Agent Broadbrim and the chiefs – the conversation, as usual, being carried on through the interpreter.']

Mr. B. [to Indians.] Be seated, and let us hear what thee has to say. Are thee well ? Dost thee feel tired ?

3 Chiefs [each one gives a grunt, and says,] How, how ?

Mr. B. Well, what has thee to say about those captives and mules ?

Dog Tail. Well, Mr. Calico Chief, we have got your Texas squaw and her papooses for you. Now what are you going to do to make our hearts glad ?

Mr. B. Thee can deliver the captives to Captain Beards-lee, who will take good care of them, and I will issue thee thy rations.

Dog Tail. We want money, blankets, and calico; our hearts will then be-a-heap-good.

Mr. B. I have no money for you, and I must have the woman and children. How about the mules you promised to •bring in?

Dog Tail We have got most all the mules. Our young men sold only a few of them. We want twelve hundred dollars for Texas squaw and her papooses, and the mules. May-be-so-thirty-may-be-so-forty-mules. Braves sold some.

Mr. B. I want that woman and her two children at once. Captain Beardslee will proceed to surround your tribe, unless thee comply with my request instanter. Subito, in-stanter.

Dog Tail. I want to have a-heap-big-talkee with the other big chief, and will come in men-yan-na and let you know.

Mr. B. Captain Beardslee, will thee please take such steps as will secure possession of those captives at once ? I shall not trifle any longer.

Capt B. Orderly, sound the bugle for the troop to dismount and get in* position.

[Bugler sounds the call Indians and squaws run to rear of Agent's office. Troop files in, Captain Beabdslee at the head, with drawn sabre. Indians string their bows in great exciter merit. Dog Tail manifests great anger. Bloodshed seems imminent.

Mr. B. Now I demand those captives at once.

Capt. B. We will not dilly-dally one moment. Give us the captives at once, or I will take every one of you to the guard-house. Every one of you unstring your bows, and keep your arrows in the quivers.

[The General enters, with Ms Wife on his arm. His presence 9 in a measure, quiets the disturbance. The captives are brought

forward, and received kindly by the General's Wife, who leads them away. Indians grunt and unstring their bows. Dog Tail shakes hands heartily with the General.]

Dog Tail. Big white chief heap good. Heap-a-good-chuck-Calico-chief-no-good, no-good. Heap-bad-medicine.

Mr. B. Now I want the mules your young men run off the other night.

Dog Tail. May-be-so-me-yan-na-me-bring-a-heap-o'-mules. Young men got 'em on the grass. May-be-so-one-day-may-be-so-two-days-me-come, heap-o'-mides.

Mr. B. Captain Beardslee will hold six of thy men until thee make thy young men bring in the mules.

Dog Tail. We want six hundred dollars in money, and then we will bring in the mules. We have made your hearts glad with the white squaw and papooses, and now you must make our hearts glad with money We will bring the mules to-morrow, sure, and all the time be good Indians, if you will give us six hundred dollars. I don't want it all myself. Squaws and papooses get it to swap for blankets, calico, sugar, and coffee.

Mr. B. What say thee, General, in regard to this demand from Dog Tail ? Will thee be satisfied ?

General I have no objections to giving them something for their services in helping us to get our mules back. I think it will be well enough to give it to them when they return the mules. I am of the same opinion now that I have always entertained-it is a very bad policy to pursue. It only helps to perpetuate the ransom-traffic between ourselves and the wild tribes.

Mr. B. Well, Dog Tail, you have been a very good Indian to-day, and I will give each of you three chiefs two hundred dollars if you will bring in those mules. I have no money, but will give you orders on the trader, and he will let you have what you want. Now you must bring the mules in ten days.

Dog Tail. Oh, yes; me have my young men bring in heap-o'-mules. Me-give-'em-to-big-white-chief. Heap-good-mules-and-heap-o'-good-big-white-chief. Good-bye, good-bye.

[Shakes hands all around.

SECTION II.

OTJSTEE'S LAST BATTLE AGAINST

SITTING BULL.

CHAPTER I

The Record jrom 1868.

With the incidents of the memorable Indian fight of June 25th, 1876, between Lieut.-Colonel G. A. Custer, with five companies of the 7th Cavalry, and Sitting Bull, the invincible chief of the lawless hordes of hostile Indians who infest the north-west plains, the world is already familiar. Scarcely yet can the American people contemplate with calmness the wholesale butchery of a brave officer of the cavalry service, together with nearly three hundred men of his command. The gallant struggle of the doomed battalion, enclosed in that living cordon of wild and yelling savages, from which none escaped to tell the story of their fate, is without parallel in the history of the western world.

The tale of their dashing onset, their reckless charge into overwhelming numbers of merciless foes, their glorious stand when hope was gone, their valorous defense, and death, sublimely courted in the charge and on the skirmish line, has been told and re-told. Never, while the world stands, will be forgotten the tragic fate of the chivalrous three hundred, who fell with their gallant leader on that bloody field of unequal strife. History has recorded imperishably the grandeur of their final charge. Their dauntless death is celebrated in song and story. Their names are household words in every home, and their memory is embalmed forever in the grateful admiration of their countrymen.

major-general george a. custer.

But of the minor events that form the links in the lengthened chain of circumstances that led to the final result, and brought about the bloody catastrophe, little is known to the general public. To present these minor facts in concise form is the object of these pages. To that end we shall state succinctly : First. The operating causes that led to the war with the Sioux and their allies, and which culminated in the sending out by the Government of the expedition of 1876; and secondly, the occurrences by which Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Custer incurred the bitter enmity of the Indian warrior Rain-in-the-Face-who slew him on his final battle-field -and which led to the outpouring of ostensibly peaceful bands of Agency Indians, to join the hostiles in their march to intercept the white warriors.

It is a fact not to be gainsaid that open hostilities on the part of the Sioux were provoked by the violation, on the part of the Government, of the treaty of 1868, by the stipulations of which the territory of the Black Hills and adjacent region were declared an inviolable part of the Indian reservation, sacred to their use, and not to be trespassed upon by white men. Forts Reno and Kearney were abandoned, and the whole country given up to Sitting Bull, the leader of the scattered but powerful bands of hostiles who infested the western plains.

Three years later (in 1871) it was adjudged expedient by the Government to break the provisions of the treaty of 1868. The officials of the Northern Pacific Railroad, then in process of construction across the continent, in the spring of 1871, applied to the Government authorities at Washington for military protection and escort for a surveying party to be sent out during the summer of that year to explore and mark out the unsurveyed portion of the projected road-a line extending westward from the Missouri River in Dakota to the interior of Montana, west of the Yellowstone River. Authority was duly granted : the rights of the Indians being deemed of minor importance in the grand scheme of opening up the vast and fertile fields of the new north-west to railroad enterprise, with its attendant train of settlers.

The expedition, conducted by engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and escorted by United States troops, left

Fort Rice in June, 1871, and completed its mission in safety -no Indians molesting them, or interfering in any way with their progress.

Again, on July 25th, 1872, a similar expedition left Fort Rice, and returned in October, 1872, having successfully accomplished the exploration and survey of a route through Yellowstone Valley, reaching to the river of that name, and to the mouth of Powder River.

This party encountered many hostile Indians, and their return march is described as a series of skirmishes.

When near Fort Rice, on their return, Lieutenant Adair, of the 22d Infantry, and Lieutenant Crosby, of the 17th Infantry, were killed-the latter being shot, scalped, and otherwise mutilated-by an Indian called " the Gaul," a notorious criminal and consumer of Cheyenne Agency rations. This murderer has since surrendered himself to the military authorities, and is now a pensioner, as before, upon the bounty of the Government.

In July, 1873, a third expedition left Fort Rice on a similar mission-the engineers and surveyors of the N. P. R. R., under the direction of General Rosser, the troops, comprising the escort, under command of General Stanley, and accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Custer with the 7 th Cavalry Regiment. The force consisted of about 1,700 men- cavalry, infantry, a battery of artillery, and a detachment of Indian scouts.

This party encountered hostile Indians near the Yellowstone, and on August 4th, several companies of the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, had a sharp engagement with a body of Sioux, under Sitting Bull, resulting in the loss of one soldier, surprised at a spring, the wounding of Lieutenant Bra-den, and the murder of Dr. Houtzinger, veterinary surgeon, and Mr. Baliran, sutler of the 7th Cavalry-they being unarmed, detached from the main body, and unsuspicious of danger.

The expedition returned to Fort Rice during the latter part of September-the engineers having fully completed their explorations, and mapped out in detail the future course of the road.

As may well be imagined, these frequent invasions of their territory by armed troops, awakened the most bitter resentment in the breasts of the hostile Indians, and when, in 1874, in obedience to the demands of the press, that the territory of the Black Hills should be explored and opened to settlement, it was decided by the Government to send an exploring expedition of armed troops into that hitherto unknown stronghold of the savages, the seal was set upon the crowning act of its long series of annually-broken faith.

It had long been matter of popular belief in the northwest that gold existed in the Black Hills, and when, at last, the truth of these hitherto vague reports was established to a Certainty in many adventurous minds, the excitement became contagious, and parties of miners began to organize for the invasion of the Hills. Then it was determined by the Government to send a strong column of troops to thoroughly explore the Black Hills, and ascertain, through official research, the truth or falsity of these golden rumors.

Accordingly, July 1st, 1874, a force under Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, comprising cavalry, infantry, four Gatling guns, and sixty Indian scouts-1,200 strong-and accompanied by a huge wagon-train of provisions and baggage, left Fort Lincoln and took up the line of march for the Black Hills. The party proceeded without molestation by Indians, although many hostiles were seen along the route. The discoveries of this expedition were such as to satisfy the most skeptical in regard to the mineral and agricultural wealth of the Black Hills region. Miners and other resolute pioneers began to pour into the country.

The scientists, however, were not yet satisfied, and to quiet the learned disputes of the self-constituted geologists of the period, a second expedition, under direction of Professor Jenney, with military escort commanded by Colonel Dodge, 9th Infantry, was sent from Fort Laramie the following year -1875.

Their report, corroborative of the report of the expedition of the preceding year, was not required to convince the hardy western pioneers of the desirability of the Hills a› amp; a place of residence. They required no encouragement in the shape of Government explorations, to brave the dangers of the trip, and to press in and occupy the land.

Then it was that the Government awoke to a realization of the consequences likely to flow from its frequent violation of treaty obligations. A general war between the settlers and the Indians seemed imminent, if, indeed, an indiscriminate massacre of the former did not ensue. Every trail leading to the Black Hills was marked with bloodshed, and safety was found only in the interior of the Hills, where the superstition of the Indians did not allow them to penetrate. Then, too late, began the efforts of the Government to repair the wrong. An order was issued, warning the settlers to leave the Hills. Several times during the summer of 1875, the troops under General Crook were sent into the Hills to maintain the faith of the Government by removing the settlers from the territory. They were conveyed out of the country by military escort, imprisoned in military posts as breakers of the law, their property destroyed, and themselves finally turned over to civil authority, to be punished for disobedience of the orders of the Federal Government. But all to no avail. Popular sympathy in the west was with them. Soon as released they invariably returned to the disputed territory, only to be again removed, and to again return. In August, 1875, there were six hundred men in one locality, called " Custer City," and many others in different localities. When removed by military authority, these speedily returned, and the efforts of the Government to repair its broken faith, by removing and keeping out white settlers, were as futile as the military invasions of the country, under its sanction and direction, had been successful.

So much for the causes that led to the breaking out of the war on the part of the Sioux.

We are now to consider the relations of the chief actor in the tragedy in which it closed-George A. Custer, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 7th Cavalry-with a leader of the hostiles, who fired the shot that terminated his life, in the battle of the Little Big Horn, and thus gratified the vengeance for which he and his followers had long waited in the mountain fastnesses of Sitting Bull's domain. Some of the incidents we are about to relate may seem trivial and unimportant, but they were all links in the chain of destiny that was drawing the "long-haired chieftain" irresistibly toward his tragic fate.

One bright morning in the spring of 1875 the peaceful citizens of a quiet little town on the Missouri Eiver, in Dakota Territory, were immeasurably astonished to witness a company of the 7th Cavalry, ucder command of Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Custer, come riding up their streets, fully armed and equipped as if for instant action. Nor was their surprise lessened when it became known that the object of the warlike display was nothing more nor less than * the capture of sundry bags of grain that had been stolen from the Government warehouses at Fort Lincoln by the soldiers and citizen thieves, and sold to sundry citizens of the town. After the capture of the bags of grain was successfully effected, and loaded on army wagons, and, taking with them several persons who had been concerned in the illegal transfer of Government property, the train returned in good order to Fort Lincoln.

CHAPTEE II.

The Grain Thieves and Bain-in-the-Face. – The Unrelenting

Warrior.

To make the record more complete in regard to army matters, and more especially in relation to the troubles and torments too often inflicted upon officers of high rank in the regular army, the writer will here introduce circumstances with relation to certain current events as they transpired, in order to more clearly and pointedly illustrate to the reader how General Custer, while in command at different stations, as well as other officers of high rank in the regular army at the present day, whose moral training having been good, and always with an eye to good discipline and the morale of their respective commands, also army society and communities

in civil life are compelled not only to accept the presence, but to a certain extent, the services of unprincipled and profligate scapegoats, who, by accident, hold their positions either by commission or special appointment, not only to the horrid disgust, but to the actual disgrace and discredit of our worthy professional army officers and their families, as well as to all civilized and well-regulated communities who are at times compelled to accept the services of, whenever enforced upon them, a certain immoral and wretched class of imported floating spawn, that hold positions by accident.

General Custer, in his well-meant efforts to preserve the morale of the rank and file of his command, and to enforce good order and discipline throughout the garrison at which he was stationed, did not escape the annoyances, or avoid the obstacles usually encountered by United States army officers of high rank in similar measures of reform.

Not the least difficulty in the way of success in such efforts, is found in the character, or rather the lack of character, of many of their subordinate officers; and this is due to the appointments from civil life, made after the close of the war, by congressmen of a certain class, who, for a time, regarded the army as an asylum for their poor relatives and distressed constituents, many of whom were wholly unfit for their positions, both on account of utter incompetency and intemperate habits. This class of appointments having been forced upon the army by unprincipled politicians, tended greatly to reduce the morale of the army and to lower the standard of social life in army circles, and rendered also much more difficult the task of commanding officers in enforcing discipline and orderly behavior in their respective commands.

General Custer was not exempt from these annoyances, but frequently found his plans for enforcing army regulations seriously interfered with by the inconsiderate and unauthorized action of his subordinates.

On one occasion, General Custer had occasion to detail a Lieutenant from his command on special secret service for the Government.

A gang of grain and horse thieves infested the garrison, whom it was important to shadow at their base of operations in a neighboring village.

The officer assumed the rde of detective, took up his station in the village, under positive orders from General Custer " to let no guilty man escape," which order, unlike that of President Grant's in the whisky ring cases, was given in all sincerity, and with the expectation that it would be carried out to the letter.

But instead of conducting himself as an officer and gentleman, and thereby justifying the confidence reposed in him by his superior officer, his special attentions were reserved for a damsel of African extraction and chocolate complexion, who had long been a sort of silent partner in his household joys and sorrows, and who had added to his responsibilities and contributed an infinitesimal unit to the roll of the census-taker oi the village aforesaid at the same time.

His regular associates were the miscreants and low flung gamblers of the town, and his most frequent haunts the dens and dives where their evil games flourished unmolested.

Of the gang of thieves who were detected with stolen grain in their possession, but very few were brought to trial, and fewer still were punished. One or two of minor influence were selected as victims, and their conviction was procured in the courts. The other and more prominent leaders of the gang were permitted to go unpunished, and the officer afterwards openly and boldly boasted of the favoritism shown certain guilty but influential parties, who, through his connivance, were permitted to escape the punishment that was their due.

This profligate officer, who thus proved faithless to the trust imposed on him, to gratify his own personal designs and illegitimate purposes, when leaving the country left behind him another sprig of his paternity, in the shape of a curbstone-shyster, whether to take charge of the bastard responsibility aforesaid, or to render aid and encouragement to the gang of outcasts, thugs and petty imported government thieves who still hold sway on the frontier (and who are his constant associates) does not appear.

The reader, doubtless, already knows too well that our social circles, both in the army and civil life, are drifted over with this class of profligates, and the writer has simply called up this matter to show how military circles have been imposed upon by the appointment of such unprincipled men, who, in all probability, could not make a respectable living outside the army, but who have obtained commissions through.transitory political influence, and are thrown in to fill vacancies caused by the death or resignation of worthier men.

It is, however, proper to state that this evil has of late been counteracted greatly by the action of the better class of officers, many of whom have gone to work earnestly to weed out from the service, wherever practicable, these unprincipled vagabonds, who disgrace the uniform they wear, and who have sought a commission in the army, only to find there an asylum for life.

The entire blame, as already said, for this unwarranted state of affairs in the United States army, lies at the doors of unscrupulous members of Congress, who recommend for appointments in the army the worthless and degraded loafers of their respective districts, as a reward for political service.

If the better class of officers continue to apply the remedy at their hands, and administer the medicine freely, the result will add greatly to their personal credit, and be highly conducive to a more wholesome discipline, and increased respectability, and better morale of the army. The only suggestion the writer has to make is, " Let the good work go on- keep tveeding out"

In returning to the grain thieves we will briefly state: Of the citizens arrested in this way and confined in the post guard-house at Fort Lincoln, were two men who, not pleased with the military attentions paid them, resolved no longer to trespass on the willing hospitality of the 7th Cavalry, and one night, with the connivance of the soldiers implicated with them, a hole was cut in the outside wall of the guardhouse ; thus they obtained their liberty, and afterward, outside the limits of the reservation, defied arrest.

The escape of these parties was of small moment in itself -but, at the same time and through the same aperture, there escaped an inmate of the guard-house-an Indian held

prisoner by Custer-who, afterward, in the valley of the Little Big Horn* killed his distinguished jailer, and who, now going directly from the Lincoln guard-house to the hostile camp, devoted his time thereafter to persuading peaceful bands of Agency Indians to join them, and to perfecting htg plans of future vengeance. This was Bain-in-the-Face, the most treacherous and bloody-minded of the Unc-papa hostiles, yet who so far had disguised his hatred to the white men, as to be duly enrolled upon the books of the Agent (at Standing Bock) as a good Indian, and as such was entitled to a share in the regular issues of provisions, blankets and ammunition. But, like the majority of these peaceful warriors, Bain-in-the-Face was a good Indian only during the winter season, and pending the spring issuance of rations and clothing. Thereafter he was wont to depart on the warpath with parties of the able-bodied warriors of the tribe, leaving their women and children under the protecting care of the Agency until the waning of the summer, when cold weather and the approach of another ration period would draw them back to the Agency. Here, at the rejoicings consequent upon the issuance of rations, it was their wont to boast of their bloody deeds, and exhibit the scalps and trophies torn from the helpless victims they had slaughtered with the repeating rifles obligingly furnished them by the United States Government.

This is literal truth. Bain-in-the-Face, an Indian of the Uncpapa tribe, and an attache of Standing Bock Agency- hence, presumably at peace with the white men-had assisted at the killing of Dr. Houtzinger and Mr. Baliran, the civilians murdered on the march with the expedition of 1873, already referred to in these pages.

In the winter of 1875 the Standing Bock Agency Indians were holding their usual dance on an occasion of drawing their stated rations. Among them, as usual, was Bain-in-the-Face, with his fellow-murderers, all pensioners upon the bounty of a weakly, magnanimous Government.

In the course of their pantomimic dance there was told, in the plainest of Indian sign language, the bloody tale of the murder of two unarmed white men in the valley of the Yel-

lowstone. Exultingly in the gyrations of his war-dance the Indian boasted of his prowess, and, in proof thereof, exhibited articles that he had taken from the lifeless body of Dr. Houtzinger. In the little crowd of white spectators near at hand-agency employes, hangers-on of the military post, etc.-stood Charles Reynolds, a scout attached to the 7th Cavalry, well and favorably known on the frontier as " Lonesome Charley," a brave-hearted, dauntless, quiet man, and who afterward was killed in Reno's rout at the Little Big Horn battle. Returning to his post at Fort Lincoln, Reynolds reported to Custer what he had seen and heard. A detachment of one hundred men and four officers were at once dispatched from Lincoln to Standing Rock Agency, seventy miles distant, to arrest the murderer. Arrived at the Agency, they found the Indians engaged in their usual occupation of drawing rations-it being the day for the issuance of beef. Hundreds of fully-armed warriors, mingled with the non-combatants of the tribe, were greedily awaiting their share of the bountiful supply of food which a mistaken Government deems essential to prolong the precious lives of its privileged assassins and incendiaries, yet whom, as we have already seen, it does not itself disdain to rob of their unceded lands, when measures of public policy dictate the violation of its treaty stipulations.

Notwithstanding great excitement on the part of the assembled braves, the arrest was effected in safety, and Rain-in-the-Face was conveyed, under escort of Captain T. W. Custer – brother of Lieutenant-Colonel Custer – to Fort Lincoln. Here he fully confessed his crime, and remained a prisoner in the guard-house at Lincoln until the incarceration of the suspected grain thieves and their escape gave him his liberty.

Rain-in-the-Face went directly to the hostile camp, and attaching himself to the band of Sitting Bull, was joined by his followers, and sent frequent messages by the Agency Indians-who paid them frequent visits of friendship and business-that he was ardently awaiting an opportunity to be revenged on Lieutenant-Colonel Custer and Captain Custer, for his imprisonment.

In the spring of 1876 it was determined by the Government to attempt the subjugation of Sitting Bull and the lawless tribes under him, who had refused to accede to the provisions of the treaty of 1868, and had since led a wandering life. Their numbers augmented each spring by frequent accessions*of warriors, and supplies of war irom the Missouri River Agencies. From their stronghold at the headwaters of the Yellowstone, war parties were continually sent out to annoy the white settlements.

Their camp formed a convenient retreat for disaffected Agency Indians. Criminals and unruly spirits, supported by the Government through the winter, were ready in the summer to join the hostiles, conveying to them arms, ammunition, ponies and supplies. Thus the problem of dealing with the professedly peaceful Indians was greatly complicated.

The only way to end the constantly-recurring troubles, and prevent a general uprising of the whole body of Indians -many of them already on the war-path, resentful at the violation of the treaty of 1868-was to strike a decisive blow directly at the headquarters of the savage tribes, and by breaking up their rendezvous in the Yellowstone region, compel them to return and surrender at the various Agencies on the Missouri River.

With this object in view, the expedition of 1876 was planned. It was arranged that three expeditions should start simultaneously for the headwaters of the Yellowstone-one from the north, one from the south, and one from the east- the three to join forces and co-operate in the region constituting the objective point of their converging marches.

The column from the south, under General Crook, started from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory, May 29th, 1876, and marched due north for the Powder River country. It was composed of 1,300 men, and arrived at old Fort Reno June 3d. It succeeded in reaching the indicated ground, viz., the valley of the Yellowstone, drained by its tributaries, the Big Horn, Rosebud, Tongue and Powder Rivers, together with their branches, and at one time was within one hundred miles of the northern column; but the Indians were between them, and after several heavy skirmishes, in which the troops were defeated, it fell back to the head of Tongue Biver, and from there returned ingloriously to its starting place.

The force from the north, under Colonel Gibbon, left Fort Ellis, Montana, with a strength of four hundred men, and wagon train, marched due east, and joined the force from the east under General Terry, June 1st.

The departure of the column from the east, which, in the original plan of the campaign, was to have been led by Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, had been delayed, in consequence of Custer having been called to Washington to give evidence before the Congressional Committee then engaged in investigating charges against Secretary of War Belknap. Like all army officers stationed on the frontier, Custer was conversant with the terrible corruption of the Interior Department, displayed in the management of the Indian Agencies and trading posts. As an honest man, he did what many others, better informed than himself, but more devoted to self-interest, had not dared to do-spoke aloud his convictions. Custer's testimony-and the fact that he had presumed to hold opinions on the subject-was distasteful to Belknap's friend, U. S. Grant, President of the United States, and brother of Orville Grant, a post-trader of precious memory on the Missouri Biver.

CHAPTER III

Origin of the Breach between Belknap and Custer.

Inasmuch as there are but very few people in the country, even among those holding official positions in the army, and in military circles outside, comprehend f lly the causes that led the Belknap tradership business to such a sudden " burst of the bubble," the author thinks it proper, in connection with the foregoing history, to state here fully the facts as they came under his observation at the time of their occurrence. Several m amp;nths before the high court of impeachment was ordered to investigate the tradership business

of Secretary of War Belknap, there was, in one of the regiments belonging to the United States Army, a young officer who was placed under arrest in consequence of charges preferred against him. He was tried by court-martial, and by a preponderance of evidence against him, and an unfortunate combination of circumstances, was found guilty and sentenced to dismissal from the service of the United States. It was, however, generally considered among those conversant with the affair, that the charges originally preferred against him were frivolous, and were created and brought against him more from personal malice than from any zeal for the service on the part of his accusers. Through the regular military channels, the findings and sentence of the court-martial reached Secretary Belknap for his approval or disapproval. It was thought in army circles that the Secretary should have shown some leniency, and been governed by the precedents on record at the War Office in similar cases, at the time. A commutation of the sentence to suspension from rank and half pay for six or twelve months was confidently expected by the friends of the aforesaid delinquent officer, and would have been considered a reasonable punishment for the offense charged. Contrary to popular expectation, the sentence of the court was promptly confirmed by the Secretary of War, and the young officer left the service of the United States army in disgrace, but only to return in due time. He, however, immediately set himself to work to procure his reinstatement by a special act of Congress ; but the approval of the findings and sentence of the court-martial by Secretary Belknap, of course, made a very strong case against him. In the meantime, the young officer, who, while in the service, had excellent opportunities to observe the manner in which the tradership traffic was carried on under the Belknap rule, set himself to work collecting facts and evidence concerning the same, and by means of these, prevailed upon his friends in Congress to bring the matter before the proper committee. This was done, and the result was a high court of impeachment. The Secretary of War was arraigned at the bar of the U. S. Senate to answer the grave charges preferred against him, and only escaped the righteous verdict of an indignant nation by a hasty resignation, and as hasty an acceptance of the same by President Grant, of his high office. We may add in this connection, that the young officer who first set in motion the much needed investigation, was afterward reinstated to his place in the army, and assumed his former rank in the service.

Another matter upon which the people of the country, even those of high standing, both in civil and military life, are not enlightened, is the causes' that led to the ill-feeling existing between Grant and Belknap on the one side against General G. A. Custer on the other. It was previously a matter of record, and known all over the country, that Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were not only intimate friends and admirers of General Custer, but that they placed unlimited confidence in his fighting abilities and military skill.

Indeed, Custer was acknowledged to be the best Tndi^Ti fighter on the plains, by both Generals Sherman and Sheridan ; and on the 13th of August, 1869, at Fort Hays, Kansas, Brevet-Major-General S. D. Sturgis, Colonel 7th U. S. Cavalry, says, in an official communication to headquarters: " There is, perhaps, no other officer of equal rank on this line, who has worked more faithfully against the Indians, or who has acquired the same degree of knowledge of the country and of the Indian character."

Department commanders also paid high tribute to him as an Indian fighter and an officer of indomitable energy and skill in general military matters; while General Sheridan remarked at one time in the field, while Custer was, with a portion of his regiment, engaged with a band of wild warriors of the plains : " When I want anything done up quick, I can send Custer to do it, and can almost invariably rely upon the result." Such a remark from the Lieut.-General of the Army shows that the utmost confidence was placed in Custer, aside from the fact that he was frequently placed in command of the most important expeditions against the hostile Indians.

Now, in the name of a just Heaven, the author begs leave to ask of the highest military tribunal in the land, what had General George A. Custer done during the interval between the above date and the time of his fitting out his last expedition for that fatal march to the valley of the Little Big Horn, to warrant the harsh and humiliating treatment then bestowed upon him by President Grant and Secretary of War Belknap? The voice of the country speaks to-day, and says that Custer, the true soldier and gentleman, had forfeited not one iota of his well-earned fame or knightly standing; while Secretary Belknap, whose high position had already been degraded by the illegal sale of traderships, was still further prostituting his honorable office to gratify a personal ill-feeling against a gallant officer, who was the beau ideal of a soldier, the pride of the American cavalry. The author proposes to here explain briefly the occurrences that transpired to mar the friendly relations heretofore existing between Grant and Belknap on one side, and Custer on the other. During the year 1870, in the latter part of June, and at the closing of Congress, a certain law concerning post traders was very ingeniously framed, and embodied in what was known as the Military Bill, then pending before Congress, the substance of which is about as follows : " And the Secretary of War shall have power to appoint one or more traders at the military posts on the frontier, for the accommodation of freighters and emigrants." The reader will readily observe the ingenuity displayed in framing the above clause, and when the bill was printed and placed before the unsuspecting and unsophisticated members of Congress, most of whom had never been west of the one hundredth longitudinal line, its deep design escaped detection. The Congressmen felt, doubtless, that they were allying themselves to a liberal act, and making special provision for the wants of the freighters and emigrants, who are, after the army, the real pioneers of the far West. Little did these unsophisticated Congressmen think that in passing this seemingly beneficial act, they were making the Secretary of War the supreme judge and ruler over every post trader in the western country, and that he would with one stroke of the pen, in one sweeping order, turn them all adrift, regardless of their fitness or unfitness for the position, or the fact that they held their positions by the recommendation and with the consent of the Post Council and Post Commandant of the military stations where they were located. Under former regulations, as now, post traders were appointed by a council of the officers of the post, with the approval of the Post Commandant; Belknap made all subsequent appointments to suit himself, regardless of the wishes of'the officers on duty at the post where the trader was to be located.

This unprecedented way of making appointments by one of the highest officials of the nation, was not confined in its discourtesy to the officers of the military posts in the West, but extended to Generals Sherman and Sheridan, and the department commanders as 'welL When an appointment was given to a post trader under the new regime, it was not, as before, forwarded through the regular military channels, but was sent at once direct to the commanding officer of the post where the trader was to locate, ignoring thereby the General and Lieutenant-General of the army, as well as the department commanders. Such open, bold, and highhanded discourtesy shown toward the general officer^ of the army, whose careerwas recorded as good in the minds of the American people, and who were known to be eminently conscientious and successful in the management of army matters under their control, and whose honor and fidelity to duty could not be questioned, of course had a demoralizing effect, and naturally caused a feeling of great distrust throughout the army toward this high official of the nation-Secretary Belknap. Even the rank and file of the army shared the feeling of discontent.

The private soldiers, when in their own club-room, known as " the soldiers' club-room," would at times say : " Well, boys, let's drink to ' old Bel;' he is not only Secretary of War, and the Supreme Boss over all of us, but the old coon is running the sutler stores too !"

At one of the posts, where Custer was placed in command, on the frontier, the post trader was one of the Belknap appointees, and after some months had passed, Custer, who was a very close-observing officer, and knew no other way than to do his duty faithfully, reported to the Secretary of War

that the trader in question was a man of intemperate and profligate habits, which fact had a demoralizing tendency among the young officers and private soldiers of the garrison.

The Secretary could not overlook nor pigeon-hole a communication of this nature and importance. The one thing he could not avoid doing to preserve outwardly the dignity and honor of his office, and that was to remove the trader. Custer had himself a record and influence that the War Office could not ignore, and with Custer's letter of information on record, the efforts of the venerable Simon Cameron, and the most influential men in Congress, were powerless to save the profligate trader whom he had denounced. He was removed and another trader was appointed to the post.

Custer had no preference in the matter of the post trader-ships, knowing he was likely to be ordered from one military post to another at any time ; but for the sake of the younger officers of the regiment, one of them his own brother, he desired that the example and opportunities of intemperance should not be furnished them in the store of the post trader.

Again months rolled on. Custer was engaged in making a private investigation in regard to some grain stolen from the Government warehouses. Before the end of his investigations was reached, a portion of the stolen grain was discovered in the warehouse of the post trader. Suffice this matter to rest here, by saying that Custer ordered the unfortunate trader off the reservation, on pain of arrest, which order was, of course, obeyed ; the trader leaving his partner to settle the business, and he never returned to that reservation while Custer was in command. Here it was that Custer showed a degree of leniency and warm-heartedness of which few people are aware ; and yet these were his characteristic qualities. He could have pursued the trader with criminal proceedings, had he so chosen. But he preferred to leave that duty to others, knowing that he had done his in ordering the trader off the military reservation, and feeling that humane considerations were not beneath the thoughts of any man, however great or powerful.

The reader will now readily perceive that in both cases against the traders, Custer had simply done his duty as an officer and a soldier, as his obligations to the service demanded that he should do. No other course, in honor, was open to him ; his duty unquestionably requiring him to perform it fearlessly, no matter what trouble or disappointment it might entail upon Secretary Belknap, who, in an unprecedented manner, had taken the tradership appointments in his own hands, and who was not the man to brook with equanimity the enforced displacement of two of his favorite post traders. Ten companies of troops usually wintered at this post, and the profits arising from the tradership business were not less than $15,000 or $20,000 per year. Hence arose the breach between the avaricious Belknap and the gallant* close-observing Custer, and it soon grew into a wide one. Custer was called to Washington by a Congressional Committee to testify in regard to the post tradership business. He exhausted all honorable means to avoid the summons of the Committee, but was compelled to obey their mandate. Custer's testimony, or rather the fact that he was called upon by the Committee, as probably conversant with the sales of post traderships, excited the ire of Belknap, and here it was that President Grant arrayed himself by the side' of Belknap against Custer. Belknap was a warm personal friend of the President's, and of his brother, Orville Grant, who will long live in the history of the Missouri River country as a successful speculator in the sale of frontier post traderships. Belknap was, moreover, a member of his cabinet, and Grant must needs sustain him-even had the family reputation not been involved through the speculative Orville.

The Belknap impeachment trial, although the criminal escaped deserved punishment by a precipitate resignation of his office, has no doubt had a great moral effect upon the different departments of the Government. Belknap now stands before the American people-not one of the leading officials of the country-not the honorable and dignified. Secretary of War he once appeared to be-but in the eyes of those who watched his career, he stands a disgraced man„

with " none so poor to do him reverence." He has lost not simply office and position, but character, reputation and the respect of the American people, who would have been glad to have held him in their highest esteem until this day, had he deported himself with honor.

Let his example serve to deter the future high officials of the land from deviating from the path of strict rectitude. The homely old motto, " Honesty is the best policy," is as well worthy the consideration of a politician and office-holder as of that of the average citizen.

CHAPTEE IV.

Custer Displaced from live Command of the Eastern Column, at

Fort Lincoln.

Custer was displaced from the command of the eastern column, then in process of organization, at Fort Lincoln, and forbidden, by order of the President, to accompany the troops on the march. General Terry was placed in command of the expedition, but afterward, in response to the earnest entreaties of Custer to be spared the humiliation of seeing the troops march without him, the President's order was so far modified as to permit him to go with the expedition, in command of the 7th Cavalry. Thus reorganized, the column left Fort Lincoln with 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, 3 companies of the 6th and 17th Infantry, 4 Gatling guns, and a detachment of 45 Indian scouts, under the Arickiree chief, Bloody Knife. The wagon train consisted of 114 six-mule teams, 37 two-horse teams, 70 other vehicles, ambulances, etc., with 85 pack-mule and 179 civilian drivers -a total force of 2,700 armed men-seeking the Sioux, and divided into three columns of 1,300, 400, and 1,000 respectively. These three columns started from the circumference of a circle with a radius of three hundred miles, under orders to concentrate and join their converging lines somewhere in the region enclosed by the Big Horn and Powder Rivers-where the enemy was supposed to be in force-there to enclose and crush out the desperate remnants of savage outlaws, their number being variously estimated at from 1,000 to 3,000. Later events proved the fallacy of this belief ; that between 3,000 and 5,000 Indians were massed in the fatal valley of the Yellowstone, awaiting in savage ferocity the coming of the troops, all of whom they could easily have annihilated with their superior arms and steeds, had the remainder of them come within their lines.

Who that lived in Bismarck in the year 1876, during the time that the " Lincoln column " of the great expedition was being fitted out across the river, will forget that it was matter of public notoriety that the savage hordes were gathering their clans from north and from south, to dispute the passage of the soldiers ; that even while their godly agents were crying aloud, "All is well/' the Bed Cloud, Standing Hock and Spotted Tail agencies were being depopulated of their fighting material. Supply trains, with men, arms, ponies, provisions, ammunition and warriors, were rushing to that wild rendezvous on the Yellowstone, where the restless Sitting Bull awaited the tardy coming of the royal sacrifice. Each new accession to their ranks was hailed with acclamations of delight, and in the weird gyrations of the war-dance the blood-stained wretches recounted their gory deeds, and sought to stimulate each other to horrid acts of brutality and bloodshed. Who that heard them can forget those significant inquiries heard in the streets of Bismarck, by emissaries fresh from Sitting Bull's camp, during the sad days of Custer's humiliation under presidential displeasure, when the men waited in arms for the order to march, and their brave, outspoken commander chafed in bitterness of spirit under the undeserved disgrace of being ordered to stay behind. "What are the dog-soldiers waiting for?" "Are they tired before they start?" "What is the matter with Custer?" "Is the long-haired chief sick?" All these and more, coupled with direful threats and sickening messages of expectant revenge, from Bain-in-the-Face and his no less bloody followers, were repeated from mouth to mouth, and excited in many hearts sad feelings of foreboding relative to the fate of the gallant Custer, who in going forth to give battle to the merciless chieftain of the Sioux, left behind him, in the person of XL S. Grant, the chief executive of the land, a, foe no less relentless.

On June 21st Gibbon's column was sent from Terry's camp on the Yellowstone, at the mouth of Tongue River, to the mouth of the Big Horn River, where, after being ferried across by the supply steamer " Far West," that had followed by river from Fort Lincoln, it was directed to proceed to the forks of the Little and Big Horn, its future movements to be controlled by circumstances as they should arise, but with the hope expressed by General Terry that the Indians in the Little Big Horn region should be enclosed by Gibbon's column, in co-operation with the 7th Cavalry, under Ouster, who left Terry's camp on the Yellowstone and Tongue Rivers on the afternoon of June 22d, in pursuit of a large body of Indians, whose trail, proceeding up the Rosebud River, had been discovered a few days previously in a scouting expedition by Major Reno, of the 7th Cavalry. Lieutenant-Colonel Ouster was not hampered by positive orders, being simply advised to follow the Indian trail until its general direction was definitely ascertained. Then, if, as was expected, it should be found to turn toward the Little Big Horn, he was directed to proceed southward as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then to turn toward the Little Big Horn, guarding constantly against the possibility of the Indians escaping around his left flank to the south and rear, General Terry distinctly stating that " such was his confidence in the zeal, energy and ability of Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, that he would not impose upon him precise orders, which might hamper his action when nearly in contact with the enemy."

CHAPTER V.

March to the Battle-fidd.

Tl\us, with his future course of action left to his own discretionary judgment, Lieut.-Colonel Custer, with his regiment, left camp on the Yellowstone, June 22d, and proceeded up the Eosebud Eiver during the 23d and 24th, making sixty-one miles, the trail and Indian signs freshening with every mile, when they encamped and waited for information from the scouts, whose detachment had accompanied the regiment. It was ascertained, beyond doubt, that the Indian village was in the valley of the Little Big Horn, and, in order to reach it without discovering their approach to the Indians, a night march was decided on, the troops moving at 11 P. M., the line of march turning from the Eosebud to the right, up one of its branches. At 2 A M. of the morning of the 25th, it was* ascertained that the divide between the Eosebud and the Little Big Horn Eivers could not be crossed before daylight. The command then rested for three hours and made coffee, many of the brave fellows then partaking of their last meal on earth. The march was then resumed and the divide crossed, and about 8 A. M. the command was in the valley of one of the branches of the Little Big Horn. Indians being then plainly seen, and as it was thus evident that the troops could not take them by surprise, it was decided to attack them at once.

On the march, Custer had divided the regiment into three separate commands, assigning to Major M. A Eeno, Companies M, A and G, and to Captain Benteen, H, D and K, retaining himself the command of Companies C, E, F, I" and L ; Captain McDougal being assigned with Company B to the care of the pack train in the rear.

Custer's plan of attack in Indian warfare, in which he had been hitherto pre-eminently successful, was that of simultaneous assault from several points, an attack in front and flank at all events. In this instance, when arrived near the battle-field, and as he prepared himself to lead the charge about 12.30 P: M., he ordered the remaining two divisions to move up quickly and support him.

The battalion under Benteen with the pack train did not come up in time to participate in the charge and opening fight.

The detachment under Major Reno, numbering 145 men, hurried forward as ordered, and crpssed the river, where they soon became engaged with overwhelming numbers of the enemy. To save themselves from utter annihilation at the hands of the countless droves of Indians, who suddenly sprang into view, they retreated to a high hill in the vicinity, where they entrenched themselves, being soon after joined by the troops under Benteen.

Soon afterward they were furiously attacked and besieged by numberless foes; the siege being next day renewed, when the troops were relieved by the arrival of the- soldiers under General Terry, the Indians filing away across the hills at his approach.

Up to this date nothing was known of the fate of Custer and his command, the soldiers in the entrenchment on the hill, who never before had known him to fail them in danger, wondering audibly why he did not come to their relief.. In the retreat from the scene of his engagement with the Indians to the safety of the hill, Major Eeno lost in killed : First Lieutenant Donald Mcintosh, Second Lieutenant Ben. H. Hodgeson, 7th Cavalry, and A. A. Surgeon J. M. DeWolf, together with the famous scout Charles Reynolds, and 29. enlisted men of the regiment killed and 7 wounded. In the later attack on the hill, of the combined forces of Reno and Benteen-380 men in all, with 12 officers-there were killed 18 enlisted men and 46 wounded.

Upon the arrival of General Terry, the first intimatjjon was obtained of the fate of Custer and his men. An Upsar-oka scout, named Curley, had almost miraculously escaped during the progress of the fight with Custer, and made his way back to General Terry, then on the steamer " Fat West," at the mouth of the Big Horn River, and reported the total loss of Custer and his soldiers.

This report was disbelieved, or, at least, thought to be

greatly exaggerated-it being deemed impossible that such a calamity could befall the most successful Indian fighter of his day. Yet, from the extreme agitation of the forlorn scout, it was evident that a misfortune of some kind had occurred; and General Terry, with the residue of the troops under him, at once pressed forward, under the leadership of Cur-ley, arriving in time to save the lives of the wearied survivors under Reno; who, though making a gallant defense against overpowering numbers of the enemy, had lost all hope of rescue, since Custer had apparently failed them, and greeted the unexpected arrival of their comrades as a happy reprieve from expected death.

Immediately upon the arrival of General Terry-the Indians then having left-a detachment was sent out to search for traces of the missing commander and his men. Not far away their battle-field was found, and though no living thing was there to tell how grandly they had fought, and nobly they had died, yet no tongue was needed to show that they had all gone down, company by company, contending to the last for life, as heroes ever do. Their dead and mutilated bodies, disposed in the orderly array of systematic battle; the compact companies, with officers in place behind them ; the unbroken skirmish line of ghastly corpses, testified more eloquently than spoken words could do to the sublimity of courage that had animated each soul of that heroic band. An examination of the battle-ground disclosed the fact that when Custer left his comrades of the other two divisions, with orders for them to hasten forward and join in the attack, he dashed down the stream soma distance, seeking a convenient ford where he could cros^the river and attack the village from below; but failing to do so, went much further down the river than intended in his arrangements with Reno, whom he expected to support in the charge he had ordered Eeno to make before leaving him. When, at length, a suitable ford was discovered, his further progress was violently opposed by numberless Indians, who poured in a heavy fire from across the narrow river. Custer dismounted, to fight on foot, but his skirmishers were unable to cross the stream under the galling fire that assailed them and the cavalry were speedily driven back to the high ground in the rear; but not until swarms of Indians, mounted and on foot, had poured over the shallow river, and seized the ravines on either side, effectually cutting off their retreat in the direction in which they came. Custer was soon effectually surrounded, and receiving a terrible fire from all sides. The dead bodies of men and horses were found at the ford, and at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile from the river, as though thrown across the line of retreat to check the advance of the enemy. The entire company of Captain James Calhoun, brother-in-law of Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, lay dead in an irregular line, with Captain Calhoun and his Lieutenant, John J. Crittenden, in their proper places in the rear. A mile beyond this, on a ridge parallel to the river, the whole of Captain Myles W. Keogh's company were slaughtered in position – their right resting on the hill where Custer fell. Still further back on the ridge were found the dead bodies of thirty-two men of Captain George W. Yates' company, and here, too, had fallen the brave and ill-fated Custer, with his brother, Captain T. W. Custer, his Adjutant, Captain W. W. Cook, Lieutenant William Van W. Beily, and Captain Yates, together with the young nephew and brother of Custer-Armstrong Beed and Boston Custer, forage-master of the 7th Cavalry.

In a ravine near the river were found the dead bodies of the men and horses of Captain Thomas W. Custer's company, together with those of Captain Algernon E. Smith, and twenty-three men of his company. Lieutenant James E. Porter^Jjieutenant John Sturgis, and Lieutenant Harrington, together with tlllrty-five enlisted men, were missing, and no trace of them could be discovered. Near the ford, as though killed early in the fight, was the body of Mark Kel-log, correspondent of the New York Herald, and a resident of the frontier. His body was undisturbed and still clothed, as though overlooked by accident in the horrible carnival of blood and butchery that followed hard upon the battle. Near here was also found the body of " Isaiah" a colored scout, long in the employ of the officers on the frontier, an intelligent, trustworthy man, married to a Sioux squaw, who, with his children, was then at Fort Rice. This circumstance did not appear to be a recommendation to the mercy of his wife's relatives, as he was not only killed, but circumstances indicated that he had been captured and met his death by the savage cruelty of torture.

The probable fate of the thirty-five missing men and their three officers is too horrible to contemplate without a shudder. It is claimed by Indians who were in the fight and afterwards returned to their agencies, that the horses of a portion of the calvary were captured by the Indians early in the engagement, while the situation of those surrounding the group of men and officers, with whom Custer made his last stand, would seem to indicate that they had been killed by the soldiers to form a barricade, behind which to defend themselves, until the relief which they doubtless then expected from Reno and Benteen should arrive.

How vague and satisfactory are these pitiful details of this most horrible of modern massacres, the exact occurrences of which will probably never ba known! The sole survivors of all that proud array of men and steeds, so recklessly hurried to their impending doom, are the Upsaroka scout, "Curley," and the horse of Captain Keogh, Comanche, which was found near the battle-field with seven wounds. Major Reno, thinking him mortally wounded, ordered the noted war-horse to be shot; but Comanche was a veteran of the 7th Cavalry, and the men who knew and loved him, begged for his life, and by careful treatment and nursing he was restored, and remains to-day the only living survivor of the fated five companies who plunged into the carnage that engulfed alike, rider and steed, in the lonely valley of the Little Big Horn.

Soon after the discovery of the dead bodies on the battlefield, they were given hasty burial by their comrades of the surviving companies. Then, the Indians having escaped, and the supplies being exhausted, General Terry took up the line of march toward the Yellowstone, and returned with all possible haste to his headquarters at St. Paul, Minn., and thus ended one of the most disastrous and disgraceful campaigns in the annals of the country; and in the language of

General Sherman in his annual official report to the Secretary of War, who submitted the same to the next session of .: Congress (the Forty-fourth), which convened in December, j j/r 1876, said, " And had it not been for the brave and heroic *

Reno, not a man would have been brought off the field to tell the tale! "

In the entire management of the expedition, from its first organization down to the closing affray, there is but one redeeming feature mingled with our pity for the gallant boys in blue, who there met an untimely death-the warmest Admiration for the knightly courage, to which their lifeless bodies, ranged in order along the battle lines, bore dumb but eloquent witness.

" Even thus the sword of Custer, In his disastrous fall, Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world, And glorified his pall."

APPENDIX TO THE PRECEDING SECTION.

We will here make brief mention of the filling up of the rank and file of the pet regiment on the plains, and some of its duties since the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Of the companies that were lost in that memorable battle, their places were at once filled by officers who survived to command them, and were soon recruited to the maximum by recruits sent forward from the East, who were recruited with a special view to closing the Indian war in the northwest, if possible. The field officers of the regiment that survived were veterans, and gallant and skillful men, who had seen many a hard-fought battle, and had won laurels on many a field, and lived only to take part in further operations to open and pave the way for civilization.

They had survived numerous battles during the war of the late rebellion, and had experienced hard service on our extreme frontier in subjugating the Indians, all the way from tho Wichita mountains to the valley of the Little Big Horn, where their gallant and chivalrous comrade, Lieutenant-

I

Colonel Custer, fell at the head of their dashing and fearless troopers. This regiment has been on duty at different military stations-mostly in north-western Dakota-and generally commanded by its Lieutenant-Colonel, Elmer Otis, and one or more of the Majors belonging to the regiment.

Brevet-Colonel Elmer Otis, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 7th U. S. Cavalry, received his appointment from the military academy at West Point before the war, and has been deservedly promoted from time to time up to the assignment to duty with this regiment. He is an industrious, zealous, and faithful officer. He has been the commanding officer at Fort Lincoln a greater portion of the time since his assignment to duty with the 7th Cavalry. He is much admired as an officer and a gentleman by his command, and in army circles as well as by the citizens in general.

Brevet-Colonel Joseph E. Tilford, the senior Major of the 7th Cavalry, was appointed from the military academy at West Point in 1851. He has been a brave and faithful officer, and his conduct " was gallant and meritorious in the battle of Valverde, N. M." He has been commanding officer at various military stations in north-western Dakota since his regiment came to Fort Rice in 1873. He is really the model and most gentlemanly Major in the U. S. Army. His record as a military officer and a gentleman is too well known to make mention at length in this volume. Suffice it to say, that he is an excellent military adviser, one of the best of disciplinarians, always having an eye to the morale of the army.

Brevet-Brigadier-General Lewis Merrill, a Major in the 7th Cavalry, has been in the service since July, 1855. He received his appointment from the military academy at West Point, and served with distinction all through the late war. During the rebellion his services were specially gallant and meritorious against the rebels in north Missouri, and in the capture of Little Rock, Ark., also against the rebel forces in north-western Georgia.

Major Merrill was well known through the late war as Colonel of one of the finest regiments of cavalry in the service, " known as Merrill's Horse." Since the war he has filled

important military positions in various parts of the country,, at times sitting as Judge Advocate on court martials.

As a military law officer, lie has no superior in this department, and we think we can safely say, no equal, unless it be General Alfred H. Terry, the Department Commander. For the past two seasons, he has had charge of protecting the line of the Northern Pacific Kailroad from Bismarck, D. T., to Miles City, M. T. The main duty of his command has been, and now is, to guard against roving bands of marauding Indians who infest the plains more or less, roaming from one section of the country to another, more for the purpose of stealing and running off stock, than to engage in actual warfare. He is a thoroughly schooled and skilled officer, and highly esteemed by all who know him.

Edward Ball, another Major of the " brave and intrepid 7th," joined his regiment in April, 1880. His career with this regiment has been short, and but very little service in the field has been performed since his assignment as one of its Majors. He is a brave, skillful and gentlemanly officer, and well worthy the uniform he wears, having served in the regular army since 1844. His record for bravery, industry and zeal stands among the first in the country.

Colonel Wm. Thompson, a retired officer from the 7th Cavalry, is a sturdy Pennsylvanian, and a true type of the American soldier and gentleman. At one time before the war, he was Professor of Law and Science in an Institute in his native State. Soon afterward he settled in Iowa and represented the Keokuk, or Southern district of that State in the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congress. Colonel Cork-hill, the District Attorney at Washington, who has charge of investigating " Giteau's case," was at one time a pupil under this veteran officer. He served through the late war with distinction, receiving promotion at different times for gallant and meritorious service on various battle-fields, and specially in the action of Prairie Grove and Bayou Meteo, Ark. He has seen hard service in Indian warfare all the wav from the Staked Plains to the headwaters of the Mis-souri. He is a genial gentleman in and out of the army, and devotes the greater portion of his time to matters pertaining to science, agriculture, and the general development of the new northwest.

The people throughout the States and other countries can now rest assured this section of our country, and more generally known as the new northwest, is in the hands of experienced and well-disposed officers, who have the good of their country at heart, as well as their own personal affairs, and reputation for bravery and achievements. There are other officers on the frontier t deserving of equal credit as those above mentioned, but having been in fields at too great a distance, the writer does not feel at liberty to make mention of matters of fact as they have transpired, that he is not quite familiar with.

Now that we have the unconditional surrender of Sitting Bull and all of his war chiefs, the survivors of the 7th Cavalry, as well as members of the other regiments in this department, who have for many years defied the murderous hordes of hostile savages, and who have fought as heroes fight, for friends and home, country and fame, may well take a long breath of great relief.

The writer is now waiting for a special messenger to arrive from Fort Buford, in order to get a correct and full account of the surrender of " the king of warriors," the wily Sitting Bull, whose manoeuvering on the Plains, and in and out of the bad lands, and whose aptness for Indian warfare has attracted more attention than any other one person in the country, except our suffering President, Mr. Garfield. We will endeavor to present to the readers of this work a concise and clear account of this important move on the part of our red brother, who for many years has been the Stalwart of the Stalwart Warriors.

Crow King

SECTION III.

CHAPTEE I.

The Kingly Warrior Surrenders to Major D. H. Brothertcm.

One of the most important events in recent military operations against the hostile Indians in the Northwest, was the surrender of Crow King, a subordinate chief under Sitting Bull, together with all his warriors, war ponies, guns, old men, squaws, papooses and camp equipage, to Major D. H. Brotherton, of the 7th United States Infantry, in the Northwest, during the winter of 1880.

Crow King was in importance to Sitting Bull among the Sioux warriors as Sheridan was to Grant in the late War of the Rebellion. The surrender was received with great rejoicing by both officers and men of the long-suffering army of the frontier, and by the people of the land was hailed with joy, as practically the close of the Indian War in the Northwest.

Although popular rejoicing in this belief was premature- Sitting Bull, with the main body of able-bodied hostiles, with his usual good fortune or good generalship, having eluded capture and escaped to the British lines-yet the rank and importance of Crow King in the Sioux councils was so great, his influence with the savage tribes under Jrim being almost unbounded, that the effect of his retiring with his people from the war-path was most salutary in the cause of peace.

Among Indians of all tribes there are invariably found a number of subordinate chiefs who really desire to remain on the war-path, and nothing save actual suffering or necessity will ever persuade or force them to surrender. The presence of a large force of troops in front of them, with starvation among their old men, women and children, are the only arguments to which their stern natures are accessible.

In the case of Crow King and his warriors, they were driven to extremities. In the dead of a severe winter, without grass for their ponies, and insufficient shelter for their families, with the thermometer 32 degrees below zero, there was necessarily great suffering from cold and hunger among the non-combatants of tho hostile camp. Food and clothing were almost unobtainable in the field, and with the British lines closed apparently against them, and a large well-disciplined force of United States troops in front of them, with ample supplies, and everything necessary to the carrying on of a vigorous and successful campaign, their alternative was to surrender or to suffer total annihilation.

Scarcely less than the Indians did the brave men of the army suffer from cold and exposure during that fearful winter's campaign. In the field without tents, with the thermometer ranging from 32 to 44 degrees below zero, they suffered intensely from cold and frost-bites. Yet, with the usual stoicism and hardihood of the trained soldier, their sufferings in these respects were borne uncomplainingly, and with true heroism.

The representatives of the press, who, it must be observed, invariably reach the front as soon as the army, were on hand to chronicle the details of the surrender, and gave to the representative papers of the East, full and graphic accounts of the scenes in the field, and the solemn pow-wow and dance after the surrender. The people of the country are greatly interested in the development of the new Northwest, and consequently follow the operations of the troopa on the frontier with friendly interest and anxiety ; no news is more anxiously sought after or read with more avidity than the published reports from the seat of the Indian wars. Being desirous of seeing the country opened to settlement, all measures tending to that end are eagerly seconded by the people at large, and this is apparent in the universal desire for correct information from the scene of army operations, against those terrible hindrances in the path of progress-the wild Indians of the plains.

It was at first feared that the surrender of Crow King and his band was not a permanent one; that his warriors would again seek the war-path in the early spring, when the growing grass would furnish sustenance for their ponies ; but it soon became apparent that his personal surrender was made in good faith-that he really desired to settle down on a reservation and cultivate the arts of peace, in the company of his old men, women, and children-a desire that, laudable as it was, may have originated from the fact that he was sorely wounded, and barely able to sit on his horse. His people had unbounded faith in him as a leader. The young Graves of his tribe looked up to him with veneration, and heeded his counsels, as became the loyal subjects of a brave and kingly warrior. Although they acquiesced reluctantly in the surrender, yet such was their loyalty to their leader, that the United States officers, in charge of negotiations, had little to fear from future treachery on the part of his followers, save only from a very few of the ugly, discontented, and unconquerable warriors that are found attached to every tribe, and who undoubtedly, when the favorable opportunity came, would desert the reservation for the more congenial ^var-path.

The late action of the British authorities, in forbidding ihem to seek shelter on Canadian soil, undoubtedly planted the seeds of peace in the breast of many an unruly savage. So long as the British lines were open to them, they could penetrate into the United States, commit their bloody deeds of rapine and cruelty, murdering white men and stealing horses and other stock, then, when pursued, retreating into the friendly shelter of the Queen's dominions, knowing that the avenging feet of their pursuers must be stayed at the border line, as the Government troops could not invade Canadian soil without interference with international law, which would doubtless be quickly resented by the Dominion authority. But when this friendly shelter was closed against them, and food and clothing gave out; when the winter snows descended, and the wild winds blew fierce and strong across the wide prairies of the West, then many a plumed warrior's heart grew weak; and as he beheld the armed force of dauntless troops under the brave Major G. Hges, of the 5th XJ. S. Infantry, arrayed against their weak and shivering band, there came upon them a desire for a cessation of hostilities. They hungered again for the " flesh-pots " of the Indian Agency, and meekly submitted to the inevitable, accepting the situation with the coolness and philosophy characteristic of Indian nature.

The surrender of Gall to Major Guido Hges, of the 5th U. S. Infantry, is of equal importance in this campaign, and more so than that of any other chief under Sitting Bull, except Crow King. He was really the Kilpatrick of the whole Sioux nation. Major Ilges found this daring and reckless warrior occupying a strong position in the timber near Popular Creek Agency. After making a demand for a formal surrender, which was at first stubbornly refused by Gall, he opened fire from his Gatling guns, together with several volleys of musketry.

It was but a short time before an unconditional surrender was effected. During these operations against the " Wily Gall," on the part of Major Ilges, the chief warrior, " Crow King," was an attentive witness, standing on the roof of the trader's store at the Popular River Agency, and, strange as it may seem, not only sanctioned, but encouraged in every way possible, Major Ilges in forcing this surrender, as he could not move his own lodges into the Agency until Gall and his warriors were out of the wav.

CHAPTER II.

The Surrender.

As the terms of his surrender, Crow King demanded 160 acres of land for every man, woman and child belonging to his tribe. He also asked that school-houses might be built for the children, and the money obtained from the sale of Indian lands devoted to this purpose, and to the education of his people. There was no doubt of his earnestness in the.matter. The officers in the field, of course, could promise him nothing more than that his requests should be laid before the proper authorities in Washington.

Chief Gall

This, for amp; ime, gave rise to angry feelings among the warriors, particularly among the young chiefs. They stated emphatically that if they could not have the land, as requested by their head chief, they would prefer to brave starvation and roam over the plains, and occasionally join a war-party of hostiles. The influence of Crow King, aided doubtless by the cold weather and the scarcity of provisions, quieted these malcontents, and they finally agreed to throw themselves on the generosity of the Great Father at Washington, and abide by his decision, agreeing to accept and settle upon the reservation allotted to them by the government, and to take an interest in farming, stock-raising, and educating their children. Crow King was growing old, and was enfeebled from his wounds. These facts doubtless tended to convince him that it was greatly to his interest, as well as for the future welfare of his people, to settle down upon a reservation, and conform to the rules and regulations of the government. As for the young warriors, while outwardly acquiescing in the military plans for their future usefulness, it was doubtless with a mental reservation that when the little exigency of war, in which they were unwilling participants, had been safely passed, and the genial summer breezes came again, they would lightly scatter off to join the war-parties on the wild prairies in their raids on frontier settlers. Some possibly were laying plans to go to Arizona and New Mexico, while others may have thought to join the untamed Coman-ches and Kiowas in the southern Indian country.

But whatever may havo been the secret thoughts and purposes of the discomfited warriors at the formal surrender of their chief to the military, they deported themselves in the highest style of Indian etiquette, prescribed by custom from time immemorial for such interesting occasions. Tricked out in their finest paint and feathers, gorgeous in war-bonnets of snowy eagle's feathers, adorned with beads, and their half-naked, tawny figures glittering with savage gew-gaws, and mounted on ponies whose emaciated forms were decked with gaudy colors, they bore themselves with a lofty dignity and grave hauteur befitting to a race of royal blood.

Tet was there a ludicrous element in the pathetic affair.

The picture of the defeated savages surrendering their arms And ponies, as an act of special grace to their powerful captors, and gravely dictating the terms of. surrender, demanding cattle and sheep in payment for their ponies, was a sin-gular one ; and a somewhat ridiculous effect of the policy of the Government in treating the savages like spoiled children. " Til be good, if you'll give me a stick of candy; if you don't, Til be terribly naughty," is the childlike argument employed by the anomalous creations of nature, alternately known as wards and dependents of the Government, and anon figuring as " prisoners of war." The policy adopted by the Government, of first yielding to their insolent demands, then punishing them for disobedience; again coaxing, petting, and bribing them into good behavior; then again administering deserved chastisement; and still again resorting to bribes and presents to coax them into submission, is a course that would speedily make an end of family government; and it is not to be wondered at that the unsophisticated red children of nature should imbibe false and mistaken ideas relative to the strength and good judgment of the Great Father at Washington.

After the formal surrender had been effected, with all the "" pomp and circumstance " of Indian finery and display, and the terms of capitulation agreed upon by the commandant of the troops and Crow King (through an interpreter), in a council of his warriors, in which the captive chieftain assumed to himself great credit for gracefully submitting to the inevitable, and leading his half-famished people to the military lines, a grand " pow-wow " and peace dance was held in honor of the event. Rations were divided by the soldiers with the prisoners, and every effort made by the humane commander of the troops to make comfortable the squaws and papooses, together with the sick and helpless of the late hostile camp. Wagon transportation was furnished them to Fort Buford, D. T., where they were comfortably garrisoned.

The eloquent plea of the savage warrior, that " the white man has kept pushing, and driving, and fighting the red man all around and all around, and all over the prairie, until he has no place to go," is surely a weighty one.

Would that the government of the best and most enlightened nation on the face of the globe would reform its mode of treatment of these " wayward children of the forest," who, in their inmost hearts, are bloodthirsty assassins and mur-derers, yet who are entitled to ordinary justice in business transactions.

It is a standing disgrace to our civilization to alternately whip, cheat, bribe, and coax. Treaties should not be made with them; but, if made, should be religiously kept.

At present writing the Indian problem in the great Northwest is still unsolved. God grant a fair and speedy solution.

SECTION IV.

THE SURRENDER OF SITTING BULL. (TA-TON-E^-I-Y-A-TON-E^.)

CHAPTEE I

As a happy finale to the series of sanguinary chapters and exciting incidents of savage warfare in the Northwest, the author is pleased to append a brief resume of the career of Sitting Bull, the monarch of the hostiles, and leader of their lawless bands through nearly twenty years of continuous warfare with the whites; a career distinguished above that of his fellow-hostiles for murder and rapine, yet which terminated unexpectedly in his bloodless surrender to Major Brotherton, of the regular army, July 19th, 1881.

Of the early life of Sitting Bull, little is known; yet there is no question of his having been at war with the whites since 1862, and during all the period intervening between that date and his recent surrender, he has been a steady annoyance in the field to the army, and constant source of terror and anxiety to the isolated settlers on the remote frontier. All the way from Yankton to the headquarters of the Missouri, he left traces of his presence in bloodshed and burnings. In the year 1865, a passenger on the steamer " Effie Deans," en route to Fort Benton, relates that when at Bound Butte, Montana, about six hundred miles by river below Benton, the steamer was fired upon from a hunting camp, comprising about three thousand souls, of whom eight hundred were warriors, of Sitting Bull's tribe. Four days previously the steamer " General Grant" had passed up › several shots were fired into the boat, and four men were killed Sitting Bull is supposed to have been encamped at this place some two months, this being a favorite place of resort for buffalo, elk and other wild game, and here for

years the Sioux, under Sitting Bull and his associate chiefs, had repaired in the hunting season to seek the spoils of the chase.

Sitting Bull's record, from the earliest date of which mention is made of him, is that of a vindictive and determined enemy of the white man, yet, previously to the year 1866, he had not attained distinction above his fellow chiefs, or gained a tithe of the overshadowing fame that has placed his name on the highest pinnacle of savage greatness.

In the year 1866, Sitting Bull, a warrior of the Uncapapa Sioux, attained wide-spread notoriety throughout the frontier posts and settlements, by means of his murderous raids and savage cruelties. From that time he has held high rank as a leader of the hostile Sioux-revered by his own people as a skillful general, wise in council and powerful in war, and dreaded by the whites as a cruel and relentless enemy. Of late years, a series of uninterrupted successes in the field, culminating in the Custer massacre of 1876, gave him a prominence not hitherto enjoyed by any hostile chief, and rendered his name a familiar but dreaded household word in every hamlet in America. Sitting Bull was thought to be invincible, hence his recent surrender, brought about though it was by the subtle agencies of want and hunger, aided as it was by the firm attitude of the Canadian authorities, who refused longer to permit his followers to come and go at pleasure upon British soil, was a surprise as unexpected as it was agreeable to the country at large.

The bulk of our present adult aboriginal population were born in savagery, and have lived in savagery. Try as they will, they cannot entirely subdue the savage instincts to roam at will, to defy restraint, and to inAulge their lawless appetites for blood and plunder. Sitting Bull's influence for evil among all the aboriginal tribes had been unbounded. He had ever made it his boast that he would never go upon a reservation or make peace with the whites.-a resolution to which he tenaciously adhered. His nomadic and unrestrained life of freedom on the plains was a constant lure to those Indians who, though settled upon agencies, and ostensibly engaged in cultivating the arts of peace, yet could

not wholly conquer the natural savage longing for a life of unrestrained and careless liberty. His camp-fires in the wild fastnesses of the far Northwest were alluring lights to the wild and restless spirits, whose untamed natures chafed and fretted under the unwonted restraint of agency rule. His bold example inspired the pining warriors on the reservations to break away from the civilizing influences there brought to bear upon him, and to seek by his council-fires in the wilderness pursuits moje congenial.

With the freshening of the grass in the spring, large numbers of the young and able-bodied warriors of the tribes confined at the various Indian agencies on the Missouri, would set forth to join his lawless hordes on their annual round of plunder, and under cover of his name to prey upon the exposed settlements, and destroy the lives of any luckless whites who, by chance, came within the scope of their operations.

It had long been a recognized fact, both in the Military and Interior Departments, that an Indian absent without leave from his proper reservation, was necessarily an Indian hostile, defacto and de jure ; and since it was manifestly impossible to prevent the agency Sioux from slipping away during the season of buffalo hunting, and attaching themselves to the hostile forces, the capture of Sitting Bull, or the breaking up of his hostile rendezvous in the Northwest, became a strategic measure of overshadowing importance in all plans devised by the military authorities for subjugating, or by the officials of the Interior Department for benefiting and civilizing the Indians.

Mutual plans were devised by both Departments to remedy the grave evil# arising from Agency Indians rallying to the medicine banner of Sitting Bull, and sharing with his restless followers the spoils and plunder of the war-path; but all to no avail. The evil increased alarmingly. The Missouri River Agencies became but bases of supplies for Sitting Bull's insolent army, from whence were drawn, by the hands of professedly peaceful Indians, arms and munitions of war, clothing, and provisions. The ranks of the hostiles were increased to an unusual extent during the hunting sea-

son, by the accession of large numbers of able-bodied warriors, whose winter subsistence was derived from the bounty of the government. Those who remained upon the reservations evinced a* uneasy and discontented spirit, until, at length, the signs of disaffection at the larger Agencies, such as Standing Rock, Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, etc., containing then some 40,000 Indians, became so marked that a general outbreak was feared, unless steps were promptly taken to subdue the outlaws under Sitting Bull, and compel them to settle down upon some designated spot, to be selected by the government. Accordingly, in December, 1875, the Secretary of the Interior notified the hostiles that they must, before the close of the following January, come into the reservations, " or a military force would be sent out to compel them to come in." This peremptory order was met with the scorn and defiance that had characterized the demeanor of the hostiles in all their communications with the white man's government. As a last recourse, therefore, on the expiration of the stated time, the Secretary of War was formally notified that these Indians were turned over to* the military authorities, for such action as might be deemed proper for their subjugation and chastisement.

The campaign of 1876 was then organized by General Sheridan, on the plan already described at some length in this volume, by which, in the simultaneous movement of three distinct columns from Montana, Dakota, and the Platte, toward a common centre, where was supposed to be located the camp of the hostiles, a crushing blow could be administered to the forlorn hope of savage obduracy, seeking to escape the fate that had been decreed to the red man in the remnants of his once wide domain, the alternative of either civilization or extermination. The movements of these columns, the repulse of General Crook, and the tragic death of General Custer and his men, which formed the bitter fruits of this unfortunate expedition, have been already described in detail in these pages. Suffice it, then, to say, that, after the battle, the victorious savages proceeded northward, and crossed the boundary line into the Dominion of Canada, and quartered themselves upon the bounty of her

Majesty the Queen of England. Here Sitting Bull and his followers remained in peace through the following year, refusing the overtures of Chief Joseph to take part in the Nez Perces campaign of 1877. In the stirring events of that campaign, the opening fight at Big Hole, Howard's long and arduous pursuit, and final success, with Miles' aid, in capturing Joseph and his band, together with the later fight at Bear-Paw Mountain, between Lame Deer, a Sioux, and the troops under General Miles, engrossed, for a time, public attention, and the conqueror of Custer was left to his repose. But not long did quiet reign.

The followers of the stoic chieftain began to cross the lines, commit depredations on the people of Montana, and elude capture and punishment by escaping to their leader's camp at Wood Mountain. . Grave questions of international law now puzzled the authorities at Washington, and to avoid complications with a border territory, as well as to insure protection to the helpless settlers south of the Canadian boundary line, it was decided to make an effort to effect by diplomacy what force of arms had failed to bring about, and to send, to treat with Sitting Bull, a commission of such dignity and character, that he would necessarily be convinced of the truth and reliability of its promises and presentations.

Leave was accordingly obtained from the British authorities for the entrance of the commission into the Canadian territory. The followers of Sitting Bull at this time comprised but a moiety of those who had participated in the Custer massacre, many of the warriors who had there glutted their fiendish thirst for blood and torture having returned to the agencies to which they belonged, and wwe there re-enacting the role of good Indians, by submissively devouring the rations issued by a magnanimous government to its " wayward children."

The Peace Commission to Sitting Bull was composed of General A. H. Terry, the commander of the defeated Dakota column in the campaign of the previous year, and Hon. A. G. Lawrence, of Massachusetts. The embassy proceeded with an escort to the British line, and were there met by a battalion of the Northwestern mounted police, who guided them to Fort Walsh-and here was presented the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful government sending overtures of peace and reconciliation to the leading outlaw and freebooter of the country, by the hand of the military commander whose troops he had defeated by force of arms. Much trouble was experienced in obtaining the consent of Sitting Bull and his leading chiefs to an interview; but this was finally gained through the intercession of the British officers at the fort, and on the 17th of October an interview was held within the limits of the fort.

The renegade chieftain received his distinguished visitors with every mark of savage discourtesy. He haughtily refused their proffered hands, demanded that they should not sit behind the table, at which they had seated themselves, and sneeringly told them to speak the truth to the assembled chiefs. The ambassadors, on* behalf of their government, then presented the reasons why the hostiles should ‹5ease their hostile acts, return to the United States, and join the agencies.

The honorable treatment meted out to the tribes who had surrendered, the ever-recurring bounty of the government, the daily rations and frequent gifts, were painted in glowing colors.

It was promised to the Canadian refugees, on behalf of the United States Government, that no harm should befall Any of their number who would consent to cross the line, and peacefully take up their abode at any of the agencies. Not only would they be protected from harm, but many favors and privileges would be granted them; while the proceeds from the sale of their ponies and arms, which they would be required to surrender, would be applied to their benefit. These proposals were rejected emphatically and insolently, and the commission was, so far as any good results were attained, a complete failure.

During the remainder of that, and of the following year {1878), Sitting Bull and his band remained quietly on the northern side of the boundary line, only a few of his warriors occasionally crossing to American soil in pursuit of

buffalo, and their stay was never prolonged. Reports of his. coming in force were, however, frequently rife among the frontiersmen, and in the summer a reconnoissance of troops in force was made north of the Missouri, without result, however, and as the hostiles seemed inclined to keep the peace, and remain permanently north of the line, operations against them were, for the time, suspended, by order of General Sherman. Trouble with the Bannock Indians having then arisen, and the hostile remnant of the Nez Perces making demonstrations of hostilities, Sitting Bull once more dropped out of public notice.

For the protection of the settlers in northern Montana, a cordon of forts had been commenced in 1877, which were now nearly completed, and there was every reason to believe that the former scene of the Sioux troubles-the valley of the Yellowstone and its tributaries-would not be again entered by them. But north of their former field of operations they could roam unrestrainedly, while the stores of government supplies at Poplar River and other outlying posts were never safe from their raids.

In the opening of the year 1879 a panic prevailed among the white settlers near the border, in consequence of large bands of Sitting Bull's Indians crossing the line and committing depredations, killing the cattle of the settlers, stealing horses, etc. General Miles was accordingly sent to take the field, with troops sufficient to repel and overcome any body of Indians, however large ; and on the 12th of July he crossed to the northern bank of the Missouri with his command, in the vicinity of Old Fort Reck, and five days later the advance detachment, under Lieutenant Clark, struck a, large body of Indians between Beaver Creek and Milk River, and a spirited skirmish ensued. Sitting Bull was in command in person, and the battle would have ended disastrously for the whites, as they were largely outnumbered- but on the near approach of the main body of the troops he prudently withdrew to the north bank of Milk River, thence retreating to the British possessions. Many Indians were captured in the retreat, and the operations of that summer were attended with gratifying results. The bands of half-

"breeds, who had by their nefarious traffic with the hostiles kept them well supplied with arms and ammunition, were either captured or dispersed, and their traffic broken up. On the 28th of July, Long Dog, an emissary from Sitting Bull's camp, reported that the hostiles had elected to remain permanently north of the line, and General Miles was assured by the commandant of the mounted police that no further apprehension need be entertained of hostile raids- assurances which the facts in the end fully justified.

During the summer of 1880, there were a few isolated cases of murder and theft, in which the hand of the Sioux was apparent; but the surrender to General Miles, in the autumn, of the notorious Rain-in-the-Face, with many other chiefs and thousands of their followers, virtually settled the Indian problem in the Northwest.

When Rain-in-the-Face crossed the line and surrendered, Gaul and his followers crossed also, but the latter went to Poplar Creek instead of Fort Keogh, and though at first expressing a willingness to surrender, he delayed from time to time, until January 2d, 1881, he yielded to the persuasions o? Colonel Ilges and his frost-bitten soldiers, and a few shots from his Gatling guns, and gave himself up. Crow King had previously surrendered, and Sitting Bull was left alone in his glory, and with a handful of dispirited followers, in his old retreat at Wood Mountain. He, too, now submits to the inevitable, recognizing in the rapid development of the Northwest country, the signs of the inevitable fate that thrusts upon the red man the alternative of civilization or extermination. With «his handful of half-starved followers, he reluctantly accepts the bounty of the government he has so long defied, yet remjains sullen and defiant to the last.

Through the efforts of the scout, Louis Legare, mainly, the once powerful chieftain of the Sioux was induced to come into the lines and surrender to the military, kind treatment and immunity from punishment for his past misdeeds having been previously guaranteed him. With the last remnant of his people, some two hundred souls, old men, women and children, the old war-chief arrived at Fori Buford, Dakota, at noon, on July 19th, 1881. At the head of the mournful cortege rode Sitting Bull, Four Horns, Red Thunder and other sub-chiefs, on their war ponies, and following came six army wagons loaded with the squaws and children, and behind them came some twenty-five of Louis Xiegare's Red River carts, containing their baggage.

They presented a forlorn and pitiful appearance-the great Sitting Bull himself being very dirty and very hungry, his face wearing a sullen, bull-dog expression, his dress and appearance bearing marks of the hardships and destitution he has recently experienced. Yet, until called upon to surrender his arms, he preserved under this, the most trying ordeal to a savage, a dignified and unbroken silence. Thus •ended the war in the Northwest The closing of the five years' campaign against the most remarkable leader of modern times is tersely chronicled in the following official dispatches :

Fort Buford, D. T., July 14, 1881.-Gen. A. H. Terry, •Commanding Department Dakota, Fort Snelling: Just received a dispatch from Legare, dated 12th inst.; says he is en route with Sitting Bull, Four Horns and Red Thunder; in all, 6 chiefs, 40 families-about 200 in all, men, women and children. He says they came from Lake Qu'Appelle, starving. Will send in this morning to meet them with rations. Messenger says they are about sixty miles out. (Signed) D. H. Brotherton, Maj. 7th Infantry, Com.

Fort Buford, D. T., July 19.-Gen. A. H. Terry, Commanding Department of Dakota, Fort Snelling : Sitting Bull and his followers surrendered to me at noon to-day.

(Signed) D. H. Brotherton, Maj. 7th Infantry, Com.

While the last act of the drama, the final scene in Sitting Bull's career as a warrior, was enacted at noon on July 20th, when, by the hand of his little son, he delivered to Major Brotherton the rifle he had carried throughout so many bloody fields. This being done, the great chieftain spoke as follows:

"I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I now desire to teach in this manner that he has become a friend of the Americans. I wish him to learn the habits of

the whites and to be educated as their sons are educated. I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. This boy has given it to you, and he now wants to know how he is going to make a living. Whatever you have to give-or whatever you have to say, I would like to receive or hear now, for I don't wish to be kept in darkness longer. I have sent several messengers in here from time to time, but none of them have returned with news. The other chiefs, Crow King and Gaul, have not wanted me to come, and I have never received good news from here. I now wish to be allowed to live this side of the line or the other, as I see fit. I wish to continue my old life of lunting, but would like to be allowed to trade on both sides of the line. This is my country, and I don't wish to be compelled to give it up. My heart was very sad at having to leave the great mother's country. She has been a friend to me, but I want my children to grow up in our native country, and I also wish to feel that I can visit two of my friends on the other side of the line, viz.: Major Walsh and Captain McDonald, whenever I wish, and would like to trade with Louis Legare, as he has always been a friend to me. I wish to have all my people live together upon one reservation of our own on the Little Missouri. I left several families at Wood Mountain and between there and Qu'Appelle. I have many people among the Yanktonais at Poplar Creek, and I wish all them and those who have gone to Standing Rock to be collected together upon one reservation. My people liave many of them been bad. All are good now that their arms and ponies have been taken from them. (Speaking to Major Brotherton):

" You own this ground with me, and we must try and help ^ach other. I do not wish to leave here until I get all the people I left behind and the Uncapapas now at Poplar Creek. I would like to have my daughter, who is now at Fort Yates, sent up here to visit me, as also eight men now there (mentioning their names), and I would like to know that Louis Legare is to be rewarded for his services in bringing me and my people in here."

Sitting Bull and his people have been sent to the Indian

Agency of Standing Rock, Dakota, on the Missouri River, where Rain-in-the-Face, Gaul, Long-Dog and other chiefs of his tribe, with their followers, have preceded him.

At this agency there are now fully 7,000 Indians, and though "finis " may now be appended to the last chapter of the history of the Indian wars in the Northwest, yet, in dealing with these pent-up savages, soothing the malcontents, and restraining the unruly spirits there confined from deeds of violence, in helping and instructing those susceptible of civilizing influences, and benefiting and christianizing all, the Interior Department has a task as weighty, a labor as arduous, and a problem more puzzling, than that just worked out by the military, in their subjugation and capture.

CHAPTER II.

Officers in the Field against Sitting BuU since 1872.

The commanding officer of the Department of Dakota, Brevet-Major-General Alfred H. Terry, is one of the Brigadier-Generals in the regular army. He entered the volunteer service at the beginning of the late civil war, in 1861, as Colonel of the 2d Connecticut Volunteers. In 1862 he was promoted to a Brigadier-General, and in 1864 to a Major-General of Volunteers, and in 1835 he was made a Brigadier-General in the regular army. In accepting his commission he also received the following, which Congress, by joint resolution, passed as a vote of thanks to him and the officers under his command : " For the unsurpassed gallantry and skill exhibited by them in the attack upon Fort Fisher, and the brilliant and decisive victory by which that important work has been captured from the Rebel forces, and placed in the possession and under the authority of the United States, and for their long and faithful services and unswerving devotion to the cause of the country in the midst of its greatest difficulties and dangers." He was made a Brevet-Major-General in 1886, for gallant and meritorious services in the capture of Wilmington, North Carolina. He has been

in command of this military department since 1873, and the country has been fully advised at various times in regard to important operations against the hostiles. He needs no comment nor compliment from our pen.

Of the officers who have been stationed on the extreme frontier of civilization at times during the past ten years, for the purpose of opening and protecting the new Northwest, we will make mention, in order to more fully explain to our readers that the work has not been confined to a very small number of officers, and that several of our best regiments have been brought to the front to take part in conquering the Sioux warriors. Among the first that were in command was Brigadier-General W. B. Hazen, recently promoted from the colonelcy of the 6th United States Infantry, And now chief signal officer. He was made a Brevet-Major-General in 1865.

He was appointed from the military academy at West Point in 1859. In 1859 he was promoted for gallant conduct in several engagements with Indians in Texas. During the war he was promoted at different, times for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Chickamauga, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn.; in the capture of Atlanta, Ga., and Fort McAllister, Ga., and.for long and continued service of the highest character, and for special gallantry and service at Fort McAllister. In his promotion the infantry lost one of its ablest commanders, and one of the most gentlemanly officers in the service of the United States ; but the Signal Service gains one of the brightest stars in the constellation at Washington.

Daniel Huston, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 6th Infantry, was appointed from the military academy at West Point in 1848. At the beginning of the late war he was distinguished in the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mo., for gallant conduct He was promoted for special gallant and meritorious service during the siege of Vicksburg, and later, for gallant and meritorious service during the war. During his service in this department he was in command at Forts Buford and Stevenson. He is highly esteemed by the old pioneers and citizens throughout the Northwest.

Brevet-Colonel Orlando H. Moore, Major of the 6tli In-fantry, entered the regular army in 1856. Was appointed from the State of Michigan. He was promoted at different times during the war for gallant and meritorious services, and for special gallantry in action at Tebbs Bend, Ky. He has done most excellent service in the Northwest in bringing the hostiles in, and is not only one of the bravest of the brave, but is a most courteous and faithful officer.

Brevet-Major-General David S. Stanley, Colonel of the 22d Infantry, was among the first to have a command in the Northwest, after the right of way was granted to the Northern Pacific Bailroad. He was appointed to the regular army from the military academy at West Point in 1852. He was among the most distinguished officers in the war of the rebellion, and received rapid promotion for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Stone Biver, Tenn.; Besaca,. Ga.. ^ufPs Station, Ga.; and Franklin, Tenn.

He commanded the ^reat expedition in 1873, from Forts Bice and Lincoln, that penetrated farther into the hitherto unknown western wilds than ever our army had been before. The trail he made has since been known as " the Stanley-trail," and has, more or lesb, been a guide to the engineers and pioneers in locating a permanent line for the Northern Pacific Bailroad from the Missouri Biver to Pompey's Pillar, in the headwaters of the Yellowstone. The 22d Infantrjr did most excellent and hard service, both officers, and men, while stationed at different military posts in this department.

Brevet-Brigadier-General Thomas L. Crittenden, Colonel of the 17th Infantry, came with his regiment to this department in an early day, which can now be looked upon as the veteran regiment in the Northwest. General Crittenden was a Major-General of Volunteers during the war, and has had vast experience in military as well as in political affairs in his own State. He was promoted for gallant and meritorious service in the battle of Stone Biver, Tenn. Ever zeal-, ous, and one of the best military advisers and administrative officers in the Northwest.

W. P. Carlin, Lieut.-Colonel of the 17th Infantry, was amp;

Brevet-Major-General in the late civil war, and was promoted at different times for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Jonesboro', Ga.; and Bentonville, N. C. He entered the regular army from the Military Academy at West Point, in 1850. He has been commanding officer at various military stations in Dakota Territory, and, until quite recently, at Fort Yates, or more generally known to the outside world as the Standing Rock Agency. He is a strictly moral and temperate man, and his duties have at times been onerous, but his official career has always been approved by the Lieut.-General and General of the Army.

Robert E. A. Crofton, previous to 1879, was the Major of the 17th Infantry, while he was serving in this department in earlier days. He was promoted at different times during the war of secession, for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Shiloh, Tenn; Chickamauga, Ga.; and Mission. Ridge, Tenn. He is now Lieut.-Colonel of the 13th Infantry* He is not only a brave, but a model and gentlemanly officer*

The 2d U. S. Cavalry has been on duty in this department since 1876, stationed at Forts Custer and Keogh, Montana Territory. Brevet-Major-General Johli W. Davidson was Colonel of the regiment from March, 1879, up to the time of his death in St. Paul, but a few days since. He was appointed to the regular army from the Military Academy at West Point, in 1845. He was promoted at different times during the war of the rebellion, for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Gaines Mill, Va.; Golding's Farm, Va.; and the capture of Little Rock, Ark. He was a strict disciplinarian, and did much to elevate the morale of the army. He died a few days since in St. Paul, Minn., while en route east to recuperate his broken health. By his death the cavalry loses one of its ablest commanders, the army one of its noblest veterans, and his bereaved family a kind-hearted husband and father. The other field officers of this regiment have experienced equally as hard service as those of other regiments, and have displayed great energy and skill in bringing this Indian war to a close. Their service in the field has been in the extreme Northwest, at times near the British Possessions.

In 1876, after the battles of the Little Big Horn, this department was reinforced by the 5th XJ. S. Infantry, commanded by Brig.-General Nelson A. Miles, then Colonel of the regiment. He has deservedly been promoted for special gallant and meritorious conduct in the Northwest. By his promotion the infantry loses a brilliant eagle, but the list of Brigadiers gains a bright star. It was through his generalship that Chief Joseph and his band were captured.

Brevet-Brig.-General Joseph Whistler, the Lieut.-CoL of the 5th Infantry, has a record well known. He entered the regular army from the Military Academy at West Point in 1846. He was promoted for gallantry on the battle-field of Cherubusco, in the Mexican War, and again promoted for gallant and meritorious services in front of Petersburg, Va. He has been in command at Fort Keogh most of the time since it was built, and has also taken no little part in active field operations in forcing Sitting Bull and his warriors to their final surrender. He is genial as he Is brave, and always in good humor. Western people will always hail with joy the veteran " General Joseph Whistler."

The 7th U. S. Infantry has done long and effective service in the Northwest under command of Brevet-Major-General John Gibbon, its brave and popular Colonel. For the past several years a greater portion of the regiment have been serving in Western Montana.

General John Gibbon entered the regular army by appointment from the Military Academy at West Point in July, 1847. He was assigned to duty in the 4th Artillery, and during the late civil war he was promoted to a Major-General of Volunteers, and special promotion from time to time for gallant and meritorious service in the battles of Antietam, Md.; Fredericksburg, Va.; Gettysburg, Pa.; Spott-sylvania, Va.; and in the capture of Petersburg, Va. He is an excellent administrative military officer, and his services have been invaluable in the Northwest, having taken an active part in several important expeditions against the hostile Sioux.

The Lieut.-Colonel of this regiment, Chas. C. Gilbert, was appointed to the regular army from the Military Academy at West Point in July, 1846, and in the late civil war was promoted to a Brig.-General of Volunteers. He was distinguished for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Shiloh, Tenn.; Richmond, Ky.; Springfield, Mo.; Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.; and in the battle of Perryville, Ky. He now commands at the Standing Bock Indian Agency, on the Missouri River, and more recently known as Fort Yates. About seven thousand Indians are located at this agency, under the immediate charge of Major McLaughlin, well known in Dakota Territory as an experienced and efficient Indian agent He is assisted by the Rev. Father Chrysostrom, a Catholic missionary, who has done good work in the way of organizing schools at different stations in the Northwest. It is expected that Sitting Bull will be sent to this agency in a Tery few days.

David H. Brotherton is the Major of the 7th Infantry, having commenced his career in the regular army in July, 1854, after graduating at the Military Academy at West Point. He was distinguished at different times for gallant conduct during the war of the rebellion, and particularly in the battle of Valverde, N. M. In his knowledge and judgment of Indian affairs he stands pre-eminent; and in the general management of the wild and untamed tribes, he has no superior among the field officers in this department. During the past winter, and up to the present time, it has been his decree to take an active part in negotiating with and forcing Sitting Bull and his followers to this final surrender. It was Major Brotherton who compelled the surrender of " Crow King, chief warrior of Sitting Bull's tribes," last January, At Fort Buford.

"Crow King," to use an army phrase, was the Lieut-General of the Sioux warriors, under the leadership of Sitting Bull. He surrendered, however, under the most earnest protestations, and against the positive orders of Sitting Bull The fact is, he could no longer stem the tide of coming events that were destined to roll against him. The almost naked and half-starved condition of his old men, women and children, together with the gallant and intrepid Major Ilges, with his " veteran and brave frost-bitten blue-coats," " Qager

for the fray," arrayed against him, were the real causes which led to his unconditional surrender. The capture of this indefatigable and uncompromising warrior was the breaking of the backbone of the Indian Tfrar in the Sioux nation, and the country at large extends a vote of thanks to the veteran Majors Ilges and Brotherton for their energy and unswerving perseverance in effecting this surrender.

Capt. Thos. B. Dewees, of the 2d Cavalry, also took an active part in this surrender, marching from Fort Keogh with his troop, most of the time in snow knee-deep, with more or less suffering from frost-bites, and at one time being compelled to place 48 men of his troop in the hospital.

He, together with his troop, are entitled to great credit for their personal bravery and enduring the hardships of that winter's campaign. Not until about this time did Chief Gaul make up his mind that he had be'tter begin to make his peace with the Federal authorities. In a message to Major Ilges at one time, he stated in his dignified but insulting manner, quite characteristic with war chiefs, that the white dog soldiers would not fight in the winter-too cold weather-they cried too much-placing his fingers on his face and eyes, showing how the tears would trickle down their faces, saying no good fight in cold weather, and a-heap-o'-snow. Little did this artful and skillful old warrior dream that Major Ilges had his Gatling guns within range with plenty of canister and shell, and that the boys in blue were ready to fire by platoons, or at will. But such was the case, and it required but a very short space of time to convince Chief Gaul, to his entire satisfaction, that it was best for him and his braves to make an unconditional surrender, which was soon effected, but not until a few shots were fired from the Gatling guns and a volley or two of musketry. In response to this call, came the surrender of " Chief Gaul," together with all the lodges that were with him.

Nothing now remained to be done to close the Indian war in the Northwest but to capture the leading chief, " Sitting Bull," who was still behind and within a few days' march of the British lines, but not without his best and fleetest ponies and best guns, which were of the latest and most improved patterns.

It is believed in military circles that about forty lodges of his followers, with their horses, ponies and guns, are yet across the boundary line, even now since the surrender of Bull himself, and that they will never be given up to our authorities. It is, however, hard to conjecture just what course he will drift his influence, what he has left, with this remnant of his once powerful tribes, that held sway over the entire Sioux nation.

In the capture of " Chief Gaul," Major Guido Ilges is entitled to great credit for his personal bravery and endurance in the field, the thermometer varying from 33 to 44 degrees below zero, also, the officers and men alike under his command. Major Ilges is a Prussian by birth, and was commissioned in the regular army in 1861. In the civil war he was distinguished for gallantry and meritorious services in the battles of the "Wilderness" and "Spottsylvania,"Va., for which he received promotion at the respective times. He is one of the bravest and most conscientious officers on the frontier, and the people in the Northwest extend him a hearty vote of thanks.

Captain Walter Clifford, who received Sitting Bull at the time of his surrender in the field, was born in the State of New York, and commenced his career in the U. S. Army in 1860. He served with distinction during the civil war, and was promoted for gallant and meritorious service in the battle of Chickamauga, Ga. He is a Captain in the 7th U. S. Infantry, has experienced his share of hard service against the hostile Sioux during the past several years, and is highly esteemed as a brave, daring and gentlemanly officer.

Brevet-Brigadier-General Thomas H. Buger, Colonel of the 18th United States Infantry, was appointed to the regular army in 1854. He was promoted several times during the war of the Rebellion, and more particularly for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of " Franklin, Tehn., and Gettysburg, Pa." He was at one time commanding officer at West Point. He came to this department in 1878 with his regiment, taking station on Milk Biver, M. T., near the extreme northern boundary line, and has since built the post known as Fort Assinaboine, M. T.* This regiment has

done hard and effective service in the field since it came to this department. The building of Forts Assinaboine, on Milk River, Custer and Keogh, on the Yellowstone, really was unlocking the doors and taking possession of the great Sioux nation. For several years before the " Battle of the Little Big Horn" (1876), Lieutenant-General Sheridan at different times recommended the establishment of these posts, and more especially the two latter, in order that our military might be garrisoned nearer the field of direct operations against Sitting Bull, so as to more effectually cope with his hostile bands and war-parties, then scattered over the entire Northwest, and it was not until after that memorable battle that he succeeded in getting Congress to authorize the sum and make the proper appropriations.

So it will be seen that the military* genius and foresight-edness of our own Field General was, at the proper time, more than equal to that of General Sitting Bull. Sheridan was hampered by Congress, while Sitting Bull could act with a free will of his own, unhampered by any power save the forces that were contending against him. His authority was supreme, and he fully commanded the situation.

To return to the field officers of the 18th Infantry, there is Henry S. Black, the Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, who entered the regular army in July, 1847, from the Military Academy at West Point, and was promoted at different times during the war for faithful and meritorious services, and at one time was the Colonel of the 6th California Volunteers.

Major John S. Poland, of this regiment, was appointed to the regular army in May, 1861, after his academic course at West Point. He served with distinction during the war of secession, especially in the battles of " Antietam and Shep-ardstown Ford, Md.; Fredericksburg and .Chancellorville, Va."; and has been stationed in Northern Dakota and Montana most of the time since 1872, and for years belonged to the 6th U. S. Infantry that was also stationed in this department for several years. Major Poland has been commanding officer at three several posts in this section of the country, and has always been considered a very cautious and good administrative officer. He is strictly moral and temperate, and a genial officer and gentleman.

Major E. B. Kirk, Assistant-Quartermaster in charge of depot of supplies and army transportation, has been stationed at Bismarck and Fort Buford for the past several years, and has held a very important position, having charge of forwarding supplies to the front by both river, rail and overland trains. He was appointed to the regular army from Ohio, and was promoted during the civil war for faithful and meritorious services in the Q. M. department and in the field. He is an energetic, faithful officer, and at all times has a watchful eye over the affairs in his department.

Among the many distinguished field officers who have done very great and efficient service outside of this military department, which has had a good and wholesome effect upon the Indians all along the frontier to the northern boundary line, is Brevet-Major-General Benjamin H. Grierson, Colonel of the 10th U. S. Cavalry. His operations against the Kiowas, Comanches and, worst of all, the most horrid and filthy wild Apaches, have had a most telling effect upon the various tribes outside of the particular section of country that his operations have principally been confined to. General Grierson entered the volunteer army in 1862, as Major of a regiment of cavalry from the State of Illinois, and for gallant and faithful service during the war he was promoted several times, and in 1867 he was made a Brevet-Major-General for special gallant and meritorious services in the raid through the entire State of Mississippi. Many readers of this volume will well remember the famous cavalry raider that penetrated central Mississippi, crossing the Tallahatchie with his Brigade of Light Horse Cavalry at midnight and marching on to the Balize in a most daring and fearless manner. It was announced at the time that this raid very nearly broke the backbone of the rebellion. His most distinguished services of late have been in operating against Victorio's band of wild Apaches along the Rio Grand river and in old Mexico, of which the country have been advised at various times. He came into the State of Kansas with his regiment in 1868, and has ever since been

in active service subjugating the hostiles and protecting the settlers on the frontier. He is strictly moral and temperate, unpretending, and one of the best of army disciplinarians. The officers of his regiment are faithful, brave and zealous as those of any in the army. They have experienced hard and continuous service in subjugating the hostiles in the southern Indian country, and more especially the wild Apaches, Kiowas and Comanches, and for gallant and meritorious services they are entitled to a vote of thanks.

The reader in carefully studying the first section of this volume, " General Van Couvnor," will be able to form a very-fair conclusion in regard to the various and arduous duties that have been devolved upon General Grierson and the officers of the 10th Cavalry since 1868.

CHAPTER III.

The First Photograph of Sitting Bull, and His Age.

While the writer is making every effort to procure facts and such matter as will be of interest to his readers, he is just at this time in doubts about perfecting his plans to have Sitting Bull sit for his photograph. Never up to this time has he been situated so that one could be taken. It is expected that he will come down from Fort Buford on the steamer " General Sherman," en route to the Standing Rock Agency, where he and most of his tribes will remain for a time. I have arranged with a photographer, at quite a large expense, to go down on the steamer and secure the first photo that has ever been taken of our surrendered red brother.

A river pilot just down from Fort Buford states that the old chief is quite reticent and sullen. He recognized him, however, saying he always had a good and warm heart for river men, and finally wanted a dollar in the way of heap-good-friendship. Soon after this interview, a party of citizens, ladies and gentlemen, called upon the sullen chief at his camp, and he refused to come out for the purpose of making an exhibition of himself, and after exhausting their patience and persuasion and a-heap-o'-good-honey-tongued-coaxing, as the cunning warrior would phrase it, they offered him one dollar apiece if he would come out and talk a few moments, but he stubbornly and very sullenly refused.

Should he continue to be stubborn after arriving at Standing Bock, we of course will fail to get his photo, but we intend to have it, that is if it can be had by any reasonable amount of moral persuasion, as he would say himself, " this side of the happy hunting grounds." We have known war-chiefs to act stubbornly for many months after they had surrendered, and for no other reason only it was, to use their own phrase, " bad medicine, heap bad; no good." They would often say it was " the Great Spirit going to strike them," and there is no doubt as to their entertaining such superstition in real earnestness.

The writer at one time knew of a photographer who went quietly to the camp of a once leading war chief, who had already surrendered, and covering himself and his apparatus with a blanket, set himself to work trying to get his camera in range, when all at once he heard a clicking outside, that, to say the least, sounded not at all agreeable, and at once uncovering, found himself modestly arrayed within short range of the stalwart chief, with a Spencer carbine in hand, cocked and ready for instant action. The cool-headed and persuasive photographer succeeded in becoming master of the situation, by gently persuading the war chief that he meant nothing wrong, and had already taken a score or more of the leading war chiefs, all of whom were well pleased, also, that all of the big officers in the army had their pictures taken, so their wives and children and the great father at Washington, could see them. Upon this statement the old chief walked down to the rooms of the photographer, and sat for his photo, with all his head-gear, galligaskins And other toggery that helped to make up his regalia, in order that his shapely figure might take a position alongside of that of a major-general, saying he wanted the white folks to hang his pictures on the wall in their houses, and that he would take two to Washington, one for the great father, and one for the big white chief; not the big soldier chiefs, meaning Generals Sherman and Sheridan, but the red man's friends, President Hayes and Secretary Shurtz.

The question of securing photos of warriors just after they have surrendered may be quite well explained in the Indian's own language : " May-be-so-a-heap-bad-medicine. May-be-so-white-man's-heart – a – heap – bad. Great – Spirit-strike-red-man-too-quick." As the Indians are at times allowed to go about officers' quarters at the military posts, and visit among their families more or less, this prejudice and superstition has gradually worn away, so that in most cases the photographer in time has but little trouble in securing their photos, even from those most stubborn at first.

If we secure this photo, the readers of this book will have the honor and pleasure, if such it is, of seeing the first and only one that has ever been taken. We will not cease our efforts in trying to procure it, and, if necessary, will wait several days before passing this MSS. into the hands of the publisher.

Of our military officers that have seen Sitting Bull and conversed with him, all agree in saying that he is an artful and brave warrior, and an Indian of very superior ability, and possesses unusual powers of endurance. His indomitable energy and bull-dog tenacity has drawn toward him the utmost respect of all his subordinate chiefs and warriors, and it is not probable a surrender would have been effected for some time to come, had it not been for the nearly naked and half-starved condition of his old men, women and children.

The steamer " General Sherman " has just landed with Sitting Bull and about one hundred and fifty old men, women and children, including about thirty warriors. His father, and White Bear, a handsome-looking and good-natured chief, accompany him as close attendants, apparently as staff officers. The writer, by special permission, boarded the steamer, and upon entering the cabin found " standing room only," men, women and children of all ages, sizes and nationalities, had gathered from the rural districts and adjacent towns in the surrounding country, composed the audience, all of whom were anxiously waiting their turn to " shake and how " with the famous old war-horse. The writer considered his mission and interview with the chief too important to " get left," and at once mounted a chair in the front end of the cabin, and looking over the surging crowd, at last caught a glimpse of a row of six Indians, all sitting at the left side of the cabin, with scout Allison standing beside Sitting Bull. I succeeded in getting through the crowd and reaching the point where Allison stood, who at once gave me a formal introduction to "Chief Sitting Bull," who sat in a chair at the head of the row. Mr. Allison,, knowing that I was concluding my last chapter of this book, was, in his always courteous manner, very obliging to me,, and took special pains to tell the chief that I was the "white chief of a book," and an old Indian trader. The chief looked up rather smilingly, and at the same time extending his right hand and drawing his blanket, that covered a once white shirt, more closely around his broad shoulders with the other, said, " How." I at once returned the " how," and then made some signs known in the Southern Indian language as "friendship," which he seemed to recognize at once and rather good-naturedly. Preparatory to going on the steamer, and bent upon getting his photograph, if possibly within the reach of human ingenuity, I put in my pocket a photo of my own (like the one on this frontispiece), with the view of giving it to him, provided, however, I found him in the right kind of humor, knowing very well the prejudices that had been inculcated from the aboriginal pre-instruction of many of his race.

Upon giving him the photo, " White Bear," who sat at the= foot of the semi-circle row, looked up in a wishful and pleasing manner, and extending his hand to shake said, " How, how," evidently much pleased to meet a pale-faced stranger who could talk the language of the red man by signs.

After extending the usual " shake and how " with him, I turned to Sitting Bull's father, whose Indian name is " Four Horns," who was very reticent, although quite good-natured. He is an Indian quite under medium stature, with shoulders somewhat bent to the front, and, to try a guess on his age,

would say quite close to seventy. He seemed to accept Lis situation quite willingly, at the same time showed a rather tiresome air, which led me to believe that he was actually tired of being on the war-path, and only too glad to be at peace, and no doubt thinks it better for him, as well as others of his age, to be settled upon reservations, where they can freely partake of government rations and draw their annuity goods semi-annually, even if " the bad young braves " do go out in raiding parties occasionally. As to the latter, ho probably cares but very little, and will never give himself any uneasiness, even if all the young braves on the Missouri River should turn loose upon the frontier; but as far as he is personally concerned, there is no question t›ut that he intends to live quietly upon a reservation and Abide by such rules and laws as will be made to govern it.

In turning to Sitting Bull, I asked Allison if he, " Bull," would take good care of my photograph, whose reply was, "Yes, he is glad to get it and will take good care of it." This was encouraging to the writer, thinking it might stimulate him to have his own taken to give in return, as is characteristic with leading chiefs to make a return present, and more so when his heart is good toward the donor. We bade him good-by, and after the regular " shake and how," left the steamer in order to make room for others who were anxious to shake with the chief, and we must say he would shake hands very cordially with all who came along, paying especial attention to the ladies. He has, it is said, heretofore and since his surrender been quite indisposed to talk, and rather sullen, saying he did not want to be talked to death and gloated at. He wore a pair of green wire goggles, so we could not see his naked eyes, but it is said that he has a pair of as keen eagle eyes as ever was set between two high cheek bones on any red man in the aboriginal tribes. Up to this time we have hopes of getting him to sit for his photo. We now witness the Professor going on board the steamer with his camera and other paraphernalia, getting ready to make the first attempt, after arriving at Standing Rock, that was ever made to secure the photograph of Sitting Bull, but still entertaining some doubts as to his success,

– that is to say, until after lie becomes more settled and reconciled to his new home. The chief will feel quite different after arriving at the agency and getting rested, as well as getting out of the way of the hundreds of anxious lookers on, and besides, he will meet his old and trusted friends, " Gaul and Crow King," and other warriors and the families he has so often inquired after since he surrendered.

We expect to have to wait from three to seven days before he will consent to sit, and if we fail in that time, we will be compelled to hand our manuscript to the publisher without it, but not without promising to have it ready for our second edition. Just at this moment it is discovered that Sitting Bull has consented to come to the hotel, and take dinner by special invitation of Mr. Marsh, the popular landlord of the Merchants' Hotel. The chief, upon nearing the office desk, takes out a little old worn pencil and registers his name in full, with hand somewhat trembling, a fac-simile of which was secured by the writer, by means of a piece of tracing-paper, and we will promise that it shall appear under his photo, if we succeed in getting it. In writing Sitting Bull has received some instructions at various times from Mr. Allison, a worthy and trusted scout who has been in government employ a number of years, and having the confidence of the officers in this department. He is a man of fine education, having been raised and schooled in Central New York, near Utica, and later years has been in government employ as scout, and interpreter of the Sioux language.

In regard to the exact age of Sitting Bull we are unable to be positive, and we doubt if any one will be able to get his right number of years, and the best we have been able to learn in regard to it is as follows :

In the year 1875 the writer was informed, by an ex-Indian agent, that he was then forty-five years old, which would make him now fifty-one. Just after the Custer battle on the Little Big Horn, it was reported that he was then forty-two, which would make him now forty-seven. We are now informed that he is fifty-two, and we are inclined to believe the latter to be nearer correct, judging from his looks. That he has suffered hardships and privations we all know, and he has evidently taken remarkably good care of himself, as he shows a fine and healthy-looking countenance.

His own statement to Mrs. Captain Harmon seems to make him 48-that is as near as he and his father can guess and recollect.

Mrs. Harmon, while interviewing him on the steamer "General Sherman," asked him his age, and his reply was he thought he was 47. Mrs. Harmon, it appears, had some knowledge that led her to believe that he was older, and said, " Don't you think you are 48," and his reply was that he didn't know exactly, but he knew that he was a little older than " Eoaring Thunder," and just at this time " Four Horns," father of the Chief, said, " Eoaring Thunder is 46 and you are a little older-may-be-so-makes-you-48." Thia is probably the clearest and most reliable statement that has ever been obtained from Sitting Bull by any white person in regard to his age, and there can be no doubt as to his sincerity in all he stated to Mrs. Harmon, as he appeared very much interested, and at times made friendly gestures that evinced great earnestness and friendship.

It is almost impossible to get the exact age of any Indian, that has been roaming with the hostile bands, as they become more or less confused, and ofttimes entirely lost in keeping the count, which is usually done as follows:

When a child is born, the mother takes a stick of no great size and cuts a notch on one side of it, and from that time thereafter it is the intention to cat a notch at the end of every moon (a moon is a month), and knowing that twelve months make a year, and when twelve notches are cut in this stick they then select a tree or another stick, and cut a notch in it which denotes one year. We can now readily see that if they get confused in making the notches, they are, of course, more than likely to lose the exact age, and then they have to depend upon the memory of the older ones in the family or lodges to help them guess and remember.

Only four days after the interview with Mrs. Harmon, when interviewed by an officer at " Standing Rock," he gave his age 44, and said he was born near old Fort George, on Willow Creek, below the mouth of Cheyenne River. Next to himself, lie considers " Four Horns," who is his father, the greatest living chief. Many years ago his father was known as the famous chief, " Jumping Bull." He says he never committed any depredations in the white man's country, and that he did not surrender, but only came in to stay a few days, and how wants the government to let him go; that he never made a treaty nor sold any land, nor made war on the white man's government. He says he has been on the war-path since he was fourteen years old ; and previous to that time, and since he was old enough, he killed buffalo most of the time, giving all of his surplus meat to the old men and women that were poor and too old to hunt. It is generally admitted that he is very tender-hearted and affectionate toward the old men, women and children of all the tribes in the Sioux nation, and the real reason, together with his bravery and artfulness, of his gaining such a stronghold in the hearts of his people, has been on account of his extreme generosity and kind feelings toward them when in distress. He has always showed a disposition to share equally with them the hardships and sufferings they have had to endure ; and it is a noted fact that the great majority of the Indians throughout the Sioux country have a warm corner in their hearts for Sitting Bull.

He says he is a chief by inheritance, has two living wives and nine children, two of whom are twins. It is not only a noticeable but a very amusing fact that he makes various reports and conflicting statements to the different interviewers ; having watched his reports with great care from time to time since his surrender, and are unable to discover any two alike as regards to the same question when being asked by different parties; but as he now gets pay for his " words and big talk," perhaps he thinks he should give to each interviewer a different statement. The writer intends to see him before many weeks, and have a hearty laugh over his various and speculative interviews. We are inclined to think, however, the old chief will only laugh and say, " the white folks are all the time a-trying to fool him and his people, and I thought it just as well to have a little fun by myself and see how they would like it to be fooled." That is about as much as he or any other Indian cares about making a false statement to white people. Another statement made in regard to his family was that he had two good wives, loved one as much as the other, and by them both had seventeen children, seven of whom were by his last or second wife, and six of them, the youngest, were three pair of twins.

He seems very much attached to one of his daughters, who ran away from him last winter, eloping with a young brave who had become tired of taking his rations of buffalo meat on the open prarie in the deep snow, and wisely concluded to come in and partake of Uncle Sam's hospitality at an agency provided especially for him and his people.

It is said that he mourned very much over the elopement, and at times would writhe in anger, claiming that she and " Pretty Plume," his wife, were the two handsomest squaws among the Sioux; and in fact we may truthfully say that " Pretty Plume " is really a handsome and queenly-looking squaw, and if she were a white woman, and favored with the usual facilities for an education and moral training, eta, etc., she would be a reigning belle in society. The chief claims that white people induced his daughter to elope, and before he had surrendered, some scalawag had led him to believe (at least he so pretended) that our officers at " Fort Yates " had her confined in irons, and in one of his statements regarding his surrender, he said he did not want to come in to surrender, but came to see his girl who was in irons at " Standing Rock Agency," and now wants the government to let him go back; but as we have said before, he makes a great many statements, and as a general thing no two are alike.

All there is about it, nothing but starvation and nakedness among his people ever forced him and his remnant band of followers to come in and surrender. He made up his mind to take the step he did, not because he wanted to, but because he and his people were starved out. There was no game, no, nothing, absolutely nothing, for them to live on.

He had wandered around and over a desolate country,, where thousands of buffalo and antelope once roamed, and now not a track to be seen. Eighteen or twenty years he has waged unceasing warfare against the whites, and it is admitted, not only by his own people, but by our military authorities, and Western men generally, who have had means of knowing the facts, that he is the boldest, most malignant and artful of all the cunning war chiefs, from the Eio Grande to the Northern boundary line. But the chief has surrendered, thus relinquishing all his rights to the sturdy pioneer and ranchmen of the Western plains. In order that you may form an idea of an Indian chant, poetry and the " prayer of a squaw," we furnish the exact words, as translated by an interpreter soon after the final surrender of the chief:

"Be brave, my friends, be brave. The white men have brought us food; They will not hurt us ; Their hearts are full of pity for us, My father and my mother, be not afraid, Your hunger once more is stayed, And there is still food in abundance. My brother and my sister, comb your hair, And paint your faces with vermilion, For the Great Spirit has softened The hearts of our enemies, and they feed us with food.

He has, within the writer's knowledge, given three distinct accounts, and no two of them alike, of Custer's last battle against him in the valley of the Little Big Horn,, and there can be no doubt as to his first report being in the main correct. It was about as follows :

He heard the long-haired chief and his soldiers were coming, and he sent out thirty young men on the day before the battle, and that night twenty of them returned and reported the white soldiers coming, and he then told his braves and all his old and young men to get ready for battle* On the morning of the battle seven more of the young men came in and said the soldiers were closing in upon their village, and not long afterwards the remaining three came in and reported the whole column of cavalry in sight, and he then sent the women and children away, and before they had been gone long the white soldiers made their first charge, and just at this time his wife came running back, saying she was so badly scared that she forgot her baby. He at once brought the little one from his tepee, and giving it to his wife and telling her to run, he then turned toward his braves, who were just resisting a bold and gallant charge made by Custer at the head of his men. He then raised a pole with a flag, and at the top of his voice shouted, " I am Sitting Bull, the big chief and leader of all the Sioux warriors." His men had but little trouble in driving our column back, and every charge that was made by our men after that was met and checked by his braves, and those not killed on the field were driven back into new positions; and when the cavalry was finally reduced in numbers to a handful of men, they all rallied to where Custer stood, and then the fighting was soon over, they all falling nearly at the same time.

He then gave orders to go over to the other band, meaning " Major Reno's command," leaving the squaws on the field, which was near their village.

It is supposed by those who came upon the field first after the battle, that just at this period some one of the chiefs gave orders not to mutilate Custer's body, and also made a mark across his nose and cheeks for a notice to the squaws to that effect, which was obeyed; hence we find Custer's body not mutilated.

The chief further stated in this report that Reno and his whole command would have shared the fate of Custer had it not been for the arrival of "Terry and Gibbon" with reinforcements.

Another report he gives about as follows: saying he sent his wife and child out back to hide and then started to go over where they were fighting, and just then a heavy shock of thunder and many sharp streaks of lightning struck the whole of Custer's command, and that was what killed so many men, and when the thunder was over, his warriors killed all there was left.

Another statement is, that after his braves had killed nearly all of Custer's men, he told them to cease firing, as they had killed men enough, but they still insisted upon wiping out the whole command, and then Custer's men made such fearful charges they had to kill them all in order to save their own lives and their women and children. Now, it is more than probable that his first report is the nearest correct, as it compares very favorably with the two made by " Crow King and Low Dog," at Standing Bock, only a few days after the surrender of the chief. It is doubtful if we ^ver arrive at the actual facts in relation to that battle any nearer than is embraced in those three reports, which includes the first one made by the chief, and those two by Crow King and Low Dog respectively, who were leading war chiefs in the fight.

We have never, up to this time, heard of thunder and lightning making an attack on a battalion of cavalry, nor are we willing to believe that Sitting Bull ordered his warriors to cease firing, at the same time telling them they had killed men enough, and that the soldiers were not to blame, as they were told to do so and were fighting under orders from their government, etc., etc.

Such action on his part is not one of his characteristics, nor is it consistent with his mode of warfare against either white men nor his red brethren, for only a month or six weeks before his surrender he annihilated a small band of .Nez Perces, some seventeen in number. This, however, has recently come to light. In 1877, when the Nez Perces surrendered to General Miles, a small band escaped and fled to Sitting Bull's band across the boundary line, and it appears of late they drifted away from the Sioux warriors. "We are at the present time unable to get the exact facts in regard to the trouble, but, as far as we can learn, a sudden quarrel broke out in the lodges and the Nez Perces were killed to a man.

Sitting Bull's report that he " ceased firing " is only a lame Indian plea in the shape of begging for mercy, thinking our authorities will be more lenient with him should he be fortunate enough in making them believe that he really did save the lives of some of the survivors of Custer's last battle. He has mustered his ingenuity in this plea, thinking it will be the means of drawing an additional amount of mercy to that already shown him. We will soon show how it was

that he happened to be so humane and thoughtful as to give his much talked-about order, and just at this particular time, to " cease firing."

It was the day after Custer fell that our men came on the hill and at once discovered that Custer's body was not mutilated, and a mark had been made across his cheeks and nose, just below his eyes. This was done by some one of the leading chiefs as a notice to the squaws that this body must not be mutilated on account of his bravery; and well they knew and felt it, for over one hundred empty cartridge shells were found near by where his feet had stood just before he fell, and there can be no doubt but that he brought down many a warrior before he fell. It so happened that Major Reno found that he was overpowered, and being fore-sighted enough to entrench himself, was thus enabled to hold at bay the unrelenting hordes until Generals Terry and Gibbon came to his relief, and just about this time the chief no doubt did give an order to retreat and also to cease firing. At all events he retreated to the hills in a very short space of time, which was, of course, done to save his own men instead of Reno's, who were entrenched, and were alone giving him a hot battle.

As before stated, the writer has taken no little pains in procuring facts from the most reliable sources at his command, and at the same time has been very cautious in arriving at conclusions, in order to get at actual facts and circumstances as they have transpired during this important campaign, and must say that not until the present time have we been able to get an Indian account of the Custer battle from their own lips any way satisfactory, or that looked half way reasonable.

We have quite recently noticed an account given by two leading chiefs, " Crow King and Low Dog," both subordinates under Sitting Bull, and were in the " Custer battle." It appears that Captain Howe, at Fort Yates, or more generally known as the " Standing Rock Agency," succeeded in getting a voluntary statement from these two chiefs, and it is the clearest and most satisfactory account that is known, to have been given by Indians who knew the facts. We

have known Captain Howe since 1873, and know him to be a most upright and conscientious officer and gentleman, and would not allow himself to stoop to anything that had a shadow of trickery or falsehood about it. He is highly respected by the Indians, and more particularly on account of his being at all times strict, yet just, and very obliging.

The readers can now have the latest and most authentic Indian account that ever has been procured by a white person.

Captain Howe has, during the eight years just past, been in command of several military posts on the Missouri River, and has the reputation of managing Indians with great credit to himself, and general satisfaction to them. It will be remembered that " Crow King and Low Dog " surrendered last winter, after being driven and forced by the frostbitten troops under " Major Hges," near Fort Buford, and have since had opportunities to get acquainted with the officers, and have, without doubt, made a very correct account of " Custer's last battle."

Low Dog said: " We were in camp near Little Big Horn Eiver. We had lost some horses and an Indian went back on the trail to look for them. We did not know that the white warriors were coming after us. Some scouts or men in advance of the warriors saw the Indian looking for the horses, and ran after him and tried to kill him, to keep him from bringing us word; but he ran faster than they, and came into camp and told us that the white warriors were coming. I was asleep in my lodge at the time. The sun was about noon (pointing with his finger). I heard the alarm, but I did not believe it. I thought it was a false alarm. I did not think it possible that any white men would attack us, so strong as we were. We had in our camp the Cheyennes, Arrapahoes, and seven different tribes of the Teton Sioux-a countless number. Although 1 did not believe it was a true alarm, I lost no time getting ready. When I got my gun and came out of my lodge, the attack had begun at the part of the camp where Sitting Bull and the Un-capapas were. The Indians held their ground to give the women and children time to get out of the way. By this time the herders were driving in the horses, and as I was nearly at the further end of the camp I ordered my men to catch their horses and mount. But there was much confusion. The women and children were trying to catch their horses and get out of the way, and my men were hurrying to go and help those that were fighting. When the fighters saw that the women and children were safe, they fell back By this time my people went to help them, and the less able warriors and the women caught horses and got them ready, and we drove the first attacking party back, and that party retreated to a high hill. Then I told my people not to venture too far in pursuit, for fear of falling into an ambush.

By this time all the warriors in our camp were mounted and ready for fight, and then we were attacked on the other side by another party. They came on us like a thunderbolt. I never before nor since saw men so brave and fearless as those white warriors. We retreated until our men got all together, and then we charged upon them. I called to my men, 'This is a good day to die; follow me.' We massed our men, and, that no man should fall back, every man whipped another man's horse, and we rushed right upon them. As we rushed upon them the white warriors dismounted to fire, but they did very poor shooting. They held their horses' reins on one arm while they were shooting, but their horses were so frightened that they pulled the men all around, and a great many of their shots went up in the air and did us no harm. The white warriors stood their ground bravely, and none of them made any attempt to escape or get away. After all, but a few of them were killed ; I captured two of their horses. Then the wise men and chiefs of our nation gave out to our people not to mutilate the dead white chief, for he was a brave warrior and died a brave man, and his remains should be respected. Then I turned round and went to help fight the other white warriors, who had retreated to a high hill on the east side of the river. (This was Bono's command.) I don't know whether any white men of Custer's force were taken prisoners. When I got back to our camp they were all dead. Everything was in confusion all the time of the fight. I did not see General Custer. I do not know who killed him. We did not know till the fight was over that he was the white chief. We had no idea that the white warriors were coming until the runner came in and told us. I do not say that Reno was a coward. He fought well, but our men were fighting to save their women and children, and drove them back. No white man or Indian ever fought as bravely as Custer and his men. The next day we fought Eeno and his forces again, and killed many of them. Then the chiefs said these men had been punished enough, and that we ought to be merciful, and we let them go. Then we heard that another force was coming up the river to fight us (Gen. Terry's command), and we started to fight them, but the chiefs and wise men counseled that we had fought enough, and that we should not fight unless attacked, and we went back and took our women and children and went away."

Having heard Low Dog's story of the fight, I concluded I would try to get an account from other chiefs, and going with an interpreter to the Indian camp, approached Chief Gaul first. He said if he knew anything he would tell it, but he denied that he was in the fight. He said he was helping the women catch the horses, and took no other part. If he thought I believed that, he mistook his man, and I shall try him again. Eain-in-the-Face refused to talk. I then called on Crow King, a chief of the Uncapapas, Sitting Bull's tribe, and a noted warrior. He has a good face, and wields great influence over the Indians. He is one of the few chiefs who speak well of Sitting Bull. After some little talk, he came up to the fort and gave me his story:

" We were in camp, not thinking there was any danger of a battle, although we had heard that the long-haired chief had been sent after us. Some of our runners went back on our trail, for what purpose I do not know. One came back and reported that an army of white soldiers was coming, and he had no more than reported when another runner came in with the same story, and also told us that the command had divided, and that one party was going round to attack us on the opposite side. The first attack was at the camp of the Uncapapas tribe. The shots neither raised nor fell. (Here he indicated that the whites commenced firing at about 400

yards distance.) The Indians retreated-at first slowly, to give the women and children time to go to a place of safety Other Indians got our horses. By that time we had warriors enough to turn upon the whites, and we drove them to a hill and started back to camp. Then the second band of white warriors came. We did not know who was their chief, but we supposed it was Custer's command. This party commenced firing at long range (indicating nearly a mile). We had then all our warriors and horses. There were 80 warriors in mv band. All the Sioux were there from every tribe. We had warriors plenty as the leaves on the trees.

" Our camp was as long as from the fort to the lower end of our camp here (more than two and a half miles). Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were the great chiefs of the fight. Sitting Bull did not himself fight, but he gave orders. We turned against this second party. The great body of our warriors came together in their front, and we rushed our horses on them. At the same time warriors rode out on each side of them and circled round them till they were surrounded. When they saw that they were surrounded they dismounted. They tried to hold on to their horses, but as we pressed closer they let go their horses. We crowded them towards our main camp and killed all. They kept in order and fought like brave warriors as long as they had a man left. Our camp was on Greasy Grass Biver (Little Big Horn). When we charged, every chief gave the cry, 1 Hi-yi-yi.' (Here Crow Chief gave us the cry in a high prolonged tone. When this cry is given it is a command to all the warriors to watch the chief and follow his actions.) Then every chief rushed his horse on the white soldiers, and all our warriors did the same, every one whipping another's horse. There was great hurry and confusion in the fight. No one chief was above another in that fight. It was not more than half an hour after the long-haired chief attacked us before he and all his men were dead. Then we went back for the first party. We fired at them until the sun went down. We surrounded them and watched them all night, and at daylight we fought them again. We killed many of them. Then a chief from the Uncapapas called our men off. He told them those men had been punished enough, that they were fighting under orders, that we had killed the great leader and his men in the fight the day before, and we should let the rest go home. Sitting Bull gave this order. He said: * This is not my doings nor these men's. They are fighting because they were commanded to fight. We have killed their leader, let them go.' I call on the Great Spirit to witness what I say. We did not want to fight. Long Hair sent us word that he was coming to fight us, and we had to defend ourselves and our wives and children. If this command had not been given we could have cut Reno's command to pieces, as we did Custer's. No warrior knew Custer in the fight. We did not know him, dead or alive. When the fight was over the chiefs gave orders-to look for the long-haired chief among the dead, but no chief with long hair could be found.'' (Custer had his hair cut short before starting on this march.)

Crow King said that if Reno had held out until Terry and Gibbon came and then fought as Custer did, they would have whipped the Indians. The Indians would then have T›een compelled to divide to protect their women and children, and the whites would have had the advantage. He expressed great admiration for the bravery of Custer and his men, and said that that fight impressed the Indians that the whites were their superiors, and it would be their destruction to keep on fighting them. Both he and Low Dog said they did not feel that they would be blamed for the Custer fight or its results. It was war ; they were attacked; Custer tried to kill them ; they killed him. Crow King said he had two brothers killed in the fight; from 30 to 50 Indians were killed, and a much larger number who were wounded died afterward.

Upon the opposite page appears a life likeness of " Louis,'* a son of Chief Sitting Bull, about twenty-three years of age, and through the kindness of young C. K. Peck, Jr., whose father was an old Indian trader, we are permitted to take a "fac simile " of his signature, which was secured from Louis while he was en route from Fort Buford to Standing Rock, early last spring, on the steamer "General Terry." He also wrote his wife's name, Zuzela, as will also be noticed.

After Louis was surrendered to Major Ilges last winter, he rendered almost invaluable service to that officer in" the way of giving information and acting as a mounted scout, and it is possible he may remain quiet and continue his good services to the government; and it is just as possible he may skip out with a marauding band of discontented braves and join a small war-party. He will, however, be influenced in a great measure by the leading chiefs, also by Sitting Bull himself.

The writer places these autographs before the reading public merely to show that the average class of Indians of both sexes, below fhe age of say twenty-five, are, in a great measure to be considered yet in the hands of the military, the philanthropists and teachers.

It will readily be seen that the untutored children of the forest will no doubt make very marked progress in our elementary branches of study, with proper encouragement and good moral training. The younger class, say below the age above mentioned, are generally quite ingenious and apt in learning, and those that have not been wholly demoralized by the older warriors and leading chiefs, there are strong hopes of fair to good results in trying to educate them. We are frank to state that, from our own personal knowledge, we are able to say that there is a very general and marked improvement, which already shows the

results of the so very persistent, but generous philanthropists and teachers, who have so bravely stemmed the tide of opposition all along the frontier. As is already shown at the various Indian agencies, there are numerous classes of half and full grown Indians of both sexes, who are quite well advanced in reading and writing, and as they grow older they seem to take quite an interest in farming and stock raising, and we must say with considerable less reluctance than many of our white brothers, after taking the-advice of the veteran Horace Greeley to " go West, young^ man, go West."

While writing this article, we beg to state that in turning our eyes to the left, and looking out of a certain window in Printing House Square, we gaze upon the scene of the life labors of Horace Greeley, (the Tribune building), the moral adviser to the young men of the country, as well as the old, and just now imagine if his voice could be heard from beneath the sepulchre, he would speak in louder tones than ever, " Young man, go West," but don't forget what to do when you get there.

As to the philanthropists and teachers who have paved the way into the Indian country, and have made such commendable strides toward educating the red men of the plains, we can only say that they are, to say the least, entitled to a-vote of thanks from the country at large, and should be not only encouraged by the Government, but well paid for their services. There is no longer any doubt as to the final success of their workings and teaching, both morally and physically.

CHAPTEE IV.

Sitting BuWs frst visit to a white man } s city – Bismarck. – On

the steamer " General Sherman"

Sitting Bull's visit to Bismarck was anything but satisfactory to him, more particularly on account of being deprived of visiting the residence of Captain William Harmon. It will be remembered that this was the first white man's town or city that Sitting Bull was ever in, and he certainly was entitled to respectful treatment. It appears that Mrs. Harmon's mother, Mrs. Galpin, was an old acquaintance of his, many years ago, and he has known for years that her daughter married Captain Harmon.

As soon as the steamer landed, Captain Harmon started in his carriage, taking Mrs. H. along as far as the church, and then proceeded, with one of his little sons, to the boat. The chief was more than glad to see him, and after the usual " hearty shake, and how," the captain then said, " This is my second son;" to which the chief replied, " I am poor, and have nothing to give you, only my name," taking the hat from the boy's head and writing his name quite plainly on the inside, and said, " if I had anything more to give, I would give it to you ;" and then said to the captain, " you ought to bring your wife down to the boat," saying he had known her mother for many years. The captain said he had left her at church, but as he was going straightway home, he would take her along; and when he, the chief, came up into the city, he wanted him to come to his residence ; to which the chief replied, that he would be glad to come, and would do so, if they would let him. But it appears his wish was not granted, for reasons known only to those who had him in charge, and prevented him from going there.

Captain Harmon, upon arriving at his house-a richly furnished mansion in the suburbs of the city-together with his accomplished and queenly wife, set themselves about preparing a lunch, such as sandwiches, lemonade, etc., etc., and thereupon waited the arrival of the " chief." The parties in charge of the reception, however, thought best not to allow him to go there, for reasons not by them explained, and at the same time not showing even a faint disposition to care anything about the personal wishes of " Sitting Bull"

The chief felt very much disappointed, as well as deeply mortified at this chagrin, and Mrs. Harmon was at once sent for. Upon her arrival on board the steamer " General Sherman," the usual " shake and how," as a matter of course, came first, and the chief was indeed glad to see Mrs. H. The chief had known her mother since his bovhood, and he seemed to act and talk very free-inquiring about many things that had transpired within the past few years in that section of the country, and expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with her answers and explanations.

The good lady said to him, " Don't you think it would have been better for you and your people if you had come in and surrendered in 1867, as you were told to do ?" To which he answered, " Yes, I think it might have been better, but as me and my people was born in this country, I always considered it belonged to me, and do yet; and I never would have come in, only for the sake of my women and children, and did not come in because I wanted to."

Mrs. Harmon speaks the Sioux language fluently, and the chief knew that she was one among only a very few white ladies in the world that can speak and understand his language in all its phases. In the early days of the chief he learned the French language to quite an extent from " French traders " that visited his section of the country for the purpose of trading, and who generally came from the British possessions.

Now the writer does not in the least manner feel disposed to question the conduct of any particular parties, but will merely suggest, now that Sitting Bull is in the hands of the proper officials, fully and properly surrendered in accordance with all demands made upon him by the proper authorities, he be treated with, to say the least, common decency, all of which he is certainly entitled to, for we must admit that the war was forced upon him and his people for no other reason only for the advancement of our noble Saxon race.

The idea of forcing him into a common puppet show in different places, much to his displeasure, was, to say the least, very disgusting to him and wholly uncalled for. No wonder he said he thought the white folks were making fools of themselves in forcing him into a position to be sneered and laughed at.

It must be borne in mind that Sitting Bull has not lesa than twenty-five hundred braves, all of whom are able-bodied warriors, and are now within his call, and all the while he is submitting so quietly to the powers that be, it is well enough to consider that it is not impossible thai plans will be laid and carried into effect within his apparent deaf ear, which may be the means of calling out the entire force under command of General Sheridan; and we again, suggest that the artful old chief be dealt with in a fair and respectable manner, and be allowed to receive such treatment as he is entitled to.

In the way of a gentle hint as to what might happen, the writer respectfully refers to the first section of this volume, " General Van Couvnor," where the leading war-chiefs were in council at a " peace commission,'' and at the same time the young warriors were raiding in Texas, capturing women, children, horses and mules, and it is fair to presume that similar scenes may be enacted on the frontier plains of Dakota and among the ranchmen in the hills of Montana, as it was on the borders of Kansas and Texas.

The writer does not propose to dictate nor even suggest a policy to be pursued by our authorities, but modestly claims-the right to state what possibly might occur, judging from facts and precedents already established on .our frontier; and in the meantime we have no reason to apprehend that there will be any napping or negligence while Sitting Bull and his warriors are being herded and cared for.

CHAPTER V.

A Careful Review of the Present Situation.

A careful view of the situation, and a glance over the list of field officers that have been on duty in the Northwest for the purpose of subjugating the Sioux nation and cutting the way through the bad lands and over the plains, in order to cross the continent on this line-running nearly mid-way between the 46th and 47th parallel of north latitude-it will at once be seen that no insignificant amount of military genius and executive ability has been arrayed in the new Northwest to accomplish this final and most satisfactory result, that the country may justly feel so proud of.

Any one of the above-mentioned officers; if called upon to take command of an army corps of twenty thousand men, would not shrink from the responsibility, but would, judging from their past career and from laurels already won in many a hard-fought battle-some in civil war and others in Indian wars on the frontier-would discharge the various and onerous duties devolved upon them in a manner becoming an officer in the American army.

We have had on duty in the Northwest a greater portion of the time since 1873, between thirty and forty field officers and over two hundred officers of the line, with about three thousand men in the ranks, to confront the hostiles of the Sioux nation. In addition to the above, we must add the list of army surgeons, artificers, mechanics, teamsters and laborers at the various military posts; also Indian scouts and interpreters; all of which will number not less than three hundred, and at times would swell the number to over seven hundred.

We will now call the attention of our readers to the fact that the officers of the line in all of the regiments above mentioned, and others that have been on duty in the Northwest during our Indian troubles, have shared no less of the hardships and dangers than their superiors mentioned in this volume. En regie ; selon les regies, de jure. In speaking generally, we must say that their heroic conduct on the field and their industry and faithful services entitles them to volumes of credit and a general vote of thanks from their countrymen, many of whom are sure to follow in the west-ern path that is now in a great measure paved for civilization.

In making special mention of officers, the writer does not consider it his proper mission, strictly speaking, to give the record of army officers, as this work is not intended for an army register, but we think it not out of place to make mention of some of the material facts connected with the history of the officers who have takfcn an active part in this long and vexatious Indian war that is now terminated, in order to more fully illustrate to our readers that our Indian difficulties have been managed by officers not only of long and varied experience in both civil and Indian warfare, and as their records show, they have proved themselves industrious, zealous and faithful to the various trusts imposed upon them, as well as proving themselves equal to the emergencies that have suddenly arisen before them from time to time during the several years just past, and some of whom have been constantly engaged against the hostile savages since the close of the civil war.

The successful management of the various campaigns since the battle of the " Little Big Horn," in 1876, and the well-trained discipline throughout the rank and file of the troops in this department, reflects great credit upon the sagacious and conscientious Department Commander, Brig.-General Alfred H. Terry, and his staff of skilled and gentlemanly officers. It must not be inferred that we hold General Terry responsible for the result of the Little Big Horn battle. Far from it. Certain high officials at Washington, in order to give vent to their personal spite, detained the column nearly or quite a month, thereby giving Sitting Bull an opportunity of enormous magnitude to recruit his forces from the various tribes throughout the West and Northwest, all of which swelled his hostile army that awaited in the valley of the Little Big Horn only to meet the gallant Custer, who was known among the Indians all the way from the "Brazos to the Yellowstone," as the "Long-Haired Chief," thus enabling him to mow down the brave troopers of the 7th Cavalry, with Custer at the head, by platoons and companies, as they were found on the field lying in regular winrows, sleeping the sleep that none but dauntless soldiers, do.

Our countrymen throughout the land ought to speak in loud tones and say to the veterans, officers and brave men of their respective commands, that have stood the brunt of a score or more of hard-fought Indian battles and skirmishes on the plains all along the frontier, from tho Gulf of Mexico to the British Possessions, and who have with stout hearts buried hundreds of their heroic brothers that were mowed down, not only man by man, but by companies and battalions, whose bones now lie mouldering under the sod of the green earth, some in the valley of the Washita, and others in the lonely valley of the Little Big Horn, with scarce a rude head-board that well might read, Here lies a jnan that nobly lived and bravely died in honor, glory and fame, that his white brothers might follow in the peaceful paths of civilization. Yes. Well might the country at large, in one loud voice say to those brave officers and men, Well done, good and faithful servants, you have opened the way for Christian civilization that is sure to follow in your footsteps. Tour tents, camp equipage and other paraphernalia used in wars, also the tepees of the savage warrior must now make room for the onward march of civilization, with its churches, school-houses and teachers.

Instead of hearing the oft-heard war-whoop and murderous yells of the hideous savages on the battle-field and the retort by our Gatling guns and musketry, and the loud cheering of our brave boys in blue, you will hear the persuasive eloquence of the kind-hearted theologian and the knightly young schoolmaster, pleading the cause of Christianity and education; and where Sitting Bull ofttimes held his medicine lodges and war dances on the banks of the Little Missouri and Little Big Horn Rivers, for no other purpose only to strengthen and bolster up the hearts of hundreds of Gall-hearted warriors, and urge them on to cold-blooded, heartrending and blood-thirsty murders, you will see stately court-houses, with their benches occupied by the ablest

jurists in the land to mete out justice, and members of the bar ably advocating and defending the cause of peace and good order.

The energetic, sturdy, powerful and unconquerable Saxon race have decided that this country cannot afford to set aside an area of territory large enough to make three States the size of New York for the sustenance of a single chief and his hostile bands of warriors. The fate of the " king warrior" is decreed. The final unconditional surrender of Sitting Bull is an event in American history, and more especially so for the reason of it being the summary turning point of transformation of the native aborigines of the once powerful Sioux nation. Our military will no longer be waging costly and bloody wars against his hostile and powerful hordes to subdue their rebellious and murderous onslaughts .against the onward march of our Saxon civilization that manifest destiny has decreed shall dominate on this continent.

He, with his tribes and marauding bands of demoralized and half-starved followers, will be watched with vigilant eyes, but kindly cared for by the munificent agents of the Interior Department, assisted by a corps of large and open-hearted philanthropists, whose duties will not only in a measure be encouraged, but rigidly enforced by the authority of our powerful but ever humane and magnanimous government. There is no longer a formidable tribe, or an association of tribes, of hostile Indians within the territory of the United States.

It is fair to presume that Sitting Bull will be kept under military surveillance upon some one of the military posts for awhile and then put upon an agency. His followers will be divided among the various Indian agencies, and the old chief will have to resign himself into insignificance and rest contented in thinking that he once was the supreme and powerful ruler over the once powerful tribes of the Sioux nation.

At the same time it is just as fair to presume that many a young and discontented warrior that once raided and fought under the plumed Sitting Bull may think agency rations -somewhat stale, and the quiet and monotonous life about Uncle Sam's agencies quite too common for a young and dashing warrior, and after seeing an opportunity to mount themselves and secure a belt full of long range ammunition, start off on a raid, perhaps to join other bands, for no other purpose only to roam from one section of the country to another, save to kill a few buffalo and run off small herds of stock. Vigilant eyes will have to be kept upon them until they become more contented and better familiarized with the ways of white people. There is, however, a decided improvement in the advancement of the Indian from one year to another. The young and yet warlike braves will have to be gradually tamed, now that they have surrendered, and it will take no little amount of moral persuasion to keep them within the bounds of peace and good behavior. We may look for the best, and at the same time place confidence in the ability of our trustworthy officers who have them in ¦charge.

SECTION" V. "CUSTER'S LAST RALLY."

The Painting in the Studio. – Walt Whitman's Account. – Me* moriam by Judge J. S. Carvett. – Rain-in-the-Face.

That our readers may be able to appreciate the interest, that has been taken over this ever-memorable battle, we make note of some facts connected with it, in order to show that some of the ablest authors in prose and poetry, also artists of great repute, have bent their energies, ability and skill in securing the real facts as they were connected with " Custer's last battle."

A description of this battle has been heralded throughout the land in nearly or quite all of the journals, and read by every fireside, and almost numberless paintings, chromos, engravings and various other life-like illustrations adorn the walls to-day of almost untold numbers of art galleries, drawing rooms, studios, and public places; but never has there been produced a painting, chromo or engraving that will compare with the one now nearly finished and owned by Mr. John Mulvany, recently from Kansas City, Mo. The writer remembers that during the summer of 1880 Mr. Mulvany was making his tour throughout the Northwest, visiting the Custer battle-field, the different military posts and Indian agencies, in order to get views and facts connected with the battle, such as would enable him to paint upon canvas a real life-like picture of the several survivors, who, up to this time, were withstanding the desperate charges that were repeatedly made by the almost countless numbers of blood-thirsty savages. After receiving the desired information from officers, scouts and Indians who had survived the battle, he proceeded to Kansas City, were he opened his studio, and remained there perfecting his work.

until early in this present summer, when he proceeded with his painting to Boston, remaining there one month, and then proceeded with his painting, nearly finished, to New York City, where he now is, completing his work. It is supposed that he moved his painting from Boston to New York City so as to be nearer Mrs. Custer, who resides in the latter ‹aty, in order to enable him to get a more correct knowledge of the intellectual features of the General and the officers and several others who were known to have been in " the last rally."

The writer, upon hearing that Mr. Mulvany was in the city, at once commenced making inquiries as to his location, and, much to his surprise, could get no information. We asked, to say the least, several dozen prominent artists and newspaper reporters, all of whom would have been likely to know, had it not been for the strict secrecy that Mr. Mulvany has been keeping himself in; but after exhausting all of my spare time and patience, and nearly all hope of finding him or his painting, my mind at once dropped upon a certain individual, who I found in the seventh story of a certain building, and it was but a few moments before I was in his presence, making my usual inquiry in regard to the whereabouts of " Mulvany and his painting;" and, in a very gentlemanly manner, after taking the second thought, said, " If you can find Mr. Walt Whitman, you will be quite likely to get the information you desire, as he is, I think, the only man in the city that knows the precise location.

Soon after this interview I was informed that Mr. Whitman was out of the city, and I at once addressed a note to him, and promptly by return mail I received the information that I had so persistently worked to obtain for four successive days, and all of this time could not imagine why such strict secrecy was resorted to; I was not long, however, in finding the building, and, after reaching the top of the first flight of stairs, I approached the janitor and inquired if Mr. Mulvany was on the top floor with his painting. He replied that he was, but it was no use for me to go up there, as I would not be admitted, and besides he had received orders not to allow any one to go up there.

By this time the writer had reached half-way up the second flight in a leisurely manner, and the more we insisted upon going up, the more anxious was the janitor to explain, why he must not allow any one to enter upon the upper floor; but we slowly gained the top of the flight, and, suddenly turning around the banister, shot up the second flight, taking about four steps only, in order to escape from the janitor as soon as possible.

After ascending two more flights we found the door opening into Mr. Mulvany's studio. He seemed glad to receive a representative from the frontier, and more especially so on account of my coming from so near the scene exhibited on the canvas which hung upon the wall before me, covering a space of about 22X12 feet. He at once placed a chair for me to sit in at a distance of about thirty feet from the painting, and at the first glance my eyes were of course brought directly upon the soldierly and most natural-looking figure of " Major-General George A. Custer," with his huge revolver drawn in his right hand and at arms length, with his eye making a sure aim, which at once convinced me that at least one more painted and plumed warrior fell before his own time had come, which was no doubt then close at hand. On my right and just at Custer's left was the genial and noble-hearted Cook (Custer's Adjutant), in a half kneeling position, with his carbine drawn with deadly aim (and no doubt for the last time) on some one of the warriors who were just at this time making a fearful onslaught upon this heroic and lonely little band, all that were left of the brave three hundred after a most bitter and heart-rending, yet the most glorious defense that has ever been made in the world, or recorded in the annals of any history of civilized or Indian warfare. A few feet from Custer, on his left, lay the gallant Captain Yates, evidently just breathing his last, and over his body was a carbine just leveled by a bronze faced trooper wearing a fron-tierman's broad-brimmed hat, set one side of his head and a little back, with a blue army shirt on with sleeves rolled up, all of which presented a most life-like appearance, and a desperation that seemed to speak as loud and plain as words could speak- "Fll avenge the death of my brave cominander who has so nobly fought and bravely died before me." In casting my eyes to the rear of where Custer stood, and glancing around and over the semi-circle winrow of dead horses and men, all lying promiscuously and in pell-mell order, with now and then a dead Indian still clenching his carbine or spear with deathly grasp, we see nothing but one vast array of blood-thirsty warriors, making their final onslaught against the legion brave who had stood for hours so bravely and fought so nobly, and were now witnessing the life-blood of their brothers lave the field, who had already fallen before them. Onward the savage hordes are fast rushing, plunging their way through the clouds of smoke like so many mad-brained demons being driven into bedlam, mounted on their fleetest war-Jiorses, trampling over dead horses, dead troopers and dead Indians, whose copper-colored, naked skin (save that portion the breech clout covered) glistened as brilliant as the Chinese vermilion on their scrawny faces, painted in such a manner that bore positive evidence of a determination to annihilate every white man that by chance struck the buffalo trail on the Western plains.

The savage horde appear to be making this charge on a semi-circle line, all mounted and bedecked with gew-gaws, and heads dressed in the most costly war-bonnets, and tricked with plumes and eagles' feathers, with war-paint on their faces, and with carbine and spear in hand, all of which presents not only a most horrid, but a murderous and barbarous spectacle, but really a life-like picture of hostile savages, arrayed in a bold and unrelenting charge, which resulted in a most treacherous and heart-rending massacre.

As we left the studio our lips v/ere sealed in regard to the future course Mr. Mulvany is to pursue, and under a promise not to mention his whereabouts, as his painting is yet unfinished, and he cannot be annoyed with frequent visitors. He is arranging a very fine engraving of his painting, the size of which will be about 36X20 inches, and nicely framed. I saw one of his engravings he had just finished, and must frankly say that the intellectual features of all whom I had personally known, could not be more clearly and effectually set forth for the human eye to gaze upon. The eyes of " Cus-

ter and Cook " looking as clear and piercing as when they were on dress parade at Fort A. Lincoln, only a few months before the battle. Mr. Mulvany has certainly gained artistic repute to a very high degree, and his efforts must prove an immense success. He has been offered twenty-five thousand dollars for his painting alone. But we must be brief in this account, as it is against the orders of the artist to say anything special in connection with his studio, but we assume the same right that Mr. Whitman presumed to take, and will also produce his account of this wonderful work as it appeared in the New York Tribune, and following this will appear a memoriam by Judge J. S. Carvell, who was an old citizen on the frontier at the time, and personally knew the many good traits of Custer and the officers of s the Seventh Cavalry.

The writer places the following productions upon these pages to show that intense interest has been taken in different parts of the country in regard to this important campaign:

"CUSTER'S LAST RALLY."

BY MR. WALT WHITMAN, OF BOSTON.

I went to-day to see this just-finished painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Montana on the spot at the forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two or three years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. I sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorbed in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks; there is no throwing of shades in masses; it is all at first painfully real, overwhelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail, life-size, in the mid-ground, with three times that number, or more, through the rest-swarms upon swarms of savage Sioux, in their war-

T›onnets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a Western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost; nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakespeare; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men brought to bay under terrible circumstances. Death a-hold of them, yet every man undaunted, not one losing his head, wringing out every cent of the pay before they sell their lives.

Custer (his hair cut short) stands in the middle with dilated eye and extended arm, aiming a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, but aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling (his body was afterwards found close by Custer's). The slaughtered or half-slaughtered horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians, lerculean, lie in the foreground clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimmed Western hats, the powder smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes almost human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures of Custer and Cook, with, indeed, the whole scene, inexpressible, dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain forever in my memory. With all its color and fierce action a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light develop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western.

I only saw it for an hour or so; but needs to be seen many times-needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring. It is very tonic to me. Then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have.

The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talked of. I advised him if it

went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there-nay, they certainly would. Then I would, like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others.

Altogether, " Custer's Last Rally " is one of the very few attempts at deliberate artistic expression for our land and people, on a pretty ambitious standard and programme, thai impressed me as filling the bill.

IN MEMOEIAM.

The sun shone from an azure sky

On that eventful day, When Custer's band of troopers bold

Rode forth in proud array; With their loved chieftain in command

No trooper on that field But what would face the cannon's mouth

And life's red current yield.

The soul of chivalry was he-

He was their boast and pride; Ofttimes they'd heard his clarion voice

Where rolled the crimson tide. Ofttimes they'd made the brave advance

Where gallant Custer led, On many a blood-stained battle-ground

The legion brave had bled.

Shrill sounds the reveille once more

That balmy summer's morn, Its echoes wake o'er hill and dale

On gentle zephyrs borne. Each heart beats in responsive note,

Each heart beats high with glee, For fame and country, home and friends,

And Custer's cavalry.

"•Forward! brave hearts!" the chieftain cried

That balmy morn in June, " Fresh laurels gain, or cypress weave

A wreath for warrior's tomb. Our duty calls, and life, how dear,

Will not be spent in vain If laid down on the battle-field

Among the noble slain."

And slain they were, that gallant band,

Before the setting sun; Their spirits winged their mystic flight,

Their sands of life had run. Not one was left to tell the tale-

That legion bold and brave, Their life-blood laved the distant wilds,

They found a warrior's grave.

In numbers vast the savage horde

Bore down in fiendish rage, And, ten to one, with leaden hail,

Did Custer's boys engage. No earthly force could stand such odds;

No power stem the tide. They nobly fought as heroes do,

They fought and bled and died.

The chieftain's voice is hushed in death.

The trooper's battle-cry No more shall make the welkin ring,

Or enemy defy. They nobly lived and bravely died

In honor, glory, fame. All hail! the Seventh Cavalry,

And Custer's honored name.

My 8th, 1876. J. S. Cabvell.

The above was written immediately after receiving the* news of the battle of the Little Big Horn.

Upon the opposite page will be seen a true portrait of Bain-in-the-Face, the Indian that murdered General Custer. As will be seen in the fore part of this volume, he made it his special business to encourage all the hostiles within his reach and hearing to rally and mass in the valley of the Little Big Horn, under the leadership of Sitting BulL In previous history it has been clearly shown that he murdered Dr. Houtzinger, the veterinary surgeon of the 7th Cavalry, and Mr. Balarian, the sutler, while out with the great "Stanley expedition," in 1873. These murders were committed on the north side of the Yellowstone Biver, nearly opposite the mouth of Tongue Biver, as well as opposite Fort Keogh, in Montana Territory, while Custer with his regiment was escorting a party of civil engineers making a preliminary survey along the present route of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The record of this Indian is very clearly stated in these pages up to the time he escaped from the guard-house at Fort Abraham Lincoln. We have positive knowledge that he then went deliberately and actively at work recruiting all the warriors within his reach and influence, under promises that they certainly could either drive the " long-haired chief'' out of the country, or annihilate him and his cavalry entirely; and well did he keep his word good.

There is no question about his bringing reinforcements all the way from the southern camps and agencies of the Cheyennes, Arrappahoes, Kiowas and Comanches, all then located south of the southern boundary line of Kansas, aside from the recruiting that was done at the different camps and agencies in the whole Northwest; and if Mr. Belknap, then Secretary of War, had paid less attention to his petty post-trading business, and tried to have informed himself in relation to the movements of the hostile Indians on the western plains, and went to work to help organize the Fort Lincoln column of troops, and starting it out at the proper time and without such great delay-and for no other purpose, only to give vent to his own personal spite against Custer, and to humiliate him in an official manner, just because he could do it, and on no other ground whatever only than " might makes light"-if he had paid any attention whatever to the movements of those southern Indians, and allowed General Terry to have moved at the proper time, there can be no doubt as to the result of that campaign. Custer with his three hundred men (most of whom would have been living to-day), and the Lincoln column, under General Terry, would have started at least one month earlier, and the southern warriors could not have arrived in time to have taken part in the battle.

RAIN-IN-THE-FACE.

The writer knows whereof he speaks, because he was well and truly advised, as well as other western men, when the southern warriors crossed the Black Hills trail about one hundred miles north and east of Deadwood, and he also held communication, in private business matters, with Crook City and Deadwood every few days during that entire season; hence we claim to have' had the best of facilities for obtaining facts concerning the movements of war-parties in that particular section of the country. Bain-in-the-Face remained with Sitting Bull most of the time after the Custer battle, and a greater portion of the time across the northern boundary line, but not as a distinguished chief or leader, further than the credit allowed him for rallying the Indian forces to meet Custer in such a short space of time, knowing very well that Custer was being kept back at Washington on the Belknap impeachment case, and he shrewdly seized this only opportunity to rally such a tremendous strong force, all of whom he knew to be veterans, anxious and blood-thirsty warriors. The Indians report him as not caring to go on the war-path since his retenge on Custer. During the fall of 1880, while he was out on a buffalo hunt and mounting his horse, his gun was accidentally discharged, the ball taking effect in one of his knees, taking the cap of his knee entirely off, thus disabling him from active field service, and it is supposed that he surrendered much sooner on this account than he otherwise would have done had he not been crippled for life. During the winter of 1880-'81, the tribes he was

with became disheartened, as others had before and since,, and finally came in to " Fort Keogh," and made a final surrender. Some mischief-maker succeeded in making him believe that the United States Court was about to have him arrested and tried for murder, and that he would no doubt be hung. This proved to be a source of great annoyance to him for many months, but the officers in charge of him soon set aside his fears by informing him that he would be treated as a prisoner of war. Early in the spring of '81 he was taken to the Standing Bock, where he remains quiet and harmless. He is 32 years of age, and has a round and strong healthy look, as will be seen by his portrait. It is quite probable he will not give the white people any more trouble farther than the issuing of the ten days' ration and his annuity goods twice each year, as is the custom. He is compelled to use a crutch when he walks, and no danger need be apprehended from him further than his secret counsel and influence might go among discontented warriors about to take the war-path, which will amount to but very little, as he cannot take an active part himself.

A brief, fragmentary sketch of the history and personnel of the principal tribes who have been introduced to the Teader in the foregoing pages, may well serve as an appendix to this volume.

The country on the Washita River and in and about the Wichita Mountains, as well as along the Canadian Eiver, is highly fertile and capable of sustaining a large population. The scenery is beautiful and the climate delightful The winters are mild and short; grass is plentiful for the sustenance of stock; timber is abundant; and the surrounding country at Wichita Mountains is well watered and unsurpassed for salubrity.

The Wichitas were once a very numerous and warlike people, inhabiting the Wichita Mountains from time immemorial Remains of their ancient villages and fortifications are yet plainly to be traced in this locality. They claim to have once held dominion over a very large extent of country, from the junction of the Wichita (now Washita), with Red River, and extending westward to a line running due south from the headwaters of the Canadian to Red River. Their principal village was situated near the head of Rush Creek, a tributary of the Wichita, or Washita, where they lived for many years in peace and comparative comfort, raising abundant corn and vegetables, plentifully supplied with buffalo meat, and deriving a profitable income from trade with the Comanches of bows and arrows, for mules, horses and buffalo robes. In 1834 their village was removed to Cache Creek, in the Wichita Mountains, where for many years they remained undisturbed. These mountains are more properly peaks, surrounded by rich valleys, covered with luxuriant grasses and abounding in mineral wealth; buffalo, deer, antelope, bear, turkeys, grouse, quails and small game are plentiful Altogether a country better adapted to supply the physical wants of men and animals could not be found anywhere; and here dwelt for many years these untaught children of nature, at peace with the world and with each other.

In the year 1858 they became involved in difficulties with the Comanches, a wild, roving tribe of the plains, and through fear of them abandoned their pleasant village, never to return, and sought refuge and protection near Fort Ar-buckle, leading an unsettled life, until a few years previous to the breaking out of the war of the rebellion, when they were located near Fort Cobb. At the opening of the civil war they were again compelled to abandon their homes and remove to Kansas, remaining loyal to the government during the four years' conflict. After the close of the war they were returned to Fort Cobb, decimated by disease and hardships, and destitute of everything save the scanty supplies furnished them by the government. Dispirited, and despairing of ever again regaining their beautiful homes in the Wichita Mountains, where the bones of their ancestry had slumbered for ages, or of obtaining compensation for the loss of their lands or reward for their loyalty, they were unwilling to again improve their homes, until assured that they should remain in peaceable possession of them.

Gen. W. B. Hazen, then Colonel of the 6th U. S. Infantry, was. in charge of the wild tribes by appointment of General Sherman, who had great confidence in his ability as an executive and administrative officer, and it may well be said that CoL Hazen justified the confidence of his superior officer by proving himself efficient in every position that he held in the Indian Department. To him the discouraged Wichitas appealed for the justice that was the meed of their industry, thrift, and devotion to the government. To the Cheyennes, Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches, wild tribes of the plains, had been given land, and large sums of money were annually expended upon them.

The Wichitas, of whom Gen. Hazen speaks as a peaceable and deserving band of Indians, had been given no land at all, and were there merely by sufferance, while the beautiful country to whose river and mountain they had given their own name, was in the possession of alien tribes.

Previous to this time the aimless policy of the government toward the wild Indians had begun to assume definite shape, and a marked change for the better became apparent in the management of Indian affairs.

During the summer of 1866, before the Union Pacific Railroad was built, Gen. Hazen was crossing the plains in an ambulance, and while riding along, giving some thought to the unsettled condition of Indian affairs, a plan suggested itself to him which was afterward approved by General Sherman. It was to allot a given amount of land to each tribe and compel them to live upon it; to feed them and build houses for them; to provide school-houses and teachers ; to furnish agricultural implements; to teach them husbandry, and otherwise care for them until they should become self-sustaining. It was at Gen. Hazen 7 s suggestion that the wild tribes were sent south of the Arkansas River to locate on reservations. The Kiowas, Comanches, Chey-ennes and Arrapahoes then resided on the Arkansas and Smokey Rivers, ranging as far north as the Platte.

In a council of the warriors held near Fort Dodge, Kansas, the war chiefs agreed to settle upon a reservation, but declared that they would not go unless they could have some one with whom they were acquainted to go with them to act a3 their agent. General Hazen at once sent for Colonel A. G. Boone, who had had many years of experience among wild tribes. The Indians consented to go if Colonel Boone would go with them. Their agency was then located near the base of the Wichita Mountains, about thirty miles north of the northern boundary line of Texas, and here the Kiowas and Comanches were finally settled, their new camps being called "Medicine Bluffs," and was generally known among the Indians as " Medicine Lodge Creek."

The Cheyennes and Arrapahoes were located south of the Arkansas River, near the North Canadian-a fine location for a reservation, there being plenty of wood, water and grass.

These warriors subsequently proved troublesome; so much so that a military post, called Fort Reno, was established there. The Indians in this section of the country

Lave given the government much trouble, together with the wild Apaches, who mostly roam in New Mexico and Old Mexico.

In the meantime, Generals Sherman and Sheridan were active in their respective duties in trying to bring about a peaceful result that would be satisfactory to the general government and beneficial to the Indians. General Hazen and Colonel Boone were encouraged and supported in every manner possible within the compass of the offices of these two worthy military chiefs. Their presence had a good moral effect upon the Indians. The Indian chiefs well knew their power and influence. They respected them as brave soldiers-a characteristic of war chiefs. They named General Sherman, " the Big-White-Chief," and General Sheridan, " The-Little-Big-Short-Chief-that-Eides-Fast "- in reference to his famous twenty-mile-ride into Winchester, known in history and poetry as " Sheridan's Bide." And they well knew the famous black horse on which he then xode, as he rode the same horse seventy-five miles across the prairie in a single night, in order to catch them napping, before daybreak in the morning. The war-chiefs often made kind inquiries after Sheridan, saying he was a brave soldier and a "heap-good-man." Occasionally one would -call him " Big-Heart-with-a-Fast-Horse."

Sheridan's plan with Indians determined to go on the war-path was invariably, " surround them and thrash them soundly"-but treat them well and kindly while they remain on their reservations and behave themselves.

General Sheridan is acknowledged by Western men to be not merely a good Indian fighter, but a good administration man in military affairs generally in the Western country. His immediate subordinate, General Alfred H. Terry, commanding the Department of Dakota, is deserving of great credit for his management of the wild tribes in the Northwest. He is a man of superior executive ability, and his honor and fidelity cannot be questioned.

Colonel Boone has since held various honorable posi-e tions in the Interior Department, and has been employed in making treaties with some of the wild tribes who are located further north than those above mentioned.

His course of conduct among wild Indians has always been that of pacification, his mode of treatment kind, and his rules and regulations very strict and impartial His health has now in great measure failed, and the Interior Department has lost a valuable servant. His. son-in-law, Lieut.-Colonel Elmer Otis, of the 7th'Cavalry (Custer's former position), is one of the most valuable and popular officers on the frontier.

The complications arising among the military officers in the Southern Indian District, in consequence of the famous " Battle of the Washita," are part of the history of the country, and need not be here recapitulated. The military operations in the Southwest, during 1368 and 1869, have been recorded at length in " Custer's Life on the Plains," which is still further supplemented by a pamphlet entitled, " Some Corrections of Life on the Plains," issued by General Hazen in 1875.

To recount the history of military campaigns against these wild tribes, has not entered into the plan of this volume, whose object has been rather to give to the reader a cursoiy but correct view of the character and status of the Indians involved. At that date peace councils were in the ascendancy in Indian affairs, and General Hazen had been assigned, in the autumn of 1868, in the interest of the Peace Commission, to the charge of all the wild Indians south of Kansas, comprising then the tribes above mentioned.

General Hazen made an eloquent appeal to the government for the restoration of their rights to the displaced Wichitas, but the return of their lands was found to be impossible, and they were provided for elsewhere.

General Hazen and Colonel Boone were both remarkably successful in their treatment of the Indians and in their schemes for their welfare, so far as they were permitted to extend their authority. But at this juncture a new administration came into power, and with the dawn of Grantism went out much that was calculated to improve and elevate the Indian.

Little attention was paid to the qualifications, energy or trustworthiness of the incumbents of offices. Boom had to

be made for a new set of officers, whether competent or incompetent, hence the agencies were turned over to a new class of men. It is proper to state, however, that many of the in-coming men made very good and efficient agents. It is proper to place proper credit where it belongs, and do injustice to no one. The Indians, however, became very uneasy, and greatly dissatisfied, at this change in their agents. They had become acquainted with General Hazen and Colonel Boone, and their administration had proved satisfactory to them, and this change no doubt led to the raids that were made into Texas during the following year. The new agents were good men enough, but the Indians were bound to become discontented at any frivolous reason that presented itself. So far as learned, it appears that when changes were to be made at Indian agencies, they were made with a sweeping hand, regardless of future consequences, and without any respect whatever to the qualifications and behavior of the previous occupants. It seems that no more respect was shown to the occupants, than was shown by ex-Secretary of War Belknap to post traders, when he made his raid upon them, regardless of the trouble that might arise from such summary proceedings, among themselves and their creditors generally.

Orders were issued by the parties in power, just because they had the power to issue them, and for no other reason, as it has been clearly demonstrated that the question of right or wrong did not enter into their calculations at all

Such conduct on the part of the high official^ of the country of course had its demoralizing effect upon the army officials throughout the West. They could not, consequently, look up to their leading civil officers with any feeling of respect, knowing, as they did, that they were degrading their offices, and assigning them to duties that were designed but to aid in their cwn peculations.

The Indians, of course, were but too well advised in regard to Belknap's sweeping orders among traders, as it drove away many who for years had been trading honorably among them. Some of the wily chiefs and warriors had named the Secretary of War " The-Heap-Big-Steal- Chief." "He no good; he steal'em all," was a frequent ejaculation. Thus, even the Indians shared with the brave little army of the frontier in the demoralizing effects of the short-sighted policy of the War Department, and divided with its officers the contempt with which they regarded the selfish, dishonest head of the War Department. Indians, as a rule, are shrewd traders, especially when they have an equal chance with white men. In those days they would nick-name the trader "Steal-Chief," on account of his holding his appointment under Belknap.

No less demoralized were the Indians in the Northwest, particularly along the Upper Missouri, when President Grant made his tyrannical orders and changes. Old Indian traders of good standing were removed without cause, and for no reason but to make room for a lot of petty politicians from Philadelphia, who were merely subordinates to aid Orville Grant, a brother of the President, in his unhallowed schemes of legalized plunder.

Indian reservations were extended regardless of the protests of old settlers and squatters, whose rights were utterly ignored-all for no other purpose than to increase the domain and, consequently, the profits of the newly-appointed trader.

If an old trader was allowed to hold his position at all, it was in consideration of paying the newly-appointed trader a stipulated sum. When first approached for negotiations upon the subject, the newly-appointed trader would invariably say, " We will see Orville Grant about it; you know he fixes things."

Such open dishonesty on the part of the high officials of the nation naturally had a very great tendency to demoralize the already discontented and half-tamed warriors. Small wonder, then, that they demanded of the government better treatment for themselves. Nor was it to be wondered at that they often made declarations and direct charges against the whites that their hunting-grounds and buffalo were being stolen, and dishonest traders forced upon them, to rob their squaws and papooses in the regular way of trade. There is no question in regard to the Indians losing

what little confidence they ever did have in the general government, after these high-handfcd operations in and about their agencies.

More than one warrior became disgusted with this previously unheard-of management, and left his tepee in charge of the old men and women, and took to flight on his fleet pony to join Sitting Bull's camp. There is no doubt among Western men, who are well informed in frontier matters, that this disgraceful management was the cause of swelling Sitting Bull's ranks in the campaign of 1876, so well known throughout the country as " Custer's last battle."

The evil results of the example of such unprincipled dealing on the part of the government before the eyes of the savages were greatly to be deplored. The Indians had always been promised good treatment and fair dealing in trade, if they would leave the war-path, forsake their wild habits, and become a good and peaceful people. The author does not pretend to say that the Indians were in the least justifiable in going on the war-path on account of the bad treatment received from the high and dignified officials of the land, yet it is a fact beyond question, that the average Indian is very sensitive in regard to the treatment he receives, his mind being quite clear upon subjects with which he is acquainted, and his only recourse against injustice, or what he may consider dishonest or unfair treatment on the part of the whites, is to go on the war-path and seek revenge in bloodshed for his real or fancied wrongs, just as Bain-in-the-Face joined the hostile forces of Sitting Bull, to avenge his treatment at the hands of General Custer, in being arrested and held a prisoner in the post guard-house at Fort A. Lincoln, during the winter of 1875, not many months before Custer's last battle. Bevenge for wrongs inflicted upon himself or his race, is the first article in the Indian's moral creed, hence it is fair to presume that he will carry a revengeful spirit in his bosom, until its consuming fires are quenched by a higher civilizing influence than any yet applied to him, and until he is thoroughly subjugated and made to obey the laws and regulations of our common rulers.

Since the last administration came into power in 1877, there has been a decided improvement in Indian affairs, and the Indians themselves report progress among their respective tribes in a measure beyond their anticipation.

One cause of this marked change for the better is attributable to the non-interference of the President with the Secretary of the Interior. Another is found in the fact that Secretary Schurz, while faithful to all the several divisions of his department, gave to the Indian service his special attention. His eminent services in the West, and throughout the Indian country are highly appreciated by the best class of citizens, and also by those highly competent judges of human nature, the Indians themselves, some of whom were on the war-path only a few years ago, and some but a few months ago. It is to be hoped the present administration will adopt the same line of policy and continue it on the same plan as that laid down by the one just closed. It is the general belief in the circle of business men who are more or less interested in Indian matters, that Secretary Schurz has proved himself a most admirable statesman, and is entitled to great credit from all parties, as well as to the hearty thanks of the nation at large for his efficient administration of the most difficult department of the government. In 1872 it was this same Carl Schurz who had the " audacity and impudence," as it was then called, to break ranks from the administrative party then in power, and take the stump throughout the country, to state the facts in regard to the frauds and mismanagements that then generally prevailed throughout the different departments of the government.

He was bitterly denounced for so doing by certain officials who still clung to the Belknap idea of " Rule or Ruin," and was hissed at as a backslider from the Republican party, and a demoralizer of good government; but, four years later, the truth of his accusations stood revealed, and a Republican President placed him in charge of one of the most important departments of our government, " The Department of the Interior." His official career closed on the 4th of March, 1881, with honor to himself and great credit to the administration, whose schemes of reform he had so largely aided. The Indians especially regarded him with favor. In their own language they styled him, " The-heap-good-white-Chief," and were often heard to say, that they wished he could remain longer in charge of their affairs. It it true that Secretary Schurz did not at all times move harmoniously with the military officials, but the author believes he is correct in saying that the general management of the government business and operations by both the Military and Interior Departments on the frontier has been, in general, satisfactory in its final results. The small army assigned to the protection of the frontier is mostly composed of veterans, and commanded by skilled and conscientious officers, as the country is well aware. Well-advised border men are unanimously of the opinion that by the discreet and thoughtful management of the latter, settlers and immigrants are now quite safe from attacks by marauding bands of hostile Indians.

From the first origin of the government the Indian problem has puzzled the wisest heads of the nation, nor has a correct solution of the difficult question been yet arrived at. It is doubtful if it can be settled in the present generation, although the efforts of philanthropists and humanitarians throughout the country, in conjunction with the powerful machinery of the United States government, are put forth constantly to that end.

The author has not presumed to propose a remedy for existing ills, but if he has in these pages thrown any light upon the vexed question, if, from the impressions made upon his mind during long residence among this " peculiar people," and thoughtful observation of their habits and character, as recorded in this unpretending volume, or if he has added anything to the popular knowledge of these " nomads of the plains," or shed any light upon their feelings and situation, by which to indicate a more enlightened treatment of these unhappy people in the future, then is his mission as an author accomplished.

In closing this work, we must express bur kind thanks to Professor O. S. Goff, at Bismarck, D. T., for his promptness in placing in our hands the photo of " Chief Sitting Bull" in time for this edition, as it not only enables the writer to keep his promise made elsewhere, but the readers get full as good a likeness, and the features and general expression Are even better than we expected to get, on account of the sullenness of the old chief since his surrender. But we are Teally entitled to the best that could be taken, as he charged an even one hundred dollars for the negative. So it appears that the chief intends to make his face pay him dollars, as well as his words and big talk. He charges two dollars apiece for writing his autograph for men and boys, but writes it free of charge for the ladies. Little did the old chief think while in the hands of Professor Goff at " Standing Rock Agency," that his photo would be in the hands of an engraver in New York City within the space of four days.

The author now begs leave to call special attention to the contents of his next book, as appears on the following pages, entitled, " The "Western Blue Book; or, Scenes of Savage Life," which will be ready about the first of October. 44 The Blue Book " will give a panoramic and dramatic view of our military operating against the hostiles, all the way from the wild Apache camps in Old Mexico to the fastnesses in the woody mountains in the North ; and it is our aim to give a faithful portrayal of actual scenes of our modern Indian warfare, as has been carried on against the various tribes all along our Western frontier ; also in regard to the treatment and management of the leading war-chiefs, after they have either been captured by our forces or themselves surrendered.

The author has had fourteen years of continuous experience among the military and untamed savages on the frontier, and feels quite competent to do even justice to both subjects and readers, and very confidently claims in advance of publication that " Fanatanza " and " Col. La Raine " will be two of the best productions of the kind that have ever been placed before the American people. The author most respectfully asks you to read the " Blue Book," and give your opinion without fear or favor. Nicely bound in blue cloth, 16mo, $1.50, and will be for sale by wholesale booksellers generally; also news-agents and canvassers throughout the country. For particulars address " The Author," P. O. Box 87, Brooklyn, N. T.

Content

Walker, Judson Elliott
Campaigns of General Custer in the North-west, and the final surrender of Sitting Bull

CHAPTEE L

CHAPTEE II

CHAPTEE III

SECTION II.

CHAPTER I

CHAPTEE II.

CHAPTER III

CHAPTEE IV.

CHAPTER V.

SECTION III. CHAPTEE I.

CHAPTER II.

SECTION IV.

CHAPTEE I

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTEE IV.

CHAPTER V.

SECTION" V. "CUSTER'S LAST RALLY."