The Indian War of 1864 - Chapters 11-12



CHAPTER XI.
APRIL 16, 1864.--O-WAY-SEE'-CHA COMES.--GENERAL MITCHELL ARRIVES.--INDIANS 
COME IN.--THE GREAT COUNCIL.--"SNELL".--SHAN-TAG-A-LISK.--THE BIG MANDAN.--
INDIAN PECULIARITIES.--OGALLALLAH.--INDIAN SPEECHES.--THE DEBATE.--THE 
BLUFF AND COUNTER-BLUFF.--THE NIOBRARA.--THE POSTPONEMENT.--THE DOG FEAST.

   UPON April 16th an old Indian came in, and hunted me up, and with him 
was a man who could talk Indian. This old Indian was the vanguard coming 
up to the council. When I saw him I recognized him as the one who had 
appeared in camp some time before, and to whom I fed the molasses and 
crackers. He came up and was very profuse with me in his hearty handshake 
and "How-cola?" (Cola means friend.) I was very much surprised. The 
interpreter told me that the Indian's name was O-way-see'-cha, accent on 
the third syllable. This word means in the Sioux dialect "bad wound," "see-
cha" meaning bad. The Sioux, like the French, put their adjectives after 
the noun. Wah-see-cha means "medicine bad," i. e., white-man. I was told 
that be acquired his name from a fight with the Pawnee Indians down north 
of Fort Kearney several years before; that he was so badly wounded that 
they carried him off on an Indian litter between two ponies; and he 
finally recovered to be as well as ever; and then, Indian fashion, he took 
a new name. He greeted me with an expression which the interpreter said 
meant that I was "his long-knife son." I asked him if he was hungry, and 
be said "No." Then I went to Ben Gallagher's sutler store with him and 
bought him a plug of chewing tobacco, which in the manner of that time, 
and the trade, was a foot long, three inches wide, and an inch thick, and 
for which I paid a dollar. This I gave to O-way-see'-cha and he patted me 
on the back, and bade me an affectionate good-by. He was camped upon the 
Platte valley two or three miles above the post. Nobody saw him come 
there, and it was supposed that he came down there stealthily, got himself 
all fixed at night, and made his appearance at the post the next morning. 
During the day we heard that Sioux Indians were coming in from every side; 
we had an inspection of arms, and put ourselves in such condition that we 
could fall in, and begin business at a moment's notice. The men were 
ordered to stay around the barracks, to wear their revolvers, sleep in 
their uniforms, and be ready, because we did not know what tricks might be 
played upon us. We also had the cannon loaded with shrapnel cut one 
second, set a post guard, and put pickets all around a halfmile from the 
post.

   On April 16, 1864, General Mitchell and Lieutenant Williams, coming 
from Fort Kearney, arrived at the post. This was Brigadier-General Robert 
B. Mitchell. He was born in Ohio; came to Kansas as a pro-slavery 
Democrat. The conduct of the Missourians, and the early Kansas troubles, 
made him an anti-slavery Democrat. When the war broke out he was for 
fighting, and became immediately the Colonel of the Second Kansas. He was 
in the Lyon campaign in Missouri, and was badly shot up at the battle of 
Wilson's Creek. I was in that campaign as a soldier in the First Iowa 
Infantry, and our regiment was brigaded with the Second Kansas for a 
while, and I remembered Colonel Mitchell very well, and when he was said 
to have been shot, and taken from the field. After he recovered be was 
made a Brigadier-General, and sent with the army to Kentucky, and was in 
command of a brigade of cavalry. He was in the battle of Perryville, where 
he said he lost seven hundred men in seven minutes. He was in a very great 
number of fights and skirmishes, and used to say that up to date, he was 
in two more battles in number than any Brigadier in the service. His two 
biggest battles were Wilson Creek and Perryville, and it so happened that 
I was in the Wilson Creek battle and Captain O'Brien was in the Perryville 
battle. So, when he arrived at our post, we introduced selves to him and 
he took a great fancy to our company, and nearly ignored the other 
officers of the post. Lieutenant Williams, who was with him as A. D. C., 
was a little Kentucky cavalry First Lieutenant who had distinguished 
himself in Perryville by charging and cutting through a regiment of 
Confederate infantry, and then forming in the rear and cutting back 
through a battery of artillery. On the evening of the 16th Captain O'Brien 
and I had a fine visit with the General. In the meantime the Indians were 
coming in, and camping together near the river outside of the two miles 
limit. We had all of our men fully armed, and everything ready to prevent 
a surprise of our post. The Indians were ordered not come within two miles 
of the post except that they might send a delegation in of one hundred, to 
accompany their speakers to the place of rendezvous. Our sutler, Ben 
Gallagher, had started in to build a large sutler store, twenty-five feet 
square. Holes for the doors and windows had been sawed from the logs, and 
most of the roof was on. But it had no floor nor any furnishing. It had a 
large doorhole in the north and one in the south; the opening on the south 
side faced our camp. With great pomp the Indians to the number of about 
one hundred, all fully armed and finely mounted, came down towards our 
camp about nine o'clock. Then seventeen chiefs threw off their weapons, 
leaving them behind with their escort, and came forward to the new sutler-
house with great pomp and ceremony. Then all of the officers of the post, 
coming up to within about fifty feet of the building, took off their 
sabres and revolvers and left them in a pile with a guard. We had three 
interpreters, the principal one of whom was named Watts. He had been with 
the Indians and traded with them for many years. His usual name was
"Snell," which was an abbreviation of his Indian name, which was Wah-see-
cha-es-snel-la (The "lonesome white man"). There were two other 
interpreters besides Watts. Among the Indians there was an Indian who, it 
was said, readily understood English. The Indians formed a semicircle, in 
the building, sitting down on the ground, and we formed one, sitting on 
crackerboxes opposite them, except that General Mitchell sat in a large 
camp-chair. He looked like a king. He was an exceedingly handsome man, 
with a full, dark-brown curly beard and mustache. Major George M. O'Brien 
sat on his right, also a fine-looking man, standing six feet one inch. He 
afterwards practiced law in Omaha, and on his death was buried there.

   On the left of the General sat Captain O'Brien, six feet high. I was 
six feet, and we tapered off at both sides, making a pretty good showing, 
in full uniforms, with our red silk sashes on, which hadn't seen the light 
for several months. Back of the General was a man whom the General had 
brought along with him, and from whom he appeared to take advice as to 
preliminaries and procedure. I didn't find who he was. To the left front 
of the General, and immediately in front of Captain O'Brien, on a cracker-
box, sat the interpreter, Watts. The Indians all through this matter 
seemed to be unusually important, and punctilious. They all had their 
blankets on, and although they had ostensibly left their arms behind, 
every one had probably a sharp butcher-knife in the folds of his blanket. 
At least, Watts said so. As a sort of stand-off, we, who had left our arms 
behind us, each had a pistol in his hip pocket so as not to be taken 
unawares. Nothing was said for several minutes, and we all sat in silence. 
Every once in a while an Indian made a sort of sign or signal, and it 
would go around like penitents crossing. It was some kind of a slight 
significant sign made instantly and simply, which would be taken up and 
gone through with as if it were a signal of some kind, or an invocation of 
some kind. Directly opposite General Mitchell was Shan-tag-a-lisk, which 
is translated as "Spotted Tail." He was the greatest warrior in the Sioux 
nation, said to be the greatest either past or present. He was said to be 
able to count twenty-six "cooz." He belonged to the Brule Sioux. On his 
right was my friend, "Bad Wound." On the left were "Two Strike," and "Two 
Crows," and the "Big Mandan." On the opposite side were "Prickly Pear" and 
"Eagle Twice." These are all the names I have preserved. "Two Strike" was 
said to have killed two Pawnees with one bullet. These Indians represented 
the four tribes of the Sioux that were nearest to us. Those south of the 
river were the "Ogallallah," of whom "Bad Wound" was chief. Northwest were 
the "Brules," of whom "Shan-tag-a-lisk" was chief. North of us and east of 
the Brules were what were called the "Minne-kaw'-zhouz." The latter word 
signified shallow water. The "shallow water" Sioux lived upon the streams 
which through a great scope of country were all shallow. "Two Strike" was 
said to be their chief. East of them on the Missouri river were a lot of 
Indians represented by the Big Mandan. The word Brule, which is a French 
word, means "sun-burnt"; it was derived from the Indian name which in the 
Indian tongue meant "burnt-thighs." Their thighs exposed to the sun were 
sunburned in their constant riding on horseback. The words meant more than 
at first appeared; for, Indians who walked on the ground did not get their 
thighs burned more than other parts, especially as the Indians went 
practically naked when the sun was hot. Hence the words "burnt-thighs" 
meant that the Brule Indians were riders; that they belonged to the 
cavalry, that is, the Chivalry; in other words, they were of the 
equestrian class. The words constituted a boast that they were better than 
others and were the Rough-Riders of the plains. Such was the tradition of 
the name. Peace or war upon the plains, as to us, depended largely upon 
our satisfying all these Indians.

   Strange as it may appear, all of the Indians had extremely feminine 
faces, except the Big Mandan. Spotted Tail looked exactly like a woman; 
and in short, as I had already observed, and often afterwards observed, 
the Indian men seemed to have a feminine look and the women to have a 
rather masculine look, which increased as they grew older. An old Indian 
woman had a much more dangerous-looking face than an old Indian man. So 
much has been written about the noble looks and appearance of the red man, 
and his fine physique, and all that kind of stuff, that it seems strange 
to contradict it; but as a matter of fact, the Indian warriors as a whole 
looked more like women than like men, and their extermination, I believe, 
is due to the fact that they did not have the surviving power nor the 
sufficient fibre. In addition to this, these Indians had revolting and 
beastly habits and vices, just as bad as could be, and their names, many 
of them, were such that no interpretation in the English would be 
printable.

   The word "Ogallallah" meant "the split-off band," because in former 
years the band had split off from the main Sioux tribe, and gone down into 
what was said to have been Pawnee territory. But concerning those facts I 
could never get anything but contradictory stories. The "split-off" must 
have been a long while before. They called themselves "Lah-ko-tahs." The 
interpreter told me that the separation had been so long, and so distant, 
that one part of the Sioux tribe had lost the consonant "d" and the other 
the use of the consonant "l," and one called themselves "Lah-ko-tahs," and 
the other "Dah-ko-tahs." Once I talked with two Irish travelers in regard 
to the Indians. One of them asked me what the word "Ogallallah" meant, and 
I told him that it meant "the split-off band," and be spoke up and said, 
"That is a pure Irish word, and in the old Irish language means, 
'secessionist.'" I may say here that it was not unusual for persons in 
referring to the language of the northern Sioux to say that there were 
words in use among them that were distinctly Irish and Welsh. I took no 
note of them at the time, considering them to be merely accidental 
coincidences, and now I remember only the word "Ogallallah."

   It was very interesting, the silent way in which we sat on both sides 
and gazed at each other. When it came to muscle and physique, our men, man 
for man, could have thrown them all outdoors and walked on them, except 
perhaps as to the "Big Mandan." We were all larger than the Indians except 
him, and he was about six feet four, and about a yard across, about forty 
years of age, and very light-colored for an Indian. it would have been a 
close tussle between him and Major O'Brien. Finally, one Indian got out a 
pipe from under his blanket. It had a stem about two and a half feet long. 
It was made of red pipestone, and had a good-sized bowl, but the orifice 
was scant for the tobacco. It was filled with great pomp and solemnity by 
the man who took it and he did it little by little, as if it was a great 
function. He felt the weight and importance of the ceremony. Then he 
passed the pipe down to the end of the line, and there an Indian with a 
flint-and-steel and a piece of punk started the pipe. Then it went from 
mouth to mouth, the parties each taking three whiffs. When it had gone 
along the entire Indian line, it struck the end of our line. We were all 
trying to look solemn. The Indians were dreadfully solemn, They acted as 
if they thought they were doing the greatest deed in their lives; we did 
not wish to hurt their feelings by impairing the solemnity of the 
occasion, so we just looked as wise as we could. But when the pipe struck 
the end of our line, where Lieutenant Williams was, before he put the pipe 
into his mouth he drew it under his sleeve, saying as he did so, "I don't 
believe I want to swap saliva with that crowd." This being said in a 
ponderous and thoughtful way, perhaps impressed the crowd on the other 
side as being a mental benediction on receiving the utensil. We all kept 
looking solemn, however, although it was hard work. When the pipe got to 
the General he pulled out his silk handkerchief and polished off the 
mouthpiece, took three profound whiffs, and passed it on. After it had 
gone through with our line it went across to where it had started from.

   Finally Spotted Tail said something which, being interpreted, was: "The 
white brother has sent for us. What does the white brother want?" Then 
Genl. Mitchell, with much assumed and natural dignity, combined, began to 
tell the Indians how the whites and Indians had lived side by side in 
peace for so many years, and how the Indians were prosperous through 
contact with the whites, and were getting guns, and killing game more 
easily, and having a better time of it generally; and how persons had 
conspired to bring about a want of amity and friendship; and how it was 
his desire to meet the red brother, and tell him what the Great Father in 
Washington wanted. It was a long preamble which General Mitchell had 
evidently conned over in his mind, because he wound up with a statement 
that the white man wanted peace, and wanted the Sioux to keep out of the 
Platte Valley. 

   Thereupon the Big Mandan rose up, throwing off his blanket, and 
standing out with nothing on but breech-clout and moccasins. He commenced 
a speech which started out slow and low, beginning to rise in volume and 
increase in rapidity, until he was spouting away like a man running for 
office before a county convention. No report that I know of was ever made 
of what took place at this powwow, and my notes concerning it are meager. 
But the "Big Mandan" told about how in former days they had fought the 
Chippewas clear up to the Lakes in the east, and now they were being 
crowded away from the Missouri River; that they owned the land, and they 
owned the buffalo, and the antelope, and the deer, and the wild ducks, and 
the geese; and how the white man was pushing them all the time, and 
killing their cattle, and their birds, and catching their fish, and making 
it harder all the time for them to get a living. It was the old, old 
story. During his speech the Indians all sat and looked mutely at the 
ground. All at once at a passage of the speech they brightened up, and 
grunted an applause. I said to the interpreter, "What is that sentence?" 
He said, "The Indian coined a new word." It appears that it is one of the 
characteristics of the Indian language to run words together; to take a 
vowel from one and a consonant from another, forming a combination of 
thought, and boiling it down into a word. And it was the part of an orator 
to make new words which his hearers could immediately comprehend the 
meaning of, and it was on this occasion that the Big Mandan had met the 
dramatic situation by the coining of a new word for the Sioux vocabulary.

   General Mitchell made a speech, a brief reply sitting in his chair, 
intending to assuage the sentiment that Big Mandan had raised. Major 
O'Brien wanted to make a talk but General Mitchell would not allow anybody 
talk but himself, fearing the matter might break up into something which 
would resemble a town row. Then another of the Indians got up and went 
over the story again; how they were a hungry people; how the white brother 
had everything, and they had nothing; how the white brother had flour and 
bacon and sugar and everything else in vast quantities more than they 
wanted, while the Indian had a continual struggle with poverty, and had 
nothing to eat but dried pumpkin, and buffalo-berries, and jerked meat. 
General Mitchell replied to this speech by saying that the Government gave 
them blankets enough and clothing enough, to clothe them for all seasons 
of the year; that the Government gave them flour, bacon and supplies, 
which if prudently used would always enable them to have plenty to eat; 
that the Government desired them to live in houses, and had offered them 
carpenters and blacksmiths, and to teach them how to build houses; and how 
to become civilized and live like the whites, but they would not do it, 
and that their troubles arose from their perversity and want of thought.

   Then another of the Indian orators got up, and began to talk about the 
white people sending whisky into their villages, and cheating them out of 
their beaver-skins, and the mink and otter and muskrats, and buffalo-
robes, and how the Indians were getting fewer and poorer all the time from 
the "drunk-water" which the white man sent out. To this General Mitchell 
replied that there were bad white men as well as bad Indians; that the 
white man put chains on those who sold whisky to Indians, and kept them in 
confinement, when they could be caught; that such white men were bad white 
men; that the Indians ought to kill them on sight when they brought whisky 
into their village; that the difficulty with the Indians was they wanted 
the white man to bring the whisky in, and would not punish him; that they 
wanted the whisky, and therefore they were complaining of themselves, and 
not of the white men.

   And so it went speech after speech, General Mitchell always replying to 
every speech. He had thought it all up, and I must say he beat the Indian 
in their controversy. He told the Indians that they had no right to claim 
all of the land. He told them that the good Manitou, who put us all on 
earth, intended that each one should have his share of the earth, and the 
Indians had no right to take ten times as much land per head as they 
allowed the white people. And he pointed out that the white people had to 
live all penned up and in discomfort, so that the Indian could have ten 
times the amount of land that he ought to have, and kill the buffalo which 
belonged to everybody on the earth alike, but which the Indians claimed 
the entire ownership of. And that the Indian had kept the white man back 
and the latter was so crowded that if the lands which the white man had 
were divided, each white man would have only a small piece, so small that 
an Indian could shoot an arrow across it while the Indian had land he 
could not see over.

   The manner of discussion was that the Indian would speak a sentence, 
and then the interpreter would interpret it. Then the Indian would speak 
another sentence, and that would be interpreted. When the General spoke, 
his speech was put into the Sioux language, and the man behind the General 
was there as overseer to see that "Snell" translated it correctly, and 
several times the overseer interfered to have the translation explained, 
the great object being to have the true idea which each one brought forth, 
presented to the other. The debate ran on, and the pipe was relit and 
passed around several times during the silences which ensued. Silences of 
five to ten minutes ensued after each of General Mitchell's speeches, Then 
the pipe would go around with the same formality. Spotted Tail, sitting 
quietly, said: "Why are we here? Why has the white brother asked us to 
come?" Then General Mitchell said: "The object of this meeting is to have 
an understanding, and make a treaty, so each will know what he ought to 
do. We want you Sioux to stay off from the Platte Valley. You can come 
down hills on the edge of the valley while you are hunting but you must 
not come down into the valley, for it scares the women and children that 
are living in the houses in the valley. If you wish to cross the road, and 
go north or south of the river, you must send in word during the daytime 
to one of the posts, and then you will be escorted across the valley from 
the hills on one side to the hills on the other, and then you can go where 
you will. But you mustn't come down in the valley or allow spies, beggars, 
or bad Indians to come down into the valley. You must restrain your bad 
men; we will hold you responsible; this is an ultimatum. This we insist 
upon your doing. If it takes more to feed you, if it takes more bacon or 
blankets and corn, we will give you more, but you must stay out of the 
Platte Valley."

   This speech of General Mitchell's seemed to nettle them all. Shan-tag-a-
lisk was their greatest warrior, but he was not much of a talker. Their 
principal orator was the Big Mandan, but Shan-tag-a-lisk got up with his 
blanket on, and his arms folded across his breast, and began talking in a 
low, hesitating tone. He said: "The Sioux nation is a great people, and we 
do not wish to be dictated to by the whites or anybody else. We do not 
care particularly about the Platte valley, because there is no game in it. 
Your young men and your freighters have driven all the game out or killed 
it, so we find nothing in the Platte valley. But we want to come and trade 
in the Platte valley wherever we please. We want places where we can sell 
our beaver-skins and our buffalo-robes. The Platte valley is ours, and we 
do not intend to give it away. We have let the white man have it so that 
he could pass, but he has gone over it so often now that he claims it and 
thinks he owns it. But it is still ours, and always has been ours. It 
belonged to our forefathers, and their graves are along the hills 
overlooking the valley from the Missouri river to the mountains, and we do 
not expect to give it up. We are not afraid of the white man, nor are we 
afraid to fight him. We have not had in late years any very serious 
difficulties with the white men. Trouble has been brought about by 'drunk-
water.' Bad whites have given it to bad Indians, and they have got both of 
us into trouble. The donations which the white men have been giving us are 
not sufficient; they are not adequate for the concessions which we have 
made. The goods that were brought us at Woc-co-pom'-any agency were 
neither as good as had been promised us, nor were they in amount as had 
been promised us. The Great Father through his army officers makes us 
great promises, but the agents, who are not army officers, cheat us, and 
do not carry out the treaty obligations. Last fall at the Woc-co-pom'-any 
agency, when the agent asked us to sign for our goods, we would not sign, 
because they were not what they should be in value or amount, and one of 
the army officers who was there told us not to sign, and he swore at the 
agent, and told him he was a thief, and was cheating us. The army officers 
treat us well enough, but those who are not officers cheat us when they 
can, and we do not want to deal with any but the army officers. Besides 
this, we will not give up the Platte valley to you until we have a regular 
treaty, and until we have all agreed to it, and have been paid for it. It 
will soon be that you will want other roads to the west. If we give you 
this you will want another, and if we give you that you will want a third. 
Before we will agree to anything you must stop the surveyors that are 
going west at this very time on the river Niobrara. All of these things 
must be considered before we will make a treaty."

   Then General Mitchell asked if anyone present knew about the Niobrara, 
and some one of the party spoke and said that a surveying party was going 
west up the Niobrara with an escort. The Niobrara river was a river 
running west from the Missouri river parallel with the Platte, and about a 
hundred miles north of where we then were. Spotted Tail said that the 
Niobrara river went through their good country, and that they would resist 
the white man putting a road through, and that unless the work was stopped 
they were going to drive off or kill the expedition. And he also said that 
he wanted the road out on the Smoky Hill closed up, because it went 
through their best buffalo country. And he further said that they would 
not for the present carry out the wishes of General Mitchell until their 
demands were agreed to. The speech of Shan-tag-a-lisk wound up with a 
regular bluff, and it made General Mitchell a little angry; he got up, and 
told the Indians that he was not there to coax them, but was there to tell 
them what to do. That he would stop the survey up on the Niobrara river 
until there was another conference; that the Smoky Hill route was a route, 
much used, and was necessary for the white man, and it would not be 
closed. And he wound up by saying that if the Sioux did not keep away from 
the Platte river he would station a soldier to every blade of grass from 
the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. This counter "bluff" on the 
part of General Mitchell brought Spotted Tail immediately to his feet. He 
got up and said that the Sioux nation was not afraid of the white people; 
that there were more Sioux than there were white people; that the Sioux 
nation had twenty-six thousand Ar-ke'-che-tas (organized warriors), and 
could put more soldiers into the Platte valley than white people could; 
that they knew all about the white people, and the white people were not 
smart enough to fool them; that the white people were all the while trying 
to fool the Indians and deceive them as to numbers so as to scare them. 
That the whites were parading before the Indians all the time so as to 
show off their numbers; that the same people that came up the Platte 
valley went back by the way of Smoky Hill. "We have seen them, and 
recognize them time and again. Some of them come back by way of Platte 
river, but that is only to fool us. The white men are marching around in a 
ring so that we may see them and be led to believe that there is a great 
number of them. They cannot fool us. We recognize the same people, and 
they are too few; we are not afraid of them -- we outnumber them."

   It had got well along into the afternoon; no headway had been made, but 
General Mitchell seemed to think that the ground had been broken for a 
future conference. It was finally decided that the conference should 
adjourn, and meet again at the same place in fifty days. Nothing whatever 
had been gained. Both parties had been bluffing, and neither side was 
afraid of the other. But General Mitchell promised to stop the Niobrara 
expedition, and to get permission from the Great Father at Washington to 
make a new treaty, that would cede the Platte valley; that every one 
present should think the matter over; and come back in fifty days; and 
that the Indians should bring other chiefs with them if they wished. Then 
General Mitchell with great formality took Spotted Tail by the hand and 
said, "How cola?" and had the interpreter tell him that they would all be 
fed before they left the post. Thereupon the Indians were all taken to the 
cookhouse, where everything had been kept in readiness, and they were 
given all they could eat, which was an enormous amount. The boiled beef 
and coffee and hard-bread (which the boys called "Lincoln shingles") were 
spread out with panfuls of molasses, and things went along all right. A 
lot of supplies had been sent to the Indian camps during the day. The 
Indians invited our officers to go over to their camp and have a dog 
feast. It was not considered advisable for more than three to go, together 
with some civilians who were there. Captain O'Brien was one of the 
officers, and he requested me to be on guard until he came back, and have 
the horses all saddled and the men ready to mount on a moment's notice. He 
wanted to go to the Indian camp, and did not know what might happen, but 
he never seemed to fear any danger. One of the Indians asked the visitors 
to bring some coffee; so one of them, on his horse, took a little bag of 
roasted coffee, perhaps ten pounds. Captain O'Brien's story is that they 
were entertained by the principal chiefs; that they had dog to eat, and 
that the dog wasn't so bad after all. That the Indians put coffee into a 
big camp-kettle, and commenced boiling and kept filling the camp-kettle 
and boiling coffee until he came away about ten o'clock at night. He said 
the Indians drank coffee hot by the gallon, and didn't seem to be able to 
get enough of it. He said they appeared to be all right, and friendly; he 
didn't believe there would be any Indian trouble. The next morning there 
was not an Indian in sight, and current matters at our post went along in 
the same usual way. General Mitchell left as soon as the Indians did. I 
will speak more of him further on, but will say here that his honored 
grave may be seen on one of the sunlit slopes of the Arlington National 
Cemetery near Washington.

   Shan-tag-a-lisk was over forty years old, but claimed to be about 
thirty. Pioneers said the Indians would not tell the truth about their 
ages, because they thought it might give the white men some occult 
advantage over them.



CHAPTER XII.
BARON DE WATTEVILLE.--ELEVENTH OHIO CAVALRY.--COL. COLLINS.--LIEUT. CASPER 
COLLINS.--THE DANCE AT MACDONALD'S.--THE CINCINNATI GIRL.--THE FIDDLING 
LIEUTENANT.--SMALLPOX.--JIMMIE O'BRIEN.--JUDICIAL DUTIES.--THE JUDICIARY 
SYSTEM.--BETTING.--"LINTY" AND THE LAUNDRY.--THE WEDDING AND CHARIVARI.--
CO. "G" DEPARTS.--ELLSWORTH.--CO. "C" ARRIVES.--PROFESSIONAL GAMBLERS.--
MAPS.--LETTERS FROM EASTERN GIRLS.--SALT LAKE KATE.--GILMAN DEMANDS 
PROTECTION.--THE TRAVELING TAILOR.  

   DURING April, several detachments of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry passed 
us going northwest to Fort Laramie, and we got acquainted with them. On 
the 19th of April we had quite a number of visitors. John K. Wright, a 
Lieutenant of the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry, with a detachment was going to 
Denver. Wright was afterwards State Senator in Kansas, and a very 
prominent citizen. With him was R. B. Hitz, a surgeon of the United States 
Army, who afterwards arose to distinction. He was going to Laramie. There 
was also Lieut. Jenkins of the Second Colorado Cavalry and Lieut. Rockwell 
of the First Colorado. The latter officers were going west, and the party 
had two hundred and forty unassigned recruits. With them was a strange 
character, Captain Alfred de Watteville. He was a Captain of "guides" in 
Geneva, Switzerland. He was in the Swiss army. He pronounced the word 
"guides," gwiids. He had his servant, and special team. He called himself 
Baron. He was a large, fine-looking, gentlemanly fellow, and spoke English 
well enough to make himself understood. We took him out antelope-hunting, 
both the Captain and I. While he was there, five days, we caught two 
antelopes after a chase from eight to twelve miles each. He was very much 
delighted with his entertainment; told about the European service; had 
visited our armies in the field; and was on a general tour of education. 
We took a fancy to him, and parted from him with great regret. De 
Watteville, Wright and Hitz departed together, going towards Denver, which 
was then merely a frontier town.

   On the 24th of April, 1864, a large detachment of the Eleventh Ohio 
Cavalry went by, going west; we went down and took supper with the 
officers. The commanding officer of the regiment was Lieut.-Col. Collins. 
He was a very fine old gentleman, rather old for military service, but 
finely preserved, energetic and soldierly. He had a son as a Lieutenant 
whose name was Casper. Casper was a wild, heedless young man, and was 
afterwards killed by the Indians. Fort Collins, in Colorado, was named 
after the Colonel, and the town of Casper, in Wyoming, was named after the 
son.

   While all of these officers I have spoken of were at our post, Ranchman 
MacDonald had another dance. And some of the passengers in the stages, 
including several women, stopped to attend it. There had in the meantime 
several new girls come into the neighborhood, and the dance was quite well 
attended. One of the young ladies from Cincinnati, quite interested in the 
dance, confided to me privately that she liked to attend dances, and dance 
with the officers of the army. One of the fiddlers upon that occasion was 
the First Lieutenant of Company G, of our regiment, who was at the post. 
He was a strange man to be made an army officer. He was a red-headed, 
fiddling farmer. He afterwards got himself dismissed from the service. He 
got his place because he had done good recruiting through the farms of his 
vicinity, and got enough of the boys in to give him a First Lieutenancy. 
That was the kind of stuff our armies were officered with at first, and it 
must ever be so in the volunteer service, at the outstart. In the first 
place we must have recruits, and the fellow who gets up the recruits must 
be paid for it by making him an officer. The man who is the best recruiter 
is the worst officer. Then it takes the attrition of six months or a year, 
or perhaps more, to get this stamp of fellows out, and get in those who 
have some military inspiration. It was the same both in the North and in 
the South during the Civil War. Both armies had to weed out worthless 
officers, and get the right men into command, before discipline and 
efficiency became potent. The South started out better equipped than the 
North in the Civil War, but in the course of time the North caught up. To 
illustrate: The Third Louisiana had its first battle at Wilson Creek; its 
Colonel and Captains had served in the regular army in some capacity. The 
First Iowa Infantry, who held their ground against them, had only three 
officers who had ever been in the service.

   Along in the latter part of April, one of our men claimed that he was 
ill, and went to the post surgeon, Dr. LaForce. The Doctor said he thought 
it was a case of smallpox. Upon consultation the following plan was 
suggested: That a tent be put up on the island nearest the post, and the 
man be taken there, and some soldier be detailed to take care of him who 
had had the smallpox. This duty fell upon a brave, nervy little Irishman 
by the name of Jimmie O'Brien, whom I will speak of again hereinafter. One 
glance at Jimmie told that he had had a very severe case of smallpox, for 
his whole face was pitted up so that it looked as rough as a rasp. Jimmie 
accepted the detail with genuine Irish good-nature, and, taking a supply 
of firearms and ammunition, went over onto the island and set up a tent, 
and took care of this comrade. Cooked rations were served by leaving them 
on the banks of the river, and Jimmie waded across and got them and took 
care of his comrade until he was finally well. Then we took Jimmie some 
matches and a lot of hay, and left some new clothes for both on the banks 
of the river. Jimmie burned up the tent and the old clothes and 
everything. Both parties took a good wash in the river, came out and 
dressed themselves in their new clothes, and the contagion never spread, 
nor did we ever have another case of it.

   While stationed at Cottonwood Springs, the post commander had some 
assumed political duties, and among others he had to act as justice of the 
Peace. I was post adjutant all the time, and these matters were very 
largely submitted to me. I prepared the cases, obtained the facts, and 
brought the parties before the post commander, who would hear my 
statement, listen to anything that either side wished to submit, and then 
render judgment. These matters consisted of complaints by "whackers" 
against the wagon-bosses, assaults, thefts, borrowed-money matters, and a 
great variety of other trivial things. The post commander did not only 
decide the cases, but he carried his decisions into effect. For instance, 
if a wagon-master wrongfully quarreled with a whacker in such a way as to 
justify the latter in leaving, and then refused to pay him, the post 
commander ordered the payment to be made in his presence, and if there was 
any hesitation or demurrer to it, the defendant was immediately stuck into 
the guard-house. We had such a summary way of enforcing justice that there 
was no appeal, and what was decided went as accepted, and that was the end 
of it. If some man unjustly quarreled with the wagon-boss we put the man 
into the guard-house until the train had got ten days on its journey, and 
then let him go to take care of himself. If a man with a team committed an 
assault, and was unable to pay, we just took enough of his stuff to pay 
the plaintiff. It might be a sack of corn, or a saddle, or something. 
Everybody was made to behave; and, it being well understood that we were 
there for that purpose, it served as a useful check upon the lawlessness 
of the plains.

   Major O'Brien, the post commander, was a good lawyer, and had practiced 
law, and he knew how to get at things quickly, and knew how far he ought 
to go. The decisions of Major O'Brien were sought by the people up and 
down the road for a hundred miles, and he was not a bit backward in 
assuming jurisdiction in any kind of a case, and carrying his decrees into 
force. Several men who were charged with having committed crimes were put 
under ball and chain and delivered down at Fort Kearney, which had become 
the headquarters of our district. The commanding General of our military 
district, Gen. R. B. Mitchell, of whom I have spoken, was a good lawyer 
himself, and his adjutant was John Pratt, of Boston, a most accomplished 
gentleman, also a lawyer. The General made headquarters at Fort Kearney, 
instead of Omaha (as his predecessor had done), and he was very anxious 
that justice should be dispensed through his district, and that civilized 
methods should prevail. Although there were no civil officers, General 
Mitchell worked out the whole scheme through military instrumentalities in 
very good shape. From time to time he instructed his subordinate post 
commanders how to carry on their civil functions, and protect life and 
property. He was a great stickler for protecting property, and if some 
pilgrim stole a saddle or a lariat, it was his theory that the man should 
be arrested, and punished, even if a soldier had to chase the man for two 
weeks and it cost the Government $1,000. Hence it was, that our duties 
were civil as well as military, and we were obliged to briefly report all 
civil infractions, decisions and punishment. Once or twice we put people 
into the guard-house and they appealed to the General; he sent for them to 
be forwarded under escort with the next train to Fort Kearney, where he re-
heard the case. One of the peculiarities of the civil jurisdiction was 
that people applied to the post to enforce the payment of bets which they 
had made. Parties would make bets, and then when they lost, sometimes 
would not pay. It was a betting age, and a betting country. We did not go 
according to the statute law in this matter. We recognized that the 
payment of bets was an obligation which persons should honor; that betting 
was recognized by the community as legitimate, and the non-payment of bets 
tended to disturb social conditions and make enemies, and bring about 
aggressions. But the debt must either be proven in writing or admitted by 
the defendant. We enforced gambling debts when reduced to writing and 
signed. More than once men had the alternative given them of paying a 
gambling debt or a bet fairly proven, or else of going to the guard-house. 
If they didn't have the money, they went to the guard-house anyway. There 
had to be some punishment.

   Along early in April one of our best men, having been recently 
appointed sergeant, played a very nice scheme upon our post. He said that 
our post needed a laundry; that we ought to have a building in which the 
soldiers could do their washing with a well and appurtenances; and that we 
ought to make some nice tight, cedar boxes for washtubs, etc., etc. This 
struck us as a good thing, so we went to and built a laundry building 
twenty feet square, but without a well, because it was not far from the 
stockade where our horses were, and where there was a good well. Now it 
happened that sometime in February a woman left a train was going west, 
came to MacDonald's ranch and asked if they wanted to employ a cook or 
woman to assist in work of the house. It was exactly what MacDonald 
wanted; his wife had been trying to get somebody for quite a while. The 
applicant was a woman, tall, slim, razor-faced, about six feet three 
inches high, and she looked like a human being that wasn't afraid of wild 
man or wild beast. She started in with MacDonald and did a power of work-
washing, cleaning up the store, and everything else; she was a perfect 
giantess to work. She said that she was raised on a farm in Missouri, was 
unmarried, and was thinking of going through to Denver where some 
relatives were, but had concluded she had gone about as far west as she 
wanted to go. MacDonald was very much pleased with her work and services. 
As Captain O'Brien used to say, "She was as ugly as a mud fence." She 
obtained the nickname of "Lengthy." After a couple of months this nickname 
was reduced to "Linty." One day this Sergeant of whom I spoke above, came 
to us and suggested that we employ "Linty" as a laundress and give her the 
laundry-house, and arrange it so that whenever she did any washing for the 
soldiers it should be reported and taken from the soldier's pay at the pay-
table. That was in accordance with the army regulations, providing the 
company should approve of it. We called up the company and stated the 
proposition. The Sergeant in the mean time worked the company all right, 
and the company without objection all agreed that their washing might be 
taken out of their pay if done by "Linty," but that they had the right to 
do their own washing nevertheless, if they wanted to. MacDonald objected a 
great deal towards letting the woman go, but she went, and took up 
quarters in the new laundry, and curtained off a part of it where she kept 
her trunk and bedstead. She went to work washing for the boys. She 
understood it well. She was very strong and industrious, and was doing 
very nicely, when one day, on May 6, 1864, this Sergeant and "Linty" 
appeared before the post commander and demanded to be united in marriage. 
The Captain had never married anybody before, but he had the right as post 
commander to perform the rite. So the Captain sent for me as the company 
commander to be present. The Captain fixed up a good deal of ceremony and 
it was pretty near a mock marriage, except that it was strictly legal. The 
Captain asked, "Who giveth this woman away?" and I said, "I do," and we 
went through the ceremony in great shape. Thereupon, arm-in-arm the 
Sergeant walked down with his bride to the new laundry-house, and started 
to take up his abode there. Some of the boys, finding it out, determined 
to have some fun. Late in the evening they got mess-pans and about a 
hundred of them surrounded the laundry and commenced giving an old-
fashioned "shiviree." They ought all to have been arrested, because it was 
about nine o'clock at night, but the Captain and I concluded we would let 
the boys have some fun. All at once the noise stopped, and the next 
morning I heard that the Sergeant had gone to his wife's dress, got her 
pocketbook, took all the money she had, $5, gone out in stocking feet and 
had given the money to the boys and told them to go off and get drunk, and 
leave them, as, he said, that was all they both had. Thereupon the 
Sergeant took up his headquarters at the laundry and stayed there. Under 
the army regulations he drew rations for himself and his wife separately, 
and we saw that from first to last the Sergeant together with the woman 
had studied up the whole plan. They had worked us. We held this against 
the Sergeant until things had calmed down, and then we reduced him to the 
ranks; afterwards, having been a blacksmith, we put him over with 
Woodruff, the other blacksmith, shoeing horses and repairing wagons. They 
were not discharged from the service until they were mustered out, in May, 
1866, and the couple stayed together as well as any married couple I ever 
saw, for in all future marches and expeditions of the company this woman 
went along, and followed the troubles and dared the dangers of the 
service, so that we finally got to thinking more of "Linty" than we did of 
her husband.

   Owing to troubles reported from the south, Company "G," which was at 
our post, started May 2nd for Fort Kearney, from which post they went 
directly to Fort Riley, Kansas. Fort Riley was at the junction of the 
Republican River, upon which the Indians were very numerous, and, owing to 
emissaries from the Southern Confederacy, that country was becoming very 
dangerous ground. From time to time we heard that emissaries from the 
Confederacy were making inflammatory speeches, and doing their best to 
alienate the southern Cheyennes, and the Ogallallah Sioux. But this 
influence did not extend strongly across the Platte to the northern Sioux 
or Cheyennes, because such emissaries would be shot if they fell into our 
hands. Nevertheless, there were rumors that efforts were being made in the 
Indian villages north and northwest of us. From a Sergeant, Ellsworth, who 
afterwards was an officer in Company "G," the fort and town of
"Ellsworth," in Kansas, was named. Shortly after the departure of Company 
"G" from our post, Company "C," Seventh Iowa Cavalry, arrived and occupied 
their barracks. Schenck, who was First Lieutenant of the company, had been 
detailed at Fort Kearney. The company was poorly officered and the captain 
was shortly afterwards court-martialed.

   On May 7th a Mr. Trivit, of Denver, entered complaint against Ingram & 
Christie, who had a train passing our post. Trivit alleged fraud of 
considerable amount. Captain O'Brien, the commander of the post was down 
at Gilmans' ranch trying to make some arrangements for the cutting of a 
lot of hay during the summer. I swore Trivit to the truth of his 
statement, which I had my First Sergeant reduce to writing. Thereupon I 
arrested the other two persons, but sent them under arrest with their 
train to be halted down at Gilmans' for trial by Captain 0'Brien. He tried 
the matter out, made his finding, and it was complied with, and the matter 
ended.

   During May two professional gamblers, one from Ottumwa and one from 
Denver, confederated together, got into our quarters, and got into games 
of poker with our men. They were quite liberal in buying sutler's stuff; 
and distributing it among the men in the quarters, but they were also very 
cunning in regard to it. They slept around wherever they could find a 
place and played poker whenever they could find a victim. Finally I heard 
of it, got them into my quarters, had a squad of soldiers come and peel 
off their clothes. They each had several decks of marked cards, and a lot 
of money. This I took from them, and then put them both into the guard-
house until I could ascertain how much they had won from the men. After 
arriving at what I thought was a fair conclusion, I gave the balance back 
although it was a good deal more than I thought they ought to have, and I 
started them out of camp in opposite directions, two miles each way. I 
never saw or heard of them again. After they had gone several of the boys 
put in application to have their money refunded to them. To those 
applying, I returned no money at the time, but gave them first a few days 
each of extra work around the stables. Afterwards the money was returned 
to the losers; some of the boys had wives and families at home, who would 
be very much benefitted by it.

   We had received requests from headquarters to prepare maps of the 
country as far as we knew. So we got up maps of the country, making them 
accurate as far as we were acquainted with the lay of the land, by 
observation or by advice of pioneers and others, as best we could. Along 
where we were, from Gilmans' to Jack Morrow's there were five cedar 
canyons, and we had explored them all pretty well, and we could make our 
maps so as to comprise a radius of twenty miles south of the river. I 
afterwards saw where, in the Chief Engineer's office at Leavenworth, our 
maps had been worked into a large Nebraska map, of which a copy had been 
forwarded to the War Department. It is from such sources as this that maps 
of a country are first made.

   Some person going East from Denver had stopped at our post, which had 
been put up hastily, and which occupied a place that seven months before 
had been vacant. This person going East had published in an Eastern 
magazine a full account of the rapidity with which the work had been done, 
the value of the post, and its fine situation; in the article appeared my 
name among others. In one batch of mail I received letters from five 
different girls who wrote saying they had seen the article, and suggesting 
correspondence. One was from Monroe, Wisconsin, one was from McGregor, 
Iowa, one from Ottumwa, Iowa, one from Broadhead, Wisconsin, and another 
from Waterford, Pennsylvania. Captain O'Brien got a number, but we 
answered none of them.

   On the 15th of May there came into camp a tough-looking woman who said 
that she had been assaulted by eighteen Cheyennes. She said that on the 
road east of Morrow's ranch, "Eighteen Cheyenne chieftains ravished my 
person." The woman was about forty years of age, and a very bad-looking 
character; but fearing that she might be telling the truth, and as she was 
talking about it to everybody that would listen to her, Captain O'Brien 
ordered me to take ten men, and immediately proceed to the place, and try 
to ascertain what were the facts. Going up to Jack Morrow's, I passed 
several persons who had been on the road and had seen nothing, and heard 
nothing. When I got up to Morrow's ranch and related the story the woman 
told, and asked them if they had seen any Cheyennes they all broke out 
into immoderate laughter, and one of them said: "You better go back to the 
post; that woman is 'Salt Lake Kate.' She is the toughest female on the 
road. Better have her leave the post; send her East as soon as possible." 
Afterwards one of the party said there had been some Indians seen out on 
the bluffs that day; that they did not seem to be stealing cattle, but to 
be very shy and acting as spies. I turned back, and while on march to our 
post with my field-glass I kept my eye upon the Sioux Lookout, hoping if 
by chance I might see by accurate and intense observation whether some 
Indian would put his head up far enough for me to see him. After a little 
while I beheld a little piece of an Indian's head spying over the ridge. 
My first impulse was to try to capture him, but as he had a mile or so the 
advantage of me, and could divine my movement in a minute, I did not 
attempt it. On my return we started "Salt Lake Kate" down the road with a 
passing train, and never saw or heard of her afterwards. But events 
followed rapidly which made us suspicious that she had really been telling 
the truth, because on the next day or the day after, John Gilman came up 
to the post, and said that he had seen twenty Cheyennes over on the bluff 
near them, and that he demanded protection from the United States, and 
would hold the United States responsible if he lost anything through want 
of protection, and he served this notice upon us in writing. We didn't 
like this movement on the part of Gilman, and gave him some harsh 
language, and told him that if he wanted to be protected to come on up to 
the post. However, he went back and put his ranch into a fortified 
condition so as to stand a siege.

   At Gilmans' there was staying a peculiar man who came up with them, and 
stopped at our post. He was a wandering tailor. He had a wagon with cloth 
and buttons and stuff in it, and went up and down the road making good 
clothes for people who wanted them. As there were no tailors in the 
country, and as there were large numbers of people who had worn tailor-
made clothes, he seemed to have done a pretty good business. He couldn't 
always give the people the kind of goods they wanted, but he could really 
make a nice tailor-made suit, and he was really a professional tailor. The 
ranchmen of the best order provided themselves with stuff to be made up, 
and this man Farley, who was a jolly fellow, and a rapid workman, had 
quite a patronage. He happened to have some blue cloth suitable for 
uniforms, and he made me one of the best suits I ever had. It cost me 
about three prices, but it would be difficult to have excelled it in fit, 
and workmanship, and I was always glad to remember the man, and afterwards 
to recommend his work farther up the road.