History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 38

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998

USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 38

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The disposition of the Indian forces was as follows: The general command devolved on Black Moon, who made the plans and directed the method of procedure. It must be understood that their spies had kept them perfectly informed of the movement of the military. The Indians were divided into seven bands, and commencing from the lower end, where Custer's attack was made, they were, first, the Uncpapas, under Black Moon, the hereditary chief of that band. Black Moon was then an old man and he called to his assistance the most dashing chief of the band, Gall, who was on this occasion his first lieutenant. Second, the Oglalas, under Crazy Horse; third, the Miniconjous, under Fast Bull; fourth, the Sans Arcs, under Bad Bear; fifth, the Cheyennes, under Ice Bear; sixth, the San- tees and Yanktonaise, under Inkpadutah (the old villain who perpetrated the Spirit Lake massacre in 1857); seventh, the Blackfeet, under

Scabby Head. The village consisted of one thousand eight hundred lodges. Each of these chiefs and bands had agreed to obey the direc- tion of Black Moon, the chief of the Uncpapas.

Reno, after crossing the ford, started to at- tack the Indians. The Blackfeet and Santees, being in his front, they immediately fell back as if to retreat, thus drawing Reno on ; suddenly de- veloping great strength at the opportune time, they made a bold dash on Reno's flank, forcing his command back into the timber on the river bank and putting the Rees to flight. Finding himself on the defensive, Reno ordered his troops to dismount and fight the enemy on foot. His position was a good one and, it is the opin- ion of military men, might have been maintained for a long time without serious loss, but finding himself surrounded by the warriors, whose mis- siles were flying fast and furious among his ranks, he seems to have lost his head and gave the order to mount and get to the bluffs. His command mounted and made a hasty retreat, crossing the river at a lower ford, Captain Hod- son being killed in the retreat. In this retreat Captain French distinguished himself by, almost single-handed, protecting the rear. He had long hair, much resembling Custer's and rode a sor- rel horse with white feet, and by his bravery and superb bearing won the admiration of the In- dians, who for a long time believed him to be Custer himself. He was the only officer who seems to have kept his head and his conduct in every way was really heroic. It may be noted that in his report Reno meanly omitted to say one word about French's gallantry.

The Indians did not pursue Reno at this time, having other and more important business on their hands. - Custer with his battalion' had struck the Indian camp directly in front of the Uncpapas and they had promptly centered their strength for his annihilation. No white man has lived to report exactly what occurred in the Cus- ter fight. Crazy Horse, however, made a some- what detailed report of it. When the attack was made the squaws and children were directed to hurry off in a northerly direction. Custer, mis- taking these flying non-combatants for the main

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body of the warriors in full retreat, made a dash for them. The warriors in the village, seeing this, divided their forces into two parties, and when he had reached the river they caught him be- tween the two bodies. The smoke and dust was so great that foe could scarcely be distinguished from friend, the horses were wild and uncon- trollable and the young Indians in their excite- ment and fury killed each other, as was proven by the fact that Indians were found there killed by arrow shots. Custer was simply overcome by the overwhelming number of the enemy and not one of his men came out from the terrible experience.

The main attack on Custer was led on the part of the fierce Uncpapas by old Black Moon, who fought with all the valor for which he was distinguished in the days of his early youth, but at the very onset the old man fell dead from his saddle, one of the first victims on the Indian side. Gall sprang to the leadership with the fury of a demon and the military genius of a Caesar. It is the prevailing opinion among the Indians of South Dakota that Sitting Bull sneaked out of the fight and took no part in it. The probabili- ties, however, are that while he did not lead in it he was so mixed up in the dust and confusion and blinding smoke that he could not be distin- guished from the other warriors. While he was in no sense the equal of Gall or Crazy Horse as a military leader, he was not a coward and it is altogether improbable that he kept out of the fight.

From the other side of Custer's column Crazy Horse led the fighting Oglalas and, while all of the other bands swooped into the melee, it was really between the Oglalas and Uncpapas that Custer was crushed. There were two hundred and sixty-one men lost in Custer's battalion. The Indians lost fifty-eight killed and over sixty wounded.

When Custer discovered the strength of the Indian camp he sent for Benteen, who had been placed on the hills above the village, to come post- haste to his assistance and Benteen was obeying this order when he came upon Reno in his re- treat to the bluffs.

The moment the annihilation of Custer and his men was accomplished the Indians turned to the attack upon the bluffs to wipe out the resi- due of the regiment. In a brief time they gained the points of vantage and began to pour deadly shot into the ranks of the soldier's, who being on the defensive could do little more than to main- tain their position. The joint battalions of Ben- teen and Reno were thus completely surrounded and when night came it appeared almost certain that they would share the fate of Custer. Still they had no knowledge of the fate of Custer.

The Indians spent the night in the most un- bounded and exultant celebration. Scouts sent out from the beleaguered camp found the coun- try full of Indians and were unable to get through to apprise either Crook or Terry of their haz- ardous situation. All night long at frequent in- tervals guns were fired and stable calls blown in the hope that it might attract the attention of their friends. All the night was spent in prep- aration for defense. The soldiers were put to work digging trenches and as there were few shovels in the regiment all kinds of implements, axes, hatches, halves of canteens, tin cups, and even table knives and forks were brought into service.

At the first dawn of day the Indians resumed the attack. At one time Benteen made a bold sortie against an aggressive band of Indians, driving them to the river. At about one o'clock, when the situation was the most critical, the am- munition being almost exhausted, the Indians for the main part withdrew. Though the beleag- uered soldiers did not know it, the Indians' am- munition was by this time exhausted. Late that evening a few of the Indians returned to the valley below the beleaguered camp and set fire to the grass and at seven o'clock, protected by the great column of smoke, the entire Indian force moved across the plateau toward the Big Horn mountains. Reno and Benteen, fearing that this was a ruse on the part of the Indians to draw them out, remained in camp that night and until about ten o'clock on the morning of the 27th when they were joined by Terry, who had come up from the steamboats. And so the great

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Custer fight was ended. The Indians, finding their ammunition exhausted, had escaped into the mountains and later made their way into British territory. Terry buried the dead and, taking the remnant of the command back to the steamboat, proceeded down to Fort Abra- ham Lincoln.

This appalling catastrophe only concerns the history of South Dakota in that the Indians en- gaged in it were almost exclusively South Da- kotans and because of its relation to the opening of the Black Hills. Not until the 10th of July did the full news of the annihilation of Custer's command and the total defeat of the military expedition against the hostiles reach Deadwood, and its effect upon the unprotected population of the Black Hills can be readily surmised.

For a detailed and exhaustive examination into the lives of the men who were brought to the front as leaders in this last struggle of the great Sioux nation to preserve the lands and customs inherited from their ancestors, the reader is re- ferred to the copious notes of Dr. Delorme W. Robinson, published in the first volume of the Collections of the South Dakota Historical So- ciety. When everything is considered, it must be conceded that among the great military lead- ers which have sprung from American soil few have surpassed in ingenuity and patriotic sac- rifice for home and Fatherland these aboriginal South Dakota warriors.

While the war was in progress, and particu- larly after its close, the Indians passing from the agencies to the battle grounds northwest of the Black Hills constantly harassed and annoyed the miners, and straggling miners almost daily fell under their relentless tomahawks Major Bren- nan has compiled an extended list of these atroc- ities which came under his personal observation.

We quote almost literally from Major Bren- nan's notes : "On March 14, 1876, Indians made their first attack on Rapid City. No deaths re- sulted, but the Indians on this occasion ran off twenty-eight head of horses, the losers being Robert Burleigh, Dan Williams, William Jud, John Dugdale, Ben Worthington and John R. Brennan. Another raid was made by the Indians

on April 12th in which their chief medicine man was killed. Some animals were lost. This fight started about a mile and a half north of town where some of our people were cutting fire wood in a small canyon where they were surprised by about forty Indians coming from Box Elder crcek. The party discovered the Indians just in time to cut their horses loose from their wagons and make a run for it to town. There was a hot fight on the trail, but they succeeded in standing the Indians off until aid reached them. William Linn and an Indian had a gun and pistol duel all the way down. At times they were within ten yards of each other. Finally Linn's horse got away from him and he tumbled into a wash-out, and the Indian, thinking he had killed him, rode off after the horse until he came within reach of the rescuing party from town, and here he met his Waterloo. Linn reached town without a scratch. He was the tallest man in the Hills at that time, being six feet and six inches in height, and was a relative of William McKin- ley, afterwards President. He was made of the right kind of stuff for a pioneer and later became one of the treasure-coach messengers running between Deadwood and Sibley, Nebraska. His death occurred near Deadwood in 1901. After this Indian raids were of almost daily occurrence.

"On the first of August a rush was made on the town and this time they succeeded in running off about every head of stock in the town. They drove them through the gap on the Pierre road and then returned and attacked the town, there being only about twenty whites in the village. We gave them a warm reception, however, and several of the Indians were wounded and two horses killed. They were repulsed and a party consisting of J. M. Leedy, William Johnson, Noah Newbanks, Hugh Mckay, James Shephard and John R. Brennan followed the Indians some twelve miles down the divide between Rapid and Box Elder creeks in the hopes to recover the stock taken. We failed in the enterprise and were lucky to get back with our scalps. On Att- gust 24th the country was full of Indians return- ing from the Little Big Horn. J. W. Patterson, an old veteran of the Mexican war, from Alle-

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gheny City, Pennsylvania, and Thomas Pendle- ton, from Springfield, Massachusetts, were killed, scalped and their ears cut off on Rapid creek near Big Springs, four miles from Rapid City. Patterson's shot gun and gold watch were after- wards found in the possession of a Cheyenne River agency Indian. On the very day and at nearly the same hour G. W. Jones, of Boulder, Colorado, and John Erquert, of Kansas City, Missouri, were murdered at Limestone Springs about four miles from Rapid on the road to Deadwood. They were scalped and their ears cut off. The four persons were brought in the next day and were buried in a single grave on the north edge of the plateau. We made rough pine boxes and wrote their names on the inside lid of each coffin. While the burial was taking place Indians showed up and interfered with the ceremonies. On August 25th Howard Worth, enroute from Hill City to Rapid, found the body of a man on the trail about ten miles from Rapid City. He had been killed and scalped by the Indians. We went out and buried him, but were unable to determine his identity.

"These atrocities decided us to erect a block- house in Rapid City for the better protection of the town against Indian raids. Just at this time the government ordered us to leave the Black Hills, but at Rapid we counted noses and found that there were but nineteen of us left. We took a vote as to whether we should give up the ship and go out or remain. The vote was unan- imous in favor of remaining and the building of a block house was placed under the supervision of Captain Grace, a veteran of the Mexican war and well known in Vermillion, and in a few days' time we had a two-story blockhouse up and en- closed. The upper story projected out over the lower story two feet all around. Loop holes were provided and a good well inside the build- ing. We removed all the surplus provisions in- to it. We had a number of brushes with the Indians after that, but fortunately were never compelled to use the blockhouse for protection." Major Brennan adds the following list of names of people killed by Indians in 1876: "On May 4th, William Cogan, of Watertown, Wiscon- 19

sin, was killed three miles north of Rapid on Pierre road. He was enroute from Pierre to the Hills with Van Meter's freight train. He left the train at Washta Springs, eighteen miles from Rapid, saying he would go on ahead of the train. He was cautioned by Van Meter not to do this, but he did not heed the caution. On May 6th Edward Saddler, William H. Gardner. St. Clair, and John Harrison were killed on the Ft. Pierre road at the head of Bad river a few miles north of Peno Springs. They were in the employ of John Dillon, freighter, and were re- turning from the Hills. They were buried where they fell.

"On May 7th J. C. Dodge, of Bismarck, was killed and scalped on the road twelve miles north of Rapid, near the present Piedmont. He was in company with a party coming in from Bis- marck with some stock. They missed a calf and Dodge said he would go back and round it up. The next morning we went out and found his body showing every evidence that he had made a desperate fight for his life. We brought the body in to Rapid and buried it, but after- ward it was taken up and removed to Bismarck. Later that month Henry Herring and C. Nelson were killed above Cleghorn Springs on Rapid Creek.

"In June one Metts and his wife, Mrs. Har- rington, and Brown, the stage driver, were mur- dered on Cheyenne road in Red Canyon. On Au- gust 15th the mail carrier from Pierre was mur- dered eight miles south of Crook City, on the Rapid and Deadwood road, and on the same day Charles Holland, of Sioux City, was killed near Sparfish. On the next day. August 16th, Rev .. W. H. Smith, the pioneer minister of the gospel in the Black Hills, while enroute from Deadwood to Crook City on foot to keep a preaching appoint- ment, was murdered two miles above Crook City on Centennial Prairie. The Indians took his scalp and his bible. He was buried at Mt. Mo- riah cemetery, Deadwood, where a statue cut from the red sandstone of the Black Hills has been erected to his memory."

On August 18, 1876, the President appointed a new commission to treat with the Indians for

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the cession of the Black Hills. This commission consisted of H. C. Bullis, of Iowa, George W. Manypenny, of Ohio, Bishop H. B. Whipple, J. W. Daniels, A. G. Boone, of Colorado, ex-Gov- error Newton Edmunds, of Dakota, and A. S. Gaylord, of Michigan. The Rev. Mr. Hinman was again appointed interpreter. Twenty-nine thousand dollars was appropriated for the ex- pense of this commission. The commission or- ganized at Omaha on August 28th, but owing to ill health General Sibley was unable to accom- pany them. They sent runners to the Indians and held a council with the Northern Cheyennes and Arapahoes at the Red Cloud agency on the 7th day of September, having abandoned the plan adopted the previous year of assembling all of the tribes in a single council. After counciling until the 20th of the month, they succeeded in get- ting the signatures of a majority of the Indians of this tribe to the agreement to open the Hills. From there they proceeded to Spotted Tail's agency, and after two days secured the signa- ture of the Brules to the agreement. Thence they proceeded up the river to Standing Rock and iaid the proposition before the upper and lower Yanktonaise, Uncpapas and Blackfeet. They ar- rived there on the 9th and on the 11th the treaty was duly signed. On the return they reached Cheyenne agency on the 13th and secured the signing by the evening of the 16th. The 20th and 21st they spent at Crow Creek, where the agreement was readily accepted. On the "24th it was agreed to by the Lower Brule and on the 27th the Santees had affixed their signatures.

The treaty was very simple in its provisions. It simply provided that the government should in consideration of the cession of the Black Hills provide them with sufficient provisions to keep them until they were able to subsist themselves. The government to provide them with schools and that the rations for the children should be issued to them at the schools. That whenever an Indian took his land in severalty in good faith the government should provide him a house. In addition to the cession of the Black Hills, three roads were provided for from the Mis-

souri river upon lines to be selected by the gov- ernment.

The success of the commission was almost wholly due to the influence of two of its mem- bers and the interpreter. The influential mem- bers were Ex-Governor Edmunds, of Dakota, and Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota. It in effect provided amnesty to the hostiles, who had only to come in and submit to the government and accept the conditions existing at the agencies, though as a matter of fact it was signed by rela- tively few of the head men who had not been out on the war path. After the battle of Little Big Horn most of the Indians returned to the reservations while the leaders and the irrecon- cilable hostiles escaped first through the moun- tains and then made their way into Canada. .Among those who thus expatriated themselves were Gall and Sitting Bull and Ink-pa-du-ta. Crazy Horse returned to the Red Cloud agency through the influence of Spotted Tail, who went to visit him in the hostile camp, and soon made peace with the government. Sitting Bull and Gall remained intractable for some years and Ink-pa-du-ta is supposed to have died in the autumn of 1880 in the northern coun- try. The signing of the treaty was nominally the end of the last great Sioux war.

The news of the great placer strikes in the Deadwood gulch, which were made in the later days of 1875, did not at once get out to attract very wide-spread attention and all of the rush in the early days of 1876 was in the southern hills centering at Custer and, as before stated. it was estimated there were from eight thousand to eleven thousand people around that thriving camp.

Here a complete civil government was set up. with city and county organizations, police offi- cers, sheriffs and courts, all of which were founded simply in the good sense of the com- munity and without any sanction of statute law. either territorial or federal. Judge Hooper was elected judge of the supreme court at a miners' convention. Dr. Bemis was mayor, E. P. Kief- fer, justice of the peace, John Burrows, city

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marshal. All of the city council, consisting of twelve members, cannot now be recalled, but among these aldermen were Captain Jack Craw- ford, D. K. Snively, S. R. Shankland, Cyrus Abbey, D. Wright and Emil Faust. This was the balmy period in the history of Custer City.

About the first of May, after the snows be- gan to melt, however, reports came down from the northern hills of the vastly rich placer dig- gings there and almost in a day Custer faded and the trails leading to the north were thronged with the erstwhile Custerites in a wild stampede for the new diggings.

In the Deadwood district the Custer method was not followed in the first instance. Mining districts were organized and recorders provided for them, but outside of this there was no civil organization for several months. A brief civil code, however, was adopted by a mass meeting and posted up about the town on the 8th of June. Whenever there was need for the admin- istration of justice through a murder or other emergency, a miners' meeting was at once called, a judge appointed, a sheriff elected, a venire is- sued, a jury summoned from among the regis- tered miners of the three districts, a counsel pro- vided, and a regular trial held, but when this court had performed its mission it dissolved and performed no further functions. A new emer- gency called for a new court.

Early in May, 1876, the first newspaper was established in the Black Hills at Custer. A. W. Merrick and W. A. Laughlin brought it from Cheyenne and set it up in Custer and got out one issue of the Black Hills Pioneer. Before the time came for their next issue the stampede came and with it they stampeded their paper over into the Deadwood gulch. Here, on the 8th day of June, the Black Hills Pioneer was re- established and has from that time appeared reg- ularly as a newspaper. Six days later the Trib- une was established at Crook City by K. Burt. On the 24th of June Captain C. V. Gardner bought out Mr. Laughlin and associated himself with Mr. Merrick in the publication of the Pio- neer. In the great fire which overwhelmed Dead- wood a few years later the Pioneer was destroyed,

but fortunately Joseph R. Gosage, of Rapid City, had preserved almost a complete file of it for the first year of its publication and it is undoubtedly the most authentic record of the stirring events of the most unique period in the most unique community in the history of the state.

Notwithstanding the fact that these pioneers were trespassers, defying the laws of the gen- eral government, they were a patriotic people and provided a grand Fourth of July celebration for that centennial anniversary. Judge Mills was the orator of the day and Gen. A. Z. R. Daw- son read the Declaration of Independence. While the citizens were assembled for this cele- bration they took occasion to memorialize Con- gress to extinguish the Indian title. In that day Rev. W. H. Smith performed what was prob- ably the first marriage in the Black Hills, that of Edward Williams to Miss Anna Card.

These pioneer miners found many evidences that Deadwood gulch had been previously occu- pied and prospected. On the 11th of May, upon bed rock, six feet below the surface, a grindstone of native rock, eighteen inches in diameter, was found embedded in the solid earth, the wooden journals being in part preserved. On claim num- ber fifteen below Whitewood district, nine feet below the surface, a miner's hatchet was found. the wooden handle being somewhat mineralized. This hatchet is now in the possession of the State Historical Society. On the 29th of May, on claim number fourteen below, in solid clay two feet below the surface, a pair of silver bowed spectacles were dug up. There were many other circumstances which confirmed the miners in their belief that they were not upon primitive soil.

The town of Deadwood was laid out April 18th. The first school meeting was held there on July 29th, but it was several months later before school was finally established.

On July 9th the first murder occurred in the gulch. This was the killing of one Hinch by two men named McCarty and Carty. McCarty was arrested and tried by a miners' jury. He was acquitted, but the miners took possession of the valuable claims of Carty and McCarty,

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which were worth from twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars per day and gave them to the widow of Hinch, the murdered man. Carty was after- ward arrested by a United States marshal and brought to Yankton for trial, but was finally ac- quitted.

A few days later, August 2, 1876, Wild Bill Hicock was shot in a gambling house in Dead- wood by John McCall. McCall was promptly arrested and a court organized for his trial by the election of W. L. Kuykendall as judge, Isaac Brown, sheriff, Colonel May being chosen for the prosecution and Judge Mills for the de- fense. A venire was issued and the court ad- journed until the next day, when the sheriff re- turned the following jury: Charles Whitehead, foreman, J. J. Burk, L. K. Bukkaw, J. H. Thompson, S. S. Hopkins, J. F. Cooper, Alex. Traverse, K. T. Towle, J. E. Thompson, L. A. Judd, E. Burke and John Mahan. The trial was conducted in an orderly manner, the defense be- ing that Bill had killed McCall's brother in Kan- sas some years before. To the surprise of ev- eryone, the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty and McCall was released. Afterward he was re-arrested by a deputy United States mar- shal at Cheyenne, brought to Yankton, tried, convicted and hanged, on the Ist of March, 1877. The hanging took place on the present site of the state insane asylum.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 38

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 998

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998