Spring 1867. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, serving under General Winfield Scott Hancock, rode into the camp of the Cheyenne and Sioux near Fort Larned, Kansas. Hancock had called the two tribes to a council to discuss the killings and assaults they had carried out against white settlers through 1866 and into the early months of 1867. The Indians had no intention of standing still for the general’s reprimand.
They slipped away in the night while the United States Army lay encamped nearby, and by the time Custer arrived at the abandoned village, the lodges stood empty. The general now gave him a new task: take eight troops of cavalry and run the fugitives down. That night none of the troopers slept. Packs were reissued and filled with fresh coffee, sugar, flour, and the other staples of a soldier’s ration.
Blankets were folded tight to save every inch of space. Every pound of excess baggage was thrown aside, because in an Indian chase success depended almost entirely on the lightness of the march. The old proverb that a man in Rome must do as the Romans do had never been better illustrated than in a campaign against Indians. The Indian, knowing his safety depended on the speed and endurance of his pony, stripped off every superfluous article of clothing or ornament when preparing for rapid maneuvers.
The white man, if he wanted to win, had to adopt the same rule and lighten his horse as much as possible. Weapons were reexamined, cartridge boxes filled so each trooper carried about one hundred rounds, and every platoon leader made sure a few reserve boxes rode in the company wagon. Then came the horses. Loose shoes were nailed tight, often by the company blacksmith lying on the ground beside the animal, working by the light of a dim candle held by a trooper, hurrying to fasten the last shoe before dawn.
Between the two men passed the constant question of how long they would be gone, and whether they would catch up with Mr. Lou, and if they did, they would make it interesting for him. Everything was ready before daylight. Besides the organized troops, Custer took a detachment of white scouts, the men of the plains, and a detachment of friendly Indians from the Delaware tribe, famous in the Indian wars.
Only one of the Delawares spoke English, and he served as interpreter. Among the white scouts were some of the most notable characters of their class, and the most prominent of them was Wild Bill, whose varied career had been the subject of an illustration in one of the leading monthly magazines a few years before. Wild Bill was a strange character, the kind a novelist might boast of. He was a man of the plains in every sense of the word, yet unlike anyone else of his class.
He stood about six feet tall, as straight as the most erect warrior among his deadly enemies, broad-shouldered, with well-formed chest and limbs, and a strikingly handsome face. A clear blue eye that looked you straight in the face when speaking, a finely shaped nose, a well-proportioned mouth with lips partly hidden by a stylish mustache, and hair and skin that were perfect, blond. His hair fell to his broad shoulders in uncut, curly locks. His costume blended the elegance of the modern man with the extravagant taste of the frontiersman.
Such was Wild Bill, then as now the most famous scout on the plains, and whether on foot or on horseback, one of the finest specimens of manhood Custer had ever seen. His courage was beyond question, tested on countless occasions. His skill with rifle and revolver was flawless, and his conduct was the very opposite of what one would expect from a man of his environment. He was entirely free of boasting.
He rarely spoke of himself unless asked. Strangely, his conversation was never vulgar or profane. His influence among the frontiersmen was boundless. His word was law, and he settled many personal quarrels among his companions simply by declaring that the matter had gone far enough, adding the stern warning that if the dispute continued or was renewed, the disputant would have to settle it with him.
Though not a quarrelsome man, no one else could count the many fights he had fought, most of which ended in the death of his opponent. Custer personally knew of at least six men Wild Bill had killed at various times. One had been a member of his own command, and others had been severely wounded. Yet he always escaped unharmed.
On the plains every man wore his belt openly with its usual accoutrements, a knife and a revolver, often two of the latter. Wild Bill always carried two large, handsome revolvers with ivory handles. He was never seen without them. Where this was the custom, personal quarrels were rarely, if ever, settled by blows.
A disagreement did not run from word to fist, but from word to revolver, and the man who could draw and fire first was the strongest. No civil law applied to these men. In fact, there was no recognized law beyond the border except the law of force. If a quarrel resulted in death, as was customary, no jury was empaneled to determine the cause of death, and the survivor was not arrested.
Instead, a meeting of citizens was held. The survivor was asked to appear while the circumstances of the killing were investigated, and the verdict of self-defense was pronounced, and the law acquitted him. This justice often deprived the victim of his rights, no doubt. Yet in all the many cases of this kind that Wild Bill had carried out privately and that came to Custer’s knowledge, he never found one in which the verdict of twelve honest men was not in his favor.
That his composure was still affected by such small events could be inferred from a recent newspaper report, which stated that the funeral of Jim Bludsoe, killed a few days before by Wild Bill, had taken place that day, and that Wild Bill had paid the funeral expenses. What nobler act than that? Not only to bury a man, but to pay his travel expenses as well. A man of mixed blood named Garier accompanied the expedition as guide and interpreter.
When everything was ready, the column moved out and reached the edge of the abandoned village before dawn. A short halt was necessary until there was enough light for the scouts to find the trail. When they finally began their search, their method was deeply interesting, much like a skilled hunter ranging the ground for his sought-after prey with his well-trained dog. The Indians had fled shortly after dark on the previous nights.
A heavy frost covered the ground, making the trail difficult to distinguish among the tracks of the many ponies that always gathered near a village. The men grew anxious at the delay, and then one of the Indians shouted that he had found the trail, and the column moved forward again. The order of march placed the Indian and white scouts a few hundred paces ahead of the troops, so that any delay on the part of the lookouts and trackers would not extend to the main body. The Indians, when they left the village, had expected the pursuit and taken measures to mislead it.
To avoid making their trail easy to follow, they departed in many small parties, as if the families and groups of the village had each taken a different direction, having agreed, of course, on the general direction and the place of meeting. Once the column was sure it was on the right trail, it had no difficulty following it as fast as the horses could walk. The Indians had had about twelve hours’ start, but since they were encumbered with their families, the command hoped to catch them within a few days. The first obstacle came at Walnut Creek, a small stream running east and west about thirty miles north of the Arkansas River.
There the banks were so high and steep that it was impossible to reach the water’s edge, let alone climb the opposite bank. A few Indians had managed the feat, as the footprints on the opposite bank showed, but the main body had moved upstream looking for a suitable crossing, and the command had to do the same. There they found that the Indians had stopped, built fires, and cooked their breakfast. The pursuit had closed on them so fast that the fires were still burning, and their departure had been so sudden that they left several ponies with their packs tied to the trees.
One of those packs belonged to the famous chief Roman Nose, who had been among those who met the command at the great council a few days before reaching the village. One of the Delaware soldiers, the one who made the capture, was very proud of the success, and was soon seen decorating his headdress with a bright crimson feather taken from Roman Nose’s wardrobe. Encouraged, the pursuit continued as fast as care for the horses allowed. Until then, neither Custer nor any of the soldiers had seen any of the Indians.
But the Delaware scouts, who constantly advanced ahead and on the flanks, using the hills for observation, reported again and again that they had seen small groups of Indians watching the column’s movements from a distance. Through conclusive evidence familiar to those accustomed to the plains, the command knew it was gaining rapidly. The ground disturbed by the hoofs of their horses and the trailing ends of their lodge poles was almost as fresh as that disturbed by the troopers’ own mounts. Soon further encouraging signs appeared.
The trail became strewn with lodge poles and other encumbrances belonging to the Indian groups, showing they were lightening their loads to make their escape easier. The command was so confident of outstripping them in the chase that the only question that had always decided the success of military operations was: would darkness intervene to disappoint them? The column had to imitate the Indians and discard everything that hindered progress. Had the troops been allowed to march on foot, they would have moved much faster than the wagons that forced the column to slow its pace.
It was decided to leave the wagons under the guard of one squadron to follow the trail as fast as possible, while the other three squadrons continued the pursuit. If darkness fell before the Indians were caught, the situation would be entirely against the command, for it would have to wait for dawn to follow the trail, while the Indians could continue their flight through the night. By three in the afternoon, the command felt it was on the verge of its goal. Nothing stood in the way.
The trail was wide and clear, seeming as fresh as the column’s own. Half an hour, or at most an hour, seemed enough to pounce on the cunning enemy. But, unfortunately for human calculations, the Indians, through the small scouting parties that the scouts observed, were constantly informed of the column’s movements and progress. They had at first risked their safety relying on the speed and superior endurance of their ponies.
That reliance was safe in the grazing season, but in winter it favored the pursuers. After failing in their first attempt, they found a second, better way to escape. As long as they remained united, moving as one body, their trail was clear and easy to follow, like the track of a loaded wagon train. It required no great time or vigilance on the part of the scouts to follow it.
But when it finally became clear that the white man would inevitably win the race as it was then being run, the cunning of the red man came to his rescue and frustrated the plans of his pursuers. When the tribe divided again, as they had done when leaving the village, into many small groups, the command was disappointed to see the broad, well-beaten trail suddenly divide into hundreds of faint paths, fanning out in different directions. What was to be done? The general direction of the main trail before it branched had been nearly north, indicating that if the Indians’ flight were not interrupted, they would take the wild routes of Smoky Hill, cross them, and continue north to the headwaters of the Solomon or Republican rivers, or further to the Platte.
The command chose a central trail and continued the pursuit, having to stop repeatedly to verify its course. The trail gradually diminished until by five o’clock it was so faint as to be barely traceable. The column had marched exactly twelve hours without stopping except to water the horses. Reluctantly, it went into camp and waited for dawn.
The Delaware scouts continued the pursuit six miles further but returned without success. After the Indians divided into small groups, they kept in communication with each other through columns of signal smoke. These warning smokes were seen to the west, north, and east, but none closer than ten miles. They only proved that the command was probably on the trail of the main force, since the fires were ahead and on both sides.
More than thirty miles had been covered that day without a halt. With the Delawares having traced the trail for six miles, the next morning the column could continue at least that far before daylight caught up with it. The wagons caught up a few hours after the command reached camp. A reconnaissance was made at two o’clock the next morning, and at four the column was in the saddle again, following the friendly Delawares.
The route led up the valley and the bed of a small, nearly dry stream. The Delawares thought the Indians’ night camp might be found by following the creek upward, but they were disappointed. The trail became fainter and fainter until it disappeared in the barren desert through which the column was marching. To make matters worse, the stream had completely dried up, and the guides were not certain water could be obtained within a day’s march in any direction except the one from which the column had come.
The command was forced to turn back after reaching a point thirteen miles from its morning starting point, retracing its route until it found enough water in the creek it had been following. On the return that day, searching for water enough to camp, the column covered more than nine miles of its morning route, and at two o’clock in the afternoon of April 16, it went into camp. From there Custer wrote a letter to General Hancock and sent it with two army scouts, who set out at dark. The plan was to push forward and reach the Smoky Hill road as quickly as possible, and to warn the many stage stations along that route that hostile Indians were abroad.
This was before the Pacific Railroad or its branches had crossed the plains. The animals rested from two in the afternoon until seven in the evening, then the column mounted again and set out on a night march, guided only by the North Star. The hope was to reach the stage roads near a point called Downer’s Station. After riding all night, the column reached and crossed the Smoky Hill River at dawn, through whose valley the stage road ran.
The stations were then separated by distances of ten to fifteen miles. If the Indians had crossed this line at any point, the station men would have been informed of it. To obtain information on this matter, and to determine the column’s position, an officer with one of the companies was sent out at once on this duty. The group had barely left, and the guards had barely been posted, when the entire force—troopers, scouts, and weary Delawares—threw themselves on the ground and sank into deep sleep.
Perhaps they slept an hour or more, though it seemed only minutes, when an alarm shot rang out from the pickets, and the sudden cry of “Indians! ” roused the whole camp, even though the men had been searching for Indians and were supposed to be ready to meet them. Yet the warning shot, followed by the shout, could not help but throw the camp into commotion, where quiet had reigned: sleeping men resting after a long night march, and animals grazing peacefully among the wagons and tents scattered across the plain. There was noise, if not complete chaos.
Herders and wagon drivers rushed to their animals to bring them within the camp’s limits. Soldiers of one platoon from each company hurried to secure the cavalry horses and prevent any surprise attack, while officers of the other platoons quickly gathered their men and advanced in the direction from which the pickets reported the enemy approaching. All this took only moments. Recovering from the shock of the first surprise, everyone sought to learn the number and purpose of the enemy who had disturbed their much-needed sleep so suddenly.
Dawn had just broken, but the sun was not yet high enough to see the country clearly, and a thick mist hung like a curtain near the horizon. Despite these obstacles, at a distance of about a mile, the faint outlines of many forms could be clearly seen: horsemen approaching the camp, not merely riding, but in battle formation. First came lines of skirmishers, followed, as could be clearly seen, by a reserve force, also mounted and moving in orderly formation. It was not difficult for any expert to perceive that whoever was advancing with such precision and determination was doing so with hostile intent, clearly intending to charge the camp unless repulsed.
There was no time to waste. Preparations to meet the impending attack were made rapidly. To observe the movements of the attacking force and determine its strength, an officer climbed to the position occupied by the pickets. The command had often heard of the skill of certain Indian tribes in military maneuvers and discipline.
But here was conclusive evidence that the red Indians were no less civilized than their more civilized counterparts in the art of war. Certainly, no troops under Custer’s command could have formed a skirmish line or moved to reserve positions with greater precision than what unfolded before their eyes that morning. Even then, there was no way to determine which tribe the attacking force belonged to. The command was certain they were either Sioux or Cheyenne, or both.
Either way, they would be stubborn enemies. Had it not been for the thick mist, everything would have been understood. Soon reports began to come in from the officer who had descended from the lookout point. First, there were no more than eighteen horsemen.
That number could easily be disposed of. Second, the attacking group seemed to have changed its plan. An order was given to halt, and two or three horsemen appeared to advance as if to negotiate or reconsider the command’s position. Then the skirmishers were suddenly withdrawn and joined the reserve as the whole group turned and began to move away.
This was very puzzling, but two young cavalry officers jumped into their saddles, took some troopers with them, and rode after the retreating enemy, determined to learn more about them than they wished to reveal. A swift messenger soon solved the mystery and provided further proof of the deceptive effects of the atmosphere on the plains. The reader may recall that at the end of the night march that brought the command to its present camp, an officer with a detachment of cavalry had been sent to find the nearest station on the stage roads, known to be a few miles north. To determine the command’s exact position—since the column had marched by compass through rough country and in the dark—and to gather information about the natives, this officer had been sent.
He was chosen for the mission for his experience and supposed knowledge of the plains. He had left camp an hour or more before dawn, but lost his bearings, and marched his detachment in a semicircular route until he reached the opposite side of the camp from where he had started. The conical tent used by Custer’s headquarters, resembling an Indian lodge, looked at first glance, through the strange and unstable morning atmosphere of that region, like an Indian village. Perhaps the officer thought the animals grazing around the camp were Indian ponies.
Moreover, large Indian camps were known to be in the area through which the column was marching. So the detachment’s confusion was not surprising, given the circumstances. Had the commanding officer been a young, inexperienced man, his mistake could have been attributed to these causes. But here was a young officer on active duty, familiar with the plains and the Indians, and yet he was so completely deceived by appearances that he mistook his own camp, which he had left only an hour before, for an Indian village.
Rarely did officers act with such conviction under the same impression. He and his men imagined they had discovered the camp of the very Indians they were pursuing. Believing their enemies outnumbered them by ten to one, their enthusiasm and earnestness led them, instead of sending word back to their main camp and thus wasting precious time and possible opportunities to surprise the enemy, to charge immediately into the village. They did not discover their mistake until dawn, which saved the command from an attack by its own soldiers.
This small incident showed the importance of experienced professional guides in all military movements on the plains. A long time passed before the officer who had lost his way heard the last of it from his fellow officers. The rest of his mission was accomplished with greater success. With the help of daylight, and heading almost due north, he soon reached the busy stage roads, and from the frightened employees of the nearest station obtained information that confirmed the command’s worst fears about the ferocity of the Indian attack.
The stage stations along the roads had been attacked and burned, their occupants driven off or killed. Travel across the plains had ceased, and the frontier settlers were forced into a war with the Indians in all its brutality. As soon as the officer who had verified these facts returned to camp and delivered his report, the troops resumed their march toward the stage roads, with the aim of clearing them of scattered Indian bands, reopening the main line of travel across the plains, and, if possible, holding the responsible tribes accountable for the many atrocities recently committed. The stage stations along the roads were ten to fifteen miles apart and used exclusively to house and stable the drivers and horses of the stage lines working these routes.
Marching east along the roads, the command found only about a quarter of the stations inhabited, the residents of the other three-quarters having gathered for common defense against the Indians, who had burned the abandoned stations. The employees at various locations reported that the Indians had been crossing the line in large groups in the past few days, heading north. In some places, the command saw the ruins of burned stations, but the first true evidence of an Indian attack came at Lookout Station, a point about fifteen miles west of Fort Hays. Custer rode some distance ahead of the command and reached the station to find it and the surrounding buildings reduced to ashes.
Nearby, he found the bodies of the three station keepers, so mutilated and burned that they were scarcely recognizable as human beings. The Indians had evidently tortured them before ending their suffering. They had been scalped and their bodies horribly mutilated. The corpses were badly charred, though it could not be determined whether the burning had occurred before or after death.
No arrow or any other object of Indian manufacture was found to identify the guilty tribe with certainty. Men at other locations recognized some of the passing Indians, claiming they belonged to the Sioux and Cheyenne, the same two tribes that had fled from the village on the Pawnee Fork. The column continued until it reached Fort Hays, from where Custer sent a report to General Hancock by way of the Arkansas, providing all the information he had gathered about the Indian attacks and movements. Because the question of who had committed the first open act of war—the Indians or General Hancock’s troops—was the subject of great dispute between the advocates of peace and war policies toward the Indians, Custer quoted here from a letter written by Major General Hancock to General Grant on the subject.
In response to a letter of inquiry from the latter when he was commander of the armies of the United States, General Hancock said: “When I learned from General Custer, who investigated these matters on the ground, that immediately after abandoning their villages they attacked and burned a mail station on Smoky Hill, killed the white men in it, and mutilated and burned their bodies, fired on another station, attempted to enter a third, and fired on my mail carriers on Smoky Hill and on their way to Larned. ” He concluded that this must be war, and therefore considered it his duty to seize the first opportunity to resist these hostilities and outrages, and he did so by destroying their villages. The first paragraph of the special field order issued by General Hancock ordering the destruction of the Indian village read: “As a punishment for the bad faith practiced by the Cheyenne and Sioux who occupied the Indian village at this place, and as a punishment for the murders and robberies committed by members of these tribes since the arrival of the command at this point, the village they recently occupied, and which is now under our control, will be totally destroyed. ”
From these extracts, the question at issue could be easily settled.
This act of retaliation on the part of General Hancock was the signal for a widespread war of words directed against him and his troops. This was expected. The financial loss and the deprivation of opportunities to speculate in Indian goods, as most Indian agents did, were too great to be surrendered without complaint. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Apache tribes were united under one agency, while the Kiowa and Comanche were under another.
Since General Hancock’s campaign included all these tribes, he had invited both agents to accompany him into Indian country and attend all interviews with representatives of these tribes, as stated in the invitation, to show the Indians that government officials worked in harmony. Both agents were present at General Hancock’s headquarters. Both admitted to General Hancock in conversation that the Indians were guilty of all the crimes attributed to them, but each asserted the innocence of the tribes under his own responsibility and sought to place the blame for their crimes on their neighbors. The agent for the Kiowa and Comanche told the district commander that the tribes of his agency had been grievously wronged by being accused of various crimes that were undoubtedly committed by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Apache, and that these tribes deserved severe and immediate punishment for their many shameful acts, many of which had been attributed to his innocent tribes.
The agent of the three tribes that had been attacked went further, using skillfully fair language, informing General Hancock that his tribes were peaceful and rarely violated the law, but that unfortunately they were often accused of crimes committed by other tribes, and that they had suffered greatly in this regard from the Kiowa, the most troublesome tribe of the plains and the one most deserving of punishment. This was conclusive evidence from the agents themselves that the Indians the command was fighting were guilty and deserved severe punishment. The only conflicting part of the testimony was over which tribe was the most guilty. Later events proved that the five tribes mentioned, along with the Sioux, had united for a total war across the plains and along the frontier.
The commanders of the posts along the Arkansas River had been threatened with such a war on many occasions during the winter. The movements of the Sioux and Cheyenne northward indicated that the main theater of operations during the summer would be between the Smoky Hill and Platte rivers. To illustrate the nature of the Cheyenne, one of the principal tribes with which the command was at war, Custer quoted the following extract from an official letter he addressed to General Hancock before the surrender of the little Indian boy mentioned in a previous article. His proposal was not considered practical, as the treaty provisions had promised the boy’s unconditional return.
The letter read: “Having learned that a boy belonging to the Cheyenne tribe of Indians is held by the military authorities, and that the major general commanding the district intends to deliver him to the said tribe, I would respectfully suggest that a little white girl, between four and seven years of age, is held by the Cheyenne, and is now in the possession of Cutnose, one of the chiefs of the tribe. The said child has been in the hands of the Indians for a year or more. She was captured somewhere near Cache la Poudre, Colorado. Her parents’ name is Fletcher.
The father escaped severely wounded, while the mother and two younger children were captured. The Indians killed one of the children immediately, and killed the mother after torturing her in the most horrible manner. The child has remained a captive among the Indians. An older daughter escaped and now lives in Iowa.
The father resides in Salt Lake City. I have received several letters from the father and the elder daughter, and from friends of both, requesting me to assist them in obtaining the release of the child, if possible. I therefore request that a condition of the return of the Indian boy now in our possession be that the Cheyenne give up the above-mentioned white child. ”
The proposal was ineffective, and since the war destroyed all means of communication with the Indians and scattered them across the plains, every trace of the little white girl was lost, and nothing is known of her fate to this day.
At the outbreak of the conflict, Cutnose and his band had been stationed along the Smoky Hill roads near Monument Station. He often visited the stage stations to trade, always accompanied by his little captive. Custer never saw her, but those who had described her as remarkably beautiful, with white skin, blue eyes, and bright golden hair. She presented a striking contrast to the Indian children who accompanied her.
Cutnose gave her an Indian name meaning “Little Silver Hair,” because of the color of her fine, light hair. He treated her with great affection and always dressed her in the finest Indian clothing. All offers of ransom made by individuals failed. Although she had been with the Indians for only a year, she spoke the Cheyenne language fluently and seemed to know no other.
The treatment of the Box and Fletcher families was not cited as an isolated case, but mainly to show the nature of the enemy with whom the command was at war. Many volumes could be filled with accounts of the unprovoked and brutal atrocities committed by their deadly enemy, the red Indians, against the frontier settlers. It would become necessary in the course of recording the main events witnessed firsthand to mention Indian atrocities that surpassed in cruelty, if possible, anything previously mentioned. In 1865, while Jasper Fletcher was crossing the plains with his wife, three sons, and two daughters, Lizzie and Mary, a band of Cheyenne warriors attacked them.
They killed Mrs. Fletcher and abducted the two girls. Sixteen months later, a hunter returned Mary to her home from the Indians and sent her to friends in Illinois. Lizzie, taken into the Arapaho tribe at the age of two, grew up as a native.
For years she lived on the Wind River Reservation with her husband, John Brokenhorn, an Arapaho, and raised a large family. There her sister found her after thirty-five years, by then Mrs. A. M.
Cook of Davenport, Iowa. Lizzie told Mrs. Cook, through an interpreter, that she was satisfied with her life and would remain with her husband and children. Elizabeth Fletcher was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1863.
Her parents were born in England in the 1820s, and her sister was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1848. She had three older brothers: William Henry, born in England in 1854; Jasper, also born in England in 1857; and Oscar, born in 1860. While on their way to California, the family was attacked by natives in Wyoming in 1865. The father and his three sons escaped and settled in Salt Lake City.
Custer had not heard what had become of Elizabeth, or Lizzie, Fletcher when he wrote his book, but her elder sister Mary later found her. A newspaper article written after Lizzie’s death in 1928 at the age of sixty-four, titled “White Child Raised as Indian Girl,” told her story. Although she lived and died in Indian country, she kept her cabin clean in a way different from the usual Indian homes, always very neat. Her sister Mary did not learn Lizzie’s fate until about thirty-five years after her capture.
Lizzie had married John Brokenhorn of the Arapaho, and they had at least one child named Walks Ahead, or Walker Brokenhorn. Lizzie died on May 31, 1928, at the age of sixty-four, a few weeks after the death of her elder sister Mary on May 9, 1928, at the age of seventy-nine.
