*A reference to the 11th Kansas Cavalry, units of which mutinied on more than one occasion.
2
When the 3rd Regiment left Fort Riley in March 1865 en route for Fort Kearney, most companies of the 2nd Regiment were also on the march toward assigned stations along the Santa Fe Trail. Company I was to garrison a post at Salina, 50 miles west of Riley; Company C, Fort Ellsworth, which was still farther west; B and K, Fort Zarah; E, F, and H, Fort Larned.55
A, D, and G remained with regimental headquarters, established at Fort Riley late in March by Colonel Andrew Patrick Caraher. A considerable number of men in the 2nd believed they were lucky to have this Irish-born veteran of the 28th Massachusetts Infantry as their regimental commander. Caraher had been second in command at Rock Island prison, and had earned a reputation for fair and humane treatment of the captured Southerners. On occasions he had counseled with them and listened to their grievances. It was Caraher, they remembered, who had stopped the guards from firing without provocation into barracks when the prisoners were sleeping there.56
William Darnell, a civilian teamster for the army, was at Fort Riley in March, and he later recalled that the 2nd Regiment was encamped below the fort on the Republican River.
These men had been captured during the war, and had been paroled on condition they would go west and fight the plains Indians who at this period were most troublesome. These Confederates … were a miserable looking, decrepit lot, run down physically, and unable to make a long march. They were to accompany a train of twenty-five wagons loaded with supplies about to be sent out to Forts Ellsworth, Zarah, Larned and Dodge. On account of their poor physical condition, orders had been given to limit the daily marches of these “galvanized soldiers” to eight miles a day, the teams also being limited to an eight-mile haul instead of the usual twenty-mile haul.57
With the coming of April weather on the Kansas plains, Colonel Caraher moved his headquarters out to Salina. Captain John Cowgill’s Company I, already stationed there, was assigned full-time escort duty for mail stages and government trains running over the 35-mile stretch of road between Salina and Fort Ellsworth. Because there was no telegraph line adjacent to the Santa Fe Trail, regular courier duty was also necessary for all military units stationed along its length.
Other changes in orders during April sent two companies of the 2nd to the farthest and most dangerous post in southwestern Kansas, a new fort near which in a short time would develop the rip-roaring cattle trail town of Dodge City. In 1865, Fort Dodge was little more than a few sod dugouts overlooking a crossing of the Arkansas River; the country roundabout was inhabited by thousands of buffalo and hostile Kiowas and Comanches. On April 6, Captain William Hayward’s Company F was transferred there from Fort Larned, and on April 16 Captain Thomas Molony’s Company G began a 12-day march from Fort Riley. Molony and Hayward would have their troubles at Fort Dodge.
Another rugged post on the southwestern route was Fort Zarah,* 120 miles southwest of Fort Riley, and headquarters for Companies B and K. When the U.S. Volunteers arrived, efforts were being made to construct buildings from sandstone blocks taken from a nearby bluff, but most of the quarters were still dugouts and adobe. William Ryus, a stage driver on the Santa Fe line, said Fort Zarah’s headquarters was a small dugout on the side of a hill along the bank of Walnut Creek. “They had a gunny sack for a door, and I went into the first room, which was used for a kitchen, and the cook told me to go to the next room, it had a gunny sack door, too, the First and Second Lieutenants were in there. They told me to go on to the next room that the Captain’s headquarters was in the other room. I had my mittens and overcoat on, and the Captain said, ‘you pull off your hat, you insolent puppy, and salute me.’”58
Life at Fort Zarah certainly was not polished or refined, but something exciting always seemed to be happening there. According to teamster William Darnell, the news of the ending of the Civil War was brought to Fort Zarah by the famed Wild Bill Hickok. Darnell, who was driving one of the supply wagons for the U.S. Volunteers, said that when they were within about half a mile of the fort, Hickok came riding by on a run shouting as he rode by: “Lee’s surrendered! Lee’s surrendered!” He was a striking figure as I noticed him, a large broad-brimmed hat on his head, long drooping moustache, long flowing hair that fell about his shoulders, a brace of ivory-handled revolvers strapped to his waist, and an extra pair in holsters that fitted about the horn of his saddle where he could reach them instantly.
As our wagon train neared the fort the soldiers, having a few minutes before obtained word of the surrender of Lee, decided to celebrate the good news. Dragging out their small brass cannons, they loaded them with a good charge of powder and crammed them to the muzzle with wet gunny sacks. As soon as the lead wagons of our train came within shouting distance of the outpost the gunners pointed their cannons up into the air and fired. The firing alone probably would not have frightened our mules, but when those gunny sacks hurtled up into the air, were caught by the wind and opened up and then went floating off, they were enough to startle the dead.
The result was chaos; the lead wagon team stampeded across the prairie, followed by the others, the drivers leaping off their mounts to save themselves. “It took some time,” Darnell commented, “to round up that train.”59
After a few weeks, the men of the 2nd grew accustomed to the Kansas winds and dust and the harsh life at the widely separated posts. They became acquainted with cavalrymen of the 11th Kansas, 2nd Colorado, and 7th Iowa regiments, who shared duties and dangers along the Santa Fe Trail. By the end of May the U.S. Volunteers were so thoroughly merged into the military network of Colonel James Ford’s District of the Upper Arkansas that General Dodge authorized Colonel Caraher to move his headquarters from primitive Salina back East to Fort Leavenworth. For the remainder of the 2nd’s period of service, regimental orders would come to the scattered companies by way of the cut-off route to Little Arkansas Station and then westward to Zarah, Larned, and Dodge. To form a new link in this chain, Captain Carter Berkeley’s Company K marched east from Fort Zarah to take up post at Little Arkansas.
Throughout the month of May the Volunteers were constantly warned to be on guard against expected spring raids, but they saw few Indians, only occasional small hunting parties, which usually kept a considerable distance from the trail. Then one day in June, a train of 48 wagons bound for New Mexico rolled into Little Arkansas Station, and the following morning when they moved out, a platoon of mounted men from Company K rode alongside as escorts. On the morning of June 9, near Chavis Creek, a war party of 60 Indians struck the train in camp so suddenly and unexpectedly that the Company K men could fire only two or three rounds before the raiders stampeded a hundred mules and 75 cattle, leaving the wagons stranded.
More than a hundred miles to the west on the previous afternoon, the U.S. Volunteers at Fort Dodge also learned their first lessons about Indian fighting.
Because of Fort Dodge’s importance and vulnerability in the westward chain of stations, Colonel Caraher had relieved Captain William F. Armstrong from command of Company C, promoted him to major, and transferred him from Ellsworth to Dodge. Armstrong’s first objectives were to speed up construction of fortifications and strengthen escort protection over the long arid route to Fort Lyon, Colorado.
Armstrong’s forces consisted of the two companies of the 2nd Regiment which had arrived there in April, a small detachment of Kansas cavalrymen, and about 70 horses and mules. Most of his men were quartered in badly worn tents, and he put them to work constructing more dugouts—10 by 12-foot cellars, five feet deep and roofed over with poles, brush, gunny sacks, and earth. Each unit had a narrow door, a hole for a window, a sod chimney, fireplace, and shelves cut out of the earthen walls for bunks—space enough to house four men.
Because he had no grain or forage, Major Armstrong organized daily herding details to drive the horses and mules out to graze, sometimes as far as a mile from camp. Soldiers detailed as herdsmen wer
e warned to be always alert for Indians, but as day after day passed with no sign of hostile action, they became less vigilant. Armstrong himself became incautious, and began sending the entire herd out, keeping no mounts in camp for emergencies.
About three o’clock on the afternoon of June 8, the herders were drifting the stock back toward the dugouts, letting them graze as they moved. The sun was warm, the day lazy, everything peaceful. Off a mile or so, a line of blue-uniformed riders appeared out of a ravine. The herdsmen watched them angling toward the river, surmising that they must be an escort platoon scouting off the trail, probably looking for water for their mounts. Sure enough, the horsemen moved in a slow gallop toward the Arkansas, watered their horses leisurely, then in the same easy manner approached the Fort Dodge herd. The herdsmen supposed they were coming by to pass the time of day; perhaps they were some of the Company H boys from Fort Larned.
Suddenly the blue-coated riders darted into the horse herd and commenced yelling and shouting. Too late the herders realized they had been duped by one of the Plains Indians’ favorite tricks—these were not U.S. soldiers but Kiowas dressed in army blues!
The herders ran forward to protect their stock, but succeeded in turning only 10 horses away from the raiders. With a thunder of hooves, the Kiowas swept away the other 60 animals.
The remaining 10 horses, Major Armstrong later reported, “were brought into camp and saddled and mounted by cavalry and infantry, who continued the chase until dark, and they finally succeeded in recapturing some 15 or 20 more horses and mules. Everything was done by me that could be done to save the stock. … I have sent Captain Molony (G Company) with a party on a scout to follow the trail.”60
Taking a lesson from this costly Indian trick, Armstrong doubled his night pickets, but four days later out of an early morning fog several hundred Kiowas made a direct attack upon the camp, capturing almost all the remaining stock.
We had three men wounded and two captured or killed, whose bodies have not been found. There was a very heavy fog in the early part of the morning, under cover of which the Indians hid themselves in the ravines close to camp and waited there until the fog cleared up; and before the pickets could give the alarm the Indians were between them and camp. … They drove the herd of horses and mules some three miles up the river and crossed, then moved in the direction of Mulberry Creek. I would respectfully request that there be sent to this post two pieces of artillery. The force for duty is very small, and we are liable to be attacked by superior numbers any night. Having no mounted men or transportation at present here, and rations rather short, I think the post is in rather a dangerous situation.61
Among the defense weaknesses revealed by the Indian attack were the rifle pits, which had been made almost useless by soldiers carelessly walking over them. Armstrong issued a stern order: “The rifle pits are a thing that must be preserved. We shall need them in case of another attack and if they are trampled down by the men running over them they will be of little use. Any citizen or soldier found violating this order will be punished to the extent of the law.”62
Fortunately for Major Armstrong and his U.S. Volunteers, the Indians shifted their attacks from insubstantial Fort Dodge and spent the rest of June raiding wagon trains and stampeding cattle herds near Cimarron Crossing, and annoying herders outside Fort Larned.
Fort Larned, between Dodge and Zarah, was a tempting target for horse raiders. Almost every week during the early summer more and more mounts were brought there and turned out to graze on the excellent grass between the adobe buildings of the post and the Arkansas River. More soldiers were also constantly arriving. The reason for this concentration of military strength was that Fort Larned had been chosen as the assembly point for General Dodge’s planned campaign against the Southwestern hostiles, the second half of the striking force which included General Connor’s expedition against the Northern hostiles.
In this general movement of troops, Captain William Hayward’s Company F transferred from Dodge to Larned and began training with mounted howitzers for battery service in the forthcoming campaign. To replace F at Dodge, Captain John Cowgill’s Company I marched west from Salina.63
Meanwhile at Fort Larned, as preparations continued for the late summer campaign against the Kiowas and Comanches, various companies of the 2nd U.S. Volunteers became actively involved. On July 29, a news dispatch from Fort Leavenworth reported that one of the regiments of “ex-rebels that were sworn into Government service some months ago … is at Fort Larned, Kansas, preparing for a campaign against the Indians.”64 While the 2nd U.S. Volunteer Infantry was by no means the only regiment based in and near Larned, the importance of its role is indicated by the selection of Colonel Caraher’s top-ranking staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Josias King, as commander at the fort.
Before being commissioned to the 2nd Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel King had gained considerable experience as an officer of the 1st Minnesota Infantry. A letter which he wrote late in July to a friend in Minnesota reveals something of life at Fort Larned and plans for the campaign. “We are about 1,000 miles from nowhere excepting it be the verges of hell, and I think we ’ain’t no more nor’ ten rods from that delightful spot. I am in command of 3rd Sub-district, Upper Arkansas. I have the 14th Missouri Cavalry, 15th Kansas Cavalry, three companies 2nd Colorado Cavalry, two companies 3rd Wisconsin, four companies U.S. Volunteer Infantry with a Battery of Mounted Howitzers [Company F]. I have been preparing for a raid after Indians—intend to take 1,000 Cavalry, three companies Infantry and the Battery. Expect to have some fun as well as hard knocks.” Concerning lighter pursuits, King mentioned “buffalo hunts for amusement, chess and cribbage for recreation, and ‘draw poker’ for profit or loss.”65
Another view of Fort Larned during this period is given in the rambling reminiscences of William H. Mackey, civilian blacksmith at the post.
About this time there was a company that came to the post, I don’t know where from, we called the “galvanized company.” One of the officers of this company was a Dutch lieutenant built like a beer keg and very pompous [probably Lieutenant Peter Schwartz]. He came to my place one day and, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing out his horse, ordered me to shoe the same, and left the shop. When he returned, he found his horse where he had left him, and not shod. He came into the shop snorting. I told him I had no time to shoe his horse, and he left. In the afternoon he came back and told me his horse was outside, and he must have it shod. I then told him to bring me an order from the quartermaster. He said, “No, I will get one from the commander of the post,” which he did. As I was working for the quartermaster, I did not recognize his Order. The next morning he came in and handed me a five-dollar gold piece and asked me to shoe his horse, which I did, and would have done on his first call if he had not commanded me to do it. So you see I always get some mirth besides pay for my work.66
At the height of the swirl of activity at Fort Larned, a sudden change of policy in Washington brought everything to a standstill. Four years of Civil War had wearied the country of bloodshed; the national mood was against a punitive Indian war, which might last for several years. “We believe it would be a war thrice the length of that lately waged against the Southern Confederacy,” the New York Times declared, “and would entail great bloodshed on our side as well as the other, and also enormous expense.”67 In response to this general attitude, the government proposed a series of peace councils, which it hoped would lead to treaties with all the hostile tribes. Commissions were sent to parley with tribal leaders at Forts Sully and Rice, and other points along the Missouri. Patrick Connor’s military offensive north of the Platte was already in motion, but he was recalled early in the autumn in favor of the new policy.
In the Southwest, military commanders who had been preparing for war were replaced by officers with experience in dealing peacefully with Indians. Colonel John B. Sanborn became the new commander of the district in which the 2nd U.S. Volunteers were serving, and on August 18 he an
nounced that Colonel Jesse H. Leavenworth had secured an agreement with Lone Wolf, Satanta, Ten Bears, and other Southwestern chiefs “to cease all acts of violence or injury to the frontier settlements, and to the travelers on the Santa Fe road. …” The chiefs also agreed to meet and counsel on October 4, 1865, at Bluff Creek, about 40 miles south of the Little Arkansas “for a perpetual peace between the government of the United States and our various tribes.”68 Kit Carson, among other former Indian fighters, gave his indorsement to this agreement, and almost overnight there was a wave of optimism throughout the Southwest in expectation that Indian troubles would soon end along the Santa Fe route.
At Fort Larned all campaign preparations came to a halt, of course, and Lieutenant-Colonel King was relieved and sent back to 2nd Regiment headquarters at Leavenworth. On August 28, his successor, Colonel William F. Cloud, received orders from Sanborn to start the scattered companies of the 2nd moving toward Fort Riley. Their term of service, Sanborn pointed out, would expire in about 40 days.69
Before any companies of U.S. Volunteers departed from Larned, however, a gruesome incident occurred within a few miles of the post—a reminder that chiefs’ signatures on treaty papers did not necessarily end Indian raids. Four soldiers on messenger detail to Fort Zarah were ambushed at Ash Creek. One man escaped back to Larned, and a pursuit party was ordered out. Accompanying the party was the post blacksmith, William Mackey, who said they discovered the first body three miles east of the fort.
About two miles further on, we found another body filled with arrows, the hands taken off at the wrists, the feet taken off at the ankles, the heart taken out, and the head scalped. The third body was found within about 500 yards of the crossing of Ash Creek, filled with arrows, hands and feet taken off, the head skinned and heart taken out and laid on the body. About a hundred yards off a wolf was scampering off with a hand. While we were gathering up the last body we spied the Indians making a dash for a team that was just passing Pawnee Rock. We made a dash for them. The train formed its corral at once, and the Indians, seeing us coming up on the opposite side of the corral, bore off to the Arkansas river and we after them. But they had too much advantage in the start, and were all on the opposite bank among the sandhills by the time we struck the river. We returned to the Rock and escorted the train into Larned. We had our dead with us, which were buried next day with military honors.70