Dee Brown on the Civil War

  Dana was in Laramie drawing supplies on July 26. Back in the camp on Hat Creek, Sawyers kept his road builders busy for three or four days grading approaches to a ford. When there was no more work to be done and the men began drifting off to hunt, fish, and prospect for gold, he convinced Williford that it would be advisable to move a few miles each day, to avoid the temptations of idleness.

  On July 29 they reached the South Cheyenne, with the Black Hills in view off to the north. To keep his restless men occupied, Sawyers sent a party on an all-day reconnaissance into the mountains. The weather was hot, in the high nineties again. They remained in camp one more day, waiting hopefully for Lieutenant Dana. Williford ordered signal fires lighted after dark, but there was no sign of the Laramie party.

  About ten o’clock on the evening of August 1, after Sawyers had moved his wagons several miles up the Dry Fork of the Cheyenne, the camp was suddenly aroused by a cry of “Indians!” and the firing of several shots. “We were encamped in our usual careless way,” said Albert Holman,

  with only two men acting as corral guard. The soldiers, with their wagons, camped nearby. Their precautionary measures against danger in an Indian country were equally as lax as ours. … In the utter darkness, no one knew what to do and consequently did nothing, for all was commotion and confusion and then finally our attention was arrested by calls in the English language, from way out in the darkness, it was found that our “Indians” proved to be only the Laramie party which had overtaken us and in their exuberant joy of seeing our camp fires, had fired off their guns to which our two guards had responded by shooting directly at the foe as they imagined them to be. The members of the Laramie party narrowly escaped and then they realized the indiscreet method of announcing a safe return, and retreated from range of shot to halloo loudly for cessation of hostilities.

  The near fatal incident proved of some value as a lesson to the expedition. “Never afterward in real danger,” added Holman, “were we so badly frightened, nor did we ever so completely lose control of ourselves as at this time.”9

  Lieutenant Dana rode in somewhat abashedly to report to Williford that he had left the loaded supply wagon in Laramie with the quartermaster of one of General Connor’s columns which would be marching north in a few days. The young lieutenant had been advised not to travel into the Powder River country with a loaded wagon guarded by only 15 men; it would offer too tempting a target for hostiles swarming in the wake of Connor’s invasion, which was then in progress.

  The barefooted men of Companies C and D accepted the disappointing news more philosophically than James Sawyers, who foresaw another irritating delay. From this day on, relations between Sawyers and Williford grew more and more strained. The captain insisted that he could not march his men without shoes; he would send Lieutenant Thomas Stull with some of the Dakota cavalrymen down to Old Woman’s Fork to meet the supply column as it came up from Laramie.

  When Sawyers angrily charged that Williford’s mismanagement was costing him a delay of two weeks, the captain reminded him that the real delay had been at the mouth of the Niobrara when the escort was kept waiting almost a month while the road-building party was assembling.

  Again the expedition resumed its short daily marches while a mounted detachment hurried south to meet the promised supply wagon. Lieutenant Stull and his cavalrymen waited at Old Woman’s Fork until their assigned time ran out, then returned empty-handed to rejoin the train on August 9.

  For the next three days, Sawyers’ scouts and engineers floundered about the arid hilly country, suffering water shortages and pestered by cacti and rattlesnakes, searching for a route around Pumpkin Buttes to Powder River. On Sunday, August 13, they could take no day of rest because their water was gone. They moved out across a dry gulch, halting at noon without forming a corral. Some of the drivers unhitched their horses and turned them out on a grass slope.

  A mile below the slope was a clump of trees, and 19-year-old Nat Hedges, thirsting for a drink, rode down to see if there might not be a water hole there. The boy had scarcely entered the thicket when a dozen shots rattled across the stillness of the day. At the same time the yipping wolf-like war cries of Cheyennes startled the nooning soldiers and road builders to their feet. “By the time every man had a gun in his hand, out rode fifty naked, red devils making for the horses. … Fire was instantly opened up. … The red men succeeded in stampeding the ponies, getting all but eight … withdrew a short distance from us and were dancing and yelling as only Indians can.”10

  No effort was made to pursue. Except for the 25 Dakotans, Williford had no mounted men. Roll calls of soldiers and civilians were hastily taken, and it was discovered that one man was missing, Nat Hedges. A volunteer party marched down to the thicket and found him dead, seven arrows in his chest, a bullet hole in his face, his skull bare from scalping. “He was a young man who had charge of the private freight train that accompanied the expedition,” Sawyers wrote in his journal that day, “of much promise, being a genial and pleasant companion, and of very correct habits; his loss cast a gloom over the camp not soon dispelled.”11

  They placed Hedges’ body in a wagon, redistributed the diminished teams, and traveled steadily until 9:00 P.M., corraling in darkness. The scouts reported Indian signs everywhere, and few men slept that night as they lay on their rifles beside the wagons.

  When the sun rose on August 14, there was no evidence of hostiles, but every member of the party knew they were near, waiting for another opportunity to strike. The Indians struck before noon, the alert escort driving them away with steady volleys from their Springfields. Late in the day, young Hedges was buried in a coffin made from wagon boards; one of the women with the emigrant group furnished a winding sheet and a pillow.

  In his journal entry for August 15, Sawyers noted: “Fine morning. The bluffs around at sunrise were covered with Indians to the number of 500 to 600, and fighting was commenced by their charging down over the plain and shooting into the corral.”12

  This would be the day when the division of authority between Williford and Sawyers would bring the train near to disaster. For eight weeks the two men had operated independently, Williford as commander of the military escort, Sawyers as commander of the civilians. Except for the friction over the Laramie expedition, they had kept out of each other’s way.

  But now that the train was surrounded by several hundred hostiles bent upon its destruction, Williford felt that he must take absolute command of its defense. He was confident that with his two howitzers he could stand off a long siege and eventually wear out the patience of the attackers.

  Not everyone was so confident, however. Water was in short supply, and there was no forage for the animals. “A feeling of forlorn hopelessness seemed to spread over our entire party,” said Albert Holman, “not from fear that the Indians could take us, but because of our inability to proceed, or to cope with and drive them away. … On the two highest hills, one north and one south, were gathered large numbers of Indians and from each group came the most hideous noises. They blew blasts from cavalry bugles, of which they had come into possession, danced, yelled, and taunted us in a most aggravating manner. They proved to be the Cheyenne Indians. Some few of them could speak enough English to call us all the vile names imaginable, very profane language to embellish their sentences.”13

  About noon the Cheyennes suddenly stopped their maneuvering and put up a white flag. Williford was skeptical of their good faith, but Sawyers was eager to bring the fight to an end so that he could start his wagons moving again. After some delay the captain reluctantly agreed to a parley in an open space between the corral and one of the wooded hills.

  When Williford and Sawyers rode out of the corral with a small escort, they were surprised to see that the Cheyenne leader coming to meet them was wearing the blue uniform of a staff officer of the United States Army. A few moments later he was introducing himself in perfect English. He was George Bent, half-breed son of William Bent of Bent’s Fort. At
his side was his brother, Charles Bent.

  In a way, the Bent boys were galvanized soldiers themselves. When they were in their late teens their father sent them to an academy in St. Louis, but before they completed their educations the Civil War began. As most of their white friends were pro-Southern, the Bents joined the Confederate Army. They marched off to Mississippi, were captured, then released to the custody of their father on their promise to remain in the West. Instead of becoming Galvanized Yankees, the brothers chose to be Galvanized Cheyennes, and late in 1864 drifted off to join their mother’s people on Sand Creek.

  They were there when Chivington massacred the village. Both survived, and swore eternal revenge upon their father’s people for what had been done to the Cheyennes: a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed … one squaw cut open with an unborn child … White Antelope with the privates cut off … a soldier said he was going to make a tobacco-pouch out of them … a squaw whose privates had been cut out … a little girl about five years of age who had been hid in the sand, two soldiers discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her and then pulled her out of the sand by the arm … infants in arms killed with their mothers. …14

  George Bent had fought Chivington’s soldiers fiercely; he was wounded, but escaped, and not long afterward he and Charley joined the Cheyenne dog-soldiers in their revenge war against all the bluecoat soldiers in the West. The brothers renounced the white blood of their father, let their hair grow to their shoulders, and somewhere along the way George had come into possession of the staff officer’s uniform which he wore so arrogantly as he rode under the truce flag to meet James Sawyers and Captain Williford.

  The Bents wanted to know why soldiers had come to kill Indians in the Powder River country. Williford replied that his soldiers had come to kill no one; they were escorting some white men who were building a road to Montana. The half-breed professed surprise. If he had known the party was peaceful, he said, he would not have attacked it. He added slyly that he could stop the fighting if the white men would give him supplies to distribute among the warriors—gunpowder, shot and caps, bacon, sugar, coffee, flour, and tobacco.

  No, Williford replied coldly. If the Cheyennes wanted to fight, his soldiers would endeavor to satisfy them. If the Cheyennes wanted peace, they could go in peace, but he would not buy peace with presents.

  Sawyers disagreed. He granted that no ammunition should be given the Indians, but what harm was there in giving them food and tobacco if they would let the train go on unmolested? Williford remained opposed. What guarantee was there the Cheyennes would keep their word? With full bellies, the warriors could keep the train surrounded; if they grew hungry they would soon go away to hunt. The two men argued bitterly, Sawyers insisting that he had the right to do what he pleased with his supplies.

  In the end Williford had to admit that his orders gave him no authority to stop Sawyers from making an agreement with Bent’s Cheyennes, but he wanted it on record that he was opposed to bribing the hostiles. He relinquished the parleying to Sawyers.

  George Bent drove a hard bargain. After a long harangue, Sawyers delivered a full wagonload—about 3,000 pounds—of flour, sugar, coffee, and tobacco to the truce site.

  As a considerable number of Cheyennes came off the hills to carry away the goods, Williford sent out an equal number of soldiers to keep order. According to one of the enlisted men, the captain also granted permission for his shoeless soldiers to barter for moccasins.15 In a few minutes the two groups were mingled, milling around the wagon. Some of the warriors flashed rolls of greenbacks—the Bent brothers had taught them the value of paper money—offering as much as $25 for a single charge of powder. Taunts were exchanged; some of the Indians quarreled among themselves over division of the spoils. A melee followed, and shots were fired; two or three soldiers were slightly injured by wild flying bullets. It was a dangerous moment, but George Bent took his Cheyennes away before open fighting could start again.

  The day was almost gone, and a short time later at retreat roll call, two of the Dakota cavalrymen were reported missing. Williford immediately sent out a search party, and just over a low knoll a few yards from where the melee had broken out around the truce wagon, they found the arrow-filled body of Private Anthony Nelson pinioned to the ground with a sharp-pointed pole. Until darkness fell they searched for Private John Suse, a Mexican, but he was never found or heard from again. “It was believed by his comrades that he had deserted to the enemy, as it was seen during the armistice that he had found an old chum and countryman among them.”16

  August 16 dawned with no Indians in view, and the train rolled out early. To Sawyers’ great disgust, Williford insisted on extraordinary precautions, slowing the speed of travel. Williford’s vigilance paid off late in the day, when a party of Indians drove in the pickets and made a dash at the herd; the soldiers beat them off and not an animal was lost.

  Some time during that same day, the captain advised Sawyers that he could not take his ragged, shoeless soldiers much farther. Sawyers’ reaction was to accuse Williford of cowardice; he noted scathingly in his journal: “Our escort commander began to grow faint-hearted, and all the officers except Lieutenant Marshall [D Company] were clamorous for the abandonment of the expedition and proceeding to Laramie as fast as possible.”17

  For the next two or three days, the Sawyers expedition was virtually lost, with hostile Indians hovering on its rear and flanks. In his journal, Sawyers claimed all credit for saving the train, belittling and damning Captain Williford for lack of cooperation. But according to General Dodge, to whom Williford reported, it was the captain who saved the expedition. “Captain Williford went simply as an escort to the party, and had no control whatever over it, and exercised none until he was obliged to do so in order to save his command, in which, by his superior ability and skillful management, he succeeded. General Connor sent word to Colonel Sawyers … not to attempt to penetrate the country he was making for, as it was impracticable. No attention was paid, however, to General Connor’s advice, or to that of all experienced guides who were consulted. The party pushed on, got into the Bad Lands on Powder River, and was there extricated and taken to Fort Connor by Captain Williford.”18

  In his own report, Williford briefly mentioned finding the trail of Connor’s expedition on August 22. “On the 23rd our command was found to be only fifteen miles from Fort Connor, and received orders from General Connor to report with the detachment to that post for duty.”19

  Since Lieutenant Dana’s departure from Laramie in July, the outside world had heard nothing of the expedition. “News from Sawyers’ wagon route party has just come in,” one of Dodge’s staff officers wrote from Laramie on September 1. “They turned up on Powder River. They were lost for a month. The troops were in good health, but nearly naked.”20

  As there was no supply of shoes and clothing at Fort Connor, Dodge ordered Williford and his two companies relieved from further escort duty, replacing them with a detachment of cavalry from the base camp at the fort, and the Sawyers expedition continued on toward Montana.

  In late August 1865, Fort Connor (which would soon be renamed Fort Reno) was only, a few days old. The commander to whom Williford reported was Colonel J. H. Kidd of the 6th Michigan Cavalry, and the first duty assigned the U.S. Volunteers was construction work on the stockade and quartermaster building.

  On September 8, General Dodge arrived on an inspection tour and heard the story of the Sawyers expedition directly from Williford. When the general asked the captain what he thought of the value of Sawyers’ road, Williford replied sardonically: “It would be a good route if one half of the hills were inverted and dumped into the ravines.”21 Before Dodge left the fort, he showed his confidence in Williford by naming him post commander to replace Colonel Kidd, who would soon be marching south with his cavalry for mustering out.

  And so, Companies C and D of the 5th U.S. Volunteers
settled down for a long winter on Powder River. Williford inherited from the Connor expedition an experienced quartermaster, Captain W. H. Tubbs, and also acquired five mountain howitzers and a 12-pounder field howitzer, enough artillery to fend off any Indian attacks. He selected Lieutenant Marshall of D Company as his adjutant, Lieutenant Dana to command D Company, Lieutenant Stull to command C Company. Late in September when the withdrawing Connor expedition marched past the fort en route for Laramie, Captain E. W. Nash and his mounted Omaha Scouts were detached and assigned to Williford for cavalry service.*

  Completion of barracks and storerooms before winter was the main objective, and the men worked long hours, cutting and hauling cottonwood logs from the Powder bottoms. Except for picket and guard details, military routines were virtually suspended during this critical period. Indians showed themselves frequently, but kept out of rifle range. The only fatality during October was an accident, Sergeant Peter Lee of Missouri “killed by the discharge of his own gun.” By the end of the month, the men were in earthen-roofed barracks, and Williford issued his first Rules for the Post:

  Reveille (roll call) at Daylight

  Breakfast Call 7:30 A.M.

  Surgeon’s Call 8:00 A.M.

  Dinner Call 12:00 Noon

  Retreat (roll call) Sunset

  Tattoo (roll call) 8:00 P.M.

  Taps 8:30 P.M.

  Bugle calls will be sounded five minutes before each of the above. After tattoo no soldier will be allowed to leave his quarters without permission from his Company Commander and all loud talking will cease. After taps the men will retire, talking will cease, and lights be extinguished.22