CHAPTER XVI
A BAD BARGAIN
The discovery of gold in California (1847) and the overland travel which followed greatly disturbed the Teton bands of the Sioux along the trail, which followed the valley of the upper Platte River to the Rocky Mountains; for the gold hunters ruthlessly shot down or frightened far away the game upon which the Indians lived. At first the Indians protested, and then began to retaliate by shooting the cattle of travelers. As time advanced they became more bold and frequently shot straggling horsemen; and once in a while a train was surprised and men shot down and women and children carried into captivity. This conduct made the government determine to establish a strong post on the Missouri River at the point nearest to the trail in the Dakota country, and with another post at Fort Laramie (in what is now Wyoming) it was thought the Indians could be held in subjection. A preliminary review of the situation led the war department to believe that the military post should be located at Fort Pierre, which was the point on the Missouri nearest to Laramie. As the fur animals had by 1855 been almost exterminated in the Dakota country the American Fur Company, which owned the post at Pierre, was glad to sell it to the government at a very large price.
While negotiations were going on for the purchase of the post, the Indians became more unruly than ever, and it was thought necessary to send a strong force against them. This force was placed under the command of General W. S. Harney, the man who thirty years before read the Declaration of Independence at the Fourth of July celebration at Fort Pierre. He at once sent a portion
General W. S. Harney
of his men by steamboat to Fort Pierre, to take possession of the post and place it in readiness to receive his main command, which he intended to lead there overland, through the country of the unruly Indians, in the autumn.
With twelve hundred men Harney set out from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on the 5th of August, and proceeded by way of Fort Kearney, Nebraska, without meeting any Indians, until the 2d of September, when he found a camp of Brule Sioux at Ash Hollow on the Blue Water, a northern affluent of the Platte in central northern Nebraska. The next morning before light, he divided his force, sending the cavalry far around to strike the Indians' camp from the rear, while with his infantry he approached the camp in front. He reached a point very near the camp before the Indians discovered his presence. Little Thunder, the chief, came out and desired to have a council. Harney, who was not yet sure that his cavalry was in position, humored him for a time, until information came that the cavalry was ready. Then he told Little Thunder that he had come to fight him and that he should go at once and get ready for war. The chief flew back to his camp, Harney in hot pursuit with the infantry.
When Harney was within hailing distance of the camp, he motioned to the Indians to run. They started to do so, and ran directly upon the cavalry. Then the Indians, finding themselves trapped, began a fight for their lives, but they were overwhelmed from the beginning. The battle of Ash Hollow was a cruel massacre of the Brules, but they died bravely. An Indian severely wounded, and supposed to be dead, rose up and shot a soldier. A dismounted cavalryman rushed up to finish the Indian with his saber, but, as he struck, the Indian threw up his gun and the saber broke off at the hilt. An officer came to the rescue, and the Indian caught up the broken saber and almost cut off the leg of the officer's horse. He was then killed with a revolver shot. This shows the spirit of the savages' defense. Upon the battlefield were a number of old caches (holes in which the Indians had buried food) in which the warriors took refuge and from which they succeeded in killing thirteen soldiers and wounding many more. One hundred and thirty-six Indians were killed and the entire camp, with all their property, was captured.
Though hailed as a great victory and an additional plume in Harney's crest of fame, the battle of Ash Hollow was a shameful affair, unworthy of American arms, and a disgrace to the officer who planned it. It of course had the effect of making the Indians fear Harney, and possibly in that way did result in a degree of protection
Plan of Old Fort Pierre, 1855
to the California trail. There was no evidence whatever that Little Thunder's band had ever done any mischief, or been guilty of any conduct which warranted their punishment.
Harney took his prisoners on to Fort Laramie, and then turned by the old fur trail at the foot of the Black Hills, by way of the White River, to Fort Pierre, which place he reached on October 19, 1855, where he reunited his entire force of more than twelve hundred men.
Fort Pierre was in no respect suitable for the accommodation of so large a force; in fact the government was very seriously imposed upon by the fur company and had made a very bad bargain in the purchase of the post. Harney was compelled to divide his men up into small companies, and most of them spent the winter in open cantonments, scattered from the present site of Oahe down to the Big Sioux River, wherever fuel and pasturage for the horses were convenient. Probably the first piece of doggerel rhyme ever composed in South Dakota was produced and sung as a barrack-room ballad by the soldier boys in that winter of 1855. It ran thus:—
Oh, we don't mind the marching
Nor the fighting do we fear,
But we'll never forgive old Harney
For bringing us to Pierre.
They say old Shotto[1] built it,
But we know it is not so,
For the man who built this bloody ranch
Is reigning down below.
In March, 1856, Harney assembled all of the bands of the Teton Sioux and of the Yanktons at Fort Pierre, and after a protracted council entered into a treaty with them, by which they agreed to respect the California trail, and protect the travelers who passed over it. This treaty contained a very wise provision, to the effect that each of the bands should select one great chief and ten subordinate chiefs, whom the government should recognize as having full authority in the band. These chiefs were to select a sufficient number of young men to form a strong police force to preserve order in the camp. The government was to clothe and furnish food for these chiefs and policemen. In view of the experience of recent years it is very certain that, had this wise plan been carried out, the government would have had little more trouble with the Teton Sioux, but Congress refused to ratify the treaty, or make provision for the uniforms and subsistence of the chiefs and police.
At this treaty council, Sitting Bull, then a boy eighteen years of age, first came to the attention of white men. He was an overgrown, boorish, low-caste man, who came in the capacity of horse herder to Chief White Swan.
Captain La Barge relates an amusing circumstance which occurred at this council. Chloroform was just coming into use among physicians, and all of its properties were not then very well understood. Harney, to impress the Indians, was making some strong boasts of the superior knowledge of the white men. "Why," he said, "we can kill a man and then bring him back to life. Here, surgeon," he commanded, "kill this dog and restore it to life again." The surgeon caught up an Indian dog and administered to it a strong dose of chloroform. In a few moments he threw its body to the chiefs, who examined it and pronounced it "plenty dead." After an interval Harney told the doctor to bring it back to life. The doctor took the dog in hand and applied all the known restoratives, but without success. After an hour of diligent effort he gave up the task. The Indians laughed boisterously. "White man's medicine too strong," they said.
Harney was satisfied that Fort Pierre was too far up river for the best location of a military post, and he set out to find a more suitable one. He spent several months in examining the river and finally decided upon Handys Point, midway between Sioux City and Fort Pierre, where he located and built Fort Randall, which was named for Captain Daniel Randall, former paymaster of the army. Fort Pierre was abandoned, most of the material being floated down the river to be used in the construction of the new fort.
- ↑ Chouteau.