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ELEVEN YEARS
ELEVEN YEARS
IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND LIFE ON THE FRONTIER. By FRANCES F. VICTOR. ALSO A History of the Sioux War , AND A LIFE OF GEN. GEORGE A. CUSTER WITH FULL ACCOUNT OF HIS LAST BATTLE. ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS. PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. COLUMBIAN BOOK COMPANY, HARTFORD, CONN. 1877. COPYRIGHT BY Columbian Book Company . 1877. PART I. MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES AND FRONTIER LIFE....
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
When the author of this book has been absorbed in the elegant narratives of Washington Irving, reading and musing over Astoria and Bonneville , in the cozy quiet of a New York study, no prescient motion of the mind ever gave prophetic indication of that personal acquaintance which has since been formed with the scenes, and even with some of the characters which figure in the works just referred to. Yet so have events shaped themselves that to me Astoria is familiar ground; Forts Vancouver and Wa
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PREFATORY CHAPTER.
PREFATORY CHAPTER.
An Account of the Hudson's Bay Company's Intercourse with the Indians of the North-West Coast; with a Sketch of the Different American Fur Companies, and their Dealings with the Tribes of the Rocky Mountains. In the year 1818, Mr. Prevost, acting for the United States, received Astoria back from the British, who had taken possession, as narrated by Mr. Irving, four years previous. The restoration took place in conformity with the treaty of Ghent, by which those places captured during the war wer
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
As has been stated in the Introduction, Joseph L. Meek was a native of Washington Co., Va. Born in the early part of the present century, and brought up on a plantation where the utmost liberty was accorded to the "young massa;" preferring out-door sports with the youthful bondsmen of his father, to study with the bald-headed schoolmaster who furnished him the alphabet on a paddle; possessing an exhaustless fund of waggish humor, united to a spirit of adventure and remarkable personal strength,
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
The business of the rendezvous occupied about a month. In this period the men, Indian allies, and other Indian parties who usually visited the camp at this time, were all supplied with goods. The remaining merchandise was adjusted for the convenience of the different traders who should be sent out through all the country traversed by the company. Sublette then decided upon their routes, dividing up his forces into camps, which took each its appointed course, detaching as it proceeded small parti
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
1830. Sublette's camp commenced moving back to the east side of the Rocky Mountains in October. Its course was up Henry's fork of the Snake River, through the North Pass to Missouri Lake, in which rises the Madison fork of the Missouri River. The beaver were very plenty on Henry's fork, and our young trapper had great success in making up his packs; having learned the art of setting his traps very readily. The manner in which the trapper takes his game is as follows:— He has an ordinary steel tr
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
1830. The furs collected by Jackson's company were cached on the Wind River; and the cold still being very severe, and game scarce, the two remaining leaders, Smith and Jackson, set out on the first of January with the whole camp, for the buffalo country, on the Powder River, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles. "Times were hard in camp," when mountains had to be crossed in the depth of winter. The animals had to be subsisted on the bark of the sweet cotton-wood, which grows along th
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
1830. The whole country lying upon the Yellowstone and its tributaries, and about the head-waters of the Missouri, at the time of which we are writing, abounded not only in beaver, but in buffalo, bear, elk, antelope, and many smaller kinds of game. Indeed the buffalo used then to cross the mountains into the valleys about the head-waters of the Snake and Colorado Rivers, in such numbers that at certain seasons of the year, the plains and river bottoms swarmed with them. Since that day they have
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
1832. In the following spring, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company commenced its march, first up Lewis' Fork, then on to Salt River, thence to Gray's River, and thence to Bear River. They fell in with the North American Fur Company on the latter river, with a large lot of goods, but no beaver. The American Company's resident partners were ignorant of the country, and were greatly at a loss where to look for the good trapping grounds. These gentlemen, Vanderburg and Dripps, were therefore inclined to
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
1832. On the 23d of July, Milton Sublette's brigade and the company of Mr. Wyeth again set out for the southwest, and met no more serious interruptions while they traveled in company. On the head-waters of the Humboldt River they separated, Wyeth proceeding north to the Columbia, and Sublette continuing on into a country hitherto untraversed by American trappers. It was the custom of a camp on the move to depend chiefly on the men employed as hunters to supply them with game, the sole support of
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
1833. In the spring the camp was visited by a party of twenty Blackfeet, who drove off most of the horses; and among the stolen ones, Bridger's favorite race-horse, Grohean, a Camanche steed of great speed and endurance. To retake the horses, and if possible punish the thieves, a company of the gamest trappers, thirty in number, including Meek, and Kit Carson, who not long before had joined the Rocky Mountain Company, was dispatched on their trail. They had not traveled long before they came up
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
1834. But Joe Meek was not destined to return to the Rocky Mountains without having had an Indian fight. If adventures did not come in his way he was the man to put himself in the way of adventures. While the camp was on its way from the neighborhood of Grande River to the New Park, Meek, Kit Carson, and Mitchell, with three Delaware Indians, named Tom Hill, Manhead, and Jonas, went on a hunt across to the east of Grande River, in the country lying between the Arkansas and Cimarron, where numero
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
1834. The gossip at rendezvous was this year of an unusually exciting character. Of the brigades which left for different parts of the country the previous summer, the Monterey travelers were not the only ones who had met with adventures. Fitzpatrick, who had led a party into the Crow country that autumn, had met with a characteristic reception from that nation of cunning vagabonds. Being with his party on Lougue River, in the early part of September, he discovered that he was being dogged by a
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
1834. The Rocky Mountain Company now confined themselves to the country lying east of the mountains, and upon the head-waters and tributaries of the Missouri, a country very productive in furs, and furnishing abundance of game. But it was also the most dangerous of all the northern fur-hunting territory, as it was the home of those two nations of desperadoes, the Crows and Blackfeet. During the two years in which the company may have been said almost to reside there, desperate encounters and hai
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
1835. Owing to the high rate of pay which Meek was now able to command, he began to think of imitating the example of that distinguished order, the free trappers, to which he now belonged, and setting up a lodge to himself as a family man. The writer of this veracious history has never been able to obtain a full and particular account of our hero's earliest love adventures. This is a subject on which, in common with most mountain-men, he observes a becoming reticence. But of one thing we feel qu
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
1835. The rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain Company seldom took place without combining with its many wild elements, some other more civilized and refined. Artists, botanists, travelers, and hunters, from the busy world outside the wilderness, frequently claimed the companionship, if not the hospitality of the fur companies, in their wanderings over prairies and among mountains. Up to the year 1835, these visitors had been of the classes just named; men traveling either for the love of adventure,
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
From the mountains about the head-waters of the Snake River, Meek returned, with Bridger's brigade to the Yellowstone country, where he fell into the hands of the Crows. The story as he relates it, is as follows: "I war trapping on the Rocky Fork of the Yellowstone. I had been out from camp five days; and war solitary and alone, when I war discovered by a war party of Crows. They had the prairie, and I war forced to run for the Creek bottom; but the beaver had throwed the water out and made dams
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
1836. While the resident partners of the consolidated company waited at the rendezvous for the arrival of the supply trains from St. Louis, word came by a messenger sent forward, that the American Company under Fitzpatrick, had reached Independence Rock, and was pressing forward. The messenger also brought the intelligence that two other parties were traveling in company with the fur company; that of Captain Stuart, who had been to New Orleans to winter, and that of Doctor Whitman, one of the mi
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
1836. The company of men who went north this year under Bridger and Fontenelle, numbered nearly three hundred. Rendezvous with all its varied excitements being over, this important brigade commenced its march. According to custom, the trappers commenced business on the head-waters of various rivers, following them down as the early frosts of the mountains forced them to do, until finally they wintered in the plains, at the most favored spots they could find in which to subsist themselves and ani
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
1837. The fate of Fontenelle should have served as a warning to his associates and fellows. 'Should have done,' however, are often idle words, and as sad as they are idle; they match the poets 'might have been,' in their regretful impotency. Perhaps there never was a winter camp in the mountains more thoroughly demoralized than that of Bridger during the months of January and February. Added to the whites, who were reckless enough, were a considerable party of Delaware and Shawnee Indians, excel
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1837. The decline of the business of hunting furs began to be quite obvious about this time. Besides the American and St. Louis Companies, and the Hudson's Bay Company, there were numerous lone traders with whom the ground was divided. The autumn of this year was spent by the American Company, as formerly, in trapping beaver on the streams issuing from the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. When the cold weather finally drove the Fur Company to the plains, they went into winter quarters once m
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
"Tell me all about a buffalo hunt," said the writer to Joe Meek, as we sat at a window overlooking the Columbia River, where it has a beautiful stretch of broad waters and curving wooded shores, and talking about mountain life, "tell me how you used to hunt buffalo." "Waal, there is a good deal of sport in runnin' buffalo. When the camp discovered a band, then every man that wanted to run, made haste to catch his buffalo horse. We sometimes went out thirty or forty strong; sometimes two or three
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
1838. From Missouri Lake, Meek started alone for the Gallatin Fork of the Missouri, trapping in a mountain basin called Gardiner's Hole. Beaver were plenty here, but it was getting late in the season, and the weather was cold in the mountains. On his return, in another basin called the Burnt Hole, he found a buffalo skull; and knowing that Bridger's camp would soon pass that way, wrote on it the number of beaver he had taken, and also his intention to go to Fort Hall to sell them. In a few days
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
1840. When Meek arrived at Fort Hall, where Newell was awaiting him, he found that the latter had there the two wagons which Dr. Whitman had left at the points on the journey where further transportation by their means had been pronounced impossible. The Doctor's idea of finding a passable wagon-road over the lava plains and the heavily timbered mountains lying between Fort Hall and the Columbia River, seemed to Newell not so wild a one as it was generally pronounced to be in the mountains. At a
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
When it was settled that Newell and Meek were to go to the Wallamet, they lost no time in dallying, but packed the wagons with whatever they possessed in the way of worldly goods, topped them with their Nez Perce wives and half-breed children, and started for Walla-Walla, accompanied by Craig, another mountain-man, and either followed or accompanied by several others. Meek drove a five-in-hand team of four horses and one mule. Nicholas drove the other team of four horses, and Newell, who owned t
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1841. When spring opened, Meek assisted Newell in breaking the ground for wheat. This done, it became necessary to look out for some immediately paying employment. But paying occupations were hard to find in that new country. At last, like everybody else, Meek found himself, if not "hanging about," at least frequently visiting Vancouver. Poor as he was, and unpromising as looked the future, he was the same light-hearted, reckless, and fearless Joe Meek that he had been in the mountains: as jaunt
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1842. By the opening of another spring, Meek had so far overcome his distaste for farm labor as to put in a field of wheat for himself, with Doughty, and to make some arrangements about his future subsistence. This done, he was ready, as usual, for anything in the way of adventure which might turn up. This was, however, a very quiet summer in the little colony. Important events were brooding, but as yet results were not perceptible, except to the mind of a prophet. The Hudson's Bay Company, conf
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
1842-3. The plot thickened that winter, in the little drama being enacted west of the Rocky Mountains. The forests which clad the mountains and foot-hills in perpetual verdure, and the thickets which skirted the numerous streams flowing into the Wallamet, all abounded in wild animals, whose depredations upon the domestic cattle, lately introduced into the country, were a serious drawback to their natural increase. Not a settler, owning cattle or hogs, but had been robbed more or less frequently
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The immigration into Oregon of the year 1843, was the first since Newell and Meek, who had brought wagons through to the Columbia River; and in all numbered nearly nine hundred men, women, and children. These immigrants were mostly from Missouri and other border States. They had been assisted on their long and perilous journey by Dr. Whitman, whose knowledge of the route, and the requirements of the undertaking, made him an invaluable counselor, as he was an untiring friend of the immigrants. At
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1844. As has before been mentioned, the Indians of the Wallamet valley were by no means so formidable as those of the upper country: yet considering their numbers and the condition of the settlers, they were quite formidable enough to occasion considerable alarm when any one of them, or any number of them betrayed the savage passions by which they were temporarily overcome. Considerable excitement had prevailed among the more scattered settlers, ever since the reports of the disaffection among t
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Early in 1846, Meek resigned his office of marshal of the colony, owing to the difficulty of collecting taxes; for in a thinly inhabited country, where wheat was a legal tender, at sixty cents per bushel, it was rather a burdensome occupation to collect, in so ponderous a currency; and one in which the collector required a granary more than a pocket-book. Besides, Meek had out-grown the marshalship, and aspired to become a legislator at the next June election. He had always discharged his duty w
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The author of the following, "poem" was not either a dull or an unobservant writer; and we insert his verses as a comical bit of natural history belonging peculiarly to Oregon. ADVENTURES OF A COLUMBIA SALMON. There was, in Oregon City, a literary society called the "Falls Association," some of whose effusions were occasionally sent to the Spectator , and this may have been one of them. At all events, it is plain that with balls, theatres, literary societies, and politics, the colony was not aff
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CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXX.
1842-7. Doubtless the reader remembers the disquiet felt and expressed by the Indians in the upper country in the year 1842. For the time they had been quieted by presents, by the advice of the Hudson's Bay Company, and by the Agent's promise that in good time the United States would send them blankets, guns, ammunition, food farming implements, and teachers to show them how to live like the whites. In the meantime, five years having passed, these promises had not been kept. Five times a large n
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CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXI.
1847. When Dr. Whitman reached home on that Sunday night, after parting with Mr. Spalding at the Umatilla, it was already about midnight; yet he visited the sick before retiring to rest; and early in the morning resumed his duties among them. An Indian died that morning. At his burial, which the Doctor attended, he observed that but few of the friends and relatives of the deceased were present but attributed it to the fear which the Indians have of disease. Everything about the mission was going
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CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXII.
1847. A full account of the horrors of the Waiilatpu massacre, together with the individual sufferings of the captives whose lives were spared, would fill a volume, and be harrowing to the reader; therefore, only so much of it will be given here as, from its bearing upon Oregon history, is important to our narrative. The day following the massacre, being Tuesday, was the day on which Mr. Spalding was met and warned not to go to the mission, by the Vicar General, Brouillet. Happening at the missi
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
1847-8. When the contents of Mr. Douglas' letter to the governor became known to the citizens of the Wallamet settlement, the greatest excitement prevailed. On the reading of that letter, and those accompanying it, before the House, a resolution was immediately introduced authorizing the governor to raise a company of riflemen, not to exceed fifty in number, to occupy and hold the mission station at the Dalles, until a larger force could be raised, and such measures adopted as the government mig
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
1848. Meek's party now consisted of himself, Ebbarts, Owens, and four men, who being desirous of returning to the States took this opportunity. However, as the snow proved to be very deep on the Blue Mountains, and the cold severe, two of these four volunteers became discouraged and concluded to remain at Fort Boise, where was a small trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. In order to avoid trouble with the Indians he might meet on the western side of the Rocky mountains, Meek had adopted the
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CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
1848. When Meek arrived at Coleman's it was the dinner hour, and following the crowd to the dining saloon, he took the first seat he came to, not without being very much stared at. He had taken his cue and the staring was not unexpected, consequently not so embarrassing as it might otherwise have been. A bill of fare was laid beside his plate. Turning to the colored waiter who placed it there, he startled him first by inquiring in a low growling voice— "What's that boy?" "Bill of fare, sah," rep
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
1848-9. The long suspense ended, Meek prepared to return to Oregon, if not without some regrets, at the same time not unwillingly. His restless temper, and life-long habits of unrestrained freedom began to revolt against the conventionality of his position in Washington. Besides, in appointing officers for the new territory, Polk had made him United States Marshal, than which no office could have suited him better, and he was as prompt to assume the discharge of its duties, as all his life he ha
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
1850-4. The Territorial law of Oregon combined the offices of Governor and Indian Agent. One of the most important acts which marked Lane's administration was that of securing and punishing the murderers of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. The Indians of the Cayuse tribe to whom the murderers belonged, were assured that the only way in which they could avoid a war with the whites was to deliver up the chiefs who had been engaged in the massacre, to be tried and punished according to the laws of the whites.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
While Meek was in Washington, he had been dubbed with the title of Colonel, which title he still bears, though during the Indian war of 1855-56, it was alternated with that of Major. During his marshalship he was fond of showing off his titles and authority to the discomfiture of that class of people who had "put on airs" with him in former days, when he was in his transition stage from a trapper to a United States Marshal. While Pratt was Judge of the District Court, a kidnaping case came befor
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
The reader of the foregoing pages can hardly have failed to observe, that the region east of the Big Horn Mountains, including the valleys of the Yellowstone, Big Horn, Powder, and Rosebud Rivers, was the favorite haunt of the Rocky Mountain hunters and trappers—the field of many of their stirring adventures and hardy exploits. Here was the "hunters' paradise," where they came to secure game for food and to feed their animals on the nutritious bark of the cottonwoods; here they assembled at the
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
THE SIOUX TRIBES—CAUSES OF THE WAR. The scene of the campaign against the hostile Indians in 1876, was the rugged, desolate, and partially unexplored region lying between the Big Horn and Powder Rivers, and extending from the Big Horn Mountains northerly to and beyond the Yellowstone River. This region is the most isolated and inaccessible of any lying east of the Rocky Mountains, and is admirably adapted for Indian warfare and defense. Several rivers, tributaries of the Yellowstone, flow throug
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
BATTLES OF THE POWDER AND ROSEBUD. General Crook started from Fort Fetterman, W.T., March 1st, 1876, at the head of an expedition composed of ten companies of the 2d and 3d Cavalry under Col. J.J. Reynolds, and two companies of the 4th Infantry, with teamsters, guides, etc., amounting in all to nearly nine hundred men. His course was nearly north, past the abandoned Forts Reno and Phil. Kearney to Tongue River. He descended this river nearly to the Yellowstone, scouted Rosebud River, and then ch
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
TERRY'S EXPEDITION—OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN. General Terry left Fort Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri River, May 17th 1876, with his division, consisting of the 7th Cavalry under Lieut. Col. George A. Custer, three companies of infantry, a battery of Gatling guns, and 45 enlisted scouts. His whole force, exclusive of the wagon-train drivers, numbered about 1000 men. His march was westerly, over the route taken by the Stanley expedition in 1873. On the 11th of June, Terry reached the south bank of
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
GIBBON'S MARCH UP THE BIG HORN RIVER. The supply steamer Far West with Gen. Terry and Col. Gibbon on board, which steamed up the Yellowstone on the evening of June 23d, overtook Gibbon's troops near the mouth of the Big Horn early on the morning of the 24th; and by 4 o'clock p.m. of the same day, the entire command with the animals and supplies had been ferried over to the south side of the Yellowstone. An hour later the column marched out to and across Tulloch's Creek, and then encamped for the
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
CUSTER'S LAST BATTLE. General Custer's trail, from the place where he left Reno's and turned northward, passed along and in the rear of the crest of hills on the east bank of the stream for nearly three miles, and then led, through an opening in the bluff, down to the river. Here Custer had evidently attempted to cross over to attack the village. The trail then turned back on itself, as if Custer had been repulsed and obliged to retreat, and branched to the northward, as if he had been prevented
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
RENO'S BATTLES ON THE LITTLE BIG HORN. After the battle in which Lieut. Col. Custer lost his life, the command of the 7th Cavalry regiment devolved on Major Reno. The following is a copy of Reno's official report to Gen. Terry, excepting that a few unimportant paragraphs are omitted. It is dated July 5th, 1876. "The regiment left the camp at the mouth of Rosebud River, after passing in review before the department commander, under command of Brevet Major General G.A. Custer, Lieutenant Colonel,
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
KILL EAGLE'S NARRATIVE. A vivid account of Custer's last battle has been given by an Indian named Kill Eagle, who was in Sitting Bull's village on the day of the fight as, he claims, a non-combatant. Kill Eagle was head chief of the Cheyenne River Agency Indians who had become much dissatisfied. Capt. Poland, formerly commander of the troops at Standing Rock, says that the Indians there were "abominably starved during the winter and spring of 1875—the authorities having failed to deliver the rat
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN ATTACK IN THE REAR. Major Reno's conduct on the first day of the fighting on the Little Big Horn, has been severely criticised by several of Gen. Custer's personal friends; and one of them, Gen T.L. Rosser, in a letter addressed to Reno and published in the Army and Navy Journal , blames him for taking to the timber when his "loss was little or nothing." "You had," he says, "an open field for cavalry operations, and I believe that if you had remained in the saddle and charged boldly into the
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MIDSUMMER CAMPAIGN. After regaining his position at the mouth of the Big Horn River, Gen. Terry called for reinforcements and additional troops were at once put in motion for his camp; but as they had to be collected from all the various stations on the frontier—some of them very remote from railroads—considerable time elapsed before their arrival. During this period, the bands which had broken off from the main body of hostiles, and the young men at the agencies, continued their old and wel
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
AUTUMN ON THE YELLOWSTONE. On the 10th of October, as a train escorted by two companies of the 6th Infantry was carrying supplies from Glendive Creek to the cantonment at the mouth of Tongue River, it was attacked by Indians, and was obliged to return to Glendive with a loss of sixty mules. Lieut. Col. Otis was in command at Glendive, and on the 14th he again started out the train and personally accompanied it. The train consisted of 86 wagons, 41 of which were driven by soldiers, who had taken
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
TERRY AND CROOK AT THE SIOUX AGENCIES. The disarming and dismounting of the Sioux Agency Indians being deemed necessary as a precautionary measure, to prevent the hostile Indians from receiving constant supplies of arms, ammunition, and ponies from their friends at the agencies, General Sheridan directed Generals Crook and Terry to act simultaneously in accomplishing that object. The friendly and unfriendly Indians at the agencies were so intermixed, that it seemed impossible to discriminate bet
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
THE WINTER OF 1876-7. After leaving Red Cloud, Gen. Crook marched to Fort Fetterman and organized a new column for a winter expedition against the enemy. Subsequently, with a force of ten companies of cavalry under Col. Mackenzie, eleven companies of infantry and four of artillery under Lieut. Col. R.I. Dodge, and about 200 Indian allies, some of whom were friendly Sioux enlisted at Red Cloud Agency, Gen. Crook advanced to old Fort Reno, head of Powder River, where a cantonment had been built. H
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. George Armstrong Custer, son of Emmanuel H. Custer, a hard-working, enterprising farmer, was born at New Rumley, Harrison County, Ohio, December 5th, 1839. He grew up into an active, athletic, and amiable youth, acquired a fair English education, and at the age of sixteen years engaged in teaching school near his native town. Having determined to go to West Point if possible, young Custer addressed a letter on the subject to Hon. John A. Bingham, Me
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONTINUED.) In the spring of 1864, Gen. Grant was placed at the head of all the Union armies; Gen. Sheridan was called to command the cavalry corps in place of Gen. Pleasonton; and Custer with his brigade was transferred to the First division under Torbert. In May, the Army of the Potomac once more advanced to the Rapidan and crossed it. In the battle of the Wilderness, owing to the character of the field, the cavalry were compelled to remain almos
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONTINUED.) The final struggle for the possession of Richmond and Petersburg was now commenced by an extension of the Union lines westward, Grant's object being to attack the right flank of the Confederates. On the 29th of March, Sheridan, with his cavalry, moved southwest to Dinwiddie C.H., where Devin's and Crook's divisions halted for the night. Custer was some distance in the rear protecting the train. In the morning, Devin pushed the enemy bac
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONTINUED.) In July, 1866, Custer received from Andrew Johnson, a commission as Lieut. Col. of the 7th Cavalry—a new regiment; and after accompanying the President on his famous tour through the country, he proceeded to Fort Riley, Kansas. In the spring of 1867, an expedition under Gen. Hancock marched from Fort Riley to Fort Larned near the Arkansas River, and the 7th Cavalry, under Lieut. Col. Custer, accompanied it. The dissatisfied Indians had
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONTINUED.) A treaty having been made with the Indians and peace restored, the 7th Cavalry enjoyed a long season of rest. In the autumn of 1870, it was broken into detachments and distributed to different posts. Custer, with two companies, was assigned to a post at Elizabethtown, Ky., 40 miles from Louisville, and in this isolated place he remained two years. During this period of inaction he engaged in literary pursuits and wrote an account of his
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONTINUED.) When a campaign against the roaming hostile Indians was decided on in 1876, Lieut. Col. Custer was naturally selected as the leader of the Dakota column, which was organized at Fort Lincoln, and mainly composed of his regiment. About this time a Congressional committee at Washington were investigating the charges against Gen. Belknap, who had recently resigned the office of Secretary of War. Many persons were called to testify; and whil
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL CUSTER. (CONCLUDED.) As the foregoing biography of Gen. Custer has been confined chiefly to his military career, it may be well in conclusion to give some account of his personal characteristics; and this can be best done in the language of those who knew him well. A gentleman who accompanied Gen. Custer on the Yellowstone and Black Hills expeditions, contributed to the New York Tribune the following:— "Gen. Custer was a born cavalryman. He was never more i
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
THE SIOUX TREATY OF 1876—INDIAN ORATORS. In 1875, the Black Hills country had acquired a white population and an importance which rendered its possession and control by the Government desirable and necessary; and an attempt was made to treat with the Indians for its purchase, but without success. In 1876, Congress expressed its determination to appropriate nothing more for the subsistence of the Sioux Indians unless they made certain concessions, including the surrender of the Black Hills, and e
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