The Record jrom 1868.
With the incidents of the memorable Indian fight of June 25th, 1876, between Lieut.-Colonel G. A. Custer, with five companies of the 7th Cavalry, and Sitting Bull, the invincible chief of the lawless hordes of hostile Indians who infest the north-west plains, the world is already familiar. Scarcely yet can the American people contemplate with calmness the wholesale butchery of a brave officer of the cavalry service, together with nearly three hundred men of his command. The gallant struggle of the doomed battalion, enclosed in that living cordon of wild and yelling savages, from which none escaped to tell the story of their fate, is without parallel in the history of the western world.
The tale of their dashing onset, their reckless charge into overwhelming numbers of merciless foes, their glorious stand when hope was gone, their valorous defense, and death, sublimely courted in the charge and on the skirmish line, has been told and re-told. Never, while the world stands, will be forgotten the tragic fate of the chivalrous three hundred, who fell with their gallant leader on that bloody field of unequal strife. History has recorded imperishably the grandeur of their final charge. Their dauntless death is celebrated in song and story. Their names are household words in every home, and their memory is embalmed forever in the grateful admiration of their countrymen.
major-general george a. custer.
But of the minor events that form the links in the lengthened chain of circumstances that led to the final result, and brought about the bloody catastrophe, little is known to the general public. To present these minor facts in concise form is the object of these pages. To that end we shall state succinctly : First. The operating causes that led to the war with the Sioux and their allies, and which culminated in the sending out by the Government of the expedition of 1876; and secondly, the occurrences by which Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Custer incurred the bitter enmity of the Indian warrior Rain-in-the-Face-who slew him on his final battle-field -and which led to the outpouring of ostensibly peaceful bands of Agency Indians, to join the hostiles in their march to intercept the white warriors.
It is a fact not to be gainsaid that open hostilities on the part of the Sioux were provoked by the violation, on the part of the Government, of the treaty of 1868, by the stipulations of which the territory of the Black Hills and adjacent region were declared an inviolable part of the Indian reservation, sacred to their use, and not to be trespassed upon by white men. Forts Reno and Kearney were abandoned, and the whole country given up to Sitting Bull, the leader of the scattered but powerful bands of hostiles who infested the western plains.
Three years later (in 1871) it was adjudged expedient by the Government to break the provisions of the treaty of 1868. The officials of the Northern Pacific Railroad, then in process of construction across the continent, in the spring of 1871, applied to the Government authorities at Washington for military protection and escort for a surveying party to be sent out during the summer of that year to explore and mark out the unsurveyed portion of the projected road-a line extending westward from the Missouri River in Dakota to the interior of Montana, west of the Yellowstone River. Authority was duly granted : the rights of the Indians being deemed of minor importance in the grand scheme of opening up the vast and fertile fields of the new north-west to railroad enterprise, with its attendant train of settlers.
The expedition, conducted by engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and escorted by United States troops, left
Fort Rice in June, 1871, and completed its mission in safety -no Indians molesting them, or interfering in any way with their progress.
Again, on July 25th, 1872, a similar expedition left Fort Rice, and returned in October, 1872, having successfully accomplished the exploration and survey of a route through Yellowstone Valley, reaching to the river of that name, and to the mouth of Powder River.
This party encountered many hostile Indians, and their return march is described as a series of skirmishes.
When near Fort Rice, on their return, Lieutenant Adair, of the 22d Infantry, and Lieutenant Crosby, of the 17th Infantry, were killed-the latter being shot, scalped, and otherwise mutilated-by an Indian called " the Gaul," a notorious criminal and consumer of Cheyenne Agency rations. This murderer has since surrendered himself to the military authorities, and is now a pensioner, as before, upon the bounty of the Government.
In July, 1873, a third expedition left Fort Rice on a similar mission-the engineers and surveyors of the N. P. R. R., under the direction of General Rosser, the troops, comprising the escort, under command of General Stanley, and accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Custer with the 7 th Cavalry Regiment. The force consisted of about 1,700 men- cavalry, infantry, a battery of artillery, and a detachment of Indian scouts.
This party encountered hostile Indians near the Yellowstone, and on August 4th, several companies of the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, had a sharp engagement with a body of Sioux, under Sitting Bull, resulting in the loss of one soldier, surprised at a spring, the wounding of Lieutenant Bra-den, and the murder of Dr. Houtzinger, veterinary surgeon, and Mr. Baliran, sutler of the 7th Cavalry-they being unarmed, detached from the main body, and unsuspicious of danger.
The expedition returned to Fort Rice during the latter part of September-the engineers having fully completed their explorations, and mapped out in detail the future course of the road.
As may well be imagined, these frequent invasions of their territory by armed troops, awakened the most bitter resentment in the breasts of the hostile Indians, and when, in 1874, in obedience to the demands of the press, that the territory of the Black Hills should be explored and opened to settlement, it was decided by the Government to send an exploring expedition of armed troops into that hitherto unknown stronghold of the savages, the seal was set upon the crowning act of its long series of annually-broken faith.
It had long been matter of popular belief in the northwest that gold existed in the Black Hills, and when, at last, the truth of these hitherto vague reports was established to a Certainty in many adventurous minds, the excitement became contagious, and parties of miners began to organize for the invasion of the Hills. Then it was determined by the Government to send a strong column of troops to thoroughly explore the Black Hills, and ascertain, through official research, the truth or falsity of these golden rumors.
Accordingly, July 1st, 1874, a force under Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, comprising cavalry, infantry, four Gatling guns, and sixty Indian scouts-1,200 strong-and accompanied by a huge wagon-train of provisions and baggage, left Fort Lincoln and took up the line of march for the Black Hills. The party proceeded without molestation by Indians, although many hostiles were seen along the route. The discoveries of this expedition were such as to satisfy the most skeptical in regard to the mineral and agricultural wealth of the Black Hills region. Miners and other resolute pioneers began to pour into the country.
The scientists, however, were not yet satisfied, and to quiet the learned disputes of the self-constituted geologists of the period, a second expedition, under direction of Professor Jenney, with military escort commanded by Colonel Dodge, 9th Infantry, was sent from Fort Laramie the following year -1875.
Their report, corroborative of the report of the expedition of the preceding year, was not required to convince the hardy western pioneers of the desirability of the Hills a› amp; a place of residence. They required no encouragement in the shape of Government explorations, to brave the dangers of the trip, and to press in and occupy the land.
Then it was that the Government awoke to a realization of the consequences likely to flow from its frequent violation of treaty obligations. A general war between the settlers and the Indians seemed imminent, if, indeed, an indiscriminate massacre of the former did not ensue. Every trail leading to the Black Hills was marked with bloodshed, and safety was found only in the interior of the Hills, where the superstition of the Indians did not allow them to penetrate. Then, too late, began the efforts of the Government to repair the wrong. An order was issued, warning the settlers to leave the Hills. Several times during the summer of 1875, the troops under General Crook were sent into the Hills to maintain the faith of the Government by removing the settlers from the territory. They were conveyed out of the country by military escort, imprisoned in military posts as breakers of the law, their property destroyed, and themselves finally turned over to civil authority, to be punished for disobedience of the orders of the Federal Government. But all to no avail. Popular sympathy in the west was with them. Soon as released they invariably returned to the disputed territory, only to be again removed, and to again return. In August, 1875, there were six hundred men in one locality, called " Custer City," and many others in different localities. When removed by military authority, these speedily returned, and the efforts of the Government to repair its broken faith, by removing and keeping out white settlers, were as futile as the military invasions of the country, under its sanction and direction, had been successful.
So much for the causes that led to the breaking out of the war on the part of the Sioux.
We are now to consider the relations of the chief actor in the tragedy in which it closed-George A. Custer, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 7th Cavalry-with a leader of the hostiles, who fired the shot that terminated his life, in the battle of the Little Big Horn, and thus gratified the vengeance for which he and his followers had long waited in the mountain fastnesses of Sitting Bull's domain. Some of the incidents we are about to relate may seem trivial and unimportant, but they were all links in the chain of destiny that was drawing the "long-haired chieftain" irresistibly toward his tragic fate.
One bright morning in the spring of 1875 the peaceful citizens of a quiet little town on the Missouri Eiver, in Dakota Territory, were immeasurably astonished to witness a company of the 7th Cavalry, ucder command of Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Custer, come riding up their streets, fully armed and equipped as if for instant action. Nor was their surprise lessened when it became known that the object of the warlike display was nothing more nor less than * the capture of sundry bags of grain that had been stolen from the Government warehouses at Fort Lincoln by the soldiers and citizen thieves, and sold to sundry citizens of the town. After the capture of the bags of grain was successfully effected, and loaded on army wagons, and, taking with them several persons who had been concerned in the illegal transfer of Government property, the train returned in good order to Fort Lincoln.