Washita River
THE OVERLOOK
By Tom Clavin
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[Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull is to be published next Tuesday by St. Martin’s Press. One reason for the main title can be found in the following excerpt. While the majority of the warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876 were Sioux, as was the overall leader, Sitting Bull, the Cheyenne participants could connect their hunger for vengeance directly to an event that took place eight years earlier.]
A foot of snow had already fallen before sunrise on November 23, 1868. The soldiers of the 7th Cavalry shook the sleep out of their eyes and the flakes off their shoulders as they gathered around flickering campfires struggling to survive the frequent blasts of wind. As they drank weak coffee, the troopers glanced up: The storm showed no sign of slowing.
This was good news to Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, the field commander of the regiment.* Only the calendar disagreed that it was winter in Oklahoma. Here was a blizzard at just the right time for an operation against the Indians. Traditionally, the U.S. Army did not conduct winter campaigns, and thus the Indians felt safe in their remote villages until the first signs of spring. Custer aimed to rattle that complacency sometime during the next few days.
When he was ready, Custer mounted his horse and had his troopers do the same. Even in such challenging conditions the regimental band managed to strike up the familiar tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” The notes were swallowed up by the swirling snowflakes in the predawn darkness, and soon so too were the groggy and shivering men of the regiment. Their destination was the Washita River Valley.
The head man of the Cheyenne village in the valley, Black Kettle, has to be considered as one of the more unfortunate Indian leaders in U.S. history. And his wife too. They had survived the Sand Creek Massacre four years earlier in Colorado – though Medicine Woman Later had been shot nine times –and here in Oklahoma, over 500 miles to the southeast of that attack, the couple was in the crosshairs of another military unit.
He had been born around 1803 in what became South Dakota. Little is known of Black Kettle’s life prior to 1854, when he was made a chief of the Council of Forty-Four, the central government of the Cheyenne tribe. The Council met regularly at the Sun Dance gatherings, where its members affirmed unity. Black Kettle was a pragmatist who believed that U.S. military power and the number of west-bound emigrants were overwhelming and could not be successfully resisted. In 1861, he and Arapaho allies surrendered to the commander of Fort Lyon in Colorado, believing that he could gain protection for his people. After a visit to Washington, D.C., where he was presented a large American flag by President Abraham Lincoln, Black Kettle and his followers settled in at the Sand Creek Reservation.
At dawn on November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington, a former clergyman, and his 3rd Colorado Cavalry attacked the reservation. Most of the warriors were out hunting. Following Indian agent instructions, Black Kettle flew the American flag plus a white flag from his tipi but they did not provide protection from the marauding white men. They shot and stabbed 163 Cheyenne to death and burned down the village encampment. Most of the victims were women and children. For months afterward, members of the militia displayed trophies in Denver from their battle, including body parts they had taken for souvenirs.*
Black Kettle escaped the massacre then returned to rescue the severely injured Medicine Woman Later. Despite the death toll, pragmatism continued to rule over anger and he continued to counsel pacifism, believing that military resistance was doomed to fail. “Although wrongs have been done me, I live in hopes,” Black Kettle said. He added, however: “I have not got two hearts. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men anymore.”
But he tried. Black Kettle moved south and continued to negotiate with U.S. officials. In October 1865, he signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas River. By this document, the United States promised “perpetual peace” and lands in reparation for the Sand Creek massacre. However, its practical effect was to dispossess the Cheyenne yet again and require them to move to what was called Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. There, with life not any better for the Cheyenne, Black Kettle’s influence waned. “Dog Soldiers” led by Roman Nose, who was at least 20 years younger, rebelled and waged war against the Army.
So, one would think that a sidelined Black Kettle would be out of harm’s way, especially after he signed yet another peace document, in 1867. The Medicine Lodge Treaty was a series of agreements further establishing reservations in Indian Territory and protecting them from white intruders.
But once again, the star-crossed Black Kettle was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The 7th Cavalry was inexorably approaching his camp.
Only a few days earlier, Black Kettle had made his way to Fort Cobb to reassure the post commander, Colonel William Hazen, of his peaceful intentions. Hazen was convinced but he was probably unaware of the campaign created by General William Tecumseh Sherman to further corral the Cheyenne.
On November 26, after three days of struggling through snow, Custer’s regiment crossed the Canadian River at the Antelope Hills. Now having a better idea of where he was, Custer ordered Major Joel Elliott to take three companies upstream to find a trail his weary troopers and their horses could follow. Elliott was more successful than his commander had hoped: He not only found a trail after traveling just 12 miles but it had been made by the feet of as many as a hundred Cheyenne heading south. To the major, this indicated an Indian village of some size was in that direction.
A messenger plowed through the snow to bring a communique to Custer. The delighted lieutenant colonel sent a message back, telling Elliott to follow the trail. The rest of the regiment, leaving its baggage train to plod along as best it could, hurried to catch up. Soon after midnight, after having reunited with Elliott’s companies, the 7th Cavalry arrived on a ridge behind an Indian camp. After moving forward with his Osage scouts and surveying the area, Custer planned to divide the regiment into four battalions and attack the village.
One of the Osage scouts, Little Beaver, pointed down and told Custer, “Heap Injuns down there.” The more the better, thought Custer.
At this time, Black Kettle’s camp consisted of about 250 Cheyenne. The headman, not in turn reassured by Colonel Hazen about any protection and horrid memories of Sand Creek still vivid, was planning to move his camp down the Washita River to join larger Cheyenne encampments and seek safety in numbers. But Black Kettle was in no particular rush, given that the Army was not known to conduct campaigns in heavy snow. Thus, his plan would remain only a plan, not a solution.
Custer had his own plan and in pitch dark he assembled his officers to tell them of it: Attack at dawn. The colonel was queried about possibly there being many more Indians than the regiment could handle. “All I’m afraid of is we won’t find half enough,” Custer replied. “There are not Indians enough in the country to whip the 7th Cavalry.”
This scene would be repeated almost identically less than eight years later in Montana overlooking another – and many times larger -- Indian village.
By dawn, the regiment was very cold but ready. The four battalions would attack simultaneously: Elliott and three companies from the northeast, two companies from the south under Captain Wiliam Thompson, Captain Edward Myers would lead two companies from the west and Custer with four companies from the north. The latter contingent would be accompanied by the regimental band.
Though some fingers were frozen stiff, the band managed to launch into “Garry Owen,” Custer’s favorite fighting tune. The song was short-lived, however, because the instruments froze too. The buglers managed to blare “Charge” and the columns of the 7th Cavalry attacked the village. Custer, dressed in buckskin and his face almost obscured by a full, thick beard and a fur cap pulled low, was in front of his battalion and he burst into the camp of startled Cheyenne.
What ensued was deadly chaos. Half-asleep villagers exited their tipis and ran around each other, some being knocked down. Gunshots resounded, mixed with the screams of frightened women and children. Men searched for weapons and equally frightened horses. In all, close to 800 troopers rampaged through the Cheyenne encampment.
There would be no survival this time for Medicine Woman Later. She was shot dead during the charges of the four columns. So too was her husband. Both Black Kettle and his wife were struck by bullets in the back as they tried to cross the Washita River in a desperate search for safety. (As an aside: Black Kettle’s body could not be found. It was assumed that he had been carried to a remote canyon for burial. Not quite seventy years later – July 13, 1934 – some WPA laborers who were lengthening a bridge over the Washita accidentally uncovered a skeleton dressed in Black Kettle’s jewelry. His bones were donated to a local newspaper, the Cheyenne Star, which displayed them in a window.)
In 10 minutes, the “battle” was over. The Cheyenne later claimed only 11 of their men had died. The rest were women and children. In addition, 51 lodges and their contents were burned, and the camp’s pony herd of roughly 800 horses was killed. The 7th Cavalry suffered 22 men killed, including two officers. One was Captain Louis Hamilton, who had the misfortunate of having a bullet pass through his heart a moment after he burst into the village.*
The rest of the stay at the Washita River was a mopping-up operation. Some Cheyenne were spared, and 53 women and children were taken as prisoners to be brought to Fort Supply. One of them was Monahsetah. She was the teenaged daughter of the Cheyenne headman Little Rock, who had been killed during the assault. She was seven months’ pregnant and would give birth in January 1869.
One of Custer’s senior officers, Captain Frederick Benteen, as well as Cheyenne oral history contended that Custer “cohabited” with Monahsetah during the winter and early spring and that in late 1869 she bore a son, fathered by Custer. The boy was named Yellow Swallow.
In addition to preparing the captives for travel, the wounds of 15 troopers were attended to. Before the 7th Cavalry left, however, Lieutenant Colonel Custer had two mysteries to ponder. One: Where was Major Elliott? His detachment had last been seen pursuing Cheyenne who were trying to reach the Washita River. Elliott had been heard to shout, “Here goes for a brevet or a coffin!”
Two: Why were the Osage scouts reporting a large number of Indians approaching from downstream? There were too many to be a Cheyenne hunting party returning to the village.
Custer was completely unaware that farther down the Washita River there were three larger encampments. The one Black Kettle had planned to join was Cheyenne and the other two were Arapaho and Kiowa.
To be on the safe side, though, it was time for the regiment to get out of there. Troopers pushed tipis over and set fire to them, then threw into the blazes clothing, weapons, saddles, and any other Cheyene possessions they could find. By the time the 7th Cavalry left, the village was virtually destroyed.
Because Custer never resolved the second mystery, what he took away from the Washita River Valley experience was that numbers of hostiles did not matter. A swift surprise attack by well-armed and determined cavalry would terrify and confuse not just the Cheyenne but any tribe. Victory went to the bold.
It would be weeks before the first mystery was solved – horribly.
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Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. The next one, Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, will be published on May 12. To purchase a copy, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com . . . well, as soon as I update the web site.
* One of these bizarre displays was an appearance of Colonel Chivington on a Denver stage where he described the battle as the audience gaped at a display of some one hundred Indian scalps.
* Louis McLane Hamilton was akin to American royalty. His father was Philip Hamilton, who was the youngest son of Alexander Hamilton. Like his grandfather, Louis’s older brother, Philip Jr., died in a duel. Louis Hamilton fought in Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and other major battles and managed to emerge without a serious injury.