A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

Still more urged caution, restraint—reminding the council that their camp no longer possessed the great numbers that had overwhelmed and crushed the soldiers at the Greasy Grass back in the summer moon.

Suddenly Gall arose and waited while the assembly fell to a hush. He looked at Sitting Bull a moment, then said, “If we do not attack first, as Crazy Horse did to Three Stars on the Rosebud, then we can expect the soldiers to attack us.”

Johnny Bruguier turned to watch Sitting Bull’s face. The great Hunkpapa visionary nodded once, nodded slowly, his hand signaling his war chief to continue.

“If we can count on the white man to do anything, we can depend upon him to do what is most dishonorable,” Gall explained. “When the soldier chief says he has come to talk of peace, it is only to make our senses dull, so that we roll over with our bellies to the sky.”

Now Gall’s voice rose an octave, sending a chill down the half-breed’s spine as this barrel-chested, iron-eyed man who had lost so many loved ones to soldiers at the Greasy Grass now laid down his warning to the leaders of that great village.

“Come tomorrow,” he barely whispered in the awful hush of that huge council lodge, “when the soldiers come to attack our women and children … it will be their blood left to soak into this ground.”

“Remember the Rosebud!” one of the younger warriors suddenly cried out from the fringe of the crowd.

“Remember the Greasy Grass!” Gall shrieked, his face contorted in rage, flecks of spittle on his lips.

“Remember the Greasy Grass!”

* Fort Buford, Dakota Territory.

Chapter 10

21 October 1876

An Official Report on South

Carolina Troubles.

Why and How the Colored

Troops Fought Nobly

South Carolina

A History of the Late Troubles Near

Charleston.

“You fellas got to listen to this!” exclaimed trader Collins that chilly morning inside his store at Fort Laramie. “There’s been a heap of trouble down in the South.”

Seamus watched Collins smooth out the newspaper with both hands atop the counter cluttered with a shipment of soaps and lilac water directly up from Denver by way of Cheyenne City.

“What’s it say?” asked John Bourke.

“This here’s the official report of R. M. Wallace, United States marshal for South Carolina, addressed to Attorney General Taft—a letter read in the meeting of Grant’s cabinet a couple days back. He writes

‘SIR: I have delayed giving you a report of the recent unfortunate political riot at a place near the town of Clinsey, near this city, until I could get a correct statement of facts. It’s one of the legitimate results of the intimidation policy on the Mississippi plan adopted by the democratic party in opening their campaign for the purpose of breaking down the majority in this state. The first meeting in this country at which the democrats put their shot gun policy in practice, took place over a month ago, on Cooper River … The republicans had called a meeting and the democrats of this city chartered a steamboat and took one hundred and fifty well armed men to the meeting … and demanded that they should have the time for their speeches. The republicans did not relish this kind of peaceful political discussion, but the request was backed up by one hundred and fifty Winchester repeating rifles in the hands of men who know how to use them.’”

Walter S. Schuyler broke in, asking, “Had to be them goddamned Johnny Rebs stirring up the trouble—right, Seamus?”

“Those sentiments go back a long time now, Lieutenant,” Donegan replied to General Crook’s aide. “It’s been many a year since I faced reb guns. All in the past now.”

Trader Collins cleared his throat to resnag everyone’s attention and proceeded with his reading of the news story plastered across the front page of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News.

“… The democrats carried a large force from the city to every meeting, who irritated the republicans by their violent denunciation of their leaders and their party. The meeting at the brick church was called by the republicans … many of them being suspicious of the democrats carried such guns as each man had at his home—muskets—but no militia men went there with state arms and ammunition, as the democrats claim; and the best evidence of that fact is that all the dead were shot with buckshot and not with rifle balls.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Bourke roared. “You mean the democrats and republicans are shooting at each other down there in the South now?”

“Bound to happen,” declared Captain Wirt Davis, a Virginia-born officer who had nonetheless thrown in with the Union in 1861. He wagged his head with grim resignation.