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

“Just like Miles figured they would,” Jackson replied as they both watched the distant village dismantling and setting out—the first of the laden travois and their vast pony herd protectively encircled by a great ring of hundreds of warriors. Horsemen milled about through the bare tripods as throngs of people went about their work like it was a fevered anthill.

Then Jackson added, “But, look. Instead of heading north—I’ll be damned if they’re going south by east.”

“What strikes me is that the village is a lot bigger than we thought at first,” Yellowstone Kelly observed.

“What do you make it? Three, maybe four thousand of em?

The white chief of scouts nodded behind his field glasses. “Could be as many as a thousand warriors.”

“Want me to go tell Miles?” William asked.

Luther Kelly pulled the field glasses from his face as he twisted around to look over his shoulder. “Yeah, you head out. I’ll be along straightaway.”

Jackson started to slide backward on his belly when Kelly put out his arm and stopped him there in that tail, dead, brittle grass rising out of the cold, cold ground as a nervous wind came up.

“See that ground, yonder there?” Kelly declared, pointing. “Tell the general they’re headed into the next valley. Tell him I figure we can catch them if he comes up quick—on the double. Most of the village is still tearing down.”

WASHINGTON

Terry After the Indians.

WASHINGTON, October 20.—Advices have been received at the war department that General Terry will immediately leave Fort Abraham Lincoln in pursuit of the hostile savages.

About the time his scouts came tearing back to tell him that the village was fleeing to the southeast, Miles spotted a dozen warriors dippling the crest of a ridge far in their front.

“They’ll cover the retreat of their village, General!” Captain James S. Casey said.

“Damn right they will, Major,” Miles replied, using Casey’s brevet rank. “Let’s get ready for action! Battle front, by companies! Bring up that goddamned train and alert Lieutenant McDonald that his D Company may soon have his hands full protecting it on the rear! Now, by bloody damn! I don’t want Sitting Bull slipping out of my hands!”

Ten companies of infantry moved out of column and formed up in a matter of moments, their Long Toms, formerly carried at port, now carried at the ready as their sergeants bawled orders and moved them toward the rising ground in their front—where more horsemen appeared against the cold pale-blue skyline. Four of the companies marched along each side of the trail that Nelson A. Miles blazed for them, leading them forward into action. While D Company brought up the rear behind the supply wagons, Captain Simon Snyder and his F Company provided support for the Rodman gun.

They covered no more than three miles when the colonel reached a spot where the ground continued to rise toward that rough country where Cedar Creek flows to the south off the divide separating the Yellowstone drainage from that of the Missouri River. Here he almost gasped at the savage beauty of the ground that lay before him—a tapestry of sharp escarpments and rounded knolls, hills, and wind-sculpted buttes stretching away to the north, east, and south as far as his eye could reach.

There in the foreground Nelson Miles saw more Indians than he had ever witnessed in one gathering—far, far more than he had laid eyes on even the day before.

“Got you, Sitting Bull,” he whispered as he reined his horse about in position and signaled his adjutant. “I knew you couldn’t get away from me.”

Miles deployed his forces for their attack—or for the very-real possibility that those warriors down there, who would be protecting their families, their homes, would attack first.

To that knoll where he sat atop his horse at the extreme right flank of his troops, Miles ordered the gun crew under Captain Snyder to establish an emplacement for their field piece. At the same time he sent Captain James S. Casey and A Company off to the far left flank, to temporarily hold the ground at the foot of the high ridges where more horsemen were beginning to swirl.

There in his front appeared more than two dozen riders emerging from the bristling mass of horsemen. One of the twelve held a white flag overhead. The party continued to advance toward Miles and his headquarters group as if the soldiers presented no danger, until the two sides were intermingled.

“The chief doesn’t like that gun staring down on their women and children,” William Jackson explained as the dozen came to a halt before Miles and the tension tangibly rose.

Miles recognized Sitting Bull among the group but was surprised to see that this morning the chief hung back, his buffalo robe draped over his head so that his face was hardly visible.

“Tell the chief I positioned my artillery there because I don’t trust his warriors,” Nelson replied. “It’s there to protect my men. And you tell him: if he speaks honorably, he and his people have nothing to fear from our cannon.”