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

“Doesn’t surprise me a wit, General,” Kelly replied. He stuffed a hand inside his coat, patting among his vest pockets for a cheroot, maybe even some chew. Something to enjoy with his coffee. “You decided if you’re marching back to Tongue River in the morning?”

Miles looked up at Kelly, stared hard for a moment as if his scout had gone crazy, then shook his head. “No, by God—I plan on following Sitting Bull all the way to Canada if I have to!”

Chapter 12

22–23 October 1876

General Sitting Bull Ready

to be Rationed.

Red Cloud and His Braves on the Rampage.

Indications that Crook will

Settle Their Case

THE INDIANS

Sitting Bull Wants to Winter at

Some Agency.

WASHINGTON, October 21.—The following telegram was received at the Indian Bureau this morning: Fort Peck, Montana, Oct. 13, via Boseman—To the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington:—Messengers from Sitting Bull’s camp report that the entire hostile camp has crossed the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Big Horn, en route for this place. They claim to want peace. What course shall I pursue toward them?

                [signed]           THOS. T. MITCHELL Indian Agent.

After consultation with Gen. Sherman instructions were telegraphed to Agent Mitchell as follows: Inform Sitting Bull that the only condition of peace is his surrender, when he will be treated as a prisoner of war. Issue no rations, except after such surrender and when fully satisfied that the Indians can be held at the agency. The military will cooperate as far as possible.

                [signed]        S. A. GALPEN Acting Commissioner.

Through that long, cold night the grass fires glowed like flickering, crimson patches across the prairie below as Nelson Miles moved back and forth through his command like a man possessed.

The Sioux shouted and called out on all sides of their bivouac. Occasionally one of the pickets fired a shot or two at some noise, at a shadow, at one of the ghostly forms flitting in and out and around the abandoned village, intent on salvaging what they could from the army’s destruction.

At long last the eastern sky showed signs of resigning itself to day. Miles had his men awakened, guard rotated, and coffee put over what fires the men could keep lit with the meager supply of wood they scrounged after the Sioux had set the prairie ablaze the previous day. As soon as it was light enough for the command to move across the uneven ground, the colonel gave the order to form up and moved out that Sunday, 22 October.

Almost immediately two dozen warriors appeared along the high ground beyond the decimated village, backlit with the rose of sunrise. They swept far to the right, heading for the rear of the march where Pope’s E Company easily drove them away from the supply wagons. Then it grew eerily quiet as the Fifth continued its march into the coming of sunrise. After the deafening racket and din of yesterday’s fight, the utter stillness of this morning lay like a heavy, suffocating cloak upon each and every wary man.

The scouts led them east along the clearly marked Sioux trail. Easy enough to follow the travois scars on the prairie. That, and the wisps of smoke from the fires the hostiles set all along their flight. Stifling curtains of thinning gray obscured the rising sun, turning it a pale-orange button as the soldiers plodded on across the blackened prairie where ash rose up to clog their nostrils, sting their eyes, choke their every breath.

As much as his brain told him the enemy had fled on through the night to put as much ground between them as possible, Nelson’s heart nonetheless hoped that for some reason they didn’t have as much of a jump on his command as he might otherwise fear. All along the wide, hoof-pocked trail the scouts and forward units came across abandoned lodgepoles and camp utensils, refuse abandoned along with a few lame ponies and mules—even more possessions taken from the bodies of Custer’s dead.

Personal things, the sort almost every soldier carried: photographs from family and loved ones, ledgers and journals, gauntlets and hats, a watch or blood-smeared blue tunic.

“They’re heading east, General,” Luther Kelly reported that midmorning as he reined up, bringing his mount around in a tight circle, having just returned from a scouting foray with Billy Cross and Vic Smith.

“No sign of them angling off to the north?” Miles inquired anxiously. No matter what—he had to keep himself between Sitting Bull and that border.

Kelly shook his head. “They’re hurrying for Bad Route Creek, east of here.”