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

ST. PAUL, October 26.—The Pioneer Press has a special from Bismarck which says: “General Terry was still at Standing Rock last evening. He had succeeded in disarming and gathering in the ponies of all the Indians at the agency, but he believed the Indians have most of their arms, as they had a day’s warning and only about two hundred stands have been found, including shot guns and revolvers. A large number of ponies will yet be brought in and about six hundred have already been surrendered. The Indians seem to take kindly to the removal as they come to understand it, but some were at first disposed to resist. General Terry informed them that the property would be sold and the proceeds invested in cattle and such things as would be most useful for them. None outside of General Terry and those immediately connected with him have any idea as to where he will go next, whether to Cheyenne or to strike the hostiles.

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Now that the government had stolen back the Black Hills, all that remained undone was this nasty business of trespassers.

There were those back east and among the political pundits who said all that was needed was a campaign to herd the winter roamers back onto their shrinking reservations. At the same time, there was also a hue and cry that what was still needed most of all was a crushing defeat for the enemy—a loss so devastating that the hostile bands would have no choice but to return to their agencies in abject humiliation. After Powder River, after the Rosebud, and especially after the burning ignominy of the Little Bighorn, what many in the army wanted most of all as October waned was to whip the enemy holdouts—whip them soundly, whip them once and for all.

The summer campaign that hadn’t fizzled out until autumn was underway had been decidedly indecisive. Although the winter roamers had been hit and their confidence wounded, nonetheless Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other holdouts remained free and unpunished. There had been but one solution when Sheridan called Crook and Mackenzie to Laramie in September: a winter campaign. Once again the army would attempt to fashion the cold into an ally.

So it was that upon his return to Fort Laramie, George Crook went about putting the finishing touches to prepare for what he was now calling the Powder River Expedition. For the most part, the trials of 1876 had all but used up the forces of the Second, Third, and Fifth cavalries. In their place the general now outfitted six troops of Mackenzie’s Fourth. With new mounts and a healthy sprinkling of fresh recruits popularly known in the press as “Custer’s Avengers,” Crook also called into service four companies of the Third and Fifth—a total of 28 officers and 790 horse soldiers.

Colonel Richard I. Dodge was placed in charge of 33 officers over some 646 infantry and artillery troops (who would be fighting as riflemen). Tom Moore and 65 packers would once more lead their famous pack train north, again attempting to keep tight rein on more than 400 obstinate mules, which would carry the cavalry’s supplies once Mackenzie cut loose from the main column for the attack. In addition, more than 200 teamsters were in charge of a train of 7 ambulances and 168 wagons, which would transport the column’s supplies north to the Reno Cantonment on the Powder River. From there Crook planned on striking out, swift and hard, once his scouts learned the whereabouts of Crazy Horse.

This time into the field the old Red Beard would utilize mercenaries from six tribes: 48 Pawnee riding under the North brothers; 151 Sioux, some 90 Cheyenne, and Arapaho, all of whom had joined up after the Red Cloud confiscation; and in the last month Crook had sent a wire to the Wind River Reservation hoping to again convince chief Washakie to send his Shoshone and allied Bannock warriors. In just the last week word telegraphed from Camp Brown assured Crook that Tom Cosgrove and his eager warriors would meet the column on the march.

Besides, Crook had already dispatched Captain George M. “Black Jack” Randall north along the west side of the Big Horn Mountains to again convince the Crow they should enlist in the army’s struggle. Reports had it that the tribe would be sending two hundred of their best warriors to rendezvous with the expedition at or near the Reno Cantonment, if not by the time Crook reached Pumpkin Buttes.

In all, there would soon be nearly twenty-two hundred men marching north to stalk Crazy Horse.

“You’ve no business bringing him out into this cold,” Seamus scolded Samantha, halting her at the bottom landing there at the front door of Old Bedlam. Outside on the parade, all was a ruckus of men and horses, wagons and mules. “I can say my farewells to you both right here—inside, where it isn’t so bloody cold.”

She looked up at his face with those eyes of hers and said, “If this truly is a son of yours, Seamus Donegan, then he’d best be getting used to this unearthly cold right here and now.”