Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869 0806135514, 9780806135519, 0806138858, 9780806138855, 0806179996, 9780806179995

Table of contents :
List of Illustrations 1x
Acknowledgments x1

1. Human Beings and Sand Creek 3
2. War or Peace on the Plains 24
3. Summer Depredations 42
4. Movements and Strategies 61
5. Camp Supply 77
6. Closing Proximity 96
7. Washita 116
8. End Results 162
9. Controversies 183

APPENDICES
A. Monuments and Resources of the Washita Encounter Site 195
B. Army Casualties at the Washita 209
C. Known Village Fatalities at the Washita 212
D. Other Known Village Occupants 215
Notes 217
Bibliography 267
Index 279

Citation preview

ASHITA

CAMPAIGNS & COMMANDERS GREGORY J. W. URWIN, SERIES EDITOR

CAMPAIGNS AND CO MMANDERS GENERAL EDITOR Gregory J. W. Urwin, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ADVISORY BOARD Lawrence E. Babits, East Carolina University, Greenville James C. Bradford, Texas AeJM University, College Station Robert M. Epstein, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

David M. Glantz, Carlisle, Pennsylvania Jerome A. Greene, National Park Service Victor Davis Hanson, California State University, Fresno Herman Hattaway, University of Missouri, Kansas City Eugenia C. Kiesling, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York

Timothy K. Nenninger, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Bruce Vandervort, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington

ASHITA THE U.S. ARMY AND THE SOUTHERN CHEYENNES, 1867 1869

Jeroine A.

Greene

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS : NORMAN

ALSO BY JEROME A. GREENE Evidence and the Custer Enigma: A Reconstruction of Indian Military History

(Kansas City, 1973} Slim Buttes: An Episode of the Great Sioux War {Norman, I 982) Yellowstone Command: Colonel Nelson A. Miles and the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877 (Lincoln,

r

99 r)

Battles and Skirmishes of the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877 (Norman, 1993) Lakota and Cheyenne: Indian Views of the Great Sioux War,

I 876-1877

{Norman,

1994) Frontier Soldier: An Enlisted Man's fournal of the Sioux and Nez Perce Campaigns

(Helena, 1998) Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Pao Crisis (Helena, 2000) Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyennes, 1876 (Norman, 2003)

This book is published with the generous assistance of The Mccasland Founda­ tion, Duncan, Oklahoma. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greene, Jerome A. Washita: the U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869 /Jerome A. Greene. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8061-3551-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-8061-3885-5 {paper) 1. Cheyenne Indians Wars, 1868-1869. Wars

1868-1869.

2. Indians of North America­

3. Sand Creek Massacre, Colo., 1864.

George Armstrong, 1839-1876.

4. Custer,

5. Black Kettle, Cheyenne chief, d. 1868.

I. Title. E83.866 .G75 2004 973.811

dc22 2003055235

Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-18691 is Volume 3 in

the Campaigns and Commanders series. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc.

oo

Copyright© 2004 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Divi­ sion of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A. Paperback published, 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani­ cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act without the prior written permission of the University of Oklahoma Press. 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

IO

�ONTENTS

l.

List of Illustrations

1x

Acknowledgments

x1

Human Beings and Sand Creek

3

2. War or Peace on the Plains

24

3. Summer Depredations

42

4. Movements and Strategies

61

5. Camp Supply

77

6. Closing Proximity

96

7. Washita

116

8. End Results

162

9. Controversies

183

APPENDICES

A. Monuments and Resources of the Washita Encounter Site

195

B. Army Casualties at the Washita

209

C. Known Village Fatalities at the Washita

212

D. Other Known Village Occupants

215

Notes

217

Bibliography

267

Index

279

LLUSTRJ'�TIONS

FIGURES

Following page

13 9

Black Kettle and others Major General Philip H. Sheridan Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer Captain Frederick W. Benteen First Lieutenant Thomas W. Custer Captain George W. Yates Captain Louis McLane Hamilton Lieutenants Edward S. Godfrey, Francis H. Gibson, and Edward Law First Lieutenant Owen Hale Captain Albert Barnitz and wife Osage scouts Moses ''California Joe'' Milner Captain William Thompson

Battle of the Washita, by James E. Taylor Major Joel Elliott Sergeant Major Walter Kennedy

Heroic Death of Walter Kennedy, by James E. Taylor Assistant Surgeon Henry Lippincott

x

ILLUSTRATIONS

Cheyenne women and children captured at the Washita, 1868 Three Cheyenne prisoners at Camp Supply, 1869 Seventh Cavalry monument, 1891 Washita encounter site, 1891 ''Black Kettle Tree," 1891

MAPS

1. Changing Cheyenne Treaty Lands, 1851-69

13

2. The Southern Plains War, 1868-69

73

3. The Washita Attack, November 27, 1868

118

CKNOWLEDGMENTS

wish to thank the staff at Washita Battlefield National Historic Site for their assistance throughout the completion of this study, partic­ ularly former superintendent Sarah Craighead and Park Historian Steve Black. Bob Duke, then of the Black Kettle Museum, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and now at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, also provided many materials for the project. From the Intermountain Region Santa Fe Support Office, I must thank Robert L. Spude, for his continued support of this work, and Alexa Roberts, who provided infor­ mation about ongoing ethnological projects that benefited this study. Others who provided materials or otherwise helped in the completion of the historic-resource study include the following individuals and institutions: William D. Welge, director, Archives and Manuscripts Division, and Mary Jane Warde, historian, Oklahoma Historical Soci­ ety, Oklahoma City; Neil Mangum, former superintendent; John Doerner, park historian; and Kitty B. Deernose, museum curator, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Crow Agency, Mon­ tana; Jim Cloud, Oklahoma Historical Society; John D. McDermott, Rapid City, South Dakota; Christine Whitacre and Lysa Wegman­ French, National Park Service, Denver; Mort Wegman-French, Boul­ der, Colorado; Colleen Cometsevah, Concho, Oklahoma; Douglas D. Scott, National Park Service Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln,

XII

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Nebraska; Anita M. Donofrio, Littleton, Colorado; Gordon Chappell, San Francisco, California; David F. Halaas, Colorado Historical Soci­ ety, Denver; Paul L. Hedren, National Park Service, O'Neill, Nebraska; Paul A. Hutton, University of New Mexico; Lawrence Hart, Clinton, Oklahoma; John R. Lovett, assistant curator, Western History Collec­ tions, University of Oklahoma Library, Norman; Richard Sommers, David Keough, and Pamela Cheney, Manuscripts Division, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Douglas C. McChris­ tian, National Park Service, Tucson, Arizona; John L. Sipes, Norman, Oklahoma; Margot Liberty, Sheridan, Wyoming; Tawana Spivey, director, and Anne H. Davies, archivist, Fort Sill Museum, Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Gregory J. W. Urwin, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; L. Clifford Soubier, Charles Town, West Virginia; Thomas R. Buecker, director, Fort Robinson Museum, Crawford, Nebraska; Sandy Barnard, Terre Haute, Indiana; Paul Fees, Cody, Wyoming; Sam W. Vaughn, National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center, West Virginia; Robert C. Carriker, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington; Loretta Fowler, University of Oklahoma, Norman; Dick Harmon, Lincoln, Nebraska; Jeff Broome, Denver, Colorado; R. Eli Paul, Overland Park, Kansas; Daisy Njoku, National Anthropological Archives, Smithson­ ian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Michael Meier, Michael Musick, and Michael Pilgrim, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; and Robert G. Pilk, National Park Service, Denver. I would also like to thank the staffs of the following offices for their assistance in the course of my work: U.S. Army Military History Institute; Denver Public Library; Western History Collections, Norlin Library, University of Colorado; Old Army Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City; Minnie R. Slief Library, Cheyenne, Oklahoma; and the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Last but not least, I would like to especially acknowledge Bob Rea, site supervisor, Fort Supply Historic Site, Fort Supply, Oklahoma. Throughout my work on this study, Bob went out of his way to ensure its success, contributing his extensive personal knowledge along with information and materials from his office library and his own project research while otherwise keeping me headed in the right direction. Thanks, Bob!

ASHITA

UMAN .__.A . ND

EINGS AND REEK

ecember 1, 1864, dawned uneasily along Sand Creek in south­ eastern Colorado Territory. An anxious, freezing wind whipped across the stark, treeless plain, nudged the buffalo grass as it gusted over low, snow-specked hills and through silent arroyos. It was a wind whose lifelessness mirrored the horrific scene its currents now envel­ oped in their course. Precisely two days earlier, a village of Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho Indians situated along Sand Creek had been suddenly attacked by mounted soldiers armed with guns, swords, and artillery. The fighting had raged for hours as the tribesmen sought desperately to save themselves. Many managed to get away; those who did not escape had been !tilled, an inordinate number of them noncombatants women and children and elderly men

in an indis­

criminate slaughter of profound magnitude. Their object secured, the troops marched away, leaving dozens of camp dogs to scavenge the site. On this day the wind played over a landscape marked by death and destruction of hideous proportion. In a broad southeast-to-northwest swath incorporating Sand Creek and its adjacent lands lay ashes of the village, the hide tipis torn down and burned by the troops along with much of the property they contained. Scattered among the ruins and along their periphery lay some of the bodies those who had attempted to curb the military assault by approaching the advancing column.

4

WASHITA

They had been the first ones killed. More of the dead lay in the stream's sandy, mostly waterless, bottom immediately west of the village. But a greater number lay bunched in groups beneath the creel