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

In addition to the army-issue woolen clothing every man wore, Miles’s soldiers cut up their woolen blankets to craft themselves heavy underclothing, as well as fashioning masks that covered the entire head, leaving three openings for the eyes and mouth. With those masks on, it was all but impossible to tell one man from the other, to tell private from colonel.

Since coming to the Tongue in early September, Nelson had seen to it that every steamboat shipment included what the men would wear once the weather changed: the thick buffalo-hide shoes commonly called arctics, as well as the thick horsehide gloves with long gauntlets made to slip over the wide cuffs on their buffalo-hide coats. Many of the men also cut up grain sacks they used to wrap around their stockings for an extra layer of thick warmth.

After a breakfast of coffee and tack, the Fifth moved out, marching north by east beneath an overcast and threatening sky. It wasn’t long before those officers at the van of the march spotted the first warriors as the Sioux horsemen bristled along the skyline of a distant hill. Mile after mile, hour by hour, more warriors appeared in advance of the march as Miles kept his regiment moving, the men murmuring, wary, and watchful.

“Great Jupiter!” he exclaimed to those in his headquarters group. “Those must be from Sitting Bull’s village.”

By the time the colonel called a brief halt near midmorning, there were hundreds of warriors on horseback and on foot, arrayed atop the bare hills and windswept ridges directly in the regiment’s front.

“Gentlemen,” Miles told his officers, “let’s deploy the Fifth.”

“Battle front, General?” asked Wyllys Lyman.

“By all means, Captain. Battle front … and move out—ready to skirmish.”

Again the Fifth Infantry moved out, this time arrayed in battle formation: making a wide front, company by company, with reserves immediately in their rear, yard by yard advancing toward the enemy, who slowly fell back, the Sioux maintaining the same respectful distance from those far-reaching Springfield rifles.

It was just past eleven when Nelson sighted two riders bearing a white flag leave a large body of horsemen on a nearby bluff and move toward the soldier column. They halted a hundred yards out, their grimy towel tied to a long willow branch snapping in the gusts of raw, cruel wind that kicked up dust from every hoof and boot.

With four of his officers Miles rode out to meet the pair with interpreter and scout Joe Culbertson, half-breed son of fur trader Alexander Culbertson.

“Their names are Long Feather and Bear’s Face,” the scout declared after some conversation with the two emissaries. “They come from Standing Rock, sent by the soldier chief there. The two of ’em say they’ve already talked to the soldier chief in charge of the wagons that headed this way.”

“I’m glad we’ve got Otis behind us now and on his way to the Tongue,” Miles grumbled. “If these two aren’t part of that bunch that attacked the supply train—what the hell are they doing here in this piece of country?”

“Say they come to tell Sitting Bull’s people to come in to the agency.”

Miles waved an arm slowly in an arc across the hills and bluffs. “Then these are Sitting Bull’s warriors? The same men who defeated Custer?”

Culbertson nodded. “S’pose that’s the make on it. These two say Sitting Bull wants to talk to the soldier chief.”

“Wants to talk, does he?”

“Bear’s Face says Sitting Bull wants to talk to you about surrendering his Hunkpapa.”

That sudden bit of surprising news jerked Nelson Miles up in the saddle as surely as a rope around his shoulders would have. “Wait just a minute—you sure you’ve got all their sign talk right, Culbertson?”

The half-breed’s dark eyes flared with resentment. “Maybe you trust one of your soldiers better than me, eh?”

Miles watched the scout rein his horse around, kick it in the flanks, and lope back to the soldier lines. Then he turned to his aide-de-camp. “Mr. Bailey, I want you to go with these two.”

“Yes, sir,” responded Second Lieutenant Hobart K. Bailey. “I’ll find out what I can about the status of Sitting Bull’s surrender, General.”

It was the better part of the next hour before Bailey finally returned.

“There’s a half-blood with ’em, General,” the lieutenant disclosed with no small excitement. “Named Brug-gair”

“He’s the one you talked with?” Miles inquired.

“Bruguier was our interpreter for the little chat we had.”

“What’d you find out?”

“Sitting Bull wants to meet the bear-coat leader.”

“Bear coat?” Then Nelson glanced down at his own appearance. As tall as he was, draped within the buffalo coat, with its bear-fur trim at both collar and cuffs, along with his tall stovepipe boots and fur cap, perhaps he did look somewhat like a bear.

He dispatched Bailey back with his demands as to the number of warriors Sitting Bull would bring with him into that no-man’s land where Miles agreed to meet the enigmatic Hunkpapa leader.