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

Before he advanced from the south, the colonel gave his staff orders for the deployment of the regiment along the crests of the nearby hills, positioning the Fifth to face the hundreds of mounted warriors, intending that they guard against treachery. All too well he remembered the tragic fate of General E.R.S. Canby out in the Modocs’ Lava Beds five years before.* At the same time he placed Captain Wyllys Lyman’s I Company to support the Rodman ordinance rifle Miles wanted positioned on a ridge north of the line of march where it could be trained on the hostiles. Then he moved First Lieutenant Mason Carter’s K Company into position on the high ground to the south and threw out a strong line of skirmishers directly to the rear of the open ground where he would hold his council with Sitting Bull.

Accompanied by Lieutenant Bailey, three mounted enlisted men, and two mounted color bearers, as well as scout Robert Jackson, the colonel advanced some four hundred yards toward the designated site, then halted, waiting while Bailey and the rest of the party covered the last hundred windswept yards. It took the better part of another hour as Bailey and Johnny Bruguier held more protracted talks before a dozen unarmed Sioux finally dismounted and moved forward on foot from the north. They were followed at a prudent distance by more than twenty warriors who stayed atop their ponies, tails and manes tossing in the cold breeze. Thirty yards out, the dozen Hunkpapa on foot stopped in the brilliant but brutally frigid sunshine streaming through the dispersing clouds.

“They want us to dismount, General,” Bailey explained after he and the half-breed flung their voices back and forth across the distance.

As Nelson was considering whether or not to accept that request, five warriors moved away from the others, crossing half the distance to the soldiers before they spread buffalo robes and blankets upon the autumn-dried grass. They promptly sat, ready to parley.

“Which one is the chief?”

Bailey pointed to the one seated in the middle of the others as the more than two dozen Sioux horsemen milled anxiously some thirty yards farther away. Nelson suspiciously regarded those mounted Hunkpapa—every one of them armed with a Springfield carbine, Henry or Winchester repeater, a few with older model Spencer carbines. After a moment his eyes were drawn back to study his long-sought adversary. Sitting Bull wore only buckskin leggings, breechclout, and fur-lined moccasins. He wore no feathers, much less any sort of headdress, to signify his high office or his standing among the Hunkpapa people. Impassive, he sat clutching only a buffalo robe tightly around his shoulders.

Miles swallowed quickly with some growing excitement, then looked over his own entourage, saying, “Let’s go see what Sitting Bull has to say about his surrender.”

As the soldiers approached, the Hunkpapa chief waved an arm, signaling one of the horsemen forward. The rider came up, dropped a buffalo robe to the ground in front of his tribesmen, then reined about and returned to the rear with the others still mounted on their ponies. When two of the warriors with Sitting Bull quickly spread the robe on the prairie, the chief gestured to have Miles take a seat there before him.

Miles shook his head. “Bailey, tell them I think it better that we don’t get quite so close.”

But before the lieutenant could translate, the dark-skinned warrior seated at the chief’s left hand was already whispering in Sitting Bull’s ear.

“Who’s that?”

“The one I told you about. Half-breed. Name’s Brug-gair, something like that.”

“He speaks their tongue well, eh?” Miles asked.

“Does a good job with ours too,” Bailey replied.

“All right, if you fellas have your pistols ready under your coats,” the colonel finally said as he trudged forward again, “let’s see what these unsavory characters have to say for themselves.”

* April 11, 1873—Devil’s Backbone, Vol. 5, The Plainsmen Series.

Chapter 9

20 October 1876

Russia Ready for an Advance

on Turkey

Austria, France and Germany

Remain Neutral

Indians Still Raiding Settlers

In Wyoming

THE INDIANS

More Raiding up North.