Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

Humbled in the magnificent beauty of this place, realizing that every last one of them had been given life when once so close to death—this heavenly light, this cross, this presence of something so great it was beyond understanding—was at this moment enough to bring tears to a big man’s eyes, able to utter only one word.

“Amen.”

By the morning of the fourteenth a plague of diarrhea struck the camp. Men gone so long on nothing but lean and stringy horse meat had suddenly gorged themselves with all sorts of vegetables and fruits, beef and pork, as well as all varieties of breads. Some men grumbled in spite as they hurried into the brush, but for most their affliction was a small price to pay for deliverance.

Besides, the sun actually came up at down. Without a cloud in the sky.

To lead the patrol Crook sent back to retrieve the abandoned ammunition, the rotation of duty among the subalterns in the Fifth Cavalry fell to young Lieutenant Edward L. Keyes, C Troop. Following Donegan that dawn were some thirty-five men, hardly enough to hold off any united force of warriors seeking to harass, kill, and scalp any stragglers not already come to the army’s camp on the Belle Fourche.

But in that Thursday’s march, and the anxious return trip of the fifteenth, none of them saw a single feather, not one hostile horseman, as they hurried south again along their backtrail.

Besides the fourteen pitiful abandoned horses they were able to drive south with them, on the backs of a dozen of Tom Moore’s pack-mules Keyes’s men lashed every last box of ammunition the column had cached during its ordeal. Not one cartridge was lost.

When Seamus led the lieutenant’s patrol back to Crook’s camp, which had been moved in those last two days from the Belle Fourche up Whitewood Creek, John Finerty trotted up in those deformed brogans of his and, before Donegan could even climb out of the saddle, declared, “Upham’s patrol came in without finding a single Injun.”

“Same was it with us: we saw trails, but no warriors,” Seamus replied.

“But that doesn’t mean the Sioux didn’t see Upham’s men,” Finerty said gravely.

“What do you mean?”

“Upham had a private named Milner, Company A— riding out ahead of the rest, maybe no more than a half mile. They said he was following an antelope.”

“And the Sioux jumped him?”

“Right. The rest came on his body five minutes after those red bastards did their craftiest work. Found Milner stripped, his whole scalp gone, throat slit from ear to ear, and his chest slashed with two large X*s. What would such a thing mean, Seamus?”

“Those two mean the Indians found the soldier was a brave man.”

“I should say,” Finerty agreed. “Upham’s men found a lot of cartridge cases around the body. Stone dead—but his flesh still warm as could be.”

“Those h’athens can work fast. Believe me, I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” Donegan said.

“Sergeant Major Humme was damned mad. Still mad enough to chew on nails when he came riding in here not long after the Sioux killed his man that he went storming right up to Crook, frothing at the bit and demanding a chance to even the score by killing one of the captives, that Charging Bear fella, with his own hands. Crook sent him away, with a warning that he’d put Humme under arrest if he caused any more trouble.”

Seamus said, “Things quieted down after that?”

With a nod Finerty replied, “At night they have—but during the day there’s a photographer come up from Dead wood. Rolled in with his wagon yesterday. Ever since, he’s been posing the soldiers for photographs.”

“I’ll bet he’s making the money,” Donegan grumbled.

“Oh, he’s not making cabinet photos for the soldiers to send back to their families,” the newsman corrected. “He heard all about the hardships the men suffered on the march—eating the horse meat, slogging through the mud, and all the rest—that he’s been posing the soldiers in what I’d call little scenes or vignettes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Stanley J. Morrow. Told me he had posed the soldiers fighting over horse meat, posed them pretending they’re cutting steaks from the flanks of a dead horse, had some of the mules and horses with soldiers in their litters and on their travois—saying he was going to let the folks back east know just how cruel this campaign and the Sioux War really was. Morrow’s not a bad fellow, Seamus. He’s doing all this at his own expense.”

“Then God bless ’im: someone needs to record for history what we all went through on Crook’s march.”

“Won’t be long until we’re no longer forced to live off the white scalpers.”

“White scalpers?” Seamus asked.

“Those drummers and merchants who ride out here with their wagons loaded with goods priced four, five times the going rate on the frontier,” the newsman continued.

“Army’s getting provisions sent in here?”