This is the first of a two part story. The march into the Big Horn Country took 14 days, and the correspondent who was embedded with Crook’s army was very detailed in his recording of the expedition. However, it is interesting to see what they thought of the Sheridan area in 1876, when there were few settlers, a few scattered forts, and many nomadic bands of Native Americans.
In March of 1876, General Crook and his command left Fort Fetterman to march into the Big Horn Country to enforce the terms of the army’s order that “hostile Indians” return to the government reservations. It was a warm, sunny day when the command left the fort, but March in Wyoming is unpredictable, as the correspondent, from the New York Tribune, found out during the march.
The Indians didn’t often fight in the winter months, and Crook felt that an expedition at that time would find the hostiles in their winter camps, which they did. Crook felt that stealing or destroying their supplies, they would be forced back on the reservations.
Indian Lodges, from the Crook Camp display at the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library
Wyoming Weekly Leader, April 15, 1876, Crooks march to Goose Creek, The Big Horn Expedition. An Indian Encampment Destroyed {Special Correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune.} Intensely cold weather, A night march, Old Fort Reno W.T., (Wyoming Territory) March 21 —The Big Horn expedition returned to this point today after marching over 400 miles in 14 days, encountering unusually severe weather and destroying an active and pestilent Indian village which has troubled the Wyoming frontier. The details of each day’s marching, and the results of the expedition, as well as the character of the country through which the troops moved, are given here within.
The expedition has demonstrated that the number of hostile Indians in this northern country has been greatly overestimated. Instead of 15,000 or 20,000, there are probably not over 2000 all told. This command, in the country which was covered by its marches and which was suppose to be the seat of powerful warlike tribes, has not seen over 6000 Indians. These consist half of the hostile Indians now off their reservations.
Doubtless during the summer this number is increased by young bucks whom the agents permit to leave their agencies, and who materially assist the predatory extrusions of the openly hostile: but that there is in this region a warlike population large enough to endanger the general peace of the frontier is one of those humbugs which Indian agents find profitable to perpetuate.
Old Fort Reno
(After the battle, which will in next week’s article) …At Reno the wounded were transferred to ambulances and the whole command took a breathing spell. In two days the column will set out for Fort Fetterman, whence the troops will return to their posts to prepare for other campaigns during the summer.
After giving an overview of the march, the correspondence returns to the entries of the day-by-day progress.
Weekly Leader – March To The Encampment Tuesday Night, March 7. – Just after dark the ten companies of cavalry which comprise the active force of this command moved out of the camp on Crazy Woman River, followed the old road to Fort Phil Kearney (sic) for three miles, and then took a course due north. All tents except shelter tents for the men and tent flies for the officers, had been left with the wagons, to be sent back to Powder River. Cooking outfits had been surrendered; extra bedding and clothing had been packed up and left, and nothing but the most absolutely necessary articles were retained, the ration itself was confined to the essentials; that is, to hand bread, bacon, sugar and coffee, and half rations of bacon. Capt. Coates of the 4th Infantry was entrusted with the duty of taking the train back to the Powder River. Goodbyes were said, and we were off.
The moon shone brightly, and the night was warm and pleasant. The great Big Horn range was visible from our line of march. Cloud Peak especially, towering above all its comrades, the one giant of the mountains. The column wound its way sinuously across the plains, and looked like an immense black serpent.
Wednesday, March 8 – The march lasted till 5 a.m. to-day—10 hours —during which time the column marched 35 miles, the pack trains being close up when the first halt was ordered. The camp was pitched on the Clear Fork of Lodgepole River, a tributary of Crazy Woman River. This stream has its source in the mountains, and the water is therefore clear and excellent. The bed is about 40 yards in width. Very little wood could be found, and this was from willow and box elder trees. The grass was much better than at our last camp, and our animals cropped the brown bunches eagerly. For an hour before reaching camp the air had been growing colder, and a keen north wind had sprung up. Scarcely had the horses and mules been picketed and sentinels posted when officers and men threw them selves upon the ground with the hope of wresting a little sleep from the last hour of the night. This attempt was a complete failure, as the air kept growing colder every moment, and a cold north-east snow-storm swept down from the great mountain ridges into the valley.
A cold day near Fort Phil Kearny.
According to one source, the temperature that week fell so low that the thermometers of the day could not record the cold, so today there is no actual record of how much the thermometer dropped. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Sheridan in March was 100 years later on March 4, 1978, when it fell to -20. Bitterly cold describes it pretty well. The troops spend a cold night.
Weekly Leader -Not an officer or man had enough bedding to make him even passably comfortable, and it was not cheerful to walk through the camp and see them laying on the ground with heads and bodies covered, while their feet, encased in boots, were sticking out in the storm. At 10 a. m. the command moved five miles further down the stream to its junction with Piney Creek. The two streams are thence known as Lodgepole. The weather remained bitterly cold, and the animals, having only half forage, its effect on them was very obvious. Wood was also very scarce here, and it was difficult to get enough to cook the food and partially warm the soldiers. Places under banks where a blanket could be spread and some shelter secured, were searched for actively, and as night fell one could not have told, from anything he heard, but that the troops were as comfortable and contented as if they had been in the best garrison quarters. The ridges along the valley of the Lodgepole River almost assumed the magnitude of mountains, lacking, however, their rocky character. They seem to partake of the bad-land features so common in this country, and show sides from which are visible red and yellow arenaceous clays, with outcroppings of coal and lignite, and here and there a layer of limestone. The low temperature of the atmosphere and the probable proximity of Indians were considered sufficient reasons for not making an effort to see if these hills possess any fossilerous deposits.
The rough, red-topped hills around Jim Creek. Crook would have been in country like this.
Wood has always been a problem for settlers on the high plains. Many homesteaders learned to burn dry ‘buffalo chips’ or ‘cow chips,’ dried manure that was easy to gather from the prairies.
Thursday, March 9 – This morning broke with snow falling fast over our little camp in the willows, and under the banks looked anything but cheerful. The sky was so dark and the air so full of snow that the high ridges were shut out, and nothing could be seen a hundred yards distant. The work of loading the pack-mules was not completed until 10 o’clock, and so severe was the cold and storm that it was a work difficult to accomplish at all. A t 10 a. m. command moved out, and again faced the storm. Crossed the Piney Fork River four miles from camp, and then bore north over a high and terribly rough country for 13 miles, bringing us to a small stream called by the Indians Prairie Dog Creek, where we found wood and water enough for camp, which was accordingly pitched at 4 p. in. The snow ceased falling about noon, but the air remained bitterly cold. The snow was a foot deep in many places, and traveling was very exhausting for the animals, the crust on the old snow being too thin to bear them up, and making the journey exceedingly tiresome work. About our camp, on the side of the mountain, the fall of snow was much lighter, and the grass was of excellent quality. Instead of half rations of forage, I find we only have about one-sixth full forage, and we shall in a few days be entirely dependent t upon grass for the sustenance of the animals.
Friday, March 10.—Daylight found snow still falling and the air very sharp, the thermometer falling to 6 below zero. Moved out at 8:10 a. m. and followed the creek 22 miles to near its junction with Tongue River, and went into camp at 5 p. m., though the pack train did not come in until an hour after. The north hill-sides and banks were covered with ice under the snow, so that the horses and mules frequently fell and sometimes slipped from the top of the hill to the bottom. We have lost only one animal as yet, however, that being a mule, which fell down a steep hillside and was found at the foot literally smashed to pieces.
Big Horn Mountains today. This same area was probably close to where Crook’s troops were.
About noon the sun came out, and we could see the Big Horn range on our left some 20 or 3O miles distant. Our march is nearly parallel with that range so far, and usually in a northerly direction. To-day’s march makes 80 miles from our camp on Crazy Woman River. Scouts sent out yesterday to go to the forks of the Tongue River, 10 miles west of where we are now, killed a black-tailed deer about dark, and immediately went into camp to have a feast, displaying the true Indian character.
We passed their camp this morning, about 10 miles from our own, and found a hind-quarter awaiting the General. It was frozen hard, but we found that, cut in thin slices and boiled on the coals, it was very delicious. The party came in this evening, and reported finding a recently abandoned camp of about 60 lodges at the forks of the Tongue’ River. The snow was so deep that they could not tell which way the Indians had gone. Wood is plenty at our camp here, but the water is alkaline, and the grass is poor. The country, so far seems absolutely worthless for the use of civilized men.
A blacktail, or mule deer
This would be not to far from present day Sheridan, probably near the Decker country in Montana. As we know, civilized men did find a way to make use of the ‘absolutely worthless’ country.
Crook’s command continues on to almost as far as the Yellowstone before they turn back to Fort Fetterman, but that is next week’s story.
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Last modified: March 26, 2022