independence. Lieutenant Bailey and myself had no arms except the revolvers in our belts. During the conversation a young warrior came up behind Sitting Bull and quietly slipped a carbine under the latter's buffalo robe, and the six men that he had originally brought with him were increased by ten or a dozen others that quietly joined the party, one at a time. Anticipating treachery (and I afterward learned that this was his purpose), I informed him that all but the original six men must return to the main body of Indians in the distance or our conversation would immediately cease. I found that it was useless to endeavor to persuade him to accept. peaceable terms, and made an excuse for discontinuing the talk. I then moved with my men back in the direction from which we had come.

The next morning I moved soon after daylight in the direction in which I believed their main camp to be located, and discovered it after a march of ten miles. Sitting Bull again came forward with a flag of truce and desired another talk, which was granted, but it resulted as fruitlessly as the first. The only condition of peace which he would consent to was the abandonment of the entire country, including military posts, lines of travel, settlements; in fact everything but a few trading posts which might be left to furnish them with ammunition and supplies in exchange for their buffalo robes and whatever they had to sell. Finding his disposition to be one of positive hostility, he was finally informed that unless he accepted the terms of the government and placed his people under our government and laws, as all other Indians had done, he would be pursued until he was driven out of the country or until he succeeded in driving the troops out. He was told that no advantage of his being under the flag of truce would be taken, and he would be allowed to return to his camp, but that in fifteen minutes, if he did not accept the terms offered, we would open fire and hostilities would commence.

He and the men who accompanied him then returned with all speed toward their lines, calling out to the Indians to prepare for battle, and the scene was, for the next few minutes, one of the wildest excitement. The prairies were covered with savage warriors dashing hither and thither making ready for battle. At the end of the time mentioned, I ordered an advance of the entire body of troops, and immediately the Indians commenced setting fire to the dry prairie grass around the command, together with other acts of hostility. An engagement immediately followed in which the Indians were driven out of their camp for several miles, and in the two days following were hotly pursued for a distance of more than forty miles

The Indians lost a few of their warriors and a large amount of property both in their camp and on their retreat, including their horses, mules and ponies, which fell into our hands. Although the troops were outnumbered fully three to one, yet the fortitude displayed by them was most gratifying. The engagement gave them the utmost confidence in themselves and at the same time they impressed the Indians most profoundly with their persistent, offensive mode of fighting and pursuit.

At one time the command was entirely surrounded by Indians, and the troops were formed in a large hollow square in open order and deployed at five paces, with all the reserves brought into action, yet not a single man left his place or failed to do his full duty. The engagement demonstrated the fact that the Indians could not stand artillery, and that there was no position they could take from which the infantry could not dislodge them.

The energy of the attack and the persistence of the pursuit created such consternation in their camp that, after a pursuit of forty-two miles, the Indians sent out another flag of truce and again requested an interview. During this interview two thousand of them agreed to go to their agencies and surrender. They gave up five of their principal chiefs as hostages for the faithful execution of this agreement. These chiefs were sent down the Yellowstone and Missouri to their agencies under charge of Lieutenant Forbes, Fifth United States Infantry. Although the terms of their surrender were not fully carried out at the agency when they arrived there, and it was no fault of the Indians, still very favorable results had been accomplished. But Sitting Bull, Gall, Pretty Bear and several other chiefs, with nearly four hundred people, broke away from the main camp and retreated north toward the Missouri.

The command on returning to the cantonment at the mouth of the Tongue River was immediately reorganized, and with a force of four hundred and thirty-four men of the Fifth Infantry, again moved north in pursuit of Sitting Bull and the chiefs mentioned. Striking the trail on a tributary of the Big Dry, we followed it for some distance, and until it was obliterated by a severe snowstorm. The command continued north to the Missouri, and thence west, reconnoitering the country for nearly a hundred miles toward the mouth of the Musselshell River where it empties into the Missouri. We encountered very severe winter weather in the month of November, the ground being covered with snow and the nights intensely cold. Three days we marched along the high divide between the Yellowstone and Missouri, without wood in our camps, and using melted snow in place of water.

Moving along over the country, frequently two or three miles in advance of the command, I would ascend an elevation or prominent butte and look over the country to discover any indication of hostile camps that might be in the vicinity. I was usually accompanied by a few officers and soldiers, with a few scouts. At one time when we stopped on the square top of a butte, one of the scouts, George Boyd, dismounted to get a better view with his field glass of the surrounding country. He was a man very much deformed, club-footed in both feet, and as they turned in and were covered with short round moccasins, he made a very singular track or trail in the snow. I good-naturedly remarked that he left the most remarkable trail behind him that I had ever seen. In like spirit he replied that this was true and added:

"Several years ago when I was carrying dispatches my horse gave out, and I went the balance of the way to my destination on foot. The Indians struck my trail in the snow, and following it to the military post to which it led, came in and reported to the officer in command that they had found this singular trail and wanted to know what kind of an animal it was, and which way he was going."

During this march in order to more fully reconnoitre the country, the command was divided into three columns. Retaining one myself, the second was placed under Captain Snyder and the third under Lieutenant Baldwin. The last named command succeeded in striking Sitting Bull's camp at the head of the Red Water, where it captured a large part of his camp equipage and some horses.

As illustrative of the extraordinary difficulties under which the troops prosecuted the campaigns that destroyed the power of the Sioux nation, I present the story of the affair above referred to, in Captain Baldwin's own language as he subsequently described it, in writing to a friend, and not writing with a view of its ever being published. Having explained the movements leading up to the discovery of Sitting Bull's probable location, his account proceeds as follows:

MY DEAR FRIEND:-One can scarcely realize my feelings of responsibility when I had decided to move from the Assiniboin Agency southward to the Yellowstone, via the Red Water River, in the face of the most positive opposition of every officer with me. The morning I left the agency and crossed to the south of the Missouri River, I had less than two days rations for my men and but three sacks of oats for my animals, numbering eighty mules and four horses. It was the most severe season of the year (December). The country was absolutely unknown by any white man, the snow was two feet deep, and I could not, under the most favorable circumstances, expect to find supplies in less than five days. All night preceding this march, the undertaking, the obstacles to be met and overthe horrible fate that might result to that brave and confiding command, were con

come,

sidered and too vividly haunted me every hour and moment both day and night until we reached the goal of our undertaking. When I was given command of this battalion opposite the mouth of Squaw Creek, and the general took command of a less number of men, it was a question as to which would find the hostile Indians, and with the only order or suggestion given by him in that earnest manner characteristic of him, he said, "Now Baldwin do the best you can. I am responsible for disaster, success will be to your credit; you know what my plans are and what we are here for." Still fully realizing that I alone could be held individually responsible for disaster, and having located beyond a doubt Sitting Bull's camp, I was bound to make the effort to strike him, trusting to the indomitable will and intelligent ingenuity of the American soldier for success. Not once on that march (ever memorable to me) did I hear a soldier complain. On the morning of the 18th, when we had discovered Sitting Bull's camp at the head of the Red Water, there was not a man who did not join his company, although many of them were sick and about worn out. The results of this engagement are known, not the least of which was a securing of sufficient supplies to satisfy the hunger of every man of the command that night, as well as an assured ration for the following day or two.

I have often been asked how I used my men in an encounter with the Indians. My answer has been, "Always ready; never send a few men in at a time; if the enemy show fight, get all of my men and material into position, sound the forward, never the retreat so long as the enemy is in sight." In this engagement, as at McClellan Creek on the 8th of November, 1874, my wagon-train charged in just in rear of the front line, a small guard protecting its rear. You know the result of all my engagements with Indians. Now my dear George, I consider this trip under the circumstances, the most hazardous and responsible undertaking of my life. Not only was I sure of encountering an enemy (who was the least cause of anxiety), but in a most treacherous season, across an unknown country, with a command illy clothed even for a campaign under the most favorable auspices, you can well imagine that my time either day or night-was not spent in sleep. There was not a night that I did not visit my pickets and men in their tents at least once every two hours, fearing that they might freeze to death. Duty and loyalty to my country and my commanding officer were my incentives. From the day I left the Missouri River about the only subsistence my animals had consisted of cottonwood limbs, which were gathered and placed before them after arriving in camp. The night preceding the day the general left me at the mouth of Squaw Creek we did not sleep for a moment all night long, but lay awake considering the new movement. You know how it was!

Such were the soldierly instincts of Baldwin. His qualities were of the highest and noblest character. He was one of those men who did not come in with a plausible excuse for failure. He always accomplished good results. Snyder was also a good battalion commander. In fact all of the officers and soldiers under my command during that remarkable winter campaign were noble and true men.

No one can realize the condition and circumstances, or the responsibility attendant upon moving a command in that country in midwinter. The condition of a ship in northern latitudes in a dense fog in the track of icebergs, would be in a somewhat similar situation with that of our

command in that severe climate in a country, which, as General Sheridan described it in his reports, was practically "unknown." Indeed it was unknown. So tenaciously had those bands of warriors held it that it had been impossible for white men to explore it. Steamers were accustomed to go up and down the Yellowstone and Missouri, but the interior of the country had never been explored, and nothing of its geography or topography was known. We were provided with the best official maps on this march between the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, a distance of approximately a hundred miles, but at that time no rivers were laid down on the map, and that part of it was a blank. The great valley of the Red Water and its numerous tributaries were utterly unknown.

In following this trail of Sitting Bull in that march, the command was enveloped in what was known in that country as a "blizzard." It has been described as the "snow blowing in every direction at the same moment of time," which is a very good description of a Montana blizzard. People in the East are accustomed to storms of rain, thun

der, hail and snow, but these might be

regarded as mere atmospheric caresses compared with the Mon

tana blizzard on a high divide, upon an open prairie, under what the Indians called the "cold moon," or December, of that latitude. The condition of the command when enveloped by the blizzard on that march was startling. It was impossible

MONTANA BLIZZARD.

to see any object more than twenty or thirty feet away at midday, yet we marched one whole day under those circumstances, not on a trail, but simply in the direction in which we believed the Indians to have moved. Our only guide was the needle of the compass. In fact our movements were governed by the compass all the way to the Missouri, for a hundred miles west after crossing the Missouri, and for a hundred and fifty miles southeast after recrossing that stream.

Six days is a short time to remain in cantonment for rest, recuperation and the replenishing of supplies, but one would suppose that the command