THE SUBJUGATION OF BLACK

KETTLE

MOKH-E-TAV (BLACK) E-TO (KETTLE.)

BY FRED A HUNT

VE-HO (WHITE MAN.)

MOKH-IS-TUN-E (PENMAN OR WRITER.)

an old

of

N 1868, Camp Supply Larned, Kansas; had murdered
N ,

,
was established in the hunter at Dodge, as well as two couriers
Indian Territory; its sent northward by General Sheridan with
location being some despatches and letters. They were thus
eighty miles a little flushed with pride over the scalps they
east of south

had taken and the success of their incurDodge City, Kansas, sion. and at

the

union Immediately on finding the trail, Cuspoint of Beaver and Wolf Creeks. These ter, with his usual promptitude, corralled two creeks, at their affluence, form the the wagon-train, leaving a small guard or North Fork of the Canadian River, which escort therewith, and directed that a petty empties into the Arkansas river at Web- supply train should follow along his route bers Falls, after traversing the entire ex- so that, in case of any long siege of the tent of what was formerly known as the hostile camp, his men would be provided Indian Territory. At Camp Supply, with food and ammunition, especially the Major-General Philip H. Sheridan ("Lit- latter. He then made

He then made forced marches tle Phil”) established his headquarters along the trail of the Indians with his and thence supervised the military opera- cavalry and pack-train; the Osage Indian tions of the several punitive columns des- trailers and white scouts (under the tined for reprisal on the Indians. The leadership of Ben Clark, and with whom largest of these was under the direct com- was the half-breed interpreter Romero, mand of Colonel Alfred Sully, Twenty- or Romeo, still living in Oklahoma) confirst U. S. Infantry, and comprised eleven stantly on the alert for signs of the viltroops of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry, un- lage (or encampment) of the hostiles. der Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong There was no difficulty experienced in folCuster and three companies of the third lowing the track of the Indians, as it was and one company of the Thirty-eighth distinctly impressed in the deep snow that regiment of U. S. Infantry.

covered the ground. On November 26, 1868, General Cus- The village was discovered before dawn ter, with the companies of his regiment, of the ensuing morning, and occupied a struck the trail of a war party composed position where the Washita makes a gooseof Black Kettle's band of Cheyennes, re- neck bend, and so meanders around a tract enforced by other bands of Cheyennes and of land of twenty-five acres, with but one Arapahoes. It was rumored and expected outlet. This locality is now a meadow of that Black Kettle's force would be joined the farm of G. F. Turner, a merchant of by numbers of disaffected Kiswas, Mes- Cheyenne, and as its surface has calers Apaches and Quajada (staked been plowed, it has about the same conplain) Comanches, which concentration tour as at the time the battle was fought. would make a formidable command of Each recurrent spring the land is overhostiles. Black Kettle's band had been on flowed, and most of the timber present at a foray northward; had killed the mail the time of the contest has been cut down, carriers traveling between Dodge and but enough remains to adequately identify