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3. The Sun Dance
- University of North Texas Press
- Chapter
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60 Chapter 3 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ The Sun Dance J une 17th 1881. Friday. Left Omaha, Neb., on U.P. train for Sidney, Neb. In same car with me were Lt. E. Z. Steever, 3rd Cavalry, on his way to Rock Creek, Wyo. to engage in an exploration of the Big Horn Mtns; and Mr. M. H. Goble, Freight Auditor of the U.P.R.R., who gave me a most interesting account, derived from personal knowledge, of the stupendous financial operations of that wonderful man Jay Gould. June 18th 1881. (Saturday) At Sidney, met Col. Price, and Capt. [William Curtis] Forbush, 5th Cavalry, Lt. [Homer Webster] Wheeler, same Reg’t. and other officers. Forbush and I entered an ambulance in waiting and I started for Fort Robinson. Forbush had taken the precaution to provide himself with a bountiful lunch of tongue sandwiches and California fruits; this saved us many vexatious delays for meals at stations. We had relays on the road; one from Ft. Sidney and two from Fort Robinson. By 11 that night, we had covered 95 miles and had reached a miserable hole called the Lone Tree station. Forbush made his bed on the sack of corn; I mine upon the earth floor; dozed until 3 in the morning, not long enough to rest, but long enough to allow the fleas to almost eat us alive. June 19th 1881. Drove the 35 miles to Fort Robinson. Met by Pollock, Hamilton, Babcock, Parkhurst, [Walter Scott] Wyatt, [Christopher Comstock] Miner and others of the post. Took breakfast with the Sun dance 61 Lt. and Mrs. Parkhurst and Captain Forbush. Lunched with Mrs. Morton, Col. Pollock and Lt. Wyatt. Pollock and myself took an ambulance at 1 p.m. for old Fort Sheridan;1 Lieuts. [Henry Joseph] Goldman, Andrus, [Henry De Hart] Waite and [Frederick Dent] Sharp had preceded us in another team for same destination. Old Fort Sheridan was completely dismantled, buildings torn down and the lumber piled up awaiting shipment to Fort Robinson. Lieutenant [Charles Henry] Watts gave us a supper of coffee and fried eggs, and then all turned in to be up for an early start in the morning. June 20th 1881. The officers who had started out from Fort Robinson , and Lieut. Watts, started for Pine Ridge Agency, 20 miles, where we arrived by 8.30 a.m. and were received with the kindness we anticipated by Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy, the agent, and his gentle wife. The Indians of this, the Red Cloud Agency, were flocking in droves to the site chosen for the annual Sun Dance; few, if any, came on foot; hundred and thousands, men, women and children—all in full toggery, pranced in upon gayly caparisoned ponies and a very appreciable number, assuming the more dignified and comfortable methods of civilization, made the journey from their distant farms and villages in open wagons and even in buggies. Elsewhere I have noted the great progress made by this band of Indians since my first acquaintance with them—a progress which can be most pithily summarized by stating that this evening I have seen a sturdy young buck hauling after him a highly varnished baby carriage occupied by a black bead-eyed image of himself. In the Agency Guard House, we saw confined in heavy irons, Private [Thomas] Locke of the 5th Cavalry, the murder in cold blood and without cause of his esteemed young Commanding Officer, Lieutenant S. A. Cherry. The sentinel guarding the prisoner was Sword, an Ogallala Sioux, who looks as if he would carry out his threat to knock Locke’s head off if he made the slightest attempt to escape. 1. Fort Sheridan (actually Camp Sheridan) was near the Spotted Tail Agency, on the west fork of Beaver Creek, twelve miles upstream from the White River. It was one of two posts established in 1874 to control the Lakotas and protect the agencies, the other being Camp Robinson at Red Cloud. It was replaced by Fort Niobrara in 1880. Frazer, Forts of the West, 89–90; Heitman, Historical Register, 2:544. [3.239.57.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:14 GMT) 62 the great lakota Sun dance Met Fox, a Sitting Bull Indian, who had just come in to Red Cloud Agency, with fifty of the northern Sioux in British America.2 Dr. McGillicuddy sent with me Merrivale,3 his best interpreter, to see and understand all that was of importance in connection with the Sun Dance. We were...