George Hyde, the eminent Cheyenne Indian historian, said, “The Dog Soldiers were the most famous of the Cheyenne bands and the least understood by the whites.” Their only legacy for us is a collection of drawings of military exploits in their sketchbooks. Educated Cheyenne were few in the 19th century. George Bent, the half-breed son of William Bent of Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas, was educated and also spent most of his life living with the tribe. He gathered testimony from surviving Dog Soldiers and from his uncle, Long Chin, who was a Dog Soldier. Combining this information with the work of other historians may give us a little more understanding of this tribe of warriors.
Probably the least belabored subject relating to the history of Indians in Logan County is that of the Dog Soldiers and Tall Bull before the battle of Summit Springs.
The Summit Springs battleground is not actually in Logan County. It is less than a mile south, however, in WashingtonCounty (Section One, Township 5 North, Range 52 West). Apparently it was just lying there, its story almost forgotten, its location obscure. In about 1928 it was identified, and memories began to drift together of this: “The last major conflict with the Indians of the central plans,” as defined by James T. King. It was also the last stand of the Dog Soldiers—the place where the last wearer of the Dog Rope died.
There were six soldier organizations in the governing structure of the Cheyenne nation. Basically the names of these were the Fox Soldiers, the Red Shields, the Bowstrings, the Bone Scrapers, the Crazy Dogs, and the Dog Soldiers. After the Cheyennetribes separated into northern and southern divisions, the Crazy Dogs were not represented among the southern Cheyenne.
The Dog Soldier society was not peculiar to the Cheyenne. It was an old concept. There were Dog Soldiers among the Mandan, and they were common among the Arapaho and Kiowa.
The common custom which tied them together was that of the Dog Rope. This was a long strip of buffalo skin with a slit in it of sufficient length to go over the head and under the right arm. The one which George Bent owned (in later years) was decorated with traditional porcupine quills. On one end of the sash was a sharp pin, eight inches long. Only four of the bravest men in the Dog Soldier society might wear the sash, and it brought grave responsibility to the wearer. In battle he was required to pin himself to the ground in the path of the enemy and remain there on foot until the battle was won or lost. If defeat seemed inevitable, a comrade could release him by pulling the pin, and handing it to the owner, meanwhile whipping him to symbolically drive him away from his post. If there was no one to pull the pin, the unfortunate rope-wearer was doomed.
The dress of the Dog Soldiers was also distinctive. They wore a different style of headdress than that of other Plains Indians. The base was a tight-fitting cap with a strip of beadwork across the forehead. A ring of crow feathers stood erect around the edge of the cap and the center crown was occupied by vertically anchored tail feathers of the golden eagle or of crows. The Dog Soldiers did not wear either the long sweeping feathered wings or the single feathered tail common among the other Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux.
In the early days of the five Cheyenne military societies in northeast Colorado they presumably held equal rank, but each society was not cohesive as an organization. The various members of these military societies were dispersed into the family bands of their wives, and the members met only at annual ceremonies or in an emergency. They policed their own bands and performed the function for which the societies were designed. They also provided a sense of comradeship among the members within a band, but they lacked the unity which was achieved by the Dog Soldiers.
This was not quite intentional. It began when the Dog Soldiers began to travel together and to take their families with them. They were thus in constant contact with one another and were consequently more effective warriors. They attracted the young warriors from the tribe to join them, and their numbers grew. The pull was irresistible to the young. First there were the stories of the deeds of brave heroes among the Dog Soldiers, and second, there was the prospect of acquiring horses, the symbol of wealth among the Plains Indians.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho with whom treaties were made in the early 1850s and 60s did not include the Dog Soldiers. The chiefs of these tribes said that they could not control the depredations committed by their young men. This was true. The youths preferred the exciting life of the Dog Soldier, and they wandered away to join them if they could.
The tribe of the Dog Soldiers was also enlarged by the addition of Dog Soldiers from the Arapaho and Sioux. The Dog Soldiers traveled with the Sioux bands with whom they had been intermarried for generations. The Sioux customs became an influential part of their lives. Tall Bull, the important Dog Soldier chief, was closely related to the Sioux.
Although there were many other memorable personalities among the Dog Soldier chiefs, Tall Bull is the one with whom Sterlingites are most familiar if they have read any of the numerous stories written about the Battle of Summit Springs. Tall Bull, with several other chiefs, had been leading his people for about 30 years before the Sand Creek massacre in 1864. This tribe consisted at one time of about 100 lodges averaging six to seven persons per lodge. They wandered and hunted mostly in the buffalo country around the Republican River. The Dog Soldiers seldom came into contact with the whites in those days, and they rarely came to the Logan County area except perhaps to follow the south Platte to Beaver Creek.
Tall Bull believed that all of the southern Cheyennes should return across the Platte to the north country from which they had come originally. He tried to consolidate his people as a unit again and move northward. This coalition came about unexpectedly as the result of the Sand Creek tragedy. In the month of January, 1865, the Cheyenne moved together as a whole (with the Sioux and Arapaho) in a dramatic and successful drive to cross the South Platte, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. From that time on warfare never ceased for Tall Bull. He was not mentioned by name in any accounts of the skirmishes that took place in the Powder River country in 1865, but he was there, and he was not idle.
When the Southern Cheyenne returned to the Arkansas River in the fall of 1865, Tall Bull and his associate chiefs of the Dog Soldiers probably drifted back into their usual territory on the Republican. When the more compliant Cheyennes signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas that year, the Dog Soldiers refused to sign. This defiance brought a military campaign under Major General Winfield Hancock which set out for the Republican River country in the spring of 1867.
After much negotiation a meeting was arranged between General Hancock and the Dog Soldier chiefs. This was witnessed by a newspaper correspondent, Henry M. Stanley, who described the meeting colorfully. Some of the chiefs wore overcoats, some were wrapped in red blankets. All of them had their faces and bodies painted. From slits in their ears hung large brass rings. They wore armlets of silver, bracelets of copper and necklaces of colored beads. On the breasts of some were silver shields and silver medals. Each scalp lock supported a long string of silver discs.
Hancock spoke first, delivering the usual military speech about the inevitability of war if the Dog Soldiers persisted in their depredations.
Tall Bull spoke in reply. He recognized the need for peace and assured the general that he and his troops were welcome to pass through the country and would not be molested. He omitted mention of the railroad which was being built through the hunting grounds to which he was bitterly opposed.
Hancock then announced his intention to march his troops to the camp of the Dog Soldiers. Tall Bull refrained from replying, but he spoke privately to an Indian Agent, Edward Wynkoop, with whom he was acquainted, asking that Hancock be dissuaded from this because the women and children in camp would flee in terror.
Hancock carried out his plan nevertheless. He went into camp some distance from the Indian village, and here he was assured by representatives of the Dog Soldiers that the village chiefs would meet him next morning for a council. On the following day Hancock waited until 11 a.m.and no Indians appeared. He prepared his troops for the march. A few miles from camp the soldiers were met by a battle line of Cheyenne and Sioux warriors. Fortunately, due to the efforts of Wynkoop, an uneasy truce was arranged, and there was no fighting.
During the night the population of the village melted away into the hills. For five days, Hancock vacillated but finally decided to burn the village and did so. The angry warriors went off on a rampage leaving a trail of death and destruction among the stage stations along the Smoky Hill River.
Another peace treaty was set up for October of 1867 at Medicine Lodge Creek, and the Dog Soldiers were invited to sign it. They were surprised by the invitation. They had not ceased to murder, pillage and plunder all through the summer and autumn, but when the Cheyenne and Arapaho assembled in late October to sign the treaty, the Dog Soldiers were present for the first time. Stanley was also there. He described the scene: “The chiefs were seated in a semi-circle. The principal chiefs, Black Kettle, Big Jake, Big Head, Tall Bull and White Horse, occupied the front circle. Behind them came the famous Dog Soldiers .. sitting astride their ponies, watching with fierce eyes every movement that is going on. Their heads adorned with nodding plumes, their breasts with large silver crosses, their faces painted with red, blue, black and yellow.” The five principal chiefs—as well as several other Dog Soldier chiefs—signed the treaty.
The following summer the Indians tried to keep out of trouble, but inevitably, some incidents did occur involving hot-blooded youths and whiskey, and some settlers were killed. Raids on settlements accelerated. Major George A. Forsyth was ordered out on an expedition against the Indians. In mid-September Forsyth camped on the banks of the Arickaree River where he was attacked by Tall Bull with two bands of Sioux and the Dog Soldiers. Forsyth withdrew to an island where he attempted to make a stand. This was the battle of Beecher Island, where six soldiers were killed and the Indians lost nine.
Major William B. Royall, temporary commander of the Fifth Cavalry, moved into the RepublicanValleyto scout and sent out troops in various directions. On October 14 he was attacked in camp by Tall Bull and most of the Dog Soldiers.
This attack promptly brought Major Eugene A. Carr to assume permanent command. He was beset by constant attacks by the Cheyenne and consequent skirmishes all during that autumn. Carr attempted war on the Cheyenne during all of the winter months.
As a result, in May 1869, the Cheyenne as a unit held a council, and the majority was in favor of making a complete and final peace, but the Dog Soldiers did not agree. Tall Bull said that he would take his people and go north to join the Sioux. They had always been a free nation and would remain so or die.
The Dog Soldiers camped defiantly on the Republican River. Major Carr pursued and overtook them, and a battle ensued. The Indians retreated into Nebraska, where they began to make savage raids on the railroad and settlements.
There was no doubt about the hostility of the Dog Soldiers now, and Carr followed them relentlessly as Tall Bull made his last desperate attempt to fight his way back to his place of origin. His determination brought him as far as White Bette Creek, known to us as Summit Springs, where he discovered that the South Platte River had risen, and a delay was necessary.
Here on July 11, 1869, the Indian camp of Tall Bull’s band and two bands of Sioux was taken by surprise by Major Carr and his troops with Frank North and his Pawnee Scouts. The Pawnees were old enemies of the Sioux, and they viciously combined vengeance with warfare. They first captured the ponies so that most of the Dog Soldier village was on foot. All those who had horses, and a number of people who had managed to hide or run away escaped, but thirty-two Indians were killed, and seventeen women and children were taken prisoners. A small group of Cheyenne, including Tall Bull and two of his wives, sought refuge in a ravine where almost all were killed.
At the head of the ravine Wolf-With-Plenty-of-Hair, a brave Dog Soldier—the only wearer of the Dog Rope in camp—staked himself to the ground. There was no one left to pull the pin and hand it to him. He fell where he stood. |
