An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill Part 8

"That was a brilliant suggestion of yours, young man," he said. "This Indian fighting is a new business to me. I realize that if I had carried out my first order not a man of us would ever have reached the command alive."

I said: "General, do you remember the battle of Tupedo?"

"I do," he said, with his chest expanding a little. "I was in command at that battle." The whipping of Forrest had been a particularly difficult and unusual feat, and General Smith never failed to show his pride in the achievement whenever the battle of Tupedo was mentioned.

"Do you remember," I continued, "the young fellow you caught behind a tree, and sent for him afterward to ask him why he did so?"

"Is it possible you are the man who found Forrest's command!" he asked in amazement. "I had often wondered what became of you," he said, when I told him I was the same man. "What have you been doing since the war!"

I told him I had come West as a scout for General Sherman in 1865 and had been scouting ever since. He was highly delighted to see me again, and from that time forward, as long as he remained on the Plains, I resumed my old position as his chief scout.

After the battle of Tupedo, Smith's command was ordered to Memphis, and from there sent by boat up the Mississippi. We of the cavalry disembarked at Cape Jardo, Smith remaining behind with the infantry, which came on later. General Sterling Price, of the Confederate army, was at this time coming out of Arkansas into southern Missouri with a large army. His purpose was to invade Kansas.

Federal troops were not then plentiful in the West. Smith's army from Tennessee, Blunt's troops from Kansas, what few regulars there were in Missouri, and some detachments of Kansas volunteers were all being moved forward to head off Price. Being still a member of the Ninth Kansas Cavalry, I now found myself back in my old country--just ahead of Price's army, which had now reached the fertile northwestern Missouri.

In carrying dispatches from General McNeil to General Blunt or General Pleasanton I pa.s.sed around and through Price's army many times. I always wore the disguise of a Confederate soldier, and always escaped detection. Price fought hard and successfully, gaining ground steadily, till at Westport, Missouri, and other battlefields near the Kansas line, the Federal troops checked his advance.

At the Little Blue, a stream that runs through what is now Kansas City, he was finally turned south, and took up a course through southern Kansas.

Near Mound City a scouting party of which I was a member surprised a small detachment of Price's army. Our advantage was such that they surrendered, and while we were rounding them up I heard one of them say that we Yanks had captured a bigger prize than we suspected. When he was asked what this prize consisted of, the soldier said:

"That big man over yonder is General Marmaduke of the Southern army."

I had heard much of Marmaduke and greatly admired his dash and ability as a fighting man. Going over to him, I asked if there was anything I could do to make him comfortable. He said that I could. He hadn't had a bite to eat, and he wanted some food and wanted it right away.

He was surrounding a good lunch I had in my saddle-bag, while I was ransacking the saddle-bag of a comrade for a bottle of whisky which I knew to be there.

When we turned our prisoners over to the main command I was put in charge of General Marmaduke and accompanied him as his custodian to Fort Leavenworth. The general and I became fast friends, and our friendship lasted long after the war. Years after he had finished his term as Governor of Missouri he visited me in London, where I was giving my Wild West Show. He was talking with me in my tent one day when the Earl of Lonsdale and Lord Harrington rode up, dismounted, and came over to where we were sitting.

I presented Marmaduke to them as the governor of one of America's greatest States and a famous Confederate general. Lonsdale, approaching and extending his hand, smiled and said:

"Ah, Colonel Cody, another one of your Yankee friends, eh?"

Marmaduke, who had risen, scowled. But he held out his hand. "Look here," he said, "I am much pleased to meet you, sir, but I want you first to understand distinctly that I am no Yank."

When I left General Marmaduke at Leavenworth and returned to my command, Price was already in retreat. After driving him across the Arkansas River I returned with my troop to Springfield, Missouri. From there I went, under General McNeil, to Fort Smith and other places on the Arkansas border, where he had several lively skirmishes, and one big and serious engagement before the war was ended.

The spring of 1865 found us again in Springfield, where we remained about two months, recuperating and replenishing our stock. I now got a furlough of thirty days and went to St. Louis, where I invested part of a thousand dollars I had saved in fashionable clothes and in rooms at one of the best hotels. It was while there that I met a young lady of a Southern family, to whom I paid a great deal of attention, and from whom I finally extracted a promise that if I would come back to St.

Louis at the end of the war she would marry me.

On my return to Springfield I found an expedition in process of fitting out for a scouting trip through New Mexico and into the Arkansas River country, to look after the Indians. With this party I took part in a number of Indian fights and helped to save a number of immigrant trains from destruction. On our return to Fort Leavenworth we found General Sanborn and a number of others of the former Union leaders who had come to the border to make peace with the Indians.

The various tribes that roamed the Plains had heard of the great war, and, believing that it had so exhausted the white man that he would fall an easy prey to Indian aggression, had begun to arm themselves and make ready for great conquests. They had obtained great stores of arms and ammunition. During the last two years of the war they had been making repeated raids and inflicting vast damage on the settlers.

At the close of the war, when the volunteers were discharged, I was left free to return to my old calling. The regular army was in course of consolidation. Men who had been generals were compelled to serve as colonels and majors. The consolidated army's chief business was in the West, where the Indians formed a real menace, and to the West came the famous fighting men under whose command I was destined to spend many of the eventful years to come.

CHAPTER III

At the close of the war, General William Tec.u.mseh Sherman was placed at the head of the Peace Commission which had been sent to the border to take counsel with the Indians. It had become necessary to put an end to the hostility of the red man immediately either by treaty or by force.

His raids on the settlers could be endured no longer.

The purpose of the party which Sherman headed was to confer with the greatest of the hostile chiefs. Treaties were to be agreed upon if possible. If negotiations for peace failed, the council would at least act as a stay of hostilities. The army was rapidly reorganizing, and it would soon be possible to mobilize enough troops to put down the Indians in case they refused to come to terms peaceably.

The camp of the Kiowas and Comanches--the first Indians with whom Sherman meant to deal--was about three hundred miles southwest of Leavenworth, in the great buffalo range, and in the midst of the trackless Plains.

By ambulance and on horseback, with wagons to carry the supplies, the party set out for its first objective--Council Springs on the Arkansas River, about sixty miles beyond old Fort Zarrah.

I was chosen as one of the scouts or dispatch carriers to accompany the party. The guide was d.i.c.k Curtis, a plainsman of wide experience among the Indians.

When we arrived at Fort Zarrah we found that no road lay beyond, and learned that there was no water on the way. It was determined, therefore, to make a start at two o'clock in the morning. Curtis said this would enable us to reach our destination, sixty-five miles further on, by two o'clock the next afternoon.

The outfit consisted of two ambulances and one Government wagon, which carried the tents and supplies. Each officer had a horse to ride if he chose. If he preferred to ride in the ambulance his orderly was on hand to lead his horse for him.

We traveled steadily till ten o'clock in the morning, through herds of buffalo whose numbers were past counting. I remember that General Sherman estimated that the number of buffalo on the Plains at that time must have been more than eleven million. It required all the energy of the soldiers and scouts to keep a road cleared through the herds so that the ambulance might pa.s.s.

We breakfasted during the morning stop and rested the horses. For the men there was plenty of water, which we had brought along in canteens and camp kettles. There was also a little for the animals, enough to keep them from suffering on the way.

Two o'clock found us still making our way through the buffalo herds, but with no Council Springs in sight. Curtis was on ahead, and one of the lieutenants, feeling a little nervous, rode up to another of the scouts.

"How far are we from the Springs?" he inquired.

"I don't know," said the guide uneasily. "I never was over here before, but if any one knows where the Springs are that young fellow over there does." He pointed to me.

"When will we get to the Springs?" asked the officer, turning in my direction.

"Never--if we keep on going the way we are now," I said.

"Why don't you tell the General that?" he demanded.

I said that Curtis was the guide, not I; whereupon he dropped back alongside the ambulance in which Sherman was riding and reported what had happened.

The General instantly called a halt and sent for the scouts. When all of us, including Curtis, had gathered round him he got out of the ambulance, and, pulling out a map, directed Curtis to locate the Springs on it.

"There has never been a survey made of this country, General," said Curtis. "None of these maps are correct."

"I know that myself," said Sherman. "How far are we from the Springs?"

The guide hesitated. "I have never been there but once," he said, "and then I was with a big party of Indians who did the guiding." He added that on a perfectly flat country, dotted with buffalo, he could not positively locate our destination. Unless we were sighted and guided by Indians we would have to chance it.

Sherman swung round on the rest of us. "Do any of you know where the Springs are?" he asked, looking directly at me.

"Yes, sir," I said, "I do."

"How do you know, Billy?" asked Curtis.