Sioux War Dispatches by Marc H. Abrams

Author:Marc H. Abrams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westholme Publishing

What is the matter with Crook?” So reads one of the subheadings inside James J. O'Kelly's August 15 dispatch to the New York Herald. O'Kelly then goes on to criticize Crook for not coming forward to meet and greet General Terry when the two commands crossed paths five days earlier. After all, Terry was the senior officer, and Crook, having marched into Montana Territory, was now in Terry's military department.1 O'Kelly wrote:

Some four miles from the point where we formed the line of battle General Crook was found encamped. He did not leave his camp to meet General Terry, a circumstance that caused no little comment. The conduct of this officer through the campaign has been, to say the least, peculiar. On consultation General Terry learned that Crook had been following for several days a heavy trail, supposed to be leading in the direction of Powder River.2

O'Kelly considered this last item another point of contention. Why had not Crook sent a courier to Terry alerting him of the movement of the Indians? If he had, Terry “could have easily moved down” from his position on the Yellowstone to “cut off the Indians' retreat northward.”3 Then O'Kelly suggested the reason behind Crook's behavior: “The fact that General Terry is a volunteer general and not a West Pointer, may, perhaps, have something to do with it.”4

Whether or not these statements represented O'Kelly's opinions or reflected the views of Terry's staff was unstated.

Avoiding the issue of Crook's snub altogether, Cuthbert Mills focused on the visual aspect of the two generals' first conference:

Endless amusement was created in camp by an illustrated journal of New York, which contained a graphic picture of the meeting of Gens. Crook and Terry, wherein these two gentlemen appeared in full Brigadier Generals' uniform, with all their staff in full dress, and several Indian chiefs in gorgeous costume thrown in to give a picturesque effect to the whole. If any one ever saw Gen. Crook in the field wearing anything but a suit of ragged clothes, which might, boots and all, fetch $5 in a second-hand store, that person is unknown in this command.5 Gen. Terry pays more attention to his personal appearance; but had the imaginative artist really seen the meeting of the two Generals he might have given the public a very vivid idea of the rough style in which we have lived this summer. He would have seen Gen. Terry and his staff dismounting in a patch of sage brush, near a clump of brush where stood Gen. Crook and staff, all as rough-looking and battered as their chief. Around them lay several small bundles of blankets which formed their beds, and a few yards off were scattered some tin plates, cups of the same material, a frying pan full of frizzling bacon, a pot of steaming coffee, and in the centre of the gorgeous layout a pile of hard tack. This was the dinner to which Gen. Terry was invited, but it did not seem that he or his staff were blessed that day with very vigorous appetites.

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