Indian Wars:  Diary of Pvt William Jordan - Starvation March

14th Infantry Frontier Posts & Assignments

Diary Excerpts of Private William W. Jordan
Company C, Fourteenth Infantry
June 25 - October 26, 1876

The Great Sioux War of 1876-77, Bighorn and Yellowstone Expedition
Brigadier General George Crook, Commanding

"Starvation March"

[Preface: Many thanks to Mr. Jerome A. Greene of the US National Park Service for his contribution to the 14^th Infantry’s historical record. Mr. Jerome located and excerpted diary entries for an article he prepared and had published in the: Winter, 1997 Vol. 78, No.4 of ‘Nebraska History’, the quarterly periodical of the Nebraska State Historical Society.]

In His Own Words:

"I was enlisted in the Fourteenth Infantry and went from St. Louis to Fort (Camp) Douglas…near Salt Lake City, Utah [Territory]… When the command to which I was attached arrived there, we were all set at work tearing down the old wooden buildings, and rebuilding them of stone, which we quarried from the surrounding hills.  We completed work in 1876, and were congratulating ourselves on the fact that our hard labor was at an end, and that we were at last on easy street, when the Sioux war broke out, and we were marched off to the scene of action for two years of about the hardest and toughest campaigning I ever experienced."

June 25.  Command (which left Fort [Camp] Douglas on June 24) reached Medicine Bow station in the afternoon.  We went into camp.  Before we reached the station had to cross the Medicine Bow River, which was very much swollen, in an old flat boat.  Soldiers and mules all packed in together.  While my company was crossing, the mules became frightened and crowded to the upper side of the boat, which caused it to dip water.  The current being very strong, threw the boat on edge, and mules, soldiers, wagons, and everything on board slid off into the river, and were washed down stream, passing under the boat.  Fortunately, there were no casualties.  Sergt. Gallagher and I lost our guns, but were rearmed by the Quartermaster.  Gallagher came near drowning, but was rescued by Lieut. Lloyd and Private Desmond, of Company B.

June 26.  Broke camp and started for Fort Fetterman.

June 27.  Usual morning scene.  Struck camp, roll call, march, &c.  During the day’s march the boys found a great many curious petrifications, fossils, mass agates, and other semi-precious stones, and the frequency with which the boys fell out of the column to gather these curiosities aroused the ire of our commanding officer, who declared that we was not making a geological survey, and who ordered these curio hunters to do extra duty on our arriving in camp.

July 4.  Left Fort Fetterman to join Crook’s command.

July 6.  Marched 24 miles.  Camped on Dry Fork of the Cheyenne River.  An amusing mishap befell Pat Robinson, of Company C, Fourteenth Infantry, at this point.  The day being hot and the march a long one, the men were tired and footsore, and, on striking camp, they were soon busy bathing their feet in various water holes in the dry bed of the river.  Robinson was careful to select a choice hole near the bank, and was all prepared to bathe his tired extremities, when the mules that had been unhooked and turned out to graze came along and drank all the water out of Pat’s hole, leaving him high and dry on the bank.  The language he used at the time came near drying up all the other holes.

July 30.  Moved camp one mile down creek.  Indians set fire to the prairie.  Entire command out fighting fire until dark.

August 3.  Marched all day through smoke of prairie fires.  Weather hot.  Command suffered for water.  Arrived in camp about sundown.  Made 18 miles.  Gen. Carr and Col. Merritt joined our command same evening with ten troops of the Fifth Cavalry.  Also recruits for the Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Infantry.  The whole country is one sheet of flames, from the valley to the mountain tops.  At 8 o’clock pm a terrific rainstorm set in.  All the tents blown down.  I was on picket duty.  Indians fire on pickets.  Pickets return fire.  One Indian killed.

August 5.  Our trouble begins.  Gen. Crook orders wagon trains corralled.  Provisions, ammunition, one blanket, and one change of underclothing to each soldier ordered packed on our mules.  Wagon train left in charge of teamsters and invalid soldiers.  Each soldier carried 100 rounds of ammunition and one day’s rations.  Start to form a junction with Gen. Terry’s command, which was somewhere in the Little Bighorn country, the scene of the Custer massacre.  Frank Gruard (Grouard), our faithful scout, led us onward.  Marched down Tongue River, wading it three times.  Marched 24 miles today.

August 6.  Continued down Tongue River Valley and crossed over to Rose Bud Valley.  This was a very hard day’s march.  Made 24 miles.  No water except that we had in our canteens, which held about a quart each.  A great many of the infantry fell, exhausted.  They were placed on pack mules.  One soldier fell out of the column and called on Dr. Paszche (Patzki), who saw that he was not sick, but desperate from heat and thirst, and ready to do almost anything to get transportation into camp.  The doctor talked very kindly to him, offering to carry his gun and ammunition on his (Paszche’s) horse, which offer the soldier accepted.  When, however, the doctor gained possession of the gun he turned it on the soldier and began prodding him along at the point of the bayonet.  He started him off on the double quick and kept him moving until he rejoined his company, where he was placed under guard, but later released.

August 8.  Broke camp, marched 8 miles, and had to go into camp again.  All the timber on the hills on fire, the work of Indians.  Smoke so thick we could not see our way.  Broke camp again about 6:00 pm and started to make a night march.  We marched until 2 am and bivouacked on the Rose Bud River.  Made 20 miles.  I spread my blanket out on what I thought was a nice patch of grass, but it turned out to be an ant hill, and I had no more than settled myself for a few hours rest when I felt about a dozen of the most excruciating bites on my body and legs.  We never disrobed when following the trail of Indians, and the ants crawled in under my clothing and next to the skin in a way that made me wince.

August 10.  Marched down Rose Bud about 14 miles.  Gen. Terry’s command, consisting of 22 companies of infantry and 11 troops of cavalry, appeared in the distance.  This column and ours acting independently, and neither knew of the other’s presence in the valley.  Therefore, when we came in sight of each other, both sides prepared for a fight, the two commanders taking one another for the enemy.  Buffalo Bill (Cody) was present, and by the merest accident discovered who and what we were, thus preventing what might have proved a serious mistake.

August 12.  Has rained steadily for 48 hours.  In camp.  No shelter of any kind.  Stood up all night with blankets over our shoulders, and soaking wet.  One soldier proved the exception.  Name, Andy Shuttles.  First man I ever saw who could lie down in a pool of water, with water dammed up against his back and running over him, and sleep like a top.  Andy had been shot in the nose and snored dreadfully.

August 14.  Left Tongue River Valley and headed for Powder River.  Camped on Pumpkin Creek after day’s march.  Water in this stream about the color of yellow ochre, and thick as mud could well make and call it water.  In fact, we could not make coffee with it, or at least when made it had not the slightest taste of coffee.  Capt. Burt, of the Ninth Infantry, found a stray dog today, and christened him ‘Sitting Bull’.  Was a dog the Indians had left behind.

August 15.  This proved another hard day’s march over a mountainous country.  Guard [Grouard] reports numerous Indian trails, evidence that the redskins (the body that massacred Gen. Custer’s command) have divided.  ‘Sitting Bull’, Burt’s dog, and ‘Walloper’, Capt. Toby’s dog, had a fight today.  ‘Walloper’ came out victorious.  ‘Sitting Bull’ deserts camp.  Marched 22 miles.  We had a wag of a fellow in my company named James Radcliff, who enlivened the march by his comic songs and remarks.  Today he composed a song while marching, which ran something like this:
 

We went with Crook to the Rose Bud
To fight the Indians there;

We came near being baldheaded,
but they did not get our hair.

We lay upon the ground,
in the dirty yellow mud,

And we never saw an onion,
A Turnip nor a spud.

And there was Corp. O’Donahue
and Sergt. "The-Devil-Knows-Who,

They made us march and toe the mark
in gallant Company Q.

And the drums would roll upon my Soul,
and this is the way we’d go:

Forty miles a day on beans and hay,
In the regular army O.

The entire column would join in the chorus of this song, thus diverting our minds from the hardships of the march.

August 16.  Started out as usual; marched about 20 miles over a very rough and rugged road.  Radcliff enlivened the column with his new song.  Today we nicknamed Maj. Chambers "Route Step", owing to the fact that he always gave the command "Route Step" after the order to march.  He was one of the most methodical officers I ever served under.  Every formality of military discipline had to be observed before the column could get under way.

August 23.  Last night on the Yellowstone.  At 8 pm a terrific rain storm set in, which lasted all night.  We provided ourselves with wickiups over which we spread our blankets; a pretty fair shelter under ordinary conditions, but on this occasion they were useless.  Stood up with blankets over our shoulders all night.  Commands separate here, Col. Miles (now Gen. Miles) left to establish Fort Kehoe [Keogh] on the Yellowstone, Gen. Terry went down Yellowstone.  Buffalo Bill left for the East to start his Wild West show.

September 5.  It was here that Gen. laid plans for ending campaign.  Rations about exhausted.  Crook decides to head for the Black Hills by compass.

September 8.  Entire command living on horseflesh.  Crook details detachment of cavalry, selecting best horses, to go to the Black Hills and hasten rations out to command, then on the point of starvation.

September 9.  Camped on Slim Butte, where we surprised a village of 35 lodges and 300 warriors under Chief American Horse.  Captured 200 ponies and all the stores of the Indians.  They came back at dusk with re-enforcements and attacked our camp.  Engagement lasted two hours.  Our scout, Charley White, and one soldier killed during the fight.  One officer and seven men wounded.  Captured 8 squaws and 3 bucks, and their chief, American Horse, who was mortally wounded and died next day.

September 12.  This was a record-breaker.  We broke camp at sunrise, traveled all day through mud the like of which I have never seen before or since.  We marched in the trail (following) of the cavalry all day and until late at night.  In short, we were fourteen hours on the road and no sign of camp.  The officers all marched at the head of the column, thus leaving the companies to follow or lay down at will.  The men were falling out of the ranks from sheer exhaustion.  For miles the trail was strewn with played-out men and horses, cavalry saddles, blankets, &c., each trooper abandoning his traps in order to lighten the burden of his patient and faithful horse.  The head of the column went into camp about 10 pm., after marching 40 miles.  The men came staggering in all during the night.  Had the Indians known of our weak condition they would have had an opportunity to avenge themselves for the thrashing we gave them at Slim Butte.  I will say, however, that in the event such a thing had occurred they would have met with a warm reception, as the men were half-crazed with hunger, and would have welcomed a go at Mr. Indian.  Camped on Willow Creek, well named, for its banks were lined with willow brush, which made good fuel.  Those of us who came in early started fires, the light of which served as a beacon to those who had dropped out during the march, guiding them into camp.

September 13.  Camped on the Belle Fourche River, a very rapid mountain stream.  Most of the infantry were so exhausted they could not wade the stream, for in case they had the current would have swept them off their feet.  Some who reached the stream first came near drowning while attempting to wade it.  The pack mules were, therefore, employed to carry the men across.  We went into camp on the opposite side of the stream, where we had our first supplies – some flour, bacon, and potatoes, which were brought out from Deadwood City.  I paid 50 cents a pound to a --- sutler for some potatoes, and ate them raw at first, my hunger was so intense.  Our quartermaster learning that the men were paying fabulous prices to the --- sutlers for the necessities of life, ordered everything in the way of eatables to be purchased and paid by Uncle Sam.  Men went so far as to pay $5 for a single loaf of bread.  Some of the men who had reached camp first, and who had no money with which to buy grub, were standing around a wagon where the two --- sutlers were quarreling over the price which they should charge for bread.  One --- sutler wanted to sell it at $1 per loaf, but the other demurred ---.  While the row was in progress these moneyless soldiers overturned the wagon, drove the --- sutlers off with stones, and made short work of the bread and provisions it contained.  The --- sutlers complained to the commanding officer, who told them it served them right for acting the hog.

October 26.  Went into winter quarters at Fort (Camp) Robinson, Nebr.


This concludes Private William Jordan's diary as edited by Jerome A. Greene, a renowned Historian with the United States National Park Service, and published by the Nebraska State Historical Society at http://nebraskahistory.org/ through its magazine, "Nebraska History".

Reference is made to "Nebraska History, Winter 1997 Vol. 78, No. 4 edition".

The Alumni of the 14th Infantry would like to express their grateful appreciation to Mr. James E. Potter, Editor of "Nebraska History", for making Lt. Taylor’s diary available to them. RHW



Acknowledgements:
Indian Wars:  The Diary of Private William Jordan
Copyright © 2012  14th Infantry Regiment Association
Last modified: July 25, 2024