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obedience to law, as well as energetic scouts, police, peace commissioners and spires.--Crazy--War Correspondent Omaha Bee.
"BUFFALO BILL" VICTORIOUS.--THE SIOUX AND WILD WEST SHOWS.
Editorial from "New York Sun," Tuesday, March 10th.
The permission granted by the Interior Department to "Buffalo Bill" to engage 100 Indians for his "Wild West Show" is a great victory for Bill. It is a more conspicuous success even than that which he achieved during the recent Pin Ridge campaign, when, as a brigadier general commanding the Nebraska State forces, he received a written acknowledgment of his services from Gen. Miles. It has been accomplished, moreover, directly in the face of, for some unexplained reason, enormous obstacles which "BUFFALO BILL" found in his path; and the skill and success with which he surmounted them are proportionately great. First he brought his braves from Europe to Washington to show the refining and ennobling influence which European travel had had upon them. Then when the Sioux troubles broke out, and threatened to wreck his plans, especially as it was charged that the complaints of some of his troop had aggravated the tribal discontent, he found in that very disaster his opportunity, and hastening to the scene, took care that many on the side of the Government, doing splendid service. His next step was to procure recommendations from army officers, showing Secretary Noble the military wisdom of allowing some of the young restless Sioux braves to be taken away from the reservation, under his charge. The issue was then between "BUFFALO BILL" and the Commissioner, and the former won.
To the eminent patrons of the Wild West Show this great victory will be very welcome. And now the best thing for the Commissioner and the defeated objectors to do is to accept the first chance to see the show. They will probably enjoy the spectacle, and be proud of the professional progress of their wards.
BUFFALO BILL'S INDIAN EXAMINED OFFICIALLY.--From Lincoln (Neb.) Journal.
Pine Ridge Agency, S. D., (via Rushville, Neb) Dec. 3.--[Special.]--Nothing farther has transpired to effect a change at Pine Ridge at this writing. All is quiet, but few reports of any kind arriving, and the general routine of camp life is the only variation, if it may be so called, of the monotony of life. Long trains of supplies and ammunition have been daily coming in from Rushville to this place. If anything is to be judged by the preparations being made one would suppose the army officers expected a long and severe campaign.
Orders were received to-day by Agent Royer to examine "BUFFALO BILL'S" Indians, all of which are at this place, about fifty being on the police force and in the company of scouts sent to Lieutenant Taylor to Fort Robinson for duty there. All here were thoroughly examined by all spoke in the highest praise of Mr. Cody and his treatment of them while abroad. Not one had a complaint of any character to make. This is a pretty effectual denial of the various charges lodged against "BUFFALO BILL" and his managers.---W.F.K.
MACAULAY'S NEW ZEALANDER.---THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.---THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO---From Manchester Courier, April, 1888.
An addition which has just been made to the United States National Museum at Washington, affords important subsidiary evidence, if such were needed, of the unique interest attending the extraordinary exhibition at Manchester illustrative of the Wild West. Naturalists have not too soon become alive to the remarkable fact that those shaggy monarchs of the prairie, the ponderous buffalo tribe, are well high extinct. They have dwindled away before the exterminating tread of the hunter and the march of the pioneer of civilization. The prairie no longer shakes beneath the impetuous advance of the mighty herd, and even individual specimens are becoming scarce. The representatives of the Smithsonian Museum in America therefore sent out an expedition into the West in search of what buffaloes there might be remaining, in order that the country might preserve some moment of the millions of those animals, which not many years ago roamed over the prairies. Twenty-five animals in all were captured, six of which have been arranged in a group for exhibition. One of the American papers describes this as the transference of a little bit of Montana---a small square patch from the wildest part of the Wild West---to the National Museum. The idea is one which is exactly applicable to COLONEL W. F. CODY'S collection, which is approaching its last days of residence among us. Those scenes in which the primeval forest and the vast expanse of prairie are represented, with elk and bison
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careering about, chased by the hunter and the scout, is a transference from the Wild West which, as we now learn, should be even more interesting to the naturalist than it is to either the artistic or the historical student. We leave out of view for the moment the ordinary spectator who goes only to be amused or entertained, independently of any instruction that may be afforded. These scenes, moreover, are all the more interesting to the ethnological student because of the association with them of the red men who have been indigenous to the prairies and their surroundings. The occupation of Uncas, like Othello's, is gone; palatial buildings and busy streets have succeeded to the wingwam and the happy hunting grounds, and the successor of Fenimore Cooper may find his representative Indians, not where the hunting knife and tomahawk are needed, but in the arena of mimic battle and adventure. The Indian is going out with the buffalo; mayhap we shall ere long see the last of his descendants, with the contemplative gaze of Macaulay's New Zealander, sitting before the group in the Smithsonian Museum, looking upon the last representatives of the extinct buffalo, fixed in its prairie-like surroundings. The considerations of facts which force themselves upon the imagination, distinctly enhance the interest of those "pictures" from the Wild West, presented with such force and realism by the ruling genius, who, anent the purport of these reflections, is so appropriately named "BUFFALO BILL." In the course of a very short time these pictures will permanently named English soil, as they are to be produced in America soon, and it may be expected that those in arrears in information respecting them, and who appreciate as they deserve to be appreciated, their instructive features, will give them a concentrated attention ere it is too late.
EXPLICIT DENIAL OF THE VARIOUS CHARGES MADE AGAINST "BUFFALO BILL.,"
[By the Commerical Cable to the Herald.]
HERALD BUREAU, NO. 49, AVENUE DE L'OPERA, PARIS, JULY 24, 1890
The Herald's European edition publishes to-day the following:
BERLIN, July 24, 1890.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:---The statements and general inference in the Herald about starvation and cruelty in the Wild West camp are ridiculously untruthful, and unjust to CODY and SLASBURY. I appeal to your sense of justice to fully deny the same.
The Wild West is under the public eye daily, and in all the countries and cities visited, under rigid police and health inspection. Our cuisine is the same as in New York, Paris and London, and has challenged the admiration and astonishment of the citizens of every place visited for its quality and quantity. Our contrasts and beef bills will bear witness as well as the United States Counsels and local officials, and thousands of others who have daily visited our camp.
Our pride as well as our interest, lies in the good food and good health of our people. As regards the steerage passage, the steamships don't want to give cabin passage to Indians. Many a good white man has gone across the ocean in the steerage. Would that every white man in the world was as well fed, clothed and looked after as our red tourists of "BUFFALO BILL'S" Wild West.
(signed) JOHN M. BURKE.
NEW YORK HERALD BERLIN, July 24.
We take great pleasure in stating that we visited the "BUFFALO BILL" Wild West Show in Berlin, and have seen the Indians both in their tents and during the performance.
They are certainly the best looking and apparently the best fed Indians we have ever seen. (Signed) W. H. Edwards, Consul General. (Signed) CHAS. H. JOHNSON, U.S. Consul at Hamburg. (Signed) C. COLEMAN, Sct. of Leg., Berlin.
VALUE OF AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL DEMONSTRATED.
Telegram to Paris Edition from N. Y. Herald, July 25.
The friends of "BUFFALO BILL" are delighted with the authoritative denial of the charge of cruelty to his Indians, cabled to the Herald this morning. It shows the value of an international paper that stores wilder than the Wild West itself can be so promptly sat upon and refuted.
His accusers have not yet produced that statement bearing out his charges, and it looks now as if their good nature and charity had been buncoed by the wily White Horse.
CONSHOHOCKEN, PA., July 30, 1888. MESSRS. CODY & SALSBURY,---DEAR SIRS: Having had every opportunity for five consecutive days and nights to inspect the discipline, and to study the effect of the general influence of your exhibition upon the Indians with you, I wish, by this note, to express my gratification with all. I have seen the Indians learning promptness, regularity,
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cleanliness in person and food, and also learning to do well the work for which they were employed. That anything in the shape of evil will not do, but must come up to a standard.
I saw them learning to realize that they were not hired merely to receive their pay, or, if possible, to "boss" the job, and have their own way about it. Knowing that the brothers of many of these men have offered to take care of their families, stock and farms, while these go away to earn money to help all, I can but class your great exhibition as an industry which will benefit the Indians of Pine Ridge Reservation. Most respectfully yours, JNO. ROBINSON, Missionary Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota.
COL. T. A. DODGE, U. S. A., re U. S. CAVALRY.
Harper's Weekly, June, 1891.
This able magazine has done effective work in the past years in faithfully illustrating the same subject that the Wild West is simplifying to the present generation by animated tableaux--thus aiding the permanent character of the marvelously correct and imperishable illustrations of their artist, Fred Remington (and their contributors--notably Col. Dodge and Theo. Roosevelt), time enhancing the literary, artistic, and historical value of their work. Liberty has been taken to remarkable Relief of Pine Ridge Ride, by Guy Henry's command, whose dark-skinned "Buffaloes" furnish a chapter to Western experience by having their feet "chilblained" and their thin faces sunburned) by old Sol's reflection from the snow) on the same day. Col. Dodge intelligently discourses on American riders, and relates the following cavalry trips:
"Our Western cavalry is now the pattern of the cavalry of the future. Let us quote some isolated facts, quite apart from the civil war, to show that our cavalrymen on Indian service have stout hearts under their army blue as well as stout seats in the saddle, and earn credit for them both. Mention need not be made of the risk every scouting party or detachment runs of pershing in an Indian ambush, like Custer of Forsyth; nor of frightful marches of many days with the termometer at forty degrees below zero, like the command of Henry. Let us look at some good distance riding, for it is in this that our men excel. General Merritt, in 1879, rode with a battalion of the Fifth Cavalry to the relief of Payne, and covered on hundred and seventy miles from 11 A. M., October 2d, to 5:30 P. M., October 5th--two days and six hours--accompanied by a battalion of infantry in wagons, which much retarded the march. He arrived on the scene in good order, and ready for a fight. Single couriers had ridden in over the same distance from Thornburg's command during the previous two or three days in less than twenty-four hours. Captain F. S. Dodge marched his command on the same occasion eighty miles in twelve hours--6 A. M. to 6 P. M.--and came in fresh; and double the distance has been made from 10 A. M. to 5 P. M. next day. In 1870 four men of Company H, First Cavalry, bore dispatches from Fort Harney to Fort Warner, one hundred and forty miles, over a bad road--twenty of it sand--with little and bad water, in twenty-two hours, eighteen and a half of which was actual marching time. The horses were in such good condition at the end of the ride, that after one day's rest the men started back, and made the home trip at the rate of sixty miles a day. In 1880, Lieutenant Robertson, First Cavalry, rode from Fort Lapwai to Fort Walla Walla, one hundred and two miles, over the snow, deep in places, in twenty-three and a half hours; and starting next morning, rode back in two days. These are but a few out of scores of equal performances. The keen appreciation of pace and of the ability of the animals ridden in such feats is marked. Men who can do work like this and come in fresh, must be consummate horsemen.
"In constant association with the cavalryman comes that most faithful servant--the only good Indian except a dead one--the Indian scout." To these can now be added the remarkable trip of Gen. Guy Henry's (Buffalo), Ninth Cavalry, last winter, to the relief of Pine Ridge after "Wounded Knee," over ninety-six miles in the night, a fight at daylight after arrival, a light breakfast--rush to the successful aid of the Seventh at "the Mission" afterward and a return at night after two days almost continually in the saddle; two severe fights, and not a sore back horse in the outfit.
Such is the regular army of U. S., the nucleus of the Grand Army of Emergency, which is commanded by such experienced men as Generals Schofield, Howard, Gibbon, Brook, Wheaton, Henry, Ruger, Sumner, Forsyth, Carr, Merritt and the strangest of the late Indian war, General Nelson A. Miles.
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37 A POSITION DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN--A "PLAINS CELEBRITY."--A TITLE IMPERISHABLE
To fain great local and national fame as a "plains celebrity" in the days of old was not an easy task; rather one of the most competitive struggles that a young man could possibly engage in. The vast, comparatively unknown, even called "Great American Desert of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers of the then Far West--Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc. born, raised, and used to hardships and danger, and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent-up natures, imbued with love of daring adventure. Hundreds of men achieved local, and great numbers national fame for the possession of every manly quality that goes to make up the romantic hero of that once dark and bloody ground. When it is brought to mind the work engaged in, the carving out of the advance paths for the more domestically inclined settler, of the dangers and excitements of hunting and trapping, of carrying dispatches, stage driving, freighting cargoes of immense value, guiding successfully the immense wagon trains, gold hunting, it is easy to conceive what a class of sturdy, adventurous young spirits entered the arena to struggle in a daily deadly dangerous game to win the "bubble reputation." When such an army of the best human material battled for supremacy, individual distinction gained by the unwritten law of unprejudiced popular promotion, possessed a value that made its acquirer a "plains celebrity" stamped indelibly with an honored title rarely possessed unless fairly, openly, and justly won--a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor of the friendship, following and admiration of the contestants. Thus Boone, Crockett, Carson, Beal, Fremont, Cody, Bridger, Kinman, Hicock, Cosgrove, Comstock, Frank North, and others, will live in the romance, the poetry, and history of their each distinctive work forever. The same spirit and circumstances have furnished journalists innumerable, who in the West imbibed the sterling qualities they afterward used to such effect. Notably Henry M. Stanley, who (in 1866) saw the rising sun of the young empire that stretches to the Rockies; General Greeley, of Arctic fame (now of signal service), and the equally scientific explorer, Lieut. Schwatka, passed their early career in the same school, and often followed "the trail" led by "BUFFALO BILL"; Finerty (of the "Chicago Times"); "Modoc" Fox, and O'Kelly (of the "New York Herald"), 1876; while last year new blood among the scribbles was initiated to their baptism of fire by Harries (of "Washington Star"), McDonough ("New York World"), Bailey (of "Inter Ocean"), brave young Kelly (of the "Lincoln Journal"), Cressy (of the "Omaha Bee"), Seymour ("Chicago Herald"), and Allen (of the "New York Herald"), present in battle, who were honored by three cheers from "Old White Top" Forsythe, gallant 7th Cavalry, the day after the battle of "Wounded Knee," as they went charging over Wolf Creek to what came near being a crimson day, to the fight "down at the Mission." That there are still "successors to every king" is assured by the manly scouts so prominent in last winter's rehearsal of past (hoped no more future) frontier dramas in such men as FRANK GUARD, now the most celebrated of the present employed army scouts; of "LITTLE BAT," true as steel, and active as the cougar; PHILIP WELLS, LOUIS SHANGRAU, "BIG BAPTISTE," and JOHN SHANGRAU; while the friendly Indians furnish such grand material for any future necessity as "No Neck," Major "SWORD," "RED SHIRT," and "YANKTON CHARLEY."
BILL CODY.--(BY AN OLD COMRADE.)
You bet I know him, partner, he 'aint no circus fraud, He's western born and western bred, if he has been late abroad; I knew him in the days way back, beyond Missouri's flow. When the country round was nothing but a huge Wild Western Show. When the [Injuns?] were as thick as fleas, and the man who ventured through The sand hills of Nebraska had to fight the hostile Sioux: These were hot times, I tell you; and we all remember still The data when Cody was a scout, and all the men knew Bill.
I knew him first in Kansas, in the days of '68. When the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were wiping from the slate Old scored against the settlers, and when men who wore the blue, With shoulder straps and way up rank, were glad to be helped through By a bearer of dispatches, who knew each vale and hill From Dakota down to Texas, and his other name was Bill.
I mind me too of '76, the time when Cody took His scouts upon the Rosebud; along with General Crook; When Custer's Seventh rode to their death for lack of some such aide To tell them that the sneaking Sioux knew how to ambuscade: I saw Bill's fight with "Yellow Hand," you bet it was a "mill," He downed him well at thirty yards, and all the men cheered Bill.
They tell me that the women folk now take his word as laws. In them days laws were mighty [skerce?], and hardly passed with squaws, But many a hardy settler's wife and daughter used to rest More quietly because they knew of Cody's dauntless breast; Because they felt from Laramie way down to Old Fort Sill, Bill Cody was a trusted scout, and all their men knew Bill.
I haven't seen him much of late, how does he bear his years? They say he's making [ducats?] now from shows and not from "steers," He used to be a judge of "horns," when poured in a tin cup, and left the wine to tenderfeet, and men who felt "way up." Perhaps he cracks a bottle now, perhaps he's had his fill. Who cares, Bill Cody was scout, and all the world knows Bill.
To see him In his trimmings, he can't hardly look the same, With laundered shirt and diamonds, as if "he run a game." He didn't wear billed linen then, or flash up diamond rings, The royalties he dreamed of then were only pasteboard kings, But those who sat behind the Queens were apt to get their fill, In the days when Cody was a scout, and all the men knew Bill.
Gridiron Club. WM. E. ANNIN,
Washington, D., C., Feb. 28th, 1831. Lincoln (Neb.) Journal.
Washington, D, C., Feb. 28thm 1831. Lincoln (Neb.) Journal.
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38 GHOST-DANCES IN THE WEST.
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MESSIAH CRAZE AND THE GHOST-DANCE.
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION.-There have often happened, in the history of the human race, incidents that were regarded at the time as most trivial, but have later developed into such important and serious questions as to engage the minds of many learned men in their solution. That there is some special reason for the series of frenzied dances and incantations which have been continued from time to time in remote portions of the Sioux reservations, no one will deny. It is scarcely probable that a people who own horses and cattle would suddenly, without the glightest warning, return almost to a man to the executino of a dance which is so weird and peculiar, so superstitious and spirit-like, as to rival the far-farmed Sun Dance. This special reason is found in the simple truths of Christianity as taught by a missionary in Utah, but which were distorted to conform with Indian mythology. It was when the medicine men and politicians in the nation began to enlarge upon the wrongs suffered at the hands of the whites, the scarcity of food, the presence of the military, that its general aspect was changed from a sacred rite to a warlike demonstration. The Indians located in the Dakotas have been in the habit of visiting the Utes and Arapahoes every summer for the purpose of trading and hunting en route. While the Sioux are unable to converse with these tribes, means of communication is possible through the medium of the sign-language, which is well understood by all the Indians throughout the West. Keeps the Battle (Kicizap Tawa) told me a few days ago that it was during the visit of the Pine Ridge Sioux last July that he first heard of the coming of the new Messiah. He related the following story: "Scarcely had my people reached the Ute village when we heard of a white preacher whom the Utes held in the highest esteem, who told a beautiful dream or vision of the coming of a great and good red man. This strange person was to set aright the wrongs of my people; he could restore to us our game and hunting-grounds, was so powerful that every wish or word he gave utterance to became fulfilled. "His teachings had a strange effect upon the Utes, and, in obedience to the commands of this man, they began a Messiah Dance. My people did not pay much attention to this dance at first, and it was not until we took our departure that the matter began to weigh heavily upon the minds of a number in the party. As we left the Ute camp the minister stood with uplifted hands and invoked the blessing of the Great Spirit upon us. He told us to look for the coming of the Saviour; and assured us that he would soon and unexpectedly arrive. He further cautioned us to be watching and ready to accompany him to
OGALLALLA CHIEFS PINE RIDGE--SIOUX CAMPAIGN, 1891.