The Way West

By mid-October 1868, Gen. Philip Sheridan’s plan for an unconventional winter campaign against the Cheyenne and affiliated tribes was complete.

Sheridan reasoned that a winter attack in Indian Territory would deliver a devastating blow from which the enemy could not recover.

The campaign began Nov. 5, 1868. The main force of Seventh Cavalry, two companies of Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Pepoon’s Scouts and five companies of infantry marched south from Forts Hays and Dodge.

From Topeka, the main body of the Nineteenth Kansas approached the reservation villages from the northeast.

From Fort Bascom, N.M., the Third Cavalry began its march to the east on Nov. 18. The Fifth Cavalry under Maj. Eugene Carr marched from Fort Wallace in western Kansas to Fort Lyon, Colo. From there they were to move southeast toward the North Canadian River.

The plan was that the western columns would force any wayward warriors toward the main column. However, unknown to Carr, Custer’s Seventh Cavalry had already attacked Black Kettle’s camp on the Washita the morning of Nov. 27, four days before Carr led the Fifth Cavalry out of Fort Lyon on Dec. 1, 1868.

Earlier on Nov. 10, Capt. William H. Penrose, in command of elements of the Tenth Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers,” as well as the Third and Fifth Infantry left Fort Lyon before the Fifth Cavalry arrived. Penrose expected to move swiftly, taking supplies on pack mules instead of relying on wagon train support. Charles Autobee was Chief of Scouts over about a half dozen men including Wild Bill Hickok.

Carr and his command rode out of Fort Lyon on Dec. 1, 1868. The first order of business was to join Penrose on Palo Duro Creek and thereafter establish a base camp on the North Canadian River. Buffalo Bill Cody served as Carr’s chief of scouts.

Dec. 1 dawned as beautiful as the finest summer day, making for a pleasant march of about 12 miles. The next two days were just as agreeable.

By the evening of Dec. 3, the command was about 50 miles south of Fort Lyon, camped at the mouth of a deep canyon on Two Butte Creek (northwest of presentday Pritchett, Colo.).

As the men retired for the night “everything appeared to be all happiness and contentment.” But suddenly a cold wind came up and began to howl. Snow filled the air with blinding brutality. Tents blew down. Wagons rocked until they turned over. All the men could do was hunker down and suffer the bitter onslaught.

The storm abated a little before noon the next day. Wind-driven snow left only a few of the tops of the tents visible above the drifts. Most were completely covered. The men under the blown down tents were not so cold but nearly suffocated under the heavy snow. Even the horses could not get free from the drifts that nearly covered them.

Sgt. Luke Cahill recalled, “The confusion was terrible, and no tongue could tell the misery of that command.”

The hard work of digging everything out began soon after the storm passed. The grueling task continued through the night until noon the next day. Four of the guards that had been posted outside of camp were found frozen to death. The cattle herd that was intended to supply fresh beef to the soldiers drifted with the storm and was completely lost. Thirty-six horses and mules were found dead. As the men prepared to continue the march toward the Penrose command, the adjutant named the location of that dreadful camp “Freeze Out Cañon.”

Buffalo Bill was sent ahead with four scouts in search of Penrose. Temperatures fell to a cruel 30 below zero at night. Cody located an old camp left by Penrose along the Cimarron River, but the snow had obliterated the trail. On Dec. 19 Cody found two half-starved Buffalo Soldiers crossing the barren wasteland. From them he learned that the Penrose command had been on quarter rations for two weeks and was nearly out of food.

Two days later, Dec. 21, 1868, Buffalo Bill, guiding two companies of cavalry and a pack train of supplies rode into the pitiful camp of starving soldiers.

Buffalo Bill later wrote,“Almost the first man I saw after reaching the camp was my true and tried friend,‘Wild Bill.’ That night we had a jolly reunion around the campfires.”

In spite of the terrible cold, life was good the day Buffalo Bill Cody rescued Wild Bill Hickok on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.