The Way West

Maj. Eugene Carr closely followed events related to the Cheyenne Dog Soldier raids of May 30 to June 2, 1869, through north-central Kansas.

Carr’s 5th Cavalry had encountered the same warriors on May 13 and again on May 16 along the Nebraska border as Carr was shifting operations from Kansas to Nebraska.

Instead of moving away from the northbound troopers, the warriors went in the opposite direction back into Kansas. Several settlers were killed. Susannah Alderdice lost three young sons before being taken captive with her infant daughter Alice. Newlywed Maria Weichel was also taken captive after her husband and a friend were killed in a running fight.

Carr left Fort McPherson, Neb., on June 9, 1869, hoping to find the principal village from which the warriors were mounting their raids.

Carr’s force consisted of eight companies of the 5th U.S. Cavalry and four companies of Maj. Frank North’s Pawnee Scouts. Buffalo Bill Cody was Chief of Scouts.

They planned to pick up a trail to the main village. Lt. Edward Law was in the field out of Fort Harker with Company G, 7th Cavalry. Law was unable to find the village as the continual series of attacks kept him busy.

In the meantime, Tom Alderdice, Susannah’s husband and a former Forsyth Scout, had tracked the raiders to the very village Carr and Law were seeking.

At Fort Hays, 53 Cheyenne women and children and the chief known as Fat Bear were released from their stockade prison on June 13, 1869. They had been captured and held for ransom, hoping their captivity would force peace upon the Cheyennes.

At Camp Supply, Indian Territory, husbands and fathers swore they wanted peace if only their families were returned. In spite of the recent raids in northcentral Kansas the army believed them.

The stockade captives, escorted by Company D, 7th Cavalry, arrived at Camp Supply a little over a week later. Whether it was the release of the captives or the insurgence of Carr’s troops into their traditional stronghold, attacks in the north-central Kansas settlements ended at about the same time.

Meanwhile far to the north, the 5th Cavalry returned to the site of their May 13th fight with Tall Bull and his Dog Soldier warriors. Finding a trail proved to be difficult. Rather than traveling in groups the warriors had learned to spread out leaving no specific line of travel that could be identified in the lush buffalo grass.

At Spring Creek near the Nebraska border the column turned downstream. The soldiers went into camp early in the afternoon of June 15.

A small band of young Cheyennes had been watching Carr’s movements from the cover of heavy brush along the creek. When the soldiers’ horses were turned out to rest and graze, the young men, mounted on their fleet Indian ponies, charged into the herd.

In spite of the surprise, the attempt to stampede the horses failed. Maj. North and his Pawnee Scouts with Maj. William B. Royall, in command of three companies of cavalry, chased them for 12 miles until darkness forced the soldiers to return to camp. The next day Carr, with five day’s rations, left the support of his supply wagon train, traveling southeast toward the North Fork of the Solomon River.

Back in the settlements along the Saline River, Tom Alderdice reported that he had found the great Dog Soldier village on the North Fork of the Solomon River. At Fort Harker the commanding officer refused to take to the field, having no troops available for such an operation.

Alerdice traveled east to Fort Leavenworth to plead with Gen. John Schofield. Upon his arrival at the post Alderdice found that Lt. Col. George A. Custer was there resting from the long Washita Winter Campaign. Alderdice sought out Custer, hoping he would take to the field to find Susannah and his daughter, Alice. He was unaware that Alice had been killed.

The famous “Boy General” listened to Alderdice but the Winter Campaign had extracted a heavy toll on his cavalry horses, his troops were incapable of participating in an extended campaign. Besides, the horse racing schedule at Leavenworth’s National Horse Fair was just at hand. A meeting with Gen. Schofield a couple of days later brought similar results, although Schofield had already ordered Company K, 7th Cavalry to move toward Fort Harker.

Alderdice was informed that Maj. Carr was scouring the country close to the village and would doubtless soon find it. Information about the location of the village and a description of Susannah was telegraphed to the Department of the Platte and immediately sent to Carr by courier.

On the Republican River Carr finally found a trail of lodgepoles. The day of reckoning was fast approaching for Tall Bull and his Dog Soldiers as the search for Susannah advanced to an inevitable conclusion 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.