Indians, Infants and Infidels: Soldiers and Sioux, Maidens and Muslims

By Hawk Kiefer

This is the story of the Walker family. Led by the likes of Douglas MacArthur and Blackjack Pershing, the Walker men fight the Sioux, the Moros, the Japanese, and Muslim terrorists. The Walker women are attacked by Indians, an influenza epidemic, loneliness and the Depression. Their friends are the Crow Indians and the Buffalo Soldiers. From the Bozeman Trail to Mogadishue, their lives helped shape America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462800261

Hawk Kiefer

Colonel KIEFER commanded a battalion in Vietnam and wears the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart, among other decorations. A senior parachutist, he served in both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. In retirement he has written about the American Indian Wars, the Philippine Insurrection, both World Wars, Vietnam, and the Middle East. A fourth generation soldier, he is in demand as a speaker because of his knowledge of Middle East history, familiarity with the Arab World and encounter with Mohammed bin Laden among the Nomads high in the desert mountains above Mecca.

Book preview

Copyright © 2008 by Hawk Kiefer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

48135

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

CHAPTER SEVENTY

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

CHAPTER EIGHTY

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

CHAPTER NINETY

CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My great-grandfather was a banker in Cincinatti when President Lincoln first called for volunteers. He answered that call by enlisting in the Ohio Guthrerie Grays. In the Civil War he was wounded, decorated, commissioned and finally made aide-de-camp to General (soon to be President) Garfield. He stayed in the army until 1903, fighting the Sioux on the Bozeman Trail and at the Rosebud. In command at Fort Laramie, he entertained Mark Twain. He led Buffalo Soldiers in the Philippine Insurrection. As he retired he co-signed a letter to President Roosevelt recommending that because Captain Black Jack Pershing was so outstanding he should be promoted ahead of other officers. His son graduated from West Point in 1896 and served in the Philippines and China, eventually retiring in 1937. My father served in the First World War, the Second World War and Korea. I commanded a battalion in Vietnam, and my son served three tours in Iraq. Our collective stories, redone as fiction, helped shape this book.

CHAPTER ONE

War party, the scouts shouted as they fired warning shots from their lookout posts and rode frantically to join the nineteen soldiers gathering hay in the heat of the Dakota August sun. Indians on horseback were not far behind. Hearing the warning, the men took cover under the hay wagons.

Now its starts, Joseph thought, as a group of twenty braves charged to within fifty yards of the soldiers, easy range for army carbines.

Fire! shouted the lieutenant. One round.

Coming at exactly the right moment, the resulting volley did heavy damage to the Indians, and they staggered aside to reveal in their dust a larger body of Sioux galloping at full speed toward the wagons, hoping to overrun the soldiers before they could reload.

Open up, Joseph yelled, and the nineteen soldiers and nine scouts began a steady withering fusillade of accurate fire, a combination that the Indians had never experienced. Quickly, the amazed and confused Sioux pulled back, taking their wounded with them to regroup in sheltering woods out of sight and range.

What will they do now? the lieutenant asked Joseph.

They’ll attack again, very soon.

Sure enough, after a quiet quarter-hour that barely allowed the dust to settle, a mass of one hundred Indians emerged from the woods a half mile to the soldiers’ east, away from the direction of Fort Smith, and formed a line of assault.

Hold your fire, Joseph said quietly, until my command.

The Sioux battle line slowly began an advance that gradually became a charge. As the howling Indians approached to within five hundred yards, Joseph gave that command:

Continuous fire.

The little group of soldiers and scouts responded with a barrage of accurate rounds that took an immediate and heavy toll of the charging braves. The warriors pressed their assault, however, and formed a ring around the three hay wagons. As they circled, they bent to the protected sides of their mounts, away from the soldiers, and launched arrows and musket rounds at the whites from under the horses. The acrid smell of gunfire mixed with clouds of dust raised by frantic Indian mounts to envelope the battlefield and hide what the Sioux were going to do next. To the soldiers, choking on the dust and firing at vague shapes in the haze, the issue seemed in doubt, and at any moment Joseph expected to see a mounted warrior emerge from the dust and jump his horse over a wagon into the soldiers.

As suddenly as it had begun, however, the charge was over. The Indians wheeled away to disappear into the protecting woods. As the dust settled and the quiet descended on the hayfield once more, the little band of soldiers reached in relief for their canteens to drink. Then they began to clean their weapons.

Stay down, Joseph shouted. It’s not over yet.

What’s happening over there? the lieutenant asked, gesturing at the woods.

Crazy Horse and his chiefs are trying to figure out what’s going on that’s so different this time.

What do you mean ‘this time’?

CHAPTER TWO

The previous December, just seven months before, on the Bozeman Trail near Fort Kearny, Crazy Horse had used the same tactics against a force three times the size of Joseph’s little group. On that occasion the Indians overran that command, under Captain Fetterman, in just a few minutes, killing all eighty of the soldiers. And Fetterman was leading men who were looking for a fight. Today Joseph had with him supposedly just a small hay-gathering detachment, and Crazy Horse had not been able to overrun those few men in almost an hour. What was so different?

Captain William J.Fetterman had died on a dreary, cold day when the Sioux were especially aggressive against soldiers outside the walls foraging for wood and hay. Fetterman, a Civil War hero just recently arrived and supremely confident, sought and received permission to disperse the hostiles. The ambitious captain loudly shouted that with eighty men, he could wipe out all the Plains Indians. In a strange coincidence, two civilians volunteered to join, bringing his force to exactly eighty. As Fetterman departed his veteran commander directed him to remain within sight and support of the guns at the fort, a prudent order that the brash young cavalryman promptly disobeyed.

Taunted by daring and impudent Indian braves, Fetterman and his men pursued the savages over the hills to the northwest of Fort Kearny and disappeared. When his force was beyond the range of its supporting artillery, more than a thousand savages suddenly charged out of the ravines and trees around them. There was much evidence that the soldiers had fought desperately before they were overrun. All were killed, however, many of them suffering multiple wounds. A few that had been wounded were tortured to death. Subsequent examination revealed that the confident Captain Fetterman and his fellow officers had saved their last bullets for themselves. Some of the others had not been as fortunate. They had been alive when they were hacked to pieces.

When sounds of battle were heard at the fort and none of Fetterman’s force returned, Joseph, who was at Kearny gathering supplies for Fort Smith, requested permission to lead a relief column. He was the first to reach the ambush site. There, he found dead soldiers stripped of their clothing and horribly mutilated. One of the last two civilian volunteers had been armed with a repeating Henry rifle, however, and bloodstains in front of his position revealed the carnage he had wrecked on the Indians before he died. The savages punished him by firing more than thirty arrows into his body. Joseph’s report noted that if all Fetterman’s men had been armed with such repeating weapons, the outcome of the battle might have been different. The clumsy, muzzle-loading rifles of the soldiers gave the Sioux the opportunity to overrun them. In any case, it had been a dramatic victory for the Indians.

Joseph’s wife, Ida, was aghast at the lurid and sensational stories of mutilations and torture of living captives.

Why do the Indians do such terrible things? she asked.

They want the newspaper reporters back east to headline the violence, Joseph said. The savages know that they cannot hope to defeat our army in battle, so they do such things in hopes that our papers will publish horrifying reports of atrocities. The Indians seek to spread fear and dissuade people from coming west.

But to torture and cut off the limbs of live soldiers? What kind of behavior is that? Are there no rules, no limits?

For them, none. They are savages.

Some in the press call them noble.

When reporters say such things, they are working against us, he said. People who have never been out west print such stories in the hope of gaining gullible readers and selling more papers. It makes no difference that most of those writers have never been attacked by a war party, never spoken to women who have been captured by warriors and repeatedly raped. They have a bias against the military and thus condemn me and my men for trying to protect those women.

CHAPTER THREE

In the 1867 dust of a Dakota August hay field, Chief Red Cloud wanted to repeat Crazy Horses’ triumph against Fetterman, but Joseph had a surprise for the Indians. This time he meant the result to be different.

Will they attack again? the lieutenant asked.

Yes, but first they’ll try to find out how we keep firing without pausing to reload. I’d guess there are braves working their way in the grass toward us on their bellies right now, to get close enough to see how we do it.

One of the civilian scouts stood up to verify that.

Get down, Joseph barked at the man.

I know how to fight savages, the scout growled.

As he turned to face the woods and gesture defiantly, a shot rang out from the direction of the woods, and the man fell to the ground with a small hole in his forehead and the back of his head blown off.

Stay under the wagons, Joseph commanded. If you think you see a target in the grass, go ahead and shoot at it. We’ve got plenty of ammunition. But fire low, skim the ground. When they form up for the next charge, I am going to give the command to commence fire at a thousand yards. You’ll have many targets, for Crazy Horse will use all of his braves this time. We want to engage them as soon as we can. Let’s do some damage while they think they’re out of range and break up their battle line before they can form and overrun us with sheer numbers.

Sure enough, a large force of Indians soon began to emerge from the woods. They were almost a thousand yards away, far beyond the range at which soldiers had ever fired before. Thinking they were safe, the braves moved casually and carelessly.

Go ahead, Joseph said. Pick out a specific target and fire at the center of his body. Squeeze off your shots slowly. Commence fire.

At the first shots, several braves fell from their mounts. Confusion among the amazed Indians about where the long distance shots had come from caused their battle line to form clumsily. The subsequent charge lacked punch, and the soldiers easily beat it off. Soon the field was quiet once again.

How long can we stay here? a sergeant asked.

Why isn’t a relief column coming from the fort? another called.

I told the relief platoon to hold off until late afternoon, Joseph answered. I want to do as much damage to this war party as we can. That way, when this battle is over, they’ll let us alone for a couple of months while they go back to their villages, lick their wounds and powwow about what happened here.

Late afternoon’s a long ways away, a scout said.

We’ve got plenty of water and ammunition, Joseph said. If you keep your head down, you’ll be safe.

All that August the Cheyenne and Sioux under the leadership of war chief Crazy Horse had been in the field around newly built Fort Smith. The war parties had been sent by Red Cloud to prevent the White Men from using the Bozeman Trail through territory considered sacred by the Sioux. Red Cloud wanted the braves to attack the new fort and burn it to the ground. To prevent that, Joseph had set up this ambush with new, repeating rifles. The soldiers would defend from under the wagons, and the ammunition boxes would protect their flanks. They were on a knoll and had good fields of fire. Sure enough Crazy Horse had attacked, and the plan had worked well, so far.

The field was quiet for an hour, unnervingly so.

Work your way over to the woods, Joseph finally told one of the scouts. Let’s see what’s going on. Maybe they’ve given up. We’ll cover you.

A half hour later, the man was back.

No Indians any place near, he reported.

Load up, Joseph commanded. It’s over.

CHAPTER FOUR

Joseph had a special reason to want to punish the Sioux. Two months ago the Indians had almost killed Ida. She had insisted on accompanying Joseph as he went out the Bozeman to build Fort Smith, but she had become pregnant, and as her time approached, Joseph had to take her back to Fort Laramie to reach a doctor. In June, when it became clear that he could delay no longer, Joseph set up a convoy. It was a dangerous journey, because the Sioux would attack any traveler that looked weak

The first ninety-mile stretch of the Bozeman Trail south to Fort Phil Kearny was the most dangerous. A lone horseman could cover that distance in less than two days, but Joseph’s mule-drawn wagons transporting a very-pregnant Ida, would need to proceed more slowly. With Ida’s safety as his chief concern, Joseph therefore assigned four supply wagons and forty men to the mission. Fort Smith marked the beginning of friendly Crow territory farther to the west, so as Joseph’s party left the fort to the east, it did not fear immediate Sioux attack. Indeed, the initial part of the trail south lay mostly through pleasant, gently rolling grassland, and the fresh scent of newly blooming wildflowers made for a peaceful scene. Although hostile Indian scouts were clearly evident, the readiness of the soldiers in the wagons must have deterred the savages, for nothing but a few brief skirmishes ensued until they reached the Tongue River.

Half way to Fort Kearny, in the very heart of hostile territory at the base of the Big Horn Mountains, the Tongue’s ford provided fresh water and a shallow crossing, but it also offered easy concealment in the nearby hills and trees along the river. It was thus a favorite Sioux ambush site. Before dusk on the second day, therefore, Joseph squared the four wagons near the stream. Selecting a spot with good fields of fire, he watered and fed the animals early and then tethered them within the quadrangle. Placing ten soldiers with each wagon, he ordered that half were to remain on alert at all times.

At 3 a.m., the neighs, whinnies, and shuffling of their restless mules gave the soldiers ample early warning of nearby Indians. Shortly thereafter, when shouting braves swarmed at the detachment from all sides, the men were ready, and their response severely wounded several attackers. The fight was quickly over, but Joseph had little time to assess damage and congratulate himself, for as he turned from his survey of the battle scene in the moonlight, to his horror he saw a Sioux warrior on Ida’s wagon with his tomahawk raised over her supine body. Joseph barely had time to raise his pistol and fire, but Ida was safe.

The Indians must have been badly punished and realized that this particular convoy was ready to fight, for they did not attack again. Shortly after Joseph’s small force arrived safely at Fort Kearny, moreover, he and Ida joined another wagon train on its way to Fort Laramie, farther south and east. Ida’s narrow escape had aroused Joseph, however, and his anger increased when she had a difficult time with the birth a month later. She suffered, and the doctor told Joseph that her near death experience at the ford might have had something to do with the fact that she could have no more children. Joseph was irate and sought revenge.

His search was rewarded. At Fort Laramie, he learned that the garrison had received new Springfield carbines to replace the clumsy muzzle-loading weapons soldiers had been using. A quick soldier could reload a muzzle loader in about ten seconds, but he had to kneel to do so, making himself an easy target. A common practice of the Sioux was to draw fire by feinting with a small force and then attacking with their main body as the soldiers reloaded. Many a good man had died that way. In the Civil War, however, the Army had developed breech-loading, rapid-fire carbines, and by 1866 large quantities of these weapons were coming west. Now, Joseph had plans for them.

First he smuggled the carbines to Fort Smith by concealing them in bales of hay and other supplies. Then he set today’s trap, and a thousand Cheyenne and Sioux under Crazy Horse had fallen for it. Joseph had formed his special hay-gathering detachment, joining it himself to reassure the nervous soldiers, who would be using their new weapons for the first time. Although he was the commander of the fort, he had disguised himself as a private so as to accompany the men to the hayfield. The men laughed when they saw him, but they welcomed him. A few civilian scouts usually accompanied such a mission, so as to provide warnings for the soldiers. After they learned that Joseph would be in the force, however, nine of the scouts signed on to see if their colonel could carry out this novel idea. If he was going to risk his life, they could afford to risk theirs in order to learn a new way to fight the Indians they hated.

The men were concerned, however, because they could not test their new weapons in battle without tipping off the Sioux. That worried them. Would the weapons work? More to the point, would the new metallic, center-fire cartridge, really fire? And how accurate were the carbines? The army claimed precision out to one thousand yards, but the Fort Smith soldiers had never tested that claim.

Don’t worry, Joseph told them, you can reload rapidly. You’ll surprise the savages and do great damage. I’ll be with you.

CHAPTER FIVE

Attacks along the Bozeman decreased sharply in the next few months, as Crazy Horse and Red Cloud pondered the future. In the lull, Joseph completed Fort Smith, stocked it well, and sent for Ida and the son they called Junior.

Their presence both pleased and worried Joseph. He loved playing with the little boy, but Fort Smith was a dangerous and isolated place, and Joseph frequently wondered why the soldiers were there at all. He knew the history. Back in 1862, out near Virginia City in what would become southwest Montana, prospectors had found vast quantities of gold. Immediately, miners, dance hall queens, drifters, and those who prey upon them flocked to those new gold fields. In doing so, they could take the route Lewis and Clark took up the Missouri River to Fort Benton and then south over a relatively easy trail. But this was a slow and costly journey. On the other hand, they could take the difficult Oregon Trail west to Utah and then cut north on a spur that was lengthy and arduous. The winter after the discovery of gold, however, John Bozeman found a way to save the more adventurous over two hundred miles. He went north from the Oregon Trail near Fort Laramie and then to the east of the Big Horn Mountains. From there, he proceeded along the Yellowstone River, and finally through Clark’s Pass. In doing so, however, he passed directly through the heart of sacred Indian lands that the United States had promised would not be violated. The Sioux had warned many times that they would resist incursions. Ignoring that, large numbers of eager gold seekers chose John Bozeman’s new trail, and when the Sioux and Cheyenne saw these latest invaders, they took to the warpath.

Under frequent attack, the frightened wayfarers who survived petitioned Washington for protection, and so Fort Leavenworth had ordered Joseph and his regiment to build Forts Kearny and Smith on the Bozeman. The purpose of the forts was to police the Sioux and safeguard citizens.

Just six years before that, Joseph had been a banker in Cincinnati. When President Lincoln issued his call for volunteers, however, Joseph had enlisted. In quick order, he had been wounded, decorated for bravery, and given a battlefield commission. By the end of the war he was a brevetted captain. He has seen the elephant, however, and could not return to banking. The army would be his life.

His wound was severe, and he would limp for the rest of his days, but his childhood sweetheart, Ida, nursed him through that difficult and painful time, vowing she would not permit him to leave her again. By the spring of 1865, he was sufficiently mended to resume normal activities. Shortly thereafter, their relationship having been strengthened by his ordeal, the lovers married.

He kept the tintype with him: he seated and she standing at his left with her right hand resting lightly on his shoulder as if her role was to restrain him. With a firm jaw, piercing gaze, and aquiline nose, he wears a high collar and a string tie. His dark hair is neatly parted on the right, and his full mustache curves on either side of his thin lips. His stern countenance radiates aggressive confidence, and he looks like a leader men will follow. She wears her black hair in a bun on the top of her head, and her prim, white, full-length dress has long sleeves with lace at the neck and wrists. As beautiful as she is, she seems too fragile for the dangerous life she is about to undertake, but her dark eyes glow with love and hint at the tenacity of a tiger.

The summer after they wed, she accompanied Joseph as he marched his company west from Fort Leavenworth on the Oregon Trail to Fort Laramie. The march took all summer, for the men could only cover about eighteen miles a day, with a rest on Sunday. Ida rode the supply wagon. It was not a glamorous way to start married life, but she was strong, newly married, and with her husband.

Now Joseph had increased responsibilities: a child, a fort, and protection of American citizens traveling the Bozeman Trail. Late at night, he sometimes questioned the sanity of it all. The Sioux would be back in force in the spring. How would it end?

The answer came with surprising speed.

In early 1868, Congress sent a Peace Commission to Fort Laramie. General Sherman, the man who had carried out a scorched earth policy against the Confederates in the Civil War, negotiated with the Sioux. Change was on the way. At first, the treaty drafts made no mention of the Bozeman forts, and Red Cloud would not agree. To satisfy the chief, Sherman modified the treaty, and in November word of the result reached Fort Smith:

Red Cloud had signed.

A large Sioux reservation was to be established along the Bozeman, and whites would not enter those Indian lands without permission. In return, the Indians would not oppose the railroads opening the West. What was more astounding to Joseph, Fort Smith would be abandoned.

What did we fight for? he asked Ida. "What about the men who died here? Are we to give up everything? Why did we come? The