Arizona weekly miner., 1876-07-28
CEN. CROOK AND THE ROSEBUD FIGHT.

l IHc NtN lOIh hci dlu O1 0 aiS oti hn' |"
 graphic description of General Crooks fight
 with the Sioux, on the head of Rosebud
 Creek, June 17th, written by special cor
 respondent sent to report the movements of
 the expedition. The report itself seems to | be fair on its face. but when read m con- nect:on with the illnatured comments of the Editor, it is evident that 1t was written with
 a view to afford the latter text from which
 to draw deductions unfavorable to General ! Crooks skill and management in fighting | Indians. The fact that Crook was surprised
 and forced ints the fight before he was
 ready is regarded by the editor of the Her.
 aid as positive evidence of incompetency.
 Why" he asks, "did he trust to the scout
 ing of the Crows7 Why did he not send
 out other scouts and not let one know what
 the others reported, and thus test the cor
 rectness of the information!n These are
 questions very easily asked by an Editor in
 his easy chair in New York City, but it will
 be observed that the correspondent, who
 was on the ground, and in the thickest of the fight, dare not even feign sufficient
 ignorance of Indian warfare as to venture any
 such quesestions It is left for the theo-
 retical warrior, in the city, to suppose that
 rowing band of sayages have fixed habita-
 tions and cities with granite blocks and
 brown stone fronts, so that when their loca- | ton is once discovered, all the invading
 army has to do is to set down before it, as
 Grant did before Richmond, and prepare to
 fight them in their stronghold. The cores
 pendent knew, as every frontiersman knows,
 that though the largest city in the Sioux
 nation may be located on the Yellow Stone to-day, the same city with all its inhabi- tants may be on the Big Horn, Little Horn, Rosebud or Tongue River tomorrow, and that however careful a commander may be, and however vigilant his scouts, he has no assurance when he goes into camp at night, in an Indian country, with the enemy fifty miles in his front, that he will not be in sight of his fires in the morning. or that he will not be hundred miles away.
 The Herald thinks that If Crook remains in tine Indian service, it should be in sub- ordinate position;'' meaning of course, that he is unfit to conduct a campaign. Now the Herald is power in the land, and wields an influence perhaps second to no other in the United States; its utterances reach the eyes and ears of millions of peo- pie, who are more or less impressed with the truth of what it asserts; and in this way it has the power of casting shadow over the hard-earned reputation of a man who has spent the major part of a lifetime in conquering the savages and adding to the domain of civilization these Western wilds, that but for his prowess would still remain the dark and bloody ground of savage war fare. We have no hope of counteracting this evil influence by any means at our con- mand, but we can enter protest, feeble thought be, against what we know to be false accusation, and confidently appeal to thousands on the frontier, whose opportuni- ties and manner of life give their judgment a thousand-fold more weight in matters per taining to Indian warfare than that of the Editor of the Herald, to sustain us in the assertion that no commander, of this | our day and time, understands so we'll 1 or has been so successful in making | war upon the Indians as General George | Crook. The fact that he was promoted | from Lieut. Colonel to Brigadier General. | over score of others of superior rank, | while it affords proof of his capacity as an Indian fighter, may also discover the key to this attack upon his reputation by those whose friends may have been left behind in the race for promotion.