The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-04
COUNCIL WITH THE CROWS
A Visit En- Route to Fort Smelling, with
Det0ur to Minnehaha.
Fort Custer and Its Garrison in the Heart
OF AbSaraka, or the Land of the
CrOwS-The Indian Question.
Special Correspondence Indianapolis Journal.

roIEI CUSTER July 2S.-In order to reach the
Grow agency it was necessary to return east,
ana go to st. Paul to take the Northern Pacific
railroad to Custer, the station nearest this post
AT St. Paul the committee visited Fort Smelling
the headquarters of Major general Alfred Fl.
Terry, the commander Of the department, with
whom 1t was necessary to confer and make such
arrangements as were required to secure nromnt
and safe transportation over the fifty miles
between the railroad and the agency Fort
Smelling is beautiful for situation, and within
the past four years has been greatly enlarged
and improved. A dozen or more handsome
officers houses and q new headquarters have
been built, several miles Of macadam road made,
and such improvements completed and laid out
as make it among the finest army posts in the
country 1t is connected by telephone with st.
Paul, and as the Office of the quartermaster is in
the city, all business can be as readily
transacted as though the commanding
general were personally there. as is
the desire Of some Of the citizens, involving the
abandonment of the post and the transfer Of
headquarters. This would certainly be a bad
change, from many considerations, not the least
of which would be the abandonment of post
with so long and honorable history as Fort
Smelling The fort was located in 1919, when
all about was bowling wilderness. 1t was
stone fort entirely inclosed with wall. Two
of the main towers and portion of the wall
remain, venerable with age and eloquent with
the silence of remote past, when it acted as a
protection totraders against the hostile Indians.
The tower at Newport, celebrated in song and
story, is not so gray and venerable looking pile
as that which marks the entrance to the present
fort, and which is still in use as guard house
and garrison.
The day at Fort Smelling was full Of
interest and enjoyment. General Terry
telegraphed to General Dudley, in COM
mand at Fort Custer, for the needed
transportation and escort, and then devoted
himself, with courteous hospitality, to his SEN
atoral visitsrs. The committee was received
with a salute Of seventeen guns, and, after
luncheon at his house, where he lives
with his two accomplished sisters, a drive
was taken to Mnnehaha. Laughing
Water is worthy of its name. and is fairly
entitled to the romance that envelopes It
by Of Longfellows poem. There are
greater fails higher plunges, and heavier vol
ume Of water but the Lauterbrunnen is not
moro picturesque nor the Jungfrau more beau
tiful There is just water enough to break
into delicate veil of pearls as it falls over the
shelving rock, singing its love song in a musical
murmur as the ripping waves wind through the
lovely gorge In and for itself, Minnehaha is
well worth visit; but it will be forever senti-
mental Mecca for all who acknowledge the
charm and power of poetic genius.
On Thursday afternoon we left St Paul en-
pO,Ifa 70 inf
Gil Pierce joined the party, greeting us with a
hearty Hooser welcome, and adding his en-
thusiastic testimony to the greatness and glory
of Dakota. 'Gip has made fine Governor,
fully sustaining the character of Indiana. There
is a good deal of irritation in the southern half
of the Territory over his veto of the capital
removal bill, but that feeling naturally is not
shared by the people living north of the 10th
parallel. Of course he is offensive partisan"
aud will soon have to go; but he tells us that he
intends to make Dakota his future home that
he should feel stifed were he to return to the
States. There is largeness about things
out here, the force and attraction of which can
be easily understood by those who travel
through it even at railroad speed. Custer was
reached in due time, and on Saturday morning
at o'clock, leaving the cars, we rode down the
valley Of the Big Horn river to the post named
in honor of General Custer located the year fol-
lowing the massacre in which he with his entire
command lost their lives. / write with the Big
Horn and the Little Big Horn rivers in sight,
the horizon fringed with the outlines of the
TUX Fork and Big Horn mountains, at our feet
a stretch of valley five miles wide and thirty in
length, as rich and fertile possibilities could
be conceived, and almost within view of the field
on which Custer met his death. Five companies
of the First Cavalry and four of the Fifth Infan-
try stationed here with a corps of officers,
IA If no ht,1l uI%o1
kindness and attention make this wilderness to
blossom as the rose Life in frontier garrison,
even when relieved from the constant pressure
and anxiety of Indian outbreaks, is by means
an dyc romance. The climate of this country
has been graphically described as EIGHT months
winter and four months late in the fall" Forty
degrees below zero is not unusual
experience in winter. The only crop that is
absolutely certain is the ice crop. And yet.
under the effects Of summer sky and a bracing
atmosphere, and in the company OF men whose
very isolation has made them adopts in the art
of entertaining, the tenderfoot would feel no
Encouragement were he ordered to spend at
least the fall months here. There is Wilderness
in the sweep Of things, balsamic IMMIGRATION
in the air, a lightness and general tendency to
eXuberance IN all the surroundings that tinga
the hardshps Of a garrsons life with no incon'
siderable attractveness. The adjutant of the
FIRST Cavalry, the post adjutant, Is Lieu tenant
Pitcher, an lndianian the son of General
Thomas g. Pitcher, worthy son of worthy
sire Ii IS pleasing to Hoosler to near the
encomiuma passed upon this young officer by his
associates and by his commander Another
officer of the post is Lieutenant Borden, son OF
the late Judge Borden, of Fort Wayne, who is
accompanied by his wife A number of officers
wives lend their charms to the post There
may have been some good reason for the
location of this post in 1917. when General Buell.
planted it, but now it would seem the part Of .
wisdom for the government to abandon it, and
establish it on the line of the railroad at
Custer station The freightage on stores
for the post from the railroad here
amounts to over one hundred thousand dollars
year. Less than this amount. saved in two
years, would duplicate all tho post buildings
and property, while the advantage to the service
of having the post on the railway is apparent
AT any time by reason of food and wind, the