The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-06-15
(Rv EINO)

When Captain Grant Marsh, az
ter several years as a st. LOuiS-FOrt
Benton pilot on the Missouri river,
moved to Yankton, S. D., and entered
the government service with the COul-
son Packet company, he entered up
on a career packed with danger and
adventure, climaxed by his sad trip
from the Little Big Horn to Bismarck
and Fort Lincoln with the news of
the Custer massacre in 1876.
Beginning his Yellowstone service in
1873. Captain Marsh's first work was
to chart the Yellowstone that year to
the mouth of the Powder to determine
the feasibility of using boats to trans
port supplies for the military escort to
be sent with Northern Pacific surveying
crews. The following year he made
another trip up the river to a point As
miles above Pompey's Pillar, proving
navigation feasible only to the mouth of
the Big Horn. He also steamed up the
Big Horn IL miles and thought he had
reached the head of navigation in that
stream, but the next year he was to
60 to the mouth Of the Little Big Horn
under spectacular and tragic circum-
stances.
His navigation notes which, under
commercial conditions. would have been
of much profit to him in the sale OF
copies to other pilots. became the prop
erty Of the government and served as a
guide to all boats which later went on
the Yellowstone.
After routine service on the Yellow
stone with the troops. Captain Marsh's
big moments came when General Gus
Tow o,l L;e froorc cfa rtaI IN their ILL
fated expedition up the Big Horn.
His boat, the Far West. had been n
gagged in moving troops and supplies up
the Yellowstone for the campaign
which everyone felt was to be a decisive
factor in subduing the Indians. The
boat was also used at the various ports
as headquarters, and at the mouth OF
the Rosebud the commanding officers
in the field held conferences in the Far
Vests cabin and issued the orders
which sent General Custer and his
troops on their last march. Custer and
his command left the Rosebud, June
%. 1876.
Immediately after the column had
started letters written by the troops
that morning were gathered by Captain
Marsh and placed in a mail sack for
dispatch by skiff to Fort Buford. Ser
geant Fox and two privates were de-
tailed for the journey. They started
amid the goodbyes of those on the boat.
They were unfamiliar with the naviga-
ton of a small boat, and before they
had gone so feet the skiff overturned
in the swirling current, in full view of
their comrades. All three sank and
drowned. The mail sack went to the
bottom of the river. After long and
persistent effort the mail sack was re-
covered, though Captain Marsh had
been urged to give up the search as a
hopeless task. He persisted because he
said he felt those letters would be the
last some of Clusters men would ever
write to loved ones. Just how prophetic
was his feeling he could not at the
time realize.
The contents of the mail sack were
dried. Not a letter was missing. The
mail was again dispatched in charge of
a more experienced party, and it got
through to Fort Buford, carrying the
last messages from the men of the ILL
fated command.
Next day the Far West went to the
mouth of the Big Horn and ferried
troops across the Yellowstone. On
June Is, under orders from General
Terry, the boat proceeded up the Big
Horn to take supplies as close as pos
sible to the troops. It vas a difficult
voyage, and the lines and spars were
called into service many times. At the
mouth of the Little Big Horn, after q
difference of opinion between Captain
Marsh and Captain Baker, in charge
of the troops on board, as to whether
the stream wa or was not the Little
Big Horn, the boat sailed some is
miles above the Little Big Horn, when
Captain Marsh took matters in his
own hands and returned to the smaller
stream. Here the boat tied up at an
island opposite the mouth of the Little
Big Horn. Sioux signal fires appeared
over the country and those on the boat
were ~apprehensive of the safety of their
position. Dense willow thickets lined
the banks of the stream and the men
specialized on the possibility of a Sioux
attack from the thick brush.
Some of the men were fishing and
others were engaged about the boat,
all on edge because Of their dangerous