Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West. Michael Punke
FOUND GRINNELL ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE arrival of the Marsh expedition at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, sixteen miles east from the confluence of the north and south forks of the Platte. Professor Marsh, through a personal relationship with General Philip H. Sheridan, had arranged for close cooperation on the part of the U.S. Army. The expedition visited the fort to rendezvous with its cavalry accompaniment before heading into the field.
On the day the Marsh expedition arrived at the outpost, a dozen Sioux Indians attacked a party of antelope hunters near the fort. One young Sioux warrior galloped up close before loosing an arrow, striking one of the hunters in the arm. The hunter in turn shot the Sioux, though the wounded Indian managed to ride off. Back at Fort McPherson, a troop of cavalry was dispatched to give chase. The soldiers took with them the post scout, William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill. The troops failed to find the attackers with the exception of the boy who had been shot. He was found dead, wrapped in a buffalo robe on the top of a hill. Cody carried back the boy’s moccasins and a few trinkets taken from the body. Grinnell remembered how “the newcomers from New Haven stared in wonder.”22
Buffalo Bill himself, whom a breathless Grinnell described in his journal as “the most celebrated prairie man alive,” led the Marsh expedition on its first day out of the fort. Professor Marsh had selected as their destination the Loup River, a desolate region of low, sandy hills in the heart of Sioux territory. The cavalrymen protecting the expedition were commanded by Major Frank North, an officer with a national reputation as a famous Indian fighter. Two Pawnee—bitter enemies of the Sioux and the Cheyenne—scouted ahead of the column, sometimes crawling on their bellies through the grass to peer over hilltops before advancing. Grinnell and the other civilians rode on Indian ponies, captured from the Cheyenne at the Battle of Summit Springs. Six army wagons brought up the rear with food, ammunition, and tents.23
On their first night in the field, Professor Marsh delivered a campfire talk to an assembly that included Cody and most of the cavalrymen. For his topic, Marsh selected … geology. The lecture, like the broader purpose of the Marsh expedition, “greatly puzzled our military companions of the rank and file.” Nevertheless, Marsh attempted to enlighten them with explanations of various rock formations, how they had come to be formed, and the discoveries of ancient beasts that he hoped lay ahead. Buffalo Bill, though described by Grinnell as an “interested auditor,” remained among the skeptics, remarking afterward that “the professor told the boys some mighty tough yarns today.”24
After two or three days of hot, waterless marches, Grinnell concluded that he and his companions “had seen quite enough of Nebraska.” Certainly they understood why the literature of the time referred to the plains as the Great American Desert. On one stop, they measured the temperature at 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. What little surface water they found was impregnated with alkali, so that even the animals could not drink it. To obtain potable water, they had to dig in the bed of dry lakes.25
Conditions improved somewhat when they hit the Loup River, where water was available and game was more plentiful. Members of the expedition saw their first elk, and each day Major North allowed one of the young explorers to accompany him and to shoot at antelope. No member of the Marsh expedition managed to bring down a pronghorn, the fastest land animal in North America. Major North and the Pawnee scouts, fortunately, had better luck, and the party was well fed.26 The presence of water, as Grinnell noted in his journal, did come with its own set of problems. “I was delighted by discovering what I supposed was a new species of heron,” he cracked, “but upon examination I found it was only one of the mosquitoes of the country.27
Grinnell and his companions improved their firearms proficiency as their voyage continued. Rattlesnakes provided frequent targets, “for the country swarmed with the reptiles.” The snakes bit three of their horses. “Their humming soon became an old tune; and the charm of shooting the wretches wore away for all but one, who was collecting their rattles as a necklace for his lady-love.”28
At the Loup, the expedition finally began its excavations, digging into ground called mauvaises terres—the bare clay of ancient lake beds where fossils were most likely to be found. The cavalry stood guard while Marsh and his assistants dug, ever mindful of their dangerous intrusion into Sioux land. The early findings of the party lived up to Professor Marsh’s expectations: camels, ancient horses, a mastodon, and some species new to science. On several occasions the expedition encountered Indian burial grounds, the bodies set up on high platforms. Beneath the platforms were skeletons of horses, “killed to provide the owner with mounts in his future life.” Though fearful of smallpox, the party was not above adding a few of the Indian skulls to their collection.29
The nearest sign of live Indians came one night as they settled in along the Loup. A prairie fire erupted simultaneously on both sides of the camp—set, they believed, by the Sioux. The soldiers quickly set backfires to rob the advancing flames of fuel. “When our anxiety with regard to the camp had subsided,” wrote Grinnell, the fire was “very beautiful.” For two days, though, the expedition would march over burnt grass, struggling to find forage for their horses.30
After ascending the Loup River to its headwaters, the expedition turned south and west for the second stage of their exploration—the triangle of land between the north and south forks of the Platte.
AS THE MARSH EXPEDITION HUNTED FOR DINOSAUR BONES ALONG the Nebraska–Wyoming border, they followed a trail that was itself an artifact, though of far more recent vintage. Grinnell referred to it as the “old California and Oregon trail.” It had been only fifteen months since the driving of the golden spike had connected the continent by rail, but the age of transcontinental travel by wagon was already history. The deep ruts that so recently conveyed hundreds of thousands of emigrants to the West were now returning to prairie. “The grass was growing all along the road,” wrote Grinnell, “and where wagons had passed was a continuous bed of sunflowers.”31
The cavalrymen who accompanied the explorers provided a constant reminder that the territory they crossed remained contested—particularly an area along a North Platte tributary called Horse Creek. “This is famous hunting ground,” wrote Bill Betts, one of Grinnell’s young colleagues, “and we came upon many fresh signs of savages.” For Grinnell, though, the creek offered an enticement that he could not resist. “Notwithstanding these evidences of unfriendly neighbors,” continued Betts, “two of the party, all intent on duck-shooting, persisted in following the creek.”32
Armed only with shotguns, Grinnell and a friend named Jack Nicholson split away from the main party and headed up Horse Creek. The rest of the expedition, meanwhile, took a shortcut—away from the creek and across the open prairie. A cavalry captain named Montgomery told Grinnell and Nicholson that if they followed the creek, they would eventually reach the place where the main party would camp for the night. The plan was to meet up before sundown, hopefully with enough ducks for the entire mess. What Captain Montgomery did not know, what no one knew in this unfamiliar country, was that Horse Creek took a lengthy diversion before arriving at the place where the main party intended to camp. To reach the campsite by following the creek would have required a trek of at least fifty miles—more than twice the distance that Grinnell and Nicholson had been told to expect.
The hunting, at least, went according to plan. Ducks abounded, and if nothing else, the two men would be well fed. All day long, the hunters kept their horses along the creek until finally, with sunset nearing, they began to become concerned. Surely they’d come more than twenty miles. After taking a break to smoke and to mull over the situation, they decided to ride up a nearby butte for a better view of the country.
From the vantage of the hill, Grinnell and Nicholson learned two things, neither good. Despite being able to see for miles, they could find no sign of the Marsh expedition’s encampment. Clearly they would not reach their companions by nightfall. The second negative development came from behind them, from down the hillside at the very place where they had just talked and smoked. After lighting their pipes, one of the men (it’s not clear who) had thrown his match into the tall grass. A “roaring prairie fire” now raced up the hill toward them.33