Caprock Chronicles: Custer, captive girls and the Cheyenne on Sweetwater Creek: Part One
Editor’s Note: Jack Becker is the editor of Caprock Chronicles and is a librarian at Texas Tech University Libraries. He can be reached at jack.becker@ttu.edu. Today’s article about George Custer’s campaign on the South Plains is the first of a two-part series by Chuck Lanehart, Lubbock attorney and historian.
George Armstrong Custer stands alone as the most famous—and infamous—of American Indian fighters. He is remembered for his heroism—and lack of leadership—in the disastrous 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. But before “Custer’s Last Stand,” he visited the plains of Texas, with much different results.
The decorated 25-year-old Union General Custer arrived in Austin in 1865 as part of occupation forces following the Civil War, commanding the 2nd Division of Cavalry of the Military Division of the Gulf. During his Texas assignment, Custer’s volunteer troops threatened mutiny, preferring to be mustered out of the Army rather than continue to stay in the Army commanded by Custer. They resented his imposition of harsh discipline and considered him nothing more than a “vain dandy.”
In early 1866, Custer left the Army and returned to civilian life, but soon rejoined the military at a lower rank. Custer was appointed lieutenant colonel of the newly created 7th Cavalry Regiment in July of 1866. Headquartered at Fort Riley, Kansas, the unit was tasked with forcing Plains Indian into submitting to federal authority.
Two years later, a lonely Custer abandoned his post to see his wife of four years, Libbie. He was arrested, courtmartialed and sentenced to serve a year at Fort Leavenworth. General Philip Sheridan needed Custer for his winter campaign against non-compliant Cheyenne and arranged for Custer’s early reinstatement in October of 1868. The two led expeditions in Kansas and Indian Territory (Oklahoma) against the Southern Cheyenne, a serious threat to white settlers.
Meanwhile, pretty, auburn-haired teenager Sarah Catherine White of Kansas was taken from her family in August of 1868 by Cheyenne renegades. Her father was killed in the attack.
Anna Brewster Morgan’s Kansas homestead was attacked by Sioux warriors October 3. They shot her husband James and spirited the 24-year-old away, soon trading her to the same group of Cheyenne holding Sarah White. The two girls bonded, but both were subjected to “unspeakable abuse” by their captors.
In November, Custer led his troops in an attack on a Cheyenne encampment on the banks of the Washita River, east of the Texas Panhandle border. Custer’s forces killed 103 warriors and some women and children; 53 women and children were taken as prisoners.
One of the Cheyenne girls captured—Meotzi—was described as “enchantingly comely” by Custer. She became his lover, visiting his tent every night, according to Cheyenne folklore and accounts by officers in Custer’s command.
After the battle, Custer had his men shoot most of the 875 Indian ponies they captured. The Battle of Washita River was the first substantial U.S. victory in the Southern Plains War, forcing many Native Americans onto reservations, but historians describe the battle as a brutal massacre.
In early 1869, Custer scoured the Llano Estacado for Cheyenne. A three-week excursion along the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in the eastern Texas Panhandle was unsuccessful. Next, he headed further north.
West of Indian Territory in what is now Wheeler County, Texas, Sweetwater creek was an essential waterway to millions of southern American bison in a region known as Comancheria.
The area was beautiful, with lush grass and rugged shrubs providing fodder for buffalo and the Indian’s ponies. Thick outgrowths of big cottonwood trees offered fuel in winter and shade in summer. Elevations on either side of Sweetwater Creek protected those below. Plains Indians camped along the freshwater stream to seek shelter from harsh winters while Anglos continued to settle the southern plains.
On March 15, 1869, Custer’s scouts located a Cheyenne village of 260 lodges near Sweetwater Creek. Custer proceeded peacefully to the village, hoping to forge a truce. He was escorted to the tepee of Stone Forehead, the Cheyenne mystic and chief, where he learned Sarah and Anna were in Rock Forehead’s custody.
As Custer sat among the chiefs smoking a large ceremonial clay pipe he talked of peace. He found the Cheyenne were eager for peace, as harsh winter treks had weakened their people and their ponies.
Before Custer stood to leave, Stone Forehead sprinkled tobacco ash on the commander’s boots and chanted, prophetically, “If you act treacherously toward us, some time you and your whole Army will be killed.”
Custer replied, “I will never kill another Cheyenne.” Satisfied, Stone Forehead directed him to a suitable spot to encamp.
With Meotzi acting as interpreter, the foes negotiated for three days about the release of the white captives and the Cheyenne’s surrender to the reservation. When the Indians tried to flee, Custer took three chiefs prisoner and threatened to hang them unless the white girls were freed.
Custer dramatically hung ropes across a cottonwood limb and placed the chiefs nearby as the Cheyenne watched.
