I write this column from northern Kansas, in Phillips County and in the little town of Stuttgart (population about 40 or maybe less) where I lived before moving to Arkansas.
Mrs. Griz and I were back for a graduation and to see family members and friends. I won’t bore you with the details of the visits, but I will tell you about a little excursion I took on the Friday morning I was there. It was an attempt to take a few photos of an almost-unknown battlefield which could have easily gone down in the history books as another Little Bighorn.
Driving out of Stuttgart, I went to where the old battle began on what is now the Kansas-Nebraska line along Prairie Dog Creek. I drove about 17 miles straight north of my old home on a country road which went from gravel to dirt - and mud - after the first few miles. Though the road is usually a bit rough and dusty, the problem that day was the mud. It had rained a lot more over the days before we came than I thought.
Of course, the road wasn’t even there in the summer of 1867 when the threeday battle was fought. The whole area was pretty much grass-covered hills with the only trees being in the valleys along the creeks (or as some say, cricks). There were no SUVs or ATVs either. On horseback was the most common means of transportation for both the 18th Kansas Volunteers, the 10th Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers” and the opposing force of Sioux, Cheyenne and Kiowa warriors, including Roman Nose and Satanta.
On Friday morning, the road was full of ruts on the hills, where rain water had washed away much of the mud and dirt. In the valleys, the road was slimy mud, requiring four-wheel drive just to keep going - yes, I know because I’ve been stuck before with two-wheel drive on Kansas roads. Even with fourwheel drive, I anticipated the good possibility that I might have to walk quite a few miles to find the nearest farm house and ask a farmer to bring a tractor and chain to get me out.
For those who don’t know Kansas mud, it’s different than the mud in Arkansas. It can turn from dry and dusty to slimy - as slick as deer guts on a door knob, something else you have to experience to understand - in a matter of a few minutes after a good rain (or when the frost comes out in the spring). Sometimes it can be camouflaged under a dry crust and be nothing but slippery slime underneath. And the mud is so slippery that four-wheel drive is really more to get out of the ditches into which a fellow is almost certain to slide if he manages to keep going.
I should have known better than to press on north on the old mud road, but I was feeling more determined and brave than usual. The fact that the only tire tracks on the road were from an all terrain vehicle which a farmer probably used to check on his cattle out in the hills should have been warning enough to turn around and give up my pursuit, but I didn’t.
Then again, though mud was probably not a problem in August of 1867, the soldiers should have obeyed orders and returned to Ft. Hays rather than following the tracks of a Cheyenne raiding party miles north to where the tracks converged.
I pressed on toward the battlefield, following the tracks of the ATV over the ruts and through the mud for miles. When I was finally getting close to my destination, I noticed the ATV tracks go off the road and through the ditch for a short distance before coming back up on the road againfurther ahead. I was suspicious when I saw it, but it was too late. I was already four-wheeling through mud and knew I didn’t dare stop and try to turn around unless I wanted to take that long walk for help.
Then I found out why the ATV had opted for driving in the ditch for a while. The road was washed out where a channel of water had cut through the road. Trying not to stop but to go slow enough so as not to tear up my Chevy Trailblazer, I bounced through the deep cut and managed not to end my journey there.
The road was much improved on the last few miles of my trek to the old battlefield along Prairie Dog Creek. Had it gotten worse, there would have been no road at all.
When I finally arrived at my destination in my mudcovered SUV, I stopped for a while on the road. No one else was there and no one passed by, so parking on the road was no problem at all.
Nothing marked the site of the old battlefield where the U.S. Cavalry soldiers, expecting to find the camp site of a small band of warriors who had attacked and killed railroad workers about 70 miles south, suddenly found themselves surrounded and under attack by as many as 800 Native American warriors.
It was hard to imagine what happened there years ago. It was now a cornfield with last year’s stubble. Thenearby bluffs and ravines were quiet and peaceful as the prairie winds blew over the native grasses.
But it was not so in August of 1867 when the cavalry soldiers fought for their lives and retreated south under attack for three days. If it were not for the advantage of their Spencer repeating rifles and the quick thinking of a few of the soldiers, the road to the old battlefield would probably have been marked and paved. Tourists would be coming out in droves to see the spot where another George, not George Armstrong Custer but Major George Armes, and the companies under his command were outnumbered and massacred during the Indian Wars of the late 1860s.
After spending an hour or so at the little-known historic site and taking a few photographs from both the Kansas and Nebraska side of Prairie Dog Creek, I crossed back over the old rusty bridge which now spans the little creek but detoured before the mud for the luxury of driving on paved roads a few miles to the west.
As I continued south, I was trying to determine the course of the soldiers’ retreat in box formation following the valleys and ravines as they made their way back toward Ft. Hays. Could the three-day battle have passed near the very spot I once lived? No one seems to know for sure, butit’s quite likely the battle passed within feet of my old house as the soldiers escaped south and fended off the repeated attacks.
Though there is a marker in a little town not far from the battle site - in a slightly smaller version of Long Island, with the only skyscrapers being a grain elevator and little water tower - it seems very few people who live in the area even know of the battle which took place on the land where they now live and farm. They know nothing of that day when the peacefulness of the prairie hills was shattered by war hoops and rifle fire for three days as Native American tribes fought to protect their lands and way of life from the intrusion of settlers, wagon trains and railroads and when cavalry units led too far from the safety of their fort and reinforcements fought to escape with their lives.
On the Friday I was there, the peacefulness and remoteness of the same prairies were disturbed only by a visitor from Arkansas in a SUV trying to drive over roads even the locals avoid to visit the site where that now-forgotten battle began. I expect it’s all quiet again now.
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Decatur Herald and the Gentry Courier-Journal. He may be reached by e-mail at rmoll @ nwaonline .com
Opinion, Pages 5 on 05/26/2010