Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 292

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(WEST--WYOMING.) Walter S. Schuyler. Diary of a trek across Wyoming to join Crook just days before Little Bighorn. [68] manuscript diary pages (23 of them written in the West), plus [13] pages of memoranda. Oblong 12mo, original plain calf, minor wear; minimal wear to contents. Various places, 27 May 1875 to 22 June 1876
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This diary records frightening near-encounters with Indians in the rugged hills and gulches of northern Wyoming, as the opposing sides prepared to meet for battle at Little Bighorn.

Walter Scribner Schuyler (1850-1932) of Ithaca, NY was a West Point graduate, then serving as a second lieutenant in the 5th Cavalry. This diary begins while on extended leave in Europe, mostly in Russia. He arrived back in the United States on 2 December 1875, took in the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition on 6 January, and headed west in March. On 26 May, he wrote "Gen. Case received a telegraphic order to send me to Omaha to repost to Gen. Crook as aide-de-camp." Schuyler's challenge was to catch up with the main army. Three large columns of cavalry were converging for a long-planned offensive against the Sioux in south-central Montana. Crook's column was setting out northward from Fort Fetterman, while General Terry's column (including Custer's doomed regiment) was headed westward from the Dakotas.

Schuyler was in Laramie, WY in early June 1876, reporting on the latest movements and rumors in a long 10 June entry: "8 companies of the 5th Cavalry had been ordered up. They will probably go to the Red Cloud Agency. Gen. Merritt returned from the above agency where he had gone to look into the condition of affairs. . . . They bring some news from the agency, the chief of which is that about 1500 bucks have gone north to join those in the field. A report came in some days ago that an Indian had counted 1806 lodges in Crazy Horse's camp. The whole no. of warriors is probably about 3000. . . . [Sitting Bull] has some time ago hung up in the agent's house his war club, a bludgeon with three knife blades stuck in it, saying that as long as it remained there, he (S.B.) could be depended on. At the time of the above occurrence, he took his club away. . . . The Indians in the field say that if they find Gen. Crook too strong, they will come south and attack the agencies. There are rumors through Indian channels of a fight between Gen. Terry and the large body of Indians whom Egan met near Custer, in which many were killed on both sides."

Schuyler departed for Fort Fetterman, WY the next day, reporting on a "rumor here that the Indians have been raiding on the Cheyenne Road." On the 12th, he reported that "the Indians cleared out Kelly's ranche on the Chug Ck. and took 20 head of horses." On the 15th, he heard that "Crook's camp was fired into by the Indians on Saturday last. . . . The Indians to the number of 200 appeared on a bluff about 600 yards from the camp, and at sunset opened fire on the camp. One cavalry soldier was wounded, and two animals killed. The latter included John Bourke's horse which was in camp for a race."

On the evening of 19 June, just six days before Little Bighorn, Schuyler left Fort Fetterman, accompanied only by a lone sergeant in the direction of the abandoned ruins of Fort Reno. On the 21st, they saw "a herd of buffalo. They were in a hollow below us, as we . . . obtained our first view of the Big Horn Mts. Shortly after we had come into the road, we found a large trail of Indians coming in from the east. As they had passed only an hour or two ahead of us, we did not deem it safe to go on, but turned off into the broken country to the east." That was probably a smart move. After dark, they got back on the road, and "having advanced about 2 miles, we heard voices, and saw a man or two to our left in the gulch. As our hail was not answered and we heard something said in a strange dialect, we thought that the chances were in favor of his being an Indian, and lest we be ambushed, we left the road."

On 22 June, having passed Fort Reno, they hoped to camp on the Powder River, but "with the certainty of Indians in our neighborhood we could not rest. . . . We saw 3 buffalo which scared us at first, as we thought them Indians. About noon, reached Crazy Woman's Fork, hid in the brush. . . . Attempting to make a little fire, started the grass and we had to pack up as quickly as possible and seek a new hotel." They briefly connected with a wagon train bound for General Crook just before sunset. There they learned of the recent Battle of the Rosebud before leaving the train at 9 p.m. Here the diary ends abruptly, just three days before Little Bighorn.

Schuyler and Crook's column did not take part in the fight, and he survived to become an Army general.