Clemetery on ihc Soklicrs' Home t;iounds.-'''' 



Stieffel painted three scenes of Fort Keogh and 

 vicinity — one of the fort itself, one of Miles City across 

 the Tongue River, and a landscape of the Yellow- 

 stone River near Miles City (figs. 8-10). 



The Paintings 



Chronologically, the first of the paintings (fig. 2) is 

 that of the Indian attack on General Marcy's train 

 escorted by Company K on September 23, 1867. 

 This attack took place on the Arkansas River aJDOut 

 nine miles west of Cimarron Crossing, Kansas. It 

 was an insignificant action as such, similar to hundreds 

 of other such fights in the West, but, in the days of 

 wet-plate photography and low-speed camera shut- 

 ters, the painting is significant as a rare eye-witness 

 drawing and tells us far more than might any written 

 description. General Marcy's report is somewhat 

 cursory: 



Yesterday at about 9 o'clock a.m. as we were approach- 

 ing a blutf near the ArkaiLsas River thirty-five miles above 

 here we suddenly discovered a great many Indians ap- 

 proaching us from various different directions. I imme- 

 diately halted our train and after arranging our escort in 

 proper order for action went forward. The Indians cir- 

 cled around us at full speed firing as they ran but did not 

 come very near us. I would not allow our men to fire at 

 the long range, believing that the Indians would come 

 nearer but thev did not. Some of the men fired and it 

 is believed that two were wounded as groups collected 

 around them. They wounded Lt. Williams severely in 

 the leg and one soldier who has since died. 



Near the point where the affair occurred was a large 

 train of wagons en route to New Mexico with valuable 

 freight. The train had two hundred mules driven off by 

 the Indians about twelve days ago, and it had been guarded 

 by twenty-five men since, and it is ]jrobable that the Indi- 

 ans were there for the purpose of capturing the train as 

 they had been firing into it previous to our arrival.-* 



Stieffel tells us much more in his painting. Upon 

 being attacked the train has pulled off the road, 

 visible in the left foreground, and corralled. The 



2' There is no record of .Stieffel's ever having liecn a member 

 of the Soldiers' Home, but the Home's records for the 1880's 

 arc very incomplete. However, his discharge gives his for- 

 warding address as that institution, and there is definite record 

 of the date of his death and interment there. 



'* Report of Brig. Gen. R. B. Marcy, September 24, 1867, 

 document no. 1,000, AGO, Department of Missouri, vol. 4, 

 1867, Civil War Branch, National Archives. 



horses remain hitched, witness to the suddenness of 

 the attack. That the Indians did not venture overly 

 close, as stated by Marcy, is indicated by the fact 

 that Brotherton's men have not been forced to take 

 cover behind the wagons. That the Indians appear 

 closer than Marcy indicates is due to the artist's lack 

 of perspective. They are firing muzzle-loading rifles, 

 several men being in the act of ramming home 

 charges. Stieffel is doubtless correct in this detail. 

 The Chief of Ordnance reported in October 1867 

 that nearly all the infantry in the Departments of the 

 Missouri and the Platte had been issued breech- 

 loaders." It seems more than probable that Com- 

 pany K, in transit as it was from the distant Depart- 

 ment of New Mexico, had never seen the new 

 weapons. 



In the matter of uniform, Stieffel may have lieen 

 indulging his fancy somewhat when he pictured the 

 men as wearing the long frock coat and black cam- 

 paign hat. A miscellany of dress with the short 

 fatigue jacket and kepi predoininating would seem 

 far more reasonable for an outfit which had just 

 finished six rough years in the desert Southwest and 

 was even then nearing the end of a 500-mile march. 

 The artist, as did most observers of the period, has 

 patently overestimated the numl^er of Indians who 

 must have carried firearms in the attack. Fully 

 50 percent or more of the Indians are pictured as so 

 armed, a point which — understandable as it may be 

 in the ca.se of an observer participating in what may 

 well have been his first Indian fight — is not borne 

 out by the record. In the Fetterman Massacre of 

 the previous Decemijer, of the 81 white men killed 

 only six bore gunshot wounds,-" and the best evidence 

 indicates that the force which overwhelmed Custer 

 on the Little Big Horn River in 1876 was at least 50 

 percent armed with bow and arrow.-" Then again. 

 General Marcy's report would seem to bear this out. 

 Had the Indians been well armed, the freight wagon 

 train, which Stieffel pictures corralled in the right 

 background, could hardly have held out for twelve 

 days against a force estimated at 300 or more warriors 



-5 Report of Chff of Ordniincr, 1S67, Washington, War Depart- 

 ment, 1868. 



2" George Bird Grinnell, The Fighting Cheyenne, New York, 

 Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915, p 235. 



2' Frazier and Robert Hunt, / Fought With Custer: The Story oj 

 Sergeant Winjnlph, New York, Charles .Scribner's .Sons, 1947, 

 p 92. For an excellent discussion of Indian armament at this 

 period, see John E. Parsons and John S. DuMont, Firearms in 

 the Custer Balllr, Harrisburg, The Stackpolc Company, 1953. 



10 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



