… has been a busy boy today.
Started off with a reasonable night’s sleep with just a little tossing and turning here and there, but it was a struggle to leave the bed, I can tell you.
So medicine, another shower and clean-up, followed by breakfast, and then uploading all of the … gulp … 180 photos from yesterday onto the laptop.
And then uploading the dictaphone note and the dashcam stuff too. I was exhausted after that.
There should have been an early start but I ended up chatting to mine host and wife for quite some time in exchange for a coffee.
Up the road, first to Decker where I photographed a lot of the mining installations there. Much of it is open-cast but there is evidence of what is suggestive of a deep mine.
Onwards then to the site of the Battle of the Rosebud where I spent a couple of hours wandering about the part of the battlefield that is on public land (and there’s not so much of that).
But the battle itself is very interesting, if not crucial. General Crook, whose adventures we have followed in the past thanks to John Bourke’s brilliant On The Border With Crook has been discussed in these pages many times, was on his way to join up with Custer and Co when his over-stretched and over-tired column, resting on the Rosebud, was hit by a large party of native Americans.
Although Crooks troops pushed them off, they were so battered that they had to retreat to their camp at Goose Creek (near present-day Sheridan) to regroup and resupply.
And so they never joined up with Custer.
So imagine how different the battle of the Little Big Horn would have been had Custer had an extra 1100 troops at his disposal (although whether he would have welcomed them was another matter – he had turned down two regiments of infantry and a Gatling gun brigade on the grounds that they would slow him down).
From there I passed by Little Big Horn again (still wondering why the cavalry dismounted. On foot they were useless. At least mounted, they could have gone for an “arrowhead” charge to try to break out, rather than be butchered on the ground) and through to the Crow Agency where I stopped for fuel.
And that wasn’t a good idea. I ended up being stuck for about 20 minutes in a roadworks queue and then another 20 minutes at a level crossing as a mile-long coal train inched its way by.
A good run into the Big Horn mountains brought ;e to the head of the Bozeman Trail. Here after much binding in the marsh I found where the “Hayfield Fight” had been, but finding Fort CF Smith was rather different. I knew the GPS location which I knew was a private field, so from the field’s edge on both sides I tried to find anything at all.
There were some vague outlines in the field but really they could be anything. Trying to find the remains of adobe buildings that had been abandoned and burnt in 1868 was expecting too much.
There was no sign or anything acknowledging its existence so I had to go by where I would have put the fort had I been in charge.
On the way back I found a car upside-down in a ditch, and then a very long drive all the way back to the outskirts of Sheridan.
At Ranchester I found the site of the “Battle of Tongue River” where General Connor’s troops attacked a sleeping Arapaho village and killed mainly non-combatant women, children and the elderly.
Incidentally, have you always noticed that it’s a “battle” whenever the white men attacked native civilians, yet it’s a “massacre” whenever the natives returned the compliment?
I carried on then down the Bozeman Trail looking for the sites relating to Fort Phil Kearny. I found the wagon-hill fight site and the “6th December” fight, but not the site of the death of French Pete which rather annoyed me.
Buffalo is on the limit of the Sturgis Festival travel zone so finding a motel was difficult. A friendly motel owner rang a few friends and now I’m in a cabin on the edge of town.
I was rather dubious at first, as the smell of wet dog in the reception put me off and the scrap car and general air of neglect didn’t help, but it’s very deceptive as the cabins are beautiful inside.
I’ve had my soup, and I’m not going out. I shall enjoy my little cabin while I can.
last night. And so consequently all through the night I was running around at Hogwarts.
, where the original director’s cut ran to well over 5 hours, but nevertheless there was tons of stuff that was irrelevant that could have been left out, just as there was tons of stuff that was relevant that should have been included.
