Bicentennial Story #21-Death March to Yellowstone

Bicentennial Story #21-Death March to Yellowstone

Description of the harsh conditions General Alfred Sully and company traveled after the Battle of the Badlands.

5/29/1975

2/4/1976

Father Louis Pfaller
Jack Hjort

This recording cannot be copied or reproduced without the written permission of the Dickinson Museum Center. This recording may be freely used for education uses, so long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this recording file is permitted without written permission of the Dickinson Museum Center.

mp3

audio reel, analog, 1/4 inch polyester tape

English

BS-021

Dakota Territory

Copyright Stark County Historical Society and Dickinson Museum Center

Following the Bad Lands Battle in early August, 1864, Sully's Expedition turned into a "Death March to the Yellowstone." Intense heat and the lack of fodder and water took a terrible toll of the stock. On August 11 alone an estimated 30 thousand dollars' worth of stock died or had to be shot. The soldiers frequently walked miles rather than allow their worn-out horses to carry them. Corporal Strong wrote in his diary: "We saw women belonging to the [immigrant] train pulling grass among the brush in the ravines forgetting about the Indians, in their anxiety to save their cattle. They watered them out of the kegs they had on the wagons and after all were obliged to leave some of their cattle behind."

This Bicentennial Story No. 21, prepared by Father Louis Pfaller, for the Stark County Historical Society.

Pfaller, Sully Expedition, 43

Sound recordings

1:18

128kbps

1970 1979

Bicentennial tape #1, Bicentennial stories 1-22