“Killed While Reconnoitering Camp of Hostiles”
1st Lt. Edward W. Casey, U.S. Army Indian Scouts
By Robert D. Seals
Article published on: September 1, 2025 in the Fall 2025 edition of Army History
Read Time: < 31 mins
Lieutenants Casey and Getty lead a formation of Casey’s Scouts at Fort Keogh, Montana, in the summer of 1890. National Archives
In January 1891, only nine days after the Wounded Knee tragedy, 1st Lt. Edward W. Casey was killed leading his detachment of U.S. Army Indian Scouts in an attempt to prevent further bloodshed. The “final Army casualty of the Indian Wars,” Lieutenant Casey was a respected advocate of Native Americans and was “one of the most brilliant and beloved officers of the service” according to Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles. Today, Casey’s legacy lives on in the U.S. Army Special Forces crossed arrows branch insignia, one of his 1890 detailed Indian Scout uniform proposals.1
According to military historian Edward M. Coffman, after the American Civil War, “the Indian was an object of curiosity and, depending on the man and the situation, of fear and contempt” to Army officers on the whole. A handpicked elite among them thought otherwise. Possessing “the highest type of leadership,” they led U.S. Army Indian Scout detachments and were celebrated during the waning days of the frontier.2Largely following the principles advocated by Maj. Gen. George R. Crook, junior Army officers such as Hugh L. Scott, Emmet Crawford, Charles B. Gatewood, and Britton Davis were recognized for “knowledge, understanding, and sympathy” of Native American Scout soldiers. One of the most determined champions of the Indian Scouts was 1st Lt. Edward W. Casey. A visionary 1873 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), Casey, of the 22d Infantry Regiment, was an innovative and highly regarded veteran of scout service.3This article is an overview of his influential career and the celebrated scout detachment known as “Casey’s Scouts.”4 Edward Wanton Casey was born on 1 December 1850 at the Benicia Barracks near San Francisco, California, the youngest child of Army captain Silas Casey and his wife Abby. Silas was a USMA graduate of the class of 1826, and a career officer who was breveted for gallantry in Mexico and later served during the Civil War. From birth, Edward seemingly was predestined for military service. His father and both older brothers were West Point and Annapolis graduates, and his grandfather served in the Continental Army. Casey’s father and brothers all rose to general or flag officer ranks during military careers that spanned decades.5
Edward “Ned” Casey attended the Churchill School, a military academy in Ossining, New York, before entering the USMA at the age of 18 in July 1869. He was a popular cadet with his classmates and was nicknamed “The Judge” for his fair and easygoing manner. Described as “a natural born soldier of acknowledged ability,” he was a lieutenant as a “Firstie,” or senior in the cadet battalion, but graduated in the lower third of his class, 34th of 41 cadets, in June 1873. His highest marks were in mathematics and his lowest in cavalry tactics. Posted to the 22d Infantry Regiment after his graduation, Casey’s career was representative of “the Army’s Dark Ages” after the Civil War. His service included frontier duty in the Dakota Territory, Michigan, Colorado, Texas, and Montana; Reconstruction activities in New Orleans; an assignment as instructor in infantry and artillery tactics at West Point; and “suppressing Railroad Disturbances in Pennsylvania” and Chicago with his regiment.6
Edward W. Casey was an 1873 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. Both his father and older brother were also West Point graduates. U.S. Military Academy Library
Unsurprisingly for a young officer in the “Army of the West,” Casey volunteered for duty with Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s Black Hills Expedition of 1874, but his request was denied. Two years later, Casey and six companies of the 22d Infantry accompanied then Col. Nelson A. Miles against native Cheyenne, Lakota, Dakota, and Arapaho tribes during what was later designated as the Little Big Horn Campaign. Late in 1876, at Cantonment No. 1, Tongue River, in Montana, Casey caught the attention of Colonel Miles while serving as an adjutant and he gave Casey the command of a provisional “company of civilian and Indian guides” or scouts. Casey fought at Wolf Mountain and later “at the battle of Lame Deer” (also known as Battle of Little Muddy Creek) in May 1877 and was deemed “worthy of special mention” in a report.7
Miles cited Casey for “the zeal and skill” displayed for leading his mounted scouts through Lakota chief Lame Deer’s band of warriors in a daring dawn raid, “sweeping away the ponies” from the unsuspecting hostile camp. Recommended for a brevet promotion to captain because of his gallantry, the action languished without action in the parsimonious Army for years. Miles later complained that it was “disheartening to officers who have to remain so long in subordinate positions” who often served for decades without advancement until a regimental vacancy occurred.8
Promoted to first lieutenant in January 1880, Casey was a student of his profession and not afraid to submit suggestions through military channels when they seemed warranted. In 1887, “convinced of the army’s need for better topographical and geographical knowledge,” he requested “authority to make a trip to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River” and visit “Navajo, Moqui, and Pueblo villages” on the journey. The Army approved the request, but accidents plagued the two-month expedition from Fort Lewis, Colorado. One of his soldiers was injured falling down a well, and a wagon was lost and four mules died during the journey. Upon return, Casey faced an unsympathetic post quartermaster“Board of Survey” for the absent government property.9
In June 1888, the transfer of the 22d Infantry to Fort Keogh, in southeastern Montana, resulted in an opportunity again for Casey to command scouts. Located near the junction of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers, the post was near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. As “Indian campaigningdeclinedinscaleandfrequency,” many officers had “minimal responsibilities, [and] boredom was a significant challenge.” For Casey, who reported studying “history and military works” and who was described in an evaluation as an “efficient, competent, and exceedingly energetic officer,” boredom was not an issue.10
Lieutenant Casey was recommended for a brevet promotion after an engagement with Lame Deer by Col. Nelson A. Miles during the Little Big Horn Campaign in 1877. Courtesy of Sam Carr and True West Magazine
On 10 June, regimental commander Col. Peter T. Swaine “placed [Casey] in command of the enlisted Cheyenne scouts.” Casey was “imbued with missionary spirit” leading his dozen troops. Giving the “matter of Indians as soldiers a great deal of thought,” Casey presented a paper on “the matter of enlisting Indians as soldiers” in the winter of 1889 “before the officers school” at Keogh. Encouraged by Swaine’s response, Casey developed a proposal, received approval from the Department of the Dakotas, and traveled to Washington, D.C., to present his plan through channels to Secretary of War Redfield Proctor.11
Casey believed his troops, and Native Americans in general, were capable of more organized soldiering than the usual standard for irregular Army Scouts. His intent was to “open a military life to them.” As such, they should be armed, fed, trained, paid, quartered, uniformed, schooled, and above all, properly led by capable leaders. From March to April 1890 during a leave of absence, “Big Red Nose,” as Casey was known to his Northern Cheyenne Scouts, lobbied senior Army leadership for authorization to raise his scouts to a demonstration troop of 100 soldiers for “inspection during the coming summer encampment.”12
Casey’s concept, approved by the Army’s Commanding General Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield and Secretary of War Proctor during the spring visit, drew on earlier proposals by others but with significant modifications, including unique Army Indian Scout uniforms. Scouts were to be issued a “uniform . . . the same as that of white soldiers, but with distinctive facings and modifications” and a unique but practical overcoat for mounted duty. One of the modifications, worn on the fatigue hat, was to be “two arrows crossed . . . made of metal, 3 inches in length, the letters U.S.S. in the upper intersection” for United States Scouts. The scout crossed arrows were also to appear on scout guidons and the spiked Prussian-looking pattern 1881 dress helmets. This simple but meaningful design has endured.13
An Indian Scout fatigue hat (background) and the insignia of the United States Scouts, ca. 1890 Author’s Collection
Notified of “authority granted” by the secretary of war on 22 April, scout enlistments were for one year, as opposed to the standard Army five-year enlistment. For Casey, improved organization and treatment of the scouts was important, but the selection of the right officers to command the various “troops of 100 scouts” across the western Army was key. Officers had to be “better fitted for special duty.” Those picked should be “subalterns from the line” and “younger men, with more ambition” capable of working through interpreters until they “should learn the language and interpreters [are] dispensed with.”14
Initial recruitment went slow, but Casey persisted. Discovering “a rumor that I would make them cut off their hair and take them from their families,” he was able to clarify matters in a meeting with tribal leaders. Soon he had the respected Cheyenne Chief American Horse recommending enlistments. One of the first enlistees, James Tangled Yellow Hair, “heard our old men make such good talk about Bear Shirt [Miles] that [he] wanted to be a scout.” With twenty-seven scouts enlisted, Casey organized his troops as light cavalry, armed with the standard Army pistol and carbine on horseback. He felt the scouts were most useful in “open order fighting, patrol, vidette [mounted sentry], and f lanking duties.” Assisted by his second in command, Lt. Robert N. Getty, the troop also had “William Rowland as interpreter, and Long Forehead as a Sergeant, with Shoulder Blade and Wolf Voice as Corporals.”15
He drilled and worked his scouts hard but with an eye toward improving their living conditions before the coming harsh Montana winter. His scout troop conducted horse mounted and unmounted drills in the morning followed by afternoon “fatigue duties.” Those duties included tending a “12-acre garden” and building log cabins “with [the] help of soldiers.”16A visiting Churchill classmate that summer observed that “many of the young men were glad to serve as soldiers” because of the monotony of reservation life, and the pay and stoves provided for scout cabins by “the soldier chiefs” were “very welcome.” Additionally, the attraction of having a rifle and increased proficiency during “shooting practice” at a “wooden man” on a moving sled was later remembered by scouts with pride.17
However, the summer of 1890 was also a tense one. Pressure mounted from surrounding “wealthy stockmen” who wanted to “take possession of [Cheyenne] lands” according to Casey. After the death of a White homesteader, found with a butchered steer nearby, three Cheyenne were arrested. One was an Army scout from Fort Keough. Casey “gathered information” and helped hire a defense lawyer, writing that “this man [Black Medicine] belongs to me; I feel bound to see him have fair play when Cheyenne is versus Cattlemen.” Black Medicine was released for lack of evidence, but such actions made Casey “ highly unpopular.” As the governor sent “arms and ammunition to Miles City” to defend against unrest, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and its new Cheyenne agent recommended “the removal of the Cheyenne,” thereby opening the vacated reservation up for more settlement.18
Casey’s Scouts’ quarters at Fort Keogh, as drawn by Frederic Remington. Casey pressed the Army for logs, stoves, and “earth closets” for his soldiers and their families. Harper’s Weekly
One of Casey’s Scouts, as depicted in a sketch by Frederic Remington in November 1890. Courtesy of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library
Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, the Department of Dakota commander, asked Casey for his “assessment of the situation.” Strongly supporting the Cheyenne, Casey wrote that they were “a brave and virtuous people” who had been mistreated and he recommended that the tribe remain on their land and receive increased rations, help in building homes, seed and training to farm, and “trespassers turned out” or bought out from reservation lands. Casey continued to be an advocate for his troops, some who had fought against the Army at Little Big Horn, and by August 1890 had recruited forty-eight scouts for his detachment.19
A sketch of Lieutenant Casey by Frederic Remington. Remington was an admirer of Casey’s Scouts and featured them prominently in a Harper’s Weekly article only nine days before Casey’s death. Harper’s Weekly
In November, the Cheyenne Indian Commission led by General Miles, commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, visited to “investigate the removal of the Cheyennes.” An escort, which included Casey and his scouts, met the commissioners. Accompanying them was the celebrated frontier artist Frederic S. Remington. Remington was taken with Casey’s “fine Indian soldiers,” later describing them in a December 1890 Harper’s Weekly article “as a “perfectly uniformed and organized troop” and “the finest I had ever seen.” Afterward, the Northern Cheyenne kept their reservation, and one writer believed the Army, and “respect for the scouts,” played a major role in the tribal lands’ successful continuation.20Unfortunately, Casey’s command of his celebrated “demonstration troop,” now known as “Casey’s Scouts,” was short-lived. “Insufficient food, crop failures,” and an “absence of game” gave rise to the messianic and nonviolent Ghost Dance religious movement, which promised “the resumption of the traditional way of life.” The Lakota Sioux in southern South Dakota were particularly desperate after years of Bureau of Indian Affairs mismanagement. By the end of November, Army units took the field to suppress the movement. After the death of Sitting Bull in December, all elements were in place for the horrific Ghost Dance tragedy at Wounded Knee. The “largest troop movements since the Civil War” had begun and they included Casey’s Scouts.21
Two of Casey’s Scouts, White Moon (left) and Rock Road (right) photographed during the trial of Plenty Horse. White Moon, who fought against the Army at Little Big Horn, lived until 1931, and drew a modest monthly pension for his scout service. Courtesy of the University of Michigan Library
Lieutenant Getty and Casey’s Scouts return to Fort Keogh in March 1891. The Cheyenne Scout guidon is clearly visible. National Archives
The form listing Lieutenant Casey as being “killed while reconnoitering camp of hostiles.” National Archives
Lieutenant Casey, “one of the most brilliant and beloved officers of the service,” was buried at the family farm in Rhode Island in January 1891. Courtesy of the Casey Farm
Riding out from Fort Keough, the fifty-one scouts boarded a train at Belle Fourche, South Dakota, bound for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Described by a reporter as “well mounted on splendid horses; armed, equipped and provisioned the best the law allows,” it took seventeen days to ride and move by rail to the scene. Arriving on 30 December, the day following the Wounded Knee debacle, Casey’s Scouts were attached to the 9th Cavalry under the command of Lt. Col. George B. Sanford “in the vicinity of White River and White Clay Creek.” Assigned the mission of “locating and watching this camp of Sioux” some 8 miles away, Casey and his scouts demonstrated restraint and avoided confrontation.22
A week of watching passed, including “by Lieutenant Casey’s invitation” a meeting on 6 January 1891 with “6–7 Sioux to visit for a talk” from the “hostile camp.” Encouraged, the following day Casey and scouts White Moon and Rock Road rode up White Clay Creek toward the camp, intending to meet with Red Cloud and other chiefs to avoid a possible second Wounded Knee. Speaking with several groups along the creek, Casey and the scouts continued until receiving word that Red Cloud would not meet with them. Convinced to return, Casey “turned his horse” to leave but was shot in the back of the head by Plenty Horses, a “young Sioux educated at Carlisle Indian School” with whom the lieutenant had been speaking with for the past hour. Death came instantly to Casey, “who, as a man, was an honor to his regiment and service” according to the telegram report back to Fort Keogh. His men recovered his body, horse, and pistol. Plenty Horses was arrested, tried twice for murder, and found not guilty because a state of war existed at the time.23
The following day, the news of Casey’s death was front-page news from California to New York. Sensational newspaper headlines that informed readers of “one of the best young officers in the Army” having been “treacherously shot in the back” by “hostile Sioux fed by the government” did nothing to calm tensions in the West. Miles, who “viewed Wounded Knee as an outrageous blunder,” relieved the officer responsible for the tragedy, Col. James W. Forsyth, commander of the 7th Cavalry. Miles slowly used diplomacy and threats of force during the next several weeks to resolve the situation without further bloodshed.24
As Casey’s body began the journey by rail back for interment at the family farm near Wickford, Rhode Island, the tributes began. From the secretary of war down to the humblest Indian Scout, seemingly all had praise and “his early death ever regretted” for what might have been. Frederick Remington, who had seen Casey in the field days before his death, said “[his scouts] would follow him anywhere” and he was “a sincere friend” to “his Cheyenne Scouts, the best in the service.” Back at Keough, the wives of Casey’s scouts “wailed and sang their death chants” when news of his death arrived. A civilian scout said no “braver officer never more nobly honored the service.” First Lt. Edmund K. Webster, a West Point classmate of Casey’s, stated, “you cannot praise him too highly.” Webster also reported that Casey had turned down an offer by Miles to be an “aid[e]-de-camp on his staff” because “he felt bound to remain with his regiment.” Chief American Horse also described Casey as “a brave man and good one” who “did much for the Indian.”25Casey’s Scouts continued their mission and rode “first in line” at Miles’s grand “final review at Pine Ridge” on 21 January 1891. However, it was not until late March that the “badly worn” scouts and “their animals,” under the command of Lieutenant Getty, returned to Keogh after escorting 700 Cheyenne from Pine Ridge. In April, “the major general commanding the Army” instructed that “the scouts organized and commanded by the late Lieutenant Casey will be officially designated as Troop L, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, “Casey’s Scouts.” This was a unique and rare honor for a fallen officer. Later, the troop “in some degree lost its identity,” but the Cheyenne scouts continued to serve. They kept the peace and escorted elements of “Coxey’s Army,” a protest march of unemployed workers moving through Montana on their cross-country journey to Washington, D.C., in 1894. However, the following year in May, newspaper headlines proclaimed, “Lieutenant Casey’s Famous Scouts No Longer in Existence” as the last “remnant was disbanded.”26
The Indian Wars were over, along with Casey and his “ famous scouts.” First Lieutenant Edward W. Casey was “one of the “most promising young lieutenants” who demonstrated “the highest type of leadership” required for an Indian Scout detachment. He was “particularly gifted for command” as per his efficiency report and possessed the necessary traits to command such an unconventional force successfully. After his death, Casey continued to be remembered by retired generals and luminaries writing their memoirs and retired Native American scout veterans drawing a modest pension for their service. Decades later in 1942, then Col. Robert T. Frederick picked Casey’s crossed arrow insignia for his 1st Special Service Force after the Army commando force was activated in World War II. In 1987, the Army approved the popular and historic insignia for the newly created Special Forces branch.27Today, we continue to see the legacy of the “final Army casualty of the Indian Wars” and his celebrated Cheyenne scouts in the Army’s special forces crossed arrow insignia.
Notes
1. G. Timothy Cranston, “The View from Swamptown: Remembering Lt. Casey, the Final Casualty of the Indian Wars,” The Independent, 31 Aug 2017; “Miles Report,” Lawrence Daily Journal, 8 Jan 1891; and “Branch Insignia: Special Forces,” The Institute of Heraldry, n.d., https://tioh.army.mil/Catalog/Heraldry.aspx?HeraldryId=15361&CategoryId=9362&grp=2&menu=Uniformed%20Services&ps=24&p=0, accessed 25 Jun 2024.
2. Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 254; Britton Davis, The Truth About Geronimo (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976), v.
3. Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866–1890 (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1973), 54–56; Report of Brigadier General Crook, Headquarters, Department of Arizona, Annual Rpt of the Sec of War for 1883 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1883), 166–68; and E. J. McClernand, “Obituary,” 1891 Annual Reunion of the Association of Graduates Office, U.S. Military Academy , West Point, NY, 47–49. Crook, in his report, highly regarded scouts and believed the “only hope of success in Indian combats” was reconnaissance “done by Indian scouts.”
4. Report of Major General Miles, HQs, Department of the Missouri, 14 Sep 1891, Annual Rpt of the Sec War for 1891 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1892), 154 (hereinafter Report of Miles, 1891); and Nelson A. Miles, Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles (New York: Werner, 1896), 532. General Miles specifically mentioned fifteen officers, including Casey, in his memoirs as providing “services, invaluable to the country.”
5. Lt. E. W. Casey, 22 Inf, “Statement of Birth to Adjutant General, U.S. Army, Washington, DC,” 22 Jul 1882, Appointment, Commission, And Personal (ACP) File, Record Group (RG) 94: Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s–1917, National Archives Building, Washington, DC (NAB), hereinafter Casey ACP File, NAB; Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, June, 1873 (West Point, NY: United States Military Academy Printing Office, 1873), 383–86, Silas Casey, Cullum Number 467; Thomas Lincoln Casey, Cullum Number 1536, 471–73; Silas Casey III, Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the US and of the Marine Corps to January 1, 1904 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904,) 106–7.
6. William A. Ganoe, The History of the United States Army (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1924), 298; Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, June, 1873, 9, 19, 26, Edward W. Casey, Cullum Number 2501; “Lieutenant Edward W. Casey,” Times-Picayune, 11 Jan 1891, 4; “Lieutenant Casey,” Philadelphia Times, 2 Feb 1891, 5; “Churchill’s Military School,” Port Chester Journal, 8 Jul 1869. As a West Point tactical officer, a former cadet remembered Casey in the Times-Picayune as a “delightful fellow” willing to bend regulations when a “box of Christmas goodies” was discovered during a December barracks inspection.
7. Edward W. Casey, 2d Lieut. 22nd Inf, 3239 AGO, 1877, filed with 4163 AGO, 1877; and Extract from Report dated 16 May 1877 of Colonel Nelson A. Miles of action Rose Bud (Muddy Creek), Montana, against hostiles under “Lame Deer,” Casey ACP File, NAB.
8. “Research: Indian Wars Campaigns,” U.S. Army Center of Military History, n.d., https://history.army.mil/Research/Reference-Topics/Army-Campaigns/Brief-Summaries/Indian-Wars/, accessed 11 Aug 2025. Casey also participated in the “Ute Expedition in Colorado,” giving him Indian Wars service in three campaigns, Little Big Horn, Utes, and Pine Ridge.
9. Maurice Frink and Casey E. Barthelmess, Photographer on an Army Mule (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 55–61; Leave Application, Lt. Casey, 29 Jul 1884, West Point, NY; and Ltr, War Dept, Adjutant Gen Ofc, to Sec of War, 4 May 1887, Casey ACP File, NAB. The year 1887 proved to be frustrating. Casey also had a “stoppage of $110 pay” from an approved two-month leave from the Military Academy en route back to the 22d Infantry from three years prior. The Commanding General of the Army, Lt. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, approved his leave; Ltr 4 May 1887, Casey ACP File, NAB.
10. Thomas W. Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860–90 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 60; Brian McAllister Linn, Real Soldiering: The US Army in the Aftermath of War, 1815–1980 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2023), 29–40; “Efficiency Report in case of E.W. Casey, Reported by himself,” 23 Apr 1890; “Efficiency Report in case of E.W. Casey, 1st Lieut. 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, Mont., May 1st 1890,” Casey ACP File, NAB.
11. Edward W. Casey, “An Officer of His Own Regiment Writes,” Stockgrowers Journal, 10 Jan 1891, 4; and Katherine M. Weist, “Ned Casey and his Cheyenne Scouts: A Noble Experiment in an Atmosphere of Tension,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 27, no. 1 (Winter 1977): 26.
12. Thomas B. Marquis, Cheyenne and Sioux: The Reminiscences of Four Indians and a White Soldier (Stockton, CA: Pacific Center for Western Historical Studies, University of the Pacific, 1973), 38–45; Casey, “An Officer of His Own Regiment Writes.” James Tangled Yellow Hair, in Cheyenne and Sioux, remembered Casey as “Red Hump Nose” and recalled that monthly pay was $25.30, food was plentiful, and scouts could buy beer at the canteen. Yellow Hair also thought “Scouting in the Sioux country was hard work.”
13. Circular 10, War Dept, 11 Aug 1890, Section VI, 2–3; War Department, GO 96, Adjutant Generals Office, Washington, 19 Nov 1875; Jacques Noel Jacobsen Jr., “The Uniform of the Indian Scouts,” Military Collector & Historian 26, no. 3 (Fall 1974): 137–44; William K. Emerson, Encyclopedia of U.S. Army Insignia and Uniforms (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 286–87. Emerson writes in his Encyclopedia that the Army in November of 1875 had transitioned from the European-inspired hunting horn as infantry insignia to “two gold-embroidered rifles without bayonets, barrels upward,” so Casey’s crossed arrow design was a logical adaptation.
14. Tlg, HQ, Dept of Dakota, to Cmdg Ofcr 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, MT, 22 Apr 1890, RG 393, Entry 1167, NAB; “White Moon Enlistment Form AGO [Adjutant Gen Ofc] No. 23,” 27 May 1890, RG 94, Entry 93, Box 63, NAB; “Indians for Soldiers,” Army and Navy Journal 27, no. 33 (19 Apr 1890): 613.
15. Tlg, HQ, Dept of Dakota, to Cmdg Ofcr 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, MT, 26 Apr 1890, RG 393, Entry 1167, NAB; Weist, Ned Casey and His Cheyenne Scouts, 31–32; Marquis, Cheyenne and Sioux, 38–41; “Indians for Soldiers.”
16. S. C. Robinson, “Our Indian Contingent,” Harper’s Weekly 36, no. 1834 (13 Feb 1892): 157–58; and Frink and Barthelness, Photographer on an Army Mule, 113–14. Author Lt. S. C. Robinson, 1st Cavalry, was an admirer of Casey’s who raised a Crow Indian Scout troop along similar lines and methods at Fort Custer, Montana. Robinson gives Casey “sole credit,” and describes him as “earnest” with an “enthusiastic nature.” Robinson’s article, accompanied by Frederick Remington’s drawings, provides an excellent illustrative narrative of how the two Indian Scout troops were trained in 1890 and 1891.
17. George B. Grinnell, The Fighting Cheyennes (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1915), 412, 416–17; Philip Burnham, “Unlikely Recruits: Indians Scouting for America,” Military History Quarterly 17, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 78–85. According to one Arizona Chiricahua scout quoted in Burnham’s article, the rifle “was our most cherished possession and there was not a man who did not envy the scout [with] his rifle.”
18. Tlgs, HQ, Dept of Dakota, to Cmdg Ofcr, 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, MT, 24 and 30 May 1890, RG 393, Entry 1167, NAB; Weist, Ned Casey and His Cheyenne Scouts, 32–33.
19. Josef James Warhank, “Fort Keogh: Cutting Edge of a Culture” (master’s thesis, University of Southern California, Dec 1983), 37–40; Weist, Ned Casey and His Cheyenne Scouts, 34.
20. Tlgs, HQ, Dept of Dakota, to Cmdg Ofcr, 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, MT, 16, 18, 19, and 30 Nov 1890, and 2, 3, 4 Dec 1890, RG 393, Entry 1167, NAB; Frederic Remington, “Indians as Irregular Cavalry,” Harper’s Weekly 34, no. 1775 (27 Dec 1890): 1004–6; “Great Love for the White Man,” Pittsburgh Dispatch, 6 Nov 1890. During Miles’s visit, the scouts escorted the commission from Keogh to Tongue River, riding “sixty-five miles in nine hours.” The Army became increasingly concerned as November became December after receiving alarming Indian agent messages calling for “the military at once.” Message traffic cancelled leaves, ordered “buffalo overcoats” and “Hotchkiss mountain guns,” instructed posts to “shod all horses,” and be “ready for prompt movement.”
21. “A Tribute to Casey,” Yellowstone Journal, 17 Jan 1891; Col. George B. Sanford and E. R. Hagemann, Fighting Rebels and Redskins: Experiences in Army Life of Colonel George B. Sanford, 1861–1892 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 85–93; “Casey,” Delaware Gazette and State Journal, 15 Jan 1891; and Army campaign summary for Pine Ridge, “Research: Indian Wars Campaigns,” n.d. Sources in the Yellowstone Journal article agree that Native Americans “were virtually starved” and hunger was “the cause of the trouble.” Journalists who observed distribution of rations reported food weights “guessed at” or scales weighing short. A weekly ration amount for “one person would last a healthy soldier about two [days].”
22. “Indians Moving,” Stockgrowers Journal, 13 Dec 1890, 1; “Indian U.S. Soldiers,” Deadwood Pioneer-Times, 26 Dec 1890, 1; Rpt, Lt. Robert N. Getty, to the Asst Adjutant Gen, Dept of Dakota, 13 Apr 1891, sub: Circumstances concerning the death of the late Lieutenant Casey, Casey ACP File, NAB.
23. Rpt, Getty to the Asst Adjutant Gen, Dept of Dakota, 13 Apr 1891, sub: Circumstances concerning the death of the late Lieutenant Casey; Tlg, HQ, Dept of Dakota, to Cmdg Ofcr, 22nd Inf, Fort Keogh, MT, 8 Jan 1891, RG 393, Entry 1167, NAB; Rpt, E. L. Ten Eyck, 1st Lt. and Asst Surgeon, to Medical Director, Dept of Dakota, Saint Paul, MN, 7 Jan 1891, Casey ACP File, NAB; “Lieutenant Casey’s Death,” Miller Press, 15 Jan 1891; Robert M. Utley, “The Ordeal of Plenty Horses,” American Heritage 26, no. 1 (Dec 1974): 15–19, 82–86. Utley states in his article that Plenty Horses later testified that Casey “rode up, [extended] his hand [saying], ‘How Kolia’ How do you do, friend” and they shook hands.
24. “The Indian of It,” Topeka State Journal, 8 Jan 1891; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 415–20.
25. “Harper’s War Artist,” Inter Ocean, 9 Jan 1891, 8; “Lieutenant Casey’s Last Scout,” in Frederic Remington, Pony Tracks (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1895), 22–48; “Secretary Proctor Said,” The New York Sun, 9 Jan 1891, 1; “Remington on Lieutenant Casey,” Fergus County Argus, 22 Jan 1891, 1; Report of Miles, 1891, 154; Oliver O. Howard, My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians, (Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington, 1907), 481, 484; Utley, “The Ordeal of Plenty Horses,” 15–19, 82–86; Weist, Ned Casey and His Cheyenne Scouts, 38–39; G. Sam Carr, “Plenty Horses’ Vengeance,” Historynet, 20 Sep 2018, https:// www.historynet.com/plenty-horses-vengeance/.
26. Jerome A. Greene, ed., Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life and Campaigns in the West, 1864–1898 (New York: Savas Beatie, 2007), 209–19; “Casey Scouts’ Hard Journey,” Deadwood Pioneer-Times, 27 Mar 1891, 1; “Enlistments of Indians in Dakota,” Kansas City Times, 10 Apr 1891, 3; “Making Indian Soldiers,” Stockgrowers Journal, 14 Jan 1893; Report of Brigadier General John R. Brooke, HQs, Department of Dakota, 23 Aug 1895, Annual Report of the Secretary of War for 1895 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), 132–33; “No Indian Soldiers,” River Press, 15 May 1895; Warhank, “Fort Keogh,” 40. Veterans of the Pine Ridge Campaign recalled in Indian War Veterans that “deep snow and weather 25 to 35 degrees below zero” for January 1891.
27. Robert D. Seals, “Honoring an ARSOF Legend, Major General Robert T. Frederick,” Veritas 18, no. 1 (Apr 2022), 75, https:// arsof-history.org/articles/22apr_mg_robert_ frederick_page_1.html; Bob Seals, “‘Two Arrows Crossed:’ A History of U.S. Army Special Forces Branch Insignia,” Military History Online, n.d., https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ Modern/SpecialForcesInsignia; and Casey Efficiency Rpt, Casey ACP File, NAB. Casey was mentioned by Miles, Howard, and Grinnell in their books. Grinnell, a famous anthropologist, and naturalist, wrote in The Fighting Cheyennes that Casey’s Scouts “were devoted to him.”
Authors
Robert D. Seals is a retired special forces officer and the command historian for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His previous assignments include service with the Special Forces Doctrine Division at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, and as the special forces branch historian for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. He lives on a horse property with his wife, a retired Army Veterinary Corps officer. Their son, is an Army cavalry officer with the 5th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division currently deployed in Eastern Europe.