The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 75, July 1971 - April, 1972 Page: 200
566 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
man only six miles from here a few days ago while he was out looking for
stray stock. I find upon investigation that Colonel [Brevet Major General]
Nelson A. Miles is fitting out an expedition to punish them. I seek em-
ployment as a scout. Had no trouble getting the situation, as the fact of
my being on the campaign with General [Eugene] Carr in '68 and later
with General [George A.] Custer and General [Philip] Sheridan being all
the recommendation that I needed.
August 7th: Spent the day at the fort, noticing the preparations and taking
leave of my wife, who well knows the hazard of a scout on an Indian cam-
paign.
August 8th: Receive our arms and equipment, which are nearly the same as
a cavalryman's outfit, except that we have the choice of a long gun or
carbine. Drew our horses, a fine gray falling to me.
August roth [August gth]:' At the fort was interviewed by General Miles,
who requested a little rifle practice from the scouts, twenty in number,
which was highly applauded by the general and his staff, we having rid-
dled the target at i,ooo yards with army opensight guns. The men com-
posing the body of scouts are all old plainsmen, well skilled in the use of
arms and Indian warfare, with an auxiliary of twenty Delaware Indians
who came from their reservation south of Coffeyville, Kansas, under the
leadership of Fall Leaf." We are placed under the command of Captain
Frank D. Baldwin, of the Sixth U.S. Infantry, who is designated Chief
of Scouts."
August zzth [August xoth]: Start my wife home to her people [near
Wichita] with many more tears in her eyes than dollars in her pockets,
but "such is life in the far west."
August 12th [August 1lth]: This morning the cavalry and part of the
scouts, under command of Major [Charles] Compton of the Sixth Cavalry,
move southwest in the direction of Adobe Walls, in the Panhandle of
*Colonel Nelson A. Miles, Fifth Infantry, received orders to organize his part of the
Indian Territory Expedition on July 27, 1874. Special Orders No. 114, in Baldwin,
"Autobiography," So4 n. The brevet rank which Colonel Miles held was an honorary
rank conferred upon an officer, above that which he held in his own corps, by the
Senate for "gallant and meritorious services." It gives no right of command or extra pay.
Thomas Wilhelm, A Military Dictionary and Gazetteer (Philadelphia, 1881).
'At this point McFadden made an error in his handwritten book. He missed the date
August g, not in event but in number, calling it August 1o. Thereafter his subsequent
entries to August 13 are off by one day. This oversight has been corrected and the proper
entry is reported on the true date.
"Frank Dwight Baldwin, Mil-s' chief of scouts, listed seventeen white and twenty Indian
scouts. "Baldwin Indian Territory Expedition, From His Own Diaries," manuscript by
W. C. Brown in the W. C. Brown Papers (University of Colorado Library); hereafter
cited as "Baldwin I.T. Exped."
*Lieutenant, not Captain, Frank D. Baldwin was of the Fifth, not Sixth, Infantry. He
had been called to duty in the Indian Territory Expedition on July 25, 1874, from New-
port Barracks, Kentucky. Hereafter the rank of Baldwin will be corrected by the editor.
Special Orders No. 7o, General Recruiting Service, July 25, 1874, in Baldwin, "Auto-
biography," o30 n.200
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 75, July 1971 - April, 1972, periodical, 1972; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101201/m1/212/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.