by way of the White River, to Fort Pierre, which place he reached on October 19, 1855, where he reunited his entire force of more than twelve hundred men.
Fort Pierre was in no respect suitable for the accommodation of so large a force; in fact the government was very seriously imposed upon by the fur company and had made a very bad bargain in the purchase of the post. Harney was compelled to divide his men up into small companies, and most of them spent the winter in open cantonments, scattered from the present site of Oahe down to the Big Sioux River, wherever fuel and pasturage for the horses were convenient. Probably the first piece of doggerel rhyme ever composed in South Dakota was produced and sung as a barrack-room ballad by the soldier boys in that winter of 1855. It ran thus:—
Oh, we don't mind the marching
Nor the fighting do we fear,
But we'll never forgive old Harney
For bringing us to Pierre.
They say old Shotto[1] built it,
But we know it is not so,
For the man who built this bloody ranch
Is reigning down below.
In March, 1856, Harney assembled all of the bands of the Teton Sioux and of the Yanktons at Fort Pierre, and after a protracted council entered into a treaty with them, by which they agreed to respect the California trail, and
- ↑ Chouteau.
