Sign Talker: Hugh Lenox Scott Remembers Indian Country

273 Pages·2016·33.992 MB·English

by  Hugh Lenox Scott

Sign Talker
Captain Hugh Lenox Scott, Seventh U.S. Cavalry, in dress uniform, ca. 1895.
Artist Frederic Remington thought he looked like a “college professor.” From
Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895–96, 224.
Sign Talker
Hugh Lenox Scott Remembers
Indian Country
Edited by R. ELI PAUL
university of oklahoma press : norman
This book is published with the generous assistance
of the Wallace C. Thompson Endowment Fund,
University of Oklahoma Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Scott, Hugh Lenox, 1853–1934, author. | Paul, R. Eli, 1954– editor. | Scott,
Hugh Lenox. Some memories of a soldier. Abridgement of (work)
Title: Sign talker : Hugh Lenox Scott remembers Indian Country / by
Hugh Lenox Scott ; edited and with an introduction by R. Eli Paul.
Description: Norman, OK : University of Oklahoma Press, [2016] |
Abridgement of: Some memories of a soldier / Hugh Lenox Scott. New York :
The Century Com pany, 1928. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2015044256 | ISBN 978-0-8061-5354-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Scott, Hugh Lenox, 1853–1934. | United States.
Army— Military life. | United States. Army— Offi cers— Biography. |
Generals— United States— Biography. | Indians of North Ame rica—
Government relations— Anecdotes.
Classifi cation: LCC E181 .S416 2016 | DDC 355.0092— dc23
LC rec ord available at http:// lccn . loc . gov / 2015044256
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of
the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on Library Resources, Inc. ∞
Copyright © 2016 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,
Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other wise— except as permitted under
Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act— without the prior written
permission of the University of Oklahoma Press. To request permission to
reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma
Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069, or email rights . oupress@ou . edu.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Contents
Preface ix
Editor’s Introduction 3
1 Boyhood 23
2 A West Point Cadet and Plebe Days 31
3 Yearling Misfortune 36
4 Ser vice on the Plains 41
5 With the Indians 48
6 Into the Field 52
7 Troubles at Home 58
8 The Annual Expedition 64
9 After the Nez Percés 71
10 Buff alo Running 85
11 On the March Again 90
12 A Winter’s Program 99
vi contents
13 A Packtrain for the Regiment 104
14 Trou ble with Red Cloud 109
15 In Station at Fort Totten 114
16 A Mission of Pacifi cation 123
17 Recruiting Ser vice 133
18 Into the Southwest 135
19 Problems of Fort Sill 146
20 A Messiah on the Plains 151
21 Lo! The Poor Indian 161
22 Memories of Buff alo Bill and Other Famous Plainsmen 174
23 Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War 182
24 President Cleveland and the Indians 198
25 End of the Plains 205
Epilogue 208
Appendix: Joseph at Grant’s Tomb 229
Bibliography 235
Index 245
Illustrations
Figures
Captain Scott in dress uniform ii
Major General Scott on horse back 4
Scott demonstrating the Plains Indian Sign Language 50
Scott addressing Indian tribes in sign language 97
Scott and Paiute Indians 221
Map
Scott’s Indian Country, 1876–1898 20–21
vii

Preface
Time may be catching up with Hugh Lenox Scott of Prince ton, West Point,
and points west. Once a prominent fi gure of the fi rst third of the twentieth
century, Scott’s stature has fallen sharply in the intervening de cades. Clearly,
modern historians of the U.S. Army have overlooked Scott, which may be
surprising given the major general’s rank and station. Military biographies
of his late nineteenth- and early twentieth-c entury contemporaries abound—
many of them on individuals who had shorter careers, fewer professional
accomplishments, and less in ter est ing lives but who participated, often ac-
cidentally, in events that still capture the imagination. Hundreds of books
have been written about George A. Custer, the perennial attraction to authors
of all stripes, and several more on the individual offi cers under his com-
mand. The zenith— perhaps the nadir—of their respective careers consisted
of what they did or had done to them at the Little Big Horn. Fortunately
Scott missed that debacle by a year.
More biographies cover the military leaders who, de cades later in the
early twentieth c entury, led a national army to fi ght in the First World War.
As the U.S. Army chief of staff , in his day the pinnacle of national military
ser vice, Scott did his part by helping prepare the country for the war against
Germany. John J. Pershing and his frontline division commanders, though,
captured the public’s interest in the afterglow of Allied victory and continue
to do so among biographers. Yet no such published biography of Scott ap-
peared in the intervening century.
ix