When Levi Took Command

By Shane Dunning

http://www.redshalereflections.com

In late May of 1897, John Hoover was found dead. The young sheepherder, employed on Fred Barringer's ranch north of Ashland, had been missing for several weeks. One of several search parties eventually found Hoover's body near his sheep camp, situated very close to the boundary of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Hoover had been shot to death. "Three empty cartridges, horse hoofprints, and a beef carcass nearby persuaded Barringer and others that Hoover had fallen victim to Cheyennes caught in the act of slaughtering white-owned stock."

Throughout the early years of its establishment, the Northern Cheyenne Reservation (along with many other plains reservations) suffered from severe food shortages primarily caused by Federal government mismanagement. For the previous ten years, ranches on the reservation border repeatedly found their stock slaughtered by Cheyenne, seeking to feed themselves and their families. As these white settlers' appeal to the reservation and federal authorities proved ineffective, tensions grew. When some Cheyenne started killing whites who witnessed their crime, the escalation was viewed extremely seriously outside the reservation borders. While these murders were rare (less than ten confirmed between 1890 and 1898), they further enflamed the local white population.

Hoover's body was taken to a nearby ranch for a coroner's inquest. Custer County Sheriff John Gibb and Coroner Bateman established that a group of unknown Cheyenne Indians had committed the crime. This conclusion was instantly spread to the sixty people waiting outside the building, and they demanded justice. Armed with general warrants for the arrest of anybody involved and demand for the Northern Cheyenne to give them up, Sheriff Gibb deputized a group of approximately twelve people and headed for the reservation.

A few miles to the South, another group of white ranchers also gathered with the earnest intention. One hundred to two hundred men from ranches neighboring the southern edge of the reservation had tired of nearly ten years of Cheyenne troubles and were determined to do something about it. They disagreed, however, on exactly what strategy to pursue. Those strategies were personified by two men: Joseph T. Brown of Birney and Levi S. Howes of Otter.

At this time, Joe T. Brown was representing the area in the Montana Legislature. Originally from Mississippi, Brown had run away from home at the age of fourteen to serve in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Superficially wounded, he was returned home with a letter to his parents:

July 5, 1864

Dear Pete and Sister Mary

This will be handed to you by the Young Hero, Joseph T. Brown. You must not scold him, as he has more than acted well his part. Joe borrowed a gun – went into the fight – fought like a tiger. Got a bullet through his pants! He is the admiration of all. God bless and preserve him.

Yours truly and affectionately,

Colonel Roberts.

After the war, Brown attended the Virginia Military Institute, graduating in 1879. In 1886 he drove the first of several herds of cattle from Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) to the Tongue River Valley, where he established the Three Circle Ranch. Becoming a successful pioneer stockman and being active in politics, Brown was soon one of the most highly respected men in the state. He had closely followed the deteriorating situation with the Cheyenne for years, and his military background made him believe that decisive action was needed. According to Levi Howes, Brown wanted the party assembled at the reservation border to take on White Bull's band of Cheyenne (the one thought to harbor the killers of John Hoover) all at once and "eat them up" to teach them a last lesson.

Levi Howes preferred a different course.

Levi was the second son of Captain Calvin Howes, a successful former sea captain from Massachusetts. Captain Howes "left the sea" and traveled west to start a cattle ranch in Montana. In 1882, he partnered with Judge JW Strevell to form the Circle Bar Ranch on Otter Creek. By 1883 the Circle Bar had brought several thousand head of cattle up from Texas under the direction of Ed McGehee. A young Levi Howes was part of these drives. By the middle of the 1890s, Howes claimed the Circle Bar had between 8,000 and 10,000 head of cattle and horses, making it one of the most significant outfits in the area. Levi Howes almost single-handedly got a post office established at Otter by getting petitions signed and personally meeting with postal officials in Washington DC. He, too, had been closely following the situation with the Cheyenne. A practical man, he was not convinced a glorious charge into the heart of the reservation would bring any success, much less justice.

Howes counseled against Brown's vigilante-like course, preferring instead to have the law on his side. Howes recalled in 1956:

It's a question of lives and things, but if you want to go over there, you haven't got men enough. You'll just get a bunch of somebody killed. If you're going, we ain't even going to the reservation. We're going back and prepare for war. And when I got up and made the talk to him. First one, and then another said to him (Brown) "you ain't goin' alone we're goin' with you!" And when Captain Brown started off, he only had a few men, the whole crowd was with me. And then they told me: we'll do as you say, you go ahead. So right then, I was foremen for Circle Bar, and I took charge. And I was one of the youngest men there. But I had to take charge.

Howes and this group met up with Sheriff Gibb. Agreeing with Howes about the need to operate within the law, Gibb deputized twelve of the new group members, including Howes. The Sheriff's band now included around twenty-five men. The rest returned to their homes to await instructions.

The basis of all this mobilization was a generalized certainty among the white settlers that the Cheyennes were about to violently "break out" of the reservation. This certainty, however, had very little basis in fact. Immediately upon hearing of the discovery of Hoover's body and that the Cheyenne were suspected, the Indian Agent, George W.H. Stouch, requested two troops of Cavalry from Fort Custer. He also ordered White Bull and his entire band to Lame Deer.

On May 26, 1897, White Bull arrived at Lame Deer, where Stouch informed him of the situation and the need to assist the Agent in finding the killers. They agreed to meet again that evening. Later that day, Sheriff Gibb and his twenty-five men arrived at Lame Deer.

The presence of the ranchers greatly disturbed the Cheyennes, and Stouch proceeded to parley with the Sheriff. The Agent refused to cooperate with the Sheriff and explained he was in the process of investigating the murder. He told Gibb that the Sheriff's men were a dangerous complication he did not need and would thwart his investigation. Gibb and Houch negotiated a compromise, wherein four deputies would remain on the reservation to assure the white settlers that Houch's investigation would proceed. Howes stated that they would be back in two weeks, and if the killers were not turned over, there would be war between the Cheyenne and the settlers.

That afternoon, Captain Robert D. Read of the Tenth Cavalry arrived with his troops. The presence of the Cavalry significantly lowered the tensions among the Cheyenne, who now felt some measure of protection from the ranchers. After a few days, White Bull told Stouch that a brave named David Stanley had confessed to the murders, but there was conflicting evidence that more Cheyenne were involved. Stanley was eventually released to Sheriff Gibb, but the controversy regarding the other suspects did not quell the simmering anger in the white community.

After he left the reservation, Howes and the settlers did as they said: they prepared for war. White women and children surrounding the reservation were loaded on wagons and sent to the nearest city (Rosebud, Miles City, or Sheridan). At the Circle Bar Ranch, Captain Howes and his son Levi built a stone fort on the top of an isolated hill near their ranch. They supplied it with food, guns, and ammunition. A small fighting force of local men was recruited to man the fort. The fort was named "Fort Howes," and the men who occupied it were the Fort Howes Defenders. The fort exists to this day on the property of the Circle Bar Ranch.

In hindsight, the effort to determine who would lead the white settlers becomes incredibly significant. The Cheyenne were not in an "outbreak" of any kind. Racism and justified dissatisfaction with the situation inflamed the local settlers into a mob mentality that required skillful leadership to manage. Had Joseph Brown emerged the leader of white ranchers, it seems likely that his bold military-style campaign would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Cheyenne may very well have resorted to violence to defend themselves against a group, ironically attacking them in the name of restoring order. Young Levi Howes kept a cool head and charted a compromise path that eventually resulted in "the Cheyenne Outbreak of 1897" being no outbreak at all.