173 At the Mouth of Rapid CreekÑGeneral Carr Receiving the Report of a Scout

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This item SOLD at 2015 Apr 11 @ 13:59UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Western Americana
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 50,000.00 - 75,000.00 USD
At the Mouth of Rapid CreekÑGeneral Carr Receiving the Report of a Scout
Artist: Remington, FredericDate of Birth: 1861-1909
Medium: Pencil & Ink Wash
Dimensions: 19 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches
Signed: Signed lower right and inscribed "From sketch 6th cab. Camp Rapid Creek. Dec 23-1890"

Rapid Creek was a stoneÕs throw from Wounded Knee, and the 6th Cavalry, depicted here, wasnÕt camped far from the 7th, which means that Remington was almost on the spot at the Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place on December 28th, 1890, just five days after he did this painting. Army records show that General Carr and the 6th did engage a party of Sioux seeking revenge for Wounded Knee on January 1st, 1891, and that they drove the Indians away. What renewed the conflict between Native Americans and whites was the Ghost Dance, a ritual of purification that came as a vision to a Northern Paiute prophet named Wovoka, during a solar eclipse in 1889. The dance was supposed to halt the advance of the whites and bring about a new era of harmony and plenty. Peace was WovokaÕs theme, but the Ghost Dance spread from tribe to tribe and others interpreted it as a call to arms. Ghost Shirts, said to be capable of repelling bullets, began to circulate. Spiritual purity and martial invincibility (In one of historyÕs strange congruences, these would be the very foundations of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, where U.S. forces would protect foreign legations in Peking and Tientsin.) Bureau of Indian Affairs agents, frightened by the Ghost Dance, appealed for military assistance in November, 1890, and a scuffle that ensued when the 7th Cavalry demanded that the Lakota lay down their weapons and a young, deaf warrior resisted led to the massacre. Remington painted the Ghost Dance while he was at Rapid Creek and there is even a brief, early film of it, but the article he wrote to accompany At the Mouth of Rapid CreekÑwhich was not published until 1892Ñmakes no mention of the conflict. Instead, Remington says that his time with General Carr destroyed his romantic illusions about cavalry life, and that General Carr only cared about Òbacon and forage,Ó and that he had disabused the artist of his notions of gallantry, telling the artist, ÒSir, the most important things about a cavalry regiment are the stomachs of the men and horses.Ó