As I was a member of the Carrington Powder River Expedition of 1866, I take the liberty of sending you a short sketch of happenings about Fort Phil Kearney. Being actively engaged with others for some two years in making the history of that place, I think that the account may be of interest.

I left Fort Leavenworth early in the spring of 1866. At Fort Kearney, Nebraska, we found Col. Carrington and a part of his command, consisting of several companies of the Eighteenth Regular Infantry. Early in April we received some recruits for said command, and in a short time started on what at that time was called the Carrington Powder River Expedition. We followed the overland trail (sometimes called the Salt Lake trail) up the south side of the South Platte River to Julesberg, crossed the river there, then crossed the divide to the North Platte. From here we went to Fort Laramie. From this point we marched west to Mussa ranch, crossed Horse Creek, and followed the Bozeman trail. This was a new road, and a short cut to Montana. After following this trail fifteen miles we struck the North Platte at Bridger’s Ferry. We crossed here in a ferryboat—a large flat boat attached to a large cable rope stretched across the river.

We followed the North Platte River up on the right side to a point opposite to the present site of Fort Fetterman. At this point we left the river and struck across the country, crossing Sand Creek and several other small creeks, among which I now remember the North, South, and Middle Cheyennes. They were then merely the dry beds of what would be quite large rivers at the time of the melting of the snow in the mountains. At a point twenty-two miles east of the Powder River we struck the head of the Dry Fork of the Powder River and followed it down to the river.

There on the west side we found Fort Reno, established by General Conner in ’65 and garrisoned by a few “galvanized soldiers.” The garrison had been greatly reduced by desertions during the winter, the soldiers making for Montana. “Galvanized soldiers” was a name given to captured Rebel soldiers who enlisted in the Union Army to do frontier duty in order to get out of prison, and incidentally to draw pay from Uncle Sam. We laid over here for a few days, and on the fourth of July the Indians stampeded the stock of Al. Leighton, the sutler. The colonel made a detail of soldiers and citizens to go out after the Indians and recover the stock if possible.

It was indeed a laughable sight to see the soldiers trying to ride mules that were not broken to ride—and the soldiers knew about as much about riding as the mules did. We followed the Indians to the Pumpkin Buttes and I am free to say for myself that I was very glad that we did not find them. Had we got in touch with them we would have had the smallest kind of a show to save our hair. The soldiers being mounted on green mules, and being armed with the old Springfield musket, and that strapped on their backs, a very few Indians could have stampeded the mules and, in fact, the soldiers as well.

We, the citizens, had made arrangements that if the Indians attacked us we would stick together and fight it out the best that we could. Jim Bridger, our guide, was with this party. He was an old timer in the mountains. I had two years experience in the mountains and plains prior to this time; the rest of the citizens were good men. We returned to the fort safely but did not recover any of the stock.

A day or two later we left the fort. The first day’s march was a very hard one, thirty-six miles to Crazy Woman’s Fork. This creek was a very fine one, clear, cool, and very rapid. The command was badly demoralized by this long, hot, and dry march, no water between that point and Fort Reno. The soldiers had been paid off a day or two before, many had been drunk, many more thoughtless, and did not provide for water in spite of orders. I saw five dollars paid for a canteen of water on this march. On our arrival at Crazy Woman’s Fort, the commanding officer detailed a guard to keep the soldiers from jumping into the creek and drinking too much water.

We laid over here two days, to repair wagons and bring in the stragglers. Had the Indians been on hand, they could have cleaned up many of the soldiers at this time. From this creek west to the Big Horn the country is very fine; plenty of wood, water, and grass; in fact, a paradise. We traveled west to the forks of the Pineys. The big and little Pineys fork near where we made our camp, sixty-five miles west of the Powder River.

On the twenty-fourth day of July we moved to the place where we established Fort Phil Kearney. The grasshoppers were so thick in the air that day that they nearly obscured the sun from sight.^[25] In fact, it did not look bigger than a silver dollar. The fort was built about as you have described it, and from the day that we established it until I left there, in November, ’67, the Indians were very much in evidence and plenty of fighting nearly all that time.

I was a teamster on this expedition, driving an ambulance team. Made several trips to Fort Laramie and to Fort C. F. Smith on the Big Horn. This latter Fort was established by Carrington a short time after the establishment of Fort Phil Kearney, and was a two-company post.

I was with the hay-making party down the Big Piney during a part of the summer of ’66. During one of our trips to the hay field, we were accompanied by a man who represented Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly as an artist. This man rode with me a part of the way. He intended to do some sketching near there but I advised him to stay with our outfit. However, he insisted on stopping by the way. On our return we found him dead, a cross cut on his breast, which indicated that they thought him a coward who would not fight. He wore long, black hair and his head had been completely skinned. Probably it was the work of a band of young Cheyenne bucks; they could cut the scalps into many pieces and thereby make a big show in camp. Was very sorry for this man; he appeared to be a perfect gentleman. His thought was, that if the Indians found him they would not hurt him, as he intended to show them his drawings, and also explain to them that he was not armed.

Later on the Indians got so thick that we had to abandon this hay-making business. The day that we broke camp we had a great deal of fighting with the Indians. I remember a soldier named Pate Smith who borrowed a revolver from me that day. This man was mounted. He rode too far ahead of the outfit, the Indians cut him off. Later we heard from the Crows that the Sioux caught him, skinned him alive. This man was an old volunteer soldier, but what show has a man with the old-fashioned Springfield musket? One shot and you are done.

I was at the Fort at the time of the Phil Kearney massacre and went down with the reinforcements to that sad scene. Our men were all down when we got there, and cut up in the most brutal manner, such as only a red brute would do. We buried them a little east of the fort. They fought a good fight, but were surprised and overpowered. As we approached the scene of action the country was black with Indians to the west.

The officers were clearly to blame for this slaughter; they disobeyed the colonel’s orders, which were to guard the wood train to the fort, and not to engage the Indians unless attacked by them. At a point about two miles west of the fort they left the wood train; crossed the Big Piney Creek; got nearly to the Peno Creek, and were ambushed by about three thousand Indians, and the entire command killed. This band of Indians included all of the different tribes of the Sioux, also Cheyennes, Blackfeet, Arapahoes, and some young renegade Crow bucks. I knew this latter statement to be true, from the fact that one member of Company C, Second Cavalry, had stolen a revolver from me some time before and it was with him in this fight. It was taken from his body by the Indians. Next spring a young Crow came to the fort. I saw the gun under his blanket and took it away from him. If he was in camp on the Big Horn with his people, he could not have got this gun on this field of slaughter. I had been wounded about six weeks prior to this fight and had not reported for duty, but on call for volunteers to reinforce the Fetterman party, reported for duty and went with the command to the scene of the massacre.

You are in error in stating that there was no communication with the outside world during this winter. I made one trip with my ambulance to Fort Laramie. We had an escort of ten cavalry soldiers. We made, I think, three trips after this without an escort, using pack mules, the party consisting of two packers and the mail-carrier, Van Volsey, a very fine man and a brave one, too. Last trip up I saw Indian signs in the dry forks of the Powder River, consisting of the remains of a camp fire, not entirely burned out, and some Indian traps lying around it. I refused to make another trip without an escort. On our arrival at the fort we reported the facts, and demanded an escort for the next trip. But owing to the fact that the stock was in such poor condition on account of the scarcity of food, they could not furnish one mounted.

They persuaded me to take one more trip with Van Volsey, which I foolishly consented to do. On the first day out I got snow blind and on our arrival at Fort Reno requested him to get a substitute in my place. He refused to do so and insisted that I accompany him to Fort Laramie, but after being on the road a short time, my eyes played out entirely. I had to return to the fort and there secured another man to take my place. They made the trip down all right and returning were accompanied by two or three soldiers, who were going to join their commands. They had got nearly to the head of the dry fork of the Powder River when the Indians killed the entire party. We found the bones of the men and mules and some of the mail sacks. We buried the men’s remains there.

During the summer of ’67 life was one continual round of fighting. We lost a great many men, but damaged the Sioux much more than during the previous year. The soldiers had better guns, and were far better Indian fighters. They had learned that it was safer to keep their faces to the Indians, than, as during the previous year, their backs. When you run from an Indian you are his meat.

On the day of the wagon-box fight, accompanied by my partner, I left the fort before daylight. We went to the foot-hills to get some deer. A short time after daylight we discovered a lot of Indian smoke signals on the hills, and decided that we had better get back to the fort. In making our way back we followed the Little Piney down for some distance, and found that the country was full of Indians. We then struck out for the wood train. The Indians had got between us and it. We then went to the wagon-box corral, and got there none too soon.

Your description of the corral is correct as I remember it to be. Its location is about right, except that it was not on an island. I never heard of Little Piney Island, and I do not believe such an island existed there at that time.^[26] The wagon boxes were of the ordinary government boxes. They were set off from the wagons, as the wagons were in corral. The intervals between were packed with logs, bales of blankets, clothing, sacks of corn, etc. As to the wagon boxes being lined with iron, you are right. They were not. Up to that time, and during my time on the plains, I never saw wagon boxes so lined. The wagon box that I was detailed to fight in had no such protection, but we had gunny sacks of corn placed on edge two deep on the inside of the box, with a two inch auger hole at the point where the four sacks came together. This made good protection for the body when lying down. As stated in your article, the tops of the wagon boxes were literally torn to pieces with the bullets fired at us by the Indians. Without this protection the fight would not have lasted very long.

There was a surplus of ammunition and guns. I had two Spencer carbines, and two revolvers (six-shot army Colt’s). During the first charge I emptied the carbines and the revolvers less two shots (reserved for myself in case of a show down). The balance of our men must have fired as many shots as I did. The soldier that was in the box with me had a needle gun and a Spencer; also one or two revolvers. And he kept them busy while he lived. This man was an infantry soldier—do not remember his company. He was shot through the head, dying in about two hours after being shot.

Lieutenant Jenness had just cautioned me not to expose my person, and to hold my fire until I was sure of getting an Indian at each shot. He had moved a few feet from my box when he was shot through the head. I think he died instantly. He was a grand, good man, and a fearless officer. I told him to keep under cover. He stated he was compelled to expose himself in order to look after his men.

I got a slight wound in my left hand; a bullet came in through my porthole, which I thought was close shooting for a Sioux.

This fight lasted about four hours, and was very hot from the start. I had been in several Indian fights prior to this time, but never saw the Indians make such a determined effort to clean us up before. They should have killed the entire party. They certainly had force enough to ride over us, but our fire was so steady and severe that they could not stand the punishment.

Our men stood the strain well, held their fire until the bullets would count. In fact, shooting into such a mass of Indians as charged on us the first time, it would be nearly impossible for many bullets to go astray. In all my experience in fighting Indians prior to this time, I never saw them stand punishment so well as they did at this time; they certainly brought all their sand with them. In charging on our little corral they rode up very close to the wagon boxes, and here is where they failed. Had they pushed home on the first charge, the fight would not have lasted ten minutes after they got over the corral.

Many dead and wounded Indians lay within a few feet of the wagon boxes. The wounded Indians did not live long after the charge was over. They would watch and try to get a bullet in on some of our men. We had to kill them for self-protection. Anyway, it was evening up the Fetterman deal. They never showed mercy to a wounded white man, and should not expect any different treatment. I had a canteen of water when the fight commenced, and used most of it to cool my guns.

You state that all of our loss occurred at time of the first charge. This is an error, as the man in my box was shot after he had been fighting nearly an hour. I think that his name was Boyle. Up to the time that he was shot he certainly filled the bill and did his duty, dying with his face to the foe as a soldier should.

I do not try to estimate the number of the Indians, but, as my partner said, “The woods were full of them.” This was the largest gathering of Indians that I ever saw, and the hardest fighting lot that I ever encountered.

When the reinforcements came in sight we took on a new lease of life, and when they dropped a shell over the Indians we knew that the fight was won. Indians will not stand artillery fire. They call it the “wagon gun.” The reinforcements came just in time. One hour more of such fighting would have exhausted our men and ammunition.

As to the Indians carrying off all their dead and wounded, here you are again mistaken, as many of our men carried away with them scalps, etc., taken from the bodies of the dead Indians near the corral.^[27] The Indians certainly hauled off all their dead and wounded that they could, but did not expose themselves very much in order to get the dead ones near the corral.

On arrival of reinforcements we immediately retreated to the fort. Captain Powell was the right man to command under such trying circumstances. No better or braver man ever held a lieutenant’s commission than Jenness. As to the Indian loss, I think you have overestimated it. We thought that we had killed and wounded some more than four hundred. However, you may be right in your estimates. We had the opportunity to clean up that number, and we certainly did our best to do so.

After the massacre of ’66 (Dec.) we received reinforcements, as I now remember, four companies of infantry and two companies, L and M, of the 2d Cav. This large additional force, stationed at a four-company fort, and only provisioned for four companies, caused a great deal of suffering during the winter, resulting in much sickness and many deaths from scurvy. Nearly all of us were suffering from this disease. I have never fully recovered from the effect of it.

Colonel Carrington was severely censured by the War Department and many others for the Fort Phil Kearney massacre, and, I think, unjustly. Had Col. Fetterman and Capt. Brown and the other officers in command obeyed his orders, the massacre would not have occurred, not, at least, at this time.

Fetterman and Brown were dare-devil fighters, always anxious for a fight, and took this opportunity to get into one. Capt. Brown, on his “calico” pony, was a familiar figure around this fort—the boys called him “Baldy.” The Indians were very anxious to kill Brown; he was a thorn in their sides. While we to some extent lay the blame of the massacre on Brown and Fetterman, to be honest, we were nearly all partly to blame. We were always harping at the colonel to send a large force out and fight the Indians, but he always insisted on a conservative course. We all thought up to that time that one hundred good men could walk through the entire Sioux Nation. This massacre demonstrated that in a fight in the open the Sioux should not have over five to one of us.

I was well posted in regard to the Carrington Powder River Expedition of 1866 and the history of Fort Phil Kearney from the date of establishment to Nov., 1867, and acquainted with all of the officers and many of the soldiers and citizens. I probably would not have written this little statement of actual history were it not for the fact that in your article you stated that you got some of the record from the only living member of the celebrated wagon-box fight. I am still in the flesh and will pull down the scale at two hundred pounds. In all probability there are others alive, as we all were young men at that time.

The history of the three forts established in 1865 and 1866, well written, would make interesting history, as almost every day was full of stirring events. Quite a number of the citizens in that country at this time were discharged volunteer soldiers and some rebel soldiers also. As a rule, they were hard nuts for the Indians to crack. It was noticeable that they would not take chances fighting citizens that they would take with the soldiers.

After leaving Fort Phil Kearney I went to Cheyenne and followed the Union Pacific R. R. to the finish. Was at Promontory Point in Utah when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific R. Rs. connected; this was one of the mile-stones in the history of the West, and practically solved the Indian problem. The Indians fought hard for this territory. It was the best hunting ground that they had left. There were many half-breeds among them, and they were daring and shifty fighters.

I. The Original “Rough Riders.”

No one will question the sweeping assertion that the grittiest band of American fighters that history tells us of was that which defended the Alamo. They surpassed by one Leonidas and his Spartans; for the Greeks had a messenger of defeat, the men of the Alamo had none. But close on the heels of the gallant Travis and his dauntless comrades came “Sandy” Forsyth’s original “Rough Riders,” who immortalized themselves by their terrific fight on Beecher’s Island on the Arickaree Fork of the Republican River, in Eastern Colorado, in the fall of 1868.

The contagion of the successful Indian attacks on Fort Phil Kearney had spread all over the Central West. The Kansas Pacific was then building to Denver, and its advance was furiously resisted by the Indians. As early as 1866, at a council held at Fort Ellsworth, Roman Nose, head chief of the Cheyennes, made a speech full of insolent defiance.

“This is the first time,” said the gigantic warrior, who was six feet three and magnificently proportioned,^[28] “that I have ever shaken the white man’s hand in friendship. If the railway is continued I shall be his enemy forever.”

There was no stopping the railway. Its progress was as irresistible as the movement of civilization itself. The Indians went on the war-path. The Cheyennes were led by their two principal chiefs, Black Kettle being the second. We shall see subsequently how Custer accounted for Black Kettle. This story deals with the adventures of Roman Nose.

As fighters these Indians are entitled to every admiration. As marauders they merit nothing but censure. The Indians of the early days of the nation, when Pennsylvania and New York were border states, and across the Alleghenies lay the frontier, were cruel enough, as the chronicle of the times abundantly testify; but they were angels of light compared with the Sioux and Cheyennes, the Kiowas, Arapahoes and Comanches, and these in turn were almost admirable beside the Apache. The first-named group were as cruel as they knew how to be, and they did not lack knowledge, either. The Apaches were more ingenious and devilish in their practices than the others. The Sioux and the Cheyennes were brutal with the brutality of a wild bull or a grizzly bear. To that same kind of brutality the Apaches added the malignity of a wildcat and the subtlety of a snake. The men of the first group would stand out and fight in the open to gain their ends, although they did not prefer to. They were soldiers and warriors as well as torturers. The Apache was a lurking skulker, but, when cornered, a magnificent fighter also.^[30] General Crook calls him “the tiger of the human species.” However, from the point of detestableness there wasn’t much to choose between them.

Perhaps we ought not to blame the Indians for acting just as our ancestors of, say the Stone Age, acted in all probability. And when you put modern weapons and modern whisky in the hands of the Stone Age men you need not be surprised at the consequences. The Indian question is a terrible one any way you take it. It cannot be denied they have been treated abominably by the United States, and that they have good cause for resentment; but the situation has been so peculiar that strife has been inevitable.

As patriots defending their country, they are not without certain definite claims to our respect. Recognizing the right of the aborigines to the soil, the government has yet arbitrarily abrogated that right at pleasure. At times the Indians have been regarded as independent nations, with which all differences were to be settled by treaty as between equals; and again, as a body of subjects whose affairs could be and would be administered willy-nilly by the United States. Such vacillations are certain to result in trouble, especially as, needless to say, the Indians invariably considered themselves as much independent nations as England and France might consider themselves, in dealing with the United States or with one another. And the Indians naturally claimed and insisted that the territory where their fathers had roamed for centuries belonged solely and wholly to them. They admitted no suzerainty of any sort, either. And they held the petty force the government put in the field in supreme contempt until they learned by bitter experience the illimitable power of the United States.

To settle such a growing question in a word, offhand, as it were, is, of course, impossible, nor does the settlement lie within the province of these articles; but it may be said that if the United States had definitely decided upon one policy or the other, and had then concentrated all its strength upon the problem; if it had realized the character of the people with whom it was dealing, and had made such display of its force as would have rendered it apparent, to the keenest as well as to the most stupid and besotted of the Indians, that resistance was entirely futile, things might have been different. But it is the solemn truth that never, in any of the Indian wars west of the Missouri, has there been a force of soldiers in the field adequate to deal with the question. The blood of thousands of soldiers and settlers—men, women, and children—might have been spared had this fact been realized and acted upon.

The Cheyennes swept through western Kansas like a devastating storm. In one month they cut off, killed, or captured eighty-four different settlers, including their wives and children. They swept the country bare. Again and again the different gangs of builders were wiped out, but the railroad went on. General Sheridan finally took the field in person, as usual with an inadequate force at his disposal. One of his aides-de-camp was a young cavalry officer named George Alexander Forsyth, commonly known to his friends as “Sandy” Forsyth. He had entered the volunteer army in 1861 as a private of dragoons in a Chicago company. A mere boy, he had come out a brigadier-general. In the permanent establishment he was a major in the Ninth Cavalry. Sheridan knew him. He was one of the two officers who made that magnificent ride with the great commander that saved the day at Winchester, and it was due to his suggestion that Sheridan rode down the readjusted lines before they made the return advance which decided the fate of the battle. During all that mad gallop and hard fighting young Forsyth rode with the General. To-day he is the only survivor of that ride.

Forsyth was a fighter all through, and he wanted to get into the field in command of some of the troops operating directly on the Indians in the campaign under consideration. No officer was willing to surrender his command to Forsyth on the eve of active operations, and there was no way, apparently, by which he could do anything until Sheridan acceded to his importunities by authorizing him to raise a company of scouts for the campaign. He was directed, if he could do so, to enlist fifty men, who, as there was no provision for the employment of scouts or civilian auxiliaries, were of necessity carried on the payrolls as quartermasters’ employees for the magnificent sum of one dollar per day. They were to provide their own horses, but were allowed thirty cents a day for the use of them, and the horses were to be paid for by the government if they were “expended” during the campaign. They were equipped with saddle, bridle, haversack, canteen, blanket, knife, tin cup, Spencer repeating rifle, good for seven shots without reloading, six in the magazine, one in the barrel, and a heavy Colt’s army revolver. There were no tents or other similar conveniences, and four mules constituted the baggage train. The force was intended to be strictly mobile, and it was. Each man carried on his person one hundred and forty rounds of ammunition for his rifle and thirty rounds for his revolver. The four mules carried the medical supplies and four thousand rounds of extra ammunition. Each officer and man took seven days’ rations. What he could not carry on his person was loaded on the pack mules; scanty rations they were, too.

As soon as it was known that the troop was to be organized, Forsyth was overwhelmed with applications from men who wished to join it. He had the pick of the frontier to select from. He chose thirty men at Fort Harker and the remaining twenty from Fort Hayes. Undoubtedly they were the best men in the West for the purpose. To assist him, Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher, of the Third Infantry, was detailed as second in command. Beecher was a young officer with a record. He had displayed peculiar heroism at the great battle of Gettysburg, where he had been so badly wounded that he was lame for the balance of his life. He was a nephew of the great Henry Ward Beecher and a worthy representative of the distinguished family whose name he bore. The surgeon of the party was Dr. John H. Mooers, a highly-trained physician, who had come to the West in a spirit of restless adventure. He had settled at Hayes City and was familiar with the frontier. The guide of the party was Sharp Grover, one of the remarkable plainsmen of the time, regarded as the best scout in the government service. The first-sergeant was W. H. H. McCall, formerly brigadier-general, United States Volunteers. McCall, in command of a Pennsylvania regiment, had been promoted for conspicuous gallantry on the field, when John B. Gordon made his magnificent dash out of Petersburg and attacked Fort Steadman.

The personnel of the troop was about equally divided between hunters and trappers and veterans of the Civil War, nearly all of whom had held commissions in either the Union or Confederate Army, for the command included men from both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line. It was a hard-bitten, unruly group of fighters. Forsyth was just the man for them. While he did not attempt to enforce the discipline of the Regular Army, he kept them regularly in hand. He took just five days to get his men and start on the march. They left Fort Wallace, the temporary terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, in response to a telegram from Sheridan that the Indians were in force in the vicinity, and scouted the country for some six days, finally striking the Indian trail, which grew larger and better defined as they pursued it. Although it was evident that the Indians they were chasing greatly outnumbered them, they had come out for a fight and wanted one, so they pressed on. They got one, too.^[31]

II. The Island of Death

On the evening of the fifteenth of September, hot on the trail, now like a well-beaten road, they rode through a depression or a ravine, which gave entrance into a valley some two miles wide and about the same length. Through this valley ran a little river, the Arickaree. They encamped on the south bank of the river about four o’clock in the afternoon. The horses and men were weary with hard riding. Grazing was good. They were within striking distance of the Indians now. Forsyth believed there were too many of them to run away from such a small body as his troop of scouts. He was right. The Indians had retreated as far as they intended to.

The river bed, which was bordered by wild plums, willows and alders, ran through the middle of the valley. The bed of the river was about one hundred and forty yards wide. In the middle of it was an island about twenty yards wide and sixty yards long. The gravelly upper end of the island, which rose about two feet above the water level, was covered with a thick growth of stunted bushes, principally alders and willows; at the lower end, which sloped to the water’s edge, there rose a solitary cottonwood tree. There had been little rain for some time, and this river bed for the greater part of its width was dry and hard.^[32] For a space of four or five yards on either side of the island there was water, not over a foot deep, languidly washing the gravelled shores. When the river bed was full the island probably was overflowed. Such islands form from time to time, and are washed away as quickly as they develop. The banks of the river bed on either side commanded the island.

The simple preparations for the camp of that body of men were soon made. As night fell they rolled themselves in their blankets, with the exception of the sentries, and went to sleep with the careless indifference of veterans under such circumstances.

Forsyth, however, as became a captain, was not so careless or so reckless as his men. They were alone in the heart of the Indian country, in close proximity to an overwhelming force, and liable to attack at any moment. He knew that their movements had been observed by the Indians during the past few days. Therefore the young commander was on the alert throughout the night, visiting the outposts from time to time to see that careful watch was kept.

Just as the first streaks of dawn began to “lace the severing clouds,” he happened to be standing by the sentry farthest from the camp. Silhouetted against the sky-line they saw the feathered head of an Indian. For Forsyth to fire at him was the work of an instant. At the same time a party which had crept nearer to the picket line unobserved dashed boldly at the horses, and resorting to the usual devices with bells, horns, hideous yells, and waving buffalo robes, attempted to stampede the herd.

Men like those scouts under such circumstances slept with their boots on. The first shot called them into instant action. They ran instinctively to the picket line. A sharp fire, and the Indians were driven off at once. Only the pack mules got away. No pursuit was attempted, of course. Orders were given for the men to saddle their horses and stand by them. In a few moments the command was drawn up in line, each man standing by his horse’s head, bridle reins through his left arm, his rifle grasped in his right hand—ready! Scarcely had the company been thus assembled when Grover caught Forsyth’s arm and pointed down the valley.

“My God!” he cried, “look at the Injuns!”

In front of them, on the right of them, in the rear of them, the hills and valleys on both sides of the river seemed suddenly to be alive with Indians. It was as quick a transformation from a scene of peaceful quiet to a valley filled with an armed force as the whistle of Roderick Dhu had effected in the Scottish glen.

The way to the left, by which they had entered the valley, was still open. Forsyth could have made a running fight for it and dashed for the gorge through which he had entered the valley. There were, apparently, no Indians barring the way in that direction. But Forsyth realized instantly that for him to retreat would mean the destruction of his command, that the Indians had in all probability purposely left him that way of escape, and if he tried it he would be ambushed in the defile and slain. That was just what they wanted him to do, it was evident. That was why he did not attempt it. He was cornered, but he was not beaten, and he did not think he could be. Besides, he had come for that fight, and that fight he was bound to have.

Whatever he was to do he must do quickly. There was no place to which he could go save the island. That was not much of a place at best, but it was the one strategic point presented by the situation. Pouring a heavy fire into the Indians, Forsyth directed his men to take possession of the island under cover of the smoke. In the movement everything had to be abandoned, including the medical stores and rations, but the precious ammunition—that must be secured at all hazards. Protected by a squad of expert riflemen on the river bank, who presently joined them, the scouts reached the island in safety, tied their horses to the bushes around the edge of it, and in the intervals of fighting set to work digging rifle-pits covering an ellipse twenty by forty yards, one pit for each man, with which to defend the upper and higher part of the island They had nothing to dig with except tin cups, tin plates, and their bowie knives, but they dug like men. There was no lingering or hesitation about it.

The chief of the Indian force, which was made up of Northern Cheyennes, Oglala and Brulé Sioux, with a few Arapahoes and a number of Dog Soldiers, was the famous Roman Nose, an enemy to be feared indeed. He was filled with disgust and indignation at the failure of his men to occupy the island, the strategic importance of which he at once detected. It is believed that orders to seize the island had been given, but for some reason they had not been obeyed; and to this oversight or failure was due the ultimate safety of Forsyth’s men. It was not safe to neglect the smallest point in fighting with a soldier like Forsyth.

With more military skill than they had ever displayed before, the Indians deliberately made preparations for battle. The force at the disposal of Roman Nose was something less than one thousand warriors. They were accompanied by their squaws and children. The latter took position on the bluffs on the east bank of the river, just out of range, where they could see the whole affair. Like the ladies of the ancient tournaments, they were eager to witness the fighting and welcome the victors, who, for they never doubted the outcome, were certain to be their own.

Roman Nose next lined the banks of the river on both sides with dismounted riflemen, skilfully using such concealment as the ground afforded. The banks were slightly higher than the island, and the Indians had a plunging fire upon the little party. The riflemen on the banks opened fire at once. A storm of bullets was poured upon the devoted band on the island. The scouts, husbanding their ammunition, slowly and deliberately replied, endeavoring, with signal success, to make every shot tell. As one man said, they reckoned “every ca’tridge was wuth at least one Injun.” The horses of the troop, having no protection, received the brunt of the first fire. They fell rapidly, and their carcasses rising in front of the rifle-pits afforded added protection to the soldiers. There must have been a renegade white man among the savages, for in a lull of the firing the men on the island heard a voice announce in perfect English, “There goes the last of their horses, anyway.” Besides this, from time to time, the notes of an artillery bugle were heard from the shore. The casualties had not been serious while the horses stood, but as soon as they were all down the men began to suffer.^[33]

During this time Forsyth had been walking about in the little circle of defenders encouraging his men. He was met on all sides with insistent demands that he lie down and take cover, and, the firing becoming hotter, he at last complied. The rifle-pit which Surgeon Mooers had made was a little wider than that of the other men, and as it was a good place from which to direct the fighting, at the doctor’s suggestion some of the scouts scooped it out to make it a little larger, and Forsyth lay down by him.

The fire of the Indians had been increasing. Several scouts were killed, more mortally wounded, and some slightly wounded. Doctor Mooers was hit in the forehead and mortally wounded. He lingered for three days, saying but one intelligent word during the whole period. Although he was blind and speechless, his motions sometimes indicated that he knew where he was. He would frequently reach out his foot and touch Forsyth. A bullet struck Forsyth in the right thigh, and glancing upwards bedded itself in the flesh, causing excruciating pain. He suffered exquisite anguish, but his present sufferings were just beginning, for a second bullet struck him in the leg, between the knee and ankle, and smashed the bone, and a third glanced across his forehead, slightly fracturing his skull and giving him a splitting headache, although he had no time to attend to it then.

III. The Charge of the Five Hundred

During all this time Roman Nose and his horsemen had withdrawn around the bend up the river, which screened them from the island. At this juncture they appeared in full force, trotting up the bed of the river in open order in eight ranks of about sixty front. Ahead of them, on a magnificent chestnut horse, trotted Roman Nose. The warriors were hideously painted, and all were naked except for moccasins and cartridge belts. Eagle feathers were stuck in their long hair, and many of them wore gorgeous feather war bonnets. They sat their horses without saddles or stirrups, some of them having lariats twisted around the horses’ bellies like a surcingle. Roman Nose wore a magnificent war bonnet of feathers streaming behind him in the wind and surmounted by two buffalo-horns; around his waist he had tied an officer’s brilliant scarlet silk sash, which had been presented to him at the Fort Ellsworth conference. The sunlight illumined the bronze body of the savage Hercules, exhibiting the magnificent proportions of the man. Those who followed him were in every way worthy of their leader.

As the Indian cavalry appeared around the bend to the music of that bugle, the fire upon the island from the banks redoubled in intensity. Forsyth instantly divined that Roman Nose was about to attempt to ride him down. He also realized that, so soon as the horses were upon him, the rifle fire from the bank would of necessity be stopped. His order to his men was to cease firing, therefore; to load the magazines of their rifles, charge their revolvers, and wait until he gave the order to fire. The rifles of the dead and those of the party too severely wounded to use them were distributed among those scouts yet unharmed. Some of the wounded insisted upon fighting. Forsyth propped himself up in his rifle-pit, his back and shoulders resting against the pile of earth, his rifle and revolver in hand. He could see his own men, and also the Indians coming up the river.

Presently, shouting their war songs, at a wild pealed whoop from their chief, the Indian horsemen broke into a gallop, Roman Nose leading the advance, shaking his heavy Spencer rifle—captured, possibly, from Fetterman’s men—in the air as if it had been a reed. There was a last burst of rifle fire from the banks, and the rattle of musketry was displaced by the war songs of the Indians and the yells of the squaws and children on the slopes of the hills. As the smoke drifted away on that sunny September morning, they saw the Indians almost upon them. In spite of his terrible wounds the heroic Forsyth was thoroughly in command. Waiting until the tactical moment when the Indians were but fifty yards away and coming at a terrific speed, he raised himself on his hands to a sitting position and cried, “Now!”