BATTLE OF STONY LAKE—CAPTURE OF A TETON—DEATH OF LIEUTENANT BEAVER.
On the morning of July 28th, just as the command was breaking camp at Stony Lake, we were attacked by Indians, in full force.
General Sibley had the expeditionary forces so well in hand that the enemy could not possibly do us any harm. We halted but a moment, as some of the scouts came riding furiously towards us, followed by Indians intent on their capture. The boys cheered as they came within our lines. The battery was ordered to the front, and soon threw a shell among the Indians, who then galloped around on the flank, while another squad came immediately upon our rear; but, the whole column, in a solid square, moved on. The engagement took place on the prairie, and it was a beautiful sight to see the regularity with which the column moved. First, two companies of cavalry skirmishers, and at a proper interval two companies of infantry; the same order was preserved in the rear, and flankers on the right and left, so as to form a hollow square. In the center were the reserve troops, stores of all sorts, and the artillery.
The teams were so fixed as to make it impossible to get up a stampede. The Indians resort to their peculiar tactics to stampede the teams,—they tried it to its fullest extent on this occasion, but without avail. They did not impede our progress in the least, and as the column moved right along, they soon gave up the attempt, and we pressed them so closely they allowed the killed and wounded to fall into our hands. The casualties were light, because the shells that were thrown among them did but little damage.
The cavalry in this case was effective, and crowded the Indians, as they charged them with drawn sabre.
This was the last stand the Indians made in a body, and they hastened on towards the Missouri river, which they finally crossed at a point near where Bismarck, North Dakota, now stands. They made a determined resistance, and had been repulsed in three successive engagements, and their situation was critical in the extreme,—the victorious army in the rear and the Missouri in front.
After the Indians had given up the fight and had ridden ahead to urge their families on, and we had buried the dead and cared for the wounded, we pushed on after them.
A young Teton chief, who was out on a tour of observation, was captured by some of the cavalry, and the circumstances and manner in which it was done are interesting.
Thousands of us saw the strange object, but the men who captured him were the more interested observers, and the narrator says: