Famous Indian Chiefs / Their Battles, Treaties, Sieges, and Struggles with the Whites for the Possession of America

by Charles H. L. Johnston

As the soldiers fell to work to erect the stockade and buildings of this new fortification, called Fort Phil Kearney, they were not long in realizing that the redskins did not intend to leave them alone. Picket posts were established upon the surrounding hills, which overlooked the Bozeman trail and approaches from both the East and the West. Three times they were attacked by the hostiles. Upon the third of these, a warrior in warpaint and feathers rode far out beyond his yelping followers, and, shaking his clenched fist at the soldiers who were bringing up a howitzer, called out:

"Red Cloud has told you to leave the hunting grounds of the Sioux. If you remain here, you will all be killed. Red Cloud has spoken."

A jeer of derision greeted this insult, and a case-shot was immediately exploded among the clusters of red men. They scattered like chaff before the wind. The soldiers cheered their departure, and, turning towards the fort, withdrew in close order, with their faces towards the evil-looking adherents of the Sioux chieftain.

This was not the last attack upon General Carrington's frontiersmen, by any means, for many who ventured from the fort were ambuscaded. The wood trains which went out to fetch logs from a saw mill, some miles away, were constantly attacked. There was fighting all the time. Many stragglers who had ventured out alone were cut off and killed. A few were scalped, and crawling back to the stockade, were rescued by their now terrified companions, who were constantly warned not to leave the protection of the log fortress. From the first of August, until the close of the year, the Indians killed one hundred and fifty-four persons, wounded twenty more, and captured nearly seven hundred horses, mules, and cattle. Every train which passed over the Bozeman trail was attacked, and there were fifty-one demonstrations against the fort by Red Cloud and his followers. Men grew used to war and the sound of spitting bullets and flying arrows.

Among the officers of the fort was a Captain Fetterman, who had had less experience in the country than the other officers, and who was always anxious for a fight. On the twenty-first of December a wood train was sent out to gather a supply of timber for the fort, and, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the lookout on a hill near-by signalled that it had been attacked by the Indians in force, about a mile and a half from the fort. A relief party of eighty-one men was immediately sent out to the aid of the beleagured whites, and the command was entrusted to Fetterman. He boasted that with this troop he could ride through the entire Sioux nation.

As the soldiers left the post, General Carrington gave specific orders that they were not to pursue the Indians across a trail which was visible from the fort. "You shall relieve the wood train, drive back the Indians, but on no account pursue them beyond the Lodge Trail Ridge," said the careful commander at the moment of departure, and in a loud voice. "All right," called Fetterman, "I shall be sure to obey your orders." With a smile on his face, he rode out into the open, taking a direction which would lead him to the rear of the Indians who were menacing the wood train.

Red Cloud was in command of the savage horde upon the plains, and, when he heard that Fetterman's command was approaching, he directed his braves to retreat down the valley. The wood train immediately broke corral, and, as the redskins went away, made for the fort. Fetterman and his men rode after the red men, and, entirely disregarding the orders from General Carrington, followed the fleeing braves down a ravine. This was exactly what Red Cloud had wished, and, taunting the oncoming soldiers with jeers and insults, he had soon drawn them into an ambuscade. Suddenly the bluecoats found themselves surrounded. Too late they turned about to retreat to the protection of Fort Phil Kearney. In their rear a vast and overwhelming mass of Indians galloped upon them, driving them into a circle for defense, and shooting them down by scores. The whites fought gamely and well, but it was of little avail. They were soon overwhelmed by the great numbers of the Sioux, as well armed as they were themselves, and led by Red Cloud in person. Soon not a single soldier was alive, and the air resounded with the wild warwhoops of the victorious savages.

At the fort the heavy firing of the battle was heard about twelve o'clock. Carrington instantly dispatched fifty-four men to the relief of Fetterman and his doomed command, who had disappeared from view behind the sloping hills. The men went forward on the run. Carrington, himself, mounted the observatory tower, fieldglasses in hand, and anxiously scanned the distant hills. He was fearful of the result of the expedition, but dared say nothing to his officers and men, or to the women and children who had husbands and fathers in Fetterman's detachment. Late in the afternoon the relief party returned with terrible tidings of an awful disaster.

When they had reached the end of the ridge nearest the fort, they saw evidences of a great battle. Forty-nine men were lying behind a pile of rocks, in a space only about six feet square. They had been killed by arrows and spears, and not by bullets. Fetterman was found prostrate behind a hillock with another officer by his side. As their heads were burned and filled with powder around the wounds, it was evident that they had committed suicide when they found that it was all up with them. On every side were signs of the fiercest kind of hand-to-hand fighting. Behind a pile of stones were two civilians who had been armed with modern six-shot rifles, and as many Indian ponies lay near by, it was evident that they had put up a stout defense. Ghastly and mutilated remains, shot full of arrows and stripped naked, were on every side. Red Cloud and his braves had had a terrible victory.