Indian Fights and Fighters: The Soldier and the Sioux

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

III. Carrington’s Stern Resolution

The night was one of wild anxiety. Nearly one-fourth of the efficient force of the fort had been wiped out. Mirror signals were flashed from the hills during the day, and fires here and there in the night indicated that the savages had not left the vicinity. The guards were doubled, every man slept with his clothing on, his weapons close at hand. In every barrack a noncommissioned officer and two men kept watch throughout the night. Carrington and the remaining officers did not sleep at all. They fully expected the fort to be attacked. The state of the women and children can be imagined, although all gossip and rumor were expressly prohibited by the commander.

The next day was bitterly cold. The sky was overcast and lowering, with indications of a tremendous storm. The Indians were not accustomed to active operations under such conditions, and there was no sign of them about. Carrington determined to go out to ascertain the fate of his missing men. Although all the remaining officers assembled at his quarters advised him not to undertake it, lest the savages, flushed with victory, should attempt another attack, Carrington quietly excused his officers, told the adjutant to remain with him, and the bugle instantly disclosed his purpose in spite of dissenting protests. He rightly judged that the moral effect of the battle would be greatly enhanced, in the eyes of the Indians, if the bodies were not recovered. Besides, to set at rest all doubts it was necessary to determine the fate of the balance of his command. His own wife, as appears from her narrative,[^[13]] approved his action and nerved herself to meet the possible fate involved, while Mrs. Grummond was the chief protestant that, as her husband was undoubtedly dead, there should be no similar disaster invited by another expedition.

In the afternoon, with a heavily armed force of eighty men, Carrington went in person to the scene of battle. The following order was left with the officer of the day: “Fire the usual sunset gun, running a white lamp to masthead. If the Indians appear fire three guns from the twelve-pounder at minute intervals, and, later, substitute a red lantern for the white.” Pickets were left on two commanding ridges, as signal observers, as the command moved forward. The women and children were placed in the magazine, a building well adapted for defense, which had been stocked with water, crackers, etc., for an emergency, with an officer pledged not to allow the women to be taken alive, if the General did not return and the Indians overcame the stockade.

Passing the place where the greatest slaughter had occurred, the men marched cautiously along the trail. Bodies were strung along the road clear to the western end farthest from the fort. Here they found Lieutenant Grummond. There were evidences of a desperate struggle about his body. Behind a little pile of rock, making a natural fortification, were the two civilians who had been armed with the modern Henry rifle. By the side of one fifty shells were counted, and nearly as many by the side of the other brave frontiersman. Behind such cover as they could obtain nearby lay the bodies of the oldest and most experienced soldiers in Fetterman’s command.

In front of them they found no less than sixty great gouts of blood on the ground and grass, and a number of dead ponies, showing where the bullets of the defenders had reached their marks,[^[14]] and in every direction were signs of the fiercest kind of hand-to-hand fighting. Ghastly and mutilated remains, stripped naked, shot full of arrows—Wheatley with no less than one hundred and five in him, scalped, lay before them.

Brown rode to the death of both a little Indian “calico” pony which he had given to the general’s boys when they started from Fort Leavenworth, in November, 1865, and the body of the horse was found in the low ground at the west slope of the ridge, showing that the fight began there, before they could reach high ground.[^[15]] At ten o’clock at night, on the return, the white lamp at masthead told its welcome story of a garrison still intact.

Fetterman had disobeyed orders. Whether deliberately or not, cannot be told. He had relieved the wood train, and instead of returning to the post, had pursued the Indians over the ridge into Peno Valley, then along the trail, and into a cunningly contrived ambush. His men had evidently fought on the road until their ammunition gave out, and then had either been ordered to retreat to the fort, or had retreated of their own motion—probably the latter. All the dead cavalry horses’ heads were turned toward the fort, by the way. Fetterman and Brown, men of unquestioned courage, must have been swept along with their flying men. There may have been a little reserve on the rocks on which they hoped to rally their disorganized, panic-stricken troops, fleeing before a horde of yelling, blood-intoxicated warriors. I imagine them vainly protesting, imploring, begging their men to make a stand. I feel sure they fought until the last. But these are only surmises; what really happened, God alone knows.

The judgment of the veteran soldiers and the frontiersmen, who knew that to retreat was to be annihilated, had caused a few to hold their ground and fight until they were without ammunition; then with gun-stocks, swords, bayonets, whatever came to hand, they battled until they were cut down. Grummond had stayed with them, perhaps honorably sacrificing himself in a vain endeavor to cover the retreat of the rest of his command. The Indian loss was very heavy, but could not exactly be determined.