THE CHIEF MEDICINE MAN AT BEAVER CREEK
Drawing by Will Crawford
A fire commenced from our seven-shooter Spencers which sounded like the fire of a line of infantry. The Indians charged up around the wagons, firing rapidly and seriously wounded some of the men, but in a very short time they were driven back in wild disorder, leaving the ground covered with ponies, arms, and some bodies. Three dead warriors lay within fifty feet of the wagons. One man who was killed here was carried off by his comrades.
The chief Medicine Man, on a fine looking horse, rode out in front of our line about two hundred yards off, after the retreat of the Indians, to try to show that his medicine was good and the white man’s bullets could not hurt him. I directed several men near me to aim carefully at him. They fired and the Medicine Man went down, accompanied by a howl from the more distant Indians. After the repulse the men rushed forward from the wagons, seized and hauled in ten bodies of the Indians. The savages, disheartened and surprised at this reception, withdrew out of gunshot and assembled, apparently for council.[[44]]
The men carried corn sacks and made breastworks near the wagons and we waited, expecting a renewal of the attack, for about an hour, when it became evident that some of the Indians were withdrawing. The day was very warm, we had been engaged about eight hours, and in the hot sun men and animals were suffering very much from thirst. I made up my mind to move for water, and keeping the wagons in double column, the horses inside and the men dismounted on the outside, we marched for the Beaver. A large party of Indians followed up to where their dead comrades lay and set up a mournful howl over their remains. Their loss in this fight, added to what they had suffered the month before in the conflict with Forsyth, must have had a sobering effect.
We now proceeded to the creek without further interference, and selecting a wide bottom encamped for the night, preparing some rifle-pits to cover our outlying pickets and to enable them to receive the enemy if an attack were made in the morning. We heard them around us all night imitating coyotes, but they did not find a weak place and refrained from molesting us. The next morning the Indians were gone and we marched by the shortest route to Fort Wallace, arriving there on the 21st.
On our return journey we passed through Sheridan City, a frontier town located at the then terminus of the Kansas Division of the Union Pacific R. R. It was full of taverns, saloons, gambling houses and dens, and of a rather tough lot of citizens and desperadoes. These people and others crowded into the streets when we passed through, and when they saw the troopers and their horses decorated with the spoils from the Indians whose dead bodies we had captured, they knew that we had been in a successful fight and they gave us a perfect ovation.
The savages suffered a considerable loss, but we escaped with a few men wounded (some of them seriously) and none killed. General Carr found the Fifth Cavalry had returned to the railroad, and through mistake they never reached the Beaver. He took command of the regiment, marched again and pursued the Indians over the Platte River, and followed them on a long campaign.
This was one of the smartest and most successful Indian fights on record. Carpenter’s tactics throughout had been admirable. General Carr was much surprised and pleased at the conduct of these black troopers, and on his return to Fort Wallace telegraphed to General Sheridan that “the officers and troops behaved admirably.” General Sheridan published a general order highly commending the commander, the officers and the men for this brilliant and gallant affair. Carpenter was brevetted colonel in the Regular Army (his fifth brevet), and afterward received a medal of honor for this fight and the relief of Forsyth. Well did he deserve them both.—C. T. B.