My life on the plains

by George A. Custer

After posting their pickets and partaking of the plainest of suppers, Forsyth’s little party disposed of themselves on the ground to sleep, little dreaming who was to sound their reveille in so unceremonious a manner.

At dawn on the following day, September 17, 1868, the guard gave the alarm “Indians.” Instantly every man sprang to his feet and, with the true instinct of the frontiersman, grasped his rifle with one hand while with the other he seized his lariat, that the Indians might not stampede the horses. Six Indians dashed up toward the party, rattling bells, shaking buffalo robes, and firing their guns. The four pack mules belonging to the party broke away and were last seen galloping over the hills. Three other animals made their escape, as they had only been hobbled, in direct violation of the orders which directed that all the animals of the command should be regularly picketed to a stake or picket-pin, firmly driven into the ground. A few shots caused the Indians to sheer off and disappear in a gallop over the hills. Several of the men started in pursuit, but were instantly ordered to rejoin the command, which was ordered to saddle up with all possible haste, Forsyth feeling satisfied that the attempt to stampede the stock was but the prelude to a general and more determined attack. Scarcely were the saddles thrown on the horses and the girths tightened, when Grover, the guide, placing his hand on Forsyth’s shoulder, gave vent to his astonishment as follows: “O heavens, General, look at the Indians!” Well might he be excited. From every direction they dashed toward the band. Over the hills, from the west and north, along the river, on the opposite bank, everywhere and in every direction they made their appearance. Finely mounted, in full war paint, their long scalp locks braided with eagles’ feathers, and with all the paraphernalia of a barbarous war party—with wild whoops and exultant shouts, on they came.

There was but one thing to do. Realizing that they had fallen into a trap, Forsyth, who had faced danger too often to hesitate in an emergency, determined that if it came to a Fort Fetterman affair, described in a preceding chapter, he should at least make the enemy bear their share of the loss. He ordered his men to lead their horses to the island, tie them to the few bushes that were growing there in a circle, throw themselves upon the ground in the same form, and make the best fight they could for their lives. In less time than it takes to pen these words, the order was put into execution. Three of the best shots in the party took position in the grass under the bank of the river which covered the north end of the island; the others formed a circle inside of the line of animals, and throwing themselves upon the ground began to reply to the fire of the Indians, which soon became hot and galling in the extreme. Throwing themselves from their horses, the Indians crawled up to within a short distance of the island, and opened a steady and well-directed fire upon the party. Armed with the best quality of guns, many of them having the latest pattern breech-loaders with fixed ammunition (as proof of this many thousand empty shells of Spencer and Henry rifle ammunition were found on the ground occupied by the Indians after the fight), they soon made sad havoc among the men and horses. As it grew lighter, and the Indians could be distinguished, Grover expressed the greatest astonishment at the number of warriors, which he placed at nearly one thousand. Other members of the party estimated them at even a greater number. Forsyth expressed the opinion that there could not be more than four or five hundred, but in this it seems he was mistaken, as some of the Brulés, Sioux, and Cheyennes have since told him that their war party was nearly nine hundred strong, and was composed of Brulés, Sioux, Cheyennes, and Dog Soldiers; furthermore, that they had been watching him for five days previous to their attack, and had called in all the warriors they could get to their assistance. The men of Forsyth’s party began covering themselves at once, by using case and pocket knives in the gravelly sand, and soon had thrown up quite a little earthwork consisting of detached mounds in the form of a circle. About this time Forsyth was wounded by a Minié ball, which, striking him in the right thigh, ranged upward, inflicting an exceedingly painful wound. Two of his men had been killed, and a number of others wounded. Leaning over to give directions to some of his men, who were firing too rapidly, and in fact becoming a little too nervous for their own good, Forsyth was again wounded, this time in the left leg, the ball breaking and badly shattering the bone midway between the knee and ankle. About the same time Dr. Movers, the surgeon of the party, who, owing to the hot fire of the Indians, was unable to render surgical aid to his wounded comrades, had seized his trusty rifle and was doing capital service, was hit in the temple by a bullet, and never spoke but one intelligible word again.

Matters were now becoming desperate, and nothing but cool, steady fighting would avail to mend them. The hills surrounding the immediate vicinity of the fight were filled with women and children, who were chanting war songs and filling the air with whoops and yells. The medicine men, a sort of high priests, and older warriors rode around outside of the combatants, being careful to keep out of range, and encouraged their young braves by beating a drum, shouting Indian chants, and using derisive words toward their adversaries, whom they cursed roundly for skulking like wolves, and dared to come out and fight like men.

Meantime the scouts were slowly but surely “counting game,” and more than one Indian fell to the rear badly wounded by the rifles of the frontiersmen. Within an hour after the opening of the fight, the Indians were fairly frothing at the mouth with rage at the unexpected resistance they met, while the scouts had now settled down to earnest work, and obeyed to the letter the orders of Forsyth, whose oft reiterated command was, “Fire slowly, aim well, keep yourselves covered, and, above all, don’t throw away a single cartridge.”

Taken all in all, with a very few exceptions, the men behaved superbly. Obedient to every word of command, cool, plucky, determined, and fully realizing the character of their foes, they were a match for their enemies thus far at every point. About nine o’clock in the morning the last horse belonging to the scouts was killed, and one of the red skins was heard to exclaim in tolerably good English, “There goes the last damned horse anyhow;” a proof that some of the savages had at some time been intimate with the whites.

Shortly after nine o’clock a portion of the Indians began to form in a ravine just below the foot of the island, and soon about one hundred and twenty Dog Soldiers, the “banditti of the Plains,” supported by some three hundred or more other mounted men, made their appearance, drawn up just beyond rifle shot below the island, and headed by the famous chief “Roman Nose,” prepared to charge the scouts. Superbly mounted, almost naked, although in full war dress, and painted in the most hideous manner, with their rifles in their hands, and formed with a front of about sixty men, they awaited the signal of their chief to charge, with apparently the greatest confidence. Roman Nose addressed a few words to the mounted warriors, and almost immediately afterward the dismounted Indians surrounding the island poured a perfect shower of bullets into the midst of Forsyth’s little party. Realizing that a crisis was at hand, and hot work was before him, Forsyth told his men to reload every rifle and to take and load the rifles of the killed and wounded of the party, and not to fire a shot until ordered to do so.

For a few moments the galling fire of the Indians rendered it impossible for any of the scouts to raise or expose any part of their persons. This was precisely the effect which the Indians desired to produce by the fire of their riflemen. It was this that the mounted warriors, under the leadership of Roman Nose, were waiting for. The Indians had planned their assault in a manner very similar to that usually adopted by civilized troops in assailing a fortified place. The fire of the Indian riflemen performed the part of the artillery on such occasions, in silencing the fire of the besieged and preparing the way for the assaulting column.

Seeing that the little garrison was stunned by the heavy fire of the dismounted Indians, and rightly judging that now, if ever, was the proper time to charge them, Roman Nose and his band of mounted warriors, with a wild, ringing war-whoop, echoed by the women and children on the hills, started forward. On they came, presenting even to the brave men awaiting the charge a most superb sight. Brandishing their guns, echoing back the cries of encouragement of their women and children on the surrounding hills, and confident of victory, they rode bravely and recklessly to the assault. Soon they were within the range of the rifles of their friends, and of course the dismounted Indians had to slacken their fire for fear of hitting their own warriors. This was the opportunity for the scouts, and they were not slow to seize it. “Now,” shouted Forsyth. “Now,” echoed Beecher, McCall, and Grover; and the scouts, springing to their knees, and casting their eyes coolly along the barrels of their rifles, opened on the advancing savages as deadly a fire as the same number of men ever yet sent forth from an equal number of rifles. Unchecked, undaunted, on dashed the warriors; steadily rang the clear, sharp reports of the rifles of the frontiersmen. Roman Nose, the chief, is seen to fall dead from his horse, then Medicine Man is killed, and for an instant the column of braves, now within ten feet of the scouts, hesitates—falters. A ringing cheer from the scouts, who perceive the effect of their well-directed fire, and the Indians begin to break and scatter in every direction, unwilling to rush to a hand-to-hand struggle with the men who, although outnumbered, yet knew how to make such effective use of their rifles. A few more shots from the frontiersmen and the Indians are forced back beyond range, and their first attack ends in defeat. Forsyth turns to Grover anxiously and inquires, “Can they do better than that, Grover?” “I have been on the Plains, General, since a boy, and never saw such a charge as that before. I think they have done their level best,” was the reply. “All right,” responds “Sandy”; “then we are good for them.”

So close did the advance warriors of the attacking column come in the charge, that several of their dead bodies now lay within a few feet of the intrenchments. The scouts had also suffered a heavy loss in this attack. The greatest and most irreparable was that of Lieutenant Beecher, who was mortally wounded, and died at sunset of that day. He was one of the most reliable and efficient officers doing duty on the Plains. Modest, energetic, and ambitious in his profession, had he lived he undoubtedly would have had a brilliant future before him, and had opportunity such as is offered by a great war ever have occurred, Lieutenant Beecher would have without doubt achieved great distinction.