( 3) Ibid., p. 223 (Ricketts' Report).
( 4) Forsyth, precisely four years later, while in command of fifty picked scouts was surrounded on Beecher Island, on the Arickaree fork of the Republican River, by about nine hundred Indians, led by the celebrated chief, Roman Nose, and made the most desperate fight known in the annals of our Indian wars. Lieutenant Beecher, Surgeon Movers, and six of the scouts were killed and twenty others severely wounded. Forsyth was himself struck in the right thigh and his left leg was broken by rifle balls. He held out eight days; meantime two of his scouts succeeded in eluding the Indians, and, reaching Fort Wallace, 110 miles distant, returned with a relieving party.—Custer's Life on the Plains, 88-98.
( 5) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., p. 557.
( 6) Ibid., p. 556.
( 7) Ibid., p. 124.
( 8) Memoirs of Sheridan, vol. ii., pp. 50-2.
( 9) General A. T. A. Torbert distinguished himself on many fields and survived the war. While making a voyage on the steamer Vera Cruz he was shipwrecked off the Florida coast, August 29, 1880. He heroically aided others to escape death, and with almost superhuman exertion kept himself afloat on a broken spar for twenty hours, and thus reached shore, only to sink down and die from exhaustion.
(10) Memoirs of Sheridan, vol. ii., p. 59.
CHAPTER X Battle of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864, with Comments Thereon— Also Personal Mention and Incidents
General Early, upon his arrival at Fisher's Hill with his reorganized army, assumed, on the 13th of October, an aggressive attitude by pushing a division of infantry north of Strasburg and his cavalry along the Back road towards Cedar Creek. This brought on sharp engagements, in which Colonel Thoburn's division of Crook's corps and Custer's cavalry participated. Early seems to have acted in the belief that all but Crook's command had gone to Petersburg. This action resulted in bringing Wright back to Cedar Creek, as we have seen.