Ammunition was running low. There were at one time only forty rounds per man available. Repeated requests and appeals, both by letter and telegram, for reinforcements and supplies, and especially for modern and serviceable weapons, had met with little consideration. The officials in the far East hugged their treaty, and refused to believe that a state of war existed; and, if it did exist, were disposed to censure the commanding officer for provoking it. In several instances presents given in the treaty at Fort Laramie were found on the persons of visiting Indians, and one captured Indian pony was heavily loaded with original packages of those presents. Carrington had done nothing to provoke war, but had simply carried out General Sherman’s written instructions, sent him as late as August, to “avoid a general war, until the army could be reorganized and increased;” but he defended himself and command stoutly when attacked. Some of the officers, therefore, covertly sneering at the caution of the commander, were burning for an opportunity to distinguish themselves on this account, and had practically determined to make or take one at the first chance. Fetterman and Brown, unfortunately, were the chief of these malcontents. II. The Annihilation of Fetterman’s Command On the 21st of December, the ground being free from snow, the air clear and cold, the lookout on Sullivant Hills signalled about eleven o’clock in the morning that the wood train had been corralled, and was again attacked in force about a mile and a half from the fort. A relief party of forty-nine men from the Eighteenth Infantry, with twenty-seven troopers from the Second Cavalry, a detachment from which, nearly all recruits and chiefly armed with muskets as their carbines had not reached Laramie, had joined the post some months before, was at once ordered out. The command was first given to Captain Powell, with Lieutenant Grummond in charge of the cavalry. Grummond had a wife in delicate health at the post, and he was cautioned by the officers to take care not to be led into a trap, although his experience on the 6th, when he had so narrowly escaped death, was, it would seem, the best warning he could have had. This body of men was the best armed party at the post, a few of those designated carrying the Spencer repeating carbines. Each company had been directed to keep forty rounds per man on hand for immediate use in any emergency, besides extra boxes always kept in company quarters. The men had been exercised in firing recently and some of the ammunition had been expended, although they still had an abundant supply for the purposes of the expedition. Carrington personally inspected the men before they left, and rejected those who were not amply provided.