On the Plains with Custer: The Western Life and Deeds of the Chief With the Yellow Hair, Under Whom Served Boy Bugler Ned Fletcher, When in the Troublous Years 1866–1876 the Fighting Seventh Cavalry Helped to Win Pioneer Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota for White Civilization and Today's PeaceSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
On the Plains with Custer: The Western Life and Deeds of the Chief With the Yellow Hair, Under Whom Served Boy Bugler Ned Fletcher, When in the Troublous Years 1866–1876 the Fighting Seventh Cavalry Helped to Win Pioneer Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota for White Civilization and Today's Peace
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876 -- Fiction; Western stories
The Seventh went into camp about half a mile up Beaver Creek from
the log stockade of Fort Supply. On the third day after, the body of
Captain Louis McLane Hamilton was laid to rest under some cottonwoods
on the bank of the creek. It was a solemn and tender military funeral;
with muffled drums and slow march by the band, and in the ambulance
a rude board casket covered with the American flag, and behind the
ambulance the captain’s horse, draped with a black cloth, and bearing
the empty saddle and the cavalry boots upside down. Over the grave were
fired three volleys; Odell sounded “Taps.”
The Nineteenth Kansas Volunteers had at last struggled in, after losing
by cold and starvation almost all their horses. General Sheridan had
been waiting only for the Kansas soldiers, before he should start out
himself, with General Custer and all, upon another winter march against
the Indians. And he hoped to get some news of Major Elliot and fifteen
men.
However, it was decided to send the prisoners and the wounded up to
Fort Hays; and as Ned was not yet fit for duty (the arrow had made two
large holes, one over his left eye, where it had gone in, and the other
over his left ear, where it had come out), up to Fort Hays must he go.
Little Mary of course went, too.
On the seventh of December, scarce a week after the Seventh had marched
in, out marched again the famous “pony-soldiers,” together with the
infantry or “walk-a-heaps.” General Sheridan, whom the Indians styled
“Little-Big-Short-Man-Ride-Fast,” accompanied the column, but “Old
Curly” (“Creeping Panther,” “Strong Arm,” “Long Yellow Hair”) was in
command. They headed into the southward. For the northward trailed the
invalids and the Cheyenne prisoners, under escort.
From the field reports came regularly through to Fort Hays. On the
march southward the battle-field of the Washita had been revisited. Two
miles below the Black Kettle village were discovered, in one little
space of frozen ground, the disfigured bodies of the lost Major Elliot
and Sergeant-Major Kennedy, and the fourteen others. Piles of cartridge
shells showed that they had fought staunchly until one by one they had
fallen. The Indians hastening to the rescue of Black Kettle must have
surrounded them.
The Comanches and Apaches gathered upon the reservation. Satanta and
Lone Wolf the Kiowa war-chief, were captured, and all the Kiowas came
in. So did the Arapahos. And after to the Strong Arm, as they now
called the general, they had surrendered two young white women, Mrs.
Wilson and Miss White, so did the most of the Cheyennes.
The campaign had been a success; the battle of the Washita had
shattered the tribes of the Southwest Plains.
Upon a bright day in March, 1869, to the tune of “Garryowen” the
travel-worn Seventh Cavalry rode blithely home into Fort Hays. They
brought more Cheyenne prisoners, and more tales.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account