The wood train was again attacked on December 21. About eleven o'clock that morning the pickets reported the train "corralled and threatened by Indians on Sullivant Hills, a mile and a half from the fort." The usual relief party was at once organized and sent out under Fetterman, who claimed the right to command it by seniority, and who was not highest in the confidence of Colonel Carrington. He had but recently joined the command, was full of enthusiasm and desire to hunt Indians, and needed the admonition with which he left the fort: that he was "fighting brave and desperate enemies who sought to make up by cunning and deceit all the advantage which the white man gains by intelligence and better arms." He was ordered to support and bring in the wood train, this being all Carrington believed himself strong enough to do and keep on doing. Any one could have had a fight at any time, and Carrington was wise to issue the "peremptory and explicit" orders to avoid pursuit beyond the summit of Lodge Trail Ridge, as needless and unduly dangerous. Three times this order was given to Fetterman; and after that, "fearing still that the spirit of ambition might override prudence," says Carrington, "I crossed the parade and from a sentry platform halted the cavalry and again repeated my precise orders." With these admonitions, Fetterman started for the relief, leading a party of eighty-one officers and men, picked and all well armed. He crossed the Lodge Trail Ridge as soon as he was out of sight of the fort and disappeared. No one of his command came back alive. The wood train, before twelve o'clock, broke corral and moved on in safety, while shots were heard beyond the ridge. For half an hour there was a constant volleying; then all was still. Meanwhile Carrington, nervous at the lack of news from Fetterman, had sent a second column, and two wagons to relieve him, under Captain Ten Eyck. The latter, moving along cautiously, with large bands of Sioux retreating before him, came finally upon forty-nine bodies, including that of Fetterman. The evidence of arrows, spears, and the position of bodies was that they had been surrounded, surprised, and overwhelmed in their defeat. The next day the rest of the bodies were reached and brought back. Naked, dismembered, slashed, visited with indescribable indignities, they were buried in two great graves; seventy-nine soldiers and two civilians.