Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870Tuttle, Edmund B. (Edmund Bostwick)
History
Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870
Tuttle, Edmund B. (Edmund Bostwick)
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Great Plains
Most of these hardened villains die as brave men; but Dugan they said
whined like a child. He was really afraid to die, because of his great
wickedness.
AN INDIAN FIGHT AT SWEETWATER MINES.
On the morning of the 4th May, 1870, there was a desperate fight with
two companies of the 2d United States Cavalry, under Major D. S. Gordon
and Lieutenant C. B. Stambaugh, a god-child of General Sherman. The
Indians had committed some outrages, in return for which a party of
miners killed a chief named Black Bear, his squaw, and eleven other
Indians, Arapahoes.
When the principal chief of the Arapahoes heard of the fate of Black
Bear and his party, he was very angry, and called together three
hundred warriors (the tribe only numbering about fifteen hundred
souls), and marched for Atlantic City, as it is called (a small town in
the Wind River valley). Two companies of cavalry camped near the place
just before the Arapahoe warriors appeared. A young man named Bennett
saw them first, as he was driving his mules from the pasture. The
Indians at once surrounded him and marched for the town, to kill him in
sight of the village, where the troops were, but not known to the
Indians. Bennett soon saw they were taking him towards a gulch close by
the village where Gordon and Stambaugh were camped.
On coming up to the top of the hill, the camp was in full view, and
only a few hundred yards away.
Bennett shouted at once for help, and, putting out as hard as he could,
soon got into camp safe and sound. The sight of the military astonished
the Indians so that they did not try to recapture Bennett, but made
good time in every direction to escape. The soldiers were just getting
up for "_reveille_," when the guard saw Bennett coming with the
Indians, they driving and whipping him with their bows. The shout rang
out, "Indians! Indians!" and at once they opened fire, officers and
soldiers tumbling out of their beds. Some had on their drawers
only,--some in one stocking, and many without boots,--all seized their
arms, and rushing to the picket lines, unhitched their horses, jumped
on with no time to saddle, and without hats galloped over the hills in
pursuit of the flying Indians. Learning that some cattle were run off
near the town, some of the soldiers galloped through the streets and
hallooing "Indians!"--a cry the most terrible of all alarms along the
border,--soon brought every man to his feet, and gun in hand, rush out
to meet the foe. Soon these half-naked warriors had cleared the hills
of the red men, and strolling home as the sun rose over the bluffs,
when a horseman came into Major Gordon's camp with the news that
"Miner's Delight" camp was attacked, and the teams of Mr. Fleming, who
was hauling hay for the government. Major Gordon taking Lieutenant
Stambaugh, Sergeant Brown, and nine privates (all the soldiers in the
camp), and leaving orders for the rest to follow as fast as they came
in, they set off for the hay-field, distant about eight miles. There
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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