by Drury, Bob
Fetterman’s infantry, flanked by the horsemen, had nearly reached the south gate when Carrington sent his adjutant running to intercept the captain and have him repeat the orders back. Fetterman allegedly did this before exiting the post. The colonel then summoned Lieutenant Grummond and directed him to muster the remainder of the cavalry and follow Fetterman up the road. The riders would undoubtedly overtake the marching infantry, and Grummond was to fall in with Fetterman’s troop “and never leave him.” Carrington inspected Grummond’s twenty-three cavalrymen, each outfitted with a Spencer rifle, and reiterated the orders forbidding Grummond to cross Lodge Trail Ridge. To this exchange there were witnesses.
Before Grummond rode out, the colonel was approached by Captain Brown and a private named Thomas Maddeon, who asked to join the detail. Maddeon had somehow requisitioned the last fit horse in the stables, and a jubilant Brown was leading Jimmy Carrington’s mottled little mount, Calico, the pony the boy had won in the arrow-shooting contest at Nebraska’s Fort Kearney—it seemed a lifetime ago. Carrington granted them permission and checked his pocket watch; it was nearly 11:30. Outside the post the innkeeper James Wheatley and a miner, Isaac Fisher, fell in with the mounted detail, bringing it to twenty-seven men. These two civilians were former Union Army officers who apparently had a hankering to kill Indians and had just purchased new sixteen-shot Henry rifles. Although the lever-action Henry was not as effective as a Springfield at long range, it was quite deadly up to 200 yards.
Carrington climbed the post’s sentry walk and watched Fetterman veer off the wood road, cross Big Piney Creek, and turn onto a trail running west along the south slope of Lodge Trail Ridge—the same ascent he himself had taken two weeks earlier. Perplexed and angry, he turned toward the pickets on Pilot Knob. They were signaling that the wood train was no longer engaged, had broken its defensive corral, and was rolling onto the pinery. Carrington knew that Fetterman, perhaps a mile from the post, could also see the flagmen and he calmed down, supposing that Fetterman had decided to reach the high ground in order to fall on the raiding party between the Sullivant Hills and the ridge. By now Grummond’s horsemen had swung in with Fetterman’s foot soldiers, and together they traversed the slope.
Carrington noted with a mixture of unease and anticipation that Fetterman had deployed skirmishers on his flanks “and was moving wisely up the creek and along the southern slope of Lodge Trail Ridge, with good promise of cutting off the Indians as they should withdraw.” He also saw that Fetterman’s position offered “perfect vantage ground” should the raiders turn and attack the wood train again. Simultaneously, Carrington noticed the two Indians huddled beneath the tree across Big Piney Creek. He ordered Captain Powell to direct the artillerymen to lob several spherical case shots toward them. Much to everyone’s surprise the whistling shell fragments flushed from the brushy cuts another thirty Indians. The hostiles fled back up the ridge. One pony was riderless.
It was with a sense of relief that Carrington, “entertaining no further thought of danger,” climbed down from the bastion. Fetterman and Grummond were apparently obeying his command to engage only the war party that had attacked the wood train, and his big guns had scattered any hostile rear guard. He walked back to his headquarters with his mind, he would later write, already elsewhere. Fort Phil Kearny’s infirmary was nearly complete—only a portion of the roof remained to be laid on—as were the barracks for the reinforcements, and the post’s company was secure enough that well-attended church services were held on the parade ground each Sunday morning. To call Carrington a meticulous builder was to say that the Ancient Mariner just needed a moment of your time. It was the first day of winter, and in a mere six months his architectural exactness had produced a frontier outpost to stand up to any Army bivouac in the nation. Every board, jamb, and shingle had been fashioned with mathematical precision. He was proud of his accomplishments, regardless of the feeling in Omaha.
• • •
By noon Grummond’s cavalry were slightly outpacing Fetterman’s infantry, providing point and flank support, and had ridden about halfway up the slope of Lodge Trail Ridge. Awaiting Fetterman, Grummond halted his men just below the site where the Bozeman Trail ran northwest through a cut in the ridgeline. The sky had darkened, again thickening for snow, and against the skyline Grummond could make out individual braves, perhaps ten, racing their ponies near the crest. They waved red blankets to try to frighten his horses, and their wolflike yips and howls echoed off the buttes and hills rising from Big Piney Creek. Within moments Captain Fetterman’s force had caught up to Grummond, and with his big coal eyes loaded with thunder the captain ordered a volley fired at the impertinent savages. The Indians quirted their ponies out of rifle range, but before the gun smoke cleared they had danced back and were daring the soldiers to chase them farther up the incline. Among them was Crazy Horse.
Fetterman continued climbing in skirmish formation, but he was hesitant. Below the crest of the ridge he held his position for a good twenty minutes, and the lookouts on Pilot Knob who were tracking his advance signaled to the post that he had halted the troop. Despite Colonel Carrington’s directive, every Civil War officer understood the glory to be gained by seizing opportunities based on rapidly shifting battle scenarios—as long as the risk proved successful. The flamboyant Confederate cavalry commander General Jeb Stuart had won fame raiding Union lines against his superiors’ wishes. But Stuart’s delayed arrival at Gettysburg was also an egregious example of what could happen to a man’s career and reputation if such decisions backfired or, as in his case, were perceived to have failed. Also, this was not the Civil War. Where were the enemy’s rifle pits? His battle lines? His artillery bunkers? Fetterman knew that the wood train he had been sent out to protect was safe. Support the wood train had been the colonel’s primary directive. That had been accomplished. Do not engage or pursue Indians at its expense. With the wood train safe, he could now either turn back toward the post, or teach the redskins a hard lesson about fighting real soldiers. It was Crazy Horse who forced his hand.
• • •
The wispy brave with the wavy hair dashed to and fro before the Bluecoats on his favorite bay racer, distinguished by its white face and stockings. He tried every trick he knew. He taunted the soldiers in English with vile curses. He dismounted within rifle range, again pretending that his horse had pulled up lame. He waved his blanket and stood tall with obvious disdain as bullets pocked the dirt at his feet. He even dismounted and started a small fire, acting as if his horse was so injured that he had given up and was ready to submit to a Black Heart warrior’s suicide. Still Fetterman would not budge. Crazy Horse, clad in only a breechclout and deerskin leggings, with a single hawk’s feather twined in his hair and a lone pebble tied behind his ear, was down to his final ploy. He turned his back toward the soldiers, flipped his breechclout up over his back, pulled down his leggings, and wiggled his naked ass in their faces.
• • •
The pickets on Pilot Knob shifted their field glasses from the taunting Indian to Captain Fetterman, who was pacing before his infantrymen. They saw him unsheathe his saber and appear to shout. The lookouts blinked, and the soldiers were gone.
• • •
In the dogwood defiles the steam of the concealed Strong Hearts’ breath mingled with that of their ponies as they caressed the animals’ snouts to keep them from whinnying. Not far away along frozen Peno Creek, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho braves flexed their bowstrings and tightened their grips on their lances.
36
BROKEN ARROWS
Captain Fetterman’s Bluecoats topped the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge, and for once no warrior bolted to give the ambush away. A cold, damp wind had risen, bracing the foot soldiers as they flowed down the north slope following Crazy Horse and the yipping decoys. They reached the butte where the High Backbone began, the rise overspread by a jumble of flat-topped rocks deposited by an ancient glacier. They continued about 800 yards across the land b
ridge, firing as they walked. A few taunting Indians fell, and Lieutenant Grummond, riding in front of Fetterman and to Fetterman’s left, spotted what appeared to be a small village with a herd of Indian ponies milling in a dell perhaps half a mile to the northwest. Without consulting Fetterman he ordered a charge, and the cavalry spurred into a gallop, the civilians Wheatley and Fisher out ahead with five troopers riding point.
At a few minutes past noon Crazy Horse and his decoys skidded their horses across the ice of Peno Creek and out of rifle range, the infantry still marching double-quick after them. Suddenly the Indians halted, formed up into two single files, and streamed back toward the whites. Not far from the creek the two files crossed in a perfect X. It was the end of the beginning, the prearranged signal to the hidden war party.
Two thousand warriors rose as one. A trembling war cry borne by the wind echoed through the hills, a curdling primal scream evoked by half a century of white indignities, lies, and betrayals. The Indians rolled toward the soldiers like a prairie fire. From the left, Cheyenne horsemen charged from clusters of dogwoods and cottonwoods. From the cutbank on the right, Lakota and Arapaho on foot scrambled from the tall grass and shot out from behind ash and box elders. Arrows blackened the sky, killing and wounding both friend and foe. Fetterman’s commands could barely be heard amid the shrieks and shrill whistles.
• • •
The post bugler was about to sound the noon mess call when sentinels on the walls of Fort Phil Kearny heard firing, “continuous and rapid,” from beyond Lodge Trail Ridge. At the first gunshots Colonel Carrington climbed to a lookout station on top of his quarters and scanned the ridgeline with his field glasses. He saw neither soldiers nor Indians. The colonel had received word from the woodcutters that they had reached the blockhouses on Piney Island with no casualties, but he knew that an Indian raiding party was still lurking somewhere between the fort and the Sullivant Hills. No one at the post was alarmed by either the gunshots or Fetterman’s disappearance. Hostiles would not dare attack so strong a force, “the largest,” the new arrival Lieutenant Arnold noted, “that had ever been sent out from the garrison.”
Carrington assumed that his officers had decided to clear out the decoys near Peno Creek before coming back over the northernmost crest of the ridge and flanking the war party near the pinery. It was what he would have done; it was what he had attempted to do on December 6. He was slightly concerned that both Fetterman and Grummond had disregarded his orders not to cross the ridge, but even as an administrator who had rarely seen action he understood the necessity of making tactical decisions in the field. As a precaution he directed Captain Ten Eyck to assemble a detail and march for the sound of the rifle reports. Ten Eyck gathered the last forty infantrymen with working weapons and reported to the colonel. Carrington told him that after he had merged with Captain Fetterman’s troop, all soldiers were to return to the post. Ten Eyck’s infantry marched out on the double-quick but slowed while fording Big Piney Creek. The ice had partially melted and had not completely refrozen, and the men removed their socks and boots to wade across. At the creek a handful of mounted civilians fell in with them.
Meanwhile, Colonel Carrington called for what was left of the Company C cavalry and ordered the teamster wagonmasters to gather all armed civilians still at the post. The detail came to about thirty men, some of whom piled into three mule-drawn ammunition wagons and an ambulance in order to catch up to Ten Eyck. There were no more serviceable horses at the fort.
• • •
Fetterman somehow managed to form up his surrounded troops and march them back across the High Backbone through the rain of arrows until they reached the flat-topped rock pile. From there they could go no farther. The air palled with powder smoke as Fetterman ordered his men into two loose, outward-facing skirmish lines twenty paces apart—a formation ideal in Civil War battles to determine an enemy’s position and provide cover for the maneuvers of larger forces or reinforcements. But there were no reinforcements within striking distance, and these tactics meant little to the marauding Indians.
Far below Fetterman, Lieutenant Grummond realized too late what had happened. As he neared the pony herd he, too, was nearly enveloped by warriors; his stunned cavalrymen reined in their panicked, rearing mounts, awaiting orders that would never come. Grummond and a veteran sergeant were among the first to fall, with dozens of Cheyenne arrows penetrating their bodies. Without an officer the cavalry retreated in terror, ignoring Fetterman’s plight and making for the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge. They also abandoned the civilians Wheatley and Fisher and the little patrol of point riders, who were too far out in front and were quickly cut off. This group dismounted and formed a small circle; the concentrated fire from their Henrys felled so many braves that within moments a great pile of dead Indians and ponies, mixed with their own slain animals, formed a natural barricade. But there were too many hostiles. They kept coming until it was knives and tomahawks against bayonets and swinging rifle butts. No one knows in what order the white men died.
Back at the rock pile Fetterman was also fast losing soldiers. His skirmish lines had devolved into two loosely concentric rings rapidly collapsing in on themselves—a tightening noose with the captain in its center. Their position at the top of the rise bought them some time, but daring Indians burst through the defenses on horse and on foot, first singly, then by twos and threes, and finally a second storm of arrows preceded a wave of thrusting lances and swinging war clubs. Warriors in front were pushed ahead by a surge from behind. The soldiers fired their old Springfields, but the Indians were so close that there was no time to reload.
Captain Brown broke away from the surviving cavalry troops who were scrambling up Lodge Trail Ridge and somehow made it through the mass of bodies at the rock pile. He dismounted beside Captain Fetterman, set loose Jimmy Carrington’s pony, and stood back to back with his old commander, blasting away with his Colts. Brown fought off one charging Indian while another, a Lakota named American Horse, rushed his war pony into the rocks and brained Fetterman with his nail-studded club of solid bur oak. American Horse leaped from his saddle onto Fetterman’s body and slit his throat, nearly severing Fetterman’s head. The dwindling infantry fought hand to hand, some from their knees, swinging the shards of their shattered rifles. When several soldiers broke from the rocks and made a run for the cavalry, howling Indians rode and sprinted after them.
Brown was still standing, surrounded by an orgy of butchery. Eyeballs were gouged and noses and tongues torn from the wounded, screaming men. The Indians severed chins, sliced off fingers at the joints, and forced mouths open to chop out teeth. Skulls were cleaved open and brain matter was scooped out and set on rocks next to severed arms, legs, and feet. Uniform pants were pulled down or cut away and penises were hacked off and shoved into mouths. Brown had one cartridge left in his revolver. He put the barrel to his temple and pulled the trigger.
• • •
Up on the slope of Lodge Trail Ridge the frantic, terrified cavalrymen led their mounts by the reins. The climb across the icy hollows of the boulder-strewn hillside was slow and hard, and some horses skittered and broke away. One horseman walked backward, a lonesome rear guard continuously pumping the lever of his seven-shot Spencer, reloading, and firing again. The few infantrymen who had escaped the rock pile rushed past him up the incline. He covered them until an arrow tore through his heart.
When the first cavalrymen reached the summit, a narrow, slippery forty-foot shelf, they could see Fort Phil Kearny less than four miles away on the plateau beyond Big Piney Creek. They also saw Yellow Eagle’s raiders, reinforced with at least 100 braves, charging up the south slope on snorting war ponies. The troopers’ escape was blocked. They released their horses and dug into a cluster of boulders. There was a lull in the savage howls, and for a moment they dared to hope that reinforcements had overtaken the war party. The Indians had indeed broken off the attack, but only to collect the Army horses. A shower of arrows signaled their
return.
Now spotters watching the fort flashed mirror signals to Red Cloud that more soldiers—Captain Ten Eyck’s detail—were crossing Big Piney Creek. This news was at first greeted eagerly, until the scouts signaled that the soldiers were riding in wagons. Red Cloud was certain this meant the guns that shoot twice. He knew that, even hauling heavy howitzers, the soldiers would crest the ridge in less than thirty minutes—was this enough time to kill every last white still caught in the ambush? Red Cloud signaled back from the tall hill, and the warriors surrounding the cavalry crawled as close as they could to the boulders. At a second signal they stood and ran into the teeth of the Bluecoats’ last volley, vanishing in clouds of gun smoke. The attackers suffered heavy casualties as they jabbed their lances and swung their war clubs and tomahawks, scalping soldiers alive. Crazy Horse was said to have been among these fighters, killing with his steel hatchet.
The little German bugler Adolph Metzger was one of the last to die. He found a crevasse between two large rocks, burrowed in backward, and fired his Spencer until its magazine was empty. Then he swung his bugle until it was a shapeless hunk of metal smeared with blood and war paint. For his bravery he was accorded the highest honor his enemies could bestow—he was the only soldier not scalped. His bleeding, battered body, wounded in a dozen places, was covered with a buffalo-robe shroud as a sign of respect.
If true, Metzger was the exception.1 The official Army report, suppressed for twenty years, noted that many of the soldiers were probably still alive when their “eyes, ears, mouths and arms [were] penetrated with spearheads, sticks, and arrows; ribs slashed to separation with knifes; skulls severed in every form, from chin to crown; muscles of calves, thighs, stomach, breast, back, arm, and cheek taken out. [There were] punctures upon every sensitive part of the body, even to the soles of the feet and the palms of the hand.” From decoys to depredations, it had taken a mere forty minutes. Eighty-one Americans lay dead.