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Updated: June 23, 2025
Notwithstanding the instructions to proceed immediately to join General Crook by the way of Fort Fetterman, General Merritt took the responsibility of endeavouring to intercept the Cheyennes, and as the sequel shows he performed a very important service.
He was called "Big Bat," to separate him from another Baptiste guide and trailer "Little Bat," a half-Sioux boy at Fort Fetterman. "Little Bat" was now with General Merritt's Fifth Cavalry. Packer John Becker of the pack-mule outfit, a frontiersman who had been a guide in the country, was added to the scouts.
Meantime he had met the ladies, one of whom, the elder, exhausted by the sleeplessness and anxiety of forty-eight hours, was comforted by the despatch brought her at Omaha to the effect that her husband was being sent in by easy stages to Fort Fetterman, where she could meet and nurse him, and she was now finally and peacefully sleeping in her berth.
He was crazy drunk when lifted from the hack at his quarters late that night; and his orders were to take stage for Fetterman at three P.M. the following day. Captain Webb, returning from his Kansas court, would reach Cheyenne at noon and go by same conveyance. It was arranged that the two officers should be in readiness at the fort, and the coach would drive through and pick them up. Mr.
The Indians, who at first beckoned him to come down, now commenced retreating, and Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a point where the Indians had been standing in a circle, found the dead naked bodies of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and about sixty-five of the soldiers of their command. At this point there were no indications of a severe struggle.
The nearest railway station was "Rock Creek," about 240 miles, upon the Union Pacific, from whence we had originally started; that point is about 7000 feet above the sea-level. A curious contrivance, slung upon leather straps instead of springs, represents a coach, which, drawn by four horses, plies to Fort Fetterman, 90 miles distant. During this prairie journey the horses are only changed twice.
They returned at dark; but of the eighty-one others, none came back. All of them, the entire eighty-one, had fallen to the army of Red Cloud. Nobody was alive to tell the story of the fight. The signs on the field were plain, though; and of course the Red Cloud warriors knew well what had occurred. Captain Fetterman had crossed the ridge, to chase the Sioux.
Immediately after Captain Ten Eyck moved out, and by orders of Colonel Carrington issued at the same time as the orders detailing that officer to join Colonel Fetterman, the quartermaster's employees, convalescents, and all others in the garrison, were armed and provided with ammunition, and held in readiness to re-enforce the troops fighting, or defend the garrison.
They kept up their partnership at Laramie, he receiving and hiding the valuables she brought him; but he was sure the doctor had recognized him; he knew there was danger, and he was determined to slip away the first chance that came, especially after securing the diamonds. The Fetterman despatch gave him the longed-for opportunity.
Captain Fetterman was distinctly ordered by Colonel Carrington to do nothing but rescue the wagon train. He must not cross the ridge in pursuit of the Sioux. Captain Fetterman did not move directly for the place of the wagon train. He made a circuit, to cut off the attacking Sioux, at their rear, or between the wagon train and the ridge to the north of it. He had taken no surgeon, so Dr.
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