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Updated: June 23, 2025
An odd despatch was that which went by the single wire of the military telegraph line to Fort Fetterman late that night. It was known that a small escort would leave that point early in the morning, going through with a staff-officer en route to join the field column now busily engaging the hostile Indians along the northern foot-hills of the Big Horn range.
Firing at once commenced, and increased in rapidity till, in about fifteen minutes and at about 12 o'clock M., it was a continuous and rapid fire of musketry, plainly audible at the fort. Assistant Surgeon Hines, having been ordered to join Fetterman, found Indians on a part of Lodge Trail Ridge not visible from the fort, and could not reach the force there struggling to preserve its existence.
When Captain Fetterman had returned to the fort he had changed his mind regarding the prowess of the Sioux, whom he had thought to be only robbers. "I have learned a lesson," he remarked. "This Indian war has become a hand-to-hand fight, and requires great caution. I'll take no more risks like that of today!" Red Cloud was not satisfied. His warriors had not done exactly as he had told them to do.
He had a line of signal flags seven miles long, by which to direct his army. Then he sent a company to attack a wood train. The attack on the wood train brought the troops out of the fort. One detachment of thirty-five cavalry and a few mounted infantry was commanded by Captain William J. Fetterman.
"Anything you want, Mr. Holmes." "That man's orders are to go with all speed to Fetterman and, after resting there twenty-four hours, to take it easily returning. He'll go there all right, I believe, but what he does there and after he leaves there I want to know, if you have to follow to Cheyenne. Here's fifty dollars.
Under the gas lamp without Cranston saw the carriage standing by the curb a livery team, not the beautiful roans that had caught his trooper eye the first Sunday of his leave when he went to church with mother and Meg. The message was sharp and clear enough in all conscience: "We march at once. You can catch us at Fetterman. GRAY, Adjutant."
He was very anxious to fight Indians; in fact, the officers all had set their hearts upon "taking Red Cloud's scalp." Captain Fetterman rescued the wagon train, by chasing the Sioux away; but in about five miles Red Cloud faced his men about and closed. It was an ambuscade.
War against the Sioux having been brought about by the combined Black Hill outrages and Sitting Bull's threatening attitude, it was decided to send out three separate expeditions, one of which should move from the north, under General Terry, from Fort Lincoln; another from the east, under General Gibbon, from Fort Ellis, and another from the south, under General Crook, from Fort Fetterman; these movements were to be simultaneous, and a junction was expected to be formed near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River.
My company was one of those stationed at Fort Phil Kearney, commanded by Colonel Carrington. The country is more or less familiar with the history of that garrison, particularly with the slaughter by the Sioux of a detachment of eighty-one men and officers not one escaping through disobedience of orders by its commander, the brave but reckless Captain Fetterman.
On the way back from Fetterman he stopped at an abandoned hut near Bull Bend, where he had hidden his plunder on the way up, stowed the money and jewels in his saddle-bags, then pushed for Hunton's on the Chug; got safely by in the night, rode his horse hard to Lodge Pole Creek, where he left him at a ranch and secured the loan of another.
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