On Delaware Creek, Republican River, Sept. 19, 1868.To Colonel Bankhead, or Commanding Officer, Fort Wallace.I sent you two messengers on the night of the 17th instant, informing you of my critical condition. I tried to send two more last night, but they did not succeed in passing the Indian pickets, and returned. If the others have not arrived, then hasten at once to my assistance. I have eight badly wounded and ten slightly wounded men to take in, and every animal I had was killed save seven which the Indians stampeded. Lieutenant Beecher is dead, and Acting Assistant Surgeon Movers probably cannot live the night out. He was hit in the head Thursday, and has spoken but one rational word since. I am wounded in two places, in the right thigh and my left leg broken below the knee. The Cheyennes numbered 450 or more. Mr. Grover says they never fought so before. They were splendidly armed with Spencer and Henry rifles. We killed at least thirty-five of them and wounded many more, besides killing and wounding a quantity of their stock. They carried off most of their killed during the night, but three of their men fell into our hands. I am on a little island and have still plenty of ammunition left. We are living on mule and horse meat, and are entirely out of rations. If it was not for so many wounded, I would come in and take the chances of whipping them if attacked. They are evidently sick of their bargain.I had two of the members of my company killed on the 17th, namely, William Wilson and George W. Calner. You had better start with not less than seventy-five men and bring all the wagons and ambulances you can spare. Bring a six-pound howitzer with you. I can hold out here for six days longer,if absolutely necessary, but please lose no time.Very respectfully, your obedient servant,(Signed)George A. Forsyth,U. S. Army. Commanding Co. ScoutsP. S. My surgeon having been mortally wounded, none of my wounded have had their wounds dressed yet, so please bring out a surgeon with you.
On Delaware Creek, Republican River, Sept. 19, 1868.
To Colonel Bankhead, or Commanding Officer, Fort Wallace.
I sent you two messengers on the night of the 17th instant, informing you of my critical condition. I tried to send two more last night, but they did not succeed in passing the Indian pickets, and returned. If the others have not arrived, then hasten at once to my assistance. I have eight badly wounded and ten slightly wounded men to take in, and every animal I had was killed save seven which the Indians stampeded. Lieutenant Beecher is dead, and Acting Assistant Surgeon Movers probably cannot live the night out. He was hit in the head Thursday, and has spoken but one rational word since. I am wounded in two places, in the right thigh and my left leg broken below the knee. The Cheyennes numbered 450 or more. Mr. Grover says they never fought so before. They were splendidly armed with Spencer and Henry rifles. We killed at least thirty-five of them and wounded many more, besides killing and wounding a quantity of their stock. They carried off most of their killed during the night, but three of their men fell into our hands. I am on a little island and have still plenty of ammunition left. We are living on mule and horse meat, and are entirely out of rations. If it was not for so many wounded, I would come in and take the chances of whipping them if attacked. They are evidently sick of their bargain.
I had two of the members of my company killed on the 17th, namely, William Wilson and George W. Calner. You had better start with not less than seventy-five men and bring all the wagons and ambulances you can spare. Bring a six-pound howitzer with you. I can hold out here for six days longer,if absolutely necessary, but please lose no time.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,(Signed)George A. Forsyth,U. S. Army. Commanding Co. Scouts
P. S. My surgeon having been mortally wounded, none of my wounded have had their wounds dressed yet, so please bring out a surgeon with you.
A small party of warriors remained in the vicinity watching the movements of the scouts; the main body, however, had departed.
The well men, relieved of the constant watching and fighting, were now able to give some attention to the wounded. Their injuries, which had grown very painful, were rudely dressed. Soup was made out of horse-flesh, and shelters were constructed protecting them from the heat, damp, and wind. On the sixth day the wounds of the men began to exhibit more decided and alarming signs of neglect. Maggots infested them and the first traces of gangrenehad set in. To multiply the discomforts of their situation, the entire party was almost overpowered by the intolerable stench created by the decomposing bodies of the dead horses. Their supply was nearly exhausted. Under these trying circumstances Forsyth assembled his men. He told them “they knew their situation as well as he. There were those who were helpless, but aid must not be expected too soon. It might be difficult for the messengers to reach the fort, or there might be some delay by their losing their way. Those who wished to go should do so and leave the rest to take their chances.” With one voice they resolved to stay, and, if all hope vanished, to die together.
At last the supply of jerked horse meat was exhausted, and the chances of getting more were gone. By this time the carcasses of the animals were a mass of corruption. There was no alternative—strips of putrid flesh were cut and eaten. The effect of this offensive diet was nauseating in the extreme. An experiment was made, with a view to improving the unpalatable flesh, of using gunpowder as salt, but to no purpose. The men allayed only their extreme cravings of hunger, trusting that succor might reach them before all was over.
On the morning of September 25, the sun rose upon Forsyth and his famished party with unusual splendor, and the bright colors of the morning horizon seemed like a rainbow of promise to their weary, longing spirits. Hope, grown faint with long waiting, gathered renewed strength from the brightness of nature. The solitary plain receding in all directions possessed a deeper interest than ever before, though it still showed no signs of life and presented the same monotonous expanse upon which the heroic band had gazed for so many trying days. Across the dim and indefinable distance which swept in all directions, the eye often wandered and wondered what might be the revelations of the next moment. Suddenly several dark figures appeared faintly on the horizon. The objects were moving. The question uppermost in the minds of all was, Are they savages or messengers of relief? As on such occasions of anxiety and suspense, time wore heavily, minutes seemed like hours, yet each moment brought the sufferers nearer the realization whether this was their doom or their escape therefrom. Over an hour had elapsed since the objects first came in sight, and yet the mystery remained unsolved. Slowly but surely they developed themselves, until finally they had approached sufficiently near for their character as friends or foes to be unmistakably established. To the joy of the weary watchers, the parties approaching proved to be troops; relief was at hand, the dangers and anxieties of the past few days were ended, and death either by starvation or torture at the hands of the savages no longer stared them in the face. The strong set up a shout such as men seldom utter. It was the unburdening of the heart of the weight of despair. The wounded lifted their fevered forms and fixed their glaring eyes upon the now rapidly approaching succor, and in their delirium involuntarily but feebly reiterated the acclamations of their comrades.
The troops arriving for their relief were a detachment from Fort Wallace under command of Colonel Carpenter of the regular cavalry, and had started from the fort promptly upon the arrival of Trudeau and Stillwell with intelligence of the condition and peril in which Forsyth and his party were.
When Colonel Carpenter and his men reached the island they found its defenders in a most pitiable condition, yet the survivors were determined to be plucky to the last. Forsyth himself, with rather indifferent success, affected to be reading an old novel that he had discovered in a saddlebag; but ColonelCarpenter said his voice was a little unsteady and his eyes somewhat dim when he held out his hand to Carpenter and bade him welcome to “Beecher’s Island,” a name that has since been given to the battle-ground.
During the fight Forsyth counted thirty-two dead Indians within rifle range of the island. Twelve Indian bodies were subsequently discovered in one pit, and five in another. The Indians themselves confessed to a loss of seventy-five killed in action, and when their proclivity for concealing or diminishing the number of their slain in battle is considered, we can readily believe that their actual loss in this fight must have been much greater than they would have us believe.
Of the scouts, Lieutenant Beecher, Surgeon Movers, and six of the men were either killed outright or died of their wounds; eight more were disabled for life; of the remaining twelve who were wounded, nearly all recovered completely. During the fight innumerable interesting incidents occurred, some laughable and some serious. On the first day of the conflict a number of young Indian boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age crawled up and shot about fifty arrows into the circle in which the scouts lay. One of these arrows struck one of the men, Frank Herrington, full in the forehead. Not being able to pull it out, one of his companions, lying in the same hole with him, cut off the arrow with his knife, leaving the iron arrowhead sticking in his frontal bone; in a moment a bullet struck him in the side of the head, glanced across his forehead, impinged upon the arrowhead, and the two fastened together fell to the ground—a queer but successful piece of amateur surgery. Herrington wrapped a cloth around his head, which bled profusely, and continued fighting as if nothing had happened.
Howard Morton, another of the scouts, was struck in the head by a bullet, which finally lodged in the rear of one of his eyes, completely destroying its sight forever; but Morton never faltered, but fought bravely until the savages finally withdrew. Hudson Farley, a young stripling of only eighteen, whose father was mortally wounded in the first day’s fight, was shot through the shoulder, yet never mentioned the fact until dark, when the list of wounded was called for. McCall, the First Sergeant, Vilott, Clark, Farley the elder, and others who were wounded, continued to bear their full share of the fight, notwithstanding their great sufferings, until the Indians finally gave up and withdrew. These incidents, of which many similar ones might be told, only go to show the remarkable character of the men who composed Forsyth’s party.
Considering this engagement in all its details and with all its attendant circumstances, remembering that Forsyth’s party, including himself, numbered all told but fifty-one men, and that the Indians numbered about seventeen to one, this fight was one of the most remarkable and at the same time successful contests in which our forces on the Plains have ever been engaged; and the whole affair, from the moment the first shot was fired until the beleaguered party was finally relieved by Colonel Carpenter’s command, was a wonderful exhibition of daring courage, stubborn bravery, and heroic endurance, under circumstances of greatest peril and exposure. In all probability there will never occur, in our future hostilities with the savage tribes of the West, a struggle the equal of that in which were engaged the heroic men who defended so bravely “Beecher’s island.” Forsyth, the gallant leader, after a long period of suffering and leading the life of an invalid for nearly two years, finally recovered from the effects of his severe wounds, and is now, I am happy to say, as good as new, contentedly awaiting the next war to give him renewed excitement.