The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-09-28
A THRILLING STORY.
soldiers Lost ON the Stsked Plains-Ther
Terrible MISUNDERSTANDING Men Alive
on the Blood OF Horses.

4
reached this city from Fort Concho, in
Western Texas, that company OF United
States cavalry belonging to the Tenth
regiment, under the command OF Capt
Nicholas Nolan and Lieut. Charles L..
Cooper, while in search of band OF
hostile Indians, had been lost on what
are known as the Staked Plains-a sandy,
waterless r gion in Northwestern Texas.
The Tribune has been furnished letter
from Lieut.. Cooper, one of the officers
of the company, and dated Fort Concho,
Tex, Aug. 80, in which he informs his
father, resident of Brooklyn, OF his
safety, and gives an interesting account
of the terrible sufferings of himself and
others. The concluding part OF the let
ter is as follows:
SIN the meantime our men had been
dropping from their horses with exhaus-
ton, as We had now been nearly two
days without water, and we were retard-
ed greatly in endeavoring to keep the
men together; this, too, at time when
every moment was precious to us. We
made another dry camp after dark, and
endeavored to forget in sleep the suffer-
ings we all endured the guide in the
meanwhile keeping on in search OF wa
ter, followed by eight of our men with
all the canteens of the command, so that
in case they should happen to reach wa
ter they could fill the canteens, and, re-
turning to the command, help us. That
is the last we saw of the guide and the
eight men until we got back to the sup
ply camp. The next morning, having
had no news of the guide and men, we
| lal oftat,,nta1 no in,
the direction we supposed they had
gone, but, having nobody to guide us,
being in an unknown country, we did
not better our condition. After march
ing nearly all day i'll a northeast
direction, Capt. Nolan and l con-
ferred together, and finally concluded
to push back to Double lake, the di-
rection of which we did not know, but
reckoned it TO be about southeast. We
marched until it was very dark, and
then halted to wait for the moon to rise
to enable us to proceed. We had now
reduced our little party to eighteen men,
two officers and one buffalo-hunter, and
YOU can imagine we were all in n bad
condition. The men were almost COM
pletely used up, and the Captain and /
were not much better. Our men had
dropped back, one by one, Unable to
keep up with us; their tongues and
Threats were swollen, and they were I'M
able even to swallow their saliva-in
fact, they had no saliva to swallow, that
is. if l Judge of their condition by my
own. NV tongue and throat were so
dry that when l put few morsels of
brown sugar, that found in my coat
! ,,+r I Ill 70
dissolve it in order to swallow it. Dur
ing this time, when lying on the ground,
one of my private horses showed signs
of exhaustion, staggered, and fell
so, in order to relieve the men, l had
his throat cut, and the blood distributed
amongst them. The Captain and /
drank heartily of the steaming blood,
and, though it aided for a time to relieve
our intense suffering, nevertheless III
short time we were in worse condition
than before, for, the horses having suf-
! fered so much from thirst, as well as
we, their blood had naturally become
diseased, and, as we had partaken
freely, we were soon attacked with
"blind staggers, with the same symp-
toms as the horses. We left our resting
place Mt IL o'clock on the night of July
%, aad marched until 10 o'clock the
next morning, when, owing to the IN
tense heat, our famished condition, on
account of want of food and water (for,
although we had plenty OF rations with
us, not one mouthful could we swallow;
l tried to do so by soaking a bareback
in horses blood, and masticate ii that
way, but / nearly strangled in the at
Tempt, and the fact that the horses
were giving out, one by one. we laid
down on the open prairie, and endeav-
ored to obtain such shelter from the
fearful heat as wooden blanket thrown
over small mesquit bush would afford.
"ThIs, our fourth day without water,
was dreadful. A picture of the Internal
regions, and the rich man begging for a
drop OF water to cool his tongue, could
not have been more fully portrayed, as
to his agony, than it was to us during
that eventful day. Men gasping i'll
death around us horses falling dead to
the right and left; the crazed survivors
of our men fighting each his neighbor
for the blood of the horses as the ami
mails throats were cut. Prayers, curses,
and bowls of anguish intermingled came
to ones ears from every direction. There
was rain, apparently, in the far-away
distance, yet never drop for us. Can
you wonder that the minds of the men,
under the circumstances, gave way, and
that, instead of having with us the forty
rational men who left camp with us, our
party now consisted of eighteen mad
men. AS night came on, / made a
brief sort of speech TO the poor
fellows, showing them our plan, which
was to drive the horses as far
as we could, killing them for their blood
when required; and, by travelling by
night and resting by day thus avoiding
the intense heat), endeavor to reach
some of the streams to the east of us
thus, perchance, to find water, and also
run a chance of being picked up by a
possible relief party from the fort. Some
of the men understood me, and said they
would follow. At this camp, being ut
terly exhausted, we abandoned all our
rations and every unnecessary article,
taking our guns and pistols in case we
were attacked, and also to enable us to
kill buffalos for their blood. Every
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