Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-03-30

nothing OF our condition, and had wrongly
judged our numbers. Had they divided
their forces a charge must have been sue
| cessful, but the Indian always charges in
| body or not at all.
The force had to approach over oper
| ground, and at the first sign of the charge
| we sprang out of our dugout, ranged in line
and began blazing away. The mob wa.
checked before it had half covered the dis
tance, but before it could return to shelter
We killed thirteen warriors and wounded
| three or four more. Ten minutes after thu
charge was made, all the living were gal
| loping off to the west, not even making al
effort to recover the bodies of their dead
In after years | met warrior who wa
there, and he explained that his band go
the idea that forty or fifty soldiers wer,
concealed in the dugout and stables, anC
that he himself counted over twenty of us
| One cloudy afternoon left post of the
| Seventh Cavalry on the South Platte te
| carry dispatches to headquarters. No In
| dians had been seen tor four days, and, a.
| the first fifteen miles of the route was full
of washouts and gullies, wanted daylight
to make anything like progress. l had
gone twelve miles, and was riding at g
| walk along sunken way when an Indian
| on horseback crossed it not over two hun.
| dred feet ahead of me. He had come out
of another gully which intersected it
While / was going north he crossed from
east to west. halted the instant saw
him, and sat there on my horse while sew.
enteen mounted warriors followed each
other in single file across the gully. which
W. fbara I,ftxy ffftaa,, faat xyslo
of them had only to turn his head hall
way to the right to see me, and yet all
passed and left me undiscovered. / ascer.
tanned the reason as l moved up to the
crossing. They were following the trail OF
a cavalry horse which had escaped from
the camp on the Platte three or four days
before, believing that he carried rider.
In the latter part of the summer, when
the stage route had been partially re-estab-
lished, set out one night to carry orders
to the officer at one of the stations. | was
two miles off the trail and travelling paral-
lei to it, and my horse was going at lope
when he suddenly came to standstill.
This was the signal that danger men,
aced, and as l sat quietly in the saddle and
peered about me | heard white man
cough. dismounted and crept forward,
and found two white men wrapped in their
blankets and asleep on the earth. awoke
them to learn that they were deserters
from the Seventh. They had left camp
three nights before, got lost, and were SO
glad TO see me that they shed tears. Each
had his carbine and revolver and plenty OF
ammunition, but they had had nothing to
eat for two days. They had seen Indians
all around them that day, and it was the
greatest wonder in the world that they
had not been discovered.
As the men were determined to 90 on
with me, had to proceed at walk, and
thus when daylight came we were still
five miles from our point of destination.
Luckily for us we were in broken ground,
and as soon as the day had fully broken |
left the men and my horse in gully and
ascended a ridge to look about me. To
the left was the stage route. Two civilians
named Arnold and Webber. had left the
station five miles away before daylight to
push on to the fort. AS day came they
almost rode into an ambush of Indians in
huge washout commanding the road
The accidental discharge of gun in the
hands Of one of the concealed Indians dis
covered their presence, and the citizens
turned short to the left and broke across
the country, hoping to find cover and a
place to make a stand. These men were
only half mile away as l ascended the
ridge, and quarter of mile behind them
were twenty-three Indians all on horse
back. l called to the men, and it took
but word to place us in position.
The two men, who were riding for their
lives, came straight at us, aiming to get
the cover of the gullies, and they went
over the ridge and down into the gully al
most upon my horse. They caught on in
an instant, and before the pursuing In
dians were up the strangers had crept up
beside us with their rifles. / heard but
did not see them. Not word was spoken
as the Indians came sweeping up. They
were spread out on line about ten rods
long, and while the pace was fast it was
not furious, they doubtless believing that
a long chase was before them. The line
was within one hundred feet of us when
we fired, and as we rose up We had to
dodge the horses. The redskins were par
alyzed by the suddenness of the attack,
and three or four of their ponies fell and
rolled into the gulch with their riders.
Only two warriors fired a shot, Their
only anxiety from the first was to get
away. Five succeeded in this, although
two of them were wounded The others
were killed inside of four or five minutes,
and that without the least hazard to our
selves. We had them right below us in
the gully, as in their excitement they
blocked the only way out, and when we
came to investigate we could not find a
wounded man in the heap. Out of eight
cen ponies in the jam six were killed, and
only five escaped being wounded.
This affair was written up for some of
the Eastern papers as a "butchery," and
there were demands that it be investigated.
If it had been, the investigators would
have found the fresh scalps of seven white
people attached to the girdles of those
dead warriors. They would have further
found stages riddled with bullets and spat-
tered with blood-corpses shot full of
arrows, settlers homes destroyed, and
women and children carried away-skele-
tons of soldiers and civilians bleaching
along every mile of route two hundred
miles long. 1t was this blow which cleared
the route Of savages, and it was those
which followed it the next season on a
large scale that put an end to Indian war
fare In the West forever.