Omaha daily bee., 1895-09-20
LOOKED DEATH IN THE FACE.
Bravery of Old John Martin of the
= Fighting sixth Cavalry.

II Fighting Sixth Cavalry.
Today is an anniversary for the coolest man
in Fort Myer, says the Washington Post. He
is not an officer, only a non-com., old and
grizzled, and somewhat bent, but soldierly
still, and rated by his officers as one of the
best men in the garrison. John Martin, pro-
vost sergeant of the Sixth cavalry, will prob
ably be remembered in tradition so long as
the Sixth shall hold together. He is the only
enlisted man in the post who holds the COW
eted medal of honor from congress-, and he is
known of all his fellows as the man who
draws special g~allantry pay. August 80 is not
the anniversary of the fight that won him his
medal. That was Chevalon Forks, officially
known as the battle of the Great Dry Wash,
where he, with Lieutenant Cruise of the
Sixth, brought out a wounded man from one
of the hottest Indian scraps that ever hap
pened. and both won the medal of honor. But
today is the anniversary Of the first time
the sergeant was ever mentioned in orders"
and the time that established his reputation
as one Of the coolest men that ever risked
getting scalped by Apaches.
The Apaches were having funswith the sur
rounding country in 1881, as they had been
in the habit.of doing for many seasons pre-
vious. Their particular form of diversion
this time was a Messiah craze, precisely the
same sort that a few years ago brought on
the big trouble at Pine Ridge and Wounded
Knee. The Messiah this time was a medicine
man down in the neighborhood Of Fort
Apache, a little cutoff station $50 miles from
Fort WlnRate ana as lar from the emu OF
the nearest railroad.
General Carr, who was in m of the
Sixth at the time, saw what the dancing and
excitement among the bands was leading to,
and when the medicine man, who was causing
all the trouble and working the Indians up to
the fighting pitch, appeared in the Apache
camp at Cibicu creek. a couple Of days march
form Fort Apache, the general took a couple
of troops of cavalry and a troop of Indian
scouts and went out to round up the disturber
Of tranquility. They went into the Apache
camp and brought him out without a fight,
rather to the surprise Of the officers, and then
the march back to Fort Apache commenced.
The medicine man was accompanied by his
wife, who refused to be parted from him, and
when he left he assured the braves that he
would speedily come to them again; that he
was divine, invincible, and that the white
men had no power that could prevail over his
loath to give him up, and about 300 of them
logged the march of the troops, circling about
on the crest of the hills along the trail.
The first camp was made without a sign Of
trouble. 1t was a pretty spot on the edge of
a small creek, with a little bunch Of cotton
woods and good picking for the horses, SO
that when one of the white troopers got into
camp a little ahead Of the other the horses
were turned out under a picket guard to feed.
The other troop had just come up, and the
men were preparing to dismount, when the
mine was sprung, prematurely, as 1t hap
pened, which was all that saved the com
Il ldIi. n III uihcii iiiai ~ = iooso hc
Winchester, and in an instant the troop Of
Indian scouts, who had ridden, tracked, and
fought with the Sixth al, through Arizona for
years. poured a close range fire into the reg
ulars. In an instant the Apaches swooped
down from the hills to complete the work Of
wiping out the command.
1t seemed that the scouts had made all
/ their plans to mutlny. and had set the follow
ing morning, when they would have caught
tho m asleep and would have cut them
up into shoestrings. But one of their number
got too much "tizwin' into him and opened
the ball ahead Of time.
The horses of the dismountei troop were
stampeded at the first fire, all but that Of
Lieutenant Cruise. who was in command of
the scouts, and old John Martin, then a black
smith with the OUTFIT. General Carr was
with the troop that had not yet dismounted,
and he showed his men forward to spread the
Indians, who were rushing down from the
hills, while the dismounted troop pushed back
the renegade scouts on the other side, after
having ten men, including Captain Henek,
killed, and a lot mortally wounded.
For about three minutes 1t looked as
though the command, would be eaten up on
the spot, but they pushed the Indians back to
long range fighting distance and made a for
lorn hope stand, sixty men against 300 In
dams, who were augmented to 1000 before
sunset.
But the medicine man never lived to full
t6ll his promise of going back. General Carr
had put him in charge OF a sergeant with or
ders to kill him at the first sign of an at
"ttack, and the sergeant dropped him with a
bullet through him at the first volley from
the scouts. His wife made a run for the
hostile lines and would probably have made
It,, but passing the dead body of Captain
Henek she stopped and pulled his revolver
from the holster. An Apache woman with a
gun is one degree worse than an Apache man,
and the trumpeter OF the troop dropped her
with his six-shooter before she had time to
use her new weapon.
All through the fight the coolest man was
John Martin, the troop blacksmith. He was
sitting on a mess chest when the first break
was made by the scouts, and with the bride
Of his buckskin horse over his arm, he sat
there dropping Apaches right and left, and
quartering like a wing shot at trap practice.
He was just about as much excited as he is
now when he has a squad on fatigue duty
raking leaves upon the garrison walks. But
that was merely a specimen Of the sort Of
man he was. He made his record with the
regiment on the long march, back to the post
that night.
That was one of the hardest marches any
of the Sixth ever made. 1t was through a
country cut up with narrow canons, where
the trail dropped a thousand feet straight
down on one side and Immediately there
after crawled up a rock wall on the other.
At the top OF any one Of these trails two
Indians could have blocked the whole com
mand, and there was every reason 10 expect
that the necessary two would be there.
The troopers. one-half dsnounted, had