The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-02-25
SIOUX Soldier .Noemqed Zen. I 1aegfon
Dakota Indian Killed the Filipino Shapshooter Whose Bullet
Ended the Hero Life

: Gen. La wton,ssofi glorious memory, was
Z the most relentless ana tireless foe that
ever harrfed the hostile Indian. No
stranger and more dramatic happening
befen the hero in his life than that his
death should be speedily avenged by an
Indian sofsa tribe which ence had, cause
to dread the name of Lawton.
The Filipino sharpshooter who loosed
the gallant soul of@the general, was him
self killed by "a bullet from the rifle of
Sioux trooper of Lawton's body guard,
Nbefcre the great American soldier had
ceased to breathe
Private William Colombo, Troop Il.
Fourth cavalry, was the instrument of
an inscrutable fate.
1t was this same Fourth cavalry, in
which Lawton was a first lieutenant that
twenty-five years ago swept up the re-
volt of Crazy Horse, in the Black Hills,
and was a part of the force which COM
PEELED that able warrior to surrender
The family of Trooper Colombo, on his
mothers side, were among the capttves
which Lieut. Lawton helped to guard,
for the Brule Sioux had taken the war
path with the Cheyennes, and Gen. Nc
JIenzie crushed them utterly In des-
perste ana trying midwinter campaign,
This trooper, son of a Brule Sioux
mother, was not born at this time. but
he often heard the warriors tell camp
fire tales Of the great raid Of the SOL
ders in blue, and of the summary pun
ishment which smote the Sioux and
Cheyennes.
Lawton, already a veteran and distin-
cy11iSh eff 49,
among the Indians of Dakota, Arizona
and New Mexico as fighter and foe
man who did not know what it meant to
let go when he started after a hostile
party. And Trooper Colombo, as a tous-,
led-headed youngster scampering around
the agency, had learned to fear the name
of the cavalry lieutenant as a sort OF
Indian DOGGY man.
After many years, it came about that
this boy, now grown q straight and stall
wart man in the early twenties, enlisted
in the regular army of the United States
AND was assigned to the Fourth cavalry
lie was so efficient soldier and so fear
less and disciplined a fighter, that Gen.
LaFton chose him to be one of his per-
so1lal escort, or body guard, through tina,
thunderbolt campaign across the noun
ta1ns or morasses OF Luzon, which broke
the back of Aguinaldo's rebellion and
doomed large as by far the most brilliant
ana fruitful operation of that war
1t was startling series of condolences
in itself that by Lawton's side there
fought aud dared for the old flag a
tribesman of his former quarry on the
plains and deserts OF the West; that the
guidbns of the old Fourth cavalry blazed
the line of their killing Jungle forays,
and the@hlood kin of the lad, who flashed
Eaber and cracked carbine with Lawton
lin thesislands half around the world, h;u
felt the shifting hand of the leader when
those same glorious troop guidons fol-
1osEefls In the charge.
s8ttsfhese things Were only the setting
Tor the scene of tragic Destiny, when
Death held the center of the stage al
San Mateo. &5yfszz.@7=7
Trooper Colombo has written a simply
told story of the climax to Of his old
teachers at the Carlisle Indian school,
of which he was a pupil. This is how
he words a description of the event,
whose dramatic power could not be over-
drawn:
ION the 18th of December '99, we
started away from Manila about
o'clock in the evening. We went all
night in the rain andyreached the edge
of the mountains about o'clock in the
morning
But Maj Gen. Lawton made us wait
until o'clock before we started down
the hill to meet our hot lead and give
eur good friends hot lead In return, and
maybe we did not give it to them!
I'VE fought three long hours and
hard, before we made the blacks run
from their breastworks, and above all
We had to cross a river before we could
reach the town, and after we got into
town we Ihai to fight our way to the
ether end of the town.
The blacks fought hard, because they
thought they had US on the run, but
there is no run In u.s. We lost about
eighteen men in that fight.
Gen. Lawton was killed about twenty
yards from where 1 was shooting at
man in a tree, and l think he was the
very man who killed the general. But we
kept shooting until he fell from the tree.
don't think he will live to tell the tale
to his friends that he killed our good
general.
That is all, but the narrative could
not bel mproved-by any attempt at fine
writing.
Trooper Colombo uses only nine words
two syllabes long in telling how the
death of Lawton was avenged. All the
rest is monosyilabic This is in Trooper
Colombe's literary STYLE and 1t has i'm
pressive merits. Here is another ex.
ample:
Il always thought that war was fun,
but there is no fun in it when men fall
all around you. Once I thought my last
day had come, but / got out safe, but
some time my day will come and l won't
know it.
Once I said to one of the men near
me: Don't you think the blacks are
shooting hetter?' And he said: Yes, and
when they hit me l hope they will do
good work
''And he had no more than said that
when a black did do good work, as he
called it, and he was hit In the middle OF
his head, and the poor man fell to the
ground never to walk again"
OF more prosaic experiences he has
thus written his Impressions:
''Oh, but the water trip is no good.
We are on the boat too long. You.
must be having a good time on the ice.
We have 10 ice, and 1t is little warm
here. am good and healthy, and l am
also glad to know that I am still liv-
ing
In my first fight there were about
300 of us cavalrymen against about 1000
of the natives. 1t seemed to me as If
there were about 100000
You would laugh to see me on these
native horses. They are not much lars-
er than good-sized dogs, but are the ones
to go in the woods with.
1T is hard on this island. Sometimes
AAsm HAmh