The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-05-16
|rnIlN FIGHTER is
| IN FORGER'S CELL
,rrv.NINE HE AWAITS SEN
nrvCE IN IOWA COURT.
,e, PED BURY CUsTER'S DEAD

Career. Aided in Rescue OF White
cir,s in Dime Novel Style.
,oroves Custer a Suicide.
the age of SO Charles L. Stew
former government scout, Indian
htor miners guide, who helped to
.r the dead after the Custer massa-
is to feel the laws penalty for a
No. forgery committed in this city,
W.. Council Bluff, Ia, special to
IT, he New York Herald.
STEWART has had an eventful ca
~ beoipning in 1870, when he enter
tho service of the United States as
scont at Leavenworth, Kan. He
avs that this is the first time he has
Lion into criminal ways. He has
Headed guilty to forging the name OF
i local firm to check for $50, which
i failed to cash. Sentence has not
Net been passed on him.
i When the Custer massacre occurr-
a in the early summer of 1876 Stew
art with party of twelve other scouts,
was on his way to the Little Big Horn
bosin TO assist in the campaign
.cainst Sitting Bulls Cheyennes. He
Ind left Camp Supply, I. T., going by
roll from there to St. Louis and then
10 Yankton, where steamboat con-
veved the scouts up the Rosebud river
10 a landing in the Cheyenne country.
Ion arriving there they learned of the
massacre. which had taken place two
DAYS before. They were ordered by
|tbe surviving commander of Clusters
regiment, the seventh cavalry, to as
sist in the work Of interment, the bat
tle field being fifteen miles away.
It was horrible sight that greeted
tbe ewes of Stewart and his cOmpan-
ions when they came upon the scene
of the struggle, from which not white
man escaped. Troops had already
buried large number of Clusters
band Of 300 who persisted with him.
but scores of bodiaB were still lying
on the ground, some of them naked,
while arms and legs of those partially
Inferred were sticking up out of the
ground. 1t took five days with sol
dierS and scouts working side by side
to complete the work of burial.
Believes Custer Suicide.
Contrary to popular tradition con-
corning Indian massacre, Stewart de-
clares that few of the fallen victims to
redskin treachery were scalped or
their bodies otherwise mutilated. AS
to General Custer himself, it is Stew
arts Steadfast belief that he was not
killed by Indian bullets, but shot
himself in the last stages of the con-
Act Only one ball was found to have
entered CusJer's body, ana that had
gone straight to tho heart, while the
cOrpSes of soldiers all about him were
riddled with lead from the guns of
their savage foes.
Stewart was y years old when he
lrSt became a scout at Leavenworth.
His early service was at Fort Lyons,
COL, and in 1872 he was transferred
to Camp Supply, l. T., noted sta
ton in the frontier days. For two
years he was under w. F. Cody, bet
ter known as Buffalo Bill, the latter
being chief of scouts at that time.
Stewart remained in the scouting
service thirteen years in all. Half of
maj time was spent at Camp Supply
Out after the Custer massacre he was
stationed at Fort Abraham Lincoln
Tor five years. He then quit the gov
eminent employ and went plotting
bull trains" for miners making their
way to the Black Hills. A year in
mat business sufficed him, since which