The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-12-12
ANNIVERSARY RECOLLECT|ONS
 OF MASSACRE AT FORT KEARNEY FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH
Eighty one Officers and Men Wiped Out by Indians I'll Starred Attempt of Government to Establish Military Post Connecticut Man, Commander

1uaC CHO ITSC three weeks OI CHe
 present month form the fiftieth ami
 versary of succession of event.
 which eliminated in one of the mos
 appalling massacres of whites by In. dians that ever stained the pages o1
 our national history is a fact not gen
 orally known. This occasion was the
 Fetterman massacre of December 21
 1866, in which a detachment of eighty.
 one officers and men, principally of the
 Eighteenth United States Infantry an6
 Second United States cavalry, under
 Captain w. J. Fetterman, U. S. A.
 were annihilated by the Sioux near the
 present city of Sheridan in northern
 Wyoming. Preceding this tragedy
 moreover, these unfortunate soldiers
 and their comrades in arms were in
 the little wilderness post of Fort Phi
 Kearney, beset constantly by horde
 of frenzied savages for nearly three
 weeks and were menaced with a fate
 so hideous as to be more suggestive of
 the struggles of the pioneers of the Atlantic. seaboard than of practically recent history. For the people of Con- necticut, and especially for those from this part of the state, the pitiful story
 of the fate of F'etterman and his men holds particular interest, inas- much as the commander of the ill-fat- ed expedition of which the slain sol- diers were part was one of Connecti- cuts most notable sons, distinguish ed alike as soldier, lawyer, author and educator, Brigadier General Hen- ry B. Darlington, native of Wallingford land graduate of Yale.
 SI For some reason, the story of the 5Fetterman tragedy is to-day compara- lively unknown, whereas the story of the Custer massacre of ten years later has been perpetuated in song, story and melodrama. Yet during the de- cade of Indian fighting in the west which immediately followed the Civil war there was no event which created more general national horror than the sformer; indeed, the country was even more startled and stunned by Fetter mans fate in 1866 than it was at Gus ter's in the centennial year.
 With the close of the Civil war be- gan the last great westward push of civilization which this continent was to see and which wresed from the va rious tribes of plains Indians that ter ritory between the Rocky mountains and the, tooth meridian which was the last great hunting ground of the red man. A series of Indian wars were begun by this movement which did not end until the late 7O's.
 xh No Railroads.
 In 1865 the continent was still un- .spanned by rail; two lines were un- der war, but the first of these, the Un-. ion Pacific, was not completed until 1869. Trans-continental travel was by Horseback and wagon train; it pass ed over several definite routes, and one of these was the Bozeman trail, which crossed Wyoming, and, near the mountains, turned north into Montana. Over this train. as over all the others, there was constant inflow of whites. The great hunting grounds upon which the latter thus encroached were the most precious heritage which the In- dians possessed. and the invasion was watched with jealous rage. Most prominent among the tribes thus con- cerned were the Sioux and Cheyennes, and. early in 1866. at Fort Laramie, in southeastern Wyoming, some of their chiefs were met in council by government commissioners. To ob- tain for white em1grants the right of way over all the trails through the Indian lands was the object of the lat ter. To this proposition some of the chiefs assented; others opposed it with all the fervor of savage wrath. Fore most among the objecting warriors was Red Cloud, 8 famous chief of the Sioux. Ever since 1868 he had been at war with the government, and when, during the council, General Car rington appeared with a body of troops, he declared once more for the war path and straightway took his leave.
 Wanted Chain of Military Posts,
 To guard the Bozeman trail the government desired the erection of a chain of military posts, whether or not 8 treaty was consummated by the commissioners; such was the explan- ation of the appearance at the Lara mic council of the troops under Car rington. and although that general recommended to the government that his expedition delay it's start until an agreement with the Indians had been reached. he was not needed and was ordered on. After his departure, the commissioners, by virtue of lavish dis tfibution of gifts, felt justified in re- porting to the government that satisfactory treaty had been made, and that the Bozeman trail was safe. That an agreement had been reached was true, but it was likewise true that the council had adjourned with even the most tfactable of the Indians in a sul- Aeh and dangerous mood.
 A Connecticut Soldier.
 Darlington was born in Wa11ing- ford in 1924, Graduated from Yale college in 1S45, he then attended Yale Law school and removed for practice te Ohio. Fer several years before the Civil war he was adjutant general of that state, and for his services in the field during the rebellion he attained the rank of brigadier general of volun- teefs. At the close of the war Car riHgten was commissioned colonel of the Eighteenth regular infantry, and, with the second battalion of this regi- meRt, was ordered to take command of the mountain district through which the Bezeman trail ran. To the fact that in this whole district there was but a single military post was due the feeling of the government that additional posts along the trail were necessary. This lone station was Fort Reno, 160 miles west from Fort La Ssaaie. CarFinsten's orders were to nrocoed from t1,e latter noint to Fort