The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-12-12
condition of the frenzied women and children necessitated their constant at-

condition of the frenzied women and
 children necessitated their constant at- | tention. I The next day dawned cold, cloudy | and with a severe storm imminent, | weather which was not usually regard | ed by the Indians as favorable for an
 attack, and Darlington decided to go
 out and try to determine the fate of
 his missing lieutenant and men. At
 this proposition all his officers demur-
 red, fearing an attack on the fort. Con-
 trolling her terror and nerving herself l to meet her husbands possible fate
 with heroic fortitude, Mrs. Darlington" gave her approval e-athe generais | desperate resolve, while with an un- | selfishness that was less sublime, Mrs. Grummond voiced an earnest | protest. There wassno doubt that her husband had met terrible end, but ieopardizing additional lives to find his body she could not approve.
 In the afternoon, however, the gen. eral carried out his resolve and visit ed the scene of the fight. He was accompanied by a detail Of eighty | men. That. during his absence, the 1 Indians might carry the fort Caring | ton realized but too will, That, in | this event, the fate of the women and | children therein would be h1deous, l unthinkable, he also knew, so well, in 1 fact, that the officer under whom the | women and children were left was in- structd to shoot them down rather than let them be captured alive. 1O5 Arrows in Body.
 Marching past the scene of the main | battle where the bodies of Fetterman and Brown had been recovered, the 1 little party under Darlington found that leading from this spot in direc- tion away from the fatal ridge, on the I farther side, there was ver1table | trail of mutilated corpses. Follow 1 ing these the detail soon came to the | remains of Lieutenant Grummond and l to evidences of a desperate struggle. Behind a little pile of rocks lay the l bodies of the two frOntlersmen, Wheatley and Fisher. In that of l Wheatley there were 105 arrows The Henry rifles of these two had done 1 their work Well on the ground around were more than 100 shells, and near the other bodies were not only similar evidences of resistance, but. also no 1 less than sixty great stains of blood, | indicating the loss of the Indians. The latter almost always removed their dead at once but that the party under Grummond had sold their lives dearly | was plain to be seen. Due possibly l to the two breech loading rifles, the In- dians had not engulfed them as quick | ly as they had the party under Fet- terman.
 By 10 o'clock at night the general
 was back at the fort with these further tidings and evidences of disaster. A courier was dispatched at once to Fort
 Laramie, but it was not until Christ | mas day, that the world knew the fla 1 tai story In the reports of peace l in the west that had emanated from I Washington the country had until then believed; the truth was out at last, 1 and with the horror of the thing the
 entire nation shuddered.
 | Darlington Exonerated.
 Amid his terrible trials at Fort
 Kearney Darlington had borne himself
 we'll But blame for the massacre had
 to be fastened on someone, and be- l fore the generals report could reach l Washington he was ordered to relin-
 quish the command, of the fort, to
 which a relief expedition was at once l dispatched. Before the latter arrived | the weather became arctic in it's sever | ity. Vigilance at the post could not l for minute be relaxed but the guards had to be changed half hour l ly. When the general, accompanied | by a strong detail, took leave of the | fort which held such terrible associa- tions, he was accompanied not only | by his wife, but by Mrs Grummond, | and it was thus that the latter began 1 the sad duty of accompanying the remains of her husband to a resting ! place in their far away home in Ten l nessee.
 1 Not until some time later was Car- rington vindicated. A military court