The St. Joseph observer., 1921-06-04

was at Eastport, Mississippi. when
General Lee surrendered, about 10000 L
of u.s.. under command of General
Wilson. Word reached us about one
o'clock a. m. that General Lee had
surrendered. 1t was a beautiful clear
moonlight morning when we were
suddenlY-~Ywakened by the roar of
cannon and other fire arms. The
boys shot, whooped and followed un-
til daylight. The officers could not
control them. When daylight came
they stopped shooting and bowling
and started singing Home, Sweet
Home"
About May goth Lieut.. Colonel Dick
Brown of the 18th Missouri Cavalry
was called to St Louis, with the |
1st and End battalions and ordered |
TO draw fresh horses and equipment .
for the Powder River Expedition.
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. We rest
ed there few days and then were |
ordered to Omaha, Nebraska We |
got there and were put under com
mand of Colonel Cole, commander of |
the Second Missouri Mounted Artil
lery. The first day of July he ordered |
out his little brigade. His regiment ,
refused to go. He ordered Lieutenant |
Colonel Dick Brown to bring out his |
two battalions and arrest the second |
Missouri. Colonel Dick refused to
| obey. Quite a few of the Second and |
! Twelfth refused to go and deserted.
The two colonels after three days lab
oring with their regiments gave their
| consent to go, SO on July 4th, 1865,
we started on our march for the
Black Hills.
To Meet Gen. Connor
We were ordered to meet General
Conner at the mouth of Powder river
on the Yellowstone. We only started
with supplies to do us about 60 days.
General Conner was expected to meet
us at the mouth of Powder river with
rations.
When he got into the Black Hills
he found it impossible to go through
the mountains with wagons He built
fort out of logs and put his rations
in it. and left a company of men to
guard it. He packed his mules with
rations and started through the
mountains. But he failed TO find us.
BY this time Colonel Coles brigade
was entirely out of rations. Our only
subsistence was an occasional ante
lope, sometimes a bear, and then a
deer. The Indians were so thick that
we could not get much game. We
had to live on mules and horse meat
We reached the north bank of the
Powder river September Z, 1865.
We had travelled about three days
without water or rations, only can
teen full of water TO the man and
nothing to eat only when a mule or
horse would give out we would kill
him and eat him. 1 have seen the
boys cut out a chunk and eat it raw.
We stopped at the mouth of the
Powder river to rest. Late in the
afternoon of September a band of
Indians attacked us and killed Ser
geant Holt and six men of my com
pany. They were Elijah Barry, Rich
ard McCord. Charles Wheeler, Isaac
Arberry, Thomas Burke and VIM.
Noble, all of Company A, and wound
ed several of our men. In all we lost
, 32 men, killed by the Indians. How
many Indians we killed do not know.
We did not take time to count them,
neither did we care to bury them.
Were Completely Surrounded
At daylight September s, we found
I ourselves completely surrounded by
Indians. They were as thick as birds
, everywhere you could look. 1t look
r ed very much like we were all to be
! murdered. The colonel was not hav-
r ing much success. Captain Leach of
! Company b, 18th Missouri, an Irish
/ man, got permission from the colonel
to make a charge on the Indians ana