Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866

by Terry C. Johnston

  Fessenden watched the old infantryman blanch with his vivid memory. “Ten Eyck counted only forty-nine when the sun fell outta the sky. Ordered us back before dark.”

  “You left the rest out there?” A little man stepped forward. “With them bloody savages? Think what they’ll do to ’em out there——”

  “Nothing!” the infantryman shouted to shut the little man up. “Nothing they ain’t done to ’em already.” He shook his head. “Ain’t a horror they can do to them boys they ain’t already done.”

  * * *

  He’d thought it couldn’t possibly grow colder than it had been near sundown. But now, after dark, Carrington found his little stove struggling to keep his inkwell and pen nib from freezing as he scribbled maddened, meandering dispatches he would send to Fort Laramie, bound for Omaha and Washington City. With no real sense of what he wanted to say, Carrington scattered his words across the pages in an unintelligible scrawl for sentences at a time. With no pattern. Pressed to express his desperate fear for their situation at Fort Phil Kearny. Outside, a light snow had begun to fall.

  General Cooke: Do send me reinforcements forthwith. Expedition now with my force is impossible. I risk everything but the post and its stores. I venture as much as any one can, but I have had today a fight unexampled in Indian warfare.

  Returned with forty-nine dead. Must recover more than thirty remaining on the field, weather and conditions permitting on the morrow. Fetterman, Brown, and Grummond, all taken from me. Grummond not located before dark.

  No such mutilation as that today is on record. Depend upon it that the post will be held so long as a round or a man is left. Promptness is the vital thing. Give me officers and men. Only the new Spencer arms should be sent; the Indians are desperate; I spare none, and they spare none.

  When he had finished his plea to Cooke and warmed his frozen fingers over the stove, the colonel copied the dispatch so that it would accompany his letter to General Grant.

  I sent copy of dispatch to General Cooke simply as a case when in uncertain communication, I think you should know the facts at once. I want all my officers. I want men. Depend upon it, as I wrote in July, no treaty but hard fighting is to assure this line. I have had no reason to think otherwise. I will operate all winter, whatever the season, if supported; but to redeem my pledge to open and guarantee this line, I must have reenforcements and the best of arms.

  “May God Himself hold my couriers in the palm of His hand,” Henry whispered, shivering with the growing cold. “God Himself.”

  * * *

  John Phillips hunched his shoulders beneath a heavy blanket coat, scurrying across the snowy parade as flakes lanced out of the blood-thick sky. Here and there fragments of lantern-light scoured dirty-yellow patches across the darkness. He wondered what could be colder than death itself, if it weren’t for this damned night.

  Funny, to think of death, when I just cheated it, he brooded. Wondering if he deserved to cheat the reaper this time around.

  Wheatley and Fisher gone. Partners. Nothing left for me now. This—the last thing I can do for these soldiers. For that poor woman.

  Nicknamed Portugee long ago, Phillips wondered why he had been spared in the great drama of things. Assigned by Quartermaster Brown to fill the post’s water barrels at the Little Piney that morning when the first alarm rang out. Hauling water while Wheatley and Fisher volunteered to ride with Fetterman.

  Volunteered their lives in the bargain. He stopped on the porch, knocking packed snow from his hog-leg boots. The last thing I can do for this poor woman.

  He rapped at the raw-boarded door.

  Margaret Carrington answered. “Yes?”

  “I come to see the officer’s wife,” the swarthy caller explained.

  “Mrs. Grummond?”

  “That’s her,” the man in his early thirties answered. “Please.”

  “What in God’s name for——”

  It appeared the colonel’s wife suddenly understood the look in his eyes.

  “Come in … out of the cold.” She opened the door wide enough for him to slide into the lantern-lit parlor. “You wait here. I’ll bring Mrs. Grummond.”

  He stared at the slivers of yellow light through the crazed frost patterns on the thick windowpanes until he heard the soft scuffling of feet behind him in the narrow hall. Phillips turned, feeling his heart surge against his throat. Her eyes had been a long-time red from crying, her cheeks rouged with the bitter cold that found its way through every chink in Carrington’s raw-boarded cabin.

  “Do … do I know you?” she asked, clutching the wool coat about her shoulders.

  “No, ma’am, you don’t,” he stammered, then remembered the buffalo cap on his head. With it crumpled in his hands, Portugee continued in his soft accent. “I give my service to the colonel. To ride to Laramie with his letters. I’ll bring help—men and guns. Don’t you worry … please.”

  “You’ll ride to Fort Laramie with Henry’s dispatches?” Margaret asked, seeing a glimmer of mist cross the stranger’s eyes.

  He nodded. Then he gazed at Frances once more. “Going to Laramie for help. I’ll go if it costs me my life. Only wanted to tell you … I’m going for your sake.”

  “My … My sake?” Frances gasped.

  “Yes’m.” Portugee reached out, touching the back of her hand. “The baby, ma’am. You and your baby.”

  He glanced down at the furry black and gray bundle he clutched beneath his left arm, handing it to Frances. “Here, ma’am. My wolf robe. Take it, please. A gift from me to you … your baby. I bring it for you to keep. For you to remember me by if you never see me again. You and the baby to remember that … I tried.”

  Frances accepted the soft, lush wolfskin, clutching it to her belly. Suddenly aware of the sting at her eyes. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, suppressing the sob about to overwhelm her.

  Portugee saw the tears well in her eyes as she leaned forward to kiss his bearded cheek. “God’s speed, good man,” she whispered.

  He touched her hand once again, then swept out the door into the cold, jamming the buffalo cap on his head as he remained a moment on the porch.

  “Who was he, Frances?” he heard Mrs. Carrington say.

  “I don’t even know his name,” she answered. “Told me … said he was going for us all … for my baby—and I don’t even know his name.”

  “Dear God,” Margaret Carrington whispered. “With this brutal storm that man is riding hopelessly into, it’s as if Nature herself has conspired with the Indians to swallow us all.”

  Portugee crossed to the corner of the parade, satisfied that he had talked with her. Loose ends tied up as neatly as he could.

  Tiny wisps of sleety snow swirled around him like bothersome gnats swarming around his sweating face last summer. Cutting through the cavalry stables, hurrying across the wood yard, past the teamsters’ mess and mechanics’ shops.

  “Mr. Phillips?” a voice called out from the dark.

  He stopped. “Yes?” he answered softly.

  A shadow took form. Carrington’s face beneath a buffalo cap. “You’ll need these, for your ride.”

  Portugee quickly slipped the long buffalo coat over his shoulders after he pulled the buffalo-fur leggings up to his thighs. “A horse? Said you’d get me a good horse?”

  “My own,” Carrington sighed, leading Portugee to the railing at the blacksmith’s shop. “Gray Eagle. A Kentucky thoroughbred, Mr. Phillips. He’ll carry you all the way.”

  He stroked the big white charger. “A good animal, Colonel.”

  “You have provisions?”

  Phillips held up the saddlebags. “Hardtack.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Won’t have time to eat nothing else.”

  “And the horse?”

  Portugee shook a leather satchel. “A nosebag and twenty pounds of your oats, sir.”

  “Good,” he answered. “You’re ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Carri
ngton led Phillips toward the water-gates at the southeast corner of the quartermaster yard.

  “Halt!” a voice cried out from the darkness. “Who goes?”

  “Your commanding officer!”

  “Colonel?”

  Portugee watched the young soldier loom out of the night. “S-Sorry, sir … Private John Brough, Second Cavalry, Colonel.”

  “Never mind,” Carrington replied. “Open the gate for me.”

  “Open the——”

  “A rider’s leaving, Private. See to the padlock quickly.”

  With the narrow gate pulled open, Brough stepped back, watching the two men beside the nervous horse.

  “You’re my first, Mr. Phillips. I’m sending William Bailey, another miner, after you. In an hour. I must copy more dispatches first.”

  Portugee nodded. “In case I don’t make it, Colonel?”

  “I’m hoping one of you will.”

  Phillips gazed longingly at the snowy yard, his home since August. “May not see you … this fort again.”

  “A deadly undertaking, volunteering to make this ride … 235 miles of wilderness.”

  “Man does what a man has to, Colonel.”

  Carrington yanked Portugee’s hand into his, shaking it tenderly. “I trust we’ll meet another day, Mr. Phillips.”

  Portugee swung into the saddle, adjusted the bulky coat around his furry leggings, then snugged the heavy cap on his head. Hands encased in mittens, he saluted, urging the anxious charger through the narrow opening. Darkness instantly swallowed the horseman like coal cotton.

  “May God help you, Mr. Phillips!” Carrington whispered into the night. “May God help us all!”

  For no more than a minute the colonel could hear the muffled hoof-beats. He stood by the narrow opening, head cocked, listening breathlessly. When he could hear his Kentucky-bred charger no longer, Carrington straightened.

  “Good,” he sighed. “He’s taken the softer ground at the side of the road.”

  Stepping back from the gate, Carrington finally sensed just how cold the night was. Mercury motionless … well below zero.

  “Close and lock the gate, son,” he directed Private Brough. “Stay warm on your watch.”

  “A damn bloody cold night, Colonel, excusing my——”

  “No offense taken, Private.” Carrington turned into the swirling buckshot snow, heading back to headquarters.

  “May God help us all.”

  Chapter 38

  Winter finally swept down upon the land with an unrelenting vengeance.

  Throughout that bitter night, Carrington scurried about the post. Seeing that sentries were relieved every half hour so that no man froze to his death along the windswept banquettes. In the maddening swirl of icy snow, every soldier remained mesmerized by those Sioux signal fires blinking from the ridges and hills surrounding Fort Phil Kearny.

  A glacial cold greeted the gloomy gray of the new day, finding Carrington red-eyed. Fearing a dawn attack like every other man. Huddled in Henry’s office sat Bridger and Donegan, scouts Jack Stead and Henry Williams, captains Powell and Ten Eyck, Chaplain White, surgeons Horton, Hines and Ould, in addition to lieutenants Wands, Bradley, Skinner and Matson, along with civilians Leviticus Carter and Judge Kinney. Seventeen sleepless, grumpy men. Some anxious. Others plainly scared.

  Orderlies and sergeants came and went, giving their whispered reports at the door. Carrington dragged himself out of his chair, cleared his throat, and opened officers’ council.

  “Company rolls show thirty-one enlisted still missing,” Wands announced.

  “And Grummond,” Ten Eyck added.

  Carrington nodded. “As none came in overnight, we’ll assume the thirty-two are lost.” His eyes slewed around the room, studying the haggard faces. “Our first concern becomes the recovery of the bodies.”

  “They will attack you, sir,” Ten Eyck said.

  Carrington glared at him a moment. “Captain, they did not attack you yesterday.”

  Ten Eyck nodded, embarrassed. “Surely had a bellyful of the killing, Colonel. A bellyful of the…”

  “No matter,” Carrington sighed, looking at the floor. “I must go—if I do it alone.”

  Powell stood, uneasy. “Respectfully, Colonel—I don’t advise a rescue. Ten Eyck came out lucky yesterday. By now, the hostiles’ve regrouped and’ll be loaded for bear again.”

  “Damned Injuns out there in the hills,” Bridger growled, “even them savages manage to recover their dead warriors.”

  Matson stood. “I support Captain Powell. It’d be hazardous to return to the battlefield while the Sioux are celebrating their victory over Fetterman. We should sit tight for now.”

  “Colonel, I’m an old man,” Bridger grumbled, wagging his head. “I’ve no time for these paper-collared fools of yours. Your own damn soldiers laid out there in them hills all night. It’s time we fetched them boys back. Like decent folk would.”

  “Anyone else?” Carrington asked.

  “Ahh-hem.” Kinney cleared his throat, rising, pink fingers interlacing in his galluses. “I second what prudence Captain Powell advises, Colonel. If a party to rescue the dead leaves our gates, the lives of those left behind will be in peril.”

  “Not necessarily, Judge——”

  “Most emphatically, Colonel! I want you to understand I’ve not found much to like in your handling of matters—and should you decide to send out a rescue column, I stand against you again, and most wholeheartedly.”

  “I’m well aware that you’ve sided against me on most issues, Judge. It’s quite well-known you’re a proslave man. Unable to reconcile why Lincoln removed you from your Utah judgeship … you despise my antislave stand. But, be that as it may, I frankly don’t give a damn for your shortsighted and selfish opinions.”

  For a moment Kinney stood silenced. He finally stammered, “Think hard on this, Carrington. I’ve friends in power … why, my life savings are invested in that post——”

  “To hell with your sutler’s goods, Kinney,” Carrington interrupted quietly. He flung an arm to the west. “I’m thinking of those good men—butchered, left to the weather … and God knows what else.”

  “You pompous sonofabitch!” Kinney shrieked. “If you send a rescue party out, all of us will fall prey to those red bastards.”

  “I agree, Colonel!” Powell leaped up again. “We don’t have enough men to do both safely. Take some to go after what’s left of Fetterman’s men—we can’t leave enough to defend the fort. But if enough men remain behind to defend the fort while the rescue party is out—the Sioux can easily overwhelm those who’ve gone to bring the bodies back. We can’t win!”

  “Gentlemen.” Carrington motioned the men to their seats. “I want you each to listen carefully to me. Through the long hours of the night I’ve tried as never before to think like an Indian.”

  “Cockleheaded fool!” Kinney spouted.

  “I have the floor, Judge. If you choose to interrupt, I’ll see you’re excused from this council.” He waited for silence. “I could not but feel that if I’d been a red man, I would’ve fought as bitterly—if not as cruelly—for my rights and my home as the red man fought since last July. Especially as he fought yesterday.”

  “What does that have to do with rescuing the dead?” Wands inquired.

  “Coming to that, Lieutenant. Knowing a little more now than I ever have about the Indian mind, I won’t let the Indians entertain the conviction that our dead cannot and will not be rescued.”

  He circled the desk then leaned against it. “If we cannot rescue our dead, as the Indians always do at any risk, how can we send details out for any purpose? Realize, by not going to rescue our dead, that single fact will give the Sioux an idea of weakness here, Judge. And, Captain Powell—that idea just might stimulate them to risk an assault on the fort at any hour. On any day.”

  He lumbered around the desk, gazed at his coffee-stained maps, then declared, “Therefore, gentlemen, the matter is decided. I�
�ll lead the rescue myself—taking eighty men, soldiers and civilians. I alone will decide who’ll go with me. Ten Eyck, you’ll lead me to the battlefield. Surgeon Ould, you and Lieutenant Matson will accompany me. Captain Powell will be in charge of the fort in our absence. We leave in an hour, gentlemen. Dismissed.”

  “Colonel?”

  “Yes, Mr. Donegan.”

  “I’d like to ride along with you.”

  “So’d I, Colonel.” Bridger rose on creaky knees.

  “You’re in no shape for it, Jim.” He shook his head. “But I need you along. See that Jack Stead hangs close to Powell. The captain might have … need of Jack’s horse sense while we’re out.” He patted the old scout on the shoulder, then turned to the tall Irishman.

  “But as for you, Mr. Donegan,” Carrington smiled weakly, “seems the army’s a lot to repay you … after locking you up the better part of a month. Brown’s dead. There’s no need you risking your life going with——”

  “My ass’s been hung over many a fire before, Colonel,” Donegan replied. “Figure I better go ’long on one more wee ride up the Lodge Trail with you this morning.”

  Bridger watched Carrington’s eyes moisten. “You’re more than welcome to ride at my side, any time, Seamus Donegan.”

  * * *

  In the Carrington parlor adjoining Henry’s office, Margaret and Frances Grummond overheard every word spoken during the council. His meeting over, the colonel turned from the Irishman, crossed the floor and knocked on the pine door before entering.

  “Henry!” his wife gasped, surprised. She rose from the window where she had been watching the frantic activities on the parade as men carried boxes and barrels to the powder magazine.

  Frances had been reclining on a settee nearby. Both scrambled to their feet as Carrington closed the door behind him.

  “Sorry to startle you, ladies. I knocked as a courtesy——”

  “Of course, Henry,” Margaret replied, crossing the room and taking one of his hands in hers.

  “Hush for once, Margaret. And listen to me. I’ve decided to lead the rescue myself.”