DISCOVERY OF THE FETTERMAN MASSACRE
David.Gettman October 24th, 2008
By Sergeant John Guthrie
Early one morning myself and several of the boys were detailed to form a little squad which had been ordered to run the mail from the fort to Fort Reno, seventy-two miles from Fort Phil Kearney. It was during our trip to Fort Reno on the banks of the Powder River, the Indians had attacked the wood train in the valley of the Big Horn Mountains at Pine Ridge in the Sullivant Hills. My comrades and myself arrived at Fort Phil Kearney at day break.
In the morning Colonel Fetterman had started out for the purpose of protecting the wood train. In the middle of the day before the morning arrival of my comrades of the mail detail, the Fetterman command did not return to the fort or to the wood train, for he had taken the old Holiday coach road. We started out to find the Fetterman command, for it was feared that the detachment did not take enough ammunition with them. The party consisted of Lieutenant John C. Jenness of the 27th Infantry, two soldiers and myself, a driver with four mules and a wagon, three boxes of ammunition, the Lieutenant being mounted on an Indian pony, the soldiers dismounted.
A little over a mile from the fort on the Holiday coach road, near Stoney Creek ford, we found the dead bodies of the whole detachment, including Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and Lieutenant Grummond, lying where the Indians had killed them. The scene baffled description as the dead bodies were horribly mutilated. So you see the detachment had been surrounded by overwhelming numbers of Indians, and every man killed. Nothing had life left but a gray horse, Dapple Dave of Company C, 2nd Cavalry, the only horse left on the battlefield, being shot with both bullet and arrow. Lieutenant Jenness of the 27th Infantry returned to the fort with the news and horror of the situation. Continue Reading »
