Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — INDIAN WARRIORS. [ARTICLE]

INDIAN WARRIORS.

An Ex-Soldier Considers Comanches the Bravest) The police officer who participated in this struggle is one of the bravest men in the department, in fact, during his experience as an Indian fighter he was awarded a medal for bravery. "That campaign was the hardest I ever went through,” he said recently, in relating the incidents of the fight. “We began to run short of provisions on Sept. 1, and at that time they put us on four hardtack a day. We expected to meet Gen. Terry in that country, but we miscalculated, and starvation

stared us in the face. The day ot the fight we got just a cracker and a half apiece. “We subsisted principally on horseflesh, and as soon as one of the horses was shot down we would cut away the meat while the animal was still quivering. We had a cavalcade of played out horses that seemed good for nothing but food. We couldn't get a move on them to save our souls. but when they heard the first Indian yell they moved off like a lot of 8 year olds. Every night we slaughtered twenty-five head of them. The meat is not bad; it’s a good deal like beef, only a little sweeter. We had no salt or pepper with which to season it, but we used powder, taking it out of our cartridges. We carried no tents—in fact' had nothing beyond what we carried on our backs. We finally reached the Belle Fouchs fork of the Cheyenne River on the I7th of September, and on the 18th marched on to White Wood, in the Black Hills. We got supplies the.'e from Deadwood. “I believe thatr the Indian most to be admired is the Comanche. He’s nothing but game, knows nothing but fight. And he can fight, too, I tell you. Right after him I rank the Soux Indian. No, sir, they’re not thieves, they’re fighters. They are not very good shots. If they were I believe they would be better than the soldiery. We had a Sioux guide once, and the weather was way down below zero, 80 or 40, perhaps. That kind of weather wasn’t extraordinary at all. We were wrapped and bundled up and had the heaviest kind of boots on. The Indian wore nothing but light moccasins, and when we offered him something warmer he refused to accept it. “ ‘How can you stand the cold?’ I asked him. “‘Me all face,’ was his rejoinder. *He meant by that, that just as the face became inured to the cold, so did other portions of the body. But you can’t do much with the Sioux. I remember when the government built cottages for them they didn’t know what to do with them. They were in the habit of sleeping on the ground in the open air. Finally they led their horses into the cottages and themselves bunked as usual out in the field. “In the engagement of which I have told you we wounded a certain Indian most desperately. His entrails were hanging from his body. He coolly clapped his hand over the wound, and without a tremor stepped out among the soldiers without a word, but with an expression on his face that spoke plainer than words, and which indicated that death had no terror for him. They are the gainest of men, I believe, and only one other tribe compares favorably with them. ”