Legends of the Old West - RED CLOUD'S WAR Ep. 4 | "Fetterman's Fight"

Episode Date: February 24, 2019

After months of continuous attacks by Red Cloud’s forces, Crazy Horse argues the time is right for an all-out assault. It is winter 1866 and the small army outpost is virtually isolated on the High Plains. On December 21, Crazy Horse lures American soldiers into a trap and Red Cloud unleashes his war party… Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. This episode is brought to you by LEGO Fortnite. LEGO Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. President Andrew Johnson delivered his State of the Union Address December 3, 1866. He spoke for more than one hour, but he devoted just 38 words to the situation in the West.

38 words to the situation in the West. In those 38 words, he said the Indians had agreed to treaties and had unconditionally submitted to the authority of the United States. Three days later, Red Cloud proved him wrong. The Oglala Warchief was close to advocating an all-out assault on Fort Phil Kearney, but he wanted to run a test first. So he sent 100 warriors to attack a wagon train traveling from the lumber mill on Piney Island to the fort. He watched the small battle from the top of a hill like a commanding general, and he was encouraged by what he saw. Afterward, he conferred with Crazy Horse and a Lakota sub-chief

named Yellow Eagle. They told similar stories of the fighting that he couldn't see from his hilltop vantage. The Blue Coat soldiers were like children. They could be lured away by the sight of anything shiny or tasty. They could be separated from the main body of troops as easily as an old cow could be separated from a herd. Red Cloud concluded that the time was right for an assault. They would consult a holy man, and when they received a good omen for battle, they would

strike. It turned out, they wouldn't have to wait long. Mountain man Jim Bridger, who had spent nearly his entire adult life on the western frontier, came to the same conclusion as the Lakota chiefs. He told Colonel Carrington, Your men down south are crazy. They don't know anything about fighting Indians. It was a simple statement of fact.

But if there was any doubt, it would be erased on December 21st, 1866, when American soldiers ignored all the lessons of the past and decided to chase Crazy Horse. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business, from the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and

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Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. From Black Barrel Media, this is season four of the Legends of the Old West podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is the fourth episode of a five-part series on Red Cloud's War. Previously, Red Cloud chipped away at the soldiers and travelers in the area of Fort Phil Kearney throughout the summer and fall of 1866. He convinced his followers to wage a winter war

against the forts as soon as the last batch of soldiers arrived. This week, Captain Fetterman leads those soldiers into the outpost and eagerly awaits the chance to launch attacks. But he quickly finds out he has a lot to learn. And then Red Cloud lures Fetterman into the battle that still bears his name today. And now, here's Episode 4, Fetterman's Fight. Red Cloud Scouts had been right. Four days after the soldiers had raised the American flag in the fort, a unit of the 2nd Cavalry arrived.

Captain William Fetterman led 65 men through the gates, and happy reunions followed. Fetterman saw his old friends, Quartermaster Fred Brown and Lieutenant William Bisbee, as well as his old boss, Henry Carrington. Carrington and Fetterman had made a good team in the early days of the Civil War, but if they had had a close, personal relationship, it had cooled in the past five years. Fetterman had proven to be a courageous field commander. Carrington was a politician in uniform. Fetterman and his friends in the fort were positive they could beat the Indians,

if only Carrington would let them. Fetterman looked at the situation in Fort Phil Kearney through a very narrow lens. He saw that Carrington had not taken a single offensive action against Red Cloud's forces. There had been 51 attacks since July. Red Cloud's forces. There had been 51 attacks since July. There were 150 soldiers and civilians buried in the cemetery at the base of a tall hill called Pilot Knob outside the fort. More than 450 had been wounded. More than 800 head of livestock had been stolen. Every single wagon train that had passed through the area had experienced loss of life due to violence. And in Fetterman's mind, Carrington had done nothing.

Of course, Fetterman also didn't have Carrington's responsibilities. Fetterman's only job was to attack. He didn't have to worry about things like building forts or just making sure the men had food to eat. Although those prospects were on the horizon. Fetterman arrived at Fort Phil Kearney with plenty of bravado and fighting spirit, but he also arrived with information Carrington did not have. There was yet another reorganization of the army coming in two months, on January 1st. A general had strongly hinted to Fetterman that he would take over for

Carrington when that happened, so Fetterman now had ambition and incentive to perform. Shortly after his arrival, he began pushing Carrington to let him attack. Carrington agreed to a minor action. Like Carrington, Fetterman was appalled by the outdated weapons carried by many of the soldiers in the fort, so before he put his plan into motion, he took the Spencer repeating rifles away from the regimental band and gave them to his troops. Then Fetterman went to work. He took his old friends Fred Brown and Bill Bisbee, as well as new arrival Washington Grummond, and led a squad of 50 men to a stand of cottonwood trees beyond the fort. At dusk, they hobbled some horses near the trees and then hid in the brush, waiting for the Indians to take the bait.

They waited all night, and nothing happened. night, and nothing happened. At dawn, a raiding party stampeded a small herd of cattle on the other side of the fort that belonged to James Wheatley, the restaurant owner. The warriors had seen right through Fetterman's clever trap. This was lesson number one. A few days later, Carrington was forced to deplete his garrison further by sending 10 men to Fort Laramie as an armed escort for a mail carrier, and then 40 men up to Fort C.F. Smith with the paymaster. Those men would not be coming back. Carrington put a stop to Fetterman's ambush schemes. The troops were once again spread too thin to risk losing men to such engagements. Fetterman was furious, and as the days passed, he became more open in his contempt for Carrington.

The rift between the two men grew wider as Red Cloud stepped up his attacks. He turned Crazy Horse and the Stronghearts loose on the woodcutters at Piney Island and the wagon trains that moved to and from the fort. Red Cloud told his warriors that the best time to attack was early in the morning, when the workers were still foggy with sleep, or in the late afternoon, when they were exhausted from labor. The strategy worked, and the warriors made life hell for the woodcutters and the riflemen who guarded them on the trail. Morale in the fort had been deteriorating slowly, but now, as a long, cold winter set in and snow deepened on the ground, the problem grew worse. Every day men were killed or wounded. Their blood was red on the snow, and Carrington did nothing about it.

Men in the fort feuded over mundane things and were constantly in fear for their lives. But what they didn't know was that Red Cloud's forces suffered as well. Red Cloud had convinced his followers to stay on the high plains and fight the soldiers instead of moving to the shelter of their traditional winter camps near the Black Hills. The warriors should be spending their days lounging in front of warm fires, but instead they were greasing their arms and legs to protect against the bitter cold as they crept across the open prairie to attack the soldiers. They were growing just as weary as the Bluecoats, and Red Cloud knew they could not keep up this pace much longer without taking some sort of decisive action. Crazy Horse began to take the first big steps toward leadership.

He was no longer the quiet young daredevil who just listened at council fires. Now, he advocated in a loud voice for a major strike. But Red Cloud still wasn't sure. He knew exactly how much food and supplies the soldiers had in the fort. He wanted to starve them and weaken them to the point where they could barely fight back and then hit them. But Crazy Horse's words were powerful. They could not be ignored. So Red Cloud ordered one more test before he

agreed to a full-scale battle. On the morning of December 6, 1866, three days after President Andrew Johnson told Congress the Indians had submitted to a U.S. authority, Red Cloud mounted his best warhorse and led hundreds of warriors out of his camp on the Tong River. The temperature dropped below freezing. A biting wind cut across the prairie. Gray clouds moved down from the Bighorn Mountains in the west And at the base of the mountains A woodcutting caravan moved between Piney Island and Fort Phil Kearney Red Cloud's men moved into the timber around the lumber operation Moments later, they screamed their war cries and burst out of the trees

They attacked the woodcutters and the soldiers who guarded them and burst out of the trees. They attacked the woodcutters and the soldiers who guarded them. One of the soldiers peeled off and galloped the four miles back to the fort to alert Carrington. Carrington quickly organized a rescue party. He sent 50 men with Captain Fetterman and Lieutenant Horatio Bingham up the road toward Piney Island. They were supposed to force the warriors back over a ridge and into the Pino

Creek Valley. Meanwhile, Carrington and Lieutenant Grummond would lead 24 men toward the other side of the valley, and they would trap the warriors as they retreated. The two columns raced out of the fort. Fetterman and Bingham headed straight for the woodcutters. Carrington and Grummond rode along a ridge toward the valley. As they looked down, they could see the two other commanders and their men engage the warriors down on the road. Then Carrington's column spotted four warriors a couple hundred yards ahead of them. The soldiers fired a volley and scattered the warriors. Carrington ordered his men to begin slowly moving down into the valley to set the trap. But Lieutenant Grumman disobeyed the order.

He spurred his horse and hurried down the slope ahead of the column. Carrington was livid as he watched his lieutenant disappear into the twisting ravines and brambles of the valley. Captain Fetterman experienced the same problem at roughly the same time. Down on the wood road, Fetterman's men began to drive the warriors toward the valley where Carrington's column waited. But then Lieutenant Bingham suddenly split off from the troops and led his unit away from the main fight. He had spotted a lone warrior on a trail leading into a gully.

The lone warrior was Crazy Horse, and he was about to spring a trap of his own. He used himself as bait, and Bingham took it, hook, line, and sinker. Crazy Horse stood in the road and pretended to fix a problem with his horse's hoof A squad of soldiers galloped toward him One of them fired and the shot hit nearby, but he didn't move

As they closed in on him, he leapt onto his pony and dashed away The strong hearts charged out of their hiding spots on both sides of the trail and attacked the squad out of their hiding spots on both sides of the trail and attacked the squad. Back up on the ridge, Carrington and his men hurried down the slope in pursuit of Lieutenant Grummond. When they reached the bottom, they found 15 cavalrymen standing on the ground, holding the reins of their horses, looking dumbfounded. They were from Lieutenant Bingham's unit. Lieutenant Grummond had linked up with Bingham and the two officers had rushed headlong into a fight. These men had frozen at the terrifying sounds of their first battle with Lakota warriors. Carrington screamed at them to

join his unit and then he hurried ahead to find Bingham and Grummond. He stopped abruptly when he found several dozen warriors blocking the trail. Carrington turned and yelled at his men to form a skirmish line, and then he discovered he only had six men with him. The rest were still back on the trail, scared out of their minds. The warriors charged and fired old rifles and arrows. Carrington pulled his Colt revolver and began firing. The stragglers from his unit finally arrived and he directed their fire.

They repelled the charge before Carrington was overwhelmed. Carrington turned to the bugler from Bingham's unit, a German immigrant named Adolf Metzger. He told the man to sound recall and Metzger blasted out the notes in the freezing wind. In the gully, Lieutenants Bingham and Grummond led five men straight into the ambush prepared by Crazy Horse. Legions of warriors sprung out of the trees beside the trail and assaulted the soldiers. They yanked Bingham off his horse and killed him.

The soldiers spun in circles, firing or swinging their guns like clubs. Grumman pulled his saber and slashed at the warriors. One of the soldiers was deadly accurate with his revolver and killed three braves before the rest could drag him off his horse and kill him with knives and tomahawks. At the sound of the bugle, Fetterman and his remaining soldiers joined with Carrington's column. They were missing Bingham and Grummond, and they knew they had to be deeper into the

valley. The combined company pushed forward to find its lost comrades. In the gully, Grumman searched for an escape route. He slapped his horse with the flat side of his saber and forced his way out of the fight. Three troopers followed him and they galloped back up the trail. Half a dozen warriors chased them. The two groups were in a footrace, and as they emerged from the gully, they ran right into the oncoming column led by Carrington and Fetterman. At the sight of the soldiers, the warriors disappeared into the gully.

And then, there was silence. About an hour after the fight, Carrington, Fetterman, and Grummond found Lieutenant Bingham. He had been scalped and impaled on a tree, and had 50 arrows sticking out of his body. Another soldier was dead on the ground. But miraculously, they were the only men killed. Carrington was deflated, yet again, by the company's performance. Fetterman was mystified. He couldn't understand why a good soldier like Bingham had recklessly rushed away from the troop in pursuit of a few warriors. The engagement quelled some of Fetterman's fighting spirit. Certainly not all of it, but he began to realize that Civil War battles were not remotely similar

to frontier battles. Bingham's death illustrated lesson number two, which everyone already knew, but clearly still needed to be reinforced. When warriors conveniently presented themselves to you, they're bait. Never take the bait. After the fight in the Pino Creek Valley, Red Cloud conferred with his commanders. Crazy Horse told the story of luring Bingham and Grummond into the gully. It had been child's play. Yellow Eagle described the initial attack on the wood train and how he baited Fetterman to ride past him and then he was free to attack Carrington's smaller force on the trail. Even though the tribes on the plains had been using

this tactic for years, and it was common knowledge, it had still worked easily. Red Cloud knew all he needed to know. He and the other commanders agreed. They would attack on the first good day after the next full moon. This time, they would use all 2,000 of their warriors. They would kill as many soldiers as possible and burn the fort. They would use the same strategy as in the Pino Creek fight, and they had no reason to believe it wouldn't work. Lieutenant Horatio Bingham was laid to rest in the cemetery near

Pilot Knob three days after he was killed. Sadly, the little graveyard kept growing, and not one of the people buried there had died of natural causes. Colonel Carrington knew his men had to get back to basics. They couldn't repeat the undisciplined mess of the Pino Creek fight. He instructed Captain Fetterman and Captain James Powell to drill the men twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. to drill the men twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. They practiced everything, getting on and off a horse, loading and firing their weapons on command, forming up into columns.

Another fight was inevitable. They just didn't know when it was going to happen. It turned out, they had ten days to practice. On the morning of December 19th, a group of warriors again attacked the woodcutting detail out near Piney Island. Carrington sent Captain Powell and his men to help the woodcutters. He gave explicit orders. Do not cross the hill called Lodge Trail Ridge. Do not pursue the Indians.

Remember what happened last time. Powell followed orders, and the engagement didn't amount to much. But afterward, Quartermaster Fred Brown and Captain Fetterman met with Carrington. They said that these little actions were exactly what were demoralizing the men. These fights were war parties constantly took small bites out of the soldiers, and nothing happened in return. The two captains argued that there was a better way. They must strike a blow, and they had a plan. Forty miners and ten civilians had agreed to fight with them. They should take 50 soldiers and the 50 civilians and attack Red Cloud at his camp on the Tong River. Carrington said no. Of the many problems with the plan,

the fort only had 42 horses that could potentially make such a long trip. What were the other eight soldiers going to do, just run along behind the horsemen? The captains didn't know it, but Carrington had just saved their lives. Red Cloud's enormous war party was not at his camp on the Tongue River. It was just ten miles north of the fort, out beyond Lodge Trail Ridge, where Powell had fought that morning. If Carrington had let them go, they would have ridden right into 2,000 warriors. had let them go, they would have ridden right into 2,000 warriors. As it happened, the captain stayed in the fort. But Carrington hadn't really saved their lives.

He only bought them another two days. Red Cloud's war party of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters camped on the other side of Lodge Trail Ridge and waited for the weather to change and for a good omen. They would use the same basic plan and the same battlefield from two weeks earlier. Red Cloud was a little worried about the skirmish on the morning of the 19th. He was testing the soldiers again

to see if they would take the bait and this time they hadn't. Maybe they weren't as dumb as he thought. He and the other war chiefs consulted a holy man. After a series of frenzied rituals, the holy man showed them his clenched fists. He said he had seen a great victory for the war party. In his fists, he held the number of dead soldiers who would litter the ground when it was done. He opened his hands and said there would be 100. That evening, a warm breeze blew up from the south.

It melted the snow on the battlefield, and the warriors could now hide themselves in the trees and brush. The war chiefs sat around the council fires and agreed. The battle would happen tomorrow. On the morning of December 21st, 1866, Red Cloud moved his force into position behind Lodge Trail Ridge. He stationed his warriors in the ravines of the Pino Creek Valley on the other side of a long, narrow hill called High Backbone. The same commanders would perform the same actions as in the battle two weeks earlier, but this time, with more men. Yellow Eagle would take 40 men to attack the wagon train on its way from the fort to the lumber camp at Piney Island. Crazy Horse and his men would act as bait and lure the soldiers into the trap. Now all they had to do was wait for the wagons.

Colonel Carrington scanned the sky, trying to determine if the temperate weather would stick around long enough for him to send the woodcutters out to Piney Island. He delayed his decision until 10 a.m., and then sent the woodcutters on their way. Their wagon train was supported by 90 armed soldiers and civilians. Carrington placed lookouts on the high hill called Pilot Knob. Carrington placed lookouts on the high hill called Pilot Knob. Less than an hour later, they frantically waved flags that signaled trouble on the trail. Bugles sounded the alarm in the fort, and soldiers ran for their horses. Yellow Eagle and his forty warriors began the attack. Carrington was about to order Captain Powell to ride to the rescue,

but Captain Fetterman interceded. Due to seniority, he was the highest-ranking officer below Carrington, and he wanted to lead the rescue party. Carrington didn't have time to argue. Fetterman already had around 50 men assembled, a mix of infantry and cavalry, and Carrington gave him command. But, Carrington later testified, he specifically told Fetterman to help the wagon train and then come right back. Do not follow the war party over Lodge Trail Ridge. Fetterman led his men out of the southern gate, with infantry flanked by cavalry. Then Carrington decided they needed more help. He called for Lieutenant Grummond and told him to muster the remaining cavalry. Grummond hurried to assemble the men. Quartermaster Fred Brown,

who had wanted to attack Red Cloud's camp two days earlier, asked to ride. James Wheatley, the civilian restaurant owner, and a miner named Isaac Fisher asked to join the effort as well. They had Henry repeating rifles, and Carrington said yes. At 11.30 a.m., roughly 30 minutes after the attack began, Lieutenant Grumman led around 30 men out to support Captain Fetterman. Carrington hurried up onto the walls of the fort to watch their progress. He was initially dismayed. Fetterman veered off the road that led straight to the woodcutters. He was now marching up the south slope of Lodge Trail Ridge, the exact route Carrington had taken two weeks earlier when he had nearly been wiped out. Carrington quickly checked the lookouts on Pilot Knob. They used their flags

to signal that the attack on the wood train had stopped and the men were back on the road to Piney Island. Carrington calmed down a little bit, assuming Fetterman was just trying to use the higher ground to cut off the attackers. And now Grumman's horsemen reached Fetterman's troops, and together they seemed to be making smart maneuvers to block any further attacks on the woodcutters. Carrington was satisfied that Fetterman and Grumman had the situation under control. He went back down to his quarters. Grummond and his cavalry reached the top of Lodge Trail Ridge before Fetterman's infantry, but by about noon, they were all together again. They halted on the ridge. In the strictest sense of their orders, the mission was complete. The attack on the wood train had stopped.

Those men were now safely at the wood camp. The warriors who had attacked them were gone. According to Carrington's orders, Fetterman and Grummond should now lead their men back to the fort. But then, ten warriors appeared on a hill in the distance. They began to race their ponies back and forth across the hill. They shouted taunts and insults at the soldiers. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, had very pale skin for an Indian.

According to the oral tradition handed down through the generations of Crazy Horse's family, the legendary warrior was at his wit's end as he taunted Grumman and Fetterman from his hill beyond Lodge Trail Ridge. Crazy Horse had tried every trick he could think of to get the men to chase him. He shouted vile curses. He stood stock still within rifle range as the soldiers fired shots at him. He checked his horse's hoof just like he had two weeks ago, pretending he was stranded with a lame pony. Nothing worked. The soldiers wouldn't leave the ridge.

Exasperated, he tried one last move. He turned around, lifted up his breechcloth, and mooned the soldiers. Red Cloud and the other war chiefs watched the standoff from another hillside. The first half of the plan had worked perfectly. Yellow Eagle made his attack, the soldiers rushed out to help, and now they were exactly where he wanted them to be, on Lodge Trail Ridge. They could see Crazy Horse and his decoys. All the soldiers had to do was go down the backside of the ridge and the main attack could begin, but they wouldn't budge. Red Cloud had worried about this possibility after the skirmish two days earlier.

What if the soldiers didn't take the bait? But as soon as the worry darkened his thoughts, it vanished, and he saw his plan would work. Some scholars find it hard to believe that Captain Fetterman withstood Crazy Horse's taunts and insults and then somehow lost his willpower after a juvenile gesture. They think it's more likely that Lieutenant Grummond broke ranks and chased the decoys, just as he had two weeks earlier.

That would have forced Fetterman to march his men down the ridge to support the cavalry. Regardless of the reason, the result was the same. Eighty men took the bait and moved down the backside of Lodge Trail Ridge and out of sight of Fort Phil Kearney. Crazy Horse and his decoys hurried toward the narrow spine of High Backbone. Fetterman's infantry marched down the slope behind them, firing at the warriors as they walked. A couple of the decoys were hit and fell off their ponies. Crazy Horse and the others kept riding. They had to draw the soldiers farther down the trail. As the soldiers moved down the slope, Grumman split off from

Fetterman's troops. He spotted what looked like a small village near a grove of trees to the northwest. The cavalry broke away from the infantry to attack the village. Wheatley and Fisher, the two civilians, were in the lead with five soldiers. Moments later, Crazy Horse and his decoys slid across the frozen waters of Pino Creek and skidded to a stop. They wheeled around and formed two columns. Fetterman's infantry marched double quick in pursuit, continuing to fire at the warriors who now stood on the other side of the creek. Then the two columns of decoys rode back toward the soldiers and crossed between each other to form an X.

That was the signal. A wild scream erupted from the hills around High Backbone as 2,000 warriors launched themselves at the soldiers. The Cheyenne tore out of the trees on the left. The Lakota and Arapaho flooded in from the right. Thousands of arrows darkened the sky. When they fell, they hit friend and foe alike. At the fort, lookouts reported Grummond and Fetterman had disappeared over the ridge, and now there was continuous firing. Carrington did not panic initially. He was dismayed that his orders had been disobeyed again, but he also couldn't blame his field commanders if they saw the chance to crush the raiding party.

He told Captain Ten Eyck, who had kept a journal of the attacks throughout the summer and fall, to gather the last 40 infantrymen with working rifles and find out what was going on. The captain marched his men out on the double quick to cover the ground. Then Carrington ordered the remaining cavalrymen and every armed civilian near the fort to pile into wagons and catch up to the infantry. Another 70 men were rushing to the site of what was about to become the bloodiest battle on the high plains. Warriors engulfed Fetterman's infantry.

Fetterman screamed at the top of his lungs to be heard over the chaos. Somehow, he rallied his men to retreat back to the top of High Backbone where they could find cover in some rocks. To the northwest, Grummond and his cavalry had a single moment of terror to realize their mistake before the Cheyenne attacked. Grummond and a sergeant fell dead almost instantly, with dozens of arrows in their bodies. The rest of the cavalry fled in a panic, racing back toward Lodge Trail Ridge and ignoring Fetterman's dire situation on high backbone. Lodge Trail Ridge and ignoring Fetterman's dire situation on High Backbone. The seven men who were riding point quickly dismounted and formed a small circle. Wheatley and Isaac put their Henry rifles to work. There were so many targets, they couldn't miss. Soon, a ring of dead warriors

encircled the Americans. But it wasn't enough. The Americans were doomed from the moment their feet hit the ground. At the rock pile on High Backbone, Fetterman's troops were dying fast. They formed two concentric circles and fired in all directions at once. They collapsed back toward the center of the rock pile as the warriors pressed forward. Warriors surged up the hill They cut through the soldiers' lines with tomahawks and war clubs

Another wave of arrows fell on the rock pile and more men dropped The attack was relentless And then the last stand on the rock pile turned into a scene out of a movie and then the last stand on the rock pile turned into a scene out of a movie. Captain Fetterman stood in the center of the rings of soldiers as the men retreated back toward him. Soldiers fired their ancient Springfield muskets, but they had no time to reload. They swung the rifles like clubs and fought hand to hand. Captain Brown, the quartermaster, made it to the top of the hill somehow and stood back to back with his old friend Fetterman.

Brown blazed away with his Colt pistols, hitting warriors with every shot. Several soldiers made a run for it. They sprinted down the slope away from the rocks. Warriors raced after them, screaming and swinging war clubs above their heads. Warriors raced after them, screaming and swinging war clubs above their heads. The great war chief American Horse drove his pony through the melee and up onto the rock pile. He swung a vicious war club made of burr oak that was studded with nails. He smashed Captain Fetterman with the club and leapt off the pony.

He threw himself onto Fetterman and cut the captain's throat with his knife. Captain Brown was one of the last men alive on the rock pile. All around him was butchery beyond description. He had one bullet left in his gun. He put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. A few infantrymen escaped the rock pile and linked up with the cavalrymen who had escaped Grumman's disaster at the little village. They made it to the top of a hill and they could see the fort four miles in the distance.

But below them, Yellow Eagle and his raiding party, with an extra one hundred men, were blocking the route. The last remaining soldiers dug into a cluster of boulders on the hilltop. Lakota spotters near the fort signaled to Red Cloud with mirrors that a rescue party was on its way. This was Captain Ten Eyck's detail, and Red Cloud was certain it meant field artillery was on its way. His warriors needed to finish the job quickly. He signaled Yellow Eagle to attack, despite the fact that the Americans had good defensive cover. The warriors rushed up the hill and strayed into a volley of gunfire. The warriors suffered heavy losses, but then, as at the rock pile, the fighting became hand-to-hand.

The warriors, including Crazy Horse, overwhelmed the soldiers. As the battle became more hopeless for the soldiers, the German bugler Adolf Metzger found a crevice in the boulders. He backed into it so that he was protected on three sides. He fought like mad, and in the end, he was down to fighting with just his bugle. He swung the small brass instrument ferociously and pummeled warriors who came too close. But eventually, even he couldn't withstand the onslaught, and he fell under the arrows and lances of the warriors. Adolf Metzger was one of the final men to die in the battle. Legend has it that Adolf Metzger fought so valiantly with his bugle that the warriors afforded him the highest honor given to a fallen soldier.

They didn't touch his body after the battle. According to the story, he was the only one who wasn't scalped and mutilated. Whether this part of the story is true or not, we'll never know. But it does seem certain that he fought with his bugle at the end of his life. The instrument is a prized piece of Wyoming heritage. It's on display at the Jim Gatchel Memorial Museum in Buffalo, Wyoming, and nearly every part of it is dented. To be continued... battlefield to find what looks like thousands of warriors, but no soldiers, while Colonel Carrington and the families of the officers wait nervously at the fort. A man named John Phillips volunteers to make a heroic ride in the dead of winter to find help and performs one of the most

incredible feats of endurance imaginable. Repercussions of the battle echo across the country, and Red Cloud now has the full attention of the American government. And he's not done fighting. He will soon force the United States to the bargaining table to give him a peace treaty on his own terms. The conclusion of Red Cloud's war is next time, on the Season 4 finale of the Legends of the Old West podcast. See you next time on the Season 4 finale of the Legends of the Old West podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give it a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening.

You can check out our website at blackbarrelmedia.com and follow us on social media. Our Facebook page is Legends of the Old West Podcast, and nos portes Twitter et Instagram sont à Old West Podcast. Merci encore. On se voit la semaine prochaine. l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent. C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada