Eugene Ware - The Indian War of 1864

About the time that nightfall set in the big camp-fire of the Indians began to blaze up strongly, and we could see the cattle coming in in droves, both east and west, and also bands of American horses, not large in number, but they were prancing about. We could see with our glasses quite plainly. In a little while the fire grew larger, and the Indians began to caper around it in a war-dance. We could bear them shrieking and yelling, we could hear the turn-turn of a native drum, and we could hear a chorus shouting as if there were squaws there taking a part in the exercises. Then we could see them circling around the fire, then separately stamping the ground and making gestures. It seemed as if the fire grew larger and more scattered, and the ring grew larger and the yelling grew stronger, and finally it was a perfect pandemonium lit up with the wildfire of burning telegraph poles. We knew that the bottled liquors destined for Denver were beginning to get in their work and a perfect orgy was ensuing. It kept up constantly. It seemed as if exhausted Indians fell back and let fresh ones take hold, and around that fire they did jump and scream, and make motions with

lance and tomahawk, and caper and cut up, in a wild and picturesque way.

It was a very thrilling scene, except that we knew if they had courage to make a dash on the post there would not be any of us left by daylight. Pioneers told us, however, that the Indians would not make a dash on us in that time, but that we might look for them at sun-up. In the mean time our telegraph line was down, from the burning of the station, and from the destruction of poles west of us, so that we had no way of sending out word of the post further than had already gone.

The Captain and I stood in our holes in the hay up about to our waists, with our target rifles on one side of us and our box of ammunition and crackers on the other side, and watching with the field-glass what might take place. We were suffering somewhat from anxiety. We had also a couple of dogs up with us in holes in the hay, and the dogs seemed just as earnest and as excited as anybody. As late as twelve o'clock there seemed to be no diminution of the orgy. It seemed to keep on just as strong as ever, and we saw ponies coming across the prairie dragging pieces of telegraph poles chopped down, and every once in a while the sparks would rise as a new piece was thrown on the fire.

Our dogs were muttering and grumbling all the time, but the ground was practically clear in front of us for quite a distance, with the exception of some little clumps of sagebrush and cactus, and these were scattering. We kept our eye, however, well upon the prairie in front of us, so that no skulking Indian might come up and pick us off. Some of the time we were crouched down so that we could just plainly see over the hay with our field-glasses.

All at once a spark came before our eyes. I could not understand it for a second. It seemed as if a star fell. it came in a curve, and fell into our hay. An Indian had crept up, in spite of us, back of a sage-brush, and had fired a fire-arrow right into our haystack. I was taken much by surprise, but by the time it struck the stack I knew what it was. Captain O'Brien happened to have his gun in his hands, and with great presence of mind he drew up and fired the best he could in the direction of the arrow. The hero of the occasion was Jimmie O'Brien. The arrow had scarcely struck the hay when it flashed. I struck the spot with my carbine, but Jimmie O'Brien grabbed a cup, jumped up on the wall, and with one dash he made a center shot with the tin cup and put the entire fire out with one effort. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The boys on detail all cheered, and Jimmie O'Brien never got over being complimented for his presence of mind and his steady nerve upon the occasion. But we saw no Indian arise from where the arrow came, and the Captain was almost an unerring shot. We all believed that the Captain killed the Indian, but we never got the Indian's body, because as a matter of fact, the Indians were skulking around the post that night and we never got a chance to see them or get a shot at them. What they did may be imagined from the fact that the next morning out on a telegraph pole within twenty feet of our sod fort the Captain's dog, "Kearney," was found with its throat cut, and tied hanging about six feet up on the telegraph pole. So that, if the Captain killed the Indian, they could have got him away that night, because towards morning it was cloudy and dark.

After the fire-arrow episode we kept a still closer lookout. Once in a while we would think we saw a moving form or something crawling on the ground, and we kept plugging away with our rifles at all such symptoms, so as not only to get an Indian if we could, but keep them on the qui vive, to let them know we were waiting for them. About one o'clock the orgy seemed to reach its height. The yells were the most blood-curdling and frantic I ever heard, and although we were a long distance off, perhaps a half-mile, we could hear them all upon the midnight air quite plainly. And we discussed among ourselves whether or not the bottled liquors would not get them finally worked up to a point that would lead them to besiege us. Suddenly the fire began to grow brighter, and greater, and the Indians circling around it seemed to form a larger ring. We soon saw that the fire had spread to the prairie-grass, and that the Indians were not trying to put it out. The night was perfectly still. There was no breeze of any kind, and the prairie-grass burned slowly, and the Indian ring kept growing larger and larger as the fire increased. And still the thing went on until the fire was an acre in extent, and still an undiminished ring of Indians were going around it shouting and yelling, and it kept growing in extent until there were at least four acres of this burning prairie in a ring, and still the Indians were shouting and prancing singly and in groups. Then we all began to think that the thing was going to break up with an attack. The fire finally spread and spread until it lit up the whole country, and all at once the Indians were not seen between us and the fire, and the smoke prevented us from seeing where they were.

We concluded they were all coming towards the post. The smoke began to bang sort of in a pall, not being borne in either direction. We got the bugler up, and had him sound the assembly. We got him up on top of the stable to blow bugle-calls. Everybody turned out, everybody was assigned to a duty. One of the howitzers we got on top of the stable, which was really heavy enough to hold a cannon. At the corners of the fort several sentinels were placed to watch carefully, and still we watched, and still the prairie-fire spread. It finally struck the river on the south, and stopped; then it struck up Lodgepole on the east, and stopped; and then it started up the river, going quite slowly, but still no Indians. We imagined a short time before daylight that we saw some Indians south of the post, and then we imagined that we saw some among the hills. It turned out, however, that they were simply reinforcements of Indians, few in number, coming with great speed. They passed west of the post, going towards the river.

Finally it became dawn, with us all on the watch. There were no Indians in sight. It was impossible for so great a number of Indians to be hidden, and Captain O'Brien and I determined that we would get on our good horses and make a survey of the condition of things; and we sent some men on down to the telegraph station, which had been burned, to repair the wire. We had a telegraph operator in the post by the name of Holcomb, who was one of the most capable young men I ever saw. After we had got the line up running east we had no instruments, nor any means of telegraphing. Yet this man Holcomb succeeded in sending off a message and in receiving one. First he chopped an ax into the ground, and taking hold of the wires with gloves, he alternately played the ends of the wires upon the iron poll of the ax in such a way as to telegraph, and then he put the wires in his mouth and read the dispatches. At least he said he did, and the message was: "Get ready to follow. Am coming. Livingston." But we could not send or receive any telegrams to or from Denver or Laramie.