Read Online A Cold Day in Hell by Terry C. Johnston - Free Book Online
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
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was fired into camp from a distant bluff. As the rounds whistled overhead or smacked into the earth around him, the lieutenant could make out the bright, flaring muzzle flashes of the enemy guns as all the men were formed up, put on alert, ready for action. Here and there in camp a spent bullet whacked against the side of a wagon or clanged against a cast-iron kettle. Because of the distance, Miner declined to engage the warriors in a long-range duel. Instead, he kept his men ready for any try the warriors might make for the herd. It wasn’t long before Smith realized the warriors did indeed have the herd in mind: most of the shots were landing in and among the corral, wounding some of the mules, scattering many others that pulled up their picket pins and broke their sidelines.
After no more than an hour the firing died off—without the soldiers firing a shot. Orders were passed along that a coldbreakfast was scheduled for later that morning: no fires to be kindled that would backlight the soldiers and thereby provide easy targets for any of the skulking redskins. Only water from their canteens and hardtack. Nothing more than that as the men struck their tents and reloaded their wagons.
And with the first graying of the horizon that Wednesday morning, the wagon master brought the worst news.
“How many did you say?” Miner squealed in dismay.
“Fifty-seven mules, Cap’n,” the civilian repeated. “Likely run off by the Injuns when they went to shooting into camp last night.”
The nervous teamsters anxiously hitched up what mules they had left to pull the freight, down to five-mule hitches on more than half the wagons. The sun hadn’t yet put in its debut when Miner ordered the march, assigning Captain Malcom McArthur’s C Company of the Seventeenth Infantry to act as rearguard. Their column had no more than strung itself out, jangling little more than a mile, when McArthur’s men came under attack by a war party concealed in a ravine no more than two hundred yards to their left. From there, concealed by thick brush and stunted cedar, the warriors laid down a galling fire on the soldiers as the column ground to an immediate halt.
Within moments more than two hundred warriors broke over the brow of the nearby foothills rising between last night’s campsite and the Yellowstone River east of that bivouac.
McArthur and Second Lieutenant James D. Nickerson immediately formed up their little company and led them out bravely, making a countercharge on the attackers. Smith watched those foot soldiers go, all bellow and bluster, shouting their lungs out as they dashed across the uneven ground toward the hillside where the firing died off as the warriors scampered up the far slope, pursuing the enemy across a rising piece of ground until the Indians eventually disappeared over a nearby bluff.
“That should cool their heels!” Miner cheered, setting the column back to its march as Company H of the Twenty-second went up to support McArthur’s men in their countercharge.
But the wagons moved no more than eighty rods when the front of the column came under attack, this time from a brushy ravine on the right flank. Miner ordered another brief halt and across the next half hour the officers ordered out a squad here, or a squad there, engaging the enemy in long-range firing with their own infantry’s “Long Toms.” Yet Miner got the skittish civilian teamsters to move the train through it all—despite the factthat a gaggle of warriors swarmed in behind the column and darted back and forth over the campsite the soldiers had just abandoned.
“Looking for anything of value,” Miner surmised as they kept on pushing west toward the Tongue River.
By the time an hour had passed, those warriors on their backtrail were inching closer to put increasing pressure on their rear guard. All the while, more knots of warriors were making themselves known along both flanks of the march, firing at the wagons, the mules, and the
After no more than an hour the firing died off—without the soldiers firing a shot. Orders were passed along that a coldbreakfast was scheduled for later that morning: no fires to be kindled that would backlight the soldiers and thereby provide easy targets for any of the skulking redskins. Only water from their canteens and hardtack. Nothing more than that as the men struck their tents and reloaded their wagons.
And with the first graying of the horizon that Wednesday morning, the wagon master brought the worst news.
“How many did you say?” Miner squealed in dismay.
“Fifty-seven mules, Cap’n,” the civilian repeated. “Likely run off by the Injuns when they went to shooting into camp last night.”
The nervous teamsters anxiously hitched up what mules they had left to pull the freight, down to five-mule hitches on more than half the wagons. The sun hadn’t yet put in its debut when Miner ordered the march, assigning Captain Malcom McArthur’s C Company of the Seventeenth Infantry to act as rearguard. Their column had no more than strung itself out, jangling little more than a mile, when McArthur’s men came under attack by a war party concealed in a ravine no more than two hundred yards to their left. From there, concealed by thick brush and stunted cedar, the warriors laid down a galling fire on the soldiers as the column ground to an immediate halt.
Within moments more than two hundred warriors broke over the brow of the nearby foothills rising between last night’s campsite and the Yellowstone River east of that bivouac.
McArthur and Second Lieutenant James D. Nickerson immediately formed up their little company and led them out bravely, making a countercharge on the attackers. Smith watched those foot soldiers go, all bellow and bluster, shouting their lungs out as they dashed across the uneven ground toward the hillside where the firing died off as the warriors scampered up the far slope, pursuing the enemy across a rising piece of ground until the Indians eventually disappeared over a nearby bluff.
“That should cool their heels!” Miner cheered, setting the column back to its march as Company H of the Twenty-second went up to support McArthur’s men in their countercharge.
But the wagons moved no more than eighty rods when the front of the column came under attack, this time from a brushy ravine on the right flank. Miner ordered another brief halt and across the next half hour the officers ordered out a squad here, or a squad there, engaging the enemy in long-range firing with their own infantry’s “Long Toms.” Yet Miner got the skittish civilian teamsters to move the train through it all—despite the factthat a gaggle of warriors swarmed in behind the column and darted back and forth over the campsite the soldiers had just abandoned.
“Looking for anything of value,” Miner surmised as they kept on pushing west toward the Tongue River.
By the time an hour had passed, those warriors on their backtrail were inching closer to put increasing pressure on their rear guard. All the while, more knots of warriors were making themselves known along both flanks of the march, firing at the wagons, the mules, and the
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