Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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cover us, the Sergeant of the Guard and I crept out to the far side of the animals. I snatched
at the bridle reins of Stanton’s horse, but he snorted and galloped down the draw towards the
ford and the hostiles, instead of our own camp. Some twenty Indians had been watching us
and as we started running toward our line, they banged away with everything they had and I
was never so “thoroughly surrounded” by bullets in my life.
We regained the line unhurt, but the hostiles and our side together made such a racket
that General Carr demanded the reason. He was not pleased with us when he knew the risk
we had taken.
During this time the Medicine Man had been left where he had fallen, Mose was
clinging close to General Carr for fear of being mistaken for a hostile, Sergeant McDonald
was under the bluff with the surgeon, and the Sergeant of the Guard and his men (Sergeant
Smith, Troop D, who died on the retired list in 1926) were out on our line. Suddenly the
Medicine Man revived and began to crawl on hands and knees. He had moved in this weird
position for several yards when a trumpeter of Troop D yelled:
“Why, he’s not dead!”
He rushed forward, jammed his revolver against Noch-ay-del-Klinne’s head, and fired.
During the first fifteen minutes of the action, while General Carr was engaged in
disposing his troops for defense, he had forgotten his fifteen-year-old son Clarke, who had
come on the march with us. Suddenly he remembered that he had not seen Clarke since the
first shot, when the boy was seated on the ground not more than fifty feet from the Scouts. The
General’s emotion was apparent when he called the boy’s name, then turned to the bystanders
and asked if they knew where he was. There was an ominous silence for a second, then
Clarke answered calmly:
“Here I am! What do you want?”
I think that Clarke was the only person in the whole command who got the slightest
degree of enjoyment out of the whole fight. He had a small Winchester .44 and had got to
shoot it to his heart’s content with none to say “Don’t!”
* * *
Finally, the shadows began to lengthen, and the sun set over the rim of Black River.
The firing grew sporadic, then ceased altogether. We had a chance to take stock of our
situation. We discovered that we were very tired and amazingly hungry. First we gathered
the dead—except for Private Sondregger, D Troop cook. Just before the firing began,
Sondregger started through the bushes to get water from the creek. He turned to come back
with his full kettles when the shooting started and he collided with the hostiles on their
backward sweep. They shot him, but he was still alive when Stanton with E Troop swept
through the creek bottom.
To one of the troopers he said that his name was not Sondregger, but something else;
and to notify his people of his death. He died before Dr. McCreery knew that he was there, or
could attend to him. When we were gathering up the dead, a detail was sent to bring in
Sondregger, but after several minutes’ search returned and reported that on account of the
darkness in the willow thickets they could not find the body.
All the others were brought in, including the Medicine Man and his family; a large
grave was dug and lined with pack mantas. Captain Hentig was wrapped in his bedding roll.
I think Carter repeated one of the prayers for the dead, then the grave was covered over, the
General’s tent was pitched over the mound, and taps sounded. In the circumstances, it was
HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED