We were in the atmosphere of events and at every available opportunity conferred with officers, soldiers, and non-combatants, gleaning all possible information concerning passing incidents, and followed those observations with later investigations, so that we could not but believe that we became fairly well informed concerning the Indian history of the few weeks following Red Cloud's withdrawal from Laramie. For much valuable information I am under obligations to General Carrington, who was then in command in Wyoming, and who has given me data not easily obtained from any other original and trustworthy source. A record of the many thrilling events that rapidly followed each other would fill a volume and is for the historian to compile. Coutant has well described them, but the final dramatic conflict that crushed the Indian uprising and opened the path for emigration demands a passing glance.
As we were leaving Laramie, Lieutenant Daniels was riding a short distance in advance of a small body of soldiers who were escorting the wife of Lieutenant Wand from Fort Laramie westward, when a band of the Sioux, in full view of the soldier escort, made a raid upon the Lieutenant, capturing and horribly torturing him until he died. Then, putting on the clothing of the dead man, the savages danced and yelled while out of range on the prairie, for the evident purpose of being seen by the members of the escorting party: and thus the war began.
After other similar attacks there followed the massacre of Colonel Fetterman and his men, in which not a white soldier was left to tell the tale; it is known as the "tragedy of Fort Phil Kearney," the full official report of which is written in Absaraka.
And now Red Cloud had certainly become a great chief. He had gathered in additional bands, and it is claimed that one-half of the 3000 warriors under his command were soon armed with rifles, many of them being Spencer carbines that would carry seven cartridges. A few of them were the new Henry rifles, some of which had been captured in the recent massacre; but many of their rifles of the pattern used by our soldiers in the war just ended and up to that time by most of the soldiers of the frontier, were said to have been obtained from sutlers and traders. In the meantime the thrilling tidings of the Fetterman massacre, and of other serious reverses reached Washington. New, improved, breech-loading rifles, and ammunition, were forwarded and received none too soon.