ordered the filling of the cartridge-boxes immediately, and ordered Lieutenant Smith, in command of Lieutenant Triggs and sixty-five men, to keep in line outside the corral, dig rifle-pits defensible against and approaches, and to hold the corral, while I with Lieutenant Haywood and seventy men mounted on the best horses (the horses were all very poor from hard service without forage; but few were really serviceable, and many men were altogether dismounted) repaired with all possible dispatch to the scene of action. Passing the late Indian encampment we saw the body of Captain Fouts, dead, stripped, and mutilated. The Indians had fled two or three miles to the Platte. The squaws and papooses were swimming the river on ponies, while the warriors were mounted, circling and maneuvering in hostile array. Supposing that a part of them were really friendly, and would join us in subduing the rest, I charged on in pursuit of the criminal fugitives. Passing a few squaws and papooses I ordered my men not to kill or harm them; they returned. When within 600 yards of the enemy I halted my command in line and sent the interpreter (Elston) to the front to signal and tell all who were our friends to return, and they should not be harmed, but protected. But all were hostile, and with hideous yells charged upon us. I dismounted my men and deployed a line of skirmishers to the front with long-ranged arms (Galleger carbines, meanest arm in service) to receive them. When within 300 yards the Indians opened the fire upon us. My men answered them promptly with a volley that repulsed them temporarily in front, but more than 100 were dashing by each flank and closing in the rear, while from the hills to our left they were rapidly bearing down upon us by scores and hundreds. Seeing that we were assailed by more than 500 warriors equally armed and better mounted than my little squad, and fearing that to stand, be surrounded, and cut off from our ammunition and defenses would involve the entire command in indiscriminate slaughter and massacre as well as the burning of the train and capture of the animals, I determined to act upon the principle that "prudence is the better part of valor. " Remounting my men I fell back to our defenses by desperate skirmishing to rear and flanks, the enemy's flankers being all the while in our advance endeavoring to close in front till within gunshot of our rifle-pits, when a volley sent them howling to the rear. In falling back a few only (I cannot give their names) of my command acted badly. Most of them behaved nobly, and a few with unsurpassed bravery. In the action nearly all the ammunition in the cartridge-boxes was used up; some entirely so.

After replenishing the cartridge-boxes with a new supply of ammunition and finding that the Indians were not disposed to attack the entire command behind defenses, I went out with Lieutenant Smith and fifty men (all I could mount on serviceable horses) to feel the enemy and if possible detain him till we could be re-enforced. After going three miles we saw the Indians in vastly superior numbers forming in front and coming over the hills to the left, evidently intending to entrap and overwhelm us away from the corral and rifle-pits. Not being strong enough to whip them in open field, we again retired, taking with us our killed and mutilated on the battle-field.

Captain Shuman, Eleventh Ohio Cavalry, arriving promptly with re-enforcements from Fort Mitchell, at about 9 o'clock, I mounted every available horse and mule in my command and went for them again with sanguine hopes, but unfortunately the re-enforcements were a little too late. Their families having got across the Platte, we had the mortification of seeing the warriors follow and from the opposite hills