Meanwhile Lybe and Bretney had discovered the presence of a fellow officer at the station—Lieutenant Caspar Collins of the 11th Ohio, who had arrived with a mail escort late the previous day from Fort Laramie and was en route to one of the Western stations to rejoin his company. Collins was only 20 years old, a dashing young officer, son of the colonel commanding the 11th Ohio.
By 7:00 A.M. the Indians were out in force, moving closer to the opposite end of the bridge. A few warriors forded the river east of the station, and began galloping back and forth just out of rifle range, whooping and calling insults. Major Anderson summoned Lieutenant Collins to his office, told him that his experienced officers were all on sick call, and ordered him to take 25 of the Kansas cavalrymen and ride to the relief of Sergeant Custard’s wagon train.
Collins was surprised that he—an Ohio cavalryman and unattached to the post—should be called upon to lead out the Kansans. He said nothing to Major Anderson, but went directly to Captain Bretney, his superior officer, and informed him of the order. Bretney could not countermand the order, but he advised Collins not to obey. There were five Kansas officers including Major Anderson in the post, and it did not seem proper to Bretney that they should shift this dangerous assignment upon a boy lieutenant from another regiment. Collins, however, could not bring himself to refuse the order. He asked the loan of Bretney’s pistols, thrust them into his boot tops, and strode off to seek a horse. For some reason he was given one of the regimental band’s mounts, a spirited gray, fast-footed but difficult to manage under fire.
When Captain Bretney saw that Collins meant to carry out Major Anderson’s orders, he demanded permission to support the relief party with the escort troop which had accompanied him and Lybe down from Sweetwater. Anderson granted permission, but cautioned that no shots be fired unless absolutely necessary because of the shortage of ammunition.
Thus it was by happenstance that Captain Lybe and his 14 men of Company I were drawn into the fiercest Indian engagement of the summer—the Platte Bridge fight.
Collins mounted the restless gray, and gave the forward command. He was wearing a new full-dress uniform which he had recently purchased at Fort Laramie. He and his 25 men crossed the bridge at a walk, and then started in a slow trot along the road. As soon as Collins was across the bridge, Lybe and Bretney mounted their small force and moved out to protect the lieutenant’s rear.
The U.S. Volunteers had just reached the north bank of the river when they saw several hundred Cheyennes swarming out of hollows and sand hills between them and Collins’ detachment. Lybe immediately ordered his men into a skirmish line and started forward to assist the trapped lieutenant.
Because of the rough terrain and the screen of willows, Collins was late in observing that he was outnumbered. When he did realize his predicament, he wheeled his men by fours and ordered a charge into the Cheyennes. At the same time, a force of about 500 Sioux came whooping out of a gulch toward the bridge. Later evidence indicated that this combined force of Sioux and Cheyennes meant to capture and burn the bridge, then cross the river at the ford below and lay siege to the station. The presence of the U.S. Volunteers and Bretney’s Ohioans foiled the plan; these men stood their ground and poured volley after volley into the Sioux until they pulled back out of range.
Meanwhile 20 of Collins’ party had broken through the Cheyennes and reached the end of the bridge. The missing six, which included Lieutenant Collins, were nowhere in sight. Some of the survivors reported that Collins had turned back to assist a wounded man; others said that his horse became unmanageable when the firing started and had taken him into the midst of the Indians.
For several minutes Lybe and Bretney held their position at the north end of the bridge. At least a thousand Indians were massed along the hills, and it was clear now that only a heavily armed force could hope to get through to the wagon train. All hope for Lieutenant Collins was abandoned when a mounted Indian appeared on a nearby ridge, leading the gray horse which the lieutenant had been riding.
Captain Bretney covered his grief with a blast of rage against Major Anderson. Bretney felt that he was personally accountable to the young lieutenant’s father for permitting his son to obey the Kansas commander’s order. Leaving a small detachment to guard the bridge, he and Lybe returned to the post.
In the bitter discussion which followed, Bretney accused Anderson and his officers of cowardice, and then demanded that he and Lybe be permitted to take a force of 100 men and the howitzer and go to the relief of the wagon train, which all of them knew must be approaching the vicinity of Platte Bridge. Anderson declared that if he sent out 100 men and the howitzer he could neither defend the bridge nor the station from the overpowering force of hostiles. Bretney then used such language that Anderson placed him under arrest.
Anderson now turned to Captain Lybe and informed him that he was to take charge of the post’s defenses. Lybe immediately ordered details to start digging rifle pits and throwing up an earthen embankment around the howitzer.
The morning was well along when reports came in from the bridge guards that a number of Indians were fording the river about a mile to the east. A short time later the telegraph operator reported the line from the east was dead. As the wire to the west had been cut earlier in the day, the station was now isolated.
Convinced that the hostiles were preparing a massive attack against Platte Bridge, Major Anderson ordered his adjutant, Lieutenant George Walker, to take 20 mounted men and repair the telegraph line to the east. Too late, Anderson realized that he should have asked for reinforcements from one of the neighboring stations.
Because most of the post’s horses were exhausted after the hard fighting of the morning, Lieutenant Walker could mount only 16 men. Captain Lybe—an experienced veteran who had fought through much of the Civil War with the 5th Minnesota Infantry—saw that Walker’s small detachment needed a supporting force at the ford, which lay about half-way between the stockade and the break in the wire. He volunteered to take his platoon on foot to a sandy mound overlooking the river crossing. Major Anderson agreed to the plan, and added that he would fire the howitzer if large numbers of Indians were seen approaching the wire repair detail.
The horsemen moved out rapidly, Lybe’s infantrymen following to the mound above the ford. From their elevation, the U.S. Volunteers could see that the break in the telegraph line ran about a thousand feet. The Kansas lieutenant ordered three pickets out, sent half his men to the far end of the break, and then started the remaining half stringing wire to meet them. “I went to the party on the east end,” Lieutenant Walker said later, “and was just dismounting when we heard the report of the howitzer.”42
Accounts of what happened next vary considerably. Lieutenant Walker afterwards accused Lybe of withdrawing from the mound before his horsemen reached that position. Walker himself was accused of riding for the stockade before his three pickets could join him. Lybe probably put his men in motion early because they were on foot, while Walker’s were mounted.
Regardless of the manner of withdrawal, the telegraph wire was not repaired; one of Walker’s men was dead, one severely wounded. As soon as the parties were all in, Lybe calmly put his men back to work digging rifle pits.
Shortly afterward, a sentinel called out: “There comes the train!” This was the moment everyone in the post had dreaded all day. What could Sergeant Custard, his 10 soldiers, and 14 teamsters do to save themselves from more than a thousand swarming hostiles? Would Major Anderson risk his whole command to rescue the train? Bretney, still under arrest, would have taken the risk. Lybe also, had he been in command, probably would have gone out. As the men inside the station watched anxiously, they soon knew that the Indians also had sighted the approaching wagons. “In a minute every one of them was on his pony and urging his animal at the fastest pace in that direction.”43 But Major Anderson gave no order to assemble a relief force; the only action he took was to fire the howitzer, hoping it might give some warning to the tr
ain.
“The Indians forced the wagon into a shallow ravine about five miles westerly from the station, and cut off Corporal Shrader and four men from the balance of the force. With field glasses we saw the men cut off and watched them ride toward the river, followed by nearly one hundred Indians, and could see enough of the wagon covers to show the position of the train. We saw the smoke from the men’s carbines as the Indians charged into them, and after the volley the Indians scattered like a flock of birds shot into. This was continued for about four hours. The wagons were burned about three o’clock in the afternoon.”44
Late that same day, Corporal Shrader and two men made their way into the station. They were the sole survivors of Sergeant Custard’s wagon train. That night, Major Anderson paid two half-breed Shoshones $150 to carry a message 18 miles east to Deer Creek Station; the message urgently requested reinforcements.
Next afternoon the reinforcements arrived, and Anderson took a large force across the river to recover the dead. The U.S. Volunteers with that party witnessed the most appalling display of violent death they would ever see again during their service on the frontier. “Twenty-one of our dead soldiers were lying on the ground, stripped naked and mangled in every conceivable way.” On the field where Lieutenant Collins had died, they found the same shocking mutilations. They also discovered near one of the bodies a scrap of paper torn from a pocket diary, with a message scrawled upon it. No exact transcription of the note appears to exist, but General Connor referred to it in his first report of the fight: “Note picked up on the field today, evidently written by a prisoner, who stated that he was captured on the Platte; states that the Indians say that they do not want peace and expect an increase of 1,000 to their force.”45
The boys of the 11th Ohio believed that the writer was one of their comrades, a former Confederate who joined their regiment in 1864; he had recently disappeared at La Bonte Station, and they had assumed he had deserted. However, in the first telegraph dispatch sent from Platte Bridge after the fight, the operator described the note as being “written in a female hand, which described that the war party was composed of Arapahos, Cheyennes, Sioux and Blackfoot, and that they intended to besiege the post for four days and that the soldiers had killed one of the leading Cheyenne chiefs.”46
In a later reconstruction of the message from memory, Lieutenant William Drew of the Kansas Cavalry recalled the contents as substantially the same as given by the telegrapher, but he could not remember the writer’s name. Considering the customs of the Indians—seldom taking male prisoners, usually taking female prisoners—it seems likely the writer was a woman, but her identity remains one of those curious mysteries of the Western frontier.
The siege of Platte Bridge Station thus came to an end. Lieutenant Caspar Collins and 24 men were dead, nine men were severely wounded. Captain Lybe’s 14 U.S. Volunteers considered themselves lucky indeed to be still among the living.47
When Lybe and his platoon resumed their interrupted march to Fort Laramie they met along the way their commanding general, Patrick Connor, hastening to the scene of the bloody encounter. Connor had been waiting impatiently for ammunition, stores, and fresh horses, so that he could strike hard against the enemy’s bases in their Powder River stronghold. The fight at Platte Bridge convinced him that he could delay his summer campaign no longer.
Although some Galvanized Yankees would go with Connor on the Powder River expedition, the 3rd Regiment continued in its duties along the Overland Stage and Pacific Telegraph roads throughout the summer and into the autumn of 1865. Connor’s expeditionary columns drew off much of the cavalry from the overland routes, and these mounted troops had scarcely departed before more raiding parties were striking at isolated stations and travelers along the roads.
Raids became so frequent that the Denver News kept a standing head: ANOTHER INDIAN ATTACK! The telegraph line was cut so often that Western newspapers went for days without news from Eastern states. Attacks on wagon trains increased in fury, the brutal details becoming so common they were seldom entered in the sparse language of official communications: “Indians attacked an emigrant train at Rock Creek … burned train, killed eight men, took stock, captured three women and killed one of them and horribly mutilated her. … Indians attacked train within forty miles of Julesburg, stampeded 400 head of cattle, horses and mules, burnt sixty wagons, killed and scalped twelve men. … Party attacked below Julesburg in five miles of a military post. Killed two, wounded ten of white party.”48
Colonel McNally, who was responsible for the safety of all trains between Fort Kearney and Post Junction, tightened regulations and ordered Lieutenant Campbell, the adjutant at Kearney, to make certain that 100 armed men were included in every train moving west from there. This was the same Lieutenant Campbell who had marched the 3rd Regiment out on the plains in March, and the testimony of one of the travelers on the route indicates that Campbell took his job seriously. “We were compelled by U.S. army officers to halt and await the arrival of a train of fifty armed men before being allowed to proceed. In a few hours the required number came up. … No train was permitted to pass a government fort without one hundred well-armed men. A captain was appointed by the commander of the fort to take charge.”49
In his recollection of the dangers of the Platte route during the late summer, General Dodge said the Indians became so aggressive that even with the teamsters armed and placed under an officer, “a great many of their people were killed and a great deal of stock run off.”50
When the trains reached Julesburg, they were inspected again under Colonel McNally’s watchful eye. Small parties were reorganized into larger parties before they could proceed to the next inspection point. Post Junction, or Camp Wardwell as it was renamed July 15.
Although Camp Wardwell was a peaceful island in a sea of violence, the men of Companies G and H seldom seeing any hostiles, they were kept busy supervising wagon trains which, if bound West for Oregon, Utah, or California, had to pass through the extremely dangerous North Platte country. Because most trains in the summer of 1865 bypassed Fort Laramie and followed the route of the Overland Mail, Camp Wardwell was made an official counting station for westbound traffic. Keeping these records was the responsibility of the post commander, Captain Thomas Kenny of H Company, and they show that an average of 140 wagons rolled through Camp Wardwell every day.
In addition to escort duties along the 600-mile line held by the 3rd Regiment, details were assigned to the onerous tasks which all soldiers must endure. Captain Byron Richmond of C Company noted in August that a detachment of his men from Cottonwood “has been on daily duty making hay and cutting wood for the use of troops garrisoning this post.” Captain David Ellison reported that half of the men of Companies E and F were engaged most of the summer in building Fort Sedgwick at Julesburg. Lieutenant Will Whitlock recorded that a detail from Company A was “building government houses and stables between Fort Kearney and Big Sandy.”51
With the approach of autumn, the men of the 3rd began looking forward to mustering out. They had signed up for one year, and although they had spent four months awaiting orders at Rock Island, they were told that this time would count on their term of enlistment and they could expect to be mustered out in November. By October most of them probably had made up their minds individually as to whether they would return to their homes in the South or remain in the West to seek their fortunes.
In October, Colonel McNally was authorized to bring his scattered companies—excepting A and B at Kearney—together at Julesburg headquarters. When the regiment was assembled there, it would receive further orders as to place and date of mustering out. As the companies marched into Julesburg, Indian raids became so frequent and severe in that vicinity that many of the U.S. Volunteers wondered if their orders might not be delayed. For a hundred miles on either side of Julesburg, reports of attacks came in daily, sometimes hourly.
On October 22, Indians drove the mail coach into Cottonwood and attacked the garrison at
Alkali. On that same day the 3rd Regiment received orders to march east toward these scenes of violence—but not for the purpose of pursuing the raiders. Companies of the 5th and 6th U.S. Volunteers had come up from Kansas to relieve the 3rd, and the men of that regiment could now proceed to Fort Leavenworth for mustering out.
Eight companies moved east from Julesburg on October 23, reaching Butt’s Ranche on the first day’s march. “On the night of the 23rd October 1865 experienced a severe snowstorm. The snow remained on the ground for five days. Weather very cold. The men and animals with the train suffered severely.”52 Toward the end of the second day’s march, near Alkali, the advance had a brush with Indians, but the raiders shied away when they discovered several hundred soldiers coming up.
At Fort Kearney on November 3 they were joined by Companies A and B, and the full regiment moved on to Fort Leavenworth, arriving there November 16. In summing up the record of his regiment on November 29—the day the 3rd U.S. Volunteers became civilians again—Colonel McNally said: “Both officers and men have behaved themselves well. Of the latter I desire to say no better regiment of soldiers need be wished for.”53
In comparison with some of the state volunteer regiments alongside which these men had soldiered, the record of McNally’s 3rd was better than average. G Company’s high record of five desertions was normal for that time and place, and E Company’s record of no desertions was unusual.54
Perhaps the most important element of all was an intangible which would appear in no record, the psychological effect of frontier duty upon these former enemies of the army in which they had served. All their lives before the Civil War these men had conceived of the United States as being divided into North and South. Now they were reoriented so that they could view their country as a geographical entity running East and West. For many of them on that mustering-out day at Fort Leavenworth, the future must have held a great deal more promise than any of them had dared dream it ever would again during the dark days of Rock Island prison.