"Rough Riders" of 1868 Won Fame At the Battle of the Arickaree Seventieth Anniversary of the Successful Defense of Beecher's Island in Eastern Colorado by "Sandy" Forsyth and His 51 Citizen Scouts Against Attack of More Than 600 Indians Recalls One of the Classics of Frontier History. C W??tem Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON SPEAK of the "Rough Riders" and most of us immediately think of the volunteer soldiers, led by "Teddy" Roosevelt, who made the much-publicized charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American war of 1898. But how many Americans have ever heard of "Sandy" For syth's "Rough Riders" who, 30 years earlier, fought a battle which became a clas sic in the annals of the west ern frontier but which, com pared to the engagement that started "T. R." on the road to the White House, is almost unknown? These "Rough Riders" of 1868 were also volunteers and they won a victory against greater odds than those which faced Roosevelt's men. Moreover, they fought with the certain knowledge that defeat meant death at the hands of a merciless enemy. For their adversaries were not Spanish soldiers, fighting according to the rules of "civ ilized" warfare. They were scalp-collecting Sioux, Chey ennes and Arapaho warriors. The Battle of the Arickaree (or Beecher's Island, as it is also called) resulted from the failure of both white men and red to abide by the provisions of the Medicine Lodge treaty of 1867. White hunters continued to tres pass upon the Indians' hunting grounds and the red men contin ued to raid white settlements and elude army expeditions sent to punish them. Finally conditions became so bad in the summer of 1868 that Gen. Phil Sheridan, commanding the Department of the Missouri, took the field in person. To him one day came Maj. George A. ("Sandy") Forsyth, a brevet colonel on his staff, with the sug gestion that a body of scouts be enrolled among the Kansas fron tiersmen who could fight the red skins in their own way. Sheridan approved of the idea and authorized the major to en list 56 first-class men in a com pany which Forsyth himself was to lead. Lieut. Frederick Beech er of the regular army was named second in command and Dr. J. H. Mooers of the medical corps was appointed surgeon. When For syth went to Fort Hays to start the enlistment he found plenty of men eager to join his company. Some, like Tom Alderdice, were settlers who had returned to their homes to find them burned and the members of their family slaughtered. Others had been buffalo hunters, trappers, pony express riders and stage drivers. Two of them. Jack Stillwell and Sharp Grover, were already well known as scouts and guides. r iiBi-vuas rigmin men.-' Altogether, the half-hundred hard-riding, fast-shooting citizen soldiers who enrolled with For syth were as efficient an aggrega tion of "first-class ftghtin' men" as the frontier had ever known. The only exception ? so far as ex perience was concerned? was a sixteen - year - old Jewish lad, named Sigmund Shlesinger, who had left his home in New York City in 1865 to work on the rail road then pushing westward through Kansas. This "tender foot" was accepted reluctantly but Forsyth testified later that during the battle Shlesinger "most worthily proved himself a gallant soldier among brave men." Forsyth's "Rough Riders" left Fort Hays on August 29 and, after scouting several Indian trails in western Kansas which failed to lead them to the hostiles, on the evening of September 16 they reached the Arickaree fork of the Republican river in what is now eastern Colorado. They found the Arickaree a wide, dry sand-flat with a few pools of water here and there. On the aouth side, separated from the mainland by a narrow sandy channel, was an island about 100 yards long on which grew a few willows, some stunted plum trees and one Cottonwood of consider able size. They pitched camp there that night, little realizing that two villages of Sioux and one of Cheyennes were only 12 miles down the river. With these Cheyennes was Roman Nose a great warrior, but not a chief who had led many of the raids against the Kansas settlements. The Indians were unaware of the scouts' presence until a war party of Sioux, returning to camp, saw Forsyth's men an the march and, circling around them, car A CRUCIAL MOMENT AT THE BATTLE OF BEECHER'S ISLAND ried word to the villages that the soldiers were coming. Before daylight the next morning a party of eight young braves tried to stampede the scouts' horses and pack mules by charging through them, waving blankets and robes and yelling like demons. How ever, they drove away only s^ven before the sharp fire of the scouts sent them shrieking out of range. In Savage Splendor. Forsyth ordered his men to saddle up and as they did so they saw a sight that might have daunted stouter hearts than theirs. Over a distant hill came a long line of yelling Indian war riors, more than 600 of them, brandishing lances, bows and ar rows and rifles, their feathered war-bonnets fluttering in the morning breeze. Without a moment's hesitation, Forsyth made a decision that saved his command from annihi lation. He led his men on a dash to the little island in the Aricka ree where they jerked off the packs from their animals, heaped them up as breastworks and be MAJ. GEORGE A. FORSYTH gan frantically to scoop out holes in the sand into which they crouched. Stillweli and another scout, who had been sent down to the lower end of the island, crossed the narrow channel and hid in some high grass under a low sand bluff on the east side of the stream. As the whooping savages swept down upon the little band of scouts, Forsyth's men immedi ately began shooting. The Indians had intended to ride over the sol diers but when they came close to the island they were greeted with such a hot fire from the repeating rifles that they split into two sections which streamed past on each side. After the first charge the In dians began circling around the island, shooting and yelling, and during this time they suffered their first losses, several of them being killed by Stillweli and his comrade hidden in the grass. After they had lost six or sev en men, the Indians dismounted and began creeping on foot to ward the island under cover of the willows that fringed the bank. But the Are of the scouts soon drove them back. Up to this time Roman Nose had taken no part in the fight be cause the day previously, at a feast given by his friends, the Sioux, a squaw had served him with meat taken from the pot with an iron fork. This "broke the medicine" of his war-bonnet and the superstitious savage feared to go into battle without its protection. But the Chey ennes, needing his leadership, kept insisting that he join them and in the afternoon he agreed. At the head of a party of war riors Roman Nose charged to ward the island and was shot from his horse by the two scouts hidden in the grass on the mainland. Ht was carried away by his friends and died soon afterwards. The death of Roman Nose virtually ended the battle but the Indians settled down to starve out the whites. The first night Jack Stillwell and Pierre Trudeau volunteered to try to slip through the Indian lines and go to Fort Wallace, 100 miles away, for help. After a series of hairbreadth escapes from death, the two scouts reached the fort and Colonel Bankhead start ed out to rescue Forsyth. Mean while, on the third night, Forsyth, not knowing whether Stillwell and Trudeau had succeeded in getting through, had sent two other scouts, Jack Donovan and A. J. Pliley, for help. When they reached the fort and found that Bankhead had already left, they immediately started back to re join their comrades. The Island of Death. On the south fork of the Repub lican they fell in with a detach ment of the Tenth cavalry, led by Capt. L. H. Carpenter, and guided them on a 20-mile dash to the "is land of death." Carpenter reached the beleaguered command on the ninth day after the battle ha J be gun, 26 hours before Bankhead, guided by Stillwell and Trudeau, arrived there. Forsyth's command was in a pitiable condition. Five were dead and 16 wounded and since Dr. Mooers had been killed on the first day, their wounds had only such care as they themselves could give them. For nine days they had been living on mule and horse meat. One of the worst wounded was their young commander. A bullet had lodged in his thigh, a second had struck him between the knee and the ankle, shattering the bone, and a third, glancing across hit forehead, had slightly frac tured his skull. So terrible was the pain from the bullet imbedded in his thigh that he begged his men to cut it out. They refused to take the risk of having him bleed to death. So he took his razor and performed the opera tion himself. When Carpenter arrived with his rescuing party, he found For syth lying in his rifle pit pretend ing to read an old novel he had found in one of the saddle bags. He was afraid to trust himself to greet his rescuer, afraid that the magnificent nerve which had sus tained him through the ordeal of those starving, feverish nine days would fail him when he realized that at last they were saved. Like many other Indian battle*, the fight on the Arickaree has been the theme of a number of writera with more power of imagi nation than regard for fact In their accounts, written from the white man's point of view, the number of Indians engaged and their losses have been greatly ex aggerated, as though the heroism of Forsyth's men might be en hanced by such exaggerations and the addition of incidents which never .happened. The late George Bird Grinnell, one of the Old West's most con scientious and fair-minded histo rians, did a valuable service in debunking some of these fairy tales in his book "The Fighting Cheyennes," published by Scrib ners in 1915. In it he says: "General Forsyth reported 35 Indians killed and believed that many more had been carried away on their horses, to which they were tied. He seems to make it appear that great num bers of Indians were killed in an early charge ? before two o'clock. He tells of volleys fired by his men, of falling Indians and horses, and of the killing of Ro man Nose. ? A Different Story. "The story of the Cheyennes is quite different. They give many details of the fight, among them the names of six Cheyennes and one Arapaho who were killed, the names of the two Sioux being un known . . . "Their (the scouts') imagina tion colored the stories told by the whites. They were fighting for their lives against tremendous odds, and were excited, anxious, doubtful. The Indians' viewpoint was quite different. For years war had been their almost con stant occupation, and the work of carrying it on had become com monplace. Fights such as this ? not so large to be sure, but es sentially similar ? were of fre quent occurrence. Sometimes they were successful; sometimes they lost men, were beaten and ran away. Whatever the event, they manifested neither special triumph in success, nor mortifica tion at failure. The old-time In dian was a far better observer than most white men. He saw more clearly what was happening, and usually reported facts more accurately. . . . "A number of Indians who took part in this fight have told me what they saw of it. Some of these live in Oklahoma, and others in JACK STILL WELL Montana. In the main incidents all the stories agree. All give the same names and numbers of the killed, and describe what took place in a matter-of-fact fashion, and with no apparent thought of making much of it. It was a hard fight, but one of the everyday hap penings of the time. They do not know whether they killed any of the white scouts or not." ? * ? ? ? Like other Indian battles, too, the Arickaree has had the usual quota of "last survivors" and the usual number of impostors have bobbed up from time to time to claim membership in Forsyth's "Rough Riders." It is difficult to see how any of those impostors dared make such claims for the roster of Forsyth's company was printed in his ac count of the battle which ap peared in Harper's Monthly Mag azine in 1896 and on one side of the monument, which was erected by the states of Colorado and Kan sis in 1905 on the site of the battle, appears this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of those who (ought and died here. Killed: Lieut Fred H. Beecher, U. S. A.; J. H. Mooers, Surgeon, U. S. A.; Louis Farley, William Wilson, George W. Chalmers. WOUND ED: Col. George A Forsyth, U. S. A. ; W. Armstrong, G. B. Clarke, T. K. Davis, Harry Dav ?nport, Bernard Day, Hudson L. Farley, Richard Gantt, John Ha ley, Frank Harrington, Louis Mc Laughlin, W. H. H. McCall, How ard Morton, Thomas O'Donnell, H. H. Tucker, Fletcher Violett. UNINJURED: Thomas Alderdice, Wallace Bennett, Martin Burke, John Donovan, Alfred Dupont, A J. Entler, George Green, Abner T. Grover, John Hurst, J. H. Ket terer, M. R. Lane, John Lyden, Joseph Lane, M. R. Mapes, H. T. McGrath, Thomas Murphy, C. B. Nichols, George Oakes, C. C. Piatt, A. J. Pliley, Thomas Rana han, William Reilly, Sigmund Shlesinger, Edward Simpson, Chalmers Smith, William Stew art, J. S. Still well, Isaac Thayer, Pierre Trudeau, C. B. Whitney, John Wilson. Eli Ziegler." Speaking of Sports Lively Ball Held Cause Of Dead Arms By GEORGE A. BARCLAY SORE arms have the baseball world worried. Pennants have been lost tn the bl( leagues this year and aee ath letes have becorpe semi-invalids be cause of an epidemic of ehipp?d el bows, polled tendons, and strained muscles without precedent la the history of the tame. Scan the list of pitchers involved in arm trouble and you'll see why CARL HCBBE1X worried magnates are shaking their heads. Well, there's Carl Hubbell anil Hal Schumacher of the New York Gi ants. They are the most recent vic tims and their absence from the lineup down the home stretch may well have cost the Giants the Na tional league pennant. Lefty Grove's arm went dead a short time after he pitched in the All-Star game. Old age, you might say. But informed., baseball men will tell you the Bos ton Red Sox veteran was good for several years yet. Sad Case of Diz Dizzy Dean's arm is apparently gone. He can't throw b ball over hand without wincing and his speed is only a memory. He has been of practically no use to the Chicago Cubs this year. Rest may eventual ly restore some of the cunning, but meanwhile Owner Wrigley can ru minate about the $189,000 he paid St. Louis for Dean. Bill Dietrich, who pitched a no hit game for the Chicago White Sox last year and his colleague Clint Brown, who specializes in able re lief pitching, have been out of uni form since early in the season be cause of arm trouble. Bobby Feller, Monte Stratton, Tex Carleton, Johnny Allen, Van Lingle Mungo and Charley Ruffing are oth er mound notables who have been plagued off and on by sore arms. Down in the minors Paul Dean and Schoolboy Rowe ? youngsters burned out long before their time ? are try ing a pitching comeback that is still a big question mark. What is the reason for this pitch ing situation? There are a variety of answers, but il you sum them all up, you'll find the trouble is due to an ac cumulation ol restrictions that have stacked the cards against the pitch ers. It all goes back to the days when Babe Ruth started making home runs stylish and the game was remade into a sluggers' free-for-all. First there was the lively ball. Baseball bigwigs introduced it to encourage hitting. Then they be gan to pot one restriction after an other on pitchers. They prohibited the spitball that had brought im mortality to such old-timers as Ed Walsh, Red Faber, Urban Shocker and Burleigh Grimes. They made other trick deliveries illegal. In the old days an entire ball game would be played with as few as half a dozen balls. Now it takes at least 50. New balls are always in play and because of their shiny smoothness they are hard for pitch ers to put any stuff on. Formerly if a ball was slightly scuffed, it wasn't thrown out of play. This gave a pitcher a chance to get by. Modern training trip schemes now work an unnecessary hardship on the pitcher. Tears ago big league teams didn't meet until the season opened. The exhibition games were played solely against minor league outfits and pitchers could take their time rounding into form. Now there are exhibition games between ma jor league teams almost as soon as the training season opens. Pitch ers have to 'ace tough batters right away. Their arms aren't ready and soreness can easily develop. They want to win and they bear down be fore they should. It is quite possi ble that injuries that pop up sud denly during the regular season have their origin in just such games. When the National league an nounced last winter that it had adopted a deader ball for the 1938 season many fans hailed it as the beginning of organized baseball's return to a normal basis. But somewhere along the line there was ? hitch. The experience of this sea son has indicated that the new Na tional league ball is practically the same as the one formerly used. At least such a conclusion is sug gested by the hitting in the two leagues and hitting ia the only basis for comparison. Bonus Ball Players A BAD can of "every man for himself" nm?t?d by the much-discussed beau system Is be ing blamed for the pathetic eollspee of the Cleveland Indians in the drive for the American league pennant raee. Insiders say that most of the players were signed to contracts this year calling for bonuses con tingent on players reaching stipu lated batting averages, or pitchers winning a certain number of games. The arrangement, so the story goes, tended to make the players too individualistic and ruined uni fied team play. Oscar Vitt, the new manager, complained abolit this system when he took charge. He insisted early in the season that all the team knew was "slug." How much of a difference the bo nus system made is difficult to ten. The probabilities are that the Indi ans could not have continued to lead the league as they did in the first half of the season. But contracts without bonus provisions might have bad a tendency to make the Indi ans more of a team. Most managers disapprove of the bonus system. It was tried with rather discouraging results by the Chicago Cubs a couple of seasons back. One of the most outspoken critics of the system is Burleigh Grimes, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. "Suppose," says Burleigh, "that ? player signs a contract giving him $1,600 or $2,000 more if be hits .300 for the season. Well, he might be going along at a .310 pace until the last month of the season and then start to protect that average. He might complain about a Charley horse and have his leg taped up and stay out of the lineup for a few weeks. "Or the same fellow might do things that conflicted with his man ager's strategy, such as missing ? signal to sacrifice when he thinks he can hit." Burleigh's contentions, however, are purely hypothetical. 600 Stalwarts "TRAINING camp technique which to some extent resembled the spring training system of the ma jor league baseball clubs has pre pared the teams in the National Pro fessional Football league for its sev enteenth season. Six hundred brawny young stal warts?candidates for places on va rious teams ? labored under ? hot midsummer sun in training camps from the Atlantic seaboard to the Middle West to condition themselves for a strenuous season. The champion Washington Red skins, including the brilliant "Sling in' Sam" Baugh who met the Col lege All Stars selected in a nation wide poll in a pre-season title' meet in Soldier field, Chicago, did their fall conditioning at the Ballston baseball park at Arlington, Va. The Pittsburgh Pirates, rated as the team to beat in this year's race since they acquired Byron "Whk zer" White and the Cleveland Rams SAMMY BALGH designated as the most improved team in the league did their train ing in their respective cities. The Brooklyn Dodgers pitched camp at the New York Agricultural college, Farmingdale, N. I., while the Detroit Tigers trained at Bloom fleld, Mich. The New York Giants trained at the Bine Hills Country elnb in Orangeburg, N. Y.; the Green Bay Packers at Green Bay, Wis.; the Chicago Bears at Dela fleld. Wis.; and the Chicago Cardi nals at Morgan Park, DL Heading toward its majority, pro fessional football is now definitely grown up and would like to forget its barn-storming, one-night stand ori gin of the early twenties. Nearly 2,000,000 people attended pro games in nine different cities last year. Promoters are looking for an even bigger attendance this year. Here and There Germany has 14,500 soccer clubs with 1,250,000 playing members. During international con tests the immense Olympic stadium in Berlin is jammed with 120,000 spectators. Tickets (or big matches are frequently sold out six months in advance . . . Bernie Moore, foot ball coach at Louisiana State, says Booth will be the best blocking back in the country this year . . . Nine members of the Newark Bears 1937 club played in the big leagues this season . *. . 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