military maneuvers

Beecher Island was the name given to a 240-acre sandbar covered with grass, sagebrush and a few trees in Yuma County, Colo.  It may seem odd that a shoal in the middle of the Arikaree River should bear the name of a prominent Yankee family of ministers, abolitionists and authors. But the nephew of the most famous member of the clan, Frederick Henry Beecher, died on the island during a desperate, nine-day stand against a large group of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, Arapahos and Lakotas.

An obelisk stands on the Beecher Island to commemorate one of the most famous clashes of the Indian Wars.

Frederick Henry Beecher

Frederick Henry Beecher

Strictly speaking Lt. Frederick Henry Beecher was not a New England native. He was born on June 22, 1841 in New Orleans to Charles Beecher (1815-1900) and Sarah Leland Coffin Beecher (1815-1897). He had one younger brother and four younger sisters. Charles and Sarah, however, were New England natives, born in Litchfield, Conn., and Wiscasset, Maine, respectively. Charles Beecher’s sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book credited with helping to touch off the Civil War.

The Rev. Charles Beecher

In about 1826, at the age of 11, Frederick Henry Beecher’s father had moved with his parents and family to Boston. Educated at Boston Latin School and Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass., he graduated from Bowdoin College. He then pursued theology at Lane Seminary in Ohio, where his father served as president.

Married, but not yet a minister, Charles moved to New Orleans with his wife and worked in the mercantile business. Three years after their son Frederick was born, Charles Beecher took up his pastoral career. He served in Fort Wayne, Ind., Newark, N.J., and then Georgetown, Mass.

Off to War

Having moved to Massachusetts with his parents in 1857, Frederick Henry Beecher, like his father, chose to attend Bowdoin College. The Civil War would soon start. Young Beecher graduated in 1862 and almost immediately afterward enlisted. On Aug. 14, 1862, he joined Company B, 16th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a sergeant on the day the regiment was being formed in Augusta, Maine.

Sgt. Frederick Henry Beecher saw his first action, along with the regiment, at the Battle of Fredericksburg from Dec. 12-15, 1862. During the battle he received a serious would to his knee.  The wound required some time to heal, and during his convalescence, he was promoted. On Jan. 24, 1863 he won promotion to second lieutenant and to first lieutenant on March 26, 1863. Then, as he was just about to rejoin the regiment, he reinjured the knee when he was thrown from a carriage. This in turn meant another period of convalescence.  The inactivity must have tested his patience. As the 16^th Maine History notes,

While lame and unfit for duty, he joined his company in season to participate in the battle of Gettysburg!!

On July 2, 1863 at Gettysburg, the16^th Maine took a legendary stand on Oak Ridge. Outnumbered 20-1, the regiment held off Confederate forces long enough for the bulk of the Union 1^st Corps to retire to Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates captured most of the remainder of the regiment at this point. Beecher presumably evaded capture because of another wound. According to the regimental history:

His courage was undaunted and kept him to the front, when on the afternoon of July 2d he was again wounded by a shell in the same knee, and carried from the field.

The wound required another period of convalescence, but its severity meant that Beecher would not return to the 16^th Maine. The Army sent him as a first lieutenant to the Veteran Reserve Corps, composed of men seriously wounded or injured. They could still, however, perform limited duties outside combat and their enlistments hadn’t expired.

Gettysburg

In the Army Now

Beecher remained in the Veteran Reserve Corps for the rest of his enlistment. Still restless, and having found his calling, he joined the regular Army infantry as a second lieutenant in 1865. His Civil War rank of first lieutenant didn’t rate as permanent. Since the Civil War neared its end, he was sent to the frontier with the United States Third Infantry Regiment.

Having fought and suffered wounds in two major battles of the Civil War, 2nd Lt. Frederick Henry Beecher would fight one more battle. This time he faced a new foe in the American West.

Most of what Americans accept as the history of the Old West is pure fiction. Nineteenth-century dime-store novels, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and Hollywood created the myth. Wagon trains rarely got attacked. Gunfights did not occur face-to-face on the street.  Saloons that had music, dance hall girls, and gambling did not exist. The one thing real about the history of the American West is the Indian Wars. For over two-and-a-half decades, the U.S. Army and Native Americans fought over 30 small and large battles.

Modern Dog Soldier headdress

By 1868, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers ran rampant across the Plains. They went after old enemies like the Pawnee and isolated settlers and stage stations. The cry arose for government protection. Gen. Philip Sheridan, of Civil War cavalry fame, had just taken command of The Department of the Missouri. If fell to him to get the situation under control. To that end, Sheridan planned a winter campaign when, he assumed, the Indians would hunker down in winter camp.

Frederick Henry Beecher Takes Command

While Sheridan had infantry and cavalry forces under his command, he saw them as too cumbersome to pin down the mobile Cheyenne. To that end, he sought a more flexible solution. He needed to keep pressuring the Cheyanne in winter to give his regular forces more time to respond. Sheridan solved the problem by creating an irregular volunteer force of scouts. Two regular Army officers commanded the scouts: Maj. George Forsyth and Lt. Fredrick Henry Beecher, recently transferred to the 9th U.S. Cavalry.

Together, Major Forsyth (called “Colonel” by his men after his Civil War rank) and Lieutenant Beecher initially recruited 30 men. Many were former Union and Confederate veterans, including a brigadier and a sergeant major, along with a scattering of hunters, farmers and the like.

Diagram of a Spencer rifle

Ironically, they had better weapons than their regular army counterparts. They were issued Spencer repeating rifles. Designed in 1860, the Spencer had a seven-round tubular magazine that used a metallic cartridge. During the Civil War, hidebound Army bureaucrats viewed its high rate of fire a waste of ammunition. Consequently, it saw only sporadic use after 1864 in the Civil War. As late as the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, the 7^th Cavalry used the Model 1873 Springfield carbine, a single-shot weapon.

Frederick Henry Beecher Sets Out

The unit’s first mission set out from Fort Hayes in Kansas territory. (They now called themselves “Solomon’s Avengers,” most likely a biblical reference to support their ideas of racial superiority). The mission gained nothing but allowed some unit cohesion. They then returned to Fort Wallace, about 130 miles from Fort Hayes, also in Kansas territory.

They spent only a short time at Fort Wallace. The scouts then set out again in pursuit of a small band of Indians that had attacked some freight wagons just a few miles away.

Now numbering 50 men, and including Acting Surgeon John Henry Mooers, they never quite caught up to the Indians. But as they got farther along, they began to see signs of a bigger Indian band than they first thought. And they also began to see signs that they were accompanied by family. That troubled them, because it indicated a larger Indian presence than they initially suspected.

At this point, some of the men wanted to turn back, surmising correctly that they were outnumbered and might soon become the pursued rather than the pursuers. When Major Forsyth reminded them that they had signed up to fight Indians, undoubtedly backed fully by Lieutenant Beecher, the unit pressed on.

Arikaree River

By Sept. 16, 1868, the Forsyth-Beecher command had reached the Arikaree Fork of the Republican River in Colorado Territory, where they set up camp. They knew they were getting closer but did not realize just how close they were. They stopped just 12 miles away from the main body of Indians, the site of two Lakota villages and one camp of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers under Roman Nose.

One of the scouts described what happened.

…on September 18, 1868, Colonel Forsyth decided to camp on a spot that [had] good grazing, much earlier [in the afternoon] than usual [This] proved to be an act of providence. Had we travelled about a half mile further we would have fallen into an ambush, ingeniously prepared…so that had we passed that way no  mother’s son would have escaped alive, but we were ignorant of the fact at the time.

Aware of the nearness of Indians, the scouts bedded down for the night. During that time they observed a series of signal fires all around them. As such, they slept dressed, lying with their weapons.

Did Lieutenant Beecher get any sleep? Probably very little, since he had the duty of ensuring the pickets stayed awake and alert.

Just before daylight pickets caught Indians moving up on the camp. Things began to happen fast after that. “It was hardly daylight yet, but we…could see the flash of guns,” wrote Eli Ziegler, a scout. “Culver and I made for our horses as they rode by…”

Louis McLoughlin, another scout, picked up the story: “We…knew that we would be no match for that army of red men, in the open, and were close by a small island…Forsyth gave orders…to move onto the island.”

Where the battle took place along the Arikaree River

The Indians Attack

The island itself, a small sandy sprit in the middle of the Arikaree Fork, measured about 40 feet wide and 150 feet long. It was high ground only in the sense that it was above the water, but it was surrounded by a 70-foot-wide channel. It wouldn’t stop the Indians any more than it stopped the scouts from crossing it. But it would do to slow an attacker down a bit and allow for an all-around defense.

The records don’t indicate Beecher’s movements during this period. In terms of what he had been through in the Civil War, it was not an overpowering situation, but it was chaotic, and it was his first Indian action. The fact that the men stayed together and set up an all-around defense on the island speaks much to his and Forsyth’s leadership.

As soon as they reached the island, the Indians were on them, riding around but not penetrating the perimeter. Major Forsyth now received the first of three wounds, this one in his right thigh. As Dr. Mooers tied off Forsyth’s wound, the major received another wound in the left shin. Dr. Mooers was then fatally wounded in the head, lingering for two days before dying.

Beecher was still alive at this point, as the Indians started their second full-scale attack.

The Death of Frederick Henry Beecher

Beecher finally perished, his body riddled with bullets. “He died fighting as long as he could grip a sword or load a rifle,” noted his his 16^th Maine Infantry biographical sketch. Two other scouts died at the same time. An Oct. 2, 1868 article in the Plattsburg, N.Y., Sentinel, described the death of Surgeon Mooers.

The casualties are: Col. Forsyth left leg broken by a ball and shot through the right thigh; Lieut. Beecher, shot in several places and supposed to be dying as his back was broken. He begged his men to kill him. Dr. Mooers was shot in the head.

If Beecher was shot in the spine, the pain would have been unbearable. He was accustomed to painful wounds, and it is entirely conceivable that Beecher asked to be killed.

In the Indians’ experience, all of their encounters with soldiers had evolved the same way. The soldiers would fire a volley, and then they had to reload. If the Indians had gotten close enough at that point, they could simply ride over them as they reloaded. Expecting the same in this fight, they charged into a hail of bullets and waited for the expected lull, but it never came. Their experience did not include fighting a foe armed with a repeating rifle. The Spencer confused and stymied them.

Still, they attacked, little realizing how close they came to victory. “The scouts were all good shots and the slaughter of the Indians and their horses was terrible,” wrote another scout. “Two or three times if the Indians had kept on a minute or two longer they would have got us, as sometimes we would hardly have a shot left when they broke.”

A Sniping Match

Their increasing losses and hesitant leadership also made them extremely cautious. They slowly ceased to press their attacks. After two days, the affair had settled into a sniping match.

Scout Sig Schliesinger picked up the story at this point.

As the fighting progressed, it began to tell on us. Every once in a while a cry went up that this one, or that one, was hit—I have often been asked whether I have killed any Indians, to which my answer  must truthful be that I don’t know—I did not consider it safest to watch the results of a shot…[I took] general observation by suddenly jumping up and dropping back into my hole, which enabled me to take a shot—without undue exposure.

The Indians, however, had time on their side.  Major Forsyth continued to give what direction he could, but he suffered considerable pain. He couldn’t move and he’d received a third wound. All the leadership of the party was now dead or incapacitated. But the men had no real option and they fought on.

After two days, the situation for the scouts was getting desperate. The horses were dead, and a large part of the command was wounded, with no medical attention.

Fallen men and horses during the Battle of Beecher Island

Starvation and Death

At this point volunteers set out on foot to try to break through the Indian lines and seek help. Scout Eli Zigler recorded how it happened.

After supper we held a council…We thought our best show was to try to send a dispatch to Fort Wallace. It looked almost impossible to get out, but Jack Stillwell came forward and volunteered to go if they would let him pick a man to go with him…[He] chose Pierre Trudeau…and as Pierre was older and a good Indian fighter, the Colonel {Major Forsyth} agreed……Jack was the best imitator of an Indian I ever saw, so they fixed themselves up as Indians as best they could and took off their boots and tied some rags and blankets on their feet so that if Indians saw the tracks the next day they would think it some of their own party…At a late hour they …crawled out.

How many Indians were involved in the fight? If you were one of the scouts, it was easy to see as many as 800 in the noise, the chaos and death all around you. No one knows for certain. Estimates vary from 200 to 1000.

Roman Nose died in the battle (artist’s conception).

By now the men were starving, taken to eating their horses. The smell of the battlefield with its dead rotting corpses of men and horses was overpowering.

Scout Hurst takes up the narrative.

The Indians left us after the fifth day…We had nothing then but our horses {to eat} that had been dead six days, and when we could cut into the meat we found it had green streaks through it and was fast decaying..[We sprinkled] it with [gun] powder while it was cooking which partially took away the bad odor, but we could only eat it when we were starving.

Buffalo Soldiers

It may have appeared that the Indians had left, but the scouts had no relief. They had no food, no medicine and no horses.

Still stranded, they undoubtedly took this time to bury their dead, including Lieutenant Beecher. Then, as one scout noted:

There’s something moving out there…We jumped to our feet and walked up the hill a bit farther, where we could plainly see that they were coming over the hill toward us…We fired a [warning] shot and hurried back to camp to make ready in case it was Indians.

Much to the men’s immense relief, amid “laughing and cheering and the tears running down their cheeks,” they realized what they saw.  A detachment of the 10^th Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers, had arrived. The two men sent out earlier, and two others that followed them in case the first two didn’t make it, had made it through.  Of three relief columns traveling along different routes, the 10^th Cavalry reached them first.

Buffalo Soldiers in the Spanish-American War

Six scouts had ben killed and 15 wounded, with between 50 and 75 Indians killed and an unknown number wounded.

Burial of Frederick Henry Beecher

A couple of months after the battle, an attempt was made to recover the bodies buried on the island. The Jan. 30, 1869 Connecticut [Hartford] Courant reported on the effort.

Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher, son of the Rev. Charles Beecher of Georgetown, Mass., was killed in the Indian war in September, 1868, and was buried with another officer on the field. It was the intention to remove his body to Georgetown for burial, and messengers were dispatched for the purpose…The messengers have returned and brought the sad tidings that the grave had been robbed by Indians, and that no trave could be had of the body of young Beecher. The grave adjoining had also been desecrated, and it’s inmate conveyed away…

No one had molested the other graves.  Why the other graves were undisturbed, and just how they knew that the Indians were the grave robbers, and not animal scavengers, is not known. With no grave, a memorial stone for Lt. Frederick Henry Beecher was placed in Harmony Cemetery in Georgetown, Mass.

Beecher Island

The Colorado island that figured in the battle was, and is, not really an island, but a sandbar. It had no name before the battle. Afterward, it was named Beecher Island in memory of Lt. Frederick Henry Beecher. A monument erected on the island in 1905 got swept away by a flood in 1935. The flood also altered the course of the river, virtually wiping out the old island. It left a new sandbar in its place, still named Beecher Island.

Beecher Island monuments

The pieces of the monument were rescued however, and it was restored on the north side of the river. The site of the battle is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

At the time, the battle created a national sensation. But time, and more important battles, have relegated it to virtual oblivion, along with the memory of the men that fought there.

A passage in the 16th Maine history pays homage to Lt. Frederick Henry Beecher.  “His was a noble, generous soul. Truly, he was one of the most loving and lovable of men.”

Click here for more stories of the 16th Maine’s valor in Seeing the Elephant: Lewis and George Bisbee, also by the author. 

Images: Modern Dog Soldier By Dori – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 us, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4738460. Monuments on Beecher Island By Chris Light – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52762434. Arikaree River By Jeffrey Beall – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56575261.