dian fighting was pretty
correct.

After the consolidation of the regular army, following the war, Smith
was sent to the Plains as Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. This was
afterward known as Custer's regiment, and we engaged in the battle of
the Little Big Horn, in which that gallant commander was slain. Smith's
cavalry command was moving southward on an expedition against the
Kiowas and Comanches in the Canadian River country, when I joined it as
a scout.

Dick Curtis, acting as guide for Smith, had been sent on ahead across
the river, while the main command stopped to water their horses.
Curtis's orders were to proceed straight ahead for five miles, where
the troops would camp. He was followed immediately by the advance
guard, Smith and his staff following on. We had proceeded about three
miles when three or four hundred Indians attacked us, jumping out of
gullies and ravines, where they had been securely hidden. General Smith
at once ordered the orderlies to sound the recall and retreat,
intending to fall back quickly on the main command.

He was standing close beside a deep ravine as he gave the order.
Knowing that the plan he proposed meant the complete annihilation of
our force, I pushed my horse close to him.

"General," I said, "order your men into the ravine, dismount, and let
number fours hold horses. Then you will be able to stand off the
Indians. If you try to retreat to the main command you and every man
under you will be killed before you have retreated a mile."

He immediately saw the sense of my advice. Issuing orders to enter the
ravine, he dismounted with his men behind the bank. There we stood off
the Indians till the soldiers in the rear, hearing the shots, came
charging to the rescue and drove the Indians away. The rapidity with
which we got into the ravine, and the protection its banks afforded us,
enabled us to get away without losing a man. Had the general's original
plan been carried out none of us would have come away to tell the
story. I was summoned to the general's tent that evening.

"That was a brilliant suggestion of yours, young man," he said. "This
Indian fighting is a new business to me. I realize that if I had
carried out my first order not a man of us would ever have reached the
command alive."

I said: "General, do you remember the battle of Tupedo?"

"I do," he said, with his chest expanding a little. "I was in command
at that battle." The whipping of Forrest had been a p