wn over.

We reached the valley of the Washita a little before dark, and camped
some five or six miles above the scene of Custer's fight, where I
concluded to remain at least a day, to rest the command and give it a
chance to refit. In the mean time I visited the battle-field in
company with Custer and several other officers, to see if there was a
possibility of discovering any traces of Elliotts party. On arriving
at the site of the village, and learning from Custer what
dispositions had been made in approaching for the attack, the
squadron of the escort was deployed and pushed across the river at
the point where Elliott had crossed. Moving directly to the south,
we had not gone far before we struck his trail, and soon the whole
story was made plain by our finding, on an open level space about two
miles from the destroyed village, the dead and frozen bodies of the
entire party. The poor fellows were all lying within a circle not
more than fifteen or twenty paces in diameter, and the little piles
of empty cartridge shells near each body showed plainly that every
man had made a brave fight. None were scalped, but most of them were
otherwise horribly mutilated, which fiendish work is usually done by
the squaws. All had been stripped of their clothing, but their
comrades in the escort were able to identify the bodies, which being
done, we gave them decent burial. Their fate was one that has
overtaken many of our gallant army in their efforts to protect the
frontiersmen's homes and families from savages who give no quarter,
though they have often received it, and where the possibility of
defeat in action carries with it the certainty of death and often of
preceding torture.

From the meadow where Elliott was found we rode to the Washita, and
then down the river through the sites of the abandoned villages, that
had been strung along almost continuously for about twelve miles in
the timber skirting the stream. On every hand appeared ample
evidence that the Indians had intended to spend the winter here, for
the ground was littered with jerked meat, bales of buffalo robes,
cooking utensils, and all sorts of plunder usually accumulated in a
permanent Indian camp. There were, also, lying dead near the
villages hundreds of ponies, that had been shot to keep them from
falling into our hands, the scant grazing and extreme cold having
made them too weak to be driven along in the flight. The wholesale
slaughter of these p