WHITE BUFFALO
The scouts were starving. After the surprise attack on the morning of Sept. 17, 1868, they had retreated to a thicketed sandbar in the midst of a broad, mostly dry riverbed, killed their horses and mules for use as breastworks and fought off repeated charges by several hundred Plains Indians. The battle soon became a siege of attrition. After days without food they had resorted to eating putrid horsemeat sprinkled with gunpowder, choking it down with the little foul water that seeped into the rifle pits they had dug. Four scouts had volunteered to crawl out through the enemy cordon in search of help, but the remaining men despaired of their fate. Those unhurt fed the wounded the few wild plums discovered amid the thickets. Among the most severely wounded was their commanding officer, Major George “Sandy” Forsyth, whose gaping leg wound had become infested with maggots.
On the eighth morning of the siege 16-year-old Eli Zeigler, the youngest of the band of frontiersmen, spotted riders to the south. “There are some moving objects on the far hills!” he shouted, springing to his feet. All others able to stand shielded their eyes and gazed intently in that direction. Indians? Or white men? “By the Gods above us,” one cried out, “it’s an ambulance!” A wild cheer rose from parched throats.
The relief party soon came into focus. Leading them was J.J. “Jack” Peate, who had recruited nearly two dozen of the frontiersmen from the Saline River valley for Forsyth but had missed the battle when the force left Fort Wallace without him. Riding beside Peate was Jack Donovan, one of the four volunteers who had gone for help. Following their