Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/86

80 Just before daylight a violent thunderstorm passed over, and just as the thunder and lightning was dying away, the Rees, without warning, made a desperate attack upon the white men. Ashley rallied his men to the defense as best he could, but the advantage was all with the Indians. The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and at its close twelve white men lay dead and eleven others were severely wounded, at least one of them mortally. Ashley got the survivors into his boats, cut loose, and allowed them to drift down river, out of range of the enemy. There he attempted to reorganize his forces and boldly push by the towns, and go on upstream, but to his dismay he found that the courage of his men was gone, and scarcely one would assist him in the enterprise; they openly declared that if he insisted upon it, they would all desert and make their way as best they could down the river. In this emergency Ashley made terms with them, by which he agreed to drift down to the mouth of the Cheyenne and there fortify a camp, until messengers could be sent to the nearest military post, which was located at Fort Atkinson, sixteen miles north of Omaha.

The express reached Fort Atkinson on June 18. Colonel Henry Leavenworth was in command of the post, which was garrisoned by a portion of the Sixth Infantry. Situated as he was, without telegraph or other means of communicating with his superiors, Leavenworth was forced to use his best judgment in the matter, and he determined to lead a detachment of troops up the river at once, and to punish the Rees severely for their conduct. The distance was about seven hundred miles by river. Four