EXECUTION EXAMPLE

1/31/1945 - Near the French village of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, at 10:04 in the morning, U.S. Army Private, Edward "Eddie" Donald Slovik of Detroit, Michigan, has the dubious distinction (in 1865, Private William Smitz of the 90th Pennsylvania Infantry is executed for desertion) of being the only American to be executed for desertion since the Civil War (48 others, sentenced to death for desertion will have their sentences commuted by higher authorities) ... he is 24-years-old.

Slovik

Born into the Polish-American family of Anna and Josef Slowikowski in 1920, Slovik seems destined for a short and tragic life ... he is first arrested at the age of 12 for stealing brass from a Detroit foundry, drops out of school at 15, and goes on to establish a criminal resume that includes petty theft, breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, car theft, and drunk driving, is placed on probation five times, is sentenced to prison twice.  Paroled in April of 1942, with workers at a premium due to America's participation in World War II, as being deemed 4-F, unfit for duty due to his criminal record, Slovik finds work and love in Dearborn, Michigan, where he is employed at the Mortella Plumbing and Heating Company, and meets his wife, the company's bookkeeper, Antoinette Wisniewski (she is five years his senior).  Living with her parents, Slovik keeps out of trouble while holding down a job as a shipping clerk for the DeSoto division of the Chrysler Car Company.  Shortly after the couple's one-year anniversary their married bliss falls apart, when the U.S. government needing more men to fight the war, reclassifies Slovik as fit for duty, drafts him, inducts him int the Army, and sends him to Camp Wolters, Texas for basic training.

The Sloviks

The five-foot-six, 138 pound recruit does not like being a soldier, and in a letter to his wife, describes the experience as like being in jail ... only worse.  Despite his disdain for the service, on 7/25/1944, Slovik is shipped off to England (during his sea voyage, he tells a fellow soldier he doesn't know why he is cleaning his rifle, as he has no intention of ever firing the weapon), then sent to the Third Replacement Depot in France.  Ticketed to be a replacement member of Company G, 109th Regiment, 28th Infantry Division (the famous Keystone Division that can trace its roots back to the Pennsylvania days of Benjamin Franklin), Slovik takes a three-hour ride through the carnage left behind during the horrific Battle of the Falaise Pocket (a two-week nightmare that costs the Germans 450,000 men and 209,000 Allied soldiers), and then arrives in Elbeuf, France at night just as the town is being shelled.  Finding immediate refuge, Slovik is separated from the other replacements (along with Private John P. Tankey), and when the 109th moves out in the morning, no one with the unit notices that the two men are missing ... which is just fine with Slovik, who spends the next six weeks driving trucks, helping with the cooking, and guarding German prisoners for the unit that has moved into Elbeuf, the military police outfit, the 13th Canadian Provost Corps.  Trouble begins however, when the Canadians get a new commander who immediately wants to know why two Americans are doing duty with his unit.

Camp Wolters

Battlefield Detritus

Sent back to their units on 10/7/1944 (about to enter the maelstorm of the heavily defended Hurtgen Forest), no charges are filed against either man, and Tankey returns to duty and eventually will be wounded in combat and survive the war.  But Slovik is having none of it, tells he company commander, Captain Ralph Grotte,  he is "too scared" to fight and requests a transfer to a non-combat unit or he will run away.  Request denied, the next day, after Tankey fails to dissuade him, believing he will just receive jail time, which he knows he can handle and will leave him alive, Slovik trudges several miles to the rear, and turns himself in for desertion to 112 Military Government detachment stationed in Rocherath, Belgium, handing a confession he has hand-written on a piece of paper to a cook, Private William O. Smith that states he is guilty and will leave again if forced back into a front line unit (the cook in turn takes him to an MP, the MP takes him to his company commander, and the company commander tells him to tear up the note and get back to the front ... which Slovik refuses to do).  Returned to his unit in handcuffs, the battalion commander, Lt. Colonel Ross C. Henbest gives Slovik another chance to return to his unit and get out of his predicament, but the offer is refused, as is the one that comes from the division's Judge Advocate General, Lt. Colonel Henry Sommer that charges will be dropped if Slovik rejoins his unit, or accepts a transfer to a different combat unit.  Slovik states, "I've made up my mind.  I'll take my court martial," which is a big mistake.

Confession

Court Martial

 A slam dunk conviction, Slovik (who refuses to testify) is tried before nine combat officers from divisions other than the 28th Infantry (because they are in combat), prosecuted by Captain John Green (who presents a five witnesses who testify to Slovik's intentions to desert, along with the confession), he is fruitlessly defended by Captain Edward Woods.  The trial takes all of only one day (and that is overstating things ... the trial lasts just over an hour) and Slovik is unanimously found guilty and sentenced to death.  The death sentence normally not carried out though, this time, with the Battle of the Bulge and the Hurtgen Forest freshly in mind, and with it, the knowledge of the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, multiple times given a chance to do his duty, the verdict is first verified by the division's commander, Major General Norman Daniel "Dutch" Cota, and then, on 12/23/1944, confirmed by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower.

Cota

Eisenhower

Unrepentant, Slovik states to his guards, "They're not shooting me for deserting the United States Army, thousands of guys have done that.  They just need to make an example out of somebody and I'm it because I'm an ex-con.  I used to steal things when I was a kid, and that's what they are shooting me for.  They're shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12-years-old."  Per military custom, on 1/31/1945, Slovik's uniform is stripped of all military identifying insignia, buttons, and any other accouterments (he is allowed a GI blanket to be wrapped around his shoulders to offset the morning's cold), and he is walked out of his cell by a four-man detail (delayed a day by a snowstorm, they do not arrive in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines until 7:30 in the morning on the day of execution) to the courtyard of a house selected for having a high brick wall that discourages any unwanted witnesses from watching.  There, using web belts to prevent any movement (one around and under his arms, another around his knees, and a third securing his ankles), he is lashed to an 6-inch wide by 6-foot tall post (with a sheet of wood behind it to prevent any chance of bullets bouncing back off the masonry).  When the attending chaplain, Father Carl Patrick Cummings asks Slovik to pray for him when he gets to Heaven, Slovik replies with his last words ... "Okay, Father.  I'll pray that you don't follow me too soon."  Black hood placed over his head (it has been sewn by a local French women that doesn't know its purpose), at the command "Fire," the 12-man execution squad sends a volley into the condemned man ... eleven live rounds and one secret blank so no one will ever known if they fired the fatal shot, Slovik is hit by all eleven bullets, and takes wounds that range from the neck region to the left shoulder and chest to his left arm ... four are deemed fatal, but despite the wounds, Slovik does not die immediately.  In the process of reloading to fire another volley, Slovik passes away 15 minutes after being fired upon.

Movie Recreation

Example made, the Army does a very poor job promoting the execution ... the 109th Regiment announces Slovik's death, but only to its own men, Cota and Eisenhower make no note of the private's death, his wife is only told he died a "dishonorable" death (she will receive a $70,000 payment from the government in 1978 and she petitions the United States to return Slovik's body until her death in 1979 at the age of 64 ... she also petitions seven different presidents to pardon her dead husband, but none of them ever do), and famous Eastern Theater Army historian, S. L. A. Marshall doesn't find out about the death until 1954.  Dead, Slovik is first buried in Epinal, France, then in 1949, it is moved to Plot E of the Oise-Aisne Cemetery and Memorial in Fere-en-Tardenois, France, where it is marked by only a number, alongside 95 other soldiers executed during the war for the crimes of rape and murder.  In 1987, Polish-American WWII veteran and former Macomb County Commissioner, Bernard V. Calka, finally persuades President Ronald Reagan to allow Slovik to return to the United States (Calka pays $5,000 for the body to be exhumed, transported back to Detroit, and be reburied next to his wife).  The tragic soldier now resides at the Woodmere Cemetery in Row 3, Grave 65 of Plot E.

Happier Days

Mrs. Slovik - 1974

Detroit Cemetery   

 

AUDIE MURPHY'S DAY

1/26/1945 - Already a hero many times over, 19-year-old Second Lieutenant Audie Leon Murphy, has a day of fighting that will make him the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II (and serve as a springboard for a 21 year acting career in Hollywood), winning the Congressional Medal of Honor (before he returns to the United States, Murphy will receive every combat award for valor available to an American soldier ... in all, he will win 33 awards and decorations) for his actions near the town of Holtzwihr, France (on the country's northeastern border with Germany).

Murphy And His Medals - 1948

Born in Kingston, Texas in 1925, Murphy is the seventh of twelve children born to Irish descended sharecroppers, Emmett Berry Murphy, and his wife, Josie Bell Killian ... dirt poor would be the dictionary description of the family.  Dirt poor and then deserted by Emmett (the family will never see or hear from him again), so Murphy drops out of school in the 5th grade to hunt food for the family (bullets cost money and the knowing youngster quickly develops into a crack shot), and to work in their support picking cotton for a dollar-a-day.  When his mother passes away from endocarditis (an inflammation of the heart) and pneumonia when Murphy is sixteen, the future warrior works for a general store in the Texas town of Greenville (his three youngest siblings are placed in a Christian orphanage ... after the war, they will be reunited with their family when Murphy buys his oldest sister a home in Farmersville) doing odd jobs and repairing radios ... until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 turns his life completely upside-down.

 

Young Audie

Always wanting to be a soldier, and seeing the service as a means of earning money for his family, Murphy tries to enlist in the Marines, Navy, and Army, but is told he is too young, and too small (he is 5'5" and 110 pounds).  He persists in trying to enlist though, and after he beefs up by 15 pounds and has his sister provide a false affidavit that he is a year older than he actually is, Murphy is accepted into the United States Army on June 30, 1942 ... in time to participate in the Army's European campaigns.

Murphy

Basic Training

A natural at combat and leadership, starting as a private with the 3rd Infantry Division as it trains in North Africa, it does not take Murphy long to be noticed ... he is a platoon messenger and participates in the Allied invasion of the island of Sicily, kills two Italian officers during a scouting patrol on Sicily (knocking them off the horses they try to ride away on with his accurate rifle fire), participates in the Allied invasion of Salerno, Italy, with another soldier, using hand grenades and a machine gun, kills five Germans taking out a machine gun nest, becomes a sergeant after stopping a German attack on Migano Monte Lungo Hill, after being hospitalized with malaria, returns to his unit in time to participate in the fighting that takes place at the Battle of Cisterna near the Allies' Anzio, Italy beachhead, receives a Bronze Star for destroying a German tank and its crew with rifle grenades, takes several Germans prisoner during scouting patrols, and participates in the liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944.  And then it is on to France as a Staff Sergeant!

House Fighting During The Battle Of Cisterna   

A member of the Allied invasion forces that establish a new front against the Germans in southern France as part of Operation Dragoon, Murphy earns a Distinguished Service Cross on his first day in France, taking out a defensive position in a vineyard farmhouse after Murphy's best friend, 33-year-old Private Lattie Tipton from Tennessee, is killed by soldiers pretending to surrender (berserk with anger, Murphy adds eight more notches to his resume, wounds two other Germans, and takes eleven prisoners before calling it a day).  A month later, he gets his first Purple Heart by way of a mortar round that puts hot steel in Murphy's heel (the blast kills two other soldiers, knocks Murphy unconscious, and shatters the stock of his lucky carbine (which Murphy will wire back together). Treated and back on the line a couple of weeks later, the ace soldier gets his first Silver Star killing four and wounding three more Germans taking out a machine gun position in the Cleurie river valley. Three days later he earns a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Silver Star by spending a solo hour in a fire exposed forward position calling down mortar and artillery fire on a L'Omet hill his unit has been ordered to take (the hill will be taken after 15 Germans are killed and another 35 wounded by Murphy's directed firing).  In October of 1944, Murphy has an encounter with a German sniper team that leads to two more prisoners, a dead German sniper (shot between the eyes by Murphy), and a nasty hip wound (a large chunk of flesh will have to be removed from Murphy's hip when the wound becomes infected).  Three months later, Murphy returns to the front lines ... just in time to face a German attack in the Colmar Pocket (a German salient roughly 40 miles long and 30 miles deep, extending from Germany and the western bank of the Rhine River into France) and earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Tipton

Operation Dragoon

Southern France - 1944 

Cut to pieces in the back and forth struggle to take and hold the town of Holtzwihr, on the frosty afternoon of 1/26/1945, Murphy is in command to Company B of the 15th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division ... the only officer left standing to lead a force of 120 men that has been whittled down to 18 soldiers that are told to hold the line facing the village (supported by two M10 tank destroyers from Lt. Colonel Walter E. Tandy's 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion).  The Germans in Holtzwihr however have different plans in the form of an assault by six tanks and over 250 German infantrymen in white camouflage suits, elite members of the German 2nd Mountain Division ... a mismatch, if not for Second Lt. Murphy.

M10 Tank Destroyer In Action - 1944

A lopsided clash almost immediately, the shells of the two tank destroyers bounce off the heavily armored German tanks, while the 88mm shells on the German Tigers incapacitate the American armored vehicles, putting one in a ditch where it can't fire, and scoring a direct hit on the other that kills the tank destroyer's commander and gunner.  Seeing his position quickly become untenable, Murphy orders his men to retreat into the tree line, then calls in a fire mission on the advancing Germans while taking out soldier after soldier with his carbine.  Rifle ammo completely expended, he is about to follow his men into the woods, when he realizes the .50-caliber machine gun on the flaming tank destroyer is still functional.  Climbing atop the flaming vehicle, alone, Murphy turns the machine gun on the oncoming Germans, hoping to kill enough supporting soldiers that the tanks turn tail ... and grabbing the field phone back to battalion headquarters, he calls in mortar, artillery, and P47 Thunderbolt fighter bombs on the attacking Germans (shells and bombs that detonate within 50 yards of his position) ... for over an hour.  Explosions, noise, and fire and smoke mask Murphy's position for awhile, but eventually the flaming tank destroyer is hit by two more 88mm shells ... wounding Murphy in both legs and reopening his hip wound.  Grounds for goodbye, despite his painful wounds, Murphy continues firing the machine gun to his left, right, and front (one squad of Germans will get within 10 yards of Murphy before he takes them out and when an artillery officer back at headquarters asks over the phone where the Germans are, Murphy sarcastically replies, "Just hold the phone a second and I'll let you talk to one of the bastards!") until once more he is out of ammo. Germans tanks finally withdrawing as their supports fall back on Holtzwihr, Murphy finally abandons the tank destroyer and limps back to his men's position in the forest ... just in time, as the tank destroyer explodes seconds after Murphy leaves the flaming vehicle (interviewed later about the action, Murphy will proclaim that being on the tank destroyer was the first time in three days his feet had been warm).  Reunited with his men, Murphy refuses medical treatment for his wounded legs (a field map in his pack is riddled with shrapnel and rock fragments and his trousers are soaked in blood), and instead, leads his handful of men forward in a counterattack against the Germans that positions the Americans to take the town the following day.

Medal Of Honor - Painting

Medal Of Honor - Movie (To Hell And Back)

The Medal Of Honor - Awarded

Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on June 2, 1945 by Seventh Army commander, Lt. General Alexander Patch, Murphy will be featured on the cover of Life magazine as America's most decorated soldier, and that cover photo is seen by actor James Cagney, who, impressed by former soldier's youthful looks, takes the Texan under his wing to become a Hollywood actor ... and the amazing Murphy story gets several more unbelievable chapters that include dropping out of West Point when he decides not to pursue an officer's life in the army, dealing with the post-traumatic stress of his combat experiences (he has headaches, vomiting, and nightmares about the war, becomes addicted, but then cold turkey kicks a dependence on the insomnia drug, Placidyl, has bouts of depression, and sleeps with the lights on and a loaded pistol under his pillow), serves in the Texas Army National Guard until 1956, writes poetry and 1949 war memoir called To Hell And Back which becomes a best seller (and is made into a 1955 Universal-International Technicolor and Cinemascope film starring Murphy playing himself), becomes a Universal star (in his first role for the studio he will be cast in the part of Billy the Kid), becomes a millionaire, marries twice and has two sons, breeds quarter horses, has a TV show called Whispering Smith (based on the 1948 western starring Alan Ladd), and dies in tragic 1971 plane crash twenty miles west of Roanoke, Virginia at the age of only 45!    

 

Life Magazine

As Outlaw Bill Doolin In The Cimarron Kid

Plane Crash

An amazing American life lived to its fullest, First Lieutenant (he gets a final promotion after Holtzwihr) Audie L. Murphy is buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery on June 7, 1971 ... Section 46, headstone number 46-366-11, located across Memorial Drive from the Amphitheater is where the former soldier now rests (a special flagstone walkway will be built later to accommodate all the foot traffic to Murphy's grave) ... in the cemetery's second most visited site, after President John F. Kennedy's grave and "eternal" flame.  Always considering himself an ordinary soldier, at Murphy's insistence, he is buried beneath a plain headstone lacking the gold leaf decorations Medal of Honor winners are entitled to have.

Arlington

Audie Leon Murphy  

BLOODY SNOW IN NEBRASKA

1/22/1879 - The months long walk (750 miles) from the Indian Territory of present day Oklahoma by Northern Cheyenne under the leadership of Chiefs Little Coyote (also known as Little Wolf) and Morning Star (also known as Dull Knife), ends tragically in northwestern Nebraska in a military engagement that will come to be known as The Fort Robinson Massacre (the sugarized Hollywood version of the story can be viewed by watching director John Ford's movie, Cheyenne Autumn, with Mexico born actor Ricardo Montalban as Little Coyote and Mexico born actor Gilbert Roland as Morning Star).

Little Coyote & Morning Star

Allied to the Sioux tribes that destroyed Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, the Indians name for the Little Bighorn River), the Northern Cheyenne experience first-hand retribution for the victory from the United States military ... in September of 1876, they are part of the bands of Indians (along with Sioux Chief American Horse and the legendary Sioux warrior, Crazy Horse) that lose the Battle of Slim Buttes to Brigadier General George Crook's (the Apaches will call him Chief Wolf) command of 1,200 men (the two-day battle takes place in what will become Harding County, South Dakota), and in November of the same year, they are beaten in a dawn attack by 1,500 soldiers and Indian scouts of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie (known as Bad Hand to the Indians for his loss of two fingers on his right hand during the Civil War siege of Petersburg) near the Red Fork of the Powder River in the Wyoming Territory, a defeat that costs them their village (200 lodges are destroyed), supplies (700 animals are captured), and for Chief Morning Star, three sons, in what goes down in history as the Dull Knife Fight.  Without food or shelter, suffering from exposure to winter conditions that drop below zero, the survivors of the encounters make their way to Camp Robinson (named for Lt. Levi H. Robinson, killed by Indians while a member of a wood detail building the camp in February of 1874, it will be renamed Fort Robinson in January of 1878) in the northwest corner of Nebraska, and surrender (Sioux warrior, crazy Horse, will be stabbed to death there with a bayonet by one of his guards in September of 1877), believing they will be allowed to live with Sioux clans at the nearby Red Cloud Agency, based on terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (which both Little Coyote and Morning Star both signed). 

Crook

Charge Of Lt. Frederick Schwatka At
Slim Buttes

Mackenzie

Area Of The Dull Knife Fight

But in the aftermath of Custer's Last Stand, the authorities aren't interested in honoring Indian treaty demands, and the decision soon comes through channels that the Northern Cheyenne will live with their brethren, the Southern Cheyenne, at the Darlington Agency, near Fort Reno (named for Civil War General Jesse L Reno, killed at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862), in the Indian Territory.  Transported south in August of 1877, the 937 followers of Morning Star and Little Coyote find kin that don't want them, a lack of game to hunt (dead buffalo remains litter the prairie), poor rations, and disease.  When some of the band begin starving, and a measles outbreak hits the tribe in 1878, Little Wolf and Morning Star begin formulating secret plans to leave the reservation, and head back north to their ancestral homelands in what is now Wyoming and Montana.  In the early morning hours of September 10, 1878, the Northern Cheyenne flee the reservation ... the group consists of between 297 and 353, men, women, and children.

Fort Reno

Morning Star

Little Coyote

By 3:00 in the morning their absence is noted, and the region goes into a panic with rumors of rampaging savages as the band crosses the Cimarron River and then moves into Kansas.  The first violence of the escape takes place near Turkey Creek, where cowboys are attacked for their weapons and supplies.  Pursued by a mixed command of over 200 cavalry and infantry under the command of Lt. Colonel William H. Lewis, the Cheyenne are almost captured at a Kansas site called Battle Canyon (after an over-eager brave fires too early and gives away the ambush that is planned ... the action will come to be known as the Battle of Punished Women's Fork), but escape when the army troops lose their leadership when Lewis is hit in the leg by an Indian sniper and bleeds to death.  Making up for the supplies lost during the encounter, crossing Kansas, the Northern Cheyenne kill roughly 40 white men and boys they encounter ... tit for tat, elderly Cheyenne that can't keep up with the pace of the escape are done away with by white posses (no one will ever be found guilty for any of the deaths, though later, several Indians are placed on trial).  Moving across Kansas and into Nebraska, the march of the Indians becomes a running battle as they are pursued by 10,000 soldiers (from Fort Wallace, Fort Hays, Fort Dodge, Fort Riley, and Fort Kearney) and 3,000 settlers from nearby communities ... five times they are caught, but each time they manage to escape due to the battle leadership of Little Coyote and Morning Star (keeping their people in rugged country the Army has trouble maneuvering through).  After six weeks on the run, the Cheyenne chiefs hold a council in which one portion of the group decides to follow Morning Star to the Red Cloud Agency, while another band goes with Little Coyote to the Sand Hills of Nebraska (eventually, the survivors of both groups will be brought together again, when the United States government finally creates a reservation for the Northern Cheyenne in 1884 in southeastern Montana), intent on continuing their odyssey to the north.

Stump Horn And Family During Their Flight

In a blinding snowstorm, on October 23, 1878, two days days from Fort Robinson, Morning Star and his band of followers are stumbled upon by a local scout and finally surrounded by the Army.  Hungry, cold, and outnumbered, they agree to move to the fort to further negotiate their futures, still wanting to have homes in their former hunting grounds in Montana (as they proceed to their destination, weapons are disassembled and their pieces are given to the women of the band to hide on their bodies or as pieces of jewelry and clothing adornments ... older weapons are given to the Army) ... the Army takes the Indians' ponies, but does distribute rations, including sugar and coffee.  At the fort, they are placed in a barracks structure built to hold 75 soldiers, not the 150 Indians it soon contains (the structure is about the size of a single tennis court) ... and at first, they are free to roam the compound during the day.  Things change however when word is received from the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schulz, that the Northern Cheyenne must return to the Darlington Agency, Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr. becomes the new commanding officer of Fort Robinson, and Morning Star's son, Bull Hump leaves the fort to visit relatives living with the Sioux at their Pine Ridge Reservation.  Vowing they will die before going back south, Morning Star's band is soon confined to the too small barracks, bars are placed on the windows, and to gain compliance to move south again, Wessells cuts off rations to the Indians, including refusing to give them wood for heating.

Wessells, Jr.     

Recreated Barracks

Schurz

Finally pushed too far again (Indian negotiator, Wild Hog is taken prisoner and put in shackles attempting to talk Wessells into providing the Cheyenne rations) on the night of January 9, 1879, with weapons reassembled, the Indians fire on their guards and break out of the compound, with the U.S. Army in close pursuit.  By morning, 65 escapees are back in captivity, with 23 wounded during their brief flight.  Over the next two weeks, more of the Northern Cheyenne are found and taken prisoner (Morning Star makes it to the Pine Ridge Agency and is eventually allowed to live out his years near Fort Keogh in the Montana Territory where a new Cheyenne reservation has been created ... he dies there in 1883 at the age of 73), or killed resisting the authorities.  Eventually, the escapees are reduced to a group of 32 men, women, and children, led by Little Finger Nail, which Wessells' command locates about 35 miles northwest of Fort Robinson in the Hat Creek Bluffs.

The Barracks Breakout

Memorial

Forming a roughly circular defensive position in a dry creek bed (that will soon be known as "The Pit"), the 32 are surrounded by four companies of soldiers, about 150 men.  Surrender requested, when it is refused, a firefight begins between the two opposing sides.  First moving to within first 12 yards, and then 5 yards, Wessels' men pound the Indian position with carbine fire ... twice they stop to once more request the surrender of the Cheyenne, and are greeted with more bullet refusals, one of which wounds Wessells in the head.  Eventually, as soldiers fire into "The Pit" from its lip, three warriors, singing their death songs (one with a revolver, one with a knife, and one with only his bare hands), jump into their attackers and are shot down, ending the one-sided fight, soon to be called the Fort Robinson Massacre, a clash that claims the lives of 17 men (one of them, the group's leader, Little Finger Nail), 4 women, and 2 children, while severely wounding an additional six of the nine Northern Cheyenne that are left alive when the fighting finally ends (the dead are buried together where they fell, until 1994, when they are reclaimed by their tribe and re-interred at the Northern Cheyenne Reservation on a hill overlooking Busby, Montana).  Army casualties consist of three wounded soldiers, that includes Wessells, and the deaths of five ... Farrier George Brown, Sergeant James Taggert, Private George Nelson, Private Henry A. DuBlois, and Indian Scout Woman's Clothes). 

"The Pit" By Frederic Remington - 1897

Through The Smoke Sprang A Daring Soldier By Frederic Remington - 1897

Newspaper Account

The heroic and tragic endurance Exodus finally over, and their battles with U.S. authorities completed ... the massacre contributes one more blight to the history of western expansion across the North American continent.  Summed up by a New York Times, an editorial of the time states: "The bloody affair at Fort Robinson is, let us hope, the final scene in an Indian drama which, from beginning to end, has been a disgrace to the Government and the people ... it is demonstrable fact that the Government had been shamefully remiss in its treatment of these Indians, and thus tempted them to the revolt which has had so bloody a course and ending."  Amen!

Cheyenne Prisoners

The Final Resting Place Of Little Coyote
And Morning Star