OCR Text |
Show out proper disposition began firing promiscuously with the result notod by General Mi tap, the Indians probably responding as a matter of self-defence. Under tho circumstances It will perhaps never be known how many troopers full from the. bullets of their own comrades com-rades or from those of the enemy. It is a pretty mess this whole Indian war. i The telegraphic correspondence between be-tween Generals Scholleld and Miles shows that it was General Miles who caused the suspension and investigation of Colonel Forsyth because of his defective de-fective disposition of the troops due to which "a large number of soldier.! w ere killed and wounded by the lire of their own ranks, and a very large number of women and childron were kiik'd in addition to the Indian men." This disclosure from the highest ollicial authority au-thority is decidedly interesting. After this we shouldn't bo surprised if it I turns out that the Indians were not the aggressors at all. It has always been a source of amazement to those knovv-ing knovv-ing something of Indian warfare that the hostiles should have attacked a superior su-perior number, handicapped as they were by their women and children, when they might have made a better fight before they surrendered in the bad lands to a much inferior force. It is not impossible that the troopers troop-ers misinterpreted the throwing down of the blankets by the Indians as a signal for hostilities to open and with. |