It was December 21, 1866; An entire command was destroyed in the war against the Plains Indians in the Wyoming Territory. The loss of life of 76 soldiers, three officers and two civilians in the Battle of Fetterman shocked the country.

The realities of the war are shrouded in mystery, as is the strange story of a soldier who risked his life to deliver important messages from his commander in the same castle.

Journalist and Civil War Veteran Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce shared this story in his story “A Man with Two Lives.” He said David William Duck from the Wyoming border told him a strange story while Duck was traveling alone through hostile country.

Bierce was in the Great Plains during this time and was familiar with all the men involved in the Fetterman Fight.

In mid-1866, General William Babcock had joined Hazen as part of an expedition to inspect military outposts in the Great Plains.

The expedition traveled by horseback and wagon from Omaha and reached San Francisco in December, the month in which the Fetterman Fight took place.

Bierce was awarded the rank of brevet major before resigning from the army and eventually pursuing a successful career as a journalist and author.

‘Dead Duck’ Tells His Story

In 1893, Bierce wrote “Can Such Things Be Possible?” “Duck is a universally respected old man who lives in Aurora, Illinois,” he wrote in his book. Decades after the Fetterman Fight. “But it is commonly known as the ‘Dead Duck’.”

This is the story Duck told Bierce.

“In the fall of 1866, I was a private soldier of the Eighteenth Infantry. My company was one of those stationed at Fort Phil Kearney, under the command of Colonel Carrington. The country is more or less familiar with the history of that garrison, especially by the Sioux, whose commander was the brave but reckless Captain Fetterman. the massacre of a detachment of eighty-one men and officers – none of whom escaped – for disobedience of his orders.

“I was attempting to convey important dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith on the Big Horn when this occurred. While the country was swarming with hostile Indians, I traveled by night and concealed myself as best I could before the holiday. It was better to do so, armed with a Henry rifle and three in my knapsack.” I set out on foot, carrying daily supplies.

“For the second hiding place I chose what appeared in the darkness to be a narrow canyon running through a series of rocky hills. It contained many large boulders separated from the slopes of the hills. Behind one of these, in a clump of sagebrush, I prepared my log bed and soon fell asleep.

“It looked as if I had barely closed my eyes, but in fact it was near noon when I was awakened by the sound of a rifle, the bullet hitting the rock right above my body. A group of Indians had followed me and almost surrounded me; The shot was fired with terrible aim by a man who saw me from the hillside above.

“The smoke from his rifle gave him away and as soon as I stood up he stood up and started rolling down the hill. Then I ducked and ran, dodging through clumps of sagebrush through a storm of bullets from invisible enemies.

trapped

“The vagabonds didn’t get up and give chase, which I found quite odd, because they must have known they had to deal with a single man on my trail. The reason for their inaction soon became apparent. I hadn’t gone a hundred yards before I reached the edge of my run, the top of the valley, which I took for a canyon. It was almost vertical and covered with vegetation. It ended in a barren, concave rock chest. I was caught in that dead end like a bear in a pen; they just had to wait.

“They waited. For two days and nights, crouching behind a mesquite-topped rock, with the cliff at my back, suffering from thirst and absolutely hopeless of salvation, I fought my friends at long range, shooting at them from time to time. The smoke of their rifles, as well as mine. At night, of course, I didn’t dare to close my eyes and insomnia was a great torture.

“I remember the morning of the third day, which I knew would be my last. I remember, somewhat vaguely, that in despair and delirium I rushed into the clearing and began firing my repeating rifle, seeing no one to shoot. And I no longer remember that fight.”

To escape

“The next thing I knew, I was pulling myself out of the river at dusk. I didn’t have a scrap of clothing on and didn’t know anything about where I was, but I traveled north all night, cold and with sore feet. At dawn I found myself at my destination, Fort CF Smith, but my messages were gone.” The first man I met was a sergeant named William Briscoe, whom I knew very well.

“‘Dave Duck,’ I answered; ‘who should I be?’

“He was looking like an owl.

“‘Are you in sight?’ he said, and I observed him move a little further away from me. ‘What’s up?’ he added.

“I told him what happened to me the day before. He heard me, was still looking, then said:

“‘Dear friend, if you are Dave Duck, I must inform you that I buried you two months ago. I was out with a small expedition and found your body riddled with bullet holes and your scalp freshly cut off; and I’m sorry—just where you said you fought. I went to my tent.” Come, I will show you your clothes and some letters I have received from you; the commander has your messages.’

“He fulfilled this promise. He determinedly showed me the clothes I was wearing and the letters I had put in my pocket. He made no objection, then took me to the commandant, who heard my story and coldly ordered Briscoe to take me to the guard.

“On the way there I said: ‘Bill Briscoe, did you really and truly bury the body you found in these clothes?’

“‘Of course,’ he replied – ‘just as I told you. Okay, that was Dave Duck; most of us knew him. And now you bloody impostor, you’d better tell me who he was.’

“‘I’d give anything to know,’ I said.

“A week later, I escaped from the police station and got out of the country as fast as I could. I came back twice, looking for that fateful spot in the hills, but I couldn’t find it.”

Journalist

Bierce, who recorded this story, was a Union soldier during the Civil War and fought in several battles, including the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. This terrifying experience was the source of many short stories and the memoir “What I Saw at Shiloh.” “

During his lifetime, Bierce was better known as a journalist than a fiction writer. He wrote realistically about the horrors he saw in war and pioneered the psychological horror story.

As a result of his fame as a journalist, many of his ghost and war stories, including “The Man with Two Lives”, were perceived by some as fact rather than fiction, and the line between real and fake became blurred.

In 1913, 71-year-old Bierce told reporters that he went to Mexico to gain firsthand experience of the Mexican Revolution. He disappeared without a trace, one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history. He was never seen again, his disappearance becoming legendary.

Bierce leaves behind this strange story about the Wyoming area, allowing readers to consider what is real and what is imagined about this former soldier.

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at [email protected].