The Days After
August Hettinger, an enlisted man in Company H, Eighth Infantry,
detailed with a light artillery battery, reached the battlefield about
three o'clock on 30 December. In a reminiscence, he described the
scene as follows:
"Between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon we saw several of the Indian
scouts galloping back to the command, and a few minutes later we were
halted and the command given to corral the train. In the meantime Major
Whitney advanced over the hill with the cavalry, but before we got the
train in shape for defense an orderly came back and ordered us to advance
again. About a half mile further on we crossed the brow of a small
hill and beheld a small valley, about one-half mile wide, spread out in front
of us, a small creek fringed with brush and cottonwoods, meandered down
thru the center and finally disappeared to the northwest in some pine covered
rough hills. This was our first sight of Wounded Knee creek. Between
us and the creek there was a small egg-shaped hill, approximately fifty
feet higher than the surrounding bottom land. This hill was occupied by
the cavalry, whom we soon joined. We were told that a battle had taken
place the day before, on December 29th, just across a creek from us, but
with whom we had no way of knowing. We could see on the other side
of the creek the ground strewn with the bodies of horses and even wagons
and the remnants of a burned camp and what looked like the bodies of
human beings could be seen over [an] area of 200 or 300 acres. The first
thing the troops did was to start a trench large enough to hold all of the
120 men in the command. The job actually took several days, for the
ground was frozen as hard as flint. Before we got something to eat Major
Whitney took the scouts, the doctor and the stretcher bearers and my
ammunition wagon with hospital supplies and went over to the battlefield
to take care of the wounded if there were any. I just got as far as the first
dead pony and Indian, when the mules gave the place just one whiff and
look and stampeded, as luck would have it, toward the creek, where they
finally tangled themselves up in the woods and here I tied them, took my
gun and went back to the battlefield. The dead Indians were laying around
single and in bunches over about 200 acres, and the first sight of the mutilated
bodies and the expressions of the faces had the effect of turning
one sick. But, of course, you get used to it. Our first effort was to look
for wounded in order to find out what regiment had been in the fight;
we found after a careful search five live wounded Indians. We packed them
to an old cabin and made them as comfortable as possible They didn't,
however, answer a single question of the scouts. The only word they ever
uttered was "water." We never found out until the next evening that the
fight had been between the 7th Cavalry and Big Foot's tribe These
wounded had been lying on the battlefield a little over 24 hours and we
knew they could not live
One squaw was shot five times through the body. But to the last they
were defiant and our reward for making them comfortable were looks of
the blackest hate You could not help but admire such courage in the face
of the dead. As I stated we made them as comfortable as possible for
the night, but we found them all dead next morning. The battlefield was
divided by a deep washout 30 to 40 feet wide and all of 15 feet deep;
several cow trails crossed this dry gulch and near the lower end, toward
the creek, a wagon road crossed this also. In searching for the wounded I ran
down this road and on coming out on the other bank I was confronted
by a pile of dead Indians. On top of all, and in a sitting position, with
his arm extended full length and the forefinger pointing straight up in the
sky, was an Indian, painted green as grass from head to toe, and looking
with wide open, clear eye straight at me It startled me and the next second
I had a bead on his forehead, but second thought made me hesitate
about pulling the trigger, for while a soldier will kill in the line of duty,
unnecessary shooting is murder nevertheless, and so, after looking at him
for a minute over the sights of the gun, I noticed that he never batted
his eyes and so I came to the conclusion that he was dead and so he was."
from: Comrade August Hettinger, "Personal Recollections of the Messiah Craze Campaign,
1890-91," Winners of the West, 30 Jan. 1935, p. 1. Born on 6 January 1867, in
Baden, Germany, Hettinger retired from the United States Army after eight years and
finished his career with the Forest Service. Hettinger, WPA Subject File 1162, Wyoming
State Archives and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyo.
