The fight at Beecher Island is the kind of engagement beloved of Western movies – a hard pressed and outnumbered group of scouts saved in the nick of time by the cavalry. Indeed, there were many such fights during the struggle for the West, most of which hardly registered on the national consciousness at all, yet each was responsible in its own little or large way for the shaping of Western folklore.
Here on September 17, 1868, Lieutenant Colonel G. A. Forsyth with a mounted party of 48 scouts, was attacked by a large group of Cheyenne, Arapaho and Lakota on the Arickaree River. Forsyth, seeing no viable route for retreat, made a stand on a sandbar in the river. The action went on for three days and led to the death of the famed Cheyenne war leader Roman Nose. Known for his elaborate and lengthy preparations for battle, Roman Nose had initially abstained from the fight, believing he would die if he fought that day because he had violated a protective taboo.
It was typical for Plains Indians warriors to have a special war medicine—a decorated shield, a special paint, an amulet, etc.—which would protect them in battle. For Roman Nose, his war medicine was a special war bonnet which featured a single buffalo horn and a long tail of red and black eagle feathers. Roman Nose was especially sensitive to the observance of religious taboos prior to battle, which included always being careful to avoid eating anything touched by metal prior to a battle – if food had been pierced with metal and eaten prior to battle, then a metal bullet would be able to pierce the flesh.
Roman Nose arrived at the battle late. His war medicine had been contaminated by a Lakota woman who unknowingly fixed fried bread for him in a metal skillet and had removed it with a metal fork. Knowing that he would be killed, he rode to the front of the line and was shot in the small of the back. He died in the Cheyenne camp that night. Along with other warriors who had been killed in the battle, his body was placed on a scaffold, exposed to the sky and the wind. Later, American troops pulled the scaffolds down, leaving the bodies on the ground.
On the Scout’s side six died, including Lieutenant Beecher, after whom the battlefield was named. Had it not been for the epic journey undertaken by Jack Stilwell and Pierre Trudeau, who Forsyth had dispatched on foot to get help from Fort Wallace 70 miles away. then the defenders on the sandbank might have been overcome.
Major Forsyth, the scout party’s leader, wrote of Roman Nose:
“He was a man over six feet and three inches in height, beautifully formed, and save for a crimson silk sash knotted around his waist and his moccasins on his feet, perfectly naked. His face was hideously painted in alternate lines of red and black, and his head crowned with a magnificent war bonnet, from which, just above his temples and curving slightly forward, stood up two short, black buffalo horns, while its ample length of eagles’ feathers and herons’ plumes trailed wildly on the wind behind him; and as he came swiftly on at the head of his charging warriors, in all his barbaric strength and grandeur, he proudly rode that day, the most perfect type of savage warrior it has been my lot to see.”
Roman Nose was later buried on the ridge of the battlefield. Beecher Island Battlefield is now a historical monument and memorial to the dead buried there.