If you try to retreat to the main command you and every man under you will be killed before you have retreated a mile." He immediately saw the sense of my advice.

Issuing orders to enter the ravine, he dismounted with his men behind the bank.

There we stood off the Indians till the soldiers in the rear, hearing the shots, came charging to the rescue and drove the Indians away.

The rapidity with which we got into the ravine, and the protection its banks afforded us, enabled us to get away without losing a man.

Had the general's original plan been carried out none of us would have come away to tell the story.