was well filled with fallen horses and dead warriors.

Forsyth ordered meat cut from the bodies of his dead horses and
buried in the wet sand so that it might keep as long as possible.
Lieutenant Beecher, his chief of scouts, was killed, as also were
Surgeon Mooers, and Scouts Smith, Chalmers, Wilson, Farley, and
Day. Seventeen others of the party were wounded, some severely.
Forsyth himself was shot three times, once in the head. His left
leg was broken below the knee, and his right thigh was ripped up
by a rifle ball, which caused him extreme pain. Later he cut the
bullet out of his own leg, and was relieved from some part of the
pain. After his rescue, when his broken leg was set it did not
suit him, and he had the leg broken twice in the hospital and
reset until it knitted properly.

Forsyth's men lay under fire under a blazing sun in their holes
on the sandbar for nine days. But the savages never dislodged
them, and at last they made off, their women and children beating
the death drums, and the entire village mourning the unreturning
brave. On the second day of the fighting Forsyth had got out
messengers at extreme risk, and at length the party was rescued
by a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry. The Indians later said that
they had in all over six hundred warriors in this fight. Their
losses, though variously estimated, were undoubtedly heavy.

It was encounters such as this which gradually were teaching the
Indians that they could not beat the white men, so that after a
time they began to yield to the inevitable.

What is known as the Baker Massacre was the turning-point in the