The Kansas City Times from Kansas City, Missouri • 30

Wednesday September 18 1968 Death and Heroism on a Sandspit a hr Kansas City altmrs (The Morning Kansas City Star) The Kansas City Star Company Owner and Publisher MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press exclusively is entitled to use for republlcatlon of all local news published herein as well as all AP dispatches AILING SPACE PROGRAM LOSES ITS HEAD of a manned moon landing sometime next year But he also leaves a truncated space program whose goals and capabilities for the longer future are not at this moment clearly defined and may well defy definition until the massive commitment in Vietnam can be ended STATE WATER RIGHTS LAWS WILL BE A NECESSITY This is the second part of a 2-part story of the Battle of Beecher Island The first part appeared on this page yesterday morning By Dwight Pennington (The Star's Feature Editor) SURROUNDED by most a thousand dians Maj George A Forsyth and the 50 men in his command knew they could not escape by flight Behind them was a sandspit between theTwo almost dry channels of tlw Arikaree river later to be called Beecher island and here they decided to make a stand At the command they dashed across the 90 feet of sand in the riverbed and began to entrench The horses were tied around the perimeter as a preliminary breastworks Then the men started digging with the butcher knives and tin plates in their packs The attackers paused obviously surprised by the maneuver Then realizing that the frontiersmen were strengthening their position the Indians rushed forward through the long grass on the shore and poured a steady fire onto the island These were no bow-and-arrow fighters Though some used the Weekend of Commemoration at Historic Site OBSERVANCE of the centennial of the Battle of Beecher Island will begin next Saturday afternoon at the historic battlefield nine mile north of 396 on Colorado 61 Sports events and shows of antique cars arrowheads and other hobby collections are scheduled in the afternoon and a country music program at night There will be a worship service Sunday mornfng followed by a barbecue John Flkberg of Wray Colo president of the Beecher Island Battle Memorial as-s i a i reports 1700 pounds of barbecued beef and buffalo meat will be served the visitors by the association assisted by the Wrav Lions club Other food wiil be available at concession stands The chief speaker will be the national president of the uture Farmers of America Greg Bamford He lives at Haxtun Colo about 75 miles from the battle site so is a near neighbor as great plains distances go It is pointed out that tourist facilities in the area are sparse The nearest motels are at Wray 17 miles north of Beecher island and St Kas 28 miles south and east The moment when Roman Nose was hit as he led the charge against Beecher Island is pictured in this painting by a Kansas City artist Dan Jacobson DURING more than seven years the name of James Webb has become synonymous with this and its occasional in outer space This week Webb resigned as administrator of the space agency Webb was named to the top space job by President Kennedy in early 1961 three months before the first flight by an American astronaut Alan Shepard jr aboard the one-man Mercury capsule He brought to the post a background as a lawyer and corporate executive as well as credentials from public service director and undersecretary of state in successive Truman administrations It was mixed fortune to preside over both the mid-decade boom and the current sharp decline of American space activity The NASA budget roughly doubled every year from fiscal 1961 through 1963 on the way to its peak of more than 52 billion dollars in 1965 Then in 1966 with Congress growing sensitive to the pressures on the American economy of a costly Asian war the cutbacks began The tragic spacecraft fire of January 1967 which took the lives of three astronauts in an Apollo ground test brought discouragement and a hint of scandal over sloppy contract performance With the Gemini 2-man space series complete and development costs on the Apollo moon pro gram beginning to taper off the space budget slipped in 1966 by 75 million in 1967 by 207 million and in the last fiscal year by 380 million The appropriation bill for fiscal 1969 now in congressional conference committee would allot NASA a 6-year low of 4 billion Webb has made no secret of his displeasure with this trend He has argued and he repeated this appraisal on the occasion of his that by failing to look beyond the exploit of putting astronauts on the moon the was funding a space program designed to finish in second place to the Russians AT some time in the near future Missouri will need legislation regulating the use of water for irrigation It will be a development of the times Missouri has not been one of the big irrigation states for the simple reason that in most years rainfall is ample for crops Now however with the big investments made in hybrid seeds fertilizer herbicides and insecticides farmers cannot afford to gamble on the weather Irrigation perhaps in relatively small amounts applied just at the critical time can be the assurance farmers need for abundant yields the only kind that will pay for the heavy investments in putting in the crop The irrigated land in Missouri has jumped from about 2500 acres in 1949 to 100000 acres this year Specialists at the University of Missouri predict 1 million acres will be irrigated by 1980 The greatest concentration of irrigation now is in the Bootheel in the Mississippi river lowlands in the southeastern corner of the state There irrigation is from wells and apparently supply is no problem In many parts of the state irrigation will be accomplished from ponds or streams It is when a farmer depends on a stream for irrigation water that trouble is most likely to develop One farmer pumping from a small stream may not create any difficulties but if his neighbors above and below him also start to pump the stream probably will go dry especially in drought when irrigation would be needed the most Missouri have laws which take care of situations like this It follows the riparian rights which says essentially that any person owning land adjoining a natural stream or lake has the right to make a of the water flowing past his land The term is not clearly defined in law and where there have been controversies juries have been called upon to make decisions in each individual case Irrigation equipment is expensive Likewise farmers make heavier planting investments when they are assured of ample water through irrigation Therefore as time goes on it will be necessary to have laws which will both state and clarify a before he can afford to make these investments and mounted Indians in the background rode away They would not give up so easily the defenders agreed what next? The answer came soon There was a bugle call downstream Then out of a little ravine came thundering and yelling a line of horsemen in headlong attack Leading them was one of the most impressive Indians of all the plains country Chief Roman Nose of the Cheyennes He was 6 feet 2 and sat high in the saddle in his feathers and war paint for it was said he disdained bullets Sure of his own immortality he rode full tilt at the front of the line The frontiersmen turned to meet the new threat It seemed the hard-riding Indians must inundate the island and massacre the defenders But the men keeping their heads in the pandemonium poured a steady fire into the careening columns Horses and riders went down And then Roman Nose And the medicine man beside him The steam went out of the assault A knot of warriors gathered around Roman Nose and held him on his horse as they The men stayed Forsyth wrote in high praise of them later saying that only one man failed him The man cowered in the hole he had dug refusing even to attempt a shot An Indian a bead on he said and would kill him the minute he raised his head Casualties Mount The disciplined and carefully aimed fire of the other frontiersmen began to slow the assault Indian women and children on the ridge to the northwest of the battlefield had been cheering their braves on Now their cheers were mingled with wails of mourning as dead and wounded warriors were carried back to them On the island too casualties mounted One of the first wounded was the major with a bullet in the flesh of his right thigh Another shattered the bones in his right leg between knee and ankle Later a third passed through his hat grazing his head He dismissed the resulting headaches as minor but after it was all over a surgeon lifted out a piece of bone the bullet had broken from his skull Lieut Frederick Beecher fatally wounded in the charge led by Roman Nose Is honored in the name of the battle's site So the waiting went on The days were hot on the shadeless island as September days usually are on the high plains and the nights were cold Then on the ninth day after the attack one of the men saw something moving in the distance There was momentary fear that the Indians were returning then the cry: the God above us an It was a Negro troop under Lt Col Carpenter in the vanguard of a relief force Amazingly all of the wounded recovered including the multiple-scarred major who was breveted a brigadier general in the regular Army for his heroic stand Years later a chance meeting Wrote a final chapter to General story of the battle He was participating in a grand buffalo hunt given by General Sheridan for Grand Duke Alexis of Russia At an entertainment one evening a government scout told him a young chief of the Brule Sioux wanted to talk with him about the battle the The young man asked him through an interpreter how many casualties the troop had suffered Forsyth replied frankly and asked about Indian losses The brave raised both hands seven times and one hand again said the interpreter heaps of The Sioux spoke again wants to know whether you did not get enough of him yes all I wanted How about The brave smiling grimly opened his blanket and pointed to a wound where a bullet evidently had gone through his lungs THE point is debatable Most observers give better-than-even odds that the will beat the Soviets to a manned lunar landing There is also evidence of an American lead in certain aspects of spacecraft technology vehicle recovery and the instrumentation of sophisticated unmanned ships Webb maintains however that Soviet scientists have held their lead in giant booster development (the Saturn is the most powerful rocket yet flown but there are persistent rumors of a far larger Russian version about to be tested) Certainly there is no arguing with the contention by Webb and others that the limitations imposed by the pending 1969 budget will virtually cede deep space to the Soviets at least through the mid-1970s and probably beyond Many key projects in the planetary exploration program have already been abandoned or put on ice Key scientists and planners are drifting gradually back into private industry And even if a vigorous planetary program were to be funded next year it would take time to regroup personnel and regain impetus Such are the pressures of war and economy on an agency whose requests were once the sacrosanct item in the national budget Much as we may regret the cutbacks we cannot escape the belief that they are realistic and necessary in light of other urgent priorities Webb took some pains in announcing his departure to say it was not prompted by frustration over budget fortunes The disclaimer does not ring entirely true Surely the man who guided the agency during its salad years could find little to relish in the lean spell that is clearly ahead To his successor Dr Thomas 0 Paine his deputy since last March Webb leaves an organization whatever else may be said has written a stunning record of achievement in the greatest adventure of our age He leaves an Apollo lunar project that barring some unforeseen setback could well meet its deadline If Curses Were Only Loaves Once upon a just last year in there was a place in Communist China called Hungshui commune where a income was calculated not on how much he produced but on the extent of his political activity Chairman Mao was very proud of that commune Every family had a straw effigy of President Liu Shao-chi archenemy of the cultural revolution hanging on the household wall in a convenient place to be hated Other effigies of Liu were burned on special occasions and some were placed beside the toilet But it was in the holding of meetings that the people of Hungshui commune excelled Last year according to the province radio there were 25000 anti-Liu rallies That means that at least once every 20 minutes night and day the farmers got out of bed or abandoned their hoes in the fields to meet and denounce the president This year in Hungshui commune there are a lot of sleepy farmers And no fat ones The obelisk commemorating the battle is flanked by individual stones memorializing the five men who died there In the background rises the bluff where Indian women and children cheered the braves on and mourned their dead and wounded cal help he lingered through several hours of suffering Forsyth noted that he was the nephew of the famous minister Henry Ward Beecher who had led in the campaign to arm free-staters in Kansas before the Civil war and in whose honor their rifles were called Lieutenant Beecher had the major noted with great gallantry through the Civil war and was lamed for life with a bullet through his knee at the battle of The Indians had indeed done their best The battle tapered off and finally ended Perhaps the Indians were simply waiting to starve out the defenders ight Recalled One of these Sigmund Shle-singer when asked in later years whether he had killed any Indians replied: My answer must truthfully be that I do not know The conditions were such speaking for myself that I did not consider it safe to watch the results of a shot At one time I threw a hatful of sand that I had scraped up in my pit to the top of the excavation exposing myself more than usual when a hail of bullets struck my hill of sand almost blinding me This will explain why I did not look for The Colorado magazine published by the state Historical Society of Colorado notes that Shlesinger son of a New York merchant family had traveled west at 16 to seek his fortune in gentler pursuits Four years later he joined the Forsyth expedition because he was out of funds A very sketchy diary which he kept of part of the operation noted under date of September 21: 3 Indians which were found about 15 feet from my hole consealt in The men were low on rations when the fighting began On the first night they cut meat from the dead horses and mules burying some of it in the sand but even that was putrid after three days Water was less of a problem even before rain fell on the third night the men had discovered that they could find water by digging 6 feet into the sand One day a coyote which ventured too close wound up in the stew in fact was boiled three times to extract every bit of nourishment When a trooper found a few sand plums and gave one to the major he thought it the most delectable food he ever had eaten Hunger and suffering grew as days passed with dwindling hope of succor Two volunteers had been sent out the first night to summon help from Ft Wallace 110 miles away On the third day Forsyth drafted an urgent appeal and that night it to two of my best John Donovan and A Pliley The two were unable to get past the Indians the first night and turned back They succeeded the second night and reached Ft Wallace an hour ahead of the men who had left the island the first night of the battle A scheme to conceal their tracks by wearing the mocassins of dead Indians and walking backward caused them unexpected misery The mocassins got wet in the rivulet of water in the Arikaree and the soles were softened allowing the thorns of the plentiful cactus to penetrate Dodging Indians and hiding by day they finally reached Ft Wallace after four days The major meanwhile had suffered another injury In a lull in the fighting he asked four men to hold him up in a blanket so that he could study the situation As they did a few shots came from the Indians One man dropped his corner of the blanket and the major fell the impact thrust the broken bones of his left leg through the skin compounding the fracture The shots signaled no new attack Gradually the numbers of Indians dwindled The women and children disappeared from the bluff over the battlefield The defenders seldom saw Indians but were sure they were still being watched When after six days no rescue party had arrived and the Indians seemed to have withdrawn Major Forsyth summoned all the able-bodied men He suggested that they set out for Ft Wallace leaving the wounded was the unanimous reply A BibisL Uqaasl oa Jodaij Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting Isaiah 26:4 "You Take the Low Road and Take the High All the while the foxholes on the island were deepening though the frontiersmen did not use that term foxhole entered the military vocabulary in World War I Major Forsyth suffering from his first two wounds dragged himself to a central hole and continued to direct the battle Then another blow fell Dr Mooers a civilian with military background was physician to the little command As he moved across the island to treat the commander an Indian bullet hit him in the head He lived three days but was irrational and in great pain Through the bitter hours of death and suffering ahead there was no competent hand to treat the wounded Still the frontiersmen husbanding their ammunition and striving to make each shot count held back the Indian horde At last the firing from the shore began to diminish rode out of range The men on the island were on their feet and their rifles empty were firing their revolvers and shouting taunts down shrieked their commander above the din for your yelled a scout The men lapsed reluctantly into their holes It was a great victory Forsyth turned to his chief scout Abner Grover they do he asked Grover replied that in 30 years on the plains never saw anything like that before I think they have done their level right then we are good for the major answered But the victory had not been won without cost in dead and wounded As the battle ebbed Lieutenant Beecher pulled himself to his side am shot in the side and he said Without medi- traditional weapons many had Remington Henry and Spencer rifles and even some newer Springfield breech-loaders The best of these had been taken from a force of 89 men under Maj William Fetterman ambushed and slain two days after Christmas 1866 near Ft Phil Kearny in Northern Wyoming Some of the defenders of Beecher island were hit in that first assault One was killed Most of the horses went down under that enemy fire some of them wounded were left screaming and plunging at their tethers The frontiersmen short of ammunition could not use bullets to end their suffering Indian war cries added to the pandemonium and some of command shouted demands that they make a run for it Lieutenant Beecher and others joined the major in arguing that an attempt to flee would only result in massacre FORTY YEAR'S AGO By John Doohan The Librarian From The Star Sept 18 1928 Mothers of seventh graders at the William Cullen Bryant school 319 Westover road have agreed to call a halt to social rivalry among their 12- and 13-year-olds Mrs Roy Graham president of the P-T A told mothers that last graduating class had 57 evening dinners and dances The hurricane which took 300 lives in Puerto Rico and hit Florida yesterday is said to have wrecked 90 per cent of the buildings in West Palm Beach The Miami News said the death list in Florida may reach 150 Women who give their age as will be registered next week as usual but election officials believe the exact age should be supplied to prevent fraud In recent registrations men also guard their age Everyone must register between Monday and Thursday next week (This was before permanent registration) Sen William Borah of Idaho will speak at a meeting in Convention hall September 26 the Republican national committee announces Sen Joseph Robinson Democratic nominee for vice-president will speak in the hall the following night Mrs Helen Grissom has resigned as hostess of the convention bureau of the Chamber of Commerce to be in charge of business promotion for the Hotel Muehlebach An ordinance changing the name of Grand avenue from Sixty-third to Sixty-fifth street to Morningside drive was passed by the council Warren Comstock poet and advertising man died His illness did not stay his pen The Star two weeks ago printed his poem Two Who Fought at" Beecher Island Spent Their Later Years in Kansas Citv By John Edward Hicks WHEN relief finally arrived at Beecher island on September 26 five of the Forsyth command had been buried: Lieutenant Beecher Dr Mooers Louis Farley Chalmers and William Wilson In November a party was sent from Ft' Wallace to return the bodies They found Chalmers and Farley but the graves of the others were empty apparently robbed by Indians So none of the dead is buried today under the memorial stones Forsyth continued in a notable military career Most of the others returned to civilian life many settling down in small towns or on farms of Kansas and Oklahoma At least two came to Kansas City ALEXANDER PLILEY who made the run to Ft Wallace for help had an interesting career before and after the battle As a boy he had lived on the farm of his father three miles northeast of Topeka At 18 he drove four yoke of oxen hauling flour across the plains to Denver City and the following year hauled bacon to the same market both products of his farm Returning by way of Leavenworth he enlisted in Co 15th Kansas cavalry Under Col Cloud he fought at Lexington Little Blue -and Westport in the Civil war After Beecher island he was made a captain in Co A 19th Kansas cavalry and sent to fight Indians in the Southwest under the general direction of Gen George A Custer Probably in the late 1870s he came to Kansas City Kansas and raised a family of seven children earning a livelihood by taking sand from the Kaw boating it downstream and selling it to contractors During the winters he cut and stored ice He died February 22 1917 and is buried in the pioneer cemetery at Quindaro A modest reticent hero he would never tell of his own exploits ISAAC THAYER to his friends was born in Boston going to sea at 16 In 12 years he made eight trips around the world In 1849 he came through Kansas City with a party of gold-seekers California bound In the early 1870s he went to Hays Kas where he had a mall and stage coach line to Central City Colo He was elected sheriff of Hays City He was a friend of Buffalo Bill In 1872 at El Dorado he married Miss Mary Riggert of Kansas City They lived in Wichita and then Leavenworth operating a grocery in the latter place In 1881 he came to Kansas City where at 84 he died October 13 1905 He was burjed in Eynwood cemtery.