104 CAVALRY SWEPT AWAY. 



this is not at all an exaggerated supposition, will be 

 apparent from the following still more serious and fatal 

 disaster, which overtook Company F. of the 3rd U.S. 

 Cavalry on the 3ist of May, 1873, in the valley of 

 Blackwood, in the State of Nebraska. It is an ab- 

 stract taken from the report of the Captain, which is 

 quoted at length in Colonel Dodge's work 



"About 9 p.m. a terrible freshet without any apparent 

 cause swept down the valley, carrying everything before it. 

 Men, horses, tents, army waggons, were swept along like 

 corks. For five days previous we had had no rain, and 

 where all this water came from so suddenly, I cannot yet 

 understand. The valley of Blackwood is about 45 miles 

 long, and about I to i-|- miles wide. This entire stretch of 

 country was one raging torrent, from six to seven feet deep, 

 and how any man or horse escaped, is marvellous. The 

 only thing that prevented total destruction, was the fact that 

 my camp was surrounded by timber, and as the men were 

 carried off, they were enabled to save themselves by catching 

 the limbs of trees. When day broke on the first of June, it 

 showed almost all the men of my company on the tops of 

 the trees, without any covering except the remnants of under- 

 clothing, and beneath them, the torrent still raging. After 

 the lapse of a few hours the water began to fall, and a few 

 men who could swim got to the hills. Afterwards the others, 

 and myself, were got off by various other means. Six men 

 were drowned, and twenty-six horses lost." 



The commanding officer of the regiment, at Fort 

 McPherson, in his endorsement of this report, remarks, 



" Nothing but the courage and coolness of Captain 



and his non-commissioned officers, prevented the loss 

 of the entire command. " * 



These extracts, collected from Colonel Dodge's book, 



* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, pp. 87, 88. 



