Sep 26, 2019 - Sale 2517

Sale 2517 - Lot 242

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(WEST.) Duggan, Andrew P. Letter describing a harrowing near-disastrous ambush by Indians at Buffalo Station. Autograph Letter Signed twice (as "Harvey Duggan" and "A.P.D.") to his soldier friend Charles "Paddy" Gill of the 8th Cavalry. 2 pages, 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches; folds, minimal foxing and wear. With full transcript. Fort Dodge, KS, 26 November 1875
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Andrew P. Duggan (1845-1911), a native of Ireland, was a sergeant in the 5th United States Cavalry. A few months before Little Bighorn, he reports on men from his regiment nearly getting massacred themselves, at the 27 October action at Buffalo Station, KS: "One of our companeys came near getting gobbild by the Indians. Company H was out in a scout when they came upon a partey of Indians. The chief come out with a flag of truce and told the captain that they were out on a hunt and had a pass. He then invited the captain with his companey down in an island to count them. The captain dismounted his companey and made the men lead their horses in on a narrow trail. When they go in, thair was no other way but by this trail to get out." The captain asked a sergeant to go with an Indian to their camp, "and when he got out a little ways wit the Indian, the Indian threw himself over on the side of his poney and blazed away at the 1st serg't and missed him." Then all hell broke loose: "The Indians opened a cross fire on the companey, and the captain was the first man to mount his horse and skeddadle, and all of the companey followed him, leaving three men behind them. . . . The first sergeant got volunteers to go back to get the men's bodeys, but the captain would not let him. One of the men got wounded through the neck and made his way back more dead than alive. . . . [John Morris] Hamilton is the captain's name . . . he is going to get tried for cowerdice." Captain Hamilton remained in the service and reached Lieutenant Colonel by 1896.