Excerpt from The Bozeman Trail, Vol. 2: Historical Accounts of the Blazing of the Overland Routes Into the Northwest, and the Fights With Red Cloud's Warriors If ever a roll Of honor is made Of the unnumbered heroes Of the great American Western Frontier who performed deeds Of valor without thought of recom pense or reward, but whose sole thought was duty, prompted by the necessity for instant action, that the lives Of others might be saved, the name Of John (por tugee) Phillips should be written high on the scroll Of fame. For lofty self-devotion and sacrifice it stands unparalleled, and for bravery and physical endurance has seldom, if ever, been equaled. And this is the story of Portugee Phillips' courageous deed: The Fetterman disaster Of December 21, 1866, had dropped like a thunderbolt on the little garrison at Fort Phil Kearney. Eighty-one men from the hated fort on the Little Piney had fallen victims to Red Cloud's strategic cunning in less than a brief half-hour Of combat. Glutted and drunken with their bloody victory over F etterman's command, the triumphant Sioux now felt that it would be a matter Of hours only before the balance of the already-depleted force behind the log Stockade would be in their power. And doubt less nothing but the awful, yet providential, severity Of the weather prevented this. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.