Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 Read Free Page A

Bugler—John Uhlman
    Saddler-Sergeant—Jacob Feathers
    Surgeon—Louis S. Tesson
    Veterinary Surgeon—Francis Regen
    Company A
    Captain—Robert P. Wilson
    First Lieutenant—George F. Price
    Company B
    Captain—Robert Sweatman
    First Lieutenant—Jules C.A. Schenofsky
    Second Lieutenant—Charles H. Rockwell
    Company C
    Captain—Thomas E. Maley
    First Lieutenant—Edward P. Doherty
    Second Lieutenant—Frank C. Morehead
    Company D
    Captain—Samuel S. Sumner
    First Lieutenant—Calbraith P. Rodgers
    Second Lieutenant—Robert A. Edwards
    Company E
    Captain—Philip Dwyer
    First Lieutenant—Robert P. Wilson (till 6/12/69)
    â€”Robert H. Montgomery (after 6/12/69)
    Second Lieutenant—Jacob A. Augur
    Company F
    Captain—William H. Brown
    First Lieutenant—Edward W. Ward
    Second Lieutenant—William C. Forbush
    Company G
    Captain—John H. Kane
    First Lieutenant—Jacob Almy
    Second Lieutenant—J. Edwin Leas
    Company H
    Captain—Leicester Walker
    First Lieutenant—Peter V. Haskin
    Company I
    Captain—Gustavus Urban
    First Lieutenant—George F. Mason
    Second Lieutenant—Earl D. Thomas
    Company K
    Captain—Julius W. Mason
    First Lieutenant—James Burns
    Second Lieutenant—Bernard Reilly, Jr.
    Company L
    Captain—Alfred B. Taylor
    First Lieutenant—Charles B. Brady
    Company M
    Captain—Edward H. Leib
    First Lieutenant—John B. Babcock
    Second Lieutenant—William J. Volkmar
    Corporal—John M. Kyle

Prologue
    October 1868
    As bad as the whiskey was, it proved the cure.
    By the time he had thrown the fourth splash of its liquid fire against the back of his throat, Seamus Donegan sensed the tension easing the long cords in his neck. Not to mention the tension seeping from those great muscles in his back which bore the scar carved there by Confederate steel. Slowly, ever slowly, his big frame strung with muscle was loosening like a worn-out buggy spring after a long haul of it over a washboard road.
    It had been some ride for the Irishman. His great bulk now sat hulking like a predator over the small glass all but hidden within the big, roughened hands. Returned from the dead he was again, and working steadily to pickle himself even more than the last.
    Back from the grave that had done its best to swallow the Civil War veteran at Beecher Island.
    In the space of the past three weeks, Donegan had returned with Major George A. Forsyth’s band of civilian scouts to Fort Hays, where the survivors of the bloody, nine-day island siege were promptly reorganized under Lt. Silas Pepoon. Yet, without a look back, the Irishman decided he had had himself enough of the plains and Indians, enough of blood and sweat and death to last him for some time to come. Seamus pointed his nose north, aiming for Nebraska. He had started there once before—a year gone now.
    Nebraska. There in the Platte River country near Osceola, the widow Wheatley had promised she would be waiting for him to fetch her.
    But Donegan’s quest for Uncle Liam O’Roarke had pulled him off that trail to Osceola and to Jenny. That quest, and the Cheyenne of Roman Nose. *
    Seamus was too late getting out to the Wheatley place.
    He angrily threw another splash against the back of his throat, remembering the old woman’s eyes as she glared up at him in the late afternoon light from beneath her withered, bony hand.
    â€œNo, mister. Jenny took herself and the boys back east. Dead set on getting back to her own folk, she was,” James Wheatley’s mother confided.
    â€œOhio?” he had asked numbly.
    She had nodded, her eyes softening, perhaps recognizing what crossed the tall Irishman’s face. “Ohio.”
    He had thanked her, crawled into the saddle without feeling much, and reined about toward the south. Kansas and Fort Hays.
    Nursing his grief and anger like a private badge of passion he alone could