Fort Leavenworth

You can try different strategies to see if you can change the outcome, right? And you have to face, if the game is written properly, you have the same challenges to face, right, that the generals might have had, like low supplies or you can't move too many guys down this road and how do you organize it? and you have to overcome that.

But if you're doing it differently, aren't you risking making a tear in the time-space continuum because you're changing history? You know, the staff ride guys that I worked with out at Fort Leavenworth, they would do Custer's Last Stand, Battle of Little Bighorn, And they said they would get these officers that just hated Custer's guts.

They thought he was an idiot.

But then they would walk them through the battlefield and say, okay, now here you are.

including the general wounded stillwell one of the scouts ran the gauntlet of the savages and brings report colonel carpenter tenth

cavalry and his command leave immediately to relieve them This was a fragment of the whole dispatch going over the wires from Fort Hays to Fort Leavenworth in Washington.

We had taken enough of it to know that a terrible disaster had befallen the gallant foresight of Sheridan's staff and his plucky band of scouts, who were all civilians and Kansans.

The headquarters of General Sheridan, who was at the date of this narrative in command of the Department of the Missouri, were temporarily established at Fort Harker.

mounds and pour out his heart's thoughts to the gentle and confiding susy who before a month had elapsed promised to be his wife there's no chaplain at the post now said he one evening after they were engaged as they were sitting on the porch of her

father's cabin in the bright moonlight discussing plans for the future and building those airy castles in space as lovers

are wont but i heard from the adjutant yesterday that one had been ordered to harker from fort leavenworth under an escort of a squadron of the fifth cavalry they will be up in a couple of weeks and when he arrives we will get married immediately darling pleadingly continued jack susy blushingly assented to hart's importunity and then he told her that he had saved enough to stock a ranch and build a house that he proposed to leave the government employ as soon as they were married to take up a claim on the elkhorn near her father's so that he would not be separated from her at all or she from her family then jack after cautioning raom who had long before given his consent to the proposed match to keep a sharp lookout for indians started about midnight on his lonely ride back to fort harker where he was obliged to be early the next morning jack arrived at the post long before daylight and went to bed when he reported to the commanding officer the next morning immediately after guard-mount he found himself much to his disgust now that he was in love ordered to guide a scouting party composed of four companies of the seventh cavalry commanded by colonel keogh to the region of pawnee rock and the great bend of the arkansas seventy miles to the southwest of harker where the kiowas under the leadership of the dreaded chief satanta had been for the past fortnight successfully raiding the overland coaches and the freight caravans to new mexico the command to which hart was attached remained away having occasional brushes with the indians for several weeks during its absence the allied tribes had become excessively impudent and threatening they culminated their atrocities in a most fiendish and cruel massacre of the settlers in spillman creek upon the receipt of the news of which the government determined to inaugurate an extended campaign against them in which general sheridan was to take the field in person with such famous indian fighters for his lieutenants as generals sully custer carr and others consequently all the scouting parties were called in to their respective stations by courier to prepare for the impending great conflict of course the moment hart returned to fort harker he made preparations to leave for the ranch at twin mounds and the girl who had so photographed herself on the tablets of his memory it was early the next morning after his arrival at the post he had shaved put on a new suit purchased from the sutler and otherwise made himself presentable after his long scout but he had hardly cinched the saddle on tatonka before an orderly came to the corral and informed him that the commanding officer desired his presence at once so jack with terribly depressed feelings and mentally cursing his luck mounted his horse and rode slowly up to the headquarters where he found the general standing on the porch waiting to receive him jack said he as the scout dismounted i'm awfully sorry to be compelled to call upon you to make another trip right away when you have just returned from such a long one but the fact is there's not another scout at the post they are all away i want you to start immediately for the part of the fifth cavalry are en route from fort saunders here and will probably reach the fort northwest of fort hayes some time to-day it is now only six o'clock looking at his watch you can reach there as soon as they do before if you start now so go at once and guide them in they won't know anything about that country on the river you remember how terribly broken it is out there here are some despatches you are to give to whomever you find in command and he handed the scout a small package of papers all right sir replied hart as he put the bundle in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt i'm off now as soon as i go to my quarters for my saddle-bags and carbine with a sad heart as he cast his eyes on the blue cones of the twin mounds looming up so suggestively of the ranch at their base jack left the post in a few minutes after his interview with general sully fully mindful of the responsible duty entrusted to him hart made excellent time he was anxious to get back as soon as possible by two o'clock he had crossed the saline and when about three miles the other side of where the handsome little village of sylvan to-day nestles so picturesquely in the wealth of wood surrounding he met the troops to whose commander he reported and delivered his despatches he turned with them to the river where as it was now past three the command went into camp for the night after grazing to tonka for half an hour feeding him some corn and eating his own dinner the thought suddenly struck jack to ask permission to go over to the ranch at the foot of the twin mounds whose dual peaks were plainly visible only fifteen miles away to the southeast as the crow flies the colonel cordially granted jack's request he promised to join the column on the trail early in the morning before it had marched any great distance then at the commanding officer's suggestion jack drew in the sand with his finger a rough map of the route to fort harker supplementing it by pointing out certain divides and ledges of rock that could plainly be seen on the trail from where the colonel and the scout stood when jack had finished he left the camp for the spot where he had given his heart more than two months before his soul filled with rapture at the prospect of soon meeting again the gentle girl he loved his horse was a medium-sized bronco full of power and endurance which he knew could easily make raom's ranch in three hours that would bring him there about seven o'clock in time for supper and more than an hour and a half before dark so he struck a bee-line for the mounds is feelings better imagined than described an ecstasy indefinable except to those whose experience has been similar to that of the over-happy scout the sun was just sinking below the horizon when jack arrived at the elkhorn in the immediate vicinity of the ranch a flood of golden light poured into the beautiful little valley as he crossed the ford and entered the circular grove in the middle of which raume had built his log cabin and corrals as he rode toward the place where the cluster of rude huts should be his eyes which were ordinarily as keen and as bright as an eagle's suddenly filled for he looked upon a scene that caused his bronzed cheeks to blanch and an exclamation of horror to escape his lips the cabin was roofless and the green timber composing its sides and ends was still slowly burning cheyennes he muttered with set teeth as he unslung his carbine spurred his horse forward while a prayer for the safety of the girl he loved

was formulated in his brain when he reached the opening where the once happy home was so picturesquely located he drew up on the reins and as tatonka stopped a deep groan escaped jack lying under the mighty trees close to the ruins of the cabin were the scalped and mutilated remains of raoum and his four youngest children but where was susie the woman he loved dazed and stupefied for a moment jack began to search for her body she was not with the rest of the

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, an invitation from the Royals to stand and salute the colors as presented by the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center Color Guard from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Rich Gale outwarming in the bullpen for the Kansas City Royals being watched by pitching coach Billy Connors.

Now let's honor America with our national anthem, which will be sung by Staff Sergeant Edwin Crump.

And so what's the point? You know, you're going to buy and sell every two to three years? No, it's stupid.

So when we got to Fort Leavenworth, my parents knew this is it.

This is our last post.

My dad was ready to retire.