Reminiscences of Private Andrew Mitchell Flynn, A Troop Medic, 7th Cavalry

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Sam Russell

There were four or five Indians lying on the ground with their blankets on, supposedly dead.  But suddenly a shot was fired and we saw a man drop.

Andrew Mitchell Flynn was a twenty-five-year-old Scottish emigrant and a private in Captain Myles Moylan’s A Troop at Wounded Knee; he filled the role of a medic during the battle. Almost five decades after that fateful day, Flynn provided his reminiscences, which were published originally in the November-December 1939 edition of Winners of the West.  Flynn’s account is a fascinating look at the earliest advent of soldiers as combat medics.  Following is a portion of his account of the fights along the Wounded Knee and White Clay Creeks.

….By this time, I was getting very well acquainted with the place [Fort Riley] and the people there.  I used to go to chapel on Sundays and take part in the services and I became acquainted with Major Van R. Hoff.  As they had no children, they invited me to their home and were very nice to me.

About this time, our head sergeant surgeon asked me if I would like to learn first aid to the injured.  I told him I would like to very much and he gave me all the instructions.  I learned it very thoroughly, passing two examinations in it.  Then I asked for a transfer to the hospital detachment but was refused.  I asked my captain, Myles Moylan, who had always been very nice to me, why I had been refused.  He told me that he wanted me with him as a “non-com.”  I told him that I thought that I was too young for that, but he said that I would do all right.  About that time there were rumors of the Indians going on the warpath and I said to my captain, “If you were wounded, would you want someone who did not know how take care of you, or would you rather have me?”  He just laughed it off.

This 1890 photograph titled, "Pine Ridge Agency, S.D. (field maneuvers)" depicts soldiers of the hospital corps at the Pine Ridge Agency practicing their craft. (From the Louise Stegner collection held in the Denver Public Library Digital Collections)

This 1890 photograph titled, “Pine Ridge Agency, S.D. (field maneuvers)” depicts soldiers of the hospital corps at the Pine Ridge Agency practicing their craft. (From the Louise Stegner collection held in the Denver Public Library Digital Collections)

Well, we did get into that war.  In the latter part of September, 1890, we had word to pack up and go to Pine Ridge, South Dakota.  We traveled over the F. E. and M. V. [Fremont-Elkhorn & Missouri Valley] Railroad and detrained at a junction point named Rushville in Nebraska, which we left as soon as possible for Pine Ridge, where we pitched our tents in a little valley. There were some negro troops there who gave us food.

We were encamped there until the 27th of December, when we were ordered out to Wounded Knee to intercept Chief Big Foot and his tribe of renegade Indians.  We had only four troops with us, but we went after the enemy and captured them without a fight and brought them into camp at Wounded Knee.  This was on the afternoon of the 28th December.  Half of A and I Troops had charge of guarding the Indians, so we put a chain guard around them and had them pretty well tied up, we thought, though we were not as confident as we might have been because we had a feeling that they had some guns with them.  We discovered later that they did, but it turned out that the guns were their undoing because they did not know how to reload them.  We were very glad when about eight o’clock we saw the four troops coming on the other side.  That evening as I was lying down with a piece of a bale of hay for my pillow and the stars for my canopy, there was a great commotion among the Indians which lasted most of the night.  We discovered that it was the old medicine man chanting over a death.

One of our scouts asked me if I knew what he was saying.  I replied that I did not.  He then said to me, “Have you said your prayers yet?,” and I said “yes.”  [The scout replied] “The medicine man is telling the Indians not to give up their guns because they were to be killed anyway.”

We were formed in a hollow square which was a bad thing for us because it took our men so long to get out of each other’s way when the firing started.  That was how so many of our men were killed or wounded before we had a chance to use our guns.

As I had charge of a squad of first aid men, I handled the bandages and other medical supplies and was quite busy. I may say here that the first man we picked up was our first lieutenant, Ernest A. Garlington, of Troop A.  He had a compound fracture of the right elbow.  I first stopped the flow of blood, although he had lost quite a lot of it.  I took my lance and ripped the sleeve from his blouse.  But before I had it all done, he said, “Hell! That’s my new blouse!”  I cut not only the sleeve of his blouse, but his shirt sleeve, too, and stopped the flow of blood, and then took him to his tent and laid him on his bed.

Then he fainted and I had quite a time with him, but had a little medicine on my hip and found a silver teaspoon and put some of the “medicine” in it and worked till I got some of it into his mouth and he opened his eyes and said, “The red devils got me!” He wanted to get his pistol, but I told him he did not need it and if he did have it he could not use it.  I then went down to the hospital tent and told the surgeon, Major John Van R. Hoff, about Lieutenant Garlington, telling him that I had done the best I could for him and I was hurrying out to look for some more of the wounded, when he told me to sit down and rest.  I told him I could not stop and he said that there were a lot more of the men out there who could handle the rest of the wounded.  He  then went to his medicine chest and brought me something in a little glass.  I told him that I did not drink, but he said he knew but that this was medicine and he held up a small mirror to my face. It was as white as a sheet.  Then he gave me some more.  It did seem to help some.

On my going out on the field again, I met Second Lieutenant John C. Waterman.  There were four or five Indians lying on the ground with their blankets on, supposedly dead.  But suddenly a shot was fired and we saw a man drop.  Lieutenant Waterman and I went around the corner of a tent near the Indians and watched them.  We saw one of them raise his head a little and as he saw someone coming toward him, fired on him.  Lieutenant Waterman sent for the sharpshooter crew and they came on the double quick and each of them got this man.  As I was walking towards the ravine where there was still some shooting going on, I met Second Lieutenant Thomas Q. Donaldson, Jr.*  He had been shot in the groin.  He had his watch in his little pocket of his pants and it was all smashed.

* Lieutenant Donaldson was not wounded in the battle.  Flynn certainly treated Second Lieutenant Harry L. Hawthorne, 2nd Artillery, who was wounded in just such a manner.

I picked out the broken glass and other stuff and cleaned the wound  with medicated gauze and sent him to the hospital. While doing this, we were crouching behind an old wagon.  A bullet hit him on the rim of the wheel quite close and we hurried to better cover as there were quite a few Indians in that part of the ravine, which overhung, giving a shelter from the outside. The bravest deed that was done to my knowledge was that of a corporal from the artillery.*  He ran his little Hotchkiss gun right up to the mouth of the ravine and stayed there until he had gotten the last man there.  In looking over his gun after the battle, the marks of the Indians’ bullets were right over the muzzle of his gun.

* This was Corporal Paul H. Weinert, E Battery, 1st Artillery, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for this feat.

There have been various stories told by others and these have been taken from reports.  I was there on the job from the beginning to the end–first in the capture of Big Foot and then in the bloody fight.  Our men did not have much chance to get at the Indians as we were formed in a hollow square and it took some time to get in position to use our guns and they did good work then, but the Indians were better armed than we were. The old medicine man had about sixteen bullet holes in his body.  The first shot was fired by some crazy Indian.  The one mistake that I saw was that the Indians should have been made to remove their blankets, for after the first shots were fired, before inspection, there were four or five big bucks who dropped down on their faces as though they were dead and as I was passing near them there was a man a few yards from where I was standing who was shot through the calves of both legs.  Some of the first aid men picked him up.

I met Lieutenant Waterman and he asked if I knew where the shots had come from.  I told him that I was going to find out.  So I went behind one of our tents and hid and by and by there was a man going across from where we stood and one of the supposed-to-be-dead Indians lifted his head and fired at this man.  Fortunately, he missed.  I told the lieutenant that he should call the firing squad, which he did in a hurry.  When they opened fire on these men, they let out a great yell and threw their blankets and guns away.  But it was no good.  They were all killed.  It was shortly after that that I had saved Lieutenant Garlington’s life.  He was very severely wounded.  He had suffered a compound fracture of the right elbow.  I know that I saved his life and Surgeon Major John Van R. Hoff will bear me out in my statement, as I reported to him about Lieutenant Garlington.  He was our lieutenant of A Troop.  I did not see my captain, Myles Moylan, during the fight, but he was on the job like all the other good soldiers.

As I went up and down the camp to see the wounded and give them a drink of water and speak words of comfort to them, a man called me over to where he was laying in the hospital then and told me he had some kind of weight on his back.  I examined him and found that a bullet had lodged between his flesh and his skin and I just took my little lance and cut a little hole there and took out the bullet and gave it to him as a keepsake.  When I fixed him up he felt much more comfortable.  I believe this man was Sergeant George Lloyd of Troop I.  There were many others whom I helped, also, but the shooting finally ended and I was very glad to get to our troop again.  That was a trying time.

As we did not have much room, we had to load up the dead and put the wounded on top of them.  Just as I was looking over the field, I came across a dead squaw and a little papoose who was sucking on a piece of hardtack.  I picked up the little papoose and carried it in my arms.  A little way farther on, I found another dead squaw and another papoose.  I picked it up, too, and brought them over near the hospital tent, where there were a number of Indian women.

As I came over to where they were, I met a big, husky sergeant who said, “Why didn’t you smash them up against a tree and kill them? Some day they’ll be fighting us.”

I told him I would rather smash him than those little innocent children.  The Indian women were so glad that I saved the papooses that they almost kissed me.  But I told them I didn’t have time for that.

I also found a white woman who was shot in the wrist.  I asked here how she came to be there and she said that she had been stolen from her people.  On going a little way farther, we passed on old outhouse and we heard a noise inside, somewhat like a cat, and we looked in and saw a little papoose.  She was a beautiful child and clothed in a fine buckskin suit.  Second Lieutenant Herbert G. Squires* went in and got it and it began to laugh so he said it’s name would be Laughing Swan, and that he was going to take it home to his wife, which he did.  After everything was loaded up, we saddled our horses and prepared to march to Pine Ridge and on getting outside of Wounded Knee we saw that the prairie ahead of us had been set on fire.  We had to detour for quite a way before we got on the road to Pine Ridge.  Then we met a troop of horsemen.  We did not know whether they were friend or foe, so they called out to us to find out who we were and we did the same.  We found that they were coming out to help us so we finally got to Pine Ridge, where the wounded were taken care of.

* Lieutenant Herbert G. Squiers was not present at the battle of Wounded Knee, having returned to Fort Riley a few days earlier to appear before a board of promotion.  Flynn may have confused him with another officer, although I have found no historical evidence that any officer present at the battle adopted a Lakota infant.  The most famous abduction and subsequent adoption of an infant survivor of Wounded Knee was General Colby of Nebraska National Guard and his Lakota daughter, Lost Bird.  Colby was not at Wounded Knee.

On the following day, December 30, six troops of the Seventh Cavalry were ordered out to White Clay Creek or Mountain. Some claim this was almost another Custer field, as shots were fired at us from all directions as we left our horses in a sheltered place and crawled up the side of the mountain.  Major Whitside had to call for a volunteer to go into Pine Ridge and get out the ninth Cavalry (colored), commanded by Colonel Guy V. Henry.

The volunteer came up to Major Whitside and saluted him and said: “Well, Major, I got to go sometime once, so I will go.”

He had a fine horse and then Major Whitside took him by the hand and shook it heartily and said, “God be with you!” and away he went in flying charge you ought to have seen the bullets fly.  He got away safely and reached General Miles* at Pine Ridge.  His horse dropped dead and he lay down by the dead horse and cried as though his heart would break.

* General Miles was at Rapid City on 30 December.  The trooper likely reported to Brigadier General John R. Brooke.

General Miles said to him, “I will get a new horse.”

But he said, “Oh, General, there is no more like him.  We were great pals.”

The reason for sending for reinforcements was that the Indians were coming from all sides.  You could take your hat and put it on your gun, and, Bang!  The bullets came flying.  Major Whitside called for the sharpshooters to get their guns loaded. Then someone put his hat on his gun, so that they could see where the shots would come from.  As soon as they found out, they fired two volleys and there were no more shots from the Indians.

In the meantime, Colonel Guy V. Henry’s Black Demons came up the side of the mountain yelling and shooting.  They came in the shape of a V.  Out of this victory we had seven wounded and one killed.  First Lieutenant James D. Mann was wounded and died when he reached Fort Riley.  We lost two very fine officers–George D. Wallace, who was killed [at Wounded Knee] by an Indian war club by a squaw; his skull being partly lifted off his head, but there were six dead Indians at this feet and he still had his gun.

We got down from the side of the mountain and got our field guns across on the other side and fired a volley out of them.  It went into the Indian powwow that was being held.  We shelled it and broke it all up.  There were a large number of Indians seemingly on the warpath and there were strict orders sent to the several chiefs to turn all guns over to the government.  There were a few weeks spent in getting the guns and sending the men back to where they belonged, as they had buried a lot of the guns in pits.  Then the Indians went into a place which looked like an amphitheater.  When they went in they had some cattle and when they had eaten them all up they wanted to get out and get some more.

Some of the chiefs wanted to have a powwow with some of the generals and told them they would not give in their guns or men. General Miles told them to tell the Indians that they had to give up their guns.  In the meantime, the artillerymen during the night had put up the field guns and put a tent over them.  They were standing on the side of a hill and the Indians did not know what was in the tent.  It was almost directly across from where the Indians were camped and during the powwow General Miles and his staff told the chiefs to come with them and they went right up to the tent and were told that every gun they had in the camp where they were and those guns that they had buried must be given up.  They said, “No give up the guns! No go back to reservation.”

At a given signal, the tent was opened up and the two guns were pointed right at the place where the Indians were camped.  They grunted, then they saw the guns.  They were told, “Now, you give up the guns and send the Indians back to the reservation or there will be no Indians left.”  There were two chiefs whose names I remember, …Rain in the Face and Young Man Afraid of His Horses, who, by the way, was made a chief of all the scouts. So the chiefs were told that there would be wagons placed near them and every man was to give his gun to be put in the wagons.  Then Young Man Afraid of His Horse’s (which was a misnomer, for he was not afraid of anything) told them to get busy and the first Indian that wanted to go and fight would be shot and I will be the shooter, he said.  They gave up their guns and started back to their tepees and it took quite a few days before this was done.  There were some scouts sent out around to see if they could dig up any more guns.

I shall never forget that last day when they buried the dead soldiers.  They could not fire a volley over the graves for fear of arousing the Indians.  All they could do was to blow taps.  It was a terribly dreary day–the sky seemed to bend down to earth.  Of course, I was just a young chap then and had not seen anything like this before.  There were lots of the older soldiers who had never seen it either.  We broke up camp from Pine Ridge and camped away towards Nebraska.  It seemed the whole United States Army was there.  The tents seemed to stretch away about five miles, and you could see the Indians peeking over the tops of the mountains.  I had quite a few talks with Old American Indian Horse.  He said that the man that started the ghost dances was a fanatic.  Someone was saying that he must have heard the missionaries talking about it.  But why blame the missionaries?  They had not told this man about the Indians and buffaloes coming back at that time.  The missionaries did a great deal of good all over the western country.

In closing this narrative of forty-nine years ago, I should like to say that I believe that I have given a true story.  An article in which appears a list of eighteen men upon whom Congress has seen fit to bestow the nation’s highest award, the Congressional Medal for their conduct at Wounded Knee.  I should like to know just what those men did at the Battle of Wounded Knee.  I myself had charge of a crew of first aid to the injured and was on the field all day taking care of the wounded.  I saved Lieutenant Garlington’s life, as he had a compound fracture of the right elbow.  I administered first aid to Lieutenant Donaldson.  I removed a bullet from Sergeant Lloyd’s back, and helped many others.  To cap the climax, I saved two papooses from someone who would doubtless have killed them and gave them to the squaws, who said “Pale Face heap good.”

I believe that I, too, was entitled to a medal for what I did.  Of course, I was just a young lad and a rookie, but I did my share of good….

Source: Andrew M. Flynn, “An Army Medic at Wounded Knee,” in Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life and Campaigns in the West, 1864-1898, comp. Jerome A. Greene (New York: Savas Beatie, 2007), 186-192.

Citation for this article: Samuel L. Russell, “Reminiscences of Private Andrew Mitchell Flynn, A Troop Medic, 7th Cavalry,” Army at Wounded Knee (Sumter, SC: Russell Martial Research, 2013-2015, http://wp.me/p3NoJy-qq), posted 11 Dec 2014, accessed date __________.

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German Immigrant Private Herman Ziegner, E Troop, 7th Cavalry – Conspicuous Bravery

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Sam Russell

Ziegner distinguished himself by exposing himself to the fire of the Indians and volunteering to go to the support of Capt. Varnum, and there again attracting attention by his coolness and gallantry.
–Adjutant General’s Office

Private Herman Ziegner was a twenty-six-year-old German immigrant with less than six months remaining on his five-year enlistment when he arrived with Captain Charles S. Ilsley’s E Troop at the cavalry camp at the Wounded Knee Post Office on 28 December 1890.  His actions during the next two days’ fighting caught the attention of his officers and resulted in his being awarded the Medal of Honor.

Like all of the soldiers in E Troop that were recognized with honorable mention, Private Ziegner’s conspicuous actions at Wounded Knee likely took place on the unit’s skirmish line while attempting to dislodge the Lakota warriors from a pocket in the dry ravine.  The troop’s second lieutenant, Sedgwick Rice, singled Ziegner out for award of a medal. Lost in the Nation’s archives is Rice’s original letter.  All that remains of the Ziegner recommendation among the stacks of correspondence dealing with award submissions from Wounded Knee, is a summation by the Adjutant General’s Office concerning five soldiers from E Troop.  The letter makes no mention of Ziegner at the ravine but does state that he exposed himself to the fire of the Lakota.  Rice apparently recommended Ziegner for both Wounded Knee and White Clay Creek, as the summation mentions Ziegner volunteering to go to the assistance of Captain Charles A. Varnum, commander of B Troop, whose actions on 30 December also merited a Medal of Honor. Ziegner was the only soldier awarded a Medal of Honor for actions in both battles.[1]

1st Lieut. H. G. Sickel, 7th Cavalry, Comdg, Troop E, recommends these men for medals of honor for conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee Creek, S.D., December 29, 1890, as follows: The troop being engaged, dismounted, with Indians concealed in a ravine, Tritle and Sullivan attracted attention by their endeavors to drive the Indians from thier position, it being necessary to expose themselves for this purpose to a close fire from the ravine. Tritle received a slight wound in right hand, but continued in his efforts to dislodge the Indians until disabled by a severe wound in right shoulder. While still in the field the troop comdr. took occasion to refer to the excellent conduct of Pvt. Sullivan. McMillan and Austin were conspicuously brave, frequently exposing themselves to close fire from the ravine in order to obtain an advantage over the concealed Indians, and rendered much assistance in placing the men in good positions and, encourageing them by good example. Above is corroborated by 2d Lieut. Rice, 7th Cavalry, who also recommends Tritle for a certificate of merit, in addition to a medal of honor, and requests that a medal by granted to another man, Private Hermann Ziegner, same company, not mentioned by Lt. Sickel; says Ziegner distinguished himself by exposing himself to the fire of the Indians and volunteering to go to the support of Capt. Varnum, and there again attracting attention by his coolness and gallantry. These recommendations of Lieut. Rice are approved by the troop commander.

(Click to enlarge) “Above is corroborated by 2d Lieut. Rice, 7th Cavalry, who also recommends Tritle for a certificate of merit, in addition to a medal of honor, and requests that a medal be granted to another man, Private Hermann Ziegner, same company, not mentioned by Lt. Sickel; says Ziegner distinguished himself by exposing himself to the fire of the Indians and volunteering to go to the support of Capt. Varnum, and there again attracting attention by his coolness and gallantry. These recommendations of Lieut. Rice are approved by the troop commander.”[2]

Lieutenants Sickel and Rice compiled recommendations for soldiers from E Troop toward the end of March 1891 and submitted them to the regimental adjutant for endorsement and processing.  Captain Ilsley and Colonel J. W. Forsyth were both absent from the post at that time.  After conferring with Major S. M. Whitside, who was commanding the regiment and the post in Forsyth’s absence, First Lieutenant L. S. McCormick as adjutant endorsed the submissions on behalf of the regiment’s colonel.  The recommendations for Sergeants John F. Tritle, William G. Austin, and Albert W. McMillan, and Privates Thomas Sullivan, Mosheim Feaster, and Herman Ziegner were all returned to the regiment in early April by the Adjutant General’s Office in order for Ilsley and Forsyth to endorse the submissions.[3]

Four of the E Troop awards were approved on 23 June and mailed to the regiment for presentation along with one from A Troop.

(Click to enlarge) Four of the E Troop Medals of Honor were approved on 23 June 1891 and mailed to the regiment for presentation along with one medal for a soldier from A Troop.[5]

After obtaining the necessary endorsements, each of the recommendations received due consideration at the War Department.  Four of the six awards were approved on 23 June, including the Certificate of Merit for Sergeant Tritle. As was the custom of the day, the medals were mailed to the regimental commander where they could be conferred in an official ceremony at Fort Riley.[4]

Born about 1864 in the town of Apolda in what was then the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in the German Confederation, Hermann, as his name was sometimes spelled, was the son of Hugo Ziegner and Lena Hoene.[5]

By 1886 Ziegner had emigrated from Germany and was residing in Baltimore, Maryland. According to the 1885 Baltimore City Directory, there were only two Ziegners, Alfred and Joseph, living in the city, both at 702 Saratoga Street, the former a barber and the latter a blacksmith. Perhaps they were relatives of young Herman Ziegner, who enlisted in the Army at Baltimore on 21 May 1886.  Captain Parke, his recruiting officer, recorded that Ziegner had worked as a hostler, that the twenty-two-year-old stood five feet, ten inches in height, and had brown eyes, black hair, and a dark complexion.  During his tenure in the 7th Cavalry, Ziegner also served in troops L and I, and completed his five years of service as a corporal in E Troop with a characterization of service of ‘excellent’ just a month before receiving the Medal of Honor.  Ziegner reenlisted the following day for another five-year term.[6]

Hermann Ziegner applied for naturalization on 22 July 1891 indicating that he resided at 75 West 126th Street where he was employed as a book Keeper.

(Click to enlarge) Hermann Ziegner applied for naturalization on 22 July 1891 stating that he resided at 75 West 126th Street where he was employed as a book Keeper.[7]

Two months after reenlisting and a month after receiving his medal Ziegner applied for naturalization in New York City. He used his honorable discharge from his first enlistment as the basis for becoming an American citizen.  Ziegner indicated that he was a book keeper residing in the city and gave the same address as that of his witness, Russell G. Howe.  Stationed briefly at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, as a sergeant in Troop I, Ziegner completed his service at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1894, he left the Army early under an 1890 law that granted soldiers ninety days of furlough upon completion of three years with the option of terminating their enlistment at the end of the leave.  Based on his eight years of service Ziegner took six months of leave in February of that year and established himself in Manhattan at 326 West 126th Street, just two blocks from the residence he provided on his naturalization application three years earlier.  He applied for a position on the New York City Police Department but ultimately ended up working as a clerk.[8]

On 16 December 1894 Ziegner married Margaret Kenard, a twenty-nine-year-old Irish immigrant.  Born in Tipperary she was the daughter of Patrick Kenard and Johanna Dooley, who came to America when Margaret was a toddler.  She was the eldest of four children; her siblings, Maria and Martin, were born in Ireland, and the youngest, Agnes, was born in New York.[9]

First Lieutenant William R. Hill's report of Company E's actions at Santiago, Cuba.

(Click to enlarge) First Lieutenant William R. Hill’s report of Company E’s actions at Santiago, Cuba, in July 1898.[10]

At the onset of war with Spain in April 1898, Ziegner was working as a night watchman at the Equitable Life Assurance Building in Manhattan.  He was one of the first volunteers to sign up and served as the first sergeant of Company E, 71st New York Infantry.  Under the command of First Lieutenant William R. Hill, the unit saw action at San Juan Hill on 1 July and the siege of Santiago, Cuba, from 2 through 17 July 1898.  The regiment suffered twelve men killed in action and three that died of wounds.  Lieutenant Hill rendered a report to the adjutant general of the First Division wherein he mentioned by name the wounding of five men in Company E. More devastating were the regiment’s losses from disease.  Eight men died of Typhoid fever, including one officer, twenty-six succumbed to malaria, and another twenty-five died of fevers or intermittent fever, not to mention other maladies.  In all the regiment lost eighty-six men to disease and non-battle related injuries, almost one hundred deaths in all.[11]

One of those one hundred fallen was First Sergeant Herman Ziegner. Following the fighting around Santiago, the thirty-four-year-old ailing non-commissioned officer arrived home to New York City at the end of August.  He was emaciated and suffering from malarial fever along with many from his regiment.  The soldiers where kept in quarantine for a time at Camp Wikoff on Mantauk Point on the far eastern end of Long Island. The numbers of ailing soldiers quickly overwhelmed the camps. An article in the New York Sun on 23 August stated:

A crisis has finally been reached in the general hospital here. The place is so crowded now that not another man can be put in it, and today the order went out to the various camps that they must keep their sick to themselves for the present and not send them to the hospital unless they are in such critical condition that to keep them in camp will imperil their lives.  The result is that in every camp there was a dozen or more sick men who will never improve a bit until they get the right kind of treatment in the hospital. [12]

Sergeant Ziegner's death was run in several New York Newspapers.[12]

Sergeant Ziegner’s death was run in several New York Newspapers.[13]

Due to the overcrowding, some soldiers where able to return to their homes for care.  By the time First Sergeant Herman Ziegner made it home he was too far gone; he died on 9 September 1898.  His story ran in several of the city’s newspapers.  The article in the New York Times detailed the plight of Ziegner and his now destitute wife.

Mrs. Ziegner to a New York Times’s reporter said last night:
“My husband was starved to death.  Think of it, for eight years he was in the service of the United States Army, and fought at Santiago, leading Company E up San Juan Hill, side by side with Company F and Capt. Rafferty, his friend–and now,” she moaned, “in return for his bravery and courage this Government starves him to death.
“He returned two weeks ago, a skeleton of his former self.  The Government in those four months paid him just $18.  How do they expect a man, who for patriotism and love for his country fights for her in time of need, can support his family and live himself on $18 in four months?”
Ever since Sergt. Ziegner returned Dr. Frank E. Brennan of 76 East Avenue, knowing of Ziegner’s circumstances visited him daily, and would not take a cent for his services.  Finally Ziegner became so weak that Dr. Brennan advised him to go to St. John’s Hospital, where he could receive better attention.  There everything that was possible was done for him, but as Dr. Brennan said, his stomach and constitution had been wrecked, and no human agency could save him.
According to Lieut. W. Hill of Company E, Seventy-first Regiment, there was no braver man in the company than Ziegner.  The Sergeant was born in Weimar, Saxony, thirty seven years ago, and there his mother still lives.
Sergt. Ziegner often spoke after his return to his wife, of the treatment he received after he was taken ill with malaria.  He said that he could get nothing to eat except hardtack and bacon.  He strongly asserted that he knew that if he could have had what he craved when first taken sick he would not have been in such a weakened condition.
The funeral will be to-morrow afternoon at 3 o’clock, from SE Seventh Street, Long Island City.
The Red Cross Society last week heard of the destitute circumstances of Mrs. Ziegner.  Money and other aid was given her by Mrs. Cornell of the Red Cross Society.[14]

Perhaps to tug on readers’ heartstrings, one article mentioned that Mrs. Ziegner was pregnant with their first child when Sergeant Ziegner died.  However, records indicate that she had no children.  The sergeant was buried with military honors at the Calvary Cemetery in Woodside.  Two weeks after his death, Margaret Ziegner applied for a pension. She was working as a dressmaker in 1900.[15]

Sergeant Herman Ziegner is buried in the Calvary Cemetery at Woodside, New York.[16]

Endnotes:
[1] Adjutant General’s Office, Medal of Honor file for Albert McMillan, Principal Record Division, file 3466, Record Group: 94, Stack area: 8W3, Row: 7, Compartment 30, Shelf: 2. Research conducted by Vonnie S. Zullo of The Horse Soldier Research Service.
[2] ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] William R. Pawson, “Death of a Hero: Sergeant Herman Ziegner, 7th U.S. Cavalry and 71st New York Volunteer Infantry,” Journal of the Orders and Medals Society of America (JOMSA) vol. 60, no. 2, March-April 2009, 26-32.
[6] Ancestry.com, U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007), Title : Baltimore, Maryland, City Directory, 1885, Image: 732; Ancestry.com, U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007), Year Range: 1885-1890, Surname Letter Range: L-Z, Image: 607, Line: 7.
[7] National Archives at New York City; Superior Court of the City of New York (468-470), ARC Number: 5324244; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, 1793-1906, Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group Number: 85.
[8] Ibid.; U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914,Year Range: 1891-1892, Surname Letter Range: A-Z, Image: 506, Line: 11; The New York Times, July 12, 1894.
[9] Ancestry.com, New York, New York, Marriage Index 1866-1937 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014), Certificate Number: 169; Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. United States Federal Census [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010), Year: 1880, Census Place: Queens, Queens, New York, Roll: 918, Family History Film: 1254918, Page: 9B, Enumeration District: 279, Image: 0502.
[10] War Department, Annual Report of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1898, Report of the Major General Commanding the Army (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898), 309.
[11] Ibid., Adjutant General of New York, New York in the Spanish-American War, 1898, vol. 1 (Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, State Printers, 1902), 212 and 250.
[12] Associated Press, “Can’t Care for Sick Men,” The Sun (New York: 24 Aug 1898), 1.
[13] Associated Press, “Sergt. Ziegner’s Death,” New York Times (New York: 11 Sep 1898), 5.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Pawson, “Death of a Hero,” JOMSA; National Archives and Records Administration, U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000), Roll number: T288_544; United States Federal Census, Year: 1900, Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York, Roll: 1096, Page: 2A, Enumeration District: 0321, FHL microfilm: 1241096.
[16] Don Morfe, “Herman Ziegner,” FindAGrave (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8221237), accessed 9 Dec 2014.

Citation for this article: Samuel L. Russell, “German Immigrant Private Herman Ziegner, E Troop, 7th Cavalry – Conspicuous Bravery,” Army at Wounded Knee (Sumter, SC: Russell Martial Research, 2013-2015, http://wp.me/p3NoJy-DH), posted 9 Dec 2014, accessed date __________.

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Irish Immigrant Sergeant Robert H. Nettles, E Troop, 7th Cavalry – Killed in Action

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Sam Russell

Troop “E” 7th Cavalry was deployed in skirmish line along the north side of a ravine from a pocket in which they were endeavoring to drive several Indians who were good shots and doing great injury to the men who were endeavoring to force them from the ravine.
—Sergeant Major Albert W. McMillan

Sergeant Robert H. Nettles of Captain Ilsley’s E Troop was one of two soldiers from that unit killed at Wounded Knee. At thirty-eight years of age the native Irishman was near the end of his second five-year enlistment in the Army and had previously completed three years in the Navy. According to a casualty list published in the Omaha Daily Bee on New Years day, 1891, Nettles, like Private Kellner, was shot in the head, certainly while his troop was attempting to dislodge the Lakota that were firing effectively on the unit from covered and concealed positions in the ravine.[1]

History has most harshly criticized the 7th Cavalry for the exceptionally high loss of life of non-combatants at Wounded Knee, particularly in the pocket of the ravine. If given the opportunity, the veterans that fought along the skirmish lines of E Troop would testify–and several did–that those Lakota women and children that were grievously wounded or killed in the ravine were hit because the troopers could not distinguish them from the men, or because of their close proximity to the warriors that were firing on the troops, or because they themselves were returning fire. Major General Nelson A. Miles, perhaps the harshest critic of the 7th Cavalry, in or out of uniform, condemned the leadership of Major Whitside specifically because of his placement of the Indian village adjacent to the dry ravine, “in case they should take refuge in the ravine [and] cause a useless loss of life in dislodging them.” Sergeant Nettles’s head wound testified to the accuracy of the Lakota fire, and the cost to the regiment in extricating the Lakota from the pocket.[2]

Sergeant Robert H. Nettles final statement made out by Captain C. S. Ilsley lists the soldier's city of birth as Limerick, but at least one other enlistment record states he was born in Cork, Ireland.

Sergeant Robert H. Nettles’s final statement made out by Captain C. S. Ilsley lists the soldier’s city of birth as Limerick, but at least one other enlistment record stated he was born in Cork, Ireland.[3]

Robert Nettles arrived in America with his mother aboard the S. S. Wyoming on 7 November 1871.

Robert Nettles arrived in America with his mother aboard the S. S. Wyoming on 7 November 1871.[4]

Like so many of the soldiers of the frontier Army, little is recorded of the life of Robert H. Nettles. He was born about 1852 in either Cork or Limerick, Ireland–his Army records conflict on his native city. At the age of nineteen he and his thirty-six-year-old mother, Catherine A., boarded the S. S. Wyoming, a Guion line steamship, and sailed from Queensbury to New York Harbor. There is no record of who his father was or what his fate may have been.[5]

Mother and son established their residence in Boston, Massachusetts, where Catherine worked as a dressmaker. In less than a year of arriving in his new country, Nettles enlisted at the United States Naval Rendezvous at Boston in 1872 for a three year term. Stating that he was twenty-one years of age, Nettles stood five feet, seven inches, with blue eyes, brown hair, a fair complexion, and a scar on his forehead.[6]

Following his term in the Navy, Nettles returned to Boston and at the end of May 1876 enlisted in the Army, listing his previous occupation as a landsman–the lowest rank in the Navy at that time. He was discharged for medical reasons little more than three weeks later at Fort Columbus, New York. Having overcome whatever disability precluded his Army service in 1876, Nettles likely enlisted again in 1881, for he began his second five-year enlistment on 20 June 1886 at Fort Meade in the Dakota Territory. His records indicate it was his third enlistment, his only unit of assignment being E Troop, 7th Cavalry.[7]

Sergeant Nettles, like his fellow fallen comrades, was initially buried in the Pine Ridge cemetery next to the Episcopal church in grave number 13 on New Year’s Eve, 1890. Six months later Catherine Nettles filed for a pension for her only child’s service related death. She continued to reside in Boston where she boarded at 4 Tyler Street and later at 194 Harrison Avenue. Catherine died of meningitis on 21 July 1903.[8]

Sergeant Robert H. Nettles remain’s were removed from Pine Ridge and reburied at the Fort Riley Post Cemetery on 20 October 1906.[9]

Endnotes:
[1] Charles H. Cressey, Omaha Daily Bee, “The Death Roll,” 1 January 1891.
[2] Adjutant General’s Office, Medal of Honor file for Albert McMillan, Principal Record Division, file 3466, Record Group: 94, Stack area: 8W3, Row: 7, Compartment 30, Shelf: 2. Research conducted by Vonnie S. Zullo of The Horse Soldier Research Service.
[3] National Archives, Adjutant General’s Office, Final Statements, 1862-1899, “Pettles, Robert H.,” at Fold3, http://www.fold3.com/image/271303513/ accessed 7 Dec 2014. Captain Ilsley’s script appears to spell Nettles last name with a P, and thus it is listed under the name ‘Pettles.’
[4] Alm Family Website, “Ole & Johanne Alm Immigrate” (http://www.mnwebsteps.com/alm/ole-imm.htm) accessed 7 Dec 2014.
[5] Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010), Year: 1871, Arrival: New York, New York, Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897, Microfilm Roll: Roll 350, Line: 29, List Number: 1112;
[6] Ancestry.com, U.S., Naval Enlistment Rendezvous, 1855-1891 [database on-line] .( Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014), NARA Publication Number: M1953, NARA Roll: 41, FHL Film Number: 2383641; Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010), Year: 1880, Census Place: Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, Roll: 555, Family History Film: 1254555, Page: 522A, Enumeration District: 655, Image: 0425.
[7] Ancestry.com, U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007), Time Period: 1871-1877, Alphabetical Listing: H-O, Image: 541, Line: 44, and Time Period: 1885-1890, Alphabetical Listing: L-Z, Image: 199, Line: 62.
[8] Ancestry.com, U.S. Military Burial Registers, 1768-1921 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007), Original data: Burial Registers for Military Posts, Camps, and Stations, 1768-1921, Microfilm Publication M2014, 1 roll, ARC ID: 4478153, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives in Washington, D.C., State: South Dakota, Page#: 218; National Archives and Records Administration, U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000), State Filed: Massachusetts, Roll number: T288_347; Ancestry.com, U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line] (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), Publication Title: Boston, Massachusetts, City Directory, 1894, Page: 1040; Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915 [database on-line] “Deaths Registered in the City of Boston for the Year 1903,” (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013), Page: 383, No.: 6123.
[9] Jana Mitchell, photo., “Sgt Robert H Nettles,” FindAGrave, (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59154179) accessed 7 Dec 2014.

Citation for this article: Samuel L. Russell, “Irish Immigrant Sergeant Robert H. Nettles, E Troop, 7th Cavalry – Killed in Action,” Army at Wounded Knee (Sumter, SC: Russell Martial Research, 2013-2015, http://wp.me/p3NoJy-Di), posted 7 Dec 2014, accessed date __________.

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