Note 42 — Part I Protecting the Frontier (continued 3)

General Carr, while he used a rifle efficiently during the whole of the action, did not interfere with Carpenter’s arrangements; with rare self-restraint he refrained even from offering suggestions. Although he showed plenty of nerve and was entirely calm and collected throughout the hot affair, he is reported to have said after the fight that he thought he was in the tightest box in which he was ever caught in his life, and that there was nothing left for them all to do but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. He had never served on the plains with negro troopers before, and had no knowledge as to how they would behave against Indians—nobody had, for that matter.—C. T. B.