A Note On The Characters: Fetterman and Brown

Brevet Lieutenant Colonel William J Fetterman



Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman (just called Captain or Colonel in a lot of the testimonies, which served for a bout of awful confusion) is the main character (or maybe victim or even culprit) of the Fetterman Massacre. I keep it calling it that but it's debated whether it was an actual 'massacre' or not because the soldiers were armed. So...let's call it a more-influence-on-one-side-than-the-other fight ^-^
Anyhoo, Mr William Fetterman was famously arrogant and claimed that ''with 80 men he could ride through the entire Sioux nation''. Tough call, buddy, but that was typical Officer on the Plains talk. He also wasn't the Colonel, Carrington's, biggest fan and at any given moment would mock or insult him, and most of the time not privately. He thought that Carrington was too weak and shared the same opinion that the famous George Custer would have a few years later upon meeting Carrington: He was just a weary man who wasn't as near as courageous as he should have be with fighting Indians and he was way too cautious.
Fetterman was the opposite. He claimed to be brave and very adept, with much experience of fighting and wanted to do everything. Impulsive and spontaneous, he had many of the Officers at the fort on his side, including Captain Brown, the Post Quartermaster, who in the story, is like his scheming best buddy, of which it is conceivable that it could be exaggerated XD. However, it was true that him and Brown went up to see Carrington the night before his ''massacre'' to ask if they could take a small detachment of men to destroy the Sioux village. Again, tough call, but I think this event totally summed up his personality.
However, as well as being egotistic, he was also wrong. He couldn't ride through the entire Sioux nation with 80 men, as was proved on 21st December 1866. Ironically, he did have 80 men that day, which was quite an odd coincidence, and he was completely wiped out, no man escaping alive. The event was almost as notorious as the Little Bighorn in American military terms.
What is also quite interesting about Fetterman though is that, being the headstrong and *determined* guy that he was, he would probably have shared the opinion with a lot of the men that one of the bravest things to do in battle was to stand your ground and fight to the death. I've heard that a heck of lot while reading books about the time of history. However, there is evidence to back up the suggestion that at the ultimate moment, towards the end of the fight, Fetterman and Brown put their pistols to each other's heads and fired. I found this quite uncharacteristic of him, though that's not to say it's not true.
It could have happened differently but that's the account I'm going with for the story.

Post Quartermaster Captain Frederick Brown

The afore mentioned ''scheming best buddy'' of Fetterman (and in fact he was his close friend which was a lucky guess ^^) was also the Post Quartermaster. He shared the same opinion about Carrington and Indians that Fetterman did and quite often expressed a desire to ''bring back Red Cloud's scalp myself''. *You get used to these wild claims after a while of looking at this period of history* !!!!

Like Fetterman also, both were probably rather irritated at the wood train (which was a series of wagons designed to collect supplies from the nearby pinery) and which seemed to be the only thing the soldiers were doing - just protecting it, that is. Being headstrong and impulsive Officers, they would probably have wanted to do much more than this. So it's very much almost a rebellion when they ignore the wood train on the 21st December to follow the Indians.

By the looks of this photo here, he seems quite a bit older than the other younger in-their-20s Officers which suggests experience but he is not like the similar aged (I guess) Carrington. Where Carrington is cautious, Brown is a little reckless and impulsive. This last trait is backed up by the fact that, even though he wasn't assigned to Fetterman's command, he rode out (on Carrington's son's horse, Calico) to join him, even though that resulted in his death. If you take that from friendship's point of view though, that's kinda......Well, I'd say sweet but that'd be a bit patronising. XD