Mrs. B.K. Young Bird Narrative

"I was only fourteen years old and I remember well the happenings there. I was staying with my uncle. His name was Lay On Top of a Hill. Very early that cold morning there was a little snow on the ground.

There was not warning; up from our sleep we jump, we did not have time to gather our clothing; just as we got up from our sleep we ran for safety in the best way we knew. I heard very much firing all around us. I did not look to see who it was that was doing all that firing but we all knew that Long Hair Custer was out hunting the Indians and we knew that he had found us.

We ran all our woman folks and our girls and all our children down to the banks of the Washita River for safety, but we found no safety. The soldiers were on both sides of the Washita River shooting in a crossfire. There was no escape, we waded down the stream, all of us who were making an attempt to escape. Quite a few were shot down and some escaped I guess by a miracle.

We could hear the woman singing; they sang some war songs and some death songs, because all the men were now trying to their best to defend us and themselves, and many were lying on the ground dead and very many wounded; they were needing some to come take them to safety, where they might given treatment to try to recover.

A lot of children were still barefooted and lots of their feet were frozen. I experienced that myself, for up to the present time I'm having lots of trouble with my feet and also with my legs."

1. Richard G. Hardorff, Washita Memories pg. 333.