The Fort Phil Kearny Massacre

Mixed media drawing on paper "The Fort Phil Kearny Massacre" by John Gutherie. The narrative drawing includes multiple vignettes relating to the Fetterman Fight on December 21, 1866. The drawing is done using a variety of mediums including pen, ink, watercolor, and pencil. The drawing is fairly primitive in its execution with a flat picture plane and minimal perspective.

There were no surviving U.S. military eyewitnesses of the massacre. Most descriptions of the battle were taken later from surviving Indian participants. Sgt. John Gutherie, Co C, 2nd Cavalry (1865-1868) was away from Fort Kearny at the time of the massacre but returned to be assigned to the detail that recovered the bodies. In a later statement he cited that a lone cavalry horse remained alive. It was badly wounded but still alive. Its name was Dapple Dave. He also noted that one body was found separate from the other groups of bodies. It was found "in the brush near Little Goose Creek' and was a civilian guide, Lee Bontee, who joined the massacred soldiers at the last minute as they left the stockade. Guthrie's sketch is a fair representation of the statements in his report regarding the condition of the bodies and the horse.