Pink Mountain took five soldiers from the 95th the very day Lt. Colonel Twichell replaced their disgraced commander, Colonel Newman. Twichell inherited major problems—disorganization, dismal morale, lack of a real mission. But before he could turn to those issues he had to deal with the immediate crisis.
Link to Another story on the 95th “Rushed North—for What?”
On July 19 the 95th bivouacked at Beatton River. Some 20 miles away the unusual peak of pink mountain had roused everybody’s curiosity. On the 19th the soldiers had a day off to clean up and do laundry. Five of them finished their laundry laid it out to dry and then left to go see the mountain up close. They had no knowledge of the terrain, no compass… But in the crystal-clear air the mountain appeared much closer than twenty miles.
Late afternoon, seeming no closer to the mountain, they turned back. Without the mountain out front to guide their course, they followed a stream through the deep woods. The stream abruptly turned south—the wrong way. Two of the men continued to follow it, hoping it would take them to a settlement or someplace with people who could help.
Three of them continued east, turning occasionally to take a reverse bearing on the mountain behind them to determine the right direction. They reached the Highway and two days later indian searchers from the regiment found and rescued them.
The other two men, not so fortunate, found an Indian village. The inhabitants had left on a hunting expedition. The two men split up. One continued searching for the Highway. Surviving on berries and killing porcupines and what he called “fool hens”, a species of partridge, he wandered the woods for 35 days before he found an old trail that led him to the Highway.
Twichell wrote his wife a long letter about the incident. He told her he visited the soldier in the hospital tent the next day, found him “still weak from exposure and hunger, but told a connected story.”
Employing Indian trackers, the regiment continued the search for Bosten, the last man. They never found him.
“It was our first casualty of the kind, and we hope the last.” Twichell told his wife.