Sergeant Phillip McHugh, U. S. Cavalry Indian Fighter

This is the story of Sergeant Phillip McHugh, a veteran Indian fighter and career regular Army cavalryman during the second half of the Nineteenth Century. McHugh served on the frontier for his entire career except during the Civil War (Virginia) and Reconstruction (South Carolina). He fought Comanche in Texas, Cheyenne on the Plains (Kansas, Nebraska), Sioux in the Montana Territory, and Nez Perce in Wyoming Territory. McHugh enlisted in several cavalry regiments over his thirty-year career in the Army: the Second, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth. He also spent one enlistment in a volunteer regiment during the second half of the Civil War – the First District of Columbia Volunteer Cavalry. McHugh was an enlisted man and served variously as a private, corporal and sergeant. As a cavalryman, he fought Indians in hand-to-hand combat and was wounded twice. He fought in numerous engagements with hostile Indians including the most famous of all, the Battle at the Little Big Horn River in 1876, between the Seventh Cavalry and about 2,500 Cheyenne and Sioux warriors.