Recalls Indian Battle Back in Summer of ’65.
George L. Wilcox, O. O. Ferbrache, and others are locating the long-forgotten, neglected, and obliterated graves of Captain William D. Fouts and his men, Philip G. Alden, Edward McMahan, and Richard Gregor, who lost their lives a half century ago in the battle of Horse Creek, fought near Scottsbluff, Neb.
The work is undertaken under orders from Captain Ray B. Harper, of the quartermaster’s corps of Omaha, and the remains are to be sealed in lead caskets and removed to the military cemetery at Cottonwood Cañon, a little east of North Platte.
The graves now lie under a field of alfalfa about four miles west of the city of Scottsbluff, close by the old ruin of Fort Mitchell. This fort was first built by Bruce Husband, of the American Fur Company, and was named Fort Fontenelle, but was later named Fort Mitchell, after General Mitchell. At the time of the interment of Captain Fouts and his companions, it was called Camp Shuman, and was a substation of Fort Laramie.
It would be impossible to find these graves now, were it not for the memory of old-timers, who, thirty years ago, came into the valley, riding the range, or looking for homesteads.
During the winter of 1864-5 there were around Fort Laramie about 2,000 Indians, who professed to be friendly, and said that the war tribes had made it dangerous for them to pursue their usual vocation of hunting and trapping. Under orders they were fed and sustained through the cold winter, but the officials at the fort had good reason to believe that there were a number that were carrying word to the war braves. Every movement of the soldiers seemed to be transmitted almost instantly into the enemy’s camp.
It was therefore deemed advisable to remove the friendlies from this central scene of hostilities, and consequently, on July 11, 1865, a company of 135 soldiers, under Captain Fouts, were commissioned to act as an escort for the friendlies, who, in the number of 15,000, including squaws and papooses, were inclined to go. They were to be taken to Julesburg, and part of them to Kearney.
Captain Fouts proceeded carefully down the river on the south side, and, lest a nervous finger should press a trigger prematurely, most of the guns were unloaded. There was nothing of a suspicious note occurring except occasionally signal fires on the hills bordering the Rawhide and Sheep Creek, and occasionally a fire arrow lost itself in the dark vault of the sky.
These weird manifestations of an undercurrent of [Pg 62]hostility was naturally trying to the nerves of the families of Captain Fouts and Lieutenant Triggs, which accompanied the party, and especially so because Mrs. Eubanks and daughter, and Miss Laura Roper, recently captured from the Indians, and whose six months in captivity had familiarized them somewhat with Indian signs and their meaning, expressed grave apprehension.
On the night of June 13th, they went into camp on Horse Creek, the Indians on the west side and the soldiers on the east side of the creek. The Indians proceeded to give a dog feast, and the officers were unable to discover what was in the air.
Three hundred and eighty warriors went into council, and the outcome was a tremendous fury at certain of the white soldiers who had taken young Sioux squaws into their tents and kept them there for hours.
On the morning of the fourteenth the advance guard started with the wagons at five o’clock, the intention being to cover the eighteen miles to Camp Shuman, where they would camp in the luscious meadows adjacent and near by. The wagons were strung out for a mile or more when rapid firing was heard in the rear. Captain Fouts’ zeal for peace was the direct cause of his death.
The delay incident to loading and distributing ammunition gave the Indians an advantage. The captain had gone back across Horse Creek to hurry the Indians, and they had killed, stripped, and mutilated him, and had fled three miles toward the river and were making warlike demonstrations, while the squaws and papooses were crossing the river, riding, or swimming beside their swimming ponies.
The rear guard had at first run toward the front, but the front guard met them halfway, and together they charged after the Indians. When near at hand, Charles Elston was sent forward to offer those who would accept it and come forward peacefully, immunity from punishment. They met his offer with a shriek of defiance and charged furiously.
The Indians numbered more than five hundred warriors, and, when at a distance of about three hundred yards, they commenced firing, and it was answered in telling effect by the military. While those in front were checked by the fire of the Gallagher rifles, both flanks of the Indians advanced as if to hem them in and cut them off.
Over the hills from the west side of Horse Creek poured dozens and hundreds of the shrieking demons, and an orderly retreat was taken to the wagons, which, in the meantime, had been drawn up in a defensive circle, and hastily constructed rifle pits made.
The Indians then ceased their firing and withdrew. Seeing that they were indisposed to press their attack while the soldiers were behind defenses, and wishing to keep them engaged and at hand until reënforcements came, the officers in charge took fifty of the best mounted men and sallied out.
When out about three miles they saw a large force of Indians coming around the hills on the west side[Pg 63] of Horse Creek with the evident intention of cutting them off. Again the military retired to their intrenchments.
About nine o’clock Captain Shuman arrived with a force from Camp Shuman or Fort Mitchell, and, thus reënforced, another attack was made upon the Indians, but it was a little late. The squaws and papooses had all succeeded in crossing the river, and the warriors had followed.
The military could not follow, for it would be impractical, and perhaps impossible to cross the river at its high stage, in the face of a superior number of Indians.
A message had been sent to Fort Laramie, and Colonel Moonlight, well known for his recent summary execution of three renegade Indians, had started from the fort with two hundred and forty well-mounted men, when he met another courier with the information that the Indians had crossed the river, whereupon he crossed at the fort and took up the pursuit.
This constitutes another story, and the finish of the battle of Horse Creek, the dead being the four named in the beginning of this article, and four others were wounded. The dead were taken to Camp Shuman, the ruins of which are still distinguishable, about three hundred feet south of the west end of the Platte River Bridge, west of this city. And out southwest thereof about a quarter of a mile they were laid to rest, and there have rested for this half a century ending the middle of June. And now, from their obliterated graves, they will be removed to join their fellows, the other early guardians of the great Overland Trail, in the cemetery set aside for their honor by the national government.