History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 2 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

In the summer of 1863 a party of twenty-one men and three women went down the Missouri in a mackinaw boat from Fort Benton. They reached the vicinity of the mouth of Apple Creek, near where Bismarck, N. D., now stands, just as the Sioux Indians, whom General Sibley was driving out of Minnesota and across the country to the Missouri, arrived on the banks of that stream. They had just been defeated in three engagements with General Sibley and were in a very angry temper. They attacked the boat and fought the little party an entire day, and finally killed them all and sunk the boat. It was reported that the whites killed ninety-one Indians in the fight, and that the captain of the boat, whose name is supposed to have been Baker, “made such a brave defense that the Indians were struck with admiration for him and wanted to save him.” The boat had a large amount of golddust on board, and some of it was recovered by the Mandan and Aricara Indians. An air of mystery has always hung over this affair, and the details will probably never be known. For some unexplained reason, certain individuals who were believed to have had some knowledge of it refused to disclose anything.

THE STOLEN MACKINAW.

In 1864, while Captain La Barge was at Fort Benton, a number of miners applied to him to purchase a mackinaw boat. He refused to sell because he felt sure that it meant death to them to try to run the gantlet of the Indians in that way. They replied that they were afraid to go overland on account of road agents. The Captain told them they had less to fear from road agents than from Indians. The road agents might take their gold, but the Indians would spare neither treasure nor life. They were unconvinced, however, and as the Captain would not sell the boat, they stole it and set out. While passing a high cut bank, about thirty miles below Fort Berthold, where the channel ran close to the shore, they were attacked by a war party of Sioux and all killed. Pierre Garreau, the well-known interpreter, went down from Berthold and recovered a part of the golddust. La Barge saw some of it among the Indians the following year.

In 1865 the steamer St. Johns, on her way down the river, was attacked by the Indians and the mate instantly killed. The boat was under full headway and out of reach before it was possible to return fire.

SOWING THE WIND.

In the same year the General Grant lost three men. They had been sent ashore at a wooding place to make fast a line, when they were pounced upon by the Indians and killed.

On April 23, 1865, a band of Blood Indians near Fort Benton stole about forty horses belonging to a party of beaver-trappers, of whom Charley Carson, a nephew of “Kit” Carson, was one. On the night of May 22 these men, having gotten on a drunken spree, attacked a small party of Blood Indians who happened to be near Fort Benton, but were not known to be the thieves, killed three, and threw their bodies into the Missouri. The survivors fled toward the south and met a large band of warriors near Sun River, on their way north. Exasperated at the outrage upon their brethren, they were ready for any measure of revenge, and accident soon threw the desired opportunity in their way.

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND.

At the mouth of the Marias River lay the steamboat Cutter. A town site had been laid off at this point and named Ophir, and some timber had been cut in the valley of the Marias for use in the erection of buildings. The principal proprietor of the nascent village was a passenger on the Cutter, and the business of that boat seems to have been connected with the building of the town. On the afternoon of May 25, about half-past two o’clock, eight men left the boat with a wagon and three yoke of oxen to bring down some of the timber, and an hour later two men went on horseback to join them, for it was felt that there might be trouble from the Indians, and that the party should be as strong as possible. These men were all well armed. Their route lay up the valley of the Marias along its right bank, which they ascended about three miles. At this point the valley, which was quite broad below, narrowed to a width of four hundred yards. There was a growth of timber quite dense close to the river, but open farther back. Just above this point the bluffs crowded close upon the river, seamed with ravines and gullies, like all the river bluffs along the Missouri. The roadway at the foot of these bluffs was very narrow.

Beyond this defile the valley opened out again, and there was another belt of timber. In the upper opening the Indians seem to have been in camp and to have been discovered by the wood-choppers just as the latter were passing the defile. It was probably the same band which we have noted as being near Sun River two days before. The wagons were instantly turned about, although in a most disadvantageous situation. The Indians saw the whites at about the same time. They were lying in wait for another party with a mule train, and were intending, after attacking it, to try to take the steamboat. As soon as they saw the wood-choppers they at once attacked them and killed every man and captured all the property. The bodies of the slain were found scattered along the river, fifty to one hundred yards apart, except one, that of N. W. Burroughs, which was found half a mile further downstream, where he was overtaken on his flight to the boat. Of the Indians the head chief and one other were killed and a third dangerously wounded. The Indians, to the number of about two hundred, immediately moved toward the British line.