Robert G. Clarke.
So much for the place selected for the bronze group, now for the work itself.
Carl Rohl-Smith, a Danish sculptor who had already won distinction in Europe and in America, and who came to Chicago under the strong attraction which the preparation of the World's Columbian Exposition offered for all artists, won notice and praise by his statue of Franklin, cast for the entrance of the Electrical building. This work pleased those interested highly, and the sculptor was invited to prepare the model for a group to commemorate the Fort Dearborn Massacre of 1812. Mr. Rohl-Smith, by the help of his accomplished wife, made a study of the historical facts connected with the event, and naturally concluded that Black Partridge saving the life of Mrs. Helm was the portion of the sad story which presented the most picturesque, dramatic and artistic features for reproduction. To this he added the killing of Surgeon VanVoorhees, which Mrs. Helm details almost in the same breath with the story of her own experience. The study, when completed in clay, won the approval of all observers (this acceptance being fortified by the warm admiration the group elicited from the best art-critics to whom it was submitted), and orders were at once given for the work; to be in bronze and of heroic proportions; the figure group to be nine feet high, set on a granite pedestal ten feet high.
Mr. Rohl-Smith set himself to work with the utmost diligence. Fortune favored him; for there happened to be just then some Indians of the must untamed sort at Fort Sheridan (only a few miles away), in charge of the garrison as prisoners of war, they having been captured in the Pine Ridge disturbance whereof the affair of Wounded Knee creek was the chief event. By General Miles's permission, Mr. Rohl-Smith was allowed to select two of these red-men to stand as models for the principal savage figures of the group. The two best adapted were "Kicking Bear" and "Short Bull." Concerning them Mr. Rohl-Smith says:
Kicking Bear is the best specimen of physical manhood I have ever critically examined. He is a wonderful man and seems to enjoy the novelty of posing, besides evidently having a clear understanding of the use to which his figure will be put. The assailant of Mrs. Helm, the one with the uplifted tomahawk [Short Bull] fills the historical idea that the assailant was a "young" Indian, naturally one who would not be as fully developed as the vigorous, manly chief, Black Partridge. The presence of these Indians has been of great value to me in producing the figures. I have been enabled to bring out some of their characteristics not otherwise possible.
The savages were accompanied by an interpreter, and the newspapers of the day gave some amusing accounts of their demeanor in the studio; their mixture of docility and self-assertion, etc. It chanced that the real dispositions of the two principal models were the reverse of their assumed characters; and Kicking Bear (who, when wearing his native dress and war-paint, carried a string of six scalps as part of his outfit), was much amused at the fact that he was assigned the more humane part. "Me, good Injun!" he cried; "him bad Injun!" And he laughed loudly at the jest.
The four faces of the granite pedestal bear appropriate bas-reliefs cast in bronze. The front (south-west) shows the fight itself; the opposite side represents the train—troops, wagons, etc.—leaving the fort; one end gives the scene when Black Partridge delivered up his medal to Captain Heald, and the opposite end the death of the heroic Wells.
The various scenes bear descriptive inscriptions; and on the North-West face is the dedication, as follows:
Presented May, 1893, to the Chicago Historical Society, in Trust for the City of Chicago and for Posterity.