In any circumstances, one cannot cast blame on a beaten commander, negotiating with his victorious foes, while bleeding from a bullet deep-bedded in his hip-joint. In this case, it is not likely that blame would be due, even if Captain Heald had been unhurt. But for his surrender, the Chicago Massacre would have been, on a small scale, the fore-runner of the great Custer slaughter, where not a white man lived to tell the tale. Every man, woman and child of white blood (except perhaps the Kinzies and Lieutenant Helm), would now be in oblivion almost as if they had never been born. Even the "massacre tree" that stands to-day (1893) in Eighteenth street near the lake, in gaunt, leafless old age, could only have been identified by the bleaching skulls, great and small, which surrounded it when General Cass passed the spot a few years afterward.
Here we take up again Mrs. Heald's personal story:
After the fighting commenced, Mrs. Heald turned back and ascended a little elevation between the army and the wagons. She saw a young, fine-looking officer fall [probably Lieutenant Ronan] and thought it was her husband, and was under this impression until after the fight was over. Just before the surrender, she got up in range of the bullets coming from Indians on both sides of her. She did not know whether the Indians aimed at her or not, but she was wounded in six places, one hand being rendered helpless, the ball passing between the two bones of her arm. Her son has seen the scar a thousand times.
I have remarked that Mrs. Heald does not mention the presence of Mrs. Helm, nor does the latter that of the former. We judge from this, and from Mrs. Helm's account of her being saved by being plunged in the lake, that the latter remained nearer the shore than did the other.
DEATH OF CAPTAIN WELLS.
Captain Wells, who was shot through the lungs, rode up and took her hand, saying: "Farewell my child." Mrs. Heald said to him: "Why uncle, I hope you will get over this." "No my child," he said, "lean not." He told her he was shot through the lungs, and she saw the blood oozing through his nose and mouth. He still held her hand and talked to her, saying that he could not last five minutes longer. He said: "Tell my wife—if you live to get there, but I think it doubtful if a single one gets there—tell her I died at my post doing the best I could. There are seven red devils over there that I have killed."
His horse, which had been shot just behind the girth, then fell and caught Captain Wells' leg under him. As he did so, Captain Wells turned and saw six or seven Indians approaching them. He took aim and fired, killing one of them. They approached still closer, and Mrs. Heald said to him: "Uncle, there is an Indian pointing right at the back of your head." Captain Wells put his hand back and held up his head that better aim might be taken, and then cried "Shoot away!" The Indian fired, the shot being fatal. They then pulled him out from under his horse (Mrs. Heald still seated on her horse near by) and cut his body open, the gashes being in the shape of a cross. They took out his heart, placed it on a gun-stick and whirled it round and round, yelling like fiends. The noise drew other Indians to the spot and they then commenced cutting up the heart and eating it. They crowded around and the bleeding heart was thrust forward at one after another.
Finally an Indian cut off a piece, held it up to Mrs. Heald and insisted on her eating it. She shook her head. He then daubed her face with it. She shook her fist at him. Then they called her "Epeconier! Epeconier!" this being their name for Captain Wells—thus signifying that she was a Wells—a person full of pluck and fortitude.
So nobly perished one of the best and bravest frontiers-men, fighting where he had been summoned by sympathy and affection, not by the orders of any superior officer. No knight ever set lance in rest under a more purely chivalric impulse than did this plain, pretending, half-educated pioneer. Two hundred and fifty miles away he had heard the warning note of peril, seen the fair young face of his brother's daughter (she who long before had sought him out among his savage captors and restored him to his kins-folk), and felt the impulse of manly self-devotion to save her and her friends from impending doom. He obeyed the noble impulse and—he died like a man, and somewhere beneath our thoughtless footsteps his bones lie buried.[F]
[F] Chicago should not be without a statue of this early hero, martyred in her service. A miniature exists purporting to give his features, and as to his form, that could be easily reproduced from description, while his Indian dress would serve to give grace and dignity to the work. Among the first streets named, when the village of Chicago was laid out (1831), was one called after him—for he was not yet forgotten. Part of the street-the stretch north of the river—still retains the great name, but the most important portion, that traversing the business heart of the city, has been arbitrarily changed to "Fifth Avenue," there being no Fourth or Sixth Avenue adjoining it on either side to excuse the ungrateful, barbarous innovation.