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.