Gove County KS Archives History - Books .....Indian Depredations 1930
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 22, 2005, 6:10 pm

Book Title: History Of Gove County, Kansas

CHAPTER VI
INDIAN DEPREDATIONS

  As the Pacific railroad, and the buffalo hunters advanced across the plains
the plains Indians, always more or less unfriendly, seemed roused to frenzy and
in the sixties hostilities broke out along the border from Texas to Dakota.
Settlements were attacked and settlers killed within a hundred miles of the
Missouri river. Tracklayers on the railroad were harassed continually and could
work only when under an armed guard. Traveling parties on the overland trails
went heavily armed and fortified their camps at night with a rampart of wagons.

  The little regular army was divided up into squads to cover as much country as
possible, protect the construction gangs on the railroad and keep the trails
open. Numerous small forts were established. Along the Smoky Hill trail were
Fort Hays, Downer (in Trego county), Monument (Gove county), and Wallace. The
state of Kansas raised a regiment of troops and Governor Crawford resigned his
office to take command of it. Not till 1869 were the Indians finally put down.

  The Smoky Hill trail was attacked frequently. Fort Downer was taken in 1866
and the garrison massacred. (This fort was in Trego county, nine miles east of
the Gove county line.) In 1867 several of the stations were destroyed, including
Castle Rock and Chalk Bluff. The late Harvey Groves of Jerome township was a
regular army cavalryman in those days and used to tell of a fight which his
company had with a band of Indians on the Smoky near the mouth of Cheyenne creek.

  Root's "Overland Stage" describes at some length a fight at Monument station
Aug. 22, 1867. A freight train of forty wagons belonging to Powers & Newman of
Leavenworth was attacked at 5 o'clock in the morning by a force of Cheyenne and
Sioux numbering several hundreds. Sheltered with their stock behind their wagons
the freighters beat off the attack and withstood a siege of thirty two hours.
The next day a government freight train of twenty five wagons came along, under
guard of a small detachment of soldiers, and the combined forces compelled the
Indians to retire.

  Chalk Bluff seems to have been raided more than once. D. Street, general agent
of the Holliday company at Omaha, wrote the adjutant general of the United
States as follows, Oct. 23, 1866:

  "Your telegram of the 18th asking what Indians burned Chalk Bluff station on
the Smoky Hill route is received. Have not received particulars. Am satisfied,
however, that it was done by the dissatisfied band of Cheyennes known as 'Dog
Soldiers.' This band consists of 250 to 300 young bucks and as it was they that
killed our two employes at that station about three weeks ago it is reasonable
to presume that they are the ones that burned the station. The only particulars
I have of the affair is that they told our men to take the horses out of the
station and go . . . that they did not want their horses or to shed their blood."

  General Hancock, who was in charge of the operations against the Indians, said
in his report "The Cheyennes are charged with the murder at Chalk Bluffs Sept.
29, 1866, and with other outrages on the Smoky Hill during last summer and fall.
The trader, Mr. Butterfield, has, I presume, traded arms and ammunition to these
tribes." (Rather a serious charge. Perhaps Butterfield had reason to leave the
country).

  The Chalk Bluffs affair is referred to repeatedly in Gen. Hancock's report.
James Wadsworth, a driver of the Overland Express, makes an affidavit in regard
to it which is too long to reproduce here. He said in part: "I am perfectly
satisfied that the Indians who attacked me at Monument station were Cheyennes,
also that the Indians who massacred the stock tenders at Chalk Bluffs were of
the same party." It is worthy of passing notice that this affidavit was sworn to
before Lieutenant Fred H. Beecher of the Third Infantry. This is the same
officer who was killed in the famous fight at Beecher's Island on the Arickaree
in September, 1868, and from whom the island was named.

  The Indian outbreak was put down, the railroad was completed and the overland
trail abandoned. Peace reigned on the plains for several years. Then came
another outbreak in 1878.

  In September of that year a band of Cheyennes who had been removed to the
Indian Territory broke away and made a dash for their old homes in the north.
This band consisted of about 200 or 250 bucks with their families and effects.
They entered the state of Kansas on the 14th of the month and marching in a
northwesterly direction crossed the state in eighteen days. Their route took
them across the counties of Barber, Comanche, Clark, Foote, Meade, Ford,
Hodgeman, Ness, Gove, Sheridan, Decatur and Rawlins. They crossed the Union
Pacific near Buffalo Park.

  Wherever they went they committed depredations but their march was so rapid,
the territory covered so narrow and the settlers so well warned that the loss of
life and property were not great. The greatest loss of life was in the northern
part of the state after the hostiles had crossed the railroad and perhaps felt
more safe from pursuit and had more leisure for killing.

  A monument to the victims of the raid was unveiled at Oberlin Sept. 30, 1911.
This monument is 22 feet high and was erected by the state at a cost of $1500.
Upon it are inscribed the names of nineteen victims of the raid, all of whom
were killed in the northern part of the state. Among these is the name of one
Gove county young man, Edward Miskelly of Buffalo Park, who was the only one
from our county to lose his life in the last Indian war in Kansas.

  The property destroyed in this raid was paid for by the state. The legislature
of 1879 provided for a commission to investigate the damage. This commission
held sessions at Dodge City, Hays and Norton. To it were presented 116 claims
aggregating $182,646.13. Of these the commission allowed claims to the amount of
$101,766.83. Two Gove county claims were presented, for live stock stolen or
killed. Smith & Savage claimed $17,153 and were allowed $14,019. Dowling Bros.
presented a claim for $1,650 and were allowed $1,350.

  In addition to the loss of property the commission found that thirty two lives
were sacrificed in this raid of the Cheyennes.



Additional Comments:
History of Gove County, Kansas
by W. P. Harrington

Gove City, Kan.	1930


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/gove/history/1930/historyo/indiande8ms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ksfiles/

File size: 6.9 Kb