The Last Stand

Today is publication day for THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS, and tonight is my publication party. Join us if you can.

And here is my last tidbit from that book. 

The Last Stand

Gen. Thomas Duncan, "a jolly, blustering old fellow," ordered his soldiers to trash the Pawnee Killer's village. 

There the men found some curious objects: surveyor tools, measuring chains, compasses, levels, and telescopes. Could the tools belong to that surveyor Buck and his men, missing since August?

After destroying the village, Gen. Duncan and his men searched for Pawnee Killer and his tribe for nearly a month before they gave up and turned back to Fort McPherson.

This may sound as if they accomplished little. However, their destruction of the Sioux village so soon after the Summit Springs battle gave the military an upper hand in the Republican River valley. Indian troubles there stopped almost entirely.

The expedition also served Buffalo Bill well. From it, he created an excellent scene for his Wild West Show. He called it "Last Stand of the Indians."

Coming April 28 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

from: a JoLt of CoFFeY 

 An Intermittent Newsletter

by Marilyn June Coffey

www.marilyncoffey.net

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The Surveyors

While Surveyor Nelson Buck worked near the Nebraska-Kansas border, two of his scouts, away on lookout, spotted four Sioux warriors. 

The scouts must have reasoned that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," for without delay, they killed three of the four. 

Their exasperation that the fourth "got away" would have deepened to terror if the scouts had known that the escaped Indian belonged to the renowned Pawnee Killer's tribe. 

When Chief Pawnee Killer heard about the unexpected slaughter, he rounded up 200 warriors and led them to attack the surveyors.

"I'm no more prepared to be killed by Indians than other men," Buck had said. But Pawnee Killer's men killed Buck anyway, plus every other man in his surveying party.

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Crushing Tall Bull

On July 10, 1869, Maj. Gen. Carr positioned his soldiers near Tall Bull's Cheyenne village with its eighty-four lodges and 500 Dog Soldiers. 

A fierce battle lasted not quite three hours, wounding one of Carr's soldiers but 52 Cheyenne lay dead, including Tall Bull. 

Late that afternoon, an unexpected thunder storm pounded the area with rain and hail, drenching everyone including the Cheyenne fleeing from what had been their home.

The next morning, the soldiers looted the village. They found clocks, watches, photographs, shawls, kitchen and household utensils, mules, horses, rifles, revolvers, knives, and axes. They also found 1,500 dolls, 9,300 pounds of dried meat, and more than ten tons of Indian clothing, equipment, and food. 

At last the soldiers burned the village to the ground. It took 160 fires to destroy what the men didn't take.

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

The Race

Young William "Buffalo Bill" Cody came to help Major General Eugene A. Carr boot Tall Bull and his Dog Soldiers out of the Republican River valley. 

The general had pet dogs. Skinny, narrow-nosed greyhounds. "Look at those wiry legs," he said. "And those barrel chests. For speed, only the cheetah can beat them."

"Not the antelope?" Cody asked. 

"No. No. These dogs can outrun antelopes easy, easy."

The next morning, Cody tagged along to watch the race. When the general spotted a herd of antelope grazing, he let his dogs loose. 

The antelopes turned. Then they moved, their white rumps flashing.

The race looked close, but soon the dogs—not known for endurance—lagged far behind. The antelopes disappeared over a hill.

 Cody's eyes crinkled. "Sir," he said, "if anything the antelope is a little bit ahead."

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

One Huge Blaze

January 27, 1864, Brig. Gen. Mitchell telegraphed military commanders from Fort Kearny in Nebraska to Julesburg, Colorado, and ordered them to set the prairie on fire. As the sun slipped out of the sky, soldiers fired the prairie along 300 miles. 

 

The fires raced across the prairie, coaxed by a strong northwest wind. Soon they joined in one huge blaze. It "rolled as a vast confluent sheet of flame to the south," Eugene F. Ware remembered. 

The fire spread, as Brig. Gen. Mitchell planned, until it enveloped the Republican River refuge of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

The Indians no doubt saw it coming. "Lightning," they must have thought since lightning commonly ignites prairie fires. At any rate, they split. 

The brilliant flames kept right on sizzling. Blazing bluestem leaped high to embrace the wind, and the wind stayed true to Brig. Gen. Mitchell. It blew the conflagration south until flames even reached the Texas panhandle in spots. 

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Shredded Pride

Brig. Gen. Mitchell discovered that he could not stand Indians. Perhaps he could have tolerated them if they had decent manners, but they did not.

Underfoot at Fort Cottonwood, the Sioux grabbed shiny objects, begged, and of course stole. And stared. 

Brig. Gen. Mitchell had ordered fort soldiers not to copulate with the filthy squaws, but that stopped no one. 

At the "Big Talk," when his turn came to speak, the general barked out: "Steer clear of the Platte River valley." 

Instead of embracing Brig. Gen. Mitchell's order, Chief Spotted Tail said, "We're willing and able to give the white men all the war they want." 

That puzzled the general. "Why did he threaten?" 

"You've shredded their pride," the fort commander said. 

Their pride. How disgusting! 

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Fire Water

A month later, warriors raided the town of Julesburg and set each building on fire. Soon Julesburg blazed, but the Indians didn't torch the nearby telegraph station. The warriors invaded it, instead.

Batteries replenished by nitric acid powered the telegraph. When the Indians spotted jars full of extra nitric acid, they assumed those jars contained alcohol. Of course they chugalugged them. 

What potent fire water! 

It burned their lips, mouths, and throats! The Indians smashed the jars on the floor. There the acid ate through their moccasins. Dashing outdoors gave them no relief nor did their high-step dancing.

Once the nitric acid wore off, the warriors went home proud of themselves. They never could win back the Cheyenne and Arapaho who died at Sand Creek, but in their month-long battle, they surely killed as many as they had lost. 

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Hot Pursuit

A thousand warriors, ablaze with war paint, stopped at four-month-old Camp Rankin on the South Platte in the winter of 1865. 

Sixty soldiers hid in sod huts behind a sod wall 18 feet high, so the warriors ambushed. Ten men, decoys, charged the fort and retreated. 

Soldiers poured out of Camp Rankin and chased the decoys for three miles. Then trigger-happy young braves, hidden behind nearby bluffs, couldn't wait to fire. When their guns blasted, the army captain glimpsed hundreds of Indians half-hidden behind the bluffs. He wheeled his horse; so did his soldiers. Warriors swarmed from the bluffs, in hot pursuit. 

Happily for the soldiers, warriors aimed their newfangled guns so high they often missed shots. However, bows and arrows proved deadly. Altogether, eighteen soldiers failed to return to the fort. 

"We killed sixty Indians!" the soldiers claimed. No, they killed none, insisted the warriors.

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Forcing the Constitution

The governor, Alvin, cleared his throat. "Congress says we must call another constitutional convention, but a third convention would be as dead in the water as the first two."

Clayton nodded.

 Alvin tugged his white beard, flat as a pancake. "But we can't trust those monkeys in the Assembly to write a constitution."

Gus laughed. "So what we going to do? Write it ourselves?"

Alvin slapped his leg, "By God, Gus, you've read my mind! Not you and me, exactly, although we could do it, all right, plus a lawyer good with words."

"But then what are you going to do, Alvin?" Gus cried. "Try to send it through the Assembly? Can't trust those legislators any further than you can toss a buffalo."

"Maybe we'll have to force it through."

"Candle to the devil," Gus cried. "That's a spanking good idea!"

And so they did.

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey