Battle at Fremont's Orchard

On April 12, 1864, a company of about 20 soldiers from Companies C and H of the 1st Colorado Cavalry under the command of Second Lieutenant Clark Dunn based at Camp Sanborn (near Orchard, Colorado), set out to find a group Cheyenne who reportedly stole stock from a local rancher:

…Ripley, a ranchman, living on the Bijon [sic] creek, near camp Sanborn, came into camp and informed Captain Sanborn, commanding, that his stock had all been stolen by the Indians, requesting assistance to recover it. Captain Sanborn ordered Lieutenant Clark Dunn, with a detachment of troops, to pursue the Indians and recover the stock; but if possible, to avoid a collision with them. Upon approaching the Indians, Lieutenant Dunn dismounted, walked forward alone about fifty paces from his command, and requested the Indians to return the stock, which Mr. Ripley had recognized as his; but the Indians treated him with contempt, and commenced firing upon him, which resulted in four of the troops being wounded and about fifteen Indians being killed and wounded, Lieutenant Dunn narrowly escaping with his life….

The Indians recounted a different version of events:

[E]arly in April, fourteen young men, all Dog Soldiers, left the camp on Beaver Creek and started north to take part in the expedition against the Crows. Before they reached the South Platte they found four stray mules on the prairie and drove them along with them. That same night a white man came into their camp and claimed the mules. The Indians who had found them told him that he could have them if he would give them a present to pay them for their trouble. The man went away to a camp of soldiers nearby and told the officer that a party of hostile Indians had driven off his animals…. According to the statements of Indians who were of the party the troops charged on them without any warning. Four men were shot by the Indians, one of whom they supposed to be an officer. Of the Indians Bear Man, Wolf Coming Out, and Mad Wolf were wounded. The soldiers retreated and the Indians, thoroughly frightened, gave up their expedition to the north and returned to the camp on Beaver Creek. They took with them the head of the officer, which they had cut off, and his jacket, field-glasses, and watch.

The military accounts paint the Cheyenne as the aggressors and in the Cheyenne accounts, the military charged without warning. It is possible that that the fault lay on both sides, the battle resulting from a grave misunderstanding; the military attempting to take weapons away from the Cheyenne may have been misinterpreted as a hostile act and the Cheyenne responded accordingly to protect their own safety. The discrepancies also include the injuries. The Cheyennes reported wounding a soldier and cutting off his head. The military records report four wounded soldiers (two mortally) who were taken back to Camp Sanborn and does not mention a soldier killed on the battlefield.

The Battle at Fremont’s Orchard signaled the start of the war with the Cheyenne. Over the coming months, Indians raids along the South Platte River and the military response escalated, culminating in the Sand Creek Massacre.
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Sources:
Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Massacre of Cheyenne Indians, 38th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, 1865), p. 107.

Grinnell, George Bird, The Fighting Cheyennes (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), pp. 134-6.