On May 18, 1868, the flag was lowered for the last time at Fort Morgan and the cannon fired a last salute. Captain Powell and the 4th U. S. Infantry marched to Fort Laramie which would become the unit's home base. The fort lay amongst buffalo and buffalo grass and waited; the sod fort melting back into the plains.
Just months after Fort Morgan was abandoned, Indians attacked Brush’s ranch, killing William Brush, his cousin Jared Conroy and a hired man Halstead Olson Dunning and stampeding stock. With the fort deserted, the ranchers were on their own just as they had been in the early 1860s at the start of the Indian hostilities in the area.
Did the military leave too soon?
The military was now based at Fort Laramie, so after the Brush ranch was attacked, the men of the region formed their own militia and took off after the Indians. The militia consisted of about forty men and included Holon Godfrey, Sam Ashcraft, and Elbridge Gerry. They caught up with the Indians near Latham. Five of the Indians were reportedly killed and fifteen wounded. The New York Tribune reported:
A dispatch from Latham to The Courier reports that on Saturday the Indians were in strong force at Fremont’s Orchard. Sam Ashcraft with a party of volunteers pursued them up the Platte River and being found by Godfrey’s detachment they fought the Indians killing four of them. There are 130 volunteers in the field and reinforcements are gathering from all directions.
Provisions and ample supplies of arms and ammunition have been sent to them. The shipments of gold from Central City last week amounts to $40,000. The Indians had driven off 20 head of horses and mules near Cooper’s Creek…Denver dispatches says a family named Neff, numbering nine persons, residing at Kiowa, were found murdered on Saturday.
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| Seventh Cavalry Charging Black Kettle's Village 1868. |
A more complete account was given by Mr. D. B. Bailey who described the attack and subsequent battle:
On the twenty-fourth a small party of the savages stampeded the herd of Mr. Brush on one side of the river, and his herd on the other, driving off all the their horses, numbering twenty-four, and killing four head of cattle. Some of them then dashed upon William Brush and two of his men, who were hitching up a team near the house, preparatory to starting for a load of hay, and killed all three of them, shooting each three times, tomahawking and scalping them. In addition to these depredations and murders, they stole four horses from Messrs. Clones and Innes, and ten from Capt. Oram.
About dusk, of the twenty-seventh, a party of settlers numbering sixty-four having been organized with Mr. Balloy as leader, started in pursuit of the Indians, coming up with them at sunrise of the twenty-eighth, within ten miles of Latham. Mr. Baily thinks, from the appearance of the trail and this party that the main body had gone on, was traveling through with tepees, families, and all, that this band was a sort of foreging outfit, rear guard, etc.
They had no stock with them at any rate, numbered forty, were all mounted and armed, and though at first taken by surprise, their chief soon set them with his rod to performing their one peculiar military evolution, accompanying an attack, best illustrated by the movement of pieces in a kaleidoscope, or of dancers in a cotillion, the general effect being the forming of a moving circle of fire around the party attacked. Mr. Bailey sprang to the ground, drew a bead on the man with the rod, and dropped him dead. From that moment they fell into confusion, abandoned their attacking tactics, and only seemed anxious to escape.
Retreating, they would fire back over their shoulders, not attempting to make a stand. They scattered, too, like a flock of ducks, so that, by noon, the fight having commenced at sunrise, they had fled ten miles and covered ten square miles of country. Five of them were killed, fifteen wounded, and the horses of the killed captured.
The general direction of their retreat was toward Kiowa, crossing the Platte at Stony Point, Kempton’s old ranch. None of the whites was hit or hurt, and the pursuit was called off at noon to reorganize and procure more ammunition. There is now hope, we think, that Major Downing and the Bijou and Kiowa settlers will get a lick at the marauders.
Isolated Indian attacks continued and on December 21, 1868, the abandoned fort was burned as was John Iliff’s ranch at Fremont’s Orchard. The Rocky Mountain News reported the story on January 15th:
On Sunday, January 3, Mr. Gearry, who lives on or near Crow creek, came up to Latham and gave information that a band of twenty seven Indians had appeared in his neighborhood, and had driven off twenty head of his ponies, but that his wife’s father (an Indian) had returned with eight of them, saying that the ponies had been taken by the young men whom he could not control.
A company of seventeen men was at once organized, and Gearry placed in command. They rode to his place, where they arrived at seven o’clock on the morning of the fourth. They then went up Crow creek about twelve miles, where they got a reinforcement of ten men, and struck out across the prairies for the Platte, reaching the river at old camp Sanborn, where they found Iliff’s cattle camp burned and destroyed.
Camping for the night, on Tuesday morning they took the trail down the river, and passing Iliff’s herd, found that one hundred head had been driven off by the Indians. Arriving at the Junction [Fort Morgan] about three o’clock in the afternoon, the party camped for dinner, and then followed the trail eight miles further, where they crossed the river at Murray’s old ranch. Here the Indians had killed an ox, and tried to get the stock across the river, but failing to do so, they went over with the ponies, and were obliged to leave the cattle. Thinking it of no use to go any further, on Wednesday morning they started homeward.
Though hostilities with the Cheyenne in northeastern Colorado mostly ended with their defeat at Summit Springs July 11, 1869, sporadic attacks would continue until the various Indian tribes were moved onto reservations. As late as 1876, just weeks before the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sioux attacked ranchers in the Fort Morgan area. The Cheyenne Daily Leader had the story:
Sioux Indians...attacked a cattle round-up at Fremont’s Orchard, about 80 miles down the Platte, killing 15 men and driving off the stock. The settlers in the vicinity of the reported raid have left their ranches and taken refuge in the nearest settlements.J. W. Iliff came in on last evening’s D. P. express. He stated that Mr. Wakeman arrived Denver Thursday morning from down the Platte, with the report that the Weld county round-up had been attacked by Indians while near the ranch of Lyman Cole, at Fremont’s Orchard, about 33 miles below Greeley. Fifteen men are reported killed, three of whom were in the employ of Mr. Cole, and three of Mr. Iliff’s men…. Every one was very frightened…. A man named Hening…says that the ranches in the vicinity are being deserted…
The railroads were moving in and the tribes were being relocated onto reservations. Towns were already beginning to form on the plains and the settlers' minds turned to agriculture.
Sources:
- Shwayder, Chronology of Weld County, Colorado, 1836-1983, 45.
- “Indians. Murders and Depredations at Latham…,” Rocky Mountain News, August 29, 1868: 1.
- “Untitled,” Rocky Mountain News, 2 January, 1869, p. 4.
- NY Tribune sept 2, 1868 p. 1
- “Indians,” Rocky Mountain News, 15 January, 1869, p. 4.
- “Reported Killing of 15 Men by Sioux,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, 17 June, 1876, p. 3.
- “Indians,” Rocky Mountain News, 15 January, 1869, p. 4.
- "Reported Killing of 15 Men by Sioux,” Cheyenne Daily Leader, 17 June, 1876, p. 3.
- Photo Source: Harper's Weekly v. 12, 1868 Dec. 19, p. 804. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seventh_Cavalry_Charging_Black_Kettle_s_Village_1868.jpg
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