While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Events of a similar character were of almost daily occurrence while the
Indians remained in this region. Every animal on a distant hill became an Indian
horseman to the excited imagination of the ranchman or cowboy, and without
further investigation he rushed off to town to give the alarm. No lone man on
horseback allowed another horseman to approach him without preparing for
defense, and every object at a distance that was not clearly distinguishable was
viewed with alarm.
For two weeks following the raid upon the present town site of Colorado Springs,
the Indians had virtual possession of the northern and eastern portions of the
county. During this time they raided Gill's ranch, east of Jimmy's Camp, and ran
off his herd of horses, taking them out of the corral near his house in the
night, although the horses were being guarded by armed men. It appears that the
Indians stole up to the corral on the opposite side from where the guards were
posted, made an opening in it, let the horses out, and were off with them before
the men realized what was going on.
About the same time, the Indians killed a demented man named Jonathan Lincoln,
at the Lincoln ranch in Spring Valley on Cherry Creek, just north of the El Paso
County line. Lincoln and a Mexican were out in the harvest-field binding oats
when they saw the Indians approaching. The Mexican saved himself by flight, but
Lincoln folded his arms and calmly awaited the coming of the savages. Without
hesitation they killed him, took his scalp, and departed again into the recesses
of the adjacent pinery. They also killed John Choteau, on east Cherry Creek,
John Grief and Jonathan Tallman on east Bijou, and raided the John Russell ranch
at the head of East Cherry Creek, from which place they ran off sixteen horses.
About this time, a small band of Indians, while prowling around near the town of
Monument, threatened the house of David McShane at a time when all the men were
away, Mrs. McShane and some neighboring women and children being the only
occupants. Having the true pioneer spirit, the women, under the leadership of
Mrs. McShane, put up such a strong show of defense that the savages abandoned
the attack in short order, apparently glad to get away unharmed. Soon after,
they burned Henry Walker's house, which stood about a mile east of the present
Husted station on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.
The Indians seemed to have established a camp at some secluded place in the
timber of the Divide, from which they went out in small parties in every
direction, killing and robbing when. opportunity offered. Every day during these
two weeks, Indians were seen at various places on the Divide and the eastern
part of the county. By this time, how-ever, our people had taken their families
out of danger and were so constantly on the alert that the Indians, while having
many opportunities for looting and robbing the deserted ranches, had few chances
for surprising and killing defenseless people, who were the only ones they cared
to attack. Throughout the raid, those who had been able to make any kind of a
defense had been let alone. The Indians seemed unwilling to take any chances or
to waste their ammunition, unless they were certain of results.
A week or two after the beginning of the Indian troubles, the people of El Paso
County took steps to form a military company to be regularly employed against
the Indians, its members to serve without pay. It was the intention to keep this
company in the field until the Indians were driven out of the region. About the
fifteenth of September, eighty mounted and well-armed men, who had enlisted for
the purpose, and of whom I was one, met at Husted's saw-mill on the Divide and
perfected a military organization by the election of the usual company officers,
A. J. Templeton being elected captain. The company took up its line of march
through the pinery to Bijou Basin; thence eastward past the place where
Simpson's party had been besieged two or three weeks before. After examining
with much interest the scene of this fight, we went southeasterly to Big Sandy
Creek, thence down the valley of that creek to Lake Station on the Smoky Hill
wagon road, about ten miles east of the present town of Limon. On our march we
saw no Indians, and, judging from their trails and from other indications, we
decided that they were leaving the country. As we marched down the valley of the
Big Sandy, in the vicinity of the present towns of Ramah and Calhan, we saw
hundreds of dead cattle, most of them cows that had been killed by the Indians
only a day or two before. That these cattle had been wantonly killed, was shown
by the fact that no part of the animals had been taken for food. In almost every
instance they had been shot with arrows, many of which were at the time sticking
in the carcasses. Besides the dead cattle, we saw hundreds of live ones
scattered all over the hills and down the valley, which had evidently been
driven off by the Indians from the ranches in El Paso and the surrounding
counties. At a point about ten miles down the valley from the present station of
Limon, on the Rock Island Railway, the trail of the Indians left the valley and
turned northeastward. At this place we were about seventy-five miles southwest
from the Beecher Island battle ground, on the Arickaree fork of the Republican
River, where Colonel George A. Forsyth and his fifty followers were at that very
time making their heroic defense against an overwhelming number of Indians under
the command of the famous chief Roman Nose, although we knew nothing of the
affair until some time later. The trail of the Indians led across the country in
a direct line toward the battle ground. No doubt they had been summoned by
runners to aid their people, and probably this was the reason for their leaving
El Paso County.
Upon discovering the course taken by the Indians, Captain Templeton, on account
of his small force, deemed it imprudent to pursue them farther. An additional
reason for facing about was that our supply of provisions was about exhausted,
and had we gone farther we should have had to subsist on the wild game of the
region, which would have been a risky thing to attempt. As it was, on our way
homeward we had to live entirely on the meat of cattle we killed. Having no camp
outfit, we broiled the meat on sticks before our camp fires and then ate it
without salt. To me this fare was about the nearest to a starvation diet that I
have ever experienced. We reached Colorado City in due time, with-out having
seen an Indian during our whole campaign. Whether we were the cause of the
Indians leaving this region, or whether it was a coincidence that they were just
ahead of us, I do not know, but it was evident that the Indians were gone, and
on account of approaching winter we had little to fear from them during the
remainder of the year. There apparently being no further use for its services,
the company was disbanded.
It had been a strenuous period for the settlers from the first appearance of the
Indians about the 20th of August until this time. At least a dozen persons had
been killed in El Paso County and the country adjacent thereto on the Divide.
Many houses had been destroyed; crops had been lost through inability to harvest
the grain; probably five hundred horses and at least one thousand head of cattle
had been driven off, making an aggregate loss of property that was extremely
heavy for a sparsely populated county such as El Paso was at that time. The
contest was an unequal one from the start. The settlers were armed with a
miscellaneous lot of guns, most of which were muzzle-loading hunting rifles,
while the Indians were armed with breech-loading guns using metal cartridges.
Fortunately for the settlers, the ammunition of the Indians was of a poor
quality, as was proved in the fight east of Bijou Basin and elsewhere, and,
judging by the careful manner in which they used their ammunition, it is
probable that the supply was not very large. This undoubtedly saved the lives of
many of our people. It was noticed from the first that the Indians never wasted
their ammunition and seldom attacked an armed person.
During all the time the savages were going up and down the county murdering
people, stealing stock, and destroying the property of the settlers, the general
Government did not make the slightest attempt to give our people protection,
although attention was repeatedly called to their desperate condition. It is
true that a week or two after the Indian troubles began, the Territorial
authorities at Denver supplied our people with a limited number of old Belgian
muskets, together with the necessary ammunition, but these guns were so much
inferior to those in the hands of the Indians, that they were of very little
use. With this one exception, the early settlers of this county were left
entirely to their own resources from the beginning of the Indian troubles, in
1864, until the end, which did not come until the building of the railroads into
the Territory. Every appeal to the general Government for protection was
received either with indifference or insult.
In September, 1866, General William T. Sherman, Commander-in-Chief of the United
States Army, on his way north from an inspection of the forts in New Mexico,
accompanied by a large number of staff officers and a strong escort, stopped
overnight in Colorado City. Having been in constant danger from the Indians
since the beginning of the trouble in 1864, our people thought this an opportune
time to lay the matter before him and ask that proper means of protection be
provided. My father, the Rev. Wm. Howbert, was appointed spokesman of the
committee that waited upon the General. In his speech, father explained our
exposed and defenseless condition, and suggested that a force of government
troops be permanently stationed at some point on our eastern frontier, in order
to intercept any Indians that might be attempting a raid upon the people of this
region. General Sherman received the appeal with utter indifference, and replied
that he thought we were unnecessarily alarmed; that there were no hostile
Indians in the neighborhood; and then sarcastically remarked that it probably
would be a very profitable thing for the people of this region if we could have
a force of government troops located near here, to whom our farmers might sell
their grain and agricultural products at a high price. With this remark he
dismissed the committee, the members of which left the room very indignant at
the manner in which their appeal had been received. Later in the year, General
Sherman evidently was of the opinion that there were hostile Indians in the
western country and that they needed severe punishment, for after the massacre
of Lieut. Col. Fetterman and his entire command near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming,
he telegraphed General Grant, saying: "We must act with vindictive earnestness
against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children' nothing
else will reach the root of the case."
Two years later, in 1868, the General came to Denver along the line of the
Kansas-Pacific Rail-way, at that time under construction, and was glad to have a
strong escort to guard' him through the region of the hostile Indians. Following
this trip, he made a strenuous effort to punish the savages elsewhere, but
apparently made no attempt to protect the settlers on the eastern borders of
Colorado.
I venture to say that no civilized nation ever gave less attention to protecting
its frontier people from the incursion of savages than did our general
Government. It was always a question of the influence that could be brought to
bear upon the government officials at Washington. After the outbreak of the
Indians in Minnesota, in 1862; the Government took prompt measures and punished
the savages unmercifully. However, this was due to the fact that Minnesota at
that time had two Senators and several members of Congress who were able to
bring the necessary influence to bear. During all of our Indian troubles,
Colorado had only one delegate in Congress, who had no vote and very little
influence.
Consequently, we were left to protect ourselves as best we could.
The whole eastern frontier of El Paso County faced upon the territory occupied
by the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, the most crafty and bloodthirsty savages
upon the American continent. There were at all times bands of these Indians
roaming around on the headwaters of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers, and it
was easy for them to reach the settlements of this county without being
observed. Considering these facts, it now seems a wonder that we were not wiped
off the face of the earth. Doubtless, as I have said before, the reason that we
were not exterminated was the fact of our contiguity to the country of their
hereditary enemies, the Ute, for whom, on account of their fighting ability,
they had a wholesome respect.
During the Indian troubles, a few settlers left the county and sought places of
safety elsewhere, but the great majority of our people pluckily stood their
ground. The ranchmen who had brought their families to Colorado City for
protection left them there until the trouble was over, but went to their homes
as often as they could get two or three armed men to accompany them, to harvest
their grain and take care of their stock.
Every time they did this, it was at the risk of their lives, for no one could
tell when or where the savages might next appear. The people who now live in the
cities and on the ranches of El Paso County can have no true conception of the
dangers and the anxieties of the early settlers of the Pike's Peak region. As
soon as it was definitely known that the Indians had left the county, most of
the ranchmen moved their families back to their homes. From previous experience
it was known that, as winter was coming on, there was little danger to be
apprehended until the following spring.
By the spring of 1869, the Government, in a winter campaign with troops under
the command of General Custer, had administered such severe punishment to the
Cheyenne and Arapaho in the battle of Washita and in other engagements that
thereafter the people of El Paso County were unmolested by them, although
spasmodic outbreaks occurred at various places out on the plains for several
years afterward.
