Monday, June 12.
We stood by the graves of eleven men that were killed last August by
the Indians. There was a sort of bulletin-board about midway and at the
foot of the graves stating the circumstances of the frightful tragedy.
They were a party of fourteen, twelve men and two women, wives of two
of the men. They were camped on Plum Creek, a short distance from where
the graves are. They were all at breakfast except one man who had gone
to the creek for water, he hid in the brush, or there would have been
none to tell the tale of the massacre.
There had been no depredations committed on this road all Summer, and
emigrants had become careless and traveled in small parties. They did
not suspect that an Indian was near until they were surrounded, and the
slaughter had commenced. All the men were killed and scalped, and the
women taken prisoners. They took what they wanted of the provisions,
burned the wagons and ran off with the horses.
The one man that escaped went with all haste to the nearest station
for help. The soldiers pursued the Indians, had a fight with them and
rescued the women. One of them had seen her husband killed and scalped
and was insane when rescued, and died at the station. The other woman
was the wife of the man that escaped. They were from St. Joe, Missouri.
Ezra met with quite an accident to-day; he went to sleep while driving
the family wagon--he was on guard last night--the horses brought the
wheel against a telegraph pole with a sudden jerk that threw him out
of his seat and down at the horses’ heels--a sudden awakening--with a
badly-bruised ankle.
We are in the worst place for Indians on all this road. The bluffs come
within half a mile on our left, and hundreds of savages could hide
in the hollows; the underbrush and willows are dense along the river
banks. There is an island, about a mile in length, that comes so near
this side in many places that a man could leap from bank to bank. The
island is a thick wood, a place where any number of the dreaded savages
could hide, and shoot down the unwary traveler with the guns and
ammunition furnished them by the United States Government.
How I would like to climb to the top of those bluffs, and see what is
on the other side, but the captain says, “Stay within sight of camp.”
And I must obey.