THE INDIAN TROUBLES OF 1864
As I have before mentioned, war parties of Cheyennes and Arapahoes
continued to make occasional trips through the Ute Pass to the mountains
in search of their enemies, the Utes, until 1864. As these war parties
seldom tarried long in this vicinity, their presence was not seriously
objected to during the first two or three years, but after rumors of
impending trouble with them became current, their visits were looked upon
with a good deal of apprehension. From the year 1859 to the beginning of
1863, the wagon trains that brought supplies from the Missouri River to
Colorado came and went without molestation, but it was noticed, from the
latter part of 1862 on, that the Indians of the plains were anxious to
secure guns and ammunition, and were acquiring more than was necessary
for their ordinary hunting. Early in 1863, they began to attack and
rob wagon trains, steal horses, and threaten exposed settlements, but
nothing occurred to cause any great alarm in the immediate Pike's Peak
region, until the spring of 1864. During a very considerable portion of
the next four years, however, the people of El Paso County experienced
all the horrors of Indian warfare.
My story of the Indian troubles of that period will necessarily be much
in the nature of a personal narrative. At the time hostilities began, I
was little more than eighteen years old, and as fond of excitement and
adventure as boys at that age usually are. I had a part in many of the
occurrences which I shall mention, and was personally familiar with the
details of most of the others.
About the 20th of June, 1864, word reached Colorado City that a day or
two previously, the Hungate family, living on Running Creek about forty
miles northeast of Colorado City, had been murdered by the Indians.
The father and mother had been shot down and mutilated with horrible
brutality, and the children who had tried to escape had been pursued
and killed, so that not one of the family was left alive. This news made
the people of Colorado City, and the settlers along the Fountain and on
the Divide, very uneasy, and of course, after that, they were constantly
on the lookout, not knowing where the savages might next appear. Two or
three weeks after the murder of the Hungate family, some cattle herders
came into Colorado City late one evening and told of having seen near
Austin's Bluff, a half a dozen mounted Indians who seemed to be acting
mysteriously. Following the killing of the Hungate family, and other acts
of hostility at various places on the plains, this was indeed alarming
news. Consequently, early the following morning an armed party went to the
place where the Indians had been seen, found their trail, and followed
it. In this way it was discovered that, some time during the previous
night, the Indians had been on the hill that overlooks Colorado City on
the north, and that the trail from that point led into the mountains.
The direction from which these Indians came, their mysterious movements
after they were discovered, taken in connection with the recent acts
of hostility, and the knowledge that the tribes of the plains had been
attempting during the previous winter to make a coalition for the purpose
of annihilating the settlements along the eastern base of the mountains,
seemed convincing proof that this band was here for no good purpose.
At that time I was living with my father on the west side of Camp Creek,
about half-way between Colorado City and the Garden of the Gods. I
had been in town during the forenoon and had heard the alarming news,
and as a result, after that father and I kept a sharp lookout for the
savages. However, the day passed without anything further having been
seen or heard of them. Shortly after sundown, my brothers Edgar and
Frank, who were small boys, brought our cattle in from the neighborhood
of the Garden of the Gods, and while I was helping to drive them into
the corral adjacent to our house, I happened to look up the valley of
Camp Creek, and there, about three-quarters of a mile away, I saw six
mounted Indians leading an extra horse. They were going easterly along
the old Indian trail, which I have heretofore described, that ran just
south of the Garden of the Gods. As soon as I saw these Indians, I was
sure that they were the party which had been trailed into Colorado City
the night before. Without delay I strapped on a revolver, took my gun,
and rode to Colorado City as fast as my pony could travel, to report
what I had seen. The people had been greatly agitated during the day
and, consequently, the news I brought caused much excitement.
It was at once decided that the Indians must be followed, and if possible
the purpose of their visit ascertained. In less than three-quarters of an
hour, ten mounted and well-armed men were ready for the pursuit. Those
forming the party were Anthony Bott, Dr. Eggleston, William J. Baird,
A. T. Cone, Ren Smith, myself, and four others whose names I cannot
now recall. By a quarter of eight we were traveling along the trail
taken by the Indians across the Mesa east of the Garden of the Gods.
We appreciated the necessity of making as little noise as possible, and
all talking was carried on in an undertone. The trail led from the Mesa
down to Monument Creek, about a mile above the present site of Colorado
Springs, and then crossed the stream over a bed of gravel that extended
to the bluff on the eastern side. Thick clumps of willows enclosed the
trail on both sides. It was a starlight night without clouds, but not
light enough for us to see an object any distance away.
We suspected nothing, as we believed the Indians to be far ahead of us.
But just as we came up on the first rise out of the willows on the east
side of the creek we were startled to see them huddled together on the
left of us, under the bank, apparently getting ready to start a small
camp-fire, while to the right were their ponies, which had been turned
out to graze. The Indians were just as much surprised as we were, and
for an instant the situation was extremely tense. As we refrained from
firing, the Indians, knowing that they were at a disadvantage in not
being able to reach their ponies, evidently with the hope of making
us believe that they were friendly, began calling out "How! How!" as
Indians usually do on meeting the whites. We then questioned them,
hoping to ascertain the object of their presence in this locality. Some
of our people had a slight knowledge of Spanish, with which the Indians
seemed somewhat conversant, and in this way and by signs, we told them
that we were there only for the purpose of ascertaining their object in
visiting this region, and not to do them harm; that if they could show
that they were here for no hostile purpose, we would permit them to go
on their way unmolested, but in order to establish this fact it would
be necessary for them to go with us to Colorado City, where competent
interpreters could be found, and meanwhile we should require them to
give up their arms. They apparently assented to this proposition, and
at once surrendered such of their arms as were in sight. Six of us then
dismounted, and each took an Indian in charge while he was securing his
pony. The Indian I had in charge was a tall, slim fellow, fully six feet
in height and probably not much over twenty years of age. He appeared to
take the situation quietly and I had no reason to apprehend any trouble
with him. I allowed him to lead his pony to the camp, where he put on
the saddle and bridle and mounted the animal, as all were permitted to
do. We then formed the Indians in ranks of twos, placing a file of our
men on each side of them, each white man having charge of the Indian
next to him, which left two extra whites for the front and two to guard
the rear. I was in charge of the Indian on the left side of the rear
rank and had hold of his bridle with my right hand. The order was given
to march and we started east towards the plateau on which Colorado
Springs is now built. We had proceeded only eight or ten feet when the
Indians suddenly halted. From the time they mounted they had been talking
animatedly with one another in their own language. Just then someone
happened to see that one of the Indians had a knife in his hand. This
was taken from him and then we made a systematic search of the others
and found that most of them had knives, and one a spear concealed under
his blanket. It was with great difficulty that we twisted these weapons
from their hands, but finally, as we thought, secured everything of that
nature. The order was again given to march. Immediately following this,
the Indians gave a tremendous war-whoop, shook their blankets, and were
out from between us before we realized what was happening. The bridle
rein in my hand was jerked away before I knew it. We were all so dazed
that the Indians probably were seventy-five to one hundred feet away
before our people began shooting. Meantime, my pony, which was of Indian
breed, had become almost unmanageable. He seemed to be determined to go
off with the other Indian ponies and I had the greatest difficulty in
restraining him. Before I succeeded, I was so far in front that I was in
great danger of being shot by our own people. By the time I could get my
pony under control, the Indians were too far away for me to shoot with
hope of doing any execution, but during this time the others had been
making such good use of their weapons that in a few minutes the affair
was over, and five of the Indians had fallen from their ponies. Whether
they had been killed or wounded we did not know until some years later.
We only knew that their ponies were running riderless over the plains. It
was now about ten o'clock, and quite dark; consequently we made little
effort to locate the dead and wounded. We rounded up the ponies, there
being six of them, one a pack animal, and after gathering up such of
the belongings of the Indians as they had dropped in their flight, we
started on our return to Colorado City.
The whole occurrence made one of the weirdest scenes that it has ever
been my fortune to witness. First the sudden discovery of the Indians
in the darkness of the night; the group formed of the Indians with the
whites surrounding them; the mounting of the ponies; the shrill war-whoop
of six savages ringing out in the solitude, followed by the shots, and
then the riderless horses running hither and thither over the plain.
The dramatic scene was completed a few minutes later by the rounding
up of these riderless ponies and the beginning of the march back to
Colorado City over the present town site of Colorado Springs, the only
inhabitants of which at that time were the antelope and the coyotes.
Our road led us over the present College reservation, down what is now
Cascade Avenue to a ford crossing the Monument Creek, just west of the
present Rio Grande freight station.
On the way home, the thought came to us whether we could have done
differently under the circumstances. We knew the tribes to which these
Indians belonged were at war with the whites, and that, unless they were
on their way to fight the Utes, they were here on no peaceable errand
so far as our people were concerned. Their course in going only to the
foot of the mountains, showed that they were not seeking the Utes, and
their actions under cover of the previous night, and afterward, up to
the time they were captured, proved conclusively that they were here as
scouts of a larger party, to ascertain and to report the strength of the
town and its surrounding settlements. When first discovered, they were
in an out-of-the-way spot, and from that time on until their capture,
they traveled over abandoned roads and trails, probably hoping in this
way to fulfill their mission without detection. These things convinced
us that we had accomplished an important work, and the only regret we
had was that we had not been able to bring the captives into town.
Early the following morning several of our party returned to the scene
of the occurrence of the night before, hoping to find the bodies of the
Indians who unquestionably had been killed in the mêlée, but there was
nothing to indicate the struggle excepting a few articles of clothing
and personal adornment, and marks upon the ground showing where the dead
and wounded had evidently lain. Several years afterward, we learned
from the Cheyennes that three of this scouting party had been killed
outright, one was so seriously wounded that he died shortly afterward,
another was slightly wounded, and one had escaped unhurt. The last, with
the aid of the one slightly wounded, had carried off and buried the dead
during the night.
News of our evening's experience spread rapidly and created intense
excitement in Colorado City and throughout the county. The people of El
Paso County now realized that they were face to face with Indian troubles
of the most serious nature, and that arrangements for the defense of
the town and surrounding country must immediately be made. The fighting
strength of the Pike's Peak region was exceedingly limited, as compared
with the great horde of savages that occupied our eastern frontier.
Probably there were not over three hundred men of all ages in El Paso
County at that time. And, as further showing the precarious position of
the community, I wish to call attention to the fact that the frontier
settlements of the United States at that time extended but little west
of the Missouri River, leaving the narrow belt of settlements along the
eastern base of the mountains in Colorado separated from the nearest
communities to the east by a stretch of plains at least four hundred miles
in width, inhabited only by wild and savage tribes of nomadic Indians.
The same condition existed on the north to the British possessions,
and to the west the Ute Indians held undisputed sway to the Great Salt
Lake valley. To the south, with the exception of a small part of New
Mexico sparsely settled by feeble and widely scattered communities of
Spanish-speaking people, wild tribes roamed over every portion of the
country for hundreds of miles. From the foregoing, it will be seen that
the settlements of Colorado were but a small island of civilization in a
sea of savagery. Our settlements were at times completely cut off from
civilization in every direction by this cordon of savage tribes; their
very existence was now threatened, with no hope of assistance from the
National Government, because of the civil war which was then at its most
critical stage, demanding every resource of the nation. Threatened as
they were by hordes of hostile savages and under conditions that would
have had a disheartening effect upon a people not inured to frontier
life, our settlers had no thought of allowing themselves to be driven
out or overwhelmed.
Warning was at once sent to every family living down the Fountain and
on the Divide, the result being that within a day or two almost every
ranch in the county was abandoned. The people for fifteen miles down
the valley below Colorado City came to that town. Those living below
gathered at the extreme lower edge of the county and there built a place
of defense. In Colorado City the work of constructing a fort around
an old log hotel was started at once. Green pine logs, ten to fifteen
inches in diameter and about fifteen feet long, were cut on the adjacent
mountains, brought in, and set in the ground close together, entirely
surrounding the building, making a defensive structure about twelve
feet high. At intervals through these logs portholes were made for use
in repelling an attack. During the next month or two all the women and
children of the town as well as those who had congregated there from
the country slept at night in this fortification. Throughout this time a
picket force of three or four mounted men was maintained night and day
on the flat east of the town, and out on the present site of Colorado
Springs. There was scarcely a day during this period in which Indians
were not seen at various points in the country to the east of Colorado
City, and on the borders of the settlements along the Fountain, but as
the people everywhere were watchful, the savages had little opportunity
of catching any one unawares.
About two weeks after the occurrence on Monument Creek, a messenger
arrived at Colorado City, sent by Governor Evans to warn the people of an
impending attack upon the settlements of the Territory by the Cheyennes,
Arapahoes, and other hostile Indians. It appears that the Governor had
received information from Elbridge Gerry, one of his secret agents, that
eight hundred warriors belonging to the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and other
hostile Indian tribes, were in camp at the Point of Rocks near the head
of Beaver Creek in eastern Colorado, and had planned a simultaneous
attack upon the frontier settlements of Colorado extending from a point
in the valley of the Platte River one hundred miles below Denver, to
the Arkansas River at the mouth of the Fontaine qui Bouille. According
to the program agreed upon by the Indians, one hundred warriors were to
go to the valley of the Platte, two hundred and fifty to the head of
Cherry Creek, and the remainder of the eight hundred to the valley of
the Fountain and Arkansas rivers. On reaching the appointed localities,
these parties were to be divided into small bands, each one of which
was to attack a farmhouse, kill the occupants, loot the property, and
run off the stock.
Elbridge Gerry, from whom the information of the proposed raid was
received, was the grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence,
and although an educated man, had lived with the Indians for a good many
years and had married a Cheyenne woman. At this time, he was living with
his Indian wife on a stock ranch in the valley of the Platte River, sixty
to seventy miles below Denver. It was here that the information reached
him, through two Cheyenne chiefs, who came to warn him of the impending
danger. Gerry received the word about midnight and early next morning
started on horseback for Denver to notify Governor Evans, arriving there
about eleven o'clock that night, having ridden the sixty or seventy
miles without resting. As the date set for the raid was but a day or
two off, Governor Evans at once dispatched messengers in every direction
to notify the people. The one sent to Colorado City reached that place
the next afternoon, and warning was immediately sent by messengers to
the few ranchmen down the Fountain and east of Colorado City, who for
urgent reasons had been compelled temporarily to return to their homes.
The following day, small bands of Indians appeared along the entire
frontier of El Paso County, but their raid was a failure, as the warnings
given through the occurrence on Monument Creek, and that of the Governor,
had put every one on guard; consequently the savages found that the
settlers at every point had either fled, or were fully prepared to defend
themselves.
That the information given by Gerry was absolutely correct, was shown
by the fact that at the appointed time the Indians appeared along the
entire frontier of Colorado, from the Platte to the Arkansas River.
However, in almost every locality, as in El Paso County, they found the
settlers on the lookout, consequently, the wholesale slaughter planned
did not take place. After killing one man near Fort Lupton, below Denver,
two or three near the head of Cherry Creek, and stealing many cattle,
the larger part of the Indians returned to their rendezvous out on the
plains, leaving a few warriors along the borders to harass the settlers
during the remainder of the summer.
The Point of Rocks on Beaver Creek, where the eight hundred Indians were
in camp, is about one hundred miles northeast of Colorado City. It is
practically certain that the Indians we captured on Monument Creek two or
three weeks previous were from that camp and had been sent out to secure
information concerning the settlers of this region, preparatory to the
raid they were then planning. There is every probability that an awful
calamity would have befallen the settlers of this county had not the
discovery, capture, and escape of these scouts aroused our people to a
full realization of their impending danger. Had the news brought by the
messenger from the Governor been our first warning, it would have been
impossible after his arrival to have brought any considerable portion
of our scattered settlers into Colorado City before the appearance of
the Indians.
Governor Evans, in telling of this incident in his evidence before
the Committee on the Conduct of the War, in March, 1865, expressed the
opinion that had the plan of the Indians been carried out without previous
notice having been given to the settlers, it would have resulted in the
most wholesale and extensive massacre that has ever been known. It was
most fortunate for our people that timely notice was given in such an
effective manner, because in those days news traveled slowly. Weekly
mails were then the only method of disseminating news, as telegraph
lines had not yet reached this part of the Territory, nor was there a
newspaper published in the county; consequently news of Indian raids
and outbreaks in other parts of the Territory often was a week or more
in reaching El Paso County. Early realizing that they must depend upon
their own resources, so far as I can see, the people of El Paso County
took all necessary precautions, and acted wisely in every emergency.
One day early in September, 1864, a company of the First Colorado Cavalry
on its way from one of the forts in New Mexico to Denver stopped for
the noon meal at Jimmy's Camp, about ten miles east of Colorado City.
Not having seen any Indians on the march, both officers and men were
exceedingly skeptical as to there being any in this region, and had made
sport of the settlers for being so unnecessarily alarmed. Upon making
camp, the soldiers turned their horses, numbering from seventy-five to
one hundred, out to graze, placing only one trooper in charge of them.
The horses in their grazing gradually drifted farther and farther away
from camp, until finally when they were almost half a mile distant, a
band of Indians suddenly came tearing out of the timber just above and
almost before the soldiers realized it they had rounded up the herd
and were off over the hills, yelling back taunts as they rode away.
The soldiers came marching into Colorado City on foot the next day, a
dejected lot, and as they passed, it gave the settlers great pleasure
to jeer at them.