From LBHA Associate Jeff Broome

[keogh]

Please respond directly to Jeff at

[e-mail]


I have a research inquiry I would appreciate you sending out to the troops to see if anyone can help me. Thanks.

Hi friends:

I am writing a book detailing the Indian war on the three trails that came to Denver (South Platte River, Smoky Hill, and Santa Fe Trail), and am using a few hundred Indian depredation claims that I have copied at the National Archives over the last 9 years in 60 days of visits. A very interesting story is emerging.

One of the things I have tried to do is find first hand sources that verify the information in the depredation claims. E.g., Theodore Davis published an article in Harper’s Monthly chronicling a stage trip he took in November 1865 on the newly opened Smoky Hill Trail, and he tells a story there of an Indian attack at Downer Station where several men were killed. The man who shared the story with Davis was Lewis Perrin, whose depredation claim I found in the NA (Davis spelled it Mr. Perine).

I have two questions I hope someone might be able to help me with, by directing me to another source(s) for confirmation.

1) There was an attack on the Platte River near Alkali Station (east of Julesburg) on October 22, 1865. In one depredation claim (I have three detailing this attack), the freighter tells of soldiers coming to the scene of the depredation shortly after the attack, staying with the corralled wagons for a few hours and then 4 soldiers and an officer began to go back the two miles to Alkali Station when the Indians attacked them and killed them all. I cannot find anything in the Official Records or other books I have covering this period of history (Guarding the Overland Trail (there is a footnote in this book about a diary saying 21 soldiers were killed), Circle of Fire, etc.), and yet I have no doubt that these 5 soldiers were killed. Any help with other sources confirming this?

2) Concerning this same incident, two men were left with their wagons when over 100 Indians descended upon them to kill them, got within 30 feet of them but they let the men walk away a mile back to another train where other men were corralled and where they could be relatively safe. One of the freighters said his partner had thick fiery red hair and he believed the Indians did not shoot at them because of fears/superstitions about his red hair. I have a memory of reading something about Indians fearing men with such red hair and leaving them alone, but I couldn’t find it in the Bent book. Does anyone know about that and where that source might come from? I would like to add it to my book. Bent, by the way, admits to being in these raids in October 1865.

Thanks to one and all.

Jeff

[cisdyd]

I had the name of three of the soldiers killed at Alkali Station in a notebook I had not entered into the PFH yet and have forwarded to Jeff.

Also, while hunting for more information, I ran across this in a House Report from the Committee of Pensions (pertinent section bold-faced):

R E P 0 R T :

[То accompany the bill H. R. 4985.]

The Committee on Pensions, to whom was referred the bill (H, R. 4985) granting a pension to George Denney, having examined the same, report ;

That the conclusions contained in the report of the Committee on Invalid Pensions of the House of Representatives are fully sustained by the evidence in the case, and the adoption of that report is therefore recommended :


4 The said George Denney enlisted into the United States military service on the 28th of September, 1875, in Company M, Seventh Regiment United States Cavalry, and was discharged April 16, 1876 ; that on the 24th of November, 1875, while out hunting with some of his comrades near Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, he was accidentally shot by a comrade in his left knee-joint, which resulted in the amputation of his leg at the thigh.

General Orders No. 103 of 1874, Adjutant-General's Office, Headquarters of the Army, provide that captains of companies may expend, at their discretion, ten rounds of ammunition per month per man, either in target-practice or hunting.

While Denney in this case was not, perhaps, strictly under orders when he was wounded, yet he was not acting contrary to orders. He and his comrade had just come off guard, and were engaged in hunting when the accident occurred. ln the opinion of the committee he is entitled to a pension, and they therefore recommend the passage of the accompanying substitute bill.