| Battle of Summit Springs | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Comanche War, American Indian Wars | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| United States | Arapaho Cheyenne Sioux |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Eugene A. Carr | Tall Bull | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 244 soldiers 50 scouts |
~450 warriors | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1 wounded | ~35 killed 17 captured[1][2] |
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| Civilian Casualties 1 killed 1 wounded | |||||||
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The Battle of Summit Springs, on July 11, 1869, was an armed conflict between elements of the United States Army under the command of Colonel Eugene A. Carr and a group of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers led by Tall Bull, who died during the engagement. The battle happened near Sterling, Colorado and was a response to a series of raids in north-central Kansas by Chief Tall Bull's band of the Cheyenne,
When the Pawnee Scouts under Major Frank North managed to lead his command to Tall Bull's village, Colonel Carr, a veteran campaigner known as "The Black-Bearded Cossack",[3] deployed his forces - 244 men of the 5th United States Regiment of Cavalry and 50 members of the Pawnee Scouts, carefully so that they hit the unsuspecting camp from three sides at once.[4] Captain Luther North of the Pawnee Scout Battalion related this incident in the book Man of the Plains; "about a half mile from and off to one side from our line, a Cheyenne boy was herding horses. He was about fifteen years old and we were very close to him before he saw us. He jumped on his horse and gathered up his herd and drove them into the village ahead of our men, who were shooting at him. He was mounted on a very good horse and could easily have gotten away if he had left his herd, but he took them all in ahead of him, then at the edge of the village he turned and joined a band of warriors that were trying to hold us back, while the women and children were getting away, and there he died like a warrior. No braver man ever existed than that 15 year old boy."[5]
Major Frank North, commander of the Pawnee Scout Battalion, saw an Indian rise from cover and take aim at him. He shot and killed the man, who turned out to be Tall Bull. Captain Luther North (Major Frank North's brother) recounted that Tall Bull's wife stated three days later when asked by Leo Palliday if Tall Bull was killed, "She said 'yes' and pointed to my brother and said, 'This man killed him where I came out of the Canyon.'"[5] Meanwhile, the Pawnees surrounded 20 Cheyenne warriors who were sheltering in a ravine. Armed only with bows and arrows, the Cheyenne kept their attackers at bay until their arrows ran out, whereupon the Pawnees moved in and killed all of them.[4]
In addition to Tall Bull and the 20 men in the ravine,[6] George Bird Grinnell detailed nine other people who were killed by members of the Pawnee Scout Battalion: two warriors (Lone Bear and Pile of Bones); a very old Suhtai woman on a slow pony; two Sioux women running on foot; a Cheyenne woman and two children (a boy and a girl); and an old Sioux woman whose horse fell and threw her.[7] Only four fatalities are mentioned by Grinnell who are not specifically stated to have been killed by members of the Pawnee Scout Battalion: the wife, mother-in-law and two young children of a man called Red Cherries.[8] The fatalities detailed by Grinnell and by Donald J. Berthrong[4] add up to 23 warriors, 1 fifteen year-old boy, 5 women and 2 children killed by members of the Pawnee Scout Battalion, and 2 women and 2 children whose killers are not specified. This gives a total of 35 people killed. The impression gained is that, despite being outnumbered nearly 5-to-1 by the 5th Cavalrymen who charged into the village with them, the Pawnees did the lion’s share of the fighting and the killing.
One Cheyenne escaped on Tall Bull's distinctive white horse. He was shot off it by Scout William Cody in a skirmish next day, leading Buffalo Bill to think that he had killed Tall Bull himself. In his biography of Luther North, Grinnell footnoted this event, "William Cody later claimed he had killed Tall Bull and Cody's protagonists have stated that Luther North's account of the shooting was an invention. However, while Frank was a partner with Cody in the cattle business, he related the story of the shooting in detail essentially as Luther recollected it.[9]
Carr reported only a single casualty in his command (a trooper wounded) and claimed that 52 Indians had been killed. 17 women and children were captured, along with more than 300 horses and mules. One white woman captive (Susanna Alderdice) was killed and one (Maria Weichell) wounded.[2]