The
Battle of Ash Hollow
, also known as the
Battle of Blue Water Creek
or the
Harney Massacre
,
[1]
[2]
was an engagement of the
First Sioux War
, and fought on September 2 and 3, 1855 between
United States Army
soldiers under
Brig. Gen.
William S. Harney
and a band of the
Brule Lakota
along the
Platte River
in present-day
Garden County
,
Nebraska
. In the 20th century, the town of
Lewellen, Nebraska
, was developed here as a railroad stop.
The American force won the battle: the Brule women and children they killed made up nearly half the fatalities; other women and children made up most of the prisoners they took. The Army planned this
punitive expedition
in retaliation for the "
Grattan Massacre
" in August 1854, and for raids by Lakota in its wake.
Overview
[
edit
]
The battle was the defining engagement of a short war between the US and the Lakota Sioux over disputes concerning violations of the 1851
Treaty of Fort Laramie
. In this battle 600 soldiers attacked 250 Sioux, killing 86 and capturing 70 women and children.
In March 1856, without authority to do so, commanding Gen. William Harney negotiated a
peace treaty
to stop further bloodshed with the Sioux. He required a centralized tribal government among the Lakota, by which he intended to hold leaders accountable for the actions of bands. The people were highly decentralized.
While the battle was hailed by many newspapers as a heroic victory over the Indians, the
New York Times
called it a massacre and other critics decried it as "outright butchery," because of the killings of numerous women and children.
The lamentable butcheries of Indians by Harney's command on the Plains have excited the most painful feelings," wrote a
New York Times
correspondent in an 1855 dispatch from Washington. "The so-called battle was simply a massacre, but whether those Indians were really the same who have cut off emigrant trains with so many circumstances of savage cruelty, or whether it is possible to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty in retaliating these outrages, are points on which we have no reliable information.
[3]
Some others claimed that the battle was fought only to justify growth in the American army, which was being encouraged by
Secretary of War
Jefferson Davis
.
Background
[
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]
Grattan “Massacre”
[
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]
The first decisive event that initialized the
First Sioux war
was catalyzed when a Mormon emigrant lost a cow while traveling with his party on the
Oregon Trail
; the animal wandered into a
Brule Lakota
camp. A Miniconjou Sioux named High Forehead killed the cow for food. The Mormon farmer reported the cow as stolen to army officers at
Fort Laramie
.
The fort's commander sent out an inexperienced officer,
Lt.
John Lawrence Grattan
?said to be contemptuous of the Indians?to arrest High Forehead. But under the treaty of 1851, such matters related to livestock and relations with settlers were supposed to be handled by the
Indian Agent
, who was due to arrive soon. Grattan vowed to take the wanted Indian "at all hazards" and took along 30 men and artillery.
[4]
He pressed the chief to surrender the Sioux man. One of his soldiers shot the chief,
Conquering Bear
, in the back and killed him. In the ensuing battle the Sioux killed Grattan and 29 of his men. One soldier survived the fighting but died later in the Fort Laramie hospital.
[
citation needed
]
President
Franklin Pierce
vowed to avenge the
Grattan Massacre
, as it was called by the press. The War Department appointed Harney to command, with instructions to "whip the Indians."
[
citation needed
]
In the ensuing debate, Grattan was blamed for the fracas in which he was killed.
Harney Expedition
[
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]
The Harney expedition finally set out in August 1855. On September 1, 1855, the expedition caught up with a Sioux encampment along the Platte River in a place known as Blue Waters. Harney sent a
regiment
in a long night
flanking maneuver
to set up a blocking position against which he would drive the Sioux. The flanking maneuver was led by
Lt. Col.
Philip St. George Cooke
and
Capt.
Henry Heth
.
Harney moved up in the morning to drive the Sioux against Cooke and Heth. He first attempted to parlay with the Sioux chief,
Little Thunder
, but his demands to hand over the men responsible for the Grattan attack were rebuffed. The Sioux felt justified in having killed Grattan and his men, as they had shot first.
[
citation needed
]
During the parlay, several Sioux braves discovered Cooke's men.
Battle
[
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]
Upon the Sioux discovery of Cooke's men, Harney opened the fight by attacking the Sioux camp. Some of the Sioux took refuge in caves along the river. Harney had his men fire into the caves, where they killed many women and children. A large group of mounted warriors rode toward an escape route away from Cooke's and Harney's forces, but Heth saw them and led his forces to block them.
[
citation needed
]
The warriors broke through Heth's men, but were pursued on horseback by
cavalry
with Heth in the lead. They had a running fight for about five miles, which lasted several hours. At some point Heth got so far ahead of his men that he was presumed
killed in action
. His death was reported in newspapers around the country and he later took satisfaction in the
obituaries
his friends had written.
[
citation needed
]
The American forces were victorious, killing 86 Sioux and taking 70 prisoners, mostly women and children.
[1]
Women and children also accounted for about half of the Sioux deaths.
[5]
Among other American participants of the battle was
Gouverneur K. Warren
. He wrote in his diary about the horror of killing native women and children.
[
citation needed
]
.
John Buford
also fought with the Americans.
[6]
Both became Union generals during the American Civil War.
Afterward, the army made a wide sweep of the surrounding Sioux country but encountered no further resistance. The Sioux called Harney "The Butcher" for the battle at Blue Water, "the Hornet" for invading their territory, and "the Big Chief Who Swears" for the treaty he forced.
[7]
Following this battle, there were about ten years of peace between the US and the Sioux. The latter tried to ignore the many emigrants on the
Oregon Trail
, which passed through their territory. The emigrants took game, plants, and water that the Sioux themselves needed for survival.
Order of battle
[
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]
United States Army
[
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]
Sioux Expedition: Brevet Brig. Gen. William S. Harney
Native Americans
[
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]
Brule Lakota Sioux
Legacy
[
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]
After this battle, one of the expedition renamed
Hinhan Kaga,
the highest peak in the sacred Black Hills, as
Harney Peak
for the commander of the military unit. But the expedition had not come within five miles of it, and the Lakota resented this sacred peak being named after a man who had killed so many innocents.
Although the
Great Sioux Reservation
was established in 1868 under another Treaty of Fort Laramie, which included the territory of West River and preserved the sacred Black Hills for the Lakota, within several years gold was discovered in the hills. The US violated its treaty, taking over the Black Hills and other property to enable European-American development. In 1889 the government broke up the Great Sioux Reservation into five smaller ones, and sold off 9,000,000 acres of former Lakota communal land.
In 2016 the
United States Board on Geographic Names
renamed Harney Peak as
Black Elk Peak
.
See also
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]
Notes
[
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]
- Footnotes
- Citations
- ^
a
b
"The Battle of Blue Water"
[usurped]
, 2004, Nebraska State Historical Society; accessed 15 August 2016
- ^
a
b
Warren, G.K. (Lt.) Report of September 4, 1855, and sketch of Battle Ground at Blue Water Creek. p. 38-39. In Warren, G.K., 1856.
Explorations in the Dacota Country in the Year 1855. 34th Congress,
No. 76.
- ^
Stu Whitney, "Whitney: In defense of Black Elk Peak"
,
Argus Leader,
12 August 2016; accessed 15 August 2016
- ^
Beck (2004), pp. 46-47
- ^
Jeffrey Ostler (5 July 2004).
The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee
. Cambridge University Press. p. 41.
ISBN
978-0-521-60590-8
.
- ^
Soodalter, Ron (29 June 2013).
"Buford Hold the High Ground"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
23 June
2023
.
- ^
Utley (1967), p. 119
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Paul p.89
- ^
Swanson p.7
- Paul, R. Eli,
Blue Water Creek and the First Sioux War, 1854-1856
- Swanson, Clifford L.,
The Sixth United States Infantry Regiment, 1855 to Reconstruction
References
[
edit
]
- Utley, Robert M. (1967).
Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865
. University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN
978-0-8032-9550-6
.
- Beck, Paul Norman (2004).
The First Sioux War: The Grattan Fight and Blue Water Creek, 1854-1856
], University Press of America
- David Eggenberger,
An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present
- James S. Robbins
,
Last in Their Class, Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point
, New York: Encounter Books, 2006, pp. 146?158.
- "The Battle of Blue Water"
[usurped]
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