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Published: September 18th 2014
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POINT OF ROMAN NOSE RIDGE
I took this picture right where Roman was shot off his pony. It was taken looking toward the scouts position on the island. Trees in the foreground obstruct the view somewhat. They weren't growing there when the shot was fired. AUGUST 27, 2014 The Super 8 in Greeley is an awful place to stay. I had a healthy breakfast at the Perkins because the Super 8 breakfast was so crappy. I did, however, steal 2 apples for lunch. They were small but tasty. I enjoyed a fine morning sit down in the city park in Wray, Colorado. There were a couple of guys in the parking lot who worked for an oil field service company. They were cooking a sort of chuck wagon lunch for all of the oil field workers thereabouts. One big pot was full of them store bought meatballs, another was full of mushrooms; they had two other big old pots of grub simmering away that I never found out what was in. Spent some time at Beecher Island Battlefield and quite some time in Julesburg at the depot museum, then and found the original town site of Julesburg where the Indians burned it down. Walked to the top of Windlass Hill. It was plenty steep for my liking. Gasoline is much cheaper in Nebraska than it is anywhere in Colorado. So are meals and lodging. The skies were overcast and threatening all day, but it didn’t
ROMAN NOSE CAMP
This picture was taken from where Roman Nose was shot off his pony looking toward the Indian encampment. start in raining until late afternoon when it began to rain pretty hard. I got tired of driving in it so I pulled off at North Platte and had some supper in a Chinese joint. Combo low mein and a pot of hot tea was $8.56. It came with a bowl of flied lice that I didn’t eat because the noodles supplied more than enough carbohydrates for one day. The restaurant adjoins the hotel. A room here costs $76.00 and is a much better room than I got last night at the Super 8 in Greeley for $99. This has been a fun and interesting day, but I never made it as far as Broken Bow. Tomorrow I might hang around at Buffalo Bill’s Ranch before going to look for Gramma Carolyn’s place in Broken Bow.
BEECHER’S ISLAND In treaties agreed upon during the 1850s the Cheyenne and Arapaho were given land between the Platte River and the Arkansas River east of the Front Range. Try as they might they were unable to keep white men out of there especially after the gold discovery at Pikes Peak. The railroad was intruding into their land and with it came
SOLDIER POSITION
This picture was taken from the highway bridge crossing the river. It is looking westward toward the the little bluff obscured by tress where Roman Nose was shot off his pony. The island may have been dug up during highway construction. numerous white settlements. Denver was growing like a swarm of locusts. After the Sand Creek Massacre plains tribes began killing whites fast as they could and wherever they could. During the summer of 1867 General Sheridan launched a military campaign against them commanded by General Winfield Scott Hancock. The soldiers chased their tails all summer without engaging any hostiles. Hancock was replaced and a winter campaign commanded by Lt Col Custer culminated in an attack on another peaceful village on the Washita River. The following summer General Sheridan changed his tactics and recruited a group of 50 experienced frontiersmen as scouts under command of Major George Forsyth to locate and engage small hostile bands. The scouts chased their tails too until they ran low on supplies and went to Fort Wallace to load up with more. While there they learned of a supply train on the Republican River that had been attacked by hostiles and it gave them a fresh trail to follow. As they pursued the trail up the Arikaree Fork it kept getting larger and larger. All of them knew they were hugely outnumbered but Forsyth was more scared of failing Sheridan than he was of facing a
JULESBURG #1
This is the location of the original place where Old Jules built his trading post and emptied his revolver into Jack Slade and blasted him with both loads from his shotgun. superior force of Indians. The civilian scouts all carried new seven shot Spencer carbines and they had plenty of ammo. At daybreak on September 17, 1868 the column was attacked by several hundred rampaging Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho led by Roman Nose. Those scouts were early risers and not taken by surprise but Forsyth was badly wounded and Lt Fred Beecher, second in command, was killed. They took cover on an island that had a cottonwood tree and a few willows and beat off the attack, but they lost their entire pack train. During the day they beat off more attacks but had to kill their horses as breastworks. The assistant surgeon, Dr. Mooer, was killed assisting Forsyth. As the day wore on the Indian casualties mounted and they began to lose enthusiasm for more frontal assaults. That night two of the scouts, Jack Stillwell and PierreTrudeau, slunk off crawling on their bellies to get help from back at Fort Wallace. On the morning of the second day Roman Nose mounted his horse and rode it to the toe of a little bluff overlooking the river and began to exhort his warriors to yet another attack. Much to his surprise
JULESBURG #2
After the Indians burned Julesburg down it was rebuilt right here closer to the fort before being moved across the river for the railroad he got blasted, fancy feathers and all, off his horse at a range of about a quarter mile by a well-placed shot from the island. Roman Nose died from his wound at 10pm that night. After he died the Indians had decided against further needless attacks. They figured to just keep the scouts pinned down until starvation ran its course. During the third night two other scouts, John Donovan and A. J. Pilley, slipped away for help. Dead horses were all the scouts had to eat and they had begun to rot. As the siege wore on, day after miserable day, more and more of the Indians began to wander off in search of greener pastures. Finally on September 25 the wayward scouts Donovan and Pilley were intercepted by Lt Col Louis H. Carpenter leading troops H and I of the Tenth Cavalry (colored). The beleaguered scouts were rescued from that hellish island after a most heroic stand. Forsyth survived his leg and head wounds and rode merrily along to other adventures. So did Comanche Jack Stillwell. He lived to a ripe old age as a respected lawman and judge down in Oklahoma. He is buried in Buffalo Bill’s cemetery
JULESBURG #4
This is the train depot museum in Julesburg #4. It is a pretty good little museum, as little museums go. The flagpole, by some accounts, was brought over from the army post when it closed. I did take time to locate Julesburg #3 in Cody, WY. Jack’s younger brother, Frank, was brutally murdered by Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday at the train station in Tucson on March 20, 1882.
JULESBURG Old Jules Beni was a French Canadian fur trapper associated with the American Fur Company who built a trading post near the confluence of the South Platte and North Platte Rivers in Northeast Colorado. He was probably what we would now call a dirty rotten scoundrel. He was a thief, a bully, and like most Frenchmen was not fond of regular bathing even though he lived right beside a river. He eventually got himself killed in a dispute with Jack Slade over some stolen horses among other things. The trading post flourished because of its convenient location on the immigrant trails. It had a hotel, an eating place, a saloon, a stage coach stop, a telegraph station, a blacksmith shop, a warehouse, and stables. Old Jules was lord and master over the whole place. For protection of commerce an army post called Fort Sedgewick sprang into being nearby. In January of 1865 a band of surly Cheyenne swept down and sacked Julesburg trying to draw the army into a fight. In February they came back and burned the whole place to the ground. The raids were done in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. George and Charlie Bent both participated in the destruction of Julesburg, but it was an important center of commerce and new town called Julesburg was built closer to the fort. Julesburg #2 lasted about three years and when word came that the transcontinental railroad was building on the opposite side of the river the town was dismantled and moved over there. Julesburg #3 didn’t last long either because the railroad chose a different location for their depot. Julesburg #4 so far has not been moved. Jules Beni, that old warlock and reprobate, would no doubt be pleased that four different towns in the same state have been named in his honor.
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