The Second William Penn | Page 8

were the property of James Brice.
At the time Chivington made this raid there was camped at Sand Creek about one hundred and fifty lodges of women, children and a few decrepit Indians. This was one of the most brutal massacres a white man was ever known to have commanded. With some sixty soldiers he said he would go and "clean 'em up." He got there at daybreak and began to fire on the Indians and killed a great many women and children. He burned several lodges, confiscated their provisions, blankets and other supplies. The Indian braves who were able to fight had some poisoned arrows which they used advantageously. Every soldier they hit was either seriously injured or killed. Up in the day the Indians got reinforcements and gave Chivington's raiders quite a chase. These Indians were left entirely destitute, for Chivington had seized all the supplies and either loaded them into his wagons or destroyed them by fire. For that reason the surviving Indians commenced depredations on the stock and other property of settlers at Fort Larned.
It is said, but as to the truthfulness of the assertion I do not vouch, for it did not happen under my personal knowledge--that a man by the name of McGee, who was a teamster on a train loaded with flour for the Government, was captured not far from there and was scalped and left for dead; that the Eastern mail happening to come along shortly after, found the body and placed it upon the boot of the coach; that before arriving at Fort Larned they found that instead of carrying a corpse, as it was at first supposed, they carried a living man. This man was taken to a hospital and got well. He raised a family of children and his sons, some of them live in or around Independence, Missouri. This man, Mr. McGee, is said to be the only scalped man in the United States who lived after being scalped.
After this brutal crime against the Indians, trouble commenced on the Santa Fe Trail, and the sight of a "pale face" brought memories of the assassination of their tribe by Chivington and his raiders.
At this Indian lodge where the Chivington massacre occurred lived the father-in-law of John Powers. He was known the plains over as a peaceable old Indian (Old One Eye), the chief of the Cheyennes, but his "light was put out" during this desperate fight with Chivington.
Right here I will give an account of the marriage of John Powers to the daughter of "Old One Eye."
Mr. Powers had crossed the plains several times as wagon-boss for Colonel Charles Bent, who was the builder of Bent's Fort, also the new fort at Fort Lyons. He was also wagon boss for Mr. Winsor, the settler at Fort Lyon at the time of his marriage to the daughter of the old chief.
Mr. Powers' mother, Mrs. Fogel, and his stepfather received the news of Powers' marriage with many misgivings and rebuked him severely for having made such a choice, finally vowing that they disowned him and never wanted to see him again. With a finality not at all disconsolate John Powers set about to polish his Indian wife for the polite society of his mother, so he sent her to school, chaperoned by Miss Mollie Bent.
At the school at West Port this Indian girl soon excelled and under the careful management of Miss Bent the wife of John Powers soon became an expert in domestic science. But Powers, getting impatient for a meeting between his mother and wife, asked Mollie Bent to arrange it. So accordingly Miss Mollie visited at the home of her friends, the Fogels, and during the gossip Miss Bent casually remarked to Mrs. Fogel that she had a most charming friend, an Indian maid, over at the school whom she would like to introduce to her.
When Mrs. Fogel insisted upon her coming over the following Saturday, bringing with her her friend, Mollie Bent's heart was little less glad than John Powers.
At last the eventful day had arrived. Mollie, accompanied with John's "Indian squaw," went to the home of Mrs. Fogel. The high-spiritedness of the Indian maid soon captivated Mrs. Fogel. After they had eaten supper Mrs. Fogel was ordered to go to the front porch and entertain her other visitor, Miss Mollie Bent, while she (Mrs. John Powers) did up the kitchen work and cleared up the dining room. Mrs. Fogel did so with reluctance, wondering greatly just how a real Indian would do up her greatly "civilized" kitchen work. But she did not wonder long, for very soon, indeed, the daughter of "Old One Eye" came to inquire of her host where to place the dishes and how to arrange the dining room.
Mrs. Fogel was as pleased as