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Show icenTDeath of an 88-Year-Old Kansas Woman I ecalls Gen. Custer's Dramatic Rescue of Iwo Captives From Cheyenne Indians 70 Years Ago . i Six years after the capture of Mrs. Morgan and Miss White by the Cheyennes and their rescue by Gen. George A. Custer occurred oc-curred a similar incident in which the same tribe of Indians was involved in-volved and in which another famous fa-mous Indian fighter, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, played the role of rescuer. res-cuer. That was the capture and release of the German sisters during the war with the Southern Plains tribes in 1874-75. On September 10, 1874, a covered cov-ered wagon, drawn by an ox team, and accompanied by two men on horseback, halted on the banks of a small stream in western west-ern Kansas. The party was composed com-posed of John German, a native of Blue Ridge, Ga., and a veteran of the Confederate army, his wife, Lydia, their son, Stephen Wise German, and their six daughters Rebecca Jane, 20; Katherine, 17; Joanna, 14; Sophia, So-phia, 12; Julia Arminda, 7; and Nancy Adelaide, 5, called "Ad-die" "Ad-die" by her sisters. They were on their way to Colorado where they were going because of German's poor health, and they expected to reach Fort Wallace, not far from the Colorado border, the next day. The next morning their camp was attacked by a war party of 19 Cheyennes who killed and scalped Mr. and Mrs. German, their son and two of the girls, Rebecca Jane and Joanna. Then they carried the other four daughters daugh-ters away and held them as captives cap-tives until November 8 when the camp of Chief Gray Beard was attacked by a detachment of General Miles' army, led by Lieut. Frank D. Baldwin. When the Indians fled, taking Sophia and Katherine with them, they left the two little girls, Julia The three Cheyenne Indians who were held as hostages by Custer Cus-ter for the surrender of Mrs. Morgan and Miss White and who were later taken to Fort Hays where two of them were killed by their guards. There is much confusion as to the identity of these Indians. Custer gives their names as Fat Bear, Dull Knife and Big Head and those are the names accompanying the above illustration (a wood cut made from a photograph taken at Fort Dodge, Kan., March 13, 18G9) which appears in Mrs. Custer's book "Following the Guidon." Grin-nell, Grin-nell, quoting different Cheyennes as his authority, names them as lounger Bear, Chief Comes in Sight and Island (or Lean Man) but elsewhere in his book, "The Fighting Cheyennes," says that the two who were killed by their guards at Fort Hays were Slim Face and Curly Hair. ter, with 11 troops of the Seventh and 10 of the Nineteenth Kansas, set out to find several bands of the Cheyennes who were still on the warpath. A short time before a young man applied for permission to accompany ac-company the expedition. At first Custer refused but when he learned that the boy's name was Brewster and that he was the brother of Mrs. Morgan who was still held captive by the Indians he permitted him to go along. Young Brewster did not know which Indians had carried his sister sis-ter away but he hoped that Custer's Cus-ter's command might find them and that, by being with it, he might aid in her rescue, if she were still alive, or at least, learn what her fate had been. Discovers Cheyenne Camp. Moving out from Fort Cobb Custer's command struck a fresh trail and followed it to the north fork of the Red river in what is now Wheeler county, Texas. There he discovered a camp of Cheyennes under the leadership of a chief known to the whites as Medicine Arrow but called Rock Forehead by his own people. peo-ple. A little farther down the stream was the camp of Chief Little Robe, a noted "friendly." Sometime during this march Custer had learned that two white women were captives in MMO SCOTT WATSON d by Western Newspnper Union.) ' E died the other day ind her passing snapped i living link between the snt-day, modern Amer-: Amer-: nd an era in frontier : y which now seems al-"; al-"; as rpmote as the days Kentucky was the Nc and Bloody Ground" "Narrative of an Indian v7ity" was a familiar 'f American literature, was only 71 years ago he was kidnaped from time in Kansas by a war ? of Cheyenne Indians, i d indescribably while '2 1 captive by that tribe t;;.;as finally rescued by ft George A. Custer and ,.. mous Seventh cavalry ; of the most dramatic ; -its in the whole thrill-;;:;tory thrill-;;:;tory of the Wild West. ,': name was Mrs. Sarah ,""but back in 1868 she was :i- White, the 17-year-old ir of Benjamin White, who night his wife and 10 chil-im chil-im Wisconsin the previous V'- a homestead on Granny i tributary of the Repub-. Repub-. f:ver in northern Kansas, '."morning of that fateful -lgust 13, 1868, Benjamin , and his three sons had ;,7 the meadows along the can to cut hay, leaving .e, Sarah, their oldest r, and three smaller chil-AS;;the chil-AS;;the cabin. ritlv a party of six Chey-,dians Chey-,dians appeared, profess-mdship profess-mdship and asking for t -.Mrs. White prepared a them and as they start- eave they seized young -id dragged her out of the svDne of the Indians leaped - horse and with the aid "ier savage pulled her, desperately, up beside M.ien, followed by the hor-ken hor-ken gaze of her mother T L!li after her with out-el out-el o:l arms, they rode away, i hile, another party of A":e band of Indians had fpd her father and broth-I broth-I :ing in the meadow near ublican. The boys es- j y running to the river i ' ng in the bushes along s but the Indians killed I te and rode away with of horses. That night ;,'ivse Indians rode into the r- i camp on Buffalo crek, , -Jarah White recognized Y ' 's horses and wept bit-this bit-this evidence that he . ? brothers were dead. atagem That Failed. camp on the Buffalo she : r.,,' old newspaper which ii her dress. The next Soa" :' ihe rode along, she tore ROOM the paper and dropped HEN:, obtrusively, hoping that 00 1 it mark a trail which a efts rescuers could follow. 1 p s a vain hope, for seven p!.(lere to elapse before she r j,! released from the hor- ?r captivity, onths after she had tured, her misery was ' another young woman '"nna Brewster Morgan, I 0lr-old bride of a young '.I V the Solomon valley. He attacked while working Id by Indians who shot arrows, left him for -;;. dashing to his cabin, s wife and bore her ' ?ns party of Cheyennes 'r for some ponies to the ch held Sarah White : r . - .j'lans made slaves of the 'and subjected them to of indignities. The who were jealous of re especially cruel to hey forced the white cut wood and carry it f shoulders were raw oCjP and when they sank exhaustion they were " h whiPS until the blood Takes the Field. ' M'"0 unfortunate women ' two of the victims of 8"'of raids by Indians ,6tirt-S'ansas that year during :th,0iVeral hundred settlers b" ' and members of their oTJl parried away as cap-n cap-n ;a result of these depre-c'ov. depre-c'ov. Samuel N. Craw-J Craw-J upon the federal gov-or gov-or aid and Gen. Phil Kansas ;'Was ordered into the y?' the difficult task of fairs'- Indians and rescu-'tr':f: rescu-'tr':f: captives, Sheridan re- ' J.upon the Seventh ?'APV' y Lieut CoL George ry Governor Crawford , a regiment, the Nine-lVjnl; Nine-lVjnl; insas Volunteers, re-he re-he bf-YPrarily from his post one .r and led the regiment of sP wous with Sheridan at ,n the ' My 100 miles south of March, 1869, Cus- v W ' . ' 4 M- t v 3 I i ' : ' . ' ' i i V ' ' .1 party of Indians entered his camp and strove to distract his attention atten-tion while the remainder made preparations to take down their lodges and move the village away before the troops realized what they had done. Thereupon, he seized four Indians "chiefs and warriors of prominence," Custer calls them to hold as hostages for the surrender of the two white women. The Indians insinuate that Custer Cus-ter acted treacherously in seizing these men while they were making mak-ing a friendly visit to his camp and that they were old men of no particular importance. However How-ever that may be, the fact remains re-mains that when Custer sent one of his four captives to the village bearing a message that he would hang the other three if the captives cap-tives were not delivered up to him, the Indians, after protesting that the women were not in their camp, finally sent Chief Little Robe to Custer's camp to arrange for the exchange of prisoners., Rescue of the Captives. Custer tells a dramatic story of the arrival of the two women in his camp the next morning how he sent three of his senior officers of-ficers forward to escort them into camp and how young Brewster, unable to restrain his eagerness to see his long-lost sister, raced forward past the officers and clasped Mrs. Morgan in his arms. "The appearance of the two girls was sufficient to excite our deepest sympathy," writes Custer. "Miss White, the younger young-er of the two, though not beautiful, beau-tiful, possessed a most interesting face. Her companion would have been pronounced beautiful by the most critical judge, being of such a type as one might imagine Maud Muller to be. Their joy at their deliverance, however, could not hide the evidences of privation priva-tion and suffering to which they had been subjected by their cruel captors'. They were clothed in dresses made from flour sacks, the brand of the mills being plainly plain-ly seen on each dress; showing that the Indians who had held them in captivity had obtained their provisions from the government govern-ment at some agency. "The entire dress of the two girls was as nearly like the Indian In-dian mode as possible ; both wore leggings and moccasins; both wore their hair in two long braids, and as if to propitiate us, the Indians, before releasing them, had added to the wardrobe of the two girls various rude ornaments, such as are worn by squaws. About their wrists they wore coils of brass wire; on their fingers had been placed numerous rings and about their necks strings of variously colored beads. Almost the first remark I heard young Brewster make after the arrival of the two girls was 'Sister, do take those hateful things off.' " The women were placed in an ambulance and the Seventh started start-ed on its march to Fort Dodge, taking with it the three Indian captives whom Custer determined deter-mined to hold until the Cheyennes came in off the warpath. Mrs. Morgan was overjoyed to learn that her husband was recovering recover-ing from his arrow wounds in the post hospital at Fort Hays. Later they went back to their home in the Solomon valley and lived there for several years. But the memory of her captivity preyed upon her mind which at last gave way and she ended her days in a Kansas state insane asylum. Miss White also returned to her home and while engaged in teaching teach-ing school met E. O. Brooks, a veteran of the Civil war. They were married and made their home near the White homestead where she had been taken captive. cap-tive. There she lived for more than 70 years, reared a family of one son and six daughters and tried to forget what she had suffered suf-fered for seven months as an Indian In-dian captive. Death came on May 12, 1939, to end the ugly nightsroare of those memories. GEN NELSON A. MILES and Addie, who were found by the soldiers in the deserted camp. "When rescued they were the most emaciated mortals I have ever seen. Their little hands were like birds' claws," writes General Miles in his memoirs. They were sent to Fort Leavenworth Leaven-worth under the care of an army physician and there the women of the garrison nursed them back to health. On returning to Miles' command, the doctor brought with him a photograph of Julia and Addie and when Miles saw this it gave him an idea. On the back of it he wrote this message: Headquarters Indian Territory Expedition Expedi-tion in the field, January 20, 1875. To the Misses German: Your little sisters are well, and In the hands of friends. Do not be discouraged. Every effort is being made for your wel- fare. NELSON A. MILES, U. S. Army Colonel and Brevet Major General Commanding Expedition. Then he gave the photograph to a Delaware Indian scout and told him to find the Indians who still held Sophia and Katherine and give the picture to them secretly. He was also ordered to tell Chief Stone Calf that no mercy would be shown his band if the girls were not returned alive and unharmed. The Delaware Dela-ware scout set out over the snowy plains and after a remarkable journey of more than 400 miles, found the Cheyenne camp on the Pecos river in New Mexico and managed to deliver his message to the captives who had begun to despair of ever being rescued. By this time the Cheyennes, who had been kept so constantly on the move by the vigorous campaigning cam-paigning of Miles and Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, and who were nearly near-ly destitute, were quite willing to listen to peace overtures. So Stone Calf took the two girls from their captors, placed them in a lodge next to his and treated them with special consideration on the journey back to the Cheyenne Chey-enne agency in Indian territory. There they were surrendered tt Miles. A short time later the four German Ger-man sisters were reunited at Fort Leavenworth and on the recommendation recom-mendation of General Miles the sum of $10,000 was deducted from the annuities given to the Cheyennes and $2,500 placed to the credit of each of the girls. Miles became their guardian and served thus until they came of age. Addie, who became Mrs. Frank Andrews and mother of K children, chil-dren, was, at the last accounts, living near Bern, Kan.; Julia, now Mrs. Julia Brooks, was Irving near Humboldt, Neb., and near her lived her sister, Addie; and Katherine, now Mrs. Katherine Swerdfefer, was living at Atas-cadero, Atas-cadero, Calif. 1 Mrs. Sarah Brooks (from a photograph taken in 1934 and reproduced re-produced here by courtesy of the Kansas City Star and the Concordia Con-cordia (Kan.) Blade-Empire). Medicine Arrow's camp and henceforward their rescue became be-came his main objective. As the commander of the Seventh, Sev-enth, accompanied by an orderly, order-ly, approached the camp, he began be-gan making the customary Plains signal of his desire for a conferenceby confer-enceby riding around in circles as he advanced. As he drew near, he was met by Medicine Arrow and several other chiefs who invited him to come into the camp for a council. Although Custer was fearful that they had a treacherous intent he agreed to their proposal and entered the camp accompanied only by Colonel Cook of the Seventh The result was that the soldiers camped near the Indian village and a series of councils ensued. The testimony as to subsequent events is very contradictory. The version which Custer gives in his book, "My Life on the Plains " is sharply at variance Ky details with the Indians-version, Indians-version, as given in George Bird Grinnell's "The Fighting Cheyennes Chey-ennes " Custer tells how a large |
