of about a hundred wagons at Little Blue station Bound west. Several have been burnt.

14

Aug. 15th The whole command started South for the Republican. We came upon the Indians near where the Fort Riley Road crosses Elk creek 10 miles from Little Blue station. The Captain ordered an attack, and we drove them from Six to Eight miles. The Number engaged on their side was from 250 to 300, and there appeared to be a still larger number some distance back. they were moveing towards the Republican. There was one Howitzer in the command that was disabled after the first round. The command was halted & a retreat ordered. The Retreat was made in good order. The Enemy followed back to the crossing of Elk Creek Our loss was Two. That of the enemy is estimated to be larger. We fell back to Little Blue Station

Captain Murphey having only Three days leave from Kearney & Rations for the same length of time gave up the pursuit. We did not see any Indians on our march back to Sandy. We arrive at this place to day

W. H STONER Capt

JOHN GILBERT Lieutenant
OLIVER TOWNSEND Private

DAVID KNEELAND

ALBERT C. HOWE

H. M. WICKLAND1

JOHN GILBERT'S ACCOUNT OF THE LITTLE BLUE TRAGEDY

On October 23, 1917, John Gilbert, who was the lieutenant of Captain Stoner's company, now a resident of Red

"The Constable train.-ED.

"The following letter to the editor was written by Mr. Hugh J. Dobbs of Beatrice on September 8, 1917:

William R. Jones, of Beatrice, and his father, Samuel Jones, deceased, were both members of the company of men who went from this city in 1864 to repel the Indian raid on the Little Blue. His memory is quite accurate and reliable on most matters connected with

Cloud, Nebraska, wrote the following interesting and informing letter to the editor:

I just received your letter inquiring about a boy that was killed in the Indian raid on the Little Blue River, August 7, 1864, and will tell you about as I remember it. August 7 was on Sunday. I was stopping at Kiowa stage station, six miles below what was called Comstock's ranch on the Little Blue River in Thayer county, on section 16, township 3, range 4, west. The Comstock ranch was on section 9, township 3, range 5, west, in Nuckolls county. This Sunday was a very hot day, and Theodore Ulig came down to Kiowa stage station, sent by his mother to get some eggs in a small tin bucket. Mr. James Douglas, owner of Kiowa station, wanted me to go up this expedition. This is what he says about the men whose names you gave me and about whom you desired information:

John Gilbert he first knew in 1860, he thinks, and says that he was an employee of the Butler brothers at Oak Grove Ranch when he first knew him and was afterward a stage driver. After the Indian raid he married Libbie Artist, a sister of Frank Baker's wife, at Dewitt, and lived there for some time, and the last he knew of him he was living at Red Cloud, Nebraska, and he thinks he still lives there.

Captain W. H. Stoner was never sheriff of Gage county, he says; but the sheriff of the county, Joseph Clyne, did accompany the expedition and took with him F. M. Colter an ex-county treasurer whom he held as a prisoner, charged with embezzlement.

Oliver Townsend, Mr. Jones thinks, was not with the expedition; but in this he is evidently mistaken, as the report of the same was written by him and he signed it as a private.

David Kneeland was not a Gage county man but joined the party at Big Sandy where he was in charge of the Latham ranch.

Mr. Jones says that Albert C. Howe was a half brother of the late Church Howe and joined the party at Big Sandy with others. He says he died in Nemaha county long ago.

H. M. Wickland should read H. M. Wickham. Mr. Wickham lived in this county many years and died here about eight years ago. He was one of the first settlers of our county and the first man to marry a wife in the county.

Mr. Jones is able to recall the names of other Gage county men who were members of the expedition as follows: Daniel Freeman, Thomas and James Pethoud, Enoch Henry, Louis Graves, Ira Dixon, R. C. Davis, William Alexander all deceased; Leander Wilson, living near Beatrice; two of the Wells family and a man named Bagley from the Cub Creek neighborhood near here.

Jones says the expedition buried Bill Canada in his log cabin where the Indians killed him and buried members of the Eubanks family where their remains were found, and Hugo Ulick a German boy. "Curley" Ayres of Beatrice also claims to have accompanied the expedition.

Captain Murphy probably confused Captain Stoner with Mr. Clyne in his statement (page 10) that Stoner was sheriff of Gage county.ED.

home with Theodore to get some sickle sections for his mowing machine, as I had quit driving stage and was going to help him hay. Otto Ulig had been to the river at Brownville, Neb., and had some extra sickle sections. Otto Ulig was the oldest brother, Hugo was next, and Theodore was the youngest. Theodore, I think, was about 17 years old at that time. I think Kiowa station was east of section 16. As I remember it, Joe Ubanks was on 16, a mile west of Kiowa. Theodore was riding an Oto Indian pony and I was on a Cheyenne pony. When I was saddling up my pony I told him I could beat him home, which was over a mile and a quarter. He started before I could get ready and had a quarter of a mile the start. So we went. I chased him up to Joe Ubanks' ranch, over half a mile, but could not gain on him as I could see. So I stopped at the Ubanks ranch to let my pony get a breathing spell. It was off the road about fifty steps. When I got to the house, there I saw John Barnes. Joe Ubanks' wife was crying. I asked what the matter was, and they said that the Indians had killed Fred Ubanks across the river, south, as he was raking hay, and scalped him and took the horse that he was raking hay with. Then I forgot that I was chasing Theodore, and we started back to Kiowa station. We told Mrs. Eubanks to go on. She was riding an old horse. I saw some Indians, I think four, riding up the river west on the bluffs. When these four Indians came up with Theodore, the boy, they halted him about four hundred yards from home and held him, so Otto his brother said, and waited for me to come up; but I had gone back. It was around a bend and out of sight of me, so I did not see them, nor they me. When they could not make him wait longer they shot him with an arrow and gun, took his pony and left, so his brother said. The Ulig place must have been somewhere on section 16, township 3, range 4, west.

In regard to the spelling of Ulig and Ubanks: I think Ulig is correct but I am not so sure in regard to Ubanks. I may have spelt both names wrong sometimes.10

JOHN GILBERT.

"Most, if not all, of the people in the neighborhood of the massacre were illiterate and did not know the correct spelling of one another's names, and so they came to be spelled as they sounded when spoken. The military officers spelled the name of the massacred family Eubanks, indicating that it was pronounced with the final s sound, and Mr. Gilbert evidently remembers it as having been pronounced that way. Because he now spells it simply as he heard it, he leaves off the initial E. Both Eubanks and Eubank are in common use, but there are more of the first than of the second found in print.

The name of the boy who was killed near Kiowa station is spelled

I am nearly eighty-one years old, and came to Nebraska at what was called Oak Grove Ranch, afterwards called Comstock Ranch, in April, 1859. J. G.

When I was running after Theodore Ulig I saw Indians going parallel with us on the bluff. I thought they were Pawnee or Oto, and I suppose Theodore thought the same, as he must have slowed up as he got around the bend and close home or they could not have caught him.

Under date of October 26 Mr. Gilbert wrote the following account of the tragedy which befell the Eubanks family:

I will try and answer your letter of October 22.

Will Eubanks and his family lived with his father and his family at what we called the Narrows, about four miles west of Oak Grove Ranch. Will Eubanks was the oldest son of the elder Eubanks. Joe, who lived west of Kiowa stage station, was the second son; Fred, who was stopping with Joe, was the next son; the youngest boy, who was thirteen or fourteen years old, lived at home with Will and the old man. Fred was killed west of Kiowa station, and Joe was killed just east of Kiowa station, in the low bottom where he was hunting a place to mow. We did not find him at that time. They shot him with an arrow and took his pony. Those two families that lived at the Narrows were composed of Will and his wife and one child, the old father and his wife, two girls, and the young boy. I helped bury them that were killed at the Narrows. Will Eubanks and his wife and child had gone up to the Kelley ranch on a visit, it seems, leaving the youngest girl at home. The Indians killed her accidentally, trying to take her prisoner. When Will and his wife came back, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Will was in front, and the first the others saw was Will running back, the Indians chasing him and shooting at him with arrows. They were close to the river, and he jumped down a bank about eight feet high and got away, as they could Ulig by some of those who were personally familiar with the events and Ulick by others, among them George A. Hunt, now a well known citizen of Crete, Nebraska, and Hugh J. Dobbs. But I am not able to find names so spelled in any publication, while Ulich is not uncommon, and that, probably, was the boy's name. The name of one of the men from Beatrice who was killed at Oak Grove Ranch is spelled both Kelly and Kelley; the weight of opinion seems to favor the latter. Nelson Oberstrander's name has often been spelled Ostrander, but in a letter to the editor dated October 20, 1917, Mr. Hunt says, positively, that Oberstrander is correct.-ED.