Across The Fence: Battle of Summit Springs, Part I; Tall Bull Killed

In the early afternoon of July 11, 1869, Chief of Scouts William F. Cody and Captain Frank North, leader of the famous Pawnee Scouts, crouched behind the crest of a gentle rise on the grass covered prairie in northeastern Colorado Territory a short distance south of what is now Sterling, Colorado. They had approached, undetected, to within less than a mile of Cheyenne Chief Tall Bull's camp. Colonel Eugene A. Carr, under orders to punish the Cheyenne for recent murderous attacks on settlers across northwestern Kansas and southern Nebraska, commanded 244 troopers of the 5th U.S. Cavalry and 50...