Across The Fence - Aftermath: Part III, The Battle of Summit Springs

The Battle of Summit Springs on July 11, 1869 successfully crushed the strength of the Dog Soldier Society of the Cheyenne. The society, made up of members of both the southern and northern Cheyenne scattered after their defeat. Previous battles with the troops under Major Carr had already reduced the numbers of warriors by nearly half and the surprise attack on that July day reduced their numbers by almost another half. Tall Bull, their fearless and uncompromising leader, was dead and the warrior society would never again regain its former strength. Never again would the citizens of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas Territories fall victim to the terrible raids of the Dog Soldiers. Those Cheyenne who were captured, mostly women and their children, were held prisoner until they could be relocated to designated reservations.

Major General Eugene A. Carr's orders were to pursue the fleeing Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, after their multiple and vicious raids on settlers along the Saline River, and rescue the two white women and one child that had been taken captive by the Cheyenne. Unknown to Major Carr was that Susanna Alderdice's eight-month-old daughter had been killed three days after being taken prisoner and there were only the two women left to rescue.

If rescue was the Major's primary objective, then the execution of those orders must be considered a complete failure. Although the attack was indeed a surprise the soldiers and scouts under Major Carr's command were apparently unable to find and rescue Mrs. Alderdice and Mrs. Weichell before the final act of revenge had been carried out. There are many and varied accounts of the events surrounding the two women as the troops attacked but the outcome is indisputable. Maria Weichell was shot in the back with a pistol, the bullet passed through most of her body and lodged in her breast. Though gravely wounded, Maria was alive and survived her wound. Susanna Alderdice breathed her last just as a trooper entered the lodge belonging to Tall Bull. Tall Bull's wife had crushed Susanna's skull with repeated blows of a tomahawk.

Why the prisoners were attacked, Susanna killed and Maria wounded, at the onset of the battle remains a matter of speculation and I have found no explanation recorded by any Cheyenne. The most common explanation is that Tall Bull did not want the captives to reveal the details of their captivity and the brutal torture that they had suffered. I believe that this reason is highly unlikely. Susanna and Maria were not the first white women to be captured, brutalized and tortured by tribes of the Plains Indians. Previously rescued captives had revealed the awful truth of the horrible treatment they had endured. I think it doubtful that Tall Bull would presume that Major Carr would be ignorant of that fact.

In the warfare among the tribes of the plains, Cheyenne against Pawnee, Sioux against Blackfoot and other warrior societies it was considered an act of bravery to kill the wife and child of an enemy in their presence. It was an act intended to intimidate and humiliate the enemy. It would have been an act that clearly demonstrated that Tall Bull would give no quarter and have no mercy against his enemy. It was also quite likely a continuation of the cycle of revenge meted out in retaliation for Washita and Sand Creek, an eye for an eye.

After the battle, Army surgeon Dr. Louis S. Tesson set up a medical tent and treated Mrs. Weichell's wound. His examination found that she was pregnant and in pitiful physical condition, being near starvation and terribly bruised from frequent beatings. Mrs. Weichell was transported by ambulance back to Fort McPherson where she recovered from her ordeal. It was said that she later married the physician's attendant that cared for her during her recovery. After leaving Fort McPherson, history lost track of the 20 year old, newly wed German immigrant who had been in the United States only two months before her husband was killed and she was taken captive.

After treating the single trooper who was wounded by an arrow that grazed his ear, Dr. Tesson turned his attention to Mrs. Alderdice to prepare her body for burial. As he washed the blood from her body and cleaned her wounds it was told, by his assistant, that he quietly spoke to her as if she were a child that needed to be comforted. Dr. Tesson sent one of his aides to find the best robe that could be had among the seized provisions of the Cheyenne. After he had prepared the body he wrapped Susanna in the robe and posted a guard outside the tent until a burial could be performed the next morning. When the second guard came to relieve the first, they refused to leave their post and so the guard doubled. When the third guard came the first and second guard refused to leave and so it continued until morning until each guard detail stood by the one before, none leaving their post.

A deep grave was dug then lined with a thick buffalo hide. Mrs. Alderdice was lowered into the grave, on the battlefield where she had died, and covered over with the folds of the hide. There was no chaplain to perform the ceremony as the entire command gathered round the gravesite and so an officer who was considered to be a religious man conducted the service. In Major Carr's report of July 20, 1869 he noted that the grave was filled and a headboard, made of wood, was placed over the grave, "with an inscription stating what we knew of her." Susanna received full military honors with three volleys of rifle fire cracking the early morning silence and the mournful brassy peal of taps rolled over the prairie.

In honor of Mrs. Alderdice, Major Carr recorded the name of the battlefield as Susanna Springs, but for some reason the christening did not hold and it became Summit Springs. The wooden headboard would have quickly disappeared either for firewood or perhaps used for patching a broken wagon-box. Prairie winds and torrential rains soon obliterated the lonesome tomb and all traces have long since been erased. The exact location of Susanna's grave remains unknown.

Besides her husband Tom, Susanna's only other family survivor was her son Willis Daily. Four-year-old Willie and his two brothers had been found by a soldier the day after Tall Bull's Dog Soldiers had made their raids along the Saline River. Willie's brothers were dead but Willie had survived despite five arrow wounds, one that had lodged in his breastbone, two bullets in his back and a spear through one hand. The Army surgeon who accompanied the troops there refused to treat the boy and could not be commanded to do so since the child was a civilian. Willie suffered for two days with the arrow lodged in his back, begging for someone to take it out. Finally, a man by the name of Phil Lantz offered to remove the arrow if someone else would hold the boy down. Another fellow by the name of Washington Smith volunteered. Lantz pulled the arrow using a bullet mold as a pair of pliers. Fortunately the metal point came out with the shaft, even so, no one thought the boy would live, but Willie survived. He was raised by Susanna's parents and in 1886 married Mary Twibell. They had three children. Though somewhat crippled Willis never complained nor did he ever speak of the raid in 1869. His daughter Anna remembered seeing the five arrow wounds on his back. Willis died of cancer in 1920.

Major Carr's Republican River Campaign had been a success. The Cheyenne Dog Soldiers had been routed and scattered. General W. H. Emory, commander of the Fifth Cavalry, penned this note on the cover of Carr's official report, "... I beg to express my highest appreciation of the gallant and brilliant services rendered by Bvt. Major General E. A. Carr, 5th U. S. Cavalry, and the troops under his command..." The Nebraska and Colorado legislature issued a joint resolution offering their thanks to Major Carr and his troops "... for their courage... in their campaign against hostile Indians on the frontier... by which the people of the state were freed from the merciless savages."

Major Carr responded with his thanks for their recognition of his service but ended his comments with this statement; "We have, however, no pleasure in killing the poor miserable savages, but desire... to deliver the settlers from the dangers to which they are exposed." Major Carr was personally opposed to the military tactics that resulted in such slaughter as was carried out at the Sand Creek Massacre and the Battle of the Washita.

His celebration of the victory at Summit Springs abruptly ended by receipt of a telegram notifying him of the sudden death of his child. Grief-stricken, Major Carr relinquished his command to Colonel Royall and left Fort Sedgwick on July 25th.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist. To contact Tim, email: [email protected]