Ohio Democrat / March 26, 1875
The Story of the Kansas Girls who were Recaptured from the Indians -- An Explanation of the Frontier Murders of Last Summer.
TOPEKA, Kan, March 13 -- In the latter part of September last a scouting party from Fort Riley, operating on the Smoky Hill River, in Western Kansas, came upon three or four dead bodies, partially decayed and mangled by wolves, and near them the debris of what appeared to have been an emigrant’s outfit. A party of Indians had been out prowling around in that location for several days before, and the conclusion was clear that they had come upon a party of white “movers” and murdered them. Among other things found about the scene of the tragedy was a family Bible, on the fly leaf of which was the name “Germain,” with other entries indicating that the owner had once lived in Georgia. With this slight clue to the massacre, the military authorities succeeded in discovering that a family named Germain, formerly from Georgia, and consisting of an elderly father and mother and several children, had started across the plains to Colorado about that time and had not since been heard of. Their identity with the remains found on the Smoky Hill was not certainly determined, however, and the affair was dropped and lost sight of, as in many similar cases, until on the 8th of November, in a fight with the Indians in the Red River country, General Miles’ troops rescued two little white girls, aged 11 and 8, who gave their names as Addie and Julia Germain, and who stated that they had been captured, and their parents, a sister, and two brothers killed, in Kansas. They stated, also, that two other sisters were taken prisoners at the same time, and were probably still in the hands of the Indians; and since then all possible efforts have been made to discover and release them, resulting finally in their restoration at the Cheyenne Agency on the 1st inst.
The story of the survivors of this terrible outrage is thrilling and pathetic in the extreme. They state that their family removed from Georgia to Missouri five years ago, and remained there three years, when they went to the vicinity of Elgin, Howard County, Kansas, from whence they started on the 1st of September last, with a team and their household goods, for Colorado. Early on the morning of the 11th of September, while encamped on the Smoky Hill, they were surprised and surrounded by a party of about twenty Indians. The father and mother, a sister aged 21, and two brothers aged 19 and 15, were murdered and scalped and the body of the sister burned. The four other sisters were compelled to mount ponies and accompany the murderers as captives. The two younger girls, the ones rescued in November, were soon separated from their sisters, and subjected to terrible privations and suffering, being once left by their brutal captors on the open prairie without food or covering, and subsisting for a week in this desolate and helpless plight on wild grapes and blackberries. The two elder girls were kept with the main party, but were not permitted to sleep together or converse with each other. The route of the band led south, through Kansas, to the main camp of the Cheyennes in the southwest, and the journey occupied about three weeks. The march was marked by a series of daily murderers [sic] from first to last. At one time, near Pierceville, in Kansas, three fresh scalps and the clothing of a man, woman, and little girl were brought into camp; and on another occasion, a man’s coat and a woman’s side saddle were among the day’s trophies. The girls think that 20 persons were killed on this raid, most of them in the border counties of Kansas. It will be remembered that these murders were reported at the time, and that they had the effect of almost depopulating that portion of the Kansas frontier. It was then supposed that the Indian force was several hundred strong; but from the story of these girls, it does not appear to have numbered half a hundred all told.
The captives were treated with persistent harshness, and often real cruelty. They were forced to don the Indian costume, to perform camp drudgery, and to live on food that a decent dog would have refused. Upon arriving at the main camps, the eldest of the two girls was taken by the Chief Stone Calf and the other by the Chief Grey Beard, who made mistresses of them, and they were compelled by torture and threats of death to sustain this hellish relation to those bronze devils until they were given over to the escort, which went out of the agency to meet them and bring them in. The eldest one, aged 18, is soon to become a mother, unless happily God shall spare her that supreme shame by permitting her to die of the deep anguish which has already well-nigh crazed her. They say they can identify the Indians who massacred their relatives; and the younger one declares that she saw in the party which brought them to the agency “the brute who burned her sister.” It is to be hoped that with such direct and conclusive proof, no excuse will be found for allowing these particular outlaws to escape, a swift payment of the penalties attached to such crimes as they have committed.
Murderers of the Germaine Family Identified.
St. Louis, March 19. -- A Globe special says that at the roll call of the Cheyenne Indians, at the Cheyenne Agency last Friday, Catherine Germaine, one of the white girls recently held captive by that tribe, identified for the Indians who murdered her father and mother. They were Medicine Water, who shot her father, a squaw who burned one of her sisters, and two others. The remaining thirteen of the murderers could not be found. During roll call, several young Indians fled from the camp and were pursued by cavalry, but were not captured. General Neil and Agent Miles have discovered that the terms of the surrender of Stone Calf and his band have not been complied with. More than 100 of the young fighting Indians of the band, having the best horses and arms of the tribe, are still on the plains, making their way north.
Syracuse Sunday Herald / July 19, 1885
Talking With the Cheyennes.
FORT RENO, Indian Territory, July 18. -- General Sheridan and Indian Inspector Armstrong have had another informal conference with the Cheyenne chiefs, who are supposed to represent the disaffected elements. The chiefs disdain any warlike intentions, it is said, but the officers are reticent as to what actually took place at the conference. It is understood, however, that none of the authorities is disposed to exercise much patience with Stone Calf. He is the scoundrel whose band some years ago made captive the German girls and horribly abused them for months before they were rescued by the troops. For this crime Medicine Water and seven others of Stone Calf’s braves were imprisoned at the Tortugas a number of years, but were finally released. (Possibly a reference to Fort Jefferson, a military jail in the Dry Tortugas, a group of seven small islands in the Florida Keys, although other accounts say the Indians were incarcerated at Fort Marion in St. Augustine. -- Dave)
