Transcript

From the Plains.

THE St. Louis Republican, Sept. 16 reports that the Cheyenne Indians have of late been troublesome on the plains. On account of some outrages committed, Captain Stewart, with forty men from Fort Riley, had been upon their track, and had a fight with them, in which some ten of the Indians were killed and fifteen wounded. This same tribe is said to have subsequently killed a family of Mormons, consisting of two or three persons, and taken the mother into captivity. From the Council Bluffs Bugle, Sept. 9th, we learn that it was Col. A. [Almon] W. Babbitt's train of Government property and the persons travelling with it who were attacked on the night of the 25th August, upon Prairie Creek, ten miles east of Wood River. Alexander Nichols, who was captain and conductor of the train, a gentleman from Pennsylvania, and an infant were killed. Orren Parish, from Pennsylvania, and a young man—the latter wounded—escaped to Fort Kearney, and Mrs. Wilson, from St. Louis, the mother of the infant, was carried off a captive. A detachment was sent from the fort, who found the bodies of the murdered, and recovered considerable property through the honesty of a band of Omaha hunters who happened to be near just after the murder, and in time to prevent the pillage; but the oxen (ten yoke) and all the mules were gone. This terrible tragedy confirms our oft-repeated opinion that small parties should never venture on the plains without being well armed and organized for day and night watch. To faith in an all-wise, overruling Providence, prudent organizations and united action has our emigration been indebted for preservation and uninterrupted travelling for the last nine years.