The Battle of Beecher Island and the Indian War of 1867-1869

During the morning hours of September 17, 1868, on a sandbar in the middle of the Arikaree Fork of the Republican River in eastern Colorado, a large group of Cheyenne Dog Men, Arapaho, and Sioux attacked about fifty civilian scouts under the command of Major George A. Forsyth. For two days the scouts held off repeated charges before the Indian warriors departed. For nine days, the scouts lived off the meat of their horses until additional forces arrived to relieve them. Five scouts were killed and eighteen wounded during the encounter that later came to be known as the Battle of Beecher Island.



Monnett's compelling study, a finalist for the Western Writers of America's Spur Award in 1993, was the first to examine the Beecher Island battle and its relationship to t...