10 (of 11) pages, on rectos of 10 leaves (numbered 1-7, 9-11). In ink, signed at the end by Martin L. Brandt. 14.3x9.4 cm. (9¾x7¾”).
Account written by a newspaper reporter, apparently (it is addressed “To the Herald”), of the massacre at the White River Indian Agency in Colorado, a key incident in the White River War which resulted in the subjugation of the Utes and the opening of parts of Colorado and Utah to White settlement.
The conflict began when Major Thomas T. Thornburgh and his soldiers rode to the White River Agency in response to a request for assistance by the Indian Agent Nathan C. Meeker. Meeker had been attempting to convert the White River Utes to agriculture and Christianity, and had angered the Utes by plowing a field they used to graze and race horses. After an altercation with some Utes, Meeker had sent to the army for assistance. The main incidents of the war took place on September 29, 1879 in what came to be known as the Battle of Milk Creek. The Utes, although outnumbered, held the strategic high ground, and managed to hold the American army forces at bay, and inflict significant losses, including the death of Major Thornburgh and thirteen others, wounding more than forty. Meanwhile, a separate group of Utes, descended upon the White River Agency and killed ten male employees and Nathan Meeker. They also took three women and two children captive in what became known as the Meeker Massacre. The account reads in part: “I arrived at the site of the recent Ute agency at White River yesterday only to find the agency buildings and property smoldering heaps of ruins, the agent and his employees putrid bodies lying about the grounds where they had fallen by the bloody hands of the murderous savages and the women a children…missing. In approaching the agency and only two miles from the scene of the massacre lay by the roadside the body of Mr. E.W. Eskridge who had accompanied Chief Colorado when that chief met Maj. Thomkins…” He goes on to detail incidents of the fight, piecing together the action, “the massacre at the agency must have occurred shortly afterward and on the 29th while Thomkins command was engaged on Milk Creek, for when the first act in the bloody drama was complete, the blood of the savage was hot, and having exposed his plan he would not stop in his bloody work before the completion of the scene of carnage. From the indications I am led to conclude that the agent and his employees at first offered some resistance but afterward, at the solicitation of the savages, probably, went to meet the Indians for a parlay with them…” With blue pencil at top of first page, “Oct. 21. Came in mail – all details and more having been telegraphed you several days ago. J.B. Stillson.”