Collection of Nebraska Pioneer ReminiscencesDaughters of the American Revolution. Nebraska
History
Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences
Daughters of the American Revolution. Nebraska
Frontier and pioneer life -- Nebraska; Nebraska -- History
During the many skirmishes and battles fought by the Pawnees, under
Major North, he never lost a man; moreover, on several different
occasions he passed through such hair-breadth escapes that the Pawnees
thought him invulnerable. In one instance, while pursuing the retreating
enemy, he discovered that his command had fallen back and he was
separated from them by over a mile. The enemy, discovering his plight,
turned on him. He dismounted, being fully armed, and by using his horse
as a breastwork he managed to reach his troops again, though his
faithful horse was killed. This and many like experiences caused the
Pawnees to believe that their revered leader led a charmed life. He
never deceived them, and they loved to call him "Little Pawnee Le-Sharo"
(Pawnee Chief), and so he was known as the White Chief of the Pawnees.
The coming of the railroad through the state, bringing thousands of
settlers with household furnishings and machinery for tilling the soil,
was of the greatest importance. It was concerning the guarding of that
right of way that a writer for the _Horse World_ has some interesting
memories and devotes an article in a number in February, 1896, to the
stories of Colonel W. F. Cody, Major Frank North, Captain Charles Morse,
Captain Luther North, Captain Fred Mathews, and my father, Captain S. E.
Cushing. The correspondent was under my father, in Company B, during one
of the scouting expeditions, when the company was sent to guard
O'Fallon's Bluffs, west of Fort McPherson on the Union Pacific. He tells
much more of camp activities and of his initiation into border life than
of the skirmishes or scouting trips. He was fond of horses and tells of
a memorable race in which a horse of Buffalo Bill's was beaten by my
father's horse "Jack."
My uncle, Captain Luther North, who also commanded a company of scouts
at that time, now resides in Omaha.
While yet a boy he freighted between Omaha and Columbus and carried the
mail, by pony, during a period when my grandmother felt that when she
bade him good-bye in the morning she might never see him again, so
unsettled was the feeling about the Indians. He was intimately
acquainted with every phase of Indian life. He knew their pastimes and
games, work of the medicine men and magicians, and especially was he
familiar with many of their legends. I am happy to have been one of the
children who often gathered 'round him to listen to the tales of his own
experiences or stories told him by the red men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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