[The following is an account of being captured by Native Americans. In it, Fanny Kelly’s family was part of a wagon train traveling along the Platte route from Kansas to Idaho, during 1863 and 1864.]
A short distance in the rear of our train a wagon was in sight. The chief immediately dispatched a detachment of his band to capture or to cut it off from us. They rode furiously in pursuit of the small party, which consisted only of one family and a man who rode in advance of the single wagon. The horseman was almost instantly surrounded and killed by a volley of arrows. The man in the wagon quickly turned his team around and, starting them at full speed, gave the whip and lines to the woman, who held a young child close in her arms. He then went to the back end of his wagon and threw out boxes, trunks, everything that he possessed. His wife meantime gave all her mind and strength to urging the horses forward.
The Indians had by this time come very near. They riddled the wagon cover with bullets and arrows. But the man kept them at bay with his revolver, and finally they left him and rode furiously back to our wagon train.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Victims of History.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 166. Print.
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