The Battle of Blue Water

Among the Sicangu who fought their way out of Little Thunder's camp was Spotted Tail, Siŋté Glešká, badly wounded, while members of his family, his wife among them, were taken with the captives. Harney's price for peace was the men he blamed for the killings of 1854. In October 1855 Spotted Tail, with Red Leaf and Long Chin, gave himself up at Fort Laramie expecting to be executed, and was sent instead to Fort Leavenworth. Released in 1856, he came home convinced that war with the United States could not be won, and spent his life negotiating instead.

What the plaque says

The Battle of Blue Water On September 3, 1855, the U.S. Army's 600-man Sioux Expedition, commanded by Col. William S. Harney, attacked and destroyed a Lakota village located three miles north on Blue Creek. The fight became known as the Battle of Blue Water, sometimes the Battle of Ash Hollow after the nearby landmark, or the Harney Massacre. The army's attack avenged the Indian annihilation of Lt. John Grattan's command near Fort Laramie in 1854. Harney concluded the more than 250 Brules and Oglalas camped on Blue Creek were the guilty parties. He divided his force and led his infantry towards the village. While Harney engaged in a delaying parley with Chief Little Thunder, the mounted troops had circled undetected to the north. The infantry opened fire with its new, long-range rifles and forced the Indians to flee toward the mounted soldiers, who inflicted terrible casualties. Eighty-six Indians were killed, seventy women and children were captured, and their tipis were looted and burned. This first, yet often overlooked, military campaign against the Lakota kept the Overland Trail open, but only postponed until 1863-64 a war between the two nations. Erected in memory of Dennis Shimmin Ash Hollow State Historical Park Superintendent, 1968-1998. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ash Hollow State Historical Park — 5.0 mi
  The emigrants' spring below Windlass Hill, six miles from the Blue Water Creek camp where Harney's soldiers killed eighty-six Lakota in 1855, and where their belongings came home in 2025.

More markers nearby

• Ash Hollow Geology — 4.6 mi
• Ash Hollow — 4.7 mi
• Windlass Hill Pioneer Homestead — 6.9 mi
• John Hollman Grave — 8.7 mi