Original Site Medicine Rock

The bronze puts Captain John Feilner's death a year early and tells it on the Army's terms. Sully's German-born mapmaker viewed the rock on June 28, 1864, then stopped for water at the Little Cheyenne, where three young Lakota men shot him. Dakota Cavalry troopers found the three in a buffalo wallow and killed them; Sully then had their heads cut off and set on poles at camp. The plaque calls it a warning. To the Lakota it was desecration of the dead, and word of it ran ahead of the column to Killdeer Mountain.

What the plaque says

Original Site Medicine Rock 2.6 miles Don't look now. Because that site is normally under 50 feet of water, 125 feet from the shore, at a point 1.15 miles northeast along a meandering shore line, from the point this road finally runs into the Oahe Reservoir. It was a landmark in its day. It was a sacred rock, a flat limestone about 12 x 20 (now to be seen on US 212 in Gettysburg, 15 miles east). It lay on a hillside just South of the Little Cheyenne River and the man's footprints and other tracks on it, were regarded as sacred by the Sioux Indians and probably generations before them. First observed by the Atkinson-O'Fallon Peace Treaty expedition of 1825, it was variously commented on by later river travelers. When Sully's expedition of 1863 was a short distance away, Captain John Fielner made a solo jaunt to see the rock. Observed by some Indians, who coveted his horse and gear, they killed him. Sully pursued them, captured and beheaded them, placing their heads on high poles as a warning to Indians who killed without cause. If you do take a look, when you get to the water's edge, you will be about a mile from Old Forest City, Potter County's first county seat, now under about 90 feet of water. It too was famous in its day. Erected by State Historical Society with funds from the Agnes B. Whitlock Estate

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Medicine Rock — 13 mi
• African American Homesteader Community in Sully County — 22 mi
• Fort Sully — 22 mi