The Skirmish at Spring Creek

The five medals went to young men. Patrick J. Leonard was an Irishman born in County Meath in 1847; Heth Canfield, whose first name the plaque spells Heath, was twenty, from New Milford, Connecticut; Thomas Hubbard was a Philadelphian; George W. Thompson came from Victory, New York. The medals were issued on June 22, 1870, about five weeks after the fight. Thompson deserted in July 1872 and vanished from the record. Leonard lies at New Almelo, Kansas, Canfield at St. Augustine, Florida, Himmelsbach at Fort Missoula, Montana, and Hubbard at Rockledge, Pennsylvania, beside Philadelphia.

What the plaque says

The Skirmish at Spring Creek From April through October 1870 Company C of the Second U.S. Cavalry garrisoned a tempor- ary military post, Camp Bingham, located northeast of here on the Little Blue River, to protect nearby settlements from Indians. On May 15 Sergeant Patrick J. Leonard and Privates Heath Canfield, Michael Himmelsbach, Thomas Hubbard, and George W. Thompson were sent to search for lost horses on Spring Creek. Near this spot on May 17 the five soldiers were attacked by about fifty Indians. After a two-hour skirmish in which Hubbard was wounded and the cavalrymen's horses killed, the Indians withdrew. When a report of the skirmish reached Secretary of War William W. Belknap, he ordered Medals of Honor presented to Leonard, Canfield, Himmelsbach, Hubbard, and Thompson. More Medals of Honor were won in this brief engagement than in any other incident in Nebraska's military history. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site — 17 mi
  A Kitkahahki Pawnee village of the late 1700s above the Republican, where a museum shelters a lodge the women built and a family bundle carried out of Massacre Canyon and given back to this place.

More markers nearby

• Original Townsite of Oak — 5.8 mi
• Indian Captives — 6.2 mi
• Friedensau — 12 mi
• 1864 Indian Raids — 15 mi