Blood Atonement

Led by White Hawk, the eight Elk Horn Scrapers sought revenge on the Platte in the Grand Island aftermath, resulting in the kidnapping of the Schvekendeck child, the death of the boy’s mother and the minor wounding of his father. Meanwhile, a separate war party of thirteen Dog Soldiers led by Tangle Grey Hair “attacked a party of three men”—Babbitt and his two companions—“on the north side of the Platte, and killed them at their noon camp.” On the following day, also at a travelers’ noon camp, the Dog Soldiers then “attacked a party … and killed two men, one woman, and a child, and took a white woman captive.” This was the Margetts and Cowdy families who had stopped near the Platte region’s Birdwood Creek (then known as North Bluff Creek) in the early afternoon of September 6th (Map 7.1).