This pile was about eight miles east of the fort, and unless it has been obliterated, is still there, the only monument that marks the spot of this, the really first military tragedy in the North Platte valley.
When General Harney demanded the surrender of the murderers of the Horse Creek mail party, Spotted Tail with a number of the other so-called murderers marched into the fort in full war dress, singing their death songs, and gave themselves up. It was supposed that they would be put to death, and they were sacrificing themselves for their tribe.
But General Harney had them sent to Fort Kearney, where they lived under guard until 1858. On rejoining the Brules soon after, Spotted Tail became a popular hero, and sometime after that he was exalted to the position of chief of the Brules. This date is a little indefinite, but Geo. S. Hyde tells me that one authority dates it at the death of the old chief Little Thunder. As Little Thunder died in 1865, perhaps Spotted Tail's ascendancy to the chief-ship dates from that year.
Ware says that he attended two of the councils at Camp Cottonwood in 1865, or the year following the date of Spotted Tail's leading in the Massacre of Cottonwood Canyon.
After these councils, he moved with his band to the head of Spotted Tail creek, and rambled the country over for miles thereabout. He wanted peace, but he could not hold the young men, and when a peaceful man goes to war he is about the worst (or best) warrior of them all. His activities covered a wide range as will be seen later.