Nebraska Historical Marker: The Skirmish at Spring Creek
Location
Rural U.S. 136, Nelson, Nuckolls County, Nebraska
View this marker's location 40.147109, -97.91293
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Marker Text
From April through October 1870 Company C of the second U.S. Cavalry garrisoned a temporary 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.
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