(WEST--NEBRASKA.) Henry Pierce. A Nebraska frontier farmer describes the Indians "killing and burning everything." Group of 6 Autograph Letters Signed to younger sister Susan of Saybrook, OH. Each 7¾ x 5 inches, 3 or 4 pages on one folding sheet; folds, minor soiling, paper clip stains. Beatrice, NE, 1864-1866 and undated Henry John Pierce (1833-1883) was raised in Saybrook, OH and went west as a single man to the newly settled frontier village of Beatrice, Gage County, Nebraska by 1860. His letters describe continued violent conflicts with American Indians.
On 9 October 1864 he wrote to his sister Susan Elizabeth Pierce (1847-1932) that he "was intending to go on the Plains again the first of this month, but the Indians have made it rather of a hazardous undertaking, danger of loseing my scalp lock. This country witnessed one of the largest stampedes on record, Bull Run excepted. Everyone in this vicinity and west for 30 miles flocked into Beatrice, bringing their stock and such other plunder as they could hastily gather together. . . . A horseman came in post hast saying that the Indians were within 10 miles of us, killing and burning everything. . . . The most resolute stuck to the town. We made a barricade of wagons and got inside of the circle and waited, but no Indians came to us.. . . . 7 or 8 of my friends have been killed and their widows left to the charity of a cold world."
Pierce describes further Indian trouble on 15 January 1865: "Since New Years they have taken possession of the country west of us again, captured several coaches, attacked the town of Julesburg and other points. They took one coach and eleven passengers, 75,000 dollars in specie. Another coach on the overland mail was lost, one of the lead horses came in to the station with the harness on, all that escaped of that one."