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It is finished mainly in silver, and some of the smaller components such as the loading lever appear to have been finished in gilt-silver. The underside of the butt and left side of the butt have the matching serial number. The trigger guard was not removed but is clearly original given the engraving. The inside of the grips have “R./43841.” The barrel has a threaded “pinched” blade front sight and the usual address and patent marking. It comes with a brown leather, closed toe, open top holster with no markings.
more than three to one. Lakota and Cheyenne raiders had destroyed and plundered a train earlier in the month. North and the Pawnee captured Turkey Leg’s wife and child during
the battle, and they were subsequently exchanged in return for five American children.
The Pawnee would return home in the spring and be mused back in the spring to continue protecting the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1869, the Pawnee Scouts were assigned to the 5th U.S. Cavalry and participated in the Republican River Expedition against the Cheyenne. Buffalo Bill was assigned as the chief of the scouts for the 5th Cavalry. In “Adventures of Buffalo Bill” by William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill writes. “Shortly after we reached Fort McPherson, which continued to be the headquarters of the Fifth Cavalry for some time, we fitted out for a new expedition to the Republican River country, and were re-enforced by three companies of the celebrated Pawnee Indian scouts, commanded by Major Frank North. General Carr recommended at this time to General Augur, who was
in command of the department, that I be made chief of scouts in the Department of the Platte, and informed me that in this position I would receive higher wages than I had been getting in the Department of the Missouri. This appointment I had not asked for. I made
the acquaintance of Major Frank North, and I found him and his officers perfect gentlemen, and we were all good friends from the very start.”Their friendship would indeed endure
until North’s death. He went on writing, “The Pawnee scouts had made quite a reputation for themselves, as they had performed brave and valuable services in fighting against the Sioux, whose bitter enemies they were; being thoroughly acquainted with the Republican and Beaver country, I was glad that they were to be with the expedition, and my expectation of the aid they would render was not disappointed.” In “A Quarter of a Century on the Frontier,” North indicates he first met Buffalo Bill on October 22, 1868, at Buffalo Station in Kansas.
Frank North’s family moved to Columbus in the Nebraska Territory in 1860, and he learned the Pawnee language while working transporting goods to Fort Kearny. In 1860, he became a clerk and interpreter at the Pawnee Agency in Genoa, west of Columbus. Due to his knowledge of their language and connections with the Pawnee, North was tasked with raising a company of Pawnee scouts in 1864. This became the first company of the Pawnee Scouts. Due to his leadership of the Pawnee Scouts in the 1860s and 1870s, North was nicknamed the “white chief of the Pawnee.” The Pawnee living in Nebraska had suffered serious demographic declines from disease along with warfare with the Dakota, Lakota, Cheyenne, and the Arapaho and allied themselves with the U.S. government against their historic foes. North led the Pawnee Scouts as a captain during the Powder River Expedition against the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho and destroyed an entire encampment of Arapaho, killing 23 men and one woman in a surprise attack at dawn. At the Battle of the Tongue River, they were part of a forces of 270 that destroyed an Arapaho village in another surprise attack. The expedition did not have enough men to truly defeat and oust the “hostile” Indians, and the scouts were mustered out in the Spring of 1866. North became a post trader for the Pawnee. North and the Pawnee were part of an event organized by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1866 to celebrate crossing the 100th Meridian nearly 250 miles
west of Omaha. The meridian was a key milestone. Under the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, the Union Pacific passing the 100th Meridian gave them the right to continue building westward as part of the Transcontinental Railroad. During the celebrations, the Pawnee delighted visitors with dances and mock battles. North rejoined the Army in 1867 as a major and
North and the Pawnee fought the Cheyenne under Tall Bull at the Battle of Summit Spring where the Pawnee Scouts were responsible for the
deaths of 31 of the 35 Cheyenne
killed in the fight. The U.S. cavalry
Frank
suffered only one wounded. In North
the battle, Tall Bull was killed, and North received the credit and also captured his wife and daughter.
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was again asked to raise Pawnee. This time, the Pawnee Battalion was tasked with protecting the construction of the Union Pacific
lines from the Ogalala and Cheyenne warriors that had been conducting raids, fought in the Comanche War, and occasionally continued to put on shows for
entertainment.
They fought Chief Turkey Leg and the Northern Cheyenne near Plum Creek Station, Nebraska, on August 22, where they emerged victorious despite being out numbered by