One of the boys, a youth, ran for the river, pursued by the soldiers. On reaching the river he dived into the water through a hole in the ice; as often as he lifted his head they fired at him. After they went away he crawled out and escaped to the agency. One of the murdered women, the mother of this boy, had three balls in her head and cheek, her throat cut, and her head half-severed by a sabre-thrust; another, the youngest woman, had her cloth skirt taken off and carried away, and all her other clothes torn from her body, leaving it naked!
The men who did this deed belonged to Company B of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry.
The outrage was promptly reported to the Department, and the general commanding the Nebraska District detailed an officer to examine into it. There was some correspondence between the military authorities relative to it, but with no result; and in the report of the next year the Indian Commissioner says: "Attention was called last year to the fact that the murderers of several of this loyal and friendly tribe had not been discovered and punished. I trust that, as there seems to be no probability that this will be done, a special appropriation may be made for presents to the relatives of the deceased."
In 1865 a supplementary treaty was made with the Poncas, extending their reservation down the Niobrara to the Missouri River; and the Government agreed to pay them $15,000, for the purpose of indemnifying them for the loss they had sustained in this outrage and in others. For the ratification of this treaty also they waited two years; and in 1867 the Superintendent of the Dakota Territory says: "Schools would have been in operation at the Ponca Agency before this time but for the long delay in ratifying the supplementary treaty of 1865; and now that this measure has fortunately been accomplished, there can be no further necessity for delay, and it is confidently believed another year will witness the foundation and rapid progress of an English school at this agency."
This superintendent, having been in office only one year, was probably not familiar with the provisions of the treaty of 1859 with the Poncas, in which, by Article three, the United States Government had promised "to establish and maintain for ten years, at an annual expense not to exceed $5,000, one or more manual labor schools for the education and training of the Ponca youth in letters, agriculture, mechanics, and housewifery."