Part of our in-depth series exploring the forts of Comancheria
On April 6, more than 150 cheyenne prisoners escaped from the Darlington Agency on the North Fork of the Canadian River, and were pursued and surrounded by elements of the 5th Infantry and 6th Cavalry. Among the Cheyenne were those who had been identified as having raped the German girls. Most were captured and eleven were killed.
Those not killed or captured fled upriver, where they joined another band. They were trailed by Lieutenant Austin Henely, who caught up with them on April 23 at Sappa Creek in Kansas. While another thirty-plus escaped again, t he troopers surrounded nineteen warriors and eight women and children in a dry creek bed and gunned them all down. Henely was later disciplined and reprimanded for what came to be called the Sappa Creek Massacre.