Blue Water Creek, Battle of, Neb., 1855

The Battle of Ash Hollow, also known as the Battle of Blue Water Creek or the Harney Massacre, was an engagement of the First Sioux War, fought on September 2 and 3, 1855, between United States Army soldiers under Brig. Gen. William S. Harney and a band of the Sicangu Lakota along the Platte River in present-day Garden County, Nebraska. In the 20th century, the town of Lewellen, Nebraska, was developed here as a railroad stop. The American force won the battle: the Sicangu women and children they killed made up nearly half the fatalities; other women and children made up most of the prisoners they took. The Army planned this punitive expedition in retaliation for the "Grattan Massacre" in August 1854, and for raids by Lakota in its wake.