The Battle of Big Bend was the last significant battle of the Rogue River Indian
Wars. The battle occurred 27-28 May 1856 in the Oregon Territory. The location of
the battle was along the Rogue River at a place known as the Big Bend, approximately
eight miles up river from the modern town of Agness, in Curry County, Oregon. The
battle was fought between one reinforced Army company; Company "C", 1st
Dragoons, and a large group of Indians from many different bands. Captain Andrew
Jackson Smith was the commanding officer of Company "C" during the battle, and
Chief John, a member of the Dakubetede Indian band, lead all the warriors. After the
first few hours of fighting, the soldiers had suffered so many casualties that they could
not break out of their surrounded position without abandoning their dead and
wounded. But on the other hand, the soldiers had established their defensive position
on a ridge line which provided them a strong tactical advantage which the Indians could
not overcome in spite of their early battle success. After thirty hours of combat,
Company "G", 1st Infantry, under the command of Captain Christopher C. Augur,
came to the aid of the surrounded soldiers. When Company "G" entered the fight, the Indian warriors elected to quit fighting, and under moderate pressure moved off the field of battle into the surrounding mountains. The purpose of this research was to definitively identify the location of the defensive position used by Company "C", and perform data recovery for the Forest Service using archaeological field methods. The field strategy relied heavily on metal detectors to locate battle related artifacts over the battle area. Using data collected during fieldwork, and correlating it to primary reference sources and materials, the battle position of Company "C" was located for the United States Forest Service. / Graduation date: 1998
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33751 |
| Date | 03 December 1997 |
| Creators | Applen, Jeffery A. |
| Contributors | Brauner, David R. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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