Frank North was an American scout and interpreter. He is most well known for organizing and leading the Pawnee Scouts from 1865 to 1877.
Background
Frank North was born on March 10, 1840 in Ludlowville, New York, United States. He was the second son of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Almira (Townley) N. Though named Frank Joshua, he rarely used his middle name. His early boyhood was spent in Richland County, Ohio. In the spring of 1856, the family moved on to the new settlement of Omaha, Nebraska Territory, and in 1858 to a still newer location, Columbus, on the Loup Fork of Platte River, Nebraska. Through intimate association with the Pawnees, North learned their language and also the Indian sign language.
Career
In 1860, North drove a freight outfit to the Colorado gold fields. Returning to Nebraska, in 1861 he became clerk-interpreter at the Pawnee reservation on the Loup.
In 1864, General S. R. Curtis, while organizing a campaign against the hostile Indians who had practically stopped overland stage travel and wagon traffic across the plains, took into service seventy-six Pawnee volunteers, with Joseph McFadden, a reservation employee who had formerly served under General W. S. Harney, as captain of the company, and Frank North as lieutenant. North and two Pawnees were soon detached as scouts and guides for General Curtis and his escort to Fort Riley, Kansas, the remainder of the Pawnees and Captain McFadden accompanying General R. B. Mitchell farther west. Curtis authorized North to enlist a regular Pawnee scout company as Civil War volunteers, and on October 24, 1864, he was commissioned captain by Alvin Saunders, governor of Nebraska Territory. Early in 1865, the company was ordered on the Powder River Indian Expedition, under General Patrick E. Connor. It participated in several skirmishes and the battle of August 28, 1865, on Tongue River, Dakota Territory (now northwestern Wyoming). Later, North and some Pawnees were sent out to locate Colonel Nelson Cole, whose force had missed Connor's main column and nearly perished in Montana from short rations and severe weather. This object was accomplished, and the entire expedition united at Fort Connor (later Fort Reno). Discharged in the spring of 1866, North returned to the Nebraska Pawnee reservation; but early in 1867 was authorized by General C. C. Augur, commanding the Department of the Platte, to organize and command, as major of cavalry, a battalion of four Pawnee companies, mainly for the protection of surveys and construction work on the Union Pacific Railroad against hostile Indians. On August 17, part of his command won a running fight with the Cheyennes at Plum Creek, Nebraska. The same general duties continued, with varying members of companies, until after the completion and opening of the railroad.
Among later engagements was the battle of Summit Springs, Colorado Territory, July 11, 1869, where North and the Pawnee scouts led the charge into the hostile village of Tall Bull, renegade Cheyenne chief, whose defeat saved the frontier settlements in adjacent Colorado and Nebraska from attacks by that band. North was afterwards guide-interpreter at Fort D. A. Russell and Sidney Barracks, Nebraska, participating frequently in scouts and occasionally in scientific explorations.
In August 1876 he was sent by Gen. P. H. Sheridan to the Indian Territory to enroll and bring up 100 Pawnee Indians (including many veterans of previous expeditions) for service with General George Crook in the fall and winter campaign. This last Pawnee company assisted Colonel R. S. Mackenzie in his round-up of Red Cloud and Red Leaf on Chadron Creek, Nebraska, October 23, and formed a part of the Powder River Expedition. On November 25, 1876, North and his Pawnees led the attack on the village of Dull Knife's Northern Cheyennes in the Big Horn region of Wyoming. They also accompanied the command to and from the Belle Fourche River in search of Crazy Horse and his band. Returning to the line of the Union Pacific, they were mustered out of service at Sidney Barracks, Nebraska, late in April 1877. For about five years Frank and Luther H. North were partners of William F. Cody in a ranch on the Dismal River, Nebraska. In the fall of 1882, Frank North was elected to the Nebraska legislature from the Platte County district. Later he joined Cody's "Wild West" show, and led the Pawnees in exhibitions of Indian warfare. In the summer of 1884 he was severely injured at Hartford, Connecticut; and although later he rejoined the troupe, he never fully recovered, and died at Columbus, Nebraska, after returning from New Orleans in the spring of 1885.
Frank North had no superior as frontiersman and guide in his day, which was somewhat later than that of James Bridger and Christopher Carson; he was probably the best revolver shot then on the plains, having beaten "Wild Bill" (James Butler) Hickok and others in competition in 1873.
Though often exposed to dangers, he was never wounded in the service. He kept the Pawnees in discipline, ready for emergencies; during six campaigns under his leadership, only one Pawnee was killed in battle and a few wounded, though greatly superior numbers were encountered and defeated. North was never a regular army officer; he was employed by the Quartermaster's Department only for stated periods overlapping the several enlistments of Pawnee scouts, but his rank and title corresponded to those involving similar duties in the regular establishment.
Achievements
Frank Joshua North was the only leader of Indian scouts thoroughly acquainted with the language and customs of his men, who called him Pani La Shar ("Pawnee Chief"), by which name he is still remembered among the tribe.
