HILLSBORO, Ohio -- Lt. Col. William O. Collins had returned to his home in this town about 60 miles east of Cincinnati in the spring of 1865 after his discharge at Omaha, Neb., from the First Independent Battalion Ohio Volunteer Cavalry

A few months later, this lawyer and railroad president learned that his only son, 20-year-old 1st Lt. Caspar Collins, who had been under his command, died in a skirmish with Indians while trying to rescue a wagon train on July 26 west of the Platte Bridge Station in the Dakota Territory.

"It really hit him hard," said Jean Wallis, president of the Highland County Historical Society. "Caspar didn't have to do what he did; he wanted to prove to them (his officers) that he was not a coward," she said.

However, neither the son nor his devastated father were left to the obscurity of mid-Ohio military history.

They left a permanent mark on the West as the son became Casper's namesake, and Fort Collins, Colo., took its name from William.

"He happened to be at the right place at the wrong time and he got killed," Wallis said. "Our loss was your gain, and I'm glad they named the town after him," Wallis said.

In the mid-19th century, the Collins family was making its mark on this town with its agriculture and firms such as the C.S. Bell Co., and several safe and vault manufacturing companies, she said.

William and Catherine Wever Collins lived in the family home nicknamed Dogwood Knob, which is still standing.

The family had prominence and some wealth.

William was a prosecuting attorney, then president of the Hillsboro and Cincinnati Railroad Company, and served in the Ohio Senate, Wallis said.

Besides Caspar, who developed talents for writing and drawing, the Collinses had two daughters: Josephine and Mary, who died young.

As the Civil War escalated, the senior Collins formed a volunteer regiment to battle the Confederates, according to historian Doris Soule in the December 1996 issue of Wild West magazine.

William Collins entered the Army at Camp Dennison, Ohio, on Dec. 19, 1861, was transferred to what eventually became the First Independent Battalion, according to the "Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866."

The Battalion reported to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and then marched to Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, primarily to guard the Pacific Telegraph line and supply routes from western Kansas to Oregon, according to the official roster.

Meanwhile, the senior Collins permitted his 17-year-old son to join him, and father and son traveled west past Fort Laramie to set up a camp at South Pass, Soule wrote

They returned to Ohio in 1863 to recruit more soldiers; Caspar enlisted in Company G of the 11th Regiment on June 30 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 11th Ohio Cavalry under the command of his father, "who gave no favors," Soule wrote.

Father and son, in their respective units, returned west to guard the telegraph line.

William Collins completed his service, was discharged in Omaha, Neb., on April 1, 1865, and returned to Ohio.

As the Civil War came to an end, the Indian Wars in the Dakota Territory came to a head

The younger Collins had been promoted to first lieutenant on May 1, and two months later was sent east to Fort Laramie to pick up horses from the Sweetwater Station near Independence Rock, according to Soule.

On July 26, Platte Bridge Station's commanding officer Maj. Martin Anderson blew off an early morning warning from Caspar Collins' fellow soldier Henry Bretney that between 1,000 and 3,000 Indians may attack a wagon train of 11th Kansas Cavalry Sgt. Amos Custard which was coming from Sweetwater station.

After daybreak, Anderson ordered Collins -- who had recently been rebuked by another officer as a coward -- and several other officers to lead a group from the 11th Kansas Cavalry to rescue Custard.

Collins gave away his cap for a friend to remember him, bade farewell to two friends, and rode out of the fort at 7:30 a.m., according to historian Alfred Mokler.

Collins and his group rode west and were soon attacked. He and four others in the group died and their bodies were recovered the next day.

Indians later attacked Custard's wagon train, and the fight -- now known as the Battle of Red Buttes -- ended in a massacre by mid-afternoon somewhere between 3.5 and 4 miles west of the Platte Bridge Station.

Two days later, a contingent from the fort went to the site of the Custard massacre and hastily buried the rotting, mutilated bodies.

While Caspar Collins' body was returned for burial in the Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsboro, the site of the 22 soldiers who died in the wagon train massacre has never been located, although new research may determine where the battle took place. (See related story.)

In November 1865, the War Department renamed the Platte Bridge Station in honor of Caspar Collins, Soule wrote.

William Collins lived in Hillsboro until his death in 1880, and his widow Catherine died in 1911 at the age of 93.

Although Caspar Collins is not remembered so well that he's a major topic of discussion in local history classes, Wallis said his life is remembered in a room dedicated to him in the 1840s-era Highland House Museum. The room features the bed that was in the Collins home, and a recently acquired watercolor painting of the Platte Bridge believed to have been painted by Caspar Collins.

Reporter Tom.Morton can be reached at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.