The "Shot Through The Heart With An Arrow!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just finished my third trip around Lancaster Cemetery searching for the pyramid-shaped grave that is said to hold the remains of Lt. Cornelius Van Camp who fought in the Battle of Wichita Village in 1858 and died when he was shot through the heart by a Comanche Indian.  No matter how hard I searched I finally gave up and drove from the cemetery before they closed the gates and made me a permanent resident.  Van Camp was born in Lancaster in 1833 and attended what is now Franklin & Marshall College.  He then went to West Point Military Academy were he was an 1855 graduate.  

Lt. Cornelius Van Camp

He was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Second Cavalry Regiment and served as a topographical officer and adjutant.  It was in October of 1858 that he died suddenly when shot with the arrow by a Comanche Indian.  His regiment, under the command of Major Van Dorn, traveled from Texas into the Wichita Mountains of the Indian Territory which today is in Oklahoma.  The regiment came upon a band of hostile comanches and charged them.  Van Camp was one of the first to enter the Indian camp and was the first killed.  Several dozen Indian warriors were left on the battlefield.   His body was buried where it fell, but was eventually returned to Lancaster in March of the following year to the home of his parents who lived on the southwest corner of Penn Square in downtown Lancaster, PA.  His body eventually laid in State on the second floor of Fulton Hall (today's Fulton Theatre) on North Prince Street until March 16th when a funeral was held for him.  

Entrance into the Lancaster Cemetery

The Fencibles Military Unit along with Franklin College students and family members led an honorary procession to Lancaster Cemetery and fired three salutes.  Over 3,000 people crowded into the cemetery for the 3:00 PM service.  Now, if there had only been better communications before the battle when Van Camp was killed, he might have lived a longer life.  I recently read about the attack in a Lancaster Newspaper story written by Jack Brubaker, "The Scribbler" where he tells that Indian Chief Buffalo Hump had just completed preliminary peace talks with military representatives.  Van Dorn, not knowing this because of poor military intelligence, charged the Comanches when they came upon them in the fog at daybreak, and massacred 56 Comanche men and two Comanche women.  Four soldiers died in the battle including Cornelius Van Camp.  History can't be changed, but in this instance it might have been best if it could have been.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.