The ground where Captain John Marsh and his company were ambuscaded was at and about the ferry landing on the north side of the Minnesota river, opposite the Lower Agency. From the landing on the south side two roads had been graded up the steep high bluff to the Agency buildings, and from the north landing the road stretched diagonally across the wide river bottom to the huge corrugated bluffs, two miles or more away, at Faribault's Hill. The hill was [so] named for David Faribault, a mixed-blood Sioux, and a son of old John Batiste Faribault, and who lived at the base of the hill. He and his family were made prisoners by the Indians and held during the outbreak. At Faribault's Hill the road divided, one fork leading up the hill and over the prairie to the eastward and northeast, running along the crest of the bluff to Fort Ridgely. The other followed the base of the bluff down the river. There were two or three houses between the ferry landing and the bluff, and at the landing itself was a house. All about the landing on the north side the ground of the main ambush was open; it is now covered with willows and other small growths of the nature of underbrush. A few rods to the northward, however, is a cultivated field.

To commemorate and identify the scene of the ambush the Minnesota Valley Historical Society has erected a substantial granite monument at the site of the old-time ferry landing, at the point, as nearly as could be determined, where Captain Marsh and his men were first fired upon. It is located on U. S. lot 3, section 5, south Birch Cooley. The site is now overgrown with small willow and other trees and the monument stands in a thicket. It is of sufficient proportions and so well set that it will endure for a century. The river frequently overflows its banks at this point, but the structure is so well placed on a secure foundation that it cannot be washed away. The inscription reads: "At and near this spot Capt. John Marsh and twenty-four men were ambushed and killed by Sioux Indians, Aug. 18, 1862. Also Peter Quinn, U. S. Interpreter."