382 



INDIAN WAK. 



the direction of the trails. The first important 

 engagement of the campaign took place at Ar- 

 rickarey Fork on the 17th of September, when 

 Colonel Forsyth and his company of scouts 

 were attacked hy about 700 Indians. A very 

 lively fight occurred, resulting in the defeat of 

 the Indians, with a loss of thirty-five killed and 

 many wounded. Colonel Forsyth was twice 

 wounded, and Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher 

 was killed, while four scouts were killed and 

 fifteen wounded. This little band maintained 

 their position for several days, subsisting on 

 horse-flesh, until relieved from their perilous 

 situation by succors from Fort Wallace. 



After this affair troops were sent to the field 

 of action from other departments, the services 

 of volunteer companies from the State of 

 Kansas were accepted, and operations against 

 the Indians were prosecuted with all the vigor 

 which the nature of frontier warfare and the 

 small force at the disposal of the commanding 

 general would allow. Skirmishes took place 

 wherever the scouts fell in with bands of sav- 

 ages, but it was difficult to bring them to a 

 fair engagement. On the 18th of October Gen- 

 eral E. A. Carr, while following a trail which 

 had been reported near Beaver Creek, was at- 

 tacked by 400 Indians, but, after a brisk en- 

 counter of six hours, succeeded in repulsing 

 them after killing nine and wounding many 

 more. 



Hostile Indians were constantly pursued in 

 all directions, and insignificant skirmishes were 

 matters of frequent occurrence, but on the 

 27th of November a fight took place on the 

 Washita, which almost arose to the dignity of 

 a battle. General Custar had been sent to the 

 south with eleven companies in search of hos- 

 tile Indians, and fell in with a trail of a band 

 of Cheyennes, under their chief, Black Kettle. 

 Following this, the Kttle army soon came upon 

 the camp of the Cheyennes, consisting of fifty- 

 one lodges, and immediately made an attack 

 upon it. After a desperate struggle, the village 

 was taken and destroyed. Black Kettle and 

 about one hundred and forty of his warriors 

 were killed, and the whole stock of arms, am- 

 munition, and robes, together with fifty-three 

 women and children, were captured. 



Another vigorous blow was struck on Christ- 

 mas-day by the destruction of a Camanche vil- 

 lage by Colonel Evans's command. This, said 

 General Sheridan, " gives the final blow to the 

 backbone of the Indian rebellion." At the 

 close of the year, the stern dealing of General 

 Sheridan, with all bands of Indians which he 

 believed to be guilty of outrages against the 

 whites, % seemed likely to put an end to such 

 atrocities, and to induce the Indian tribes to 

 settle peaceably on their reservations. In a 

 letter written January 1, 1869, General Sheri- 

 den says : " At twelve o'clock on the night of 

 the 31st of December, a delegation of the chief 

 fighting-men of the Arrapahoes and Cheyennes, 

 twenty-one in all, arrived at this place on foot, 

 their animals not/ being able to carry them. 



They had ruled the village. They begged for 

 peace and permission for their people to come 

 in, asking no terms, but for a paper to protect 

 them from the operations of our troops while 

 en route. They report the tribes in mourning 

 for their losses, their people starving, their 

 dogs all eaten up, and no buffalo." 



The number of Indians in the United States 

 in 1868, exclusive of the inhabitants of Alaska, 

 was 300,000, and they are said to be decreasing 

 rapidly from year to year. The policy of the 

 Government of the United States in dealing 

 with the Indians is denounced on all sides as 

 mistaken in principle and inefficient in its 

 operation. The suggestions most worthy of 

 notice are those of Generals Sheridan and 

 Sherman. The former of these distinguished 

 officers says: "The Indian history of this coun- 

 try for the last three hundred years shows that 

 of all the great nations of Indians only the rem- 

 nants have been saved. The same fate awaits 

 those now hostile, and the best way for the 

 Government is to now make them poor by the 

 destruction of their stock, and then settle them 

 on the lands allotted to them. The motive of 

 the Peace Commission was humane ; but there 

 was an error of judgment in making peace 

 with these Indians last fall. They should have 

 been punished and made to give up the plunder 

 captured and which they now hold, and, after 

 properly submitting to the military, and dis- 

 gorging their plunder, they could have been 

 turned over to the civil agents. This error has 

 given many more victims to savage ferocity. 



" The present system of dealing with the In- 

 dians, I think, is an error. There are too many 

 fingers in the pie, too many ends to be subserved, 

 and too much money to be made, and it is the 

 interest 'of the nation and of humanity to put 

 an end to this inhuman farce. The Peace Com- 

 mission and the Indian Department, and the 

 military and the Indians make a ' balky team.' 

 The public Treasury is depleted and innocent 

 people murdered in the quadrangular manage- 

 ment, in which the public Treasury and the un- 

 armed settlers are the greatest sufferers. There 

 should be only one head in the government of 

 Indians ; now they look to the Peace Commis- 

 sion, then to the Indian Department, both of 

 which are expensive institutions, without any 

 system or adequate machinery, to make good 

 their promises. Then the Indian falls back 

 on the military, which is the only reliable re- 

 sort in case he becomes pinched from hunger. 



" I respectfully recommend, in view of what I 

 have seen since I came in command of this de- 

 partment, and from a long experience with In- 

 dians heretofore, that the Indian Department 

 be transferred .to the War Department, and that 

 the Lieutenant-General, as the common supe- 

 rior, have sole and entire charge of the Indians ; 

 that each department commander and the of- 

 ficers under him have the sole and entire charge 

 of the Indians in his department. There will 

 then be no ' balky team,' no additional ex- 

 pense in salaries, and a just accountability jn the 



