82 MASSACRES OF CALIFORNIAN EMIGRANTS. 



estimates of Governor Crawford, of Kansas, the butch- 

 eries of settlers and emigrants had during the twelve 

 months amounted to some 5000 souls. * This calcula- 

 tion, we are told, was " received in the east with 

 general distrust," but according to Mr. McClure, cor- 

 respondent of the New York Tribune, who during a 

 lengthened journey of " 300 miles through the Rocky 

 Mountains," had had every opportunity of learning the 

 truth, from living witnesses resident on the spot, this 

 estimate is held not to be exaggerated, and writing 

 the fall of 1867 he says, that during that season 



"Hundreds of emigrants and settlers have fallen victims 

 to the scalping knife. How many lives have been thus sacri- 

 ficed, the nation will never know, as most of them have fal- 

 len without survivors to tell the story of their sad fate." 

 Then as regards what Governor Crawford had said, he 

 continues "Those who have spent any considerable time in 

 the west, have good reason to know that the number given 

 is not too large. I do not take up a paper published between 

 the plains and Oregon, that does not record some fiendish 

 savagery of the Indians; and there is hardly a cabin on the 

 Platte, or Smoky Hill route, that has not the memory of the 

 slain interwoven with its history." f 



Again, many of the cemeteries, started on the founda- 

 tion of the numerous mushroom cities, and frontier 

 posts, which spring up throughout the western plains, 

 are places where a man might acquire a nightmare that 

 would not leave him for a week ; for it is stated on the au- 

 thority of numerous U.S. army officers, and others, 

 who must have known the facts, that in many of them, 



* See a series of Letters published by the New York Tribune, and 

 other papers by Mr. A. K. McClure, republished in book-form, Phila- 

 delphia 1869, p. 355 Letter No. 38 of October 21, 1867. 



| Ibid., p. 355. 



