ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY POSTS. 19 
should accommodate their necessities and insure their safety should be a matter for careful 
examination. 
The immense ranges of the Rocky mountains, and the vast deserts to the eastward, extending 
in uninterrupted barrenness to the frontiers of the western States, are but partially explored, 
and the Indian tribes which roam through them almost unknown. The military posts which 
have been established seem to have been mere experiments, which, judging from daily accounts 
of the sufferings of the emigrants, and the repeated and fatal attacks of the Indians, appear 
to have been attended with but partial success, 
A brief statement of the important requisites to be considered in the establishment of military 
posts in the Indian country, and in the selection of a great route to the Pacific for emigration 
and for military purposes, seems to me necessary to the explanation of the suggestions which I 
shall offer in reference to the establishment of military posts along the route, the exploration of 
which has been intrusted to me. 
Of the establishment of military posts in the Indian country.-—There are several elements which 
enter into the selection of a site for a military post among Indians: first, that it should be so 
placed as to exercise the greatest amount of control over the Indians; second, that it shall be 
easy of access from its depots of supplies and military stores; and, third, that it shall, if 
possible, in view of these primary objects, be situated in a country adapted to settlement and 
cultivation. To locate a post advisedly, therefore, a knowledge of the number, character, and 
habits of the Indians, and of the districts where they most commonly live, and full information 
of the agricultural and topographical features of the country, are important requisites. 
Indian depredations are never committed in the vicinity of their homes, or the places where 
they leave the women and children during expeditions for plunder. They organize parties far 
from the points at which they design to commence their forays, and return, after months of 
danger and hardship, to enjoy the spoils of their expeditions. A post in the immediate vicinity 
of where they are in the habit of wintering, and of leaving their women and children during 
these expeditions for plunder, would undoubtedly, in a great measure, restrain their incursions 
far into the interior, since they fully understand that their outrages in the settlements would 
be visited with equal severity upon those who were left behind defenceless. 
A military post established with this view would be infinitely more conducive to the security 
of the settlements in its rear than half a dozen posts within the settlements themselves. 
The principal object of a military post in the Indian country is undoubtedly to restrain dep- 
redations by a display of military force; but many results of equal or even greater importance 
are the consequence of its establishment. The Indians are brought into familiar contact with 
the whites, and an acquaintance springs up from which naturally results a traffic of commodi- 
ties which is mutually advantageous. The Indian begins to indulge in luxuries unknown to him 
before, and which he afterwards relinquishes with great reluctance. The supplies of presents, 
provisions, &c., which are provided by the government, enable him to indulge in these luxu- 
ries, and in an idleness very attractive to him, and obviate entirely the necessities, hunger and 
nakedness, which have prompted his expeditions for plunder. 
With all these advantages to himself which result from the establishment of a post and the 
payment of reasonable annuities, which enable him to live without work, and with the certainty 
that his women and children are constantly in the power of the troops, it seems nearly incredi- 
ble that he should undertake expeditions for plunder, the very success of which would jeopard, 
with such extreme probability of destruction, his wife and family and possessions, and would 
certainly deprive him of the power of indulging his indolence, and cut him off from the use of 
luxuries which have become necessary. 
There is no doubt but that judicious management at a military post in the Indian country 
will completely effect these results. It would be well also for the mounted troops to be kept 
moving about in the country during the season for field service, keeping as nearly as desirable 
in the vicinity of the Indians, and in fact, to some extent, conforming during the summer to 
