nearly annihilated the reputed murderers of the unwary Grattan and his luckless command. The story of vengeance is best told in General Harney's report to the secretary of war.
   There were at this time about 180,000 Indians within the territory covered by the military department of the West, comprising all the region between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains, and there could be spared to garrison and patrol this vast area 1,855 officers and men. According to the representations of the local traders and Indian agents and to some criticism in the national Congress, Harney's achievement was an unwarranted butchery rather than a victory, but, wherever truth and justice lie, now difficult to find, the battle was "a thunder-clap" to the hostile Sioux; and from the point of view of the white invader's safety, which, in the last analysis, was of paramount importance, it was salutary if not necessary.
   During the year 1856 the federal administration, and the war department in particular, was kept very busy with the guerrilla jayhawker troubles in Kansas, and the secretary

JOSEPH LA FLESCHE (E-sta-ma-za, "Iron Eye")

MARY LA FLESCHE (Hin-nu-ga-snun, "One Woman")

of war -- Jefferson Davis -- complained that this disturbance "has caused the troops stationed there to be diverted from the campaign in which it was designed to employ them against the Cheyenne Indians." There was incorporated in the report of the secretary a local statement that "the notorious Jim Lane is now at the head of from 600 to 1,000 armed outlaws and robbers, busily engaged in the work of destruction on the south side of the Kaw river." Lane's base or rendezvous in the fall of 1856 was the southeast corner of Nebraska and southwest Iowa, and his line of operations to Kansas was called "Lane's trail."
   The Cheyenne Indians were aggressively hostile in the upper Platte valley during the fall of 1856. On the 24th of August they fired upon a mail carrier several miles east of Fort Kearney, wounding him in the arm. Captain H. W. Wharton, commandant at the fort, immediately sent a mounted detachment of forty-one men of Companies E, G, and K of the First cavalry, under First Lieutenant G. H. Steuart, in pursuit of the Indians, whom they overtook and attacked on Grand Island,

some twenty miles from its head, killing ten and wounding about an equal number. There were seventy to eighty Indians in the band, forty-five of them men. On the 25th of August, about thirty miles below Fort Kearney, a party of Cheyennes attacked Almon W. Babbitt, secretary of the territory of Utah, who was on his way to Salt Lake with a train of four wagons. The party was attacked in the night while encamped on the north side of the Platte. Two men and a child were killed, and the child's mother and another passenger of the train were carried off. Mr. Babbitt proceeded on his journey from Fort Kearney in a carriage with two other men, and at a point on the north side of the Platte, about 120 miles west, all three of the men were killed by Indians and all their property, including a considerable amount of money, was carried off.
   In 1857 there was a growing spirit of insubordination in the wild tribes of the prairies, and there was trouble with Indians in every part of the West and Southwest and on the Pacific coast. The Cheyennes continued their active hostilities, and on account of their "late outrages against the whites," Colonel Sumner attacked about 300 Cheyennes on Solomon's Fork, July 29th. The Indians would not

SITE OF FORT KEARNEY, PARADE IN THE FOREGROUND

stand against his charge, but their horses were so fleet that they escaped with only nine killed. Sumner's loss was two killed and nine wounded, among the latter, Lieutenant James E. B. Stuart, subsequently the great Confederate cavalry leader in the Civil war.
   On account of the insurrectionary attitude of the Mormons in 1857, Captain Stewart Van Vliet was sent to Utah in advance to procure supplies for the army which was to follow. He started from Fort Leavenworth with a small force, July 30, 1857, reached Fort Kearney in nine days, and arrived at Salt Lake City on the thirty-fourth day. Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, afterward the famous Confederate general, escorted by six companies of the Second dragoons, the Fifth and Tenth regiments of infantry, and Reno's battery, followed in September, and his command crossed the south fork of the Platte on the 29th.
   Brigham Young, as governor of Utah and ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs, issued a proclamation forbidding the troops to enter the territory. The secretary of war -- John B. Floyd -- justified these operations on the ground that Governor Young defied the federal power. He had boldly announced that if his newly appointed successor should come to Utah the Mormons would "place him in a

carriage and send him back." Nevertheless the troops entered and camped in the territory, and the new governor assumed his office. Young, in the meantime, yielded to the inevitable and, where a weaker man would have been obdurate, this really great leader chose discretion as the better part of valor. By the beginning of 1858 there was a force of 2,588 in the territory which reënforcements, under orders to march in the spring, would swell to 5,606.
   Though the attitude of the commanding general appears to have been as cautious and moderate as that finally assumed by the Mormon leader, it was not until the latter part of 1859 that the war department was able to report that there was no further need of the army in Utah and that it would be withdrawn during the coming season. It was asserted by high authority that, "murder and robberies of the most atrocious character have been perpetrated in the territory upon emigrants from the states, journeying towards the Pacific," and that it was the general impression that

THOMAS HENRY TIBBLES Prominent in newspaper work, Omaha and Lincoln

YOSETTE LA FLESCH TIBBLES (In-stha'-the-am'ba, "Bright Eyes")

they were the work of the Mormons, sanctioned, if not directed, by the Mormon church. If it may not be said that the Indians loved the Mormons more, they at least hated them less than the gentile whites, and during these years of accumulated troubles the saints were unmolested by their savage neighbors.
   In 1858, it was reported that 30,000 Indians of the upper Missouri agency were turbulent and discontented, and there was no adequate force to restrain them and protect emigrants to Oregon and Washington. The Arikaras were ill-tempered and at war with the Sioux, and the Crows attacked them on the west.
   The brief Pawnee campaign of 1859 was the most important local military movement during the territorial period. About the first of July of that year messengers representing citizens of Fontenelle brought news to Omaha that the Pawnees were systematically and aggressively committing depredations upon the property, and outrages upon the persons of the settlers in the Elkhorn valley, from Fontenelle

northward. These settlers asked for immediate assistance from the territorial government. When the urgent petition of the messengers was presented, Governor Black was at Nebraska City, then more than a day's journey from the capital, and to meet the emergency a petition numerously signed by citizens of Omaha, was presented to J. Sterling Morton, secretary of the territory, to act as governor and immediately send a military force against the Indians. While the provisions of the organic act, which constituted the secretary acting governor in the absence of the governor from the territory, did not cover this case, yet Mr. Morton at once assumed authority, presumably under color of the provision in question, and requested the commandant at Fort Kearney to send a detachment of cavalry to Fontenelle. In the meantime General John M. Thayer, who was, colorably at least, commander of the militia of the territory, by virtue of his election by the legislature in 1856, proceeded to the place of the disturbances with the light artillery company of Omaha, numbering about forty men, and arrived at Fontenelle on the 2d of July.
   On the 6th of July Governor Black started from Omaha with a company of volunteers and Company K of the Second dragoons, which had arrived from Fort Kearney under Lieutenant Robertson, and joined General Thayer on the 8th, when the latter assumed command of the combined forces. The expedition proceeded up the Elkhorn, and on the morning of the 12th, in the vicinity of the present town of Battle Creek, overtook and at once charged upon the Indians, who had begun to retreat. In preference to battle, however, the savages promptly offered both penitence and indemnity for their past bad conduct and fair promises for the future, and the campaign ended then and there without bloodshed.
   This positive policy and aggressive action no doubt exercised a strong and lasting influence over the Pawnees, but it was overstating the truth to say that the incident "accomplished perfect peace with the Pawnees from that time forward." The irrepressible thieving propensities of these Indians were often exercised in after years, resulting, often, in murder and other outrages.
   In 1859 hostilities continued with the Comanches and Kiowas and extended from Texas to the headwaters of the Arkansas and Canadian rivers, and the ubiquitous Indian fighter, General W. S. Harney, was now dealing with hostile tribes and watching the threatening British in Oregon. During that year the border tribes of Nebraska lost many lives in their buffalo hunting expeditions, at the hands of the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes. In 1860 there was a state of war between the United States and many of the most powerful

BLOCK HOUSE AT OLD FORT KEARNEY, NEBRASKA CITY

tribes of Utah, and petitions were presented by citizens of the territory for the protection of the pony express. They recited that the Indians "have recently broken up many stations on the road, murdered the occupants and driven off the stock used in transporting the mails and express." There was method, beyond the instinct for plunder, in this madness against the mails; for established means of transportation suggested to the Indians the fast-coming occupancy of the whole country by the white invaders. In 1863 a band of Brulés attacked the Pawnee agency, and after killing several squaws was driven off by a

company of the Second Nebraska cavalry, which was stationed there; and the raids of the Sioux were frequent and bold.
   The great Sioux uprising in Minnesota and Dakota, in 1862, in which it was estimated that 644 white settlers and 93 soldiers were killed, left a hostile spirit which influenced the conduct of the Indians of the upper plains until they were finally segregated under the present reservation system. In the spring of 1863, General Alfred Sully with his command went up the

JOSEPH ROBIDOUX

Frontiersman and Indian trader

Missouri river from Sioux City to cut off the retreat of such hostile Indians as General Sibley might drive out of Minnesota and eastern Dakota, and on the 3d of September his command fought one of the important battles between the whites and the Indians of the Plains. General Sully's force comprised eight companies of the Second regiment, Nebraska cavalry -- 350 men, rank and file, under command of Colonel Robert W. Furnas --the Sixth regiment, Iowa cavalry, and a company of the Seventh Iowa and a battery. The Indians had 1,200 to 1,500 warriors in the main of Santee, Brulé, Yankton, and Blackfeet Sioux and some "cutheads." After a short and sharp fight, just at dark, the Indians were routed with a loss of about 150 killed and all of their effects, except their arms and ponies. The darkness doubtless saved them from much greater loss. When the Nebraska men came up with the enemy they dismounted and fought on foot with Enfield rifles at sixty paces. There were "among them probably some of the best shots in the world," and their fire at this close range was murderous. The loss of the Nebraska regiment was two killed, thirteen wounded, and ten missing, and that of the Sixth Iowa, eleven killed and eighteen wounded. The battlefield was near White Stone Hill, and is known by that name. The hill is situated "about fifteen miles west of James river and about half way between the latitudes of Bonebute and head-water of Elm river, as laid down on the government map."
   Hostilities against the whites were increasing from year to year, and in 1864 and 1865 murders and other outrages, on the upper Platte in particular, were numerous and atrocious, though there was a prevalent fear among the friendly Sioux and Arapahos of their own extermination by the soldiers. These outrages extended through the westerly settlements of Nebraska, and produced fear, and resentment against the federal government for neglecting to provide adequate defense throughout the territory. The savage Sioux were still the terror of the unwarlike and defenseless Omahas. In 1864 eleven of them were killed, and in 1865 forty of their horses, were stolen by the Sioux.
   Though the army was in large measure released from the monopoly of the Civil war, there was slow response to public sentiment in the Indian country which demanded an energetic military policy as the only remedy for the now intolerable Indian hostility.
   By the arrangement of the military divisions in June, 1865, at the close of the Civil war, the division of the Mississippi, which fell to General W. T. Sherman, included the department of Missouri, under General John Pope. By the order of August 6, 1866, this department became the division of Missouri, and it included the territory between the

Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains. Tile department of the Platte in this division was under Major-General Cooke, and that of Dakota under Major-General Terry. The following organizations of regular soldiers were assigned: To the department of the Platte, Battery C, Third artillery; Second regiment, cavalry; Eighteenth, Twenty-seventh, and Thirty-sixth regiments of infantry, and 200 Indian scouts. General Sherman proposed to restrict the Sioux to territory north of the Platte, west of the Missouri river, and east of the new road from Fort Laramie to Virginia City; and the Arapahos, Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, and Navajos south of the Arkansas and east of Fort Union, New Mexico, the intention being to keep all the territory between the Platte and Arkansas rivers, where the two great railroads were under construction, free from hostile Indians. In pursuance of this policy General Sherman made a two-months tour of the plains in the summer of 1866. In the same year Edward B. Taylor of Nebraska and Colonel Henry E. Maynadier, commandant at Fort Laramie, as member of a special peace commission, made treaties at that post with the Ogallala and Brulé Sioux and negotiated with the Cheyennes and Arapahos with the same purpose. Commissioners were also sent to negotiate with the hostile bands of Sioux in the north, between the Platte and Missouri rivers, and two years later it was said in high official places that "scarcely had the compacts been proclaimed when depredations and hostilities were again renewed."
   Peace negotiations had now become a well-defined national policy, and a peace commission was appointed by the President of the United States, under the act of Congress of July 2, 1867. It may be that this peace policy lessened depredations and loss of life, and it perhaps smoothed the way to the general segregation of the Indians on reservations, which was accomplished about ten years later; but it was bitterly assailed by the local press of Nebraska and condemned by public opinion of the settlers whose lives and property were at stake. And the better judgment seems to point to the conclusion that a positive and aggressive war policy would have reached the desired end more promptly and avoided much of the massacre and destruction of property which were to open the way to a finally enforced peace.
   From the time Fort Atkinson was abandoned in 1827, until the establishment of old Fort Kearney, on the present site of Nebraska City, there was no military post in the Nebraska country. In 1838 General Edmund P. Gaines, commander of the western military division, recommended that a fort be established "at or or (sic) near the mouth of the Big Platte on the right bank of the Missouri river." In 1842 the garrison at Fort Leavenworth numbered only 262, and the nearest posts were Fort Atkinson and one at the Sac and Fox agency, in Iowa, and Fort Snelling in Minnesota. In 1844 Fort Des Moines had been added to the posts of the Northwest, and there were 351 soldiers at Fort Leavenworth. The secretary of war again recommended establishing a chain of posts from the Missouri river to the Rocky mountains. "A military fort placed on the very summit [of the Rocky mountains] whence flow all the great streams of the North American continent would no longer leave our title to the Oregon country a barren or untenable claim."
   The already light garrisons of the widely scattered posts of the Indian country were depleted at the outbreak of the Mexican war. Fort Des Moines was abandoned, March 10, 1846, and the garrison was ordered to Santa Fé; and on the 20th of June the regular garrison was withdrawn from Fort Atkinson (Iowa) and sent to the same place. The garrisons of Fort Snelling and Fort Leavenworth were reduced, the troops withdrawn going to Mexico. The commissioner of Indian affairs and the agent at Council Bluffs agency, in their reports for 1847, urged the building of a fort above the Platte, near Bellevue, "in connection with that to be established near Grand Island," for the protection of emigrants and the weaker tribes of Indians against the Sioux. The quartermaster-general of the army declared that the only practicable places for posts on the emigrant route to Oregon and California were on or near Grand Island,