Slade himself led the party that set out to capture my
former hosts, and I went along, though nearly beat out.
Twenty of us, after a brisk ride, reached the dugout at ten o'clock in
the morning. But the thieves had gone. We found a newly made grave
where they had buried the man I had to kill, and a trail leading
southwest toward Denver. That was all. But my adventure at least
resulted in clearing the country of horse-thieves. Once the gang had
gone, no more depredations occurred for a long time.
After a year's absence from home I began to long to see my mother and
sisters again. In June, 1861, I got a pass over the stage-line, and
returned to Leavenworth. The first rumblings of the great struggle that
was soon to be known as the Civil War were already reverberating
throughout the North; Sumter had been fired upon in April of that year.
Kansas, as every schoolboy knows, was previously the bloody scene of
some of the earliest conflicts.
My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war
was bound to come, but so confident was she in the strength of the
Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could
not last longer than six months at the utmost.
Fort Leavenworth and the town of Leavenworth were still important
outfitting posts for the soldiers in the West and Southwest. The fort
was strongly garrisoned by regular troops.
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