On our return to Fort Leavenworth we found General
Sanborn and a number of others of the former Union leaders who had come
to the border to make peace with the Indians.
The various tribes that roamed the Plains had heard of the great war,
and, believing that it had so exhausted the white man that he would
fall an easy prey to Indian aggression, had begun to arm themselves and
make ready for great conquests. They had obtained great stores of arms
and ammunition. During the last two years of the war they had been
making repeated raids and inflicting vast damage on the settlers.
At the close of the war, when the volunteers were discharged, I was
left free to return to my old calling. The regular army was in course
of consolidation. Men who had been generals were compelled to serve as
colonels and majors. The consolidated army's chief business was in the
West, where the Indians formed a real menace, and to the West came the
famous fighting men under whose command I was destined to spend many of
the eventful years to come.
CHAPTER III
At the close of the war, General William Tecumseh Sherman was placed at
the head of the Peace Commission which had been sent to the border to
take counsel with the Indians. It had become necessary to put an end to
the hostility of the red man immediately either by treaty or by force.
His raids on the settlers could be endured no longer.
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