CHAPTER XXI.

THE INDIAN WARS.

196. The Early Peril.-While the Kansas frontiersman was thus holding the picket line of civilization, he was exposed for years to the incursions of a ruthless enemy, who came and went with the uncertainty of the wind-the Indian. The Civil War had not ended before the State was endangered by the incursions of the savages. The Indians, in 1864, had become so formidable that Generals Curtis and Blunt had planned a campaign against them, but were recalled from it to meet the advancing Confederates of General Price.

197. Indian Raids.-In 1865 and 1866 the Indians came into the northwestern valleys and murdered settlers on White Rock creek in Republic county, and at Lake Sibley in Cloud county, and these outrages were followed by an Indian raid in the Solomon valley. Troops were ordered from Fort Ellsworth to the Solomon valley by General Hancock, and a company of State militia took the field and held off the Indians for a time. The building of the Union Pacific through Kansas, in 1867, excited the savages, and the entire plains country seemed full of their war parties. They attacked settlers in the Republican, Smoky Hill and Solomon valleys, and raided in Marion, Butler, and Greenwood counties. In June of 1867, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes and Kiowas seemed to have united

to drive back the frontier line of settlement and close communications across the plains.

198. Relief Comes. - Lieutenant - General Sherman called on Governor Crawford for a battalion of volunteer cavalry, and in obedience to the Governor's proclamation, the Eighteenth Kansas Battalion of 358 men, commanded by Colonel H. L. Moore, took the field. Colonel Moore met and whipped the Indians, and in connection with a force under Major Elliott, of the Seventh United States Cavalry, drove them toward the headwaters of the Republican. While the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Sioux and Comanches were operating in the northwest, bands of Osages, Wichitas and others were raiding in the southern and western portions of the State, necessitating the stationing of troops at Fort Larned and other points.

199. Treaty of 1867.-On the 28th of October, 1867, Generals Sherman, Harney and Terry made a treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, at Medicine Lodge creek, which provided that these Indians should remove to a reservation in the Indian Territory, and also provided that the Indians should have the privilege of hunting in Kansas, the Government furnishing them with arms.

200. Treaty Broken.-As soon as they were ready in the spring, the Indians broke the treaty, a body of 500 Cheyennes penetrating the State nearly to Council Grove, Morris county, murdering and robbing as they went. At the very time, in August, when the Indians were drawing arms at Fort Larned, a party of Cheyennes was murdering men, women and children in Ottawa, Mitchell and Republic counties.

201. Governor Crawford to the Rescue.-On hearing of the raid, Governor Crawford went by special train to Salina, placed himself at the head of a company of volunteers, and followed the trail of the Indians. It was found that forty persons had been killed, numberless outrages committed, and for sixty miles the settlements destroyed and the country laid waste. On his return to Topeka he sent a dispatch to the President: “The savage devils have become intolerable, and must and shall be driven out of the State," and offered to furnish all the volunteers necessary to "insure a permanent and lasting peace." In reply, General Sheridan, at Fort Harker, gave assurances that the line of settlement should be protected and garrisoned with infantry, while a regular cavalry force should scout the exposed country. Governor Crawford, however, called for a force of five companies of cavalry from the militia of the State, each man to furnish arms and accoutrements, and be furnished with rations by General Sheridan. The companies were stationed at exposed points from the Nebraska line to Wichita, relieving a regular force to operate against the Indians. General Sully went south of the Arkansas with nine companies of cavalry, and taught the Cheyennes and Arapahoes some useful lessons.

202. Governor Crawford and the Nineteenth.-Convinced that the Kiowas and Comanches were determined to keep up the fight, General Sherman called on Governor Crawford for a full regiment of volunteer cavalry. Governor Crawford issued his proclamation on the 10th of October, 1868, and on the 20th of October, ten days later, the regiment of 1,200 men was mustered into service at Topeka.

The regiment was called the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. Governor Crawford, who had seen service in the Civil War as a Captain in the Second Kansas Infantry; Major in the Second Kansas Cavalry, and Colonel of the Second Kansas Colored Infantry, resigned the Governorship of the State on November 4, 1868, and assumed the command of the Nineteenth, the Lieutenant-Colonel being Horace L. Moore, who had commanded the Eighteenth Kansas in a previous campaign against the Indians, and the Major, William C. Jones, formerly of the Tenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry. The regiment left Topeka on the 5th of November, and on the 28th joined General Sheridan on the North Canadian, but at one o'clock on the morning of the 27th of November, General Custer had charged into Black Kettle's village on the Washita, killed 103 warriors, and captured fifty-one lodges and many horses and mules. The Indians fell back, and, on the 24th of December, surrendered. The Nineteenth moved to Fort Hays in March, having kept the open field all through the severe winter, and in April was mustered out. This was the last call on Kansas for so large a force as a regiment to repel or pursue Indians.

203. Colonel Forsythe's Experience.-One of the thrilling passages of this Indian War of 1868, was Colonel Forsythe's fight with the Indians, beginning on the 17th of September. Barricading himself with his dead horses on an island in the north fork of the Republican, Colonel Forsythe held at bay, for eight days, a large force of Indians; his men living on the flesh of the horses. Colonel Forsythe was severely wounded; Lieutenant Beecher and Surgeon John Mooers were among the killed. A scout finally made

his way through the Indian lines to Fort Wallace, and brought relief, on the approach of which the Indians withdrew. It was one of the most desperate fights of the war, and its scene was not far distant from the Kansas line.

204. Indian Troubles of 1869-70.-The still implacable red man harried the borders of the State in the spring of 1869 and 1870, coming in at the northwest, and a battalion of militia was sent to the Republican, Saline, and Solomon valleys, and United States troops were employed in the same region.

205.

Atrocities of the Cheyennes in 1874.-In May, 1874, the Cheyennes

committed murders in Ford, Barber, Governor Nehemiah Green. and Comanche counties, and threw the country into great alarm, and hundreds of settlers left their claims. Stockades were built, companies organized and armed. There was a skirmish between the Indians and the militia, in which four Indians were killed, but the Indians had still the best of the bloody account, since between June and the end of the year 1874, twenty-seven persons were murdered by Indians within the State.

206. Cheyennes Start for Their Old Home. In the fall of 1878, a band of northern Cheyennes who had been removed to the Indian Territory, resolved to return to their former home. Taking their women and children, they started northward through Kansas. When the news of their departure reached Fort Dodge, a detachment left the Fort, and attacked them at the cañon of the Famished Woman's Fork. Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Lewis,