_Major-General_.
The Government, after receiving General Pope's and my own views, sent out
Inspector-General D. B. Sackett, of the Regular Army, to investigate the
conditions in that country and to report to the Government the actual
facts. In the meantime the peace commission that had been endeavoring to
negotiate with these Indians had gone on to Denver, still protesting
against any movement against the Indians, believing that peace could be
brought about. General Sackett, upon reaching the Indian country, sent
the following dispatch, on June 14, 1865, to the commanding officer at
Fort Larned, Kas.:
For the last few days the Indians along the route have been very
active and hostile; many men have been murdered, hundreds of animals
have been stolen, Fort Dodge has lost every animal. The force can now
do nothing with the Indians. A large and effective cavalry force under
a good commander must be sent here without delay, or the large number
of trains now on the plains will be destroyed or captured.
Upon the receipt of this dispatch I immediately gave orders to the
commanding officer to go out and concentrate our forces north of the
Arkansas, and to protect the trains, but not to go south of the river.
This they accomplished very effectively, and drove all the Indians south
of the Arkansas, killing and capturing a good many. On June 14th, General
Pope wrote a long letter to General U. S. Grant, enclosing my letter to
him, reiterating what I had said, and insisting for very strong reasons
that the Indians should be left entirely to the military; that there
should be no peace commission sent until the military had met these
Indians and brought them to terms, either by fighting or negotiations; and
afterwards for the commission to go there and make such arrangements as
they saw proper. In the mustering out of troops General Ford was relieved
of the command and Major-General John B. Sanborn, a very efficient
officer, was sent to take his place. It was now agreed that after the
failure of the peace commission to accomplish anything with these Indians
that I should make the campaigns south of the Arkansas, and General
Sanborn concentrated his troops and moved to the Arkansas. Before I
reached there I received a communication from Colonel Leavenworth stating
that all the chiefs of the Indians were then on Cow Creek, anxious to meet
him. At the same time, a dispatch came from Washington to General Pope,
stopping Sanborn's movement. General Pope immediately arranged to have an
interview with these Indians, and General Sanborn went there with
instructions to make an agreement with them that they should keep off of
the overland trails, and to arrange a time for a commission to meet them,
later in the year. On August 5th Sanborn agreed with the chiefs of the
Kiowas, Apaches, Comanches, and Arapahoes, on the part of the Government,
to suspend all actions of hostility towards any of the tribes above
mentioned and to remain at peace until the fourth day of October, 1865,
when they were to meet the Government commissioners at Bluffs Creek about
forty miles south of the Little Arkansas. This agreement did not take in
the South Cheyennes, who had been more mischievous than any of the tribes,
but this tribe kept south of the Arkansas, retaining all the stock they
captured, and none of them were punished for the murders they committed.
It was a business matter on their part to remain at peace only until the
troops moved out of that country and to prevent Sanborn with his organized
forces from going south to their villages and punishing them. The effect
of this agreement was that the Indians continued their depredations
through the following years,--not so much by killing but by
stealing,--until finally they became so hostile that in the campaign
against them by General Sheridan, in 1868, an agreement was made with them
forcing all the tribes to move into the Indian Territory. If General Ford
or General Sanborn had been allowed to go forward and punish these Indians
as they deserved, they would have been able to make not only a peace, but
could have forced them to go on the reservation in the Indian territories,
and thus have saved the murders and crimes that they committed for so many
years afterwards; however, this agreement of Sanborn's allowed the
emigration to go forward over the Arkansas, properly organized and
guarded, and it was not molested during the rest of that year.
To show the conditions on the overland routes up the two forks of the
Platte River at the time, I sent this dispatch: