_Major-General Commanding_.
Since writing this report of the Indian campaign of 1865 and 1866, I have
seen Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells's diary of the reconstruction
period, from which the following extracts are taken:
Tuesday, August 8, 1865.
Stanton submitted a number of not material questions, yet possessed of
some little interest. Before the meeting closed the subject of army
movements on the plains came up, and Stanton said there were three
columns of twenty-two thousand troops moving into the Indian country,
with a view to an Indian campaign. Inquiry as to the origin and
authority of such a movement elicited nothing from the War Secretary.
He said he knew nothing on the subject. He had been told there was
such a movement, and Meigs had informed him it was true. Grant had
been written to for information, but Grant was away and he knew not
when he should have a reply. The expenses of this movement could not,
he said, be less than $50,000,000. But he knew nothing about it.
Friday, August 11, 1865.
The question of the Indian war on the plains was again brought
forward. No one, it appears, has any knowledge on the question. The
Secretary of War is in absolute ignorance. Says he has telegraphed to
General Grant, and General Grant says he has not ordered it. McCulloch
wanted to know the probable expense--the numbers engaged, etc. Stanton
thought McCulloch had better state how many should be engaged--said
General Pope had command. Harlan said he considered Pope an improper
man--was extravagant and wasteful. Thought twenty-two hundred instead
of twenty-two thousand men was a better and sufficient number.
This whole thing is a discredit to the War Department.
Tuesday, August 15, 1865.
Stanton says there is to be a large reduction of the force which is
moving against the Indians. That by the 1st of October the force will
be about 6,000. That large supplies have gone on, but they can be
divided or deflected to New Mexico and other points, so that they will
not be lost.
Friday, August 18, 1865.
Senator Doolittle and Mr. Ford, who have been on a mission to the
plains, visiting New Mexico, Colorado, etc., had an interview with the
President and Cabinet of an hour and a half. Their statement in
relation to the Indians and Indian affairs exhibits the folly and
wickedness of the expedition which has been gotten up by somebody
without authority or the knowledge of the Government.
Their strong protestations against an Indian war, and their statement
of the means which they had taken to prevent it, came in very
opportunely. Stanton said General Grant had already written to
restrict operations; he had also sent to General Meigs. I have no
doubt a check has been put on a very extraordinary and unaccountable
proceeding, but I doubt if an active stop is yet put to war expenses.
It is no wonder that with such ignorance in the Cabinet as to the
condition of the country, that the administration at Washington was so
incompetent in the Civil War. No person can read Secretary Wells's diary
of the daily doings at Washington of the Cabinet during President
Lincoln's administration and see how little appreciation and support he
got from his Cabinet. Dissensions among themselves and hardly ever
agreeing on any important question, brings to view the great
responsibility of the President and the fact that in all the important
matters he was dependent upon his own judgment. The Cabinet knew nothing
of the Indian depredations that for three months held all the lines of
travel, mail, and telegraph crossing the plains to California, with every
State and Territory west of the Missouri River appealing for protection,
until President Lincoln wrote to General Grant to try and have something
done to protect that country. General Grant instructed me to make the
campaign in the winter of 1864-65, which was so successful that in forty
days all the overland routes were opened, and the stage, telegraph, and
mails replaced, as shown in my reports, though at the beginning of the
campaign every tribe of Indians from the British Possessions to the Indian
Territory was at war, with captures and murders of settlers along all the
overland routes, in all the frontier States, every-day occurrences; with
women and children captured and outrages committed that cannot be
mentioned. And yet this Cabinet had no knowledge of the conditions, and
concluded from the report of the Doolittle Peace Commission that the
Indian expedition was a complete failure, notwithstanding that this
commission failed to make ponce with a single tribe of Indians and failed
to stop the depredations of any band of Indians; and, upon its report,
declaring that the Indian expeditions were a folly and wickedness gotten
up by some one without the authority or knowledge of the Government.
There never were 22,000 troops on the plains, nor one-half of that number.
The War Department may have sent that number out, but, as I have shown,
they were all mustered out before they reached their work; and the cost of
the campaign with a year's supplies at the posts for all the troops on the
plains or engaged in the campaign was not more than $10,000,000, a very
small amount compared with the trouble and cost of fighting these Indians
for ten years thereafter. Secretary Harlan says that 2,200 troops were
sufficient. When I took command, in January, 1865, there were not to
exceed 5,000 troops guarding trains, stages, and telegraph-lines, and
protecting all the routes of travel across the plains, and they had
utterly failed. All travel had been stopped and no expeditions against the
Indians had been made. The Indians had held the overland routes for three
months in spite of these troops. It shows how little knowledge Secretary
Harlan had of the condition of Indian affairs in his department. From the
statements of Secretary Wells it is evident where the order came from to
stop all operations on the plains and withdraw all troops by October 15th.
When Secretary Stanton states that by October 1st the troops on the plains
would be reduced to 6,000, it shows how little knowledge he had of affairs
in his department, for at that time there were not 6,000 troops on the
plains or in my command.
It is well that no one knew the condition of affairs; that no one was
aware of the ignorance of the group of statesmen at Washington who were
supposed to be responsible for our nation and its preservation. They did
not seem to know where to ascertain the facts. It would seem that
Secretary Stanton purposely wished to place a reflection on General Grant,
for he must have known that he was responsible for the Army and for all of
its movements. It seems that General Grant was away at the time the
dispatches of General Pope and myself were sent showing the necessity of
continuing the campaign and punishing these savages. When he returned he
tried to stop this Cabinet panic, but his dispatches in answer to those
from Pope and myself show that he could not do it, and the fatal mistake
was made of stopping the campaign just as it was accomplishing and
successfully ending a year's work. It seems to have all come about through
the misrepresentation of the Doolittle Peace Commission and the lack of
proper information on the part of the Cabinet.
In the years 1863, 1864 and 1865 the Indians deliberately made war,
believing that the Civil War had so crippled us that we could not
effectively contend with them; but just as we had spent millions of
dollars, sent thousands of troops into their country, and commenced
fighting and capturing them, we were forced to lay down our arms almost in
sight of the line of battle and beg for peace, and the Indians believed
they had defeated us and that we could not conquer them, and for from
three to ten years afterward we had to spend great sums, make winter
campaigns, and suffer great losses of life and property, before we
obtained the lasting peace which was in sight in 1865 and 1866 if we had
been allowed to carry out our campaigns and plans to a legitimate end.
Upon the close of my campaigns on the plains the Legislature of the State
of Iowa passed and sent me these commendations of my services:
_Resolved_, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of
Iowa, That the thanks of the people of this State are due and are
hereby extended to Major-General Grenville M. Dodge, for his able and
efficient management of Indian affairs on the plains, in protecting
the Great Overland Routes, and our western borders from the
depredations and incursions of hostile Indians, as also for his
distinguished services as a commander in the field, and his able
administration of the Department of the Missouri.
During this campaigning on the plains I had as my escort Company A,
Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry. They belonged to one of the Regiments
that was sent from the East to take part in the Indian campaigns, and did
not ask to be mustered out until after the campaign. I was greatly
indebted to this company for the close attention they gave to me and the
intelligence they showed during the whole trip. They had served faithfully
in the Civil War, and their veteran experience there was a great benefit
in the work they had to do on the plains, often in taking messages and
performing other duties where only two or three of them could be detailed
at a time. It has always been a great pleasure to me to have had an
invitation, ever since they organized their society, to attend their
reunions, but, unfortunately, I have been so far away that I could not go;
and to the surviving members I with great pleasure extend my thanks for
their good services to me.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL G. M. DODGE AND STAFF AT CORINTH, MISS.,
IN THE SPRING OF 1862
Model of fortified town on the table. Left to right--Lieutenant J. W.
Barnes, A. D. C.; Captain O. J. Dodds, D. Q. M.; Captain C. C. Carpenter,
Com. of Sub.; Captain J. K. King, A. Q. M.; Lieutenant-Colonel R. S.
Barnhill, D. P. M.; Major N. B. Howard, Judge Advocate; Lieutenant J. H.
Hogan, Ordnance Officer; Major W. R. Marsh, Medical Director; Captain B.
P. Chenoweth, A. A. I. G.; Captain Henry Horn, Chief of Grand Guards.]