stopped; that we want no more of it. Although a chief, a kinsman of mine, has been killed, with others, we will forget it, for we wish for peace."

Genera! Hazen: "The Great Father at Washington sent for me when I was away out in New Mexico, because I had been much with the Indians and like them, to come here and take care of all the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Apaches, Comanches, and Kiowas; to look after them and their agents and their traders; to get them on to the reservation agreed upon a year ago at Medicine Lodge, and see that they were treated aright. Before I could come from New Mexico, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes had gone to war, so that I could not see them; but I saw the Kiowas, Apaches, and Tapparies Comanches at Fort Larned, and I have come here, as I promised them. I am sent here as a peace chief; all here is to be peace; but north of the Arkansas is General Sheridan, the great war chief, and I do not control him; and he has all the soldiers that are fighting the Arapahoes and Cheyennes. Therefore, you must go back to your country; and, if the soldiers come to fight, you must remember that they are not from me, but from that great war chief, and with him you must make peace. I am glad to see you, and glad to hear that you want peace and not war. I can not stop the war, but

will send your talk to the Great Father, and, if he sends me orders to treat you like the friendly Indians, I will send out to you to come in. But you must not come in again unless I send for you; and you must keep well out beyond the friendly Kiowas and Comanches. I am satisfied that you want peace; that it has not been you, but your bad men, that have made the war, and I will do all I can for you to bring peace; then I will go with you and your agent on to your reservation, and care for you there. I hope you understand how and why it is that I can not make peace with you."

After these Indians had left Fort Cobb, and were well on their way home, General Hazen, on the 26th of November, wrote Major Ray, in command of the Indian Territory district, that "the Kiowas and Apaches had been in, and taken ten days' rations, and to-day have gone back to their camps,

some thirty miles up the Washita; some of them, particularly Satanta, grumbling because they could not have every thing at the post. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes, on their way out, talked badly of fight at the various camps they passed. There is the smallest possibility of their doing any thing of the kind; but, to meet this small possibility, I would be glad if you would move Captain Walsh, with two companies of Tenth Cavalry, up to this neighborhood, remaining a week or two, during which time General Sheridan's movement from above will probably develop, when Captain Walsh can return." Black Kettle, on the same evening of the date of this fire in the rear, entered his village and his lodge, to meet his death, which occurred the next morning. That Black Kettle did not talk war, as he went home from Fort Cobb, at the various camps he passed, is proved beyond the possibility of doubt; for General Hazen, in a note to General Sherman, of the date of December 7th, said: "I think I have succeeded in gaining, to a great degree, the confidence of all the Indians down here; and they have been given to understand, from the first, that this is to be a point where every thing shall be at peace, and where the hostile ones even can come and find peace and friends when the war shall cease. They have sent me word, from the hostile camps, to fear nothing from them; that they understand my mission here; were pleased with the talk I sent them by Black Kettle, although he was killed the night after his return, and that they will neither molest my animals nor the peaceful people gathered here." More satisfactory evidence of the peaceful disposition of Black Kettle, on his journey home, could not be desired than the testimony sent from the "hostile camps." The subject will be concluded in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

CORRESPONDENCE AND OFFICIAL REPORTS OF GEN. SHERIDAN AND GEN. HAZEN, TOUCHING THE STATUS OF THE CHEYENNES AND ARAPAHOES. AN EXAMINATION OF THE CONTENTS OF THESE. THE OPERATIONS OF GEN. HARNEY AND GEN. HAZEN, ACTING AS INDIAN AGENTS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF GEN. SHERMAN.

THE Command of Gen. Custer, accompanied by Gen. Sheridan, arrived, as stated, at Fort Cobb on the 18th of December. By that time the comments of the press touching the "Battle of the Washita," had reached there, and all were not complimentary. Indeed, some held that it was not a battle, but the assassination of a friendly band of Indians. The presence of Gen. Sheridan had a remarkable influence on the opinion and judgment of Gen. Hazen, the peace chief of Gen. Sherman. That very evening, December 18, he wrote an open letter to Gen. Garfield, in reference to the "Battle of the Washita," in which he said: "I see a great deal said about the killing of Black Kettle; that he was on his way to his reservation, where he had been invited by the government. These are all fabrications. Some days before he was killed he came to my camp. He made a fair and, no doubt, truthful talk. He said he deplored the war, and wanted peace. That many of his people were on the war path above the Arkansas, and that his band had been at war all summer. They wanted the war confined to Kansas, but we had brought it below the Arkansas, and he wanted it stopped."

The speeches made by Black Kettle and Big Mouth, as recorded by order of Gen. Hazen, and by him certified, are given word for word in the preceding chapter. There is nothing in either to justify his statement to Gen. Garfield. As a rule, army officers do not hesitate to misrepresent the Indians whenever that course is deemed necessary, and Gen. Hazen does not appear to be an exception to the rule.

Gen. Sheridan also felt called upon to speak, and, on January 1, 1869, wrote Gen. Sherman. In the letter he said: "I

see it alleged by Indian agents, that Black Kettle's band was on their reservation at the time attacked. This is but thirty miles up the Washita from Fort Cobb. The battle took place one hundred and twenty miles up the river from Fort Cobb. It is also alleged the band was friendly. No one could make such an assertion with any regard for truth. The young men of this band commenced the war. I can give their names. Some of Black Kettle's young men were out depredating at Dodge when the village was wiped out." Even this bold and positive statement was not satisfactory to every person, and the affair on the Washita continued to be made the subject of comment by the press. Hence Gen. Sheridan deemed it necessary, in his annual report of the date of November 1, 1869, to make a specialty of "the military operations in the department of the Missouri, from October 15, 1868, to March 27, 1869." He justified the campaign against "the hostile Indians south of the Arkansas;" insisted that it was a necessity, owing to the system of robbery and murder practiced by these Indians for many years, and that the blow struck by Custer on the Washita, fell on the guiltiest of the bandsthat of Black Kettle. He said: "It was this band that, without provocation, had massacred the settlers on the Saline and Solomon, and perpetrated cruelties too fiendish for recital. Black Kettle, its nominal chief-a worn out and worthless old cipher was said to be friendly; but when I sent him word to come into Dodge, before any of the troops had commenced operations, saying that I would feed and protect him and family, he refused, and was killed in the fight. He was also with the band on Walnut creek when they made their medicine, or held their devilish incantations previous to the party setting out to massacre the settlers." To verify this statement, Gen. Sheridan embodies in his report the affidavit of Edmund Guerriere, a half breed who lived with Little Rock's band. This affidavit was taken at military headquarters of the department of the Missouri, on Wichita mountains, on the 4th of February, 1869, in the presence of the general, and attested by one of his staff. This affidavit does not, however, connect Black Kettle with any devilish incantations, nor does it allege that he was in any way involved in the massa

cres, real or imaginary, on the Solomon or Saline. It states. that Red Nose, of the Dog Soldiers, and Hach-a-mo-a-he, of Black Kettle's band, were the leaders in the massacre, and that as soon as the news came that fighting had commenced, "we moved from our camp on Buckner's fork of the Pawnee, near its head-waters, down to the North fork, where we met Big Jake's band, and moved south across the Arkansas river." This was after the middle of August, 1868.

This affidavit of Guerriere was made February 4, 1869, whereas the village of Black Kettle was destroyed more than two months previous, and hence, even if true, the facts stated in it were not known to Gen Sheridan when the attack on the village was made.

Gen. Sheridan, in pursuit of his effort to fix hostility and guilt on Black Kettle, said in his report of November, 1869, that on their way down the Washita, in December, 1868, they "found in Black Kettle's village, photographs and daguerreotypes, clothing and bedding, from the houses of the persons massacred on the Solomon and the Saline. The mail which I had sent by the expressmen, Nat. Marshal and Bill Davis, from Bluff creek to Fort Dodge, who were murdered and mutilated, was likewise found; also a large blank book with Indian illustrations of the different fights which Black Kettle's band had been engaged in, especially about Fort Wallace and on the line of the Denver stages, showing when the fight had been with the colored troops, when with white, also when trains had been captured, and women killed in wagons. Still a hue and cry was raised through the influence of the Indian ring, in which some good and pious ecclesiastics took part, and became the aiders and abettors of savages who murdered without mercy men, women, and children, in all cases ravishing the women, sometimes as often as forty and fifty times in succession, and, while insensible from brutality and exhaustion, forced sticks up their persons, and in one instance, the fortieth savage drew his saber and used it on the person of the woman in the same manner. I do not know exactly how far these humanitarians should be excused on account of their ignorance, but surely it is the only excuse that can give a shadow of justification for aiding and abetting such horrid crimes."