ur fighting strength than it
ever has before or since. In 1860 the Regular Army, not counting the
volunteer forces, was 16,000. In 1870 it was 37,000--one soldier to each
one thousand of our population.

Against this force, pioneers of the vaster advancing army of peaceful
settlers now surging West, there was arrayed practically all the
population of fighting tribes such as the Sioux, the two bands of the
Cheyennes, the Piegans, the Assiniboines, the Arapahoes, the Kiowas, the
Comanches, and the Apaches. These were the leaders of many other tribes
in savage campaigns which set the land aflame from the Rio Grande to our
northern line. The Sioux and Cheyennes were more especially the leaders,
and they always did what they could to enlist the aid of the less
warlike tribes such as the Crows, the Snakes, the Bannacks, the
Utes--indeed all of the savage or semi-civilized tribes which had hung
on the flanks of the traffic of the westbound trail.

The Sioux, then at the height of their power, were distinguished by many
warlike qualities. They fought hard and were quick to seize upon any
signs of weakness in their enemies. When we, in the course of our Civil
War, had withdrawn some of the upper posts, the Sioux edged in at once
and pressed back the whites quite to the eastern confines of the Plains.
When we were locked in the death grip of internecine war in 1862, they
rose in one savage wave of rebellion of their own and massacred with the
most horrible ferocity not less than six hundred and forty-four whites
in Minnesota and South Dakota. When General Sibley went out among them
on his later punitive campaign he had his hands full for many a long and
weary day.

Events following the close of the Civil War did not mend matters in
the Indian situation. The railroads had large land grants given to
them along their lines, and they began to offer these lands for sale to
settlers. Soldier scrip entitling the holder to locate on public lands
now began to float about. Some of the engineers, even some of the
laborers, upon the railroads, seeing how really feasible was the
settlement of these Plains, began to edge out and to set up their homes,
usually not far from the railway lines. All this increase in the numbers
of the white population not only infuriated the Indians the more, but
gave them the better chance to inflict damage upon our people. Our Army
therefore became very little more than a vast body of police, and it was
always