t date I do not know. It goes to prove the time
and the hour McPherson was killed, and the capture of the skirmish-line
that killed him. Of course a great many of the official reports are
misleading as to time, and it is only by these circumstances that we can
judge definitely. I notice it was 12:20 o'clock, according to Allen, when
they first heard the rattle of musketry and artillery.

When you have read Allen's article please return it to me. I will be very
glad to give you any further information you may need if it is possible
for me to do so.

Truly and cordially yours,

GENERAL GREEN B. RAUM. GRENVILLE M. DODGE.

_Chicago, Ill._

[Illustration: OLD FORT KEARNEY, NEBRASKA

In the Indian Campaign of 1865.]

THE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS 1864 AND 1865

WRITTEN IN 1874
BY MAJOR-GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE
AND READ TO THE
COLORADO COMMANDERY OF THE LOYAL LEGION
OF THE UNITED STATES, AT DENVER

APRIL 21, 1907.

In December, 1864, I was assigned to the command of the Department of the
Missouri. In January, 1865, I received a dispatch from General Grant
asking if a campaign on the plains could be made in the winter. I
answered, "Yes, if the proper preparation was made to clothe and bivouac
the troops." A few days after I received a dispatch from General Grant
ordering me to Fort Leavenworth. In the meantime the Department of Kansas
was merged into the Department of the Missouri, placing under my command
Missouri, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and all
the country south of the Yellowstone River, and embracing all the overland
mail-routes and telegraph-lines to the Pacific.

On reaching Port Leavenworth I found that General Curtis, the former
commander of that department, had reported against any campaign during the
winter; that the Indians had possession of the entire country crossed by
the stage-lines, having destroyed the telegraph-lines; and that the people
living in Colorado, Utah, California, Western Nebraska and Western Kansas
were without mails, and in a state of panic; that the troops distributed
along the routes of travel were inside their stockades, the Indians having
in nearly every fight defeated them. This success had brought into
hostility with the United States nearly every tribe of Indians from Texas
on the south to the Yellowstone on the north. It was a formidable
combination, and the friendly Indians were daily leaving the reservations
to joi