nd covered with
herds of gambolling buffalo, on the left, towering to
the height of seventy-five to a hundred feet, rise the
sun-gilt summits of the sand hills, along the base of
which winds the broad, majestic river, bespeckled with
verdant islets, thickly beset with cottonwood timber,
the sand hills resembling heaps of driven snow.

I refer to this statement to show how wonderfully the settlement of the
region has changed the physical aspect of that portion bordering the
Arkansas River. Now those sand hills are covered with verdure, and this
metamorphosis has taken place within the last thirty years; for the
author of this work well remembers how the great sand dunes used to
shine in the sunlight, when he first saw them a third of a century ago.
In coming from Fort Leavenworth up the Smoky Hill route to the Santa Fe
Trail, where the former joined the latter at Pawnee Rock, the contour of
the Arkansas could be easily traced by the white sand hills referred to,
long before it was reached.

On the 15th of July the combined forces formed a junction at Pawnee
Fork, now within the city limits of Larned, Kansas. The river was
impassable, but General Kearney, with the characteristic energy of his
family, determined not to be delayed, and to that end caused great trees
to be cut down and their trunks thrown across the stream, over which the
army passed, carrying in their arms the sick, the baggage, tents, and
other paraphernalia; the animals being forced to swim. The empty bodies
of the wagons, fastened to their running gear, were floated across by
means of ropes, and hauled up the slippery bank by the troops. This
required two whole days; and on the morning of the 17th, not an accident
having occurred, the entire column was en route again, the infantry, as
is declared in the official reports, keeping pace with the cavalry right
along. Their feet, however, became terribly blistered, and, like the
Continentals at Valley Forge, their tracks were marked with blood.

In a day or two after the command had left Pawnee Fork, while camping in
a beautiful spot on the bank of the Arkansas, an officer, Major Howard,
who had been sent forward to Santa Fe some time previously by the
general to learn something of the feeling of the people in relation to
submitting to the government of the United States, returned and reported

that the common people, or plebeians, were