ere posted to the best advantage to protect the parties
engaged in building these roads, and in person I reconnoitred well
to the front, traversing the buffalo regions from south to north,
and from east to west, often with a very small escort, mingling
with the Indians whenever safe, and thereby gained personal
knowledge of matters which enabled me to use the troops to the best
advantage. I am sure that without the courage and activity of the
department commanders with the small bodies of regular troops on
the plains during the years 1866-'69, the Pacific Railroads could
not have been built; but once built and in full operation the fate
of the buffalo and Indian was settled for all time to come.

At the close of the civil war there were one million five hundred
and sixteen names on the muster-rolls, of which seven hundred and
ninety-seven thousand eight hundred and seven were present, and two
hundred and two thousand seven hundred and nine absent, of which
twenty-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine were regulars, the
others were volunteers, colored troops, and veteran reserves. The
regulars consisted of six regiments of cavalry, five of artillery,
and nineteen of infantry. By the act of July 28, 1866, the peace
establishment was fixed at one general (Grant), one lieutenant-
general (Sherman), five major-generals (Halleck, Meade, Sheridan,
Thomas, and Hancock), ten brigadiers (McDowell, Cooke, Pope,
Hooker, Schofield, Howard, Terry, Ord, Canby, and Rousseau), ten
regiments of cavalry, five of artillery, and forty-five of
infantry, admitting of an aggregate force of fifty-four thousand
six hundred and forty-one men.

All others were mustered out, and thus were remanded to their homes
nearly a million of strong, vigorous men who had imbibed the
somewhat erratic habits of the soldier; these were of every
profession and trade in life, who, on regaining their homes, found
their places occupied by others, that their friends and neighbors
were different, and that they themselves had changed. They
naturally looked for new homes to the great West, to the new
Territories and States as far as the Pacific coast, and we realize
to-day that the vigorous men who control Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota,
Montana, Colorado, etc., etc., were soldiers of the civil war.
These men flocked to the plains, and were rather stimulated than
retarded by the danger of an Indian war. This was another potent
agency in producing the result we enj