y. So I began to
hope that we should succeed in averting trouble till the favorite war
season of the Indians was over, but the early days of August rudely
ended our fancied tranquility.

In July the encampments about Fort Dodge began to break up, each band
or tribe moving off to some new location north of the Arkansas,
instead of toward its proper reservation to the south of that river.
Then I learned presently that a party of Cheyennes had made a raid on
the Kaws--a band of friendly Indians living near Council Grove--and
stolen their horses, and also robbed the houses of several white
people near Council Grove. This raid was the beginning of the Indian
war of 1868. Immediately following it, the Comanches and Kiowas came
to Fort Larned to receive their annuities, expecting to get also the
arms and ammunition promised them at Medicine Lodge, but the raid to
Council Grove having been reported to the Indian Department, the
issue of arms was suspended till reparation was made. This action of
the Department greatly incensed the savages, and the agent's offer of
the annuities without guns and pistols was insolently refused, the
Indians sulking back to their camps, the young men giving themselves
up to war-dances, and to powwows with "medicine-men," till all hope
of control was gone.

Brevet Brigadier-General Alfred Sully, an officer of long experience
in Indian matters, who at this time was in command of the District of
the Arkansas, which embraced Forts Larned and Dodge, having notified
me of these occurrences at Larned, and expressed the opinion that the
Indians were bent on mischief, I directed him there immediately to
act against them. After he reached Larned, the chances for peace
appeared more favorable. The Indians came to see him, and protested
that it was only a few bad young men who had been depredating, and
that all would be well and the young men held in check if the agent
would but issue the arms and ammunition. Believing their promises,
Sully thought that the delivery of the arms would solve all the
difficulties, so on his advice the agent turned them over along with
the annuities, the Indians this time condescendingly accepting.

This issue of arms and ammunition was a fatal mistake; Indian
diplomacy had overreached Sully's experience, and even while the
delivery was in progress a party of warriors had already begun a raid
of murder and rapine, which for acts of devilish cruelty perhaps has
no parall