The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan,
Vol. II., Part 6, by P. H. Sheridan

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Title: The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6

Author: P. H. Sheridan

Release Date: June 7, 2004 [EBook #5859]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF GENERAL SHERIDAN ***

Produced by David Widger

PERSONAL MEMOIRES OF P. H. SHERIDAN

VOLUME II.

Part 6

By Philip Henry Sheridan

CHAPTER XII.

AT FORT LEAVENWORTH--THE TREATY OF MEDICINE LODGE--GOING TO FORT
DODGE--DISCONTENTED INDIANS--INDIAN OUTRAGES--A DELEGATION OF CHIEFS
--TERRIBLE INDIAN RAID--DEATH OF COMSTOCK--VAST HERDS OF BUFFALO
--PREPARING FOR A WINTER CAMPAIGN--MEETING "BUFFALO BILL"
--HE UNDERTAKES A DANGEROUS TASK--FORSYTH'S GALLANT FIGHT--RESCUED.

The headquarters of the military department to which I was assigned
when relieved from duty at New Orleans was at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas, and on the 5th of September I started for that post. In due
time I reached St. Louis, and stopped there a day to accept an
ovation tendered in approval of the course I had pursued in the Fifth
Military District--a public demonstration apparently of the most
sincere and hearty character.

From St. Louis to Leavenworth took but one night, and the next day I
technically complied with my orders far enough to permit General
Hancock to leave the department, so that he might go immediately to
New Orleans if he so desired, but on account of the yellow fever
epidemic then prevailing, he did not reach the city till late in
November.

My new command was one of the four military departments that composed
the geographical division then commanded by Lieutenant-General
Sherman. This division had been formed in 1866, with a view to
controlling the Indians west of the Missouri River, they having
become very restless and troublesome because of the building of the
Pacific railroads through their hunting-grounds, and the
encroachments of pioneers, who began settling in middle and western
Kansas and eastern Colorado immediately after the war.

My department embraced the States of Missouri and Kansas,