I have said, to join Custer on the North Fork
of the Red River, but this new order required me to recast my plans,
so, after arranging to keep the expedition supplied till the end of
the campaign, I started for Washington, accompanied by three of my
staff--Colonels McGonigle and Crosby, and Surgeon Asch, and Mr. Deb.
Randolph Keim, a representative of the press, who went through the
whole campaign, and in 1870 published a graphic history of it. The
day we left Supply we, had another dose of sleet and snow, but
nevertheless we made good time, and by night-fall reached Bluff
Creek. In twenty-four hours more we made Fort Dodge, and on the 6th
of March arrived at Fort Hays. Just south of the Smoky Hill River, a
little before we got to the post, a courier heading for Fort Dodge
passed us at a rapid gait. Suspecting that he had despatches for me,
I directed my outrider to overtake him and find out. The courier
soon turned back, and riding up to my ambulance handed me a telegram
notifying me that General Grant, on the day of his inauguration,
March 4, 1869, had appointed me Lieutenant-General of the Army. When
I reported in Washington, the President desired me to return to New
Orleans and resume command of the Fifth Military District, but this
was not at all to my liking, so I begged off, and was assigned to
take charge of the Division of the Missouri, succeeding General
Sherman, who had just been ordered to assume command of the Army.

CHAPTER XV.

INSPECTING MILITARY POSTS IN UTAH AND MONTANA--DESIRE TO WITNESS THE
FRANCO-GERMAN WAR--ON A SAND-BAR IN THE MISSOURI--A BEAR HUNT--AN
INDIAN SCARE--MYRIADS OF MOSQUITOES--PERMISSION GIVEN TO VISIT
EUROPE--CALLING ON PRESIDENT GRANT--SAILING FOR LIVERPOOL--ARRIVAL IN
BERLIN.

After I had for a year been commanding the Division of the Missouri,
which embraced the entire Rocky Mountain region, I found it necessary
to make an inspection of the military posts in northern Utah and
Montana, in order by personal observation to inform myself of their
location and needs, and at the same time become acquainted with the
salient geographical and topographical features of that section of my
division. Therefore in May, 1870, I started west by the
Union-Pacific railroad, and on arriving at Corinne' Station, the next
beyond Ogden, took passage by stage-coach for Helena, the capital of
Montana Territory. Helena is nearly five hundred miles north of
Corinne, and under ordinary con