robbed an army of brave souls of the power it deserved. The result was an inordinate loss of life and public treasure.

The war was dragged out for four years, because training in sufficient force and direction had not been kept alive in the fifties. Dribblings of untrained levies came to the front as late as '64. Bounties as high as $400 per man depleted the treasury. The expiration of short enlistments in the midst of campaign left commanders in the field without an instrument or pushed them hurriedly into actions where life was wasted. Disease and desertion under these conditions were beyond rea son. The recruit on arrival in the field ate, marched, slept, and accoutered himself improperly. His ignorance of hygiene made a loss by sickness of 4.7 per thousand in the first year the war. Where 25 men would be wounded 100 more would be sick. Such loss could largely have been prevented by knowledge and practice during peace. Desertion, too, was easy, where discipline was lax and the confidence in leaders had been vitiated; 199,105 men deserted on the Union side alone.

of

It is a curious thing that we Americans, who are noted for our foresight in business and economics, are almost stupid in applying prevention to possible national perils.

CHAPTER IX

THE ARMY'S DARK AGES

(1865-1880)

FTER the curtain falls on the Civil War our view is likely

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to be riveted on crowds of worn soldiers longingly hurrying homeward, hastily flinging aside muskets, fervidly grasping pruning hooks and feverishly pursuing reconstruction. The tragedy of blood gives place to the social drama. The fighting man plows his fields at the very base of the volcano that has been spouting fire with so much fury. The soldier becomes the civilian, the country becomes complacent and the need for arms is no more.

Such a retrospect would be beautiful, if true. It seems too bad to spoil the illusion by calling attention to conflicts that were snapping their jaws at the very stability of our nation. The Fenians were disrupting Canada and ready to spread their strife across the border. The Indians, more confident than ever because of the withdrawal of the army for the war, were banded together in large bodies and bringing murder and destruction to over half the area of the present United States. The southern states had to be put under military protection until they could resuscitate their control under the coming difficult elections. And Mexico was held by Napoleon, who had made the Archduke Maximilian emperor during the preoccupation of the United States in civil strife. Across the Rio Grande the new government, insecure against the attacks of its republican opponents, was inimical to the interests of the United States and ready to receive with open arms the irreconcilables of the Confederacy.

The situation in Mexico was then thought to be so perilous, and the new empire so much in league with the Confederacy

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that General Grant ordered General Sheridan, the new com- May 17 mander of the Department of the Mississippi, westward. Tho degree of alarm felt at this time is shown by the fact that Sheridan was not allowed to remain for the grand review in Washington, where naturally he wished to march with his May 23, 24 troops and take his leave of them.

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Arriving in Texas, Sheridan caused one column of cavalry under Custer to go to Houston and another under Merritt to May, June go to San Antonio. Not satisfied with this display of force, he had one division of the Thirteenth Corps occupy Galveston and another Brazos Santiago. Then he ordered the Fourth Corps to Victoria and San Antonio and most of the Twenty-fifth Corps to Brownsville. Such a large army gave pause to the Mexican Empire, principally because Sheridan's divisions were made up of tried veteran soldiers. There was nothing in quality or quantity across the Rio Grande that could stop these disciplined men, and Maximilian knew as much. Sheridan, giving aid to the Republican element both by his moral in fluence and by furnishing arms, did not make the emperor's position more tenable.

Though this threatening empire was set up at our very doors, it was not the greatest menace to our peace. By the end of 1862 all of the regulars had been recalled from the west in order to lend their weight to the absorbing struggle of the Union. The Indians, unchecked, had organized their smaller tribes into large forces and made the country west of the Mississippi a scene of massacre and rapine. The work of the army between 1848 and 1861 had been practically undone, so far as safety in the great west was concerned. Though the settlers banded together and protected themselves as best they could, the strong and subtle savage would conserve his strength and surprise too often small settlements. He grew so bold that he penetrated Minnesota by the end of 1862. By that time he had killed no less than 644 unoffending whites. General Sibley undertook to punish the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation that had been the author of these depredations. After taking 500 of them prisoners, he was compelled to cease operations by the coming of winter. The following spring General Pope organized two columns, one under Sibley and the other under Sully.

Summer 1863

May 20 1865

Sept. 1865

Sibley went west from St. Paul while Sully set out from the state of Missouri. The former was to drive the Indians back, while the latter should cut off their retreat. Sibley with his 2,000 men drove the Indians before him, but they were a stubborn enemy. Twice they surprised him and were finally enabled to cross the Missouri River near Apple Creek with the loss of only a few warriors, their tents and provisions. Sully, in the meantime, had been delayed. Though the Indians had crossed the river, he still determined to attack them. By careful work he finally surprised them at White Stone Hill where he dispersed them.

Although these and similar actions of the volunteers were momentarily successful, they were indecisive and the west was in no wise safe. It is true that 2 companies of Kansas volunteers repulsed an attack of the Ute Indians at Fort Halleck in Idaho and that Kit Carson a year later (1864) dispersed with 400 men the Navahos in New Mexico. But the Civil War was of so much import by comparison that the savage could only be slapped at now and then, while he, with growing confidence, reddened his tomahawk and glutted his lust in the quivering flesh of the white.

After the Civil War was over, it was difficult to get the volunteers to act against the Indians. They felt they should go home, because the time and purpose for which they had been called out had passed. Already the mustering out of 1,034,064 volunteers and militia had begun and the regular army was way below strength. General Connor struck a blow along the Powder River when his small force conducted four pitched battles against the Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapahoes and killed several hundred Indians. But the expedition became mutinous. Supplies did not arrive and about 300 of his volunteers deserted him.

Active campaigns against the western tribes could scarcely be conducted with success under such circumstances. The Indian had become powerful and confident. He believed the withdrawal of troops was an indication of the white man's cowardice and inferiority. It was small wonder that the Blackfeet ran wild in Montana, especially through the Gallatin Valley, that the Cheyennes in force were operating along the

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Platte and the Arkansas, the Mescalores were leaving their Nov. 3 reservation and going on the warpath, and the Apaches in New Mexico were showing signs of activity. The white men at their little settlements were ambushed, killed, mutilated and scalped, the women ravished and the children and supplies carried into the tepees of the savages. And so went on the outrages in the west while the government was swiftly dispersing its masses of trained volunteers and slowly organizing its few and scattered regulars.

Equally distressing was the situation in the former Confederate States. About 19,000 Union soldiers were distributed through 134 posts in the erstwhile Confederacy. They were sent there to support the "carpetbagger" and to uphold the stringent laws of a severe Congress. They had to give aid in enforcing, oftentimes, measures in which they did not believe or with which they had no sympathy.

"The terrible oppression of the Southern people embodied in those acts of Congress," writes General Schofield, "has hardly been appreciated by even the most enlightened and conservative people of the North. Only those who actually suffered the baneful effects of the unrestrained working of those laws can ever realize their full enormity."

Although generals in command of the military districts of the South did their best to carry out the laws with kindness, sympathy and justice, they could do little when they were forced to exclude from office all who had given "aid or comfort" to the secession movement; when those who whipped negroes had to be punished; when the black man had to be used as a witness in court and was allowed to vote; and when judges, juries or district attorneys had to be prodded and have their cases at times taken to military tribunals. Riots, too, had to be suppressed, but usually only a show of force caused the prevention of any great amount of bloodshed.

In the North, many Fenians had emigrated after the War

1 For actual dispersion of army at this time, see Appendix K. The military organization comprehended nineteen departments, embraced in five military divisions,