CHAPTER III
At the close of the war, General William Tecumseh Sherman was placed at the head of the Peace Commission which had been sent to the border to take counsel with the Indians. It had become necessary to put an end to the hostility of the red man immediately either by treaty or by force. His raids on the settlers could be endured no longer.
The purpose of the party which Sherman headed was to confer with the greatest of the hostile chiefs. Treaties were to be agreed upon if possible. If negotiations for peace failed, the council would at least act as a stay of hostilities. The army was rapidly reorganizing, and it would soon be possible to mobilize enough troops to put down the Indians in case they refused to come to terms peaceably.
The camp of the Kiowas and Comanches—the first Indians with whom Sherman meant to deal—was about three hundred miles southwest of Leavenworth, in the great buffalo range, and in the midst of the trackless Plains.
By ambulance and on horseback, with wagons to carry the supplies, the party set out for its first objective—Council Springs on the Arkansas River, about sixty miles beyond old Fort Zarrah.
I was chosen as one of the scouts or dispatch carriers to accompany the party. The guide was Dick Curtis, a plainsman of wide experience among the Indians.
When we arrived at Fort Zarrah we found that no road lay beyond, and learned that there was no water on the way. It was determined, therefore, to make a start at two o'clock in the morning. Curtis said this would enable us to reach our destination, sixty-five miles further on, by two o'clock the next afternoon.
The outfit consisted of two ambulances and one Government wagon, which carried the tents and supplies. Each officer had a horse to ride if he chose. If he preferred to ride in the ambulance his orderly was on hand to lead his horse for him.
We traveled steadily till ten o'clock in the morning, through herds of buffalo whose numbers were past counting. I remember that General Sherman estimated that the number of buffalo on the Plains at that time must have been more than eleven million. It required all the energy of the soldiers and scouts to keep a road cleared through the herds so that the ambulance might pass.