Answer by Little Rock: “After your explanation I think your demand for the men is right. I am willing to deliver them up, and will go back to the tribe and use my best endeavors to have them surrendered. I am but one man, and cannot answer for the entire nation.”
Other questions and answers of similar import followed.
The terms of the interview between Colonel Wynkoop and Little Rock were carefully noted down and transmitted regularly to his next superior officer, Superintendent Murphy, who but a few days previous, and within the same month, had officially reported to the Indian Commissioner at Washington that peace and good will reigned undisturbed between the Indians under his charge and the whites. Even he, with his strong leaning toward the adoption of morbid measures of a peaceful character, and his disinclination to believe the Indians could meditate evil toward their white neighbors, was forced, as his next letter shows, to alter his views.
Office Superintendent Indian Affairs, Atchison, Kansas, August 22, 1868.
Sir: I have the honor herewith to transmit a letter of the 19th inst. from Agent Wynkoop, enclosing report of a talk which he had with Little Rock, a Cheyenne chief, whom he had sent to ascertain the facts relative to the recent troubles on the Solomon and Saline rivers, in this State. The agent’s letter and report are full, and explain themselves. I fully concur in the views expressed by the agent that the innocent Indians, who are trying to keep, in good faith, their treaty pledges, be protected in the manner indicated by him, while I earnestly recommend that the Indians who have committed these gross outrages be turned over to the military, and that they be severely punished. When I reflect that at the very time these Indians were making such loud professions of friendship at Larned, receiving their annuities, etc., they were then contemplating and planning this campaign, I can no longer have confidence in what they say or promise. War is surely upon us, and in view of the importance of the case, I earnestly recommend that Agent Wynkoop be furnished promptly with the views of the Department, and that full instructions be given him for his future action.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
(Signed) Thomas Murphy, Superintendent Indian Affairs.
Hon. C. E. Mix, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C.
What were the recommendations of Agent Wynkoop referred to in Mr. Murphy’s letter? They were as follows: “Let me take those Indians whom I know to be guiltless and desirous of remaining at peace, and locate them with their lodges and families at some good place that I may select in the vicinity of this post (Larned); and let those Indians be entirely subsisted by the Government until this trouble is over, and be kept within certain bounds; and let me be furnished with a small battalion of United States troops, for the purpose of protecting them from their own people, and from being forced by them into war; let those who refuse to respond to my call and come within the bounds prescribed, be considered at war, and let them be properly punished. By this means, if war takes place—which I consider inevitable—we can be able to discriminate between those who deserve punishment and those who do not; otherwise it will be a matter of impossibility.”
This proposition seems, from its wording, to be not only a feasible one, but based on principles of justice to all concerned, and no doubt would be so interpreted by the theorizers on the Indian question who study its merits from afar. Before acting upon Colonel Wynkoop’s plan, it was in the regular order referred to General Sherman, at that time commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, in which the Indians referred to were located. His indorsement in reply briefly disposed of the proposition by exposing its absurdity:
Headquarters Military Division of the Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri,
September 19, 1868.