BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.
At the close of the war Captain Payne returned to the life of the plains, and in the spring of 1868 he accompanied General Custer in an expedition against the Cheyennes, during which he, with two others, was detailed as special messenger to Fort Hays to secure assistance, and in that capacity encountered great dangers and privations.
In 1870 he removed to Sedgwick County, Kansas, near Wichita, and in the following year was again elected to the Legislature. In 1879 he became interested in a movement for the occupation and settlement of a district in the Indian Territory which is known as Oklahoma (beautiful land). In 1880 he organized a colony for the purpose of entering upon and settling these lands, but was stopped by a decision of Carl Schurz, then Secretary of the Interior, to the effect that these lands were open to settlement only to negroes or Indians. Owing to the arrest of Captain Payne by the United States authorities the colony disbanded.
However historians may differ as to the wisdom or legality of Captain Payne’s so-called Oklahoma invasion and the court’s decisions upon the subject, the fact remains that his name is held high in honor and esteem by the older citizens of the now flourishing Oklahoma—a monument to his forethought.
NATHAN SALSBURY.
Now to one who if not a “pard” of the plains is a partner in the Wild West.
Yours Truly
Nate Salsbury
Mr. Nate Salsbury, the partner of Buffalo Bill in his business enterprise of the Wild West, and his devoted friend, was born in Freeport, Ill., his parents being in humble circumstances. Nate Salsbury began to work for a living at an early age, his ambition being to win fame and fortune by becoming a self-made man. As there was little to bind his affections to the home of his nativity, when the war broke out, with all the patriotism of an American stirring in his bosom, he enlisted as a private in the Fifteenth Illinois Regiment, though but a boy in years. His career as a boy soldier won for him praise and promotion, and he was wounded in battle on three different occasions.
Made a prisoner by the Confederates, he was incarcerated in Andersonville prison, where he remained for seven months.