In his recent letter resigning his commission as Agent of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, Col. WYNKOOP takes occasion to refer to Gen. HANCOCK'S famous expedition to Pawnee Fork, in April, 1867, in disparaging terms, and especially in terms implying that he was deceived by that officer regarding the conduct which was to be pursued by the latter toward the Cheyennes.
    The imputation is an old one. It has been repeated very often; and, singularly enough, whether by reason of the active interposition of the Indian Bureau or from whatever other cause, certain it is that somehow Gen. HANCOCK'S clear and straightforward accounts of his Pawnee Fork expedition and of the burning of the Cheyenne camp, with the accompanying documents, have never been properly set forth before the country, while the charges and innuendoes made against his expedition by Indian Agents, have been carefully sown broadcast through the land.
    No one, of course, questions the uprightness of Col. WYNKOOP, his devotion to the interests of the Indians, or his intimate knowledge of their character; but, nevertheless, we think that his theory--or rather implication--that his authority over the Indians of his agency had been unfairly made use of to decoy them into ambuscades and massacres, is totally unsupported by the facts. On three different occasions, he thinks, namely, at Sand Creek, at Pawnee Fork, and at Fort Cobb on the Washita, he was induced to congregate friendly Indians, upon whom, as soon as they began to assemble, our troops leaped to slaughter them. Now, we have no disposition to defend Col. CHIVINGTON'S butchery at Sand Creek, and no need, apparently, of defending Gen. CUSTER'S battle on the Washita, since the latter officer's course has been expressly approved in unqualified terms by his superior officers, and by the general voice of the community. But, in Gen. HANCOCK'S case, there was much less ground for carping criticism, since no "massacre" or general engagement occurred; the destroyed village had been abandoned.
    It has been asserted, however, that this very act precipitated hostilities. This, however, is the grossest error in the whole story, and to it we call especial attention, because its repetition wrongs the fame of an illustrious soldier. The truth is that unavenged murders had already taken place the Winter before the expedition, and that reports that the Cheyennes were about to take the war-trail, were so strong as to induce Gen. SHERMAN to dispatch an expedition to find out if this were true. Gen. HANCOCK'S formal written instructions from Gen. SHERMAN were to "organize out of your present command a sufficient force to go among these Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, or similar bands of Indians, and notify them that if they want war they can have it now, but, if they decline the offer, then impress on them that they must stop their insolence and threats." He was further directed, in case of hostile opposition on the Smoky Hill, "to punish on the spot."
    Thus directed, Gen. HANCOCK moved with a force to the Cheyenne camp, on Pawnee Fork, where the Indian Chiefs had agreed to hold a conference with him. On his approach the whole village decamped, under most suspicious circumstances. Gen. HANCOCK loaned horses to a few who remained, to summon back the village, promising kindly treatment, and meanwhile remained guarding the Cheyenne property with great care from the 14th to the 19th of April, when Gen. CUSTER, whom he had sent out in quest of the flying Indians, sent back word that he had found that "directly after they had abandoned the villages (where, by the way, they left, brutally outraged, a captive girl nine years of age, partly white,) they attacked and burned a mail station on the Smoky Hill, killed the white men at it, disemboweled and burned them, fired into another station, endeavored to gain admittance to a third and fired on my expressmen, both on the Smoky Hill and on their way to Larned." Then it was, and not till then, that Gen. HANCOCK determined to teach the Indians that their insolent marauding should not go unpunished, and, unable to pursue them from point to point, in an endless game of hide-and-seek, he burned their village.
    And this is the occurrence which some Indian Agents, the Indian Bureau, and their friends and abettors in Congress and out, have described as a bait to collect the Indians, with a view to burn their village. Gen. HANCOCK, it will be seen, went out, as SHERMAN directed him, "to ascertain," in the latter officer's language, "if they want to fight, in which case he will indulge them." But it was not really a warlike expedition--its mission was pacific, though it was perfectly prepared for hostilities. Col. WYNKOOP must have well understood this. He was aware, also, that, though the Cheyennes deserted the proposed place of conference, in an annoying and suspicious manner, and though, before going, they abused a little captive girl in a way which Gen. HANCOCK had, two days before, declared that he would resent, yet their village was securely guarded; it was only when his own troops sent him word that after the village had been deserted, the Smoky Hill atrocities had been performed, that he burned it. "I concluded," he said, "that this must be war."
    It only remains to add that Gen. HANCOCK'S course was promptly indorsed by his commanding officers. Gen. SHERMAN wrote to him that "if any blame is attached to you in the matter of burning the Cheyenne camp, I must share with you that blame, for I had previously approved your act in that matter." In his official order directing the burning of the camp, Gen. HANCOCK gave the Indian outrages and word-breaking as the grounds of the act. To say that this act caused the hostilities of 1867 is as disingenuous as it is unjust.

Source:

Unknown, "Gen. Hancock and Col. Wynkoop," The New York Times, New York, Friday, 25 December 1868, p. 6.