Letter from General Sheridan.
Letter from General Sheridan.

Letter from General Sheridan.

    St. Louis, Jan. 2.--Gen. Sherman has received a letter from Gen. Sheridan, dated Fort Cobb, Dec. 10, stating his arrival at that post. On the day previous, he met with Gen. Custar's [sic] 7th Cavalry, and ten(?) companies of the 19th Kansas Cavalry, in all about 1500 men. Sheridan spent one day on Custar's battle field and found the bodies of Maj. Elliot, and sixteen soldiers; also the bodies of Mrs. Blinn and child, white captives, in the Indian Camp. Mrs. Blinn had been shot through the forehead, and the child's brains dashed out against a tree.
    Gen. Sheridan followed an Indian trail down the Washita; seventy-six miles, when he came to a camp of Kiowas, who met him with a letter from Gen. Hazen, which declared them to be friendly.
    Sheridan required the Indians to accompany him to Fort Cobb, but discovered, while traveling toward that point, that they were sending their families to the Washita Mountains. Suspecting that they were attempting to deceive him, he took Santanta and Lone Wolf and notified them that he would keep them as hostages; that if all the Kiowas did not come to Fort Cobb he would hang them. Sheridan says the Indians realize now, for the first time, that winter will not compel us to make truce with them, and adds that the Kiowas have been engaged in war all the time, and have been playing fast and loose. They have attempted to browbeat General Hazen since he came to Fort Cobb, but I will take the starch out them before I leave them. The Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and one band of the Commanches with about fifty lodges of the Kiowas, are now at the western base of the Washita Mountains. General Sheridan, after consultation with Gen. Hazen, proposed, that when the Kiowas come in to punish those who are known to be concerned in personal(?) acts of murder, he will send Black Kettle's sister out to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and command them to submit to like(?) treatment, if they refuse to come in he will carry on the war against them in the Washita mountains. He will leave with Gen. Hazen a sufficient force to enable him to control the Indians now at Fort Cobb, and such others as may come in there. During the march from Camp Supply the weather and snow was very severe, but the health of the command was good, only two men of the 7th cavalry and six men of the 19th Kansas being sick.
    In a private letter to General Sherman, dated one day later, Sheridan says that the Kiowas are coming in, that the Cheyennes have been very humble since their punishment by Gen. Custer, and that he has no doubt but that the Arrapahoes will also come in and surrender, and abide by his terms, after which he has no fear of their renewing hostilities.


Source:

Unknown, "Letter from General Sheridan," The Daily Kansas State Journal, Lawrence, Kansas, Sunday Morning, 3 January 1869, Vol. IV, No. 143, p. 1, col. 5.

Created August 25, 2003; Revised August 25, 2003
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