The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-06-23


Dispatches from Fort Buford report that the
threatened attack Of Indians upon that post
has come of, in which nearly all the wood
choppers employed around the fort were
butchered. The assault was made by five
hundred Sioux, friends and compatriots Of our
late guests, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail.
About three weeks ago, even while the red
chiefs were on their way to the White House,
we heard that this attack was premeditated,
and we received BY telegraph at the same time
the humiliating intelligence that there were but
fifty United States soldiers In the fort ft for
duty in this terrible emergency. Well, the
friends of Red Cloud have como down 'like
wolf on the fold" upon the poor unprotected
woodchoppers, and cut them of, of course,
with proverbial Indian brutality. Colonel
Barron, of the Thirteenth infantry, reports that
this is the opening OF a war. III more serious
Inauguration OF q series of savage assaults,
cattle stealing and massacres-for 1t cannot be
digniied with the name of war--d0es not take
place in the vicinity of Fort Laramie very
soon we mistake the spirit Of Red Cloud, the
chief Of thirty-two hostile tribes, when he
left for the West, and we miscalculate the
temper of the six thousand warriors TO
whom he goes back, disconnected and disap-
pointed, to report the failure Of bis mission,
and 10 tell of all the stale CANNON which he
heard in Washington, of which the poorest
warrior in all his tribes was sick and weary
long ago. They have heard 1t SO often that it
pals even upon the savage appetite.
The fact being admitted that these red men
must be dealt with as savages who stand in
our way-as a race wholly beyond the capaci-
ty of civilization, from whom nothing can be
expected but cowardly murders and c0nfagra-
tion--is it not the duty of the government at
this moment to take precautions on the from
tier where this movement is threatened, by
sending sufficient number of troops to the
different forts so as to insure their protection
The difficulty heretofore has been that our
posts are too far apart and in a manner
isolated. We could cite many instances
where troops were seriously harassed by being
cut off from reinforcements for several days.
Take the case of General Forsyth's gallant but
fatal defence against an overwhelming
band of savages some two years ago
when he lay, with his little handful of men
without food, behind a temporary earthwork
on the open prairie, for several days before a
reinforcement could relieve him. II there are
not soldiers enough on the Plains for the
service required why not send more? We
have plenty Of troops lying comparatively idle
in the forts in the East and South who might
be sent to the frontier. What do we want Of
garrison at Governors Island, for instance,
or Fort Hamilton, or Fort Richmond, or
Fortress Monroe? Men enough to fire the
morning and evening gun, to hoist and lower
the flag at sunrise and sunset and beat the
noisy drum for reveille and tattoo are all
that are required at these posts just now. If,
then, it be that we cannot cope with the
savages on the Plains, cannot keep them in
subsection and cannot protect our people in
their lives and property with our present force
out there, why not send more soldiers? There
is no excuse for our regular troops being ha-
raised and butchered in detail by these savage
wretches, and the advance of civilization being
retarded by the murder of white citizens and
the destruction of their homesteads, while We
have plenty of soldiers at the disposal Of the
government to make the Plains, from New
Mexico to Dacotah, too hot to hold the savage
tribes who remain incorrigible.