The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-05-10
WAR ON INDIANS.
1t Is Unlike Any other Work Armies
Engage In.

1t Is Unlike Any Other Work Armies
Engage In.
Making wal on Indians is unlike any
other wal making in which such armies
engage. Finding them, not fighting
them, is the difficult problem to solve. If
the reader will consider that the theatre
of operations in any Indian campaign
whether In Wyoming, Dakota, the
Indian Territory and Texas, or
Arizona-is about as large as the
New England States with New
York added; that each of these possible
theatres of wal is an uninhabited wilder
ness; that they are without roads, and
often impenetrable for hundreds OF miles
because of arid deserts or impossible
mountain ranges; that while all parts of
each Territory are to the Indian as IA
miliar as. the paths of the home
H Els Children ass t e IS the ana farmer # a md
cessity must be an unknown land to the
best informed white man; that in these
trackless wilds h Indian has nc fixed
habltation; that upon being discovered
by his enemy the direction Of the trail he
takes is a matter of Indifference to him;
that where night finds him IS his home,
and that his subsistence and cloth
ing are always with him-if all these and
collateral matters depending on them are
considered, an idea can be formed of how
difficult 1t Is to make successful war on
the Indian.
In war the Indian, though partially civ
ilized. reverts to his worst phase of saw
agery. Much has been written as to the
false sentimentality which crops up in
the discussion OF the Indian question by
humanitarians and lovers Of fair play,
which it is not intended here
to repeat. But it may properly be OBJ
served that it is worse than nonsense TO
urge that the Indian regards the
white lntruders as the descendants of
those who, two centuries and more ago,
came to this country and by might de-
prived Them of their lands and hunting
fields. and is through his children pursu-
ing the tired man toward the setting
sun.' The Indians knowledge of his
tory scarcely extends beyond one gener-
alton. His white enemy is served in war
same reasons. He has no inherited ami
mosities dating from the time of the Pill
grim Fathers, nor does he feel gratitude
Tor kind usage shown to his ancestors or
to himself. The annuities paid hi no are
looked upon as tributes exacted by fear
nesses shown him are evidences to his
mind that those by whom they are shown
are weak and afraid of him.
fortunately for the whites, the Indians
In their warfare are not in the habit Of
attacking our so-called forts on the from
tier. else the horrors of past wars would
equal in any year the fearful pictures Of
the Indian mutiny against the English.
Our frontier forts ave often been at the
mercy of the Indians, but the capt
ure in any instance could not have been
made without great loss of life, and it is
characteristic OF the race that they are
slow to attack when certain death awaits
any great numbers. They are brave
where superstitious beliefs make the
chances Of safety greatly in their own
favor, but will not take the risks that
satisfy the civilized w~arrior.-From
Three Indian Campaigns,n By Gen.
Wesley Merritt, In HdfpeTss MaQaztHe.