The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1908-09-24

Newport, Wash, Sept. 18th, 1908.
To the Citizen Republican
and Other Friends:
We left Scotland a week ago yester-
day for Sioux City and from there we
went over the Minneapolis and Omaha
to the latter city, where we arrived,
about 8 O'Clock in the evening, after a
most disagreeable ride in blistering heat
and lily ventilated cars. From Sioux
City to Omaha, a country which I
have always regarded as prominently
a corn country, the corn crop looked
much less promising than between
Scotland and Sioux City.
After a transfer through the city
from the Northwestern to the Burling-
ton depot we left Omaha, over the Bur-
lington, about midnight for Billings,
Mont, on our way to this place, and
the next morning at daylight found us
speeding through the sand hills and
plains of Nebraska a hundred, or a
hundred and fifty miles west by north
from Lincoln. This course we follow
ed until we reached Edgemont in the
Black Hills, about 8 O'Clock in the
evening, and the country through
which we had travelled that day inn
pressed us in point of civilization as
about where Dakota was a quarter of q
century ago, while the prospect of Its
catching up to that favored section in
another twenty five years, judging by
its light sandy soil, was far from prom
Using.
The night of the second day out we
spent in gliding up through..the alkali
plains west.of the Black Hills, and I
woke up frequently to look out of the
car window, from my berth, over what
seemed il the bright moonlight a dead
sea, or ~trackless desert, without sign of
animal or vegetable life.
The morning of the third day out
found us at the "Crow Agency" where
but a mile away could be e the
monument which marks the place OF
Custer's Last Fight which is not on
ly marked by this monument, but by
numerous others, which are said to be
on the spots where each individual
soldier fell on that bloody field of ex.
termination, which the Seventh Cav
airy, that supplied the followers Of
General Custer then, well remembered
and repaid at "Wounded Knee in
South Dakota, fourteen years later,
where it fought and exterminated a
band of the same family of Indians,
Sioux, except one poor little papoose, a
baby girl, found in the bushes after the
fight was over, and later adopted by
Mrs. Colby, Of Beatrice, Neb., the ed.
itor of the Woman's National Tribune
What a flood of memory the recollec
ton of the Custer massacre sets in up.
on the mind! Custer, covered all over
with honor and glory by his matchless
services in the Civil War, a Lieutenant
Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry aud as
signed to duty as a Brevet Major Gen
eral! General Grant was president oil
the United States A rumor was abroad
that charged the war Office with a sale
of post-traderships on the frontier and
Custer, summoned before a committee
of congress, answered frankly and free
ly the questions put to him without
fear or favor; was ordered back to his
regiment and his assignment to duty
as Brevet Major General revoked, thus
making him subordinate, if | remem
Der correctly, to both General Terry
and General Crook. His just pride
and self respect must have been deeply
stung and what more natural, from tn
soldiers standpoint, than that b.
should do something in the face of hi
humiliation, that successful, as b
doubtless expected his charge would be
would challenge again the admiration
of his comrades and that of the soldier
and lovers of heroes the world round
And what a sad chapter the war of
flee furnished in this sad story! Gener
al Belknap, a man Of incorruptible in
tegrity and unblemlshed character
was secretary Of war IN the cabinet q
President Grant. Congress threatene'
his impeachment and he resigned hi
office to retire from Office and publ
life forever, and finally to die in hi
private Office in the city of Washing
ton, if not neglected and alone, vel
nigh forgotten. But after his death
eaked out that there was a woman il