The Montana courier. [volume] (Shelby, Mont.) 1922-192?, 1922-09-13

prisoners, and by a threat of execution that trib
was forced to report at Fort Cobb, together witt
the Comanches and Apaches, and finally induces
to go on their reservation.
From Fort Cobb the command marched to th'
base of the Washita mountains and established
Fort Sill, near Medicine Bluff. On the I'd O.
March following the Nineteenth Kansas cavalry
and the Seventh United States cavalry, under the
command of General Custer, went in pursuit Of
the Cheyennes.
The Cheyenne trail was struck on Salt Fork or
the 9th of March, 1869, and followed to the north
along the eastern edge of the Llano Estacado
until the goth of March, when the Cheyennes were
caught campe on Sweetwater creek, about ter
miles west of the eastern line of Texas. This
march was made practically without transporta.
ton or adequate supplies, and for the last few
days the men subsisted on mule meat without
bread or salt.
General Sheridan, General Custer and Colonel
Moore, with the soldiers of the Eighteenth Kan
sas, the Nineteenth Kansas and the Seventh Unit
ed States and Tenth United States cavalry, res
cued the women prisoners from the Indians in the
Texas Panhandle and drove the Indians far into
the LlanO Estacado and preserved southwestern
Kansas for all time, practically, from Indian as.
saults. They followed and fought the Indians in
driving storms, at times with no resources but the
buffalo they killed, and the obligations the South
west is under to them have never really been ac
knowledged by the government of the United
States
The most romantic feature of the campaign was
the rescue of the women from Logan county, Kan
sas, whom they found in the Panhandle among
the Indians, whom they beat after a fierce fight
Capt. John @. A. Norton of Lawrence, Kan, who
is credited with marching alone in front of a Con
federate battery, told me personally the par
ticulars of that episode, a tale that would dc
credit to the pen of a Dumas. AS General Custer
say. in his report:
"In obtaining the release Of the captive white
women, and that, too, without ransom, the men
of my command, and particularly those of the
Nineteenth Kansas, who were called into service
owing to the murders and depredations Of which
the capture of these women formed a part, feel
more fully repaid for the hardships they have en-.
dured than if they had survived an overwhelming
victory over the Indians"
Col. H. C. Lindsey of the Twenty-second Kan
sas, in the Spanish war, was a sergeant major OF
the Nineteenth Kansas under Colonel Moore. Cap
tain Norton, a soldier of the Civil war, then In
1869 a Young lawyer at Lawrence, and an officer
of exceptional courage and capacity and equip
ment, still lives at Lawrence, one of the foremost
citizens of our great state, a soldier and a gentle
man or the highest and best type, always gentle,
capable, courageous and chivalric.
The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Kansas were
tbe only volunteer soldiers that the American
government raised In a third of a century from
1865 TO 1898. They performed a service that had
MS MANY difficulties as any of our veterans. They
made n campaign as romantic and remarkable
as n novelist could depict. They rescued from
the horrors of Indian captivity the wives ano
daughters of the frontiersmen who made for us
the great West and brought it into Civilization.
have lived in patience for half a century
without any fair or just expression of apprecia-
by this republic for their excellent services.
All that 7 ask now is that you give to them the
same financial consideration that you give to
other soldiers of similar accomplishments and
similar heroism.