Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1875 — Gen. Sheridan’s Report. [ARTICLE]

Gen. Sheridan’s Report.

The Military Division of the Missouri now comS rises most of the Gnlf and Western States, all le Territories east of Arizona, Nevada and Idaho, including the southeastern portion of the latter Territory, extends from British America on the north to the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande on the south, and as far east as Key West, oh the Gulf, and embraces within its limits ninety-nine Indian tribes, numbering about 192,000 persons, scattered over more than 1,600,000 square miles of frontier territory. For the better protection of this frontier, with its vast agricultural, mining, mercantile and other interests, and for convenience in the administration of the affairs of the division, it is divided into five departments, as follows: The Department of Dakota, Brig.-Gen. Alfred Terry, commanding; the Department of the Platte, Brig.-Gen. George Crook, commanding; the Department of the Missouri, Brig.-Gen. John Pope, commanding; the DepartSnent of Texas, Brig.-Gen. O. C. Ord; commanding, and the Department of the Gulf, Brig.-Gen. C. C. Augur, commanding. Within these limits we have ninety-one established posts and camps, garrisoned by eight regiments of cavalry, six companies of artillery, eighteen regiments and four companies of infantry and a small detachment of engineer troops, aggregating, at the last official report, 14,813 commissioned officers and enlisted men. In relation to the extinction of the Indian title to the Black Hills territory the General says: I earnestly recommend some action which will settle this Black Hills question, and relieve us from an exceedingly disagreeable and embarrassing duty. I feel quite satisfied that all the country south of the Yellowstone River, from- the Black Hills of the Cheyenne as far west as the Big Horn Valley, and perhaps as far west as Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone, is gold-bearing, bnt as to the amount of gold deposits I cannot say; it may be great or it may be small. This area is also at many places well timbered, has many beautiful valleys of rather high altitude, with good soil and abundance of running water. Nearly the whole of it is well adapted to grazing purposes. The winters are,l have every reason to believe, very cold, but the temperature is uniform; the cold weather is found to be less injurious to stock where there is no shelter than a milder climate where cattle are subjected to the changes of alternate freezing and thawing, and where the rains rot the grass. The Sioux Indians, numbering about 25,000, now hold this country, and, in addition, the belt eastward from the base of the Black Hills of the Cheyenne to the Missouri River, which would make about 10,000 acres of land for the head of each family and perhaps much more, without one single acre being cultivated, while the maximum amount given by the Government to an adult white settler is only 160 acres, on which he has to live, build a hut, put up fences, till the ground and pay taxes. The observation of many years in my own command and throughout most of the Indian country for the last twenty years has left the impression that this system of civilizing the wild portion of our Indian inhabitants has not met with a success which gives a fair equivalent for the expense, trouble and bloodshed which have attended it. I believe there is true humanity in making the reservations reasonably small, dividing them into tracts for the heads of families, making labor gradually compulsory, and even qpmpelling the children to go to school. To accomplish this purpose, to civilize, make self-supporting, and save many more of these poor people than otherwise will be saved, I believe it best to transfer the Indian Bureau to the military, and let it be taken under the general administration of the army, governed and controlled in responsibility of accounts in accordance with our present system.' The Indians will thus be humanely and honestly dealt with, and I believe, if this had always been the case, there would have been but few of the troubles ana bloody records which have characterized the civilization of the Indians in the many years gone by. In relation to affairs along the Rio Grande Gen. Sheridan says: Nearly all the troope in the Department of Texas, except those along the Rio Grande frontier, were engaged in this campaign. Those stationed along the Rio Grande River, the boundary line between the United States and Mexico, have had the humiliating duty of attempting to protect our citizens and their property from raids by people of a foreign country, who come over the boundary in armed parties to steal cattle, and do not hesitate to attack and kill our citizens when necessary to accomplish their purpose. The low stage of water in the Rio Grande, and its great length—l,2oo or 1,500 miles—makes the duty of protecting it difficult, in fact, almost impossible, with the few troops available for the purpose, in speaking of this duty as a humllatmg oneT do not mean that it is not perfectly legitimate—for any duty is such which has for its object the protection of the lives and property of the people on an international boundary line—but when it is considered that these armed parties, as soon as they are pursued, .take refuge on the opposite bank of the river, and there, in sight of our troops, who dare not cross, graze and slaughter the stolen cattle with impunity, the service is very mortifying to those engaged in the protection of that frontier. This condition of affairs has been going on for the last twenter vears.