Chapter I.

       Table of Contents

      The Summer of 1863 - Gettysburg and Vicksburg - Pea Ridge - Indian Prisoners - March to Rolla - The Seventh Iowa Cavalry - September 19, 1863 - Omaha - The Camp - Sole in Command - Drilling by Bugle - The Loyal League - General H. H. Heath

      It was the summer of 1863. The battle of Gettysburg had been fought, and the Confederates had retreated to the south side of the Potomac. Pemberton had surrendered Vicksburg with 27,000 prisoners, and the Mississippi River had been opened to navigation for the people of the United States. The Confederacy having thus been cut in two, its government should have then seen that it was impossible to succeed, and should have surrendered, thereby saving the vast destruction of property and life which was ultimately to ensue from the overrunning of its territory by the United States forces.

      All Europe deemed the Confederacy as no longer possible of success. Its recognition by European powers was now out of the question, and the United States was enabled to turn its attention to matters of detail. And among these matters was the question of the Indian nations then on the northwest, west, and southwest.

      In the last days of the Buchanan administration, while preparations were being made for secession and war, the South had arranged to carry with it the support of the Indian tribes. The Indian tribes were governed by agents appointed by a dishonest Secretary of the Interior, and the spirit of rebellion was fomented among them as an incident to the coming war. After the Southern Confederacy had been ushered in, and an army put into the field, in 1861, the Confederate Government immediately turned its attention to the utilization of the Indian. The tribes