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Show THE NOBLE RED MAN. 533 old West Pointers were dead, or retired on half pay, or had grown to such rank in the volunteer army that they could not bear to drop back to their old position in the regular service. The officers consisted of new men from West Point; of men who had been appointed from civil life or from the volunteer army, in most instances to oblige some politician ; and a few men like Custer, to whom military life was both a pleasure and a legitimate business. Desertion was so common among the private soldiers that it entailed no disgrace anywhere in the West. Hundreds enlisted sim-ply to get transportation to the Rocky Mountains, and then de-serted. When our wagon- train was on its way to Salt Lake in 1868 a deserter traveled with us two days, dressed in his military clothing, and without the slightest attempt at concealment. In this wretched state of the service in the West, Custer was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant- Colonel, and put in com-mand of the Seventh United States Cavalry. It was but nominally a cavalry regiment. The men were there, and the horses, with guns, equip-ments, an organization and a name ; but as a cavalry regiment he had to make it, and he did it so well that it soon became the reliable regi-ment of the frontier. The new Colonel's career, for some time to come, was among the hostile Indians of Western and South- western Kansas then the worst section of the Far West for Indian troubles. The tourist who glides rapidly and with such keen enjoyment through this region, by way of the Kansas Pacific or Atchison, Topeka < fe Santa Fe Road, can scarcely conceive that but a few years have elapsed since it contained thousands of murderous savages; for it is a noteworthy fact that nothing so soon moderates the danger of Indian attacks as a railroad. It seems that, even if no fighting is done, the mere presence of the road, with daily passage of trains, either drives the Indians away or renders them harmless. But in the early days the routes to the Colorado mines were raided at regular intervals. One year there would be almost perfect peace, the next a bloody Indian war. It seems to have been the policy of the Indians to behave well long enough to throw emigrants off their guard, then swoop down and mur SCENE OF SIOUX WAR OF 1876. |