THE INDIAN WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.

Grey River Argus, Volume IV, Issue 270, 5 October 1867, Page 3

THE INDIAN WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.

Along with false reports and others much exaggerated,' come /straggling grains of truth. : The recent maSsaoie of .Lieutenant Kidder and a party 0f ten men on the route, from theP-latte to Smoky Hill was one of those fiendish atrocities peculiar to savage -warfare. A visitor to the scene of carnage writes from near Foit Wallace, Kansas, July 15th, as follows : — The scene the bodies presented, as they lay i.pon the ground,' in that mutilated condition that the hands of the red savages can alone execute, exceeds in horrible aspect anything that the pen or pencil can describe. . The tomahawk, the scalping knife, steel-pointed arrow, the fire— all. left the "marks of the agonising work. The ground for some distance around was literally strewn witli human fragmeut-s. Here was a head, there was a foot, on this side one portion of a body, on that another. No identification of any of them could be made. From some of the bodies 20 arrows were taken. I found in one hip joiut three steel-jiointed arrows; they required all my force to • extricate them. The red savages are doing their bloody work. The pseudo philanthropists East won't have them harmed. They are well armed with pistols and rifles, and will work a terrible harvest of murder and blood this summer. Next winter they will make treaties and beg bread, and live upon the sympathy and.generosity of the Government. ■ Lieut. Kidder was the son of Gov. Kidder, of Dakotah Territory, and was said to have a good knowledge of the i Indians. But it is a murderous business to send an officer and ten men through an lu'dian country like this — though General Sherman (in St. Louis) is not a whit afraid of the red savages. The 7th Cavalry will remain here some weeks to fit out. There is nothing but a shadow left of it. Three hundred horses Avould couut all in the command, and seven hundred men have deserted since December 1866. This is the finest post on the Plains. Captain ,Keogh, an elegant gentleman and accomplished officer, is in command. Another letter dated Fort Sedgwick, C. T., July 15, says : — The country generally, and towards Fprt Laramie particulai ly, is full of hostile Indians, attacking trains and scalping eveiy white they can reach. The commanders and general officers for the most part seem to have given up.the idea of fighting them, and the settlers west are very indignant at their inactivity. They themselves, as soon as the river and streams, which are now very high, have fallen, will take the war path, and say they they will neither spare age nor sex. General Handcock's troops are now scattered throughout the country in small garrisons, -large enough to protect themselves, but of not sufficient force to offer any assistance to the emigrant trains crossing the plains. Every Western paper we receive has accounts of che ravages of the red devils, and all point to a general Indian war.

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