destined for the New Mexico trade.

From that time Kansas

City and Westport continued to acquire more and more of this overland commerce, so that by 1850 they had secured its complete monopoly.

According to the record kept by Messrs. Hays & Co. at Council Grove, there were engaged in the New Mexico trade in 1860, 5,984 men; 2,170 wagons; 464 horses; 5,933 mules; 17,836 oxen. The wagons were loaded with fifty-five hundred pounds each on an average, making an aggregate of six thousand tons! The capital employed in carrying on this transportation for this season alone was not far from two million dollars!

To protect this trade and the western frontier from the depredations of the Indians the Government in 1827 posted a portion of the Third Regiment of United States troops, numbering about 200 men, where Fort Leavenworth now stands, under command of Major Baker. This post was named after the Colonel of this regiment, Henry H. Leavenworth. It was at first called a cantonment and the title of Fort was not applied until 1832. For several years after its establishment the troops were so greatly afflicted by disease that in 1829 it was temporarily reduced-the most of the troops being sent upon the prairies. In 1830 the Sixth Regiment of Infantry superseded the Third; and in 1835 it was commanded by the Third Division of Dragoons under Colonel Dodge, who, in 1845, made an expedition to Pike's Peak and back, in which he cultivated the friendship of the Prairie Indians.* Fort Leavenworth attracted but little attention until the breaking out of the war with Mexico and the gold excitement in California when it became a great outfitting post for western travel and trade.

Soon after the admission of Missouri as a State into the Union, large cessions of land were secured to the United States from the natives west of that State. The Government then conceived the design and perfected a plan for the trans

*American State Papers.

fer of all eastern tribes of Indians to the west of the Mississippi. Tribe after tribe was thus led to migrate westward, so that by the middle of the Nineteenth Century not a tribe remained in the States. Thus up to the time of the organization of this Territory, the lands of Kansas were held and inhabited solely by Indians, white people being forbidden by the terms of the treaties to settle on them without the consent of the former. This was literally the Indian Territory, and it was the design of the General Government to make it the permanent home of the Red Man.

Fort Scott was made a military post in 1841 to hold the Indians in check. A few Government buildings were erected, which were sold in 1855 for two or three hundred dollars a piece. The American Fur Company formerly had a post there.

From 1843 to 1850 General Fremont made repeated tours. through this Territory.

The first train that ever crossed the Plains, over the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific coast, was conducted in 1844 by Mr. Neil Gillem. He set out from Buchanan County, Missouri, with fifty wagons and one hundred men, and went to Oregon. The following year the Mormons assembled near Atchison preparatory to crossing the Plains. They made this their place of rendezvous for all companies going to Salt Lake for several years thereafter. They erected a house here afterwards and opened a farm, which is to this day known as the Mormon farm.

In 1845 the Mexican war broke out and Fort Leavenworth became the gathering point for soldiers and the shipping point for military stores, destined for Mexico. It was across the prairies of Kansas that General Kearney made his celebrated march to Santa Fe. Immediately after the termination of this war gold was discovered in California, and the tide of fortune seekers rolled across this soil. Kansas City, Fort Leavenworth and St. Joseph were the principal points at which the emigrants united into vast caravans, miles in

length, bound for the land of wealth. In 1849, thirty thousand, and in 1850 sixty thousand, persons crossed the Plains on their journey to the Golden Gate, the chief portion of whom crossed the prairies of Kansas.

As this kind of prairie travel and commerce is passing away, it is thought proper to insert an excellent description of it by one with whom it was perfectly familiar:

"The wagons, after receiving their loads, severally return to the camping places, until all belonging to the train are assembled. At that the order of march' is given. A scene then ensues that baffles description. Carriages, wagons, men, horses and mules and oxen, appear in chaotic confusion. Men are cursing, distressing mulish outeries, bovine lowing, form an all but harmonious concert, above the desonances of which the commanding tone of the wagon master's voice only is heard. The teamsters make a merciless use of their whip, fists and feet. The horses rear, the mules kick, the oxen baulk. But gradually order is made to prevail and each of the conflicting elements to assume its proper place. The commander finally gives the sign of readiness by mounting his mule, and soon the caravan is pursuing its slow way along the road.

"The trains reveal their approach at a great distance. Long before getting in sight, especially when the wind carries the sound in the right direction, the jarring and croaking of the wagons, the 'gee-ho' and 'ho-haw' of the drivers, and the reverberations of the whips, announce it in the most unmistakable manner. The traveler coming nearer, the train will by degrees rise into sight, just as ships at sea appear to emerge from below the horizon. The wagons being all in view, the train, when seen a few miles off, from the shining white of the covers, and the hull-like appearance of the bodies of the wagons, truly looks like a fleet sailing with canvass all spread, over a seeming sea. A further advance will bring one up with the train master, who always keeps a mile or so ahead, in order to learn the condition of the roads, leaving the immediate charge of the train to his assistant. On arriving up with the caravan itself, one will pass from twenty-five to seventy-five high-boxed, heavy-wheeled wagons, covered with double sheets of canvass, loaded with from fifty to sixty hundred pounds of freight, and drawn by from

five to six yoke of oxen, or five spans of mules each. One driver for every wagon is attached to the train. From four to ten extra hands also accompany it, to fill possible vacancies. One or more mess wagons, under the superintendence of cooks likewise form a part of the cortege, the whole being under the supreme command of the wagon master and his assistant. As to cooks the crew of the prairie fleet, after having traveled on the Plains a week or two, outshine the deck hands of our steamboats altogether. When under sail' the prairie schooners usually keep about thirty yards from each other, and as each of them, with its animate propelling power, has a length of eighty or ninety feet, a large train requires an hour to pass a given point."

CHAPTER IX.

A SURVEY OF THE BATTLE-FIELD AND THE CONTESTANTS BEFORE THE CONFLICT.

When the Nebraska-Kansas Bill passed Congress, Kansas contained not a town or settlement of whites. The only inhabitants within its boundaries except Indians, were a few traders, missionaries and Indian agents. The western limits of Missouri were, a few years previous, regarded as the outer verge of civilization, and the domain of Kansas as a part of the great American Sahara, over which farms, towns and cities could never spread-fit only for the nomadic wanderings of the savage, the prowlings of the wolf and the range of the buffalo, It was marked on the map-"Great American Desert," as a desolate and sterile waste. And there was little in it to excite the cupidity and jealousy of bordering States, as it was covered for one hundred miles back with reserves for Indians, guaranteed to them in perpetuity for homes by the general Government-the policy of proslavery legislation whereby the territory bequeathed to Freedom was rendered inaccessible for settlement.

During the California emigration, the Eastern and Middle States became more familiar with this country. Travellers in passing through it were struck with its richness, beauty and grandeur, and wrote back glowing descriptions of it. Many that traversed its soil, were the first emigrants to this Territory. But nothwithstanding these lights thrown upon the "Far West," most people east of the Mississippi knew