In 1870 it was 37,000--one soldier to each one thousand of our population.
Against this force, pioneers of the vaster advancing army of peaceful settlers now surging West, there was arrayed practically all the population of fighting tribes such as the Sioux, the two bands of the Cheyennes, the Piegans, the Assiniboines, the Arapahoes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, and the Apaches.

These were the leaders of many other tribes in savage campaigns which set the land aflame from the Rio Grande to our northern line.

The Sioux and Cheyennes were more especially the leaders, and they always did what they could to enlist the aid of the less warlike tribes such as the Crows, the Snakes, the Bannacks, the Utes--indeed all of the savage or semi-civilized tribes which had hung on the flanks of the traffic of the westbound trail.
The Sioux, then at the height of their power, were distinguished by many warlike qualities.

They fought hard and were quick to seize upon any signs of weakness in their enemies.

When we, in the course of our Civil War, had withdrawn some of the upper posts, the Sioux edged in at once and pressed back the whites quite to the eastern confines of the Plains.
When we were locked in the death grip of internecine war in 1862, they rose in one savage wave of rebellion of their own and massacred with the most horrible ferocity not less than six hundred and forty-four whites in Minnesota and South Dakota.