For more than a year, with scant sympathy from the military members, this commission endeavored to remove the causes of friction by amicable conference with the Indian chiefs.

The attitude of the Army is reflected in a letter of General Sherman to his brother.
"We have now selected and provided reservations for all, off the great roads.

All who cling to their old hunting-grounds are hostile and will remain so till killed off.

We will have a sort of predatory war for years--every now and then be shocked by the indiscriminate murder of travelers and settlers, but the country is so large, and the advantage of the Indians so great, that we cannot make a single war and end it.
From the nature of things we must take chances and clean out Indians as we encounter them." Segregation of the Indian tribes upon reservations seemed to the commission the only solution of the vexing problem.

Various treaties were made and others were projected looking toward the removal of the tribesmen from the highways of continental travel.