This was a process not altogether simple.

For a considerable time the Indians themselves were able to offer very effective resistance to the enterprise.

They were accustomed to living upon that country, and did not need to bring in their own supplies; hence the Army fought them at a certain disadvantage.

In sooth, the Army had to learn to become half Indian before it could fight the Indians on anything like even terms.

We seem not so much to have coveted the lands in the first Indian-fighting days; we fought rather for the trails than for the soil.