The Bozeman Trail Author:Grace Raymond Hebard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Personal Experiences in and around Fort Phil Kearney1 My first enlistment in the United States army was in the Forty-ninth Illinois Infantry, January 1, 1862... more », for the War of the Rebellion. However, as this story deals with my Indian experiences on the plains, I will pass over my first enlistment. After my discharge, I re- enlisted in the Eighteenth United States Infantry, on March 28, 1864, and was sent west to help quell the Indian disturbances, which had become very numerous, owing to the fact that Uncle Sam's soldiers were busy putting down the Rebellion, and had but little time to fool with Indians. This was in the stagecoach days of 1865 to 1867, when that whole expansive territory was a howling wilderness. We arrived at Fort Kearney, Nebraska, on the fifth of December, 1864. Passing over events which transpired there, will state that I started for the northwest with Colonel Henry B. Carrington's Expedition for the Big Horn and Powder River country, May 19, 1866. We followed the Platte River on the south side until we reached Julesburg, about May 29th. The last twenty miles of this march we found that the country had been settled by ranchers, but the Indians had swooped down upon them and killed men, women, and children, and destroyed the buildings. From Julesburg we moved on to Fort Sedgwick,which was but a short distance. Here I was left behind the command with my wife-who, by the way, was with me on this entire trip and went through all the sufferings and privations of that frontier life, on the march and at Fort Phil Kearney. A daughter was born to us here at Fort Sedgwick. She was a great favorite with Captain Fetterman, who wanted us to name her "Sedgwick," after Fort Sedgwick. After a rest of about four weeks we both went to Fort Laramie in an army ambulance,...« less