| 144 "But the word 'massacre' is an unfortunate one for the friends of General Custer to connect just now with his name. For there really was, in 1868, a ''Custer massacre,' when General Custer-a disgrace to the uniform and the flag he bore-attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village near Fort Cobb, dwelling there by our order. At midnight, without the slightest warning, his shouts woke this quiet settlement, and, as the terrified sleepers rush from their huts, Custer shoots down scores of women half asleep, and of unarmed, peaceful men. This was the real ''Custer massacre,' which was then proclaimed as a 'brilliant victory.'
A Chicago Times editorial of July 26, says:
"We call the killing of Custer a massacre; but we are the historians, and the Sioux have no means of reaching the world with their version, or they would designate it as a fair battle, in which they annihilated the enemy. We have much to say of their mutilation of the dead, for we have the best of this matter of branding the opposition for their inhumanity. Could the Sioux speak, they might tell of four Sioux who were ambuscaded a few years ago, killed, scalped, their flesh boiled from their bones and their skeletons propped up on the banks of the Missouri, a hideous spectacle to every passing boat. They might recall a charge of whites upon an Indian camp, when old men, women, and children went down before the sabers and bullets of the white man; also a large gathering at Sand Creek, under a pretense, and then their slaughter by the whites.
"The truth is, in the words of General Sherman ' all war is cruelty.' In all cases of war both sides are cruel. We do not hesitate to do things to Indians, which, if done by them to us, would lead to an uprising, and probably to their utter extermination."
A correspondent from General Crook's expedition writes that the despised aboriginee of three months ago has suddenly become a formidable foeman, "more than worthy of our Caucasian steel. An outcast tribe has been roused into brilliant heroism, and successfully copes with the cross and sword of the Christian civilizer." This writer, although enduring the ills and evils of the campaign in that land of mountains, and amid the barrenness caused by the grasshoppers and the burning woods and prairies, set on fire by the Indians; and while saying that he would gladly fire a mine that would exterminate the red men, one and all, yet says: "This particular war has been forced upon the Sioux, and they have responded to the challenge right gallantly, and 'ne'er may valor lose its meed,' even displayed by them."
We preserve this as history for future use and a coming time.
We find the following from the San Bernardino (California) Times, of July 8, 1876:
"On Saturday last a deputation of Coahulia Indians, led by their head chief, Manuel Largo, called upon us and earnestly requested that we should, through the medium of The Times, lay before the people of the country the story of the wrongs of his people, and pray them to do all in
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