Among the soldiers were artificers and mechanics of every description. The government had provided appliances needed for building forts, including tools, doors, sash, glass, nails, stoves, steel, iron, mowers, reapers, scythes, and two steam sawmills. The officers were in the main a fine body of men, most of whom had learned their soldiering in the Civil War. [Illustration: _Copyright by D. F. Barry_ ] CROW KING AMERICAN HORSE[6] RED CLOUD GALL GROUP OF FAMOUS WAR CHIEFS It seems incredible to think that women should accompany such an expedition, but no grave anticipations of trouble with the Indians were felt by any persons in authority at that time. The Sioux and Cheyennes had consented to the opening of the road, and though they demurred to the forts, they had not absolutely refused the treaty when the government insisted upon it. The expedition was not conceived or planned for war. It was supposed to be a peaceable expedition. In fact, General Sherman, who visited Fort Kearney before the troops began to march, personally advised the ladies to accompany the expedition as very attractive in its object and wholly peaceful. Had the authorities known what was to happen, a force three times as great would scarcely have been thought adequate for the purpose. But even had there been a full knowledge of the dangers incurred, the army women would have gone with their husbands. History records no greater instances of romantic devotion than those exhibited by the army wife. She stands peculiar among American women to-day in that particular. The army woman in a hostile country risked much more than the men. Her fate when captured was terrible beyond description—one long agony of horror and shame until death put an end to it. I have talked with army officers of large experience and have read what others have said, and the universal testimony is that no woman who was ever captured by the plains Indians west of the Missouri was spared. It was commonly agreed among the officers and men of regiments accompanied by women—and fully understood by the women as well—that in the last extremity the women were to be shot by their own friends, rather than to be allowed to fall into the hands of the savages; but no such apprehension attended this march.