Ned was a very ill boy; but from the hospital at Fort Riley he was able to accompany his regiment to Fort Leavenworth. Here they comfortably spent the winter. Of many finely constructed buildings, in the midst of a one-thousand-acre military reservation overlooking the Missouri River, near to the bustling city of Leavenworth, with its cavalry and infantry and artillery, Fort Leavenworth, headquarters post of the Department of the Missouri, was a decided change from Wallace and Hays and Harker and even Fort Riley. The fall and winter were quiet, while out on the southwest plains a Government Peace Commission made a new treaty with the tribes. The Cheyennes were still angry because General Hancock had destroyed their village; but all agreed to go upon a reservation in Indian Territory, and to let the railroads, the trails and the settlers alone. In the spring another treaty was made at Fort Laramie, in the north, with the Sioux. The Government promised to withdraw its soldiers from the Sioux’ hunting grounds of the Powder River Valley east of the Big Horn Mountains in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. To protect these their last hunting grounds, of the famous Black Hills country, Red Cloud the Sioux chief had been fighting long and hard. Speedily they sent word to their cousins the Cheyennes, Kiowas and all, of Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado, encouraging them also to drive out the white men. Already the Cheyennes and Kiowas and Comanches objected to going upon their reservation; they said they had not understood that they were to give up good land for poor land. The Kansas Pacific Railroad had reached Hays City, and had halted there as if to rest. The doughty General Hancock had been changed to New Orleans, and as commander of the Department of the Missouri had been succeeded by Major-General Philip H. Sheridan. Everybody knew Phil Sheridan the fighting Irishman. He visited briefly at Fort Leavenworth in September of 1867, to assume command; and here Ned had a glimpse of him. He was unlike either General Sherman or General Hancock. A little man was Sheridan, of Irish face, close-cropped grizzled hair, keen gray eyes, reddish moustache and small tuft of hair beneath his lower lip. With his slight body, full chest, short neck, large bullet head, and aggressive manner, he resembled a lion. He was the man who had made that famous “Sheridan’s Ride” from Winchester to Cedar Creek, in the Civil War, and saved the day for the Union Army. He had been General Custer’s commander. In April the Seventh was ordered back to Fort Harker, to be on hand in case of Indian trouble. But it was not the same regiment; for it lacked General Custer.