them from the tension that for over forty hours had deprived them of rest and with but little food.

The war of the Rebellion had a bad effect upon the Indians, for in 1864 at a council at Camp Cottonwood, one of the Indian orators asked the embarrassing question, how the Great Father expected the Indians to keep peace, when he was unable to keep his own children from quarreling. It showed they had a pretty clear understanding of the situation.

General Mitchell was there, and it was hard to give a satisfactory answer. But the general knew what frightful results would follow the active hostilities if all the Sioux were to break loose. The Cheyenne and the Arapahoes were then in the terrible work of endeavoring to exterminate the white people. There were also predatory Sioux bands at work. There was a great and diplomatic effort on the part of General Mitchell to come to an understanding, so it was in May of 1864 that he called a council of the different Sioux chiefs at Camp Cottonwood, to make a treaty of peace.

They smoked and talked, but came to no understanding and adjourned for fifty days. At the second conference General Mitchell opened with an address, in substance as follows :

"This meeting is to come to an understanding and make a treaty so that each of us will know what to do. The government will give the Indians blankets, flour, bacon and other supplies so that they will have plenty. That they should live in houses and the government will furnish them with carpenters and blacksmiths, and they should live like white people. But they must stay out of the valley of the Platte because it scares the women and children who are travelling over the trail.