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138 By this time the people of the country had begun to think that perhaps Red Cloud was fighting for a principle, and the President was prevailed upon to send out a commission whose duty it was to ascertain the real occasion of the war, and to negotiate a treaty of peace if it was thought wise to do so. Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Auger were members of this commission.

The commission sent Swift Bear, a friendly Brule Indian, to Red Cloud's army on the Powder River, and invited Red Cloud to meet the commissioners at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud declined to come down, but sent word to the commissioners by the well-known chief Man Afraid of His Horses, that his war against the whites was to save the valley of the Powder River, the only hunting ground left to his nation, from white intrusion. He told the commissioners that whenever the military garrisons at Fort Phil Kearney, Fort C. F. Smith, and Fort Reno were withdrawn, the war on his part would cease. The commissioners sent word to him, asking for a truce until a council could be held. Red Cloud replied that he would meet them the next spring or summer.