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140 taken away, he said it was so late in the season that he thought he would make his winter's meat before he came down to meet the commissioners. This caused great uneasiness in military quarters and in the Indian department, for it was feared that Red Cloud did not intend to keep faith. However, when he had finished his fall's work, he appeared at Fort Laramie (November 6) and signed the treaty, which was duly ratified by the Senate on February 16, 1869, and was proclaimed by President Andrew Johnson on February 24. Thus the great Red Cloud War came to an end.

Red Cloud had been entirely successful and obtained everything he was fighting for. It is the only instance in the history of the United States in which the government has gone to war and afterward made a peace conceding everything demanded by the enemy and exacting nothing in return. From the date of this peace Red Cloud faithfully observed its terms and, according to Indian standards, lived a good life. At more than eighty years of age, in 1905, he was still living at Pine Ridge agency, near the Black Hills.