Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/127

A Lonesome General it to a close until 1842, and, after seven years of fruitless fighting, had to give the Indians their own way to get peace. Didn't know that, did you? That's torn out of the popular histories.

Here is what we should have learned from these Indian wars:

First. That the expense was tripled, if not quadrupled, by that feature of the law of 1821 which gave the Government, in times of emergency, no discretion to increase the number of enlisted men in the army.

Second. That, after successfully employing militia and volunteers for short periods of service, and exhausting their enthusiasm, Congress found it more humane and economical to continue operations with regular troops enlisted for the period of five years.

Third. That for want of a well-defined peace organization, a nation of seventeen millions of people contended for seven years with 1,200 warriors, and finally closed the struggle without accomplishing the forcible [109]