Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/524



CROOK'S CLOSING YEARS—HE AVERTS A WAR WITH THE UTES—A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION WHICH SECURED A CESSION OF ELEVEN MILLIONS OF ACRES FROM THE SIOUX—HIS INTEREST IN GAME LAWS—HIS DEATH—WHAT THE APACHES DID—WHAT "RED CLOUD" SAID—HIS FUNERAL IN CHICAGO—BURIAL IN OAKLAND, MARYLAND—RE-INTERMENT IN ARLINGTON CEMETERY, VIRGINIA.

The last years of General Crook's eventful career were spent in Omaha, Nebraska, as Commanding General of the Department of the Platte, and, after being promoted to the rank of Major-General by President Cleveland, in Chicago, Illinois, as Commanding General of the Military Division of the Missouri. During that time he averted the hostilities with the Utes of Colorado, for which the cowboys of the western section of that State were clamoring, and satisfied the Indians that our people were not all unjust, rapacious, and mendacious. As a member of the Sioux Commission to negotiate for the cession of lands occupied by the Sioux in excess of their actual needs, he—in conjunction with his associates: ex-Governor Charles Foster, of Ohio, and Hon. William Warner, of Missouri—effected the relinquishment of eleven millions of acres, an area equal to one-third of the State of Pennsylvania.

The failure of Congress to ratify some of the provisions of this conference and to make the appropriations needed to carry them into effect, has been alleged among the numerous causes of the recent Sioux outbreak. In this connection the words of the Sioux chief "Red Cloud," as spoken to the Catholic missionary—Father Craft—are worthy of remembrance: "Then General Crook came; he, at least, had never lied to us. His words gave the people hope. He died. Their hope died again. Despair came again." General Crook also exerted all the influence he could bring to bear to induce a rectification of the wrong inflicted