Gaines, Edmund P. Defence of the Western Frontier : A Plan for the Defence of the Western Frontier, furnished by Major General Gaines, February 28, 1838. Washington: US Congress, 1838. First Edition. [12332]
Removed, no wrapper, 9 x 5 1/2 inches, 58 pp. Good. Pamphlet.
25th Congress, 2nd Session; House of Representatives, War Dept., Doc. No. 311.
Major General Gaines was in command of the Western Department, and had personally surveyed much of the territory in question. His report and recommendations for the defense of the frontiers includes sites for eleven forts and also for the development of a system of railroads to keep them supplied. He also describes the constant instruction and practice of the soldiers and officers in the tactics of border warfare.
Page 26 includes a drawing of a "general plan of the Military Posts proposed by Major General Gaines to be erected on the Western frontier, for defence against the Indians."
This is followed by four pages of charts showing the exact building materials needed for each fort, and the costs of acquisition.
Included is a letter from S. W. Kearney and Nathan Boone, sent from Fort Leavenworth, reporting on surveys taken in the area, and in the area of Fort Coffee. There are also letters from officers at Forts Gibson and Snelling.
Gaines presents detailed proposals on a series of railroads, troop training, and dealings with the Indians.
On this last, we writes, "Being convinced that more than nine-tenths of our conflicts with the Indians, during the last thirty-eight years, have arisen, either directly or indirectly, from the lawless intercourse which has been suffered to exist between them and our licensed and unlicensed traders, which has resulted in constant scenes of drunkenness and fraud, from which the Indian awakens only to find himself stripped of every necessary and comfort of life, to feel himself disgraced and degraded to the condition of a miserable dog, bound to see his wife and naked children starve, and himself to hunt furs and peltries to satisfy the fraudulent demands of the pitiless author of his degradation; and ultimately to consent to any sort of patched up agreement, called "treaty,' by which his home is sold, and the proceeds, to a great extent, put into the pocket of that self-same author of his ruin. And if, in this process of legalized fraud and treachery on the part of the trader, the miserable Indian falls into acts of violence such as the laws of nature and of nations, and even of our own municipal laws, would characterize as acts of violence under aggrieved circumstances of provocation, and short of the crime of deliberate murder, the perpetrator, and often many of his unoffending countrymen, are doomed to suffer; and thus all the evils of war ensue." - p. 56.
The whole is ended with a letter from the chiefs of the Pottawatamie nation, dated near Council Bluffs, Camp Kearney, asking for protection from dishonest traders and the introduction of ardent spirits into their nation.
