“How many children got sick and died?”
“Between the fall of 1877 and 1878 we lost fifty children. A great many of our finest young men died, as well as many women.”
“Old Crow,” a chief who served faithfully as Indian scout and ally under General Crook for years, said: “I did not feel like doing anything for awhile, because I had no heart. I did not want to be in this country. I was all the time wanting to get back to the better country where I was born, and where my children are buried, and where my mother and sister yet live. So I have laid in my lodge most of the time with nothing to think about but that, and the affair up north at Fort Robinson, and my relatives and friends who were killed there. But now I feel as though, if I had a wagon and a horse or two, and some land, I would try to work. If I had something, so that I could do something, I might not think so much about these other things. As it is now, I feel as though I would just as soon be asleep with the rest.”
The wife of one of the chiefs confined at Fort Leavenworth testified before the committee as follows: “The main thing I complained of was that we didn't get enough to eat; my children nearly starved to death; then sickness came, and there was nothing good for them to eat; for a long time the most they had to eat was corn-meal and salt. Three or four children died every day for awhile, and that frightened us.”
(This testimony was taken at Fort Reno, in Indian Territory.)
When asked if there were anything she would like to say to the committee, the poor woman replied: “I wish you would do what you can to get my husband released. I am very poor here, and do not know what is to become of me. If he were released he would come down here, and we would live together quietly, and do no harm to anybody, and make no trouble. But I should never get over my desire to get back north; I
