Note 20 — JOURNAL OF TRAVELS OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

For a biographical note on Colonel Stephen W. Kearny see our volume xvii, p. 12, note 4. In the summer of 1845 the general of the army ordered Kearny to take five companies of dragoons and proceed from Fort Leavenworth via the Oregon Trail to South Pass, returning by way of the Arkansas and the Santa Fé Trail. The object was both to impress the Indians, and to report upon the feasibility of an advanced military post near Fort Laramie. Leaving their encampment May 18, they were upon the Little Blue by the twenty-sixth of the month. See report in Senate Docs., 29 Cong., 1 sess., 1, pp. 210-213. This was the first regular military campaign into the land of the Great West, and strongly impressed the Indians of that region. Kearny's recommendations were against the establishment of a post because of the difficulty of supplying it—advising instead, a biennial or triennial campaign similar to his own.—Ed.