Note 185 — III. THE INDIAN REFUGEES IN SOUTHERN KANSAS

Footnote 185:

(return)

Mismanagement there most certainly had been. In no other way can the fact that there was absolutely no amelioration in their condition be accounted for. Many documents that will be cited in other connections prove this point and Collamore's letter is of itself conclusive. George W. Collamore, known best by his courtesy title of "General," went to Kansas in the critical years before the war under circumstances, well and interestingly narrated in Stearns' Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, 106-108. He had been agent for the New England Relief Society in the year of the great drouth, 1860-1861 [Daily Conservative, October 26, 1861] and had had much to do with Lane, in whose interests he labored, and who had planned to make him a brigadier under himself as major-general [Stearns, 246, 251]. He became quartermaster-general of Kansas [Daily Conservative, March 27, 1862] and in that capacity made, in the company of the Reverend Evan Jones, a visit of inspection to the refugee encampment. His discoveries were depressing [ibid., April 10, 1862]. His report to the government [Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, C 1602 of 1862] is printed almost verbatim in Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 155-158.