Note 204 — IV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST INDIAN EXPEDITION

Footnote 204:

(return)

Those troops, about five thousand, were left under the command of George W. Deitzler, colonel of the First Kansas (ibid., 614), a man who had become prominent before the war in connection with the Sharpe's rifles episode (Spring, Kansas, 60) and whose appointment as an Indian agent, early in 1861, had been successfully opposed by Lane (Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 458). There will be other occasions to refer to him in this narrative. He is believed to have held the secret that induced Lane to commit suicide in 1866 [ibid., 457-460].