Note (return) — VIII. THE RETIREMENT OF GENERAL PIKE

General Schofield, anticipating the renewed endeavor of the Confederates to push their line forward, had called upon Blunt for assistance and Blunt had responded with such alacrity as was possible, considering that many of the troops he summoned for Schofield's use were those that had been doing hard service within and on the border of the Indian country for full two months. During all that time their horses had been deprived entirely of grain feed and had been compelled to subsist upon prairie grass. They were in a bad way.530 Once outside the Indian Territory, the Indian regiments, begrudging the service demanded of them, were kept more fully occupied than were the white; for there was