Origin of the Military School at Fort Riley
When that department again came under by command, as part of the Division of the Missouri, and General Sheridan was in command of the army, a move was made by somebody to get possession of that splendid military reservation of Fort Riley for some other purpose. Hence it became necessary to manifest in some more striking way the importance of that place for military uses. The occasion had again come for carrying out that scheme which Hunt and I had devised for doing what was so much needed for the artillery. Fortunately, General Sheridan wanted also to do something beneficial for the cavalry, in which he felt much the same special interest that I did in the artillery. So a sort of alliance, offensive and defensive, was formed, which included as its most active and influential member Senator Plumb of Kansas, to obtain the necessary funds and build a suitable post and establish at Fort Riley a school of cavalry and light artillery. The result finally attained, when I was in command of the army, is well known, and is an honor to the country.
The department headquarters were removed to St. Louis during the winter of 1869-70 to make room at Fort Leavenworth for the cavalry who had been on the plains during the summer. I then had the pleasure of renewing the intimate friendships which had been formed between 1860 and 1863 in that most hospitable city. Even those ties which had been so rudely severed by war in the spring of 1861 were restored and became as strong as ever. I found that the memory of a little humanity displayed in mitigating somewhat the horrors of war had sufficed to obliterate in those few years the recollection of a bitter sectional enmity; while, on the other hand, a record of some faithful service far enough from their eyes to enable them to see it without the aid of a microscope, and the cooler judgment of a few years of peace, had so far obscured the partizan contests of a period of war that none were more cordial friends in 1869 than those who had seemed bitterest enemies six years before. Human nature is not half so bad as it sometimes pretends to be. As a rule, it would be pretty good all the time if men could only keep cool. Among all the enjoyments of that season in St. Louis, that which left the deepest impression on my memory, as has always been the case with me, was the sport at Hat Island, under the management of that most genial of companions, Ben Stickney. We hunted with hounds before breakfast every morning, and shot water-fowl from breakfast till supper. What was done after supper has never been told. What conclusive evidence of the “reversionary” tendency in civilized man to a humbler state! He never feels so happy as when he throws off a large part of his civilization and reverts to the life of a semi-savage. The only thing that saves him from total relapse is the fact that he takes with him those little comforts, both liquid and solid, which cannot be found in the woods. He thus keeps up the taste that finally draws him back again to a civilized, or, more accurately, semi-civilized life. If any sportsman knows any better reason than that for not living like a savage when in his hunting-camp, I would like him to give that reason to me!
We returned to Fort Leavenworth in the spring, and expected to make that our permanent home. Some necessary improvements had been made in the quarters during the winter, and no one could have desired a more comfortable residence, more congenial companionship, or more agreeable occupation than that of guarding and protecting the infant settlements of industrious but unarmed and confiding people rapidly spreading far out upon the plains. With my cavalry and carbined artillery encamped in front, I wanted no other occupation in life than to ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country.