Book Description
"The gathering of material or information for this book commenced with observations and inquiry gleaned during an enlisted term as a soldier along the Iowa and Minnesota border in the latter party of 1863; a trip up the Platte River Valley in the winter, and a journey to Fort Randall, and up the James or Dakota River in the spring of 1864; an overland journey across the Great Plains to Colorado and New Mexico during the summer of the same year, with a residence in and around the Rocky Mountain capital the winter that followed; a frontier residence in northwestern Iowa and the prairies of central Nebraska in 1866-1867; and a continuous residence in Dakota Territory from 1867 until after division and statehood in 1889.