Due to the demobilization of the U.S. Army following the Civil War, it was stretched thin in the western territories, where conflicts flared up as more and more settlers moved into Native American land. In 1868, General Phillip Sheridan decided to try a novel approach in the Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska area. He charged an aide, Major George Forsyth of the 9th Cavalry, to gather “fifty first-class hardy frontiersmen, to be used as scouts against the hostile Indians.” The “scouts” were to form a fast-moving light cavalry unit, one that…
