Overview These two letters to Wendell Phillips Garrison, editor of The Nation, were written by U.S. Army surgeon Stevens G. Cowdrey while posted at Fort Harker, Kansas and Fort Gibson in Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma). In his 1870 letter from Fort Harker, Cowdrey describes his anticipation of hunting wild game as well as Native Americans in the company of Major Joseph Tilford's 7th Cavalry. He also describes the commonplace violence among Ellsworth,...