"And of course, when it came to whittling down the Comanches, ALL of these efforts pale to near insignificance relative to the great cholera epidemic of '49/'50."
Glad you mentioned the above Birdy. I don't know how it could ever be proven but I would venture to bet that introduced white diseases killed more Indians than white bullets by a ratio of ten to one.
As to federal ineptness viz plains indian fighting it is imposssible for me to guess how effective infantry was going to be but they kept sending the infantry out there.
