[17] Geary to Marcy, October 1, 1856. Senate Executive Documents,
3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. II., p. 156.

[18] Gihon, pp. 142-3. Geary, Executive Minutes, Senate Ex. Doc.,
No. 17, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. VI., p. 195.

[19] The Kansas Territorial Legislature, in the year 1859, by which
time local passion had greatly subsided, by law empowered a
non-partisan board of three commissioners to collect sworn testimony
concerning the ravages of the civil war in Kansas, with a view of
obtaining indemnity from the general Government for the individual
sufferers. These commissioners, after a careful examination, made an
official report, from which may be gleaned an interesting summary in
numbers and values of the harvest of crime and destruction which the
Kansas contest produced, and which report can be relied upon, since
eye-witnesses and participants of both parties freely contributed
their testimony at the invitation of the commissioners.

The commissioners fixed the period of the war as beginning about
November 1, 1855, and continuing until about December 1, 1856. They
estimated that the entire loss and destruction of property, including
the cost of fitting out the various expeditions, amounted to an
aggregate of not less than $2,000,000. Fully one-half of this loss,
they thought, was directly sustained by actual settlers of Kansas.
They received petitions and took testimony in 463 cases. They reported
417 cases as entitled to indemnity. The detailed figures and values of
property destroyed are presented as follows:

"Amount of crops destroyed, $37,349.61; number of buildings burned
and destroyed, 78; horses taken or destroyed, 368; cattle taken or