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Significant letter regarding the 1823 expedition up the Missouri River against the Arikaras, after a series of attacks on fur trappers and trading posts, especially the Missouri Fur Company. Two hundred and thirty men of the Sixth U.S. Infantry under Henry Leavenworth were joined by forces of fur traders, some under Joshua Pilcher, and by warriors of the Lakota nation, traditional enemies of the Arikara. This, the first major U.S. expedition against the Plains Indians, resulted in the burning of an Arikara village the Pilcher’s men, in defiance of orders from Leavenworth, and sowed the seeds of warfare for the coming decades. In part: “I have received your letter of yesterday, containing ‘interrogatories’ relative to the late military expedition against the Arickaras; and will endeavor to return a suitable reply. It is a subject that has produced so much discord, so many accusations and recrimination between the contending parties, that I have heretofore purposely avoided it; especially as the character and conduct of my commanding officer has been more or less involved in the discussion… I cannot therefore consistently with my duties answer any questions calculated to censure Colonel Leavenworth. You must then hold me excused should I decline canvassing the merits or demerits of his official conduct, unless authorized to do so before a proper tribunal. No censure whatever can accrue to you, for your ‘instructions’ to the special sub-agent, they were dictated by indignation at the wrongs of the traders, and pity for their misfortunes! I am unable to say how far Mr. Pilcher may have been governed by them, or how many obstacles he may have thrown before Colonel Leavenworth and the attainment of his wishes. It was evidently improper to have burned the village contrary to his express orders. Yet I conceive it a signal act of retributive justice, which affords to other Indian nations an honorable testimony of the predominance of bravery, over baseness and cruelty. Were we to punish with equal promptness every instance of Savage barbarity, exercised on the weak and defenseless, we should soon have less occasional to lament the loss of so many brave and enterprising citizens. I was opposed to the proposed treaty of peace with the Arickaras, a nation whose course has been one continued scene of rapine and blood, until convinced of the miserable and calamitous situation to which they were reduced…” Provenance: Descended in the Benjamin O’Fallon family.