Once the gang had gone, no more depredations occurred for a long time.
After a year's absence from home I began to long to see my mother and sisters again.

In June, 1861, I got a pass over the stage-line, and returned to Leavenworth.

The first rumblings of the great struggle that was soon to be known as the Civil War were already reverberating throughout the North; Sumter had been fired upon in April of that year.
Kansas, as every schoolboy knows, was previously the bloody scene of some of the earliest conflicts.
My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union.

She knew that war was bound to come, but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.
Fort Leavenworth and the town of Leavenworth were still important outfitting posts for the soldiers in the West and Southwest.

The fort was strongly garrisoned by regular troops.