“In July of 1865, before his election as president, while still Commander of the U.S. Army, Grant gave General Sherman the assignment to conduct a campaign of ethnic genocide against the Plains Indians to make way for government-subsidized railroads. Sherman wrote to Grant in 1866,

We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads. We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men women and children.”