Indians provided part of the new rationale. In 1867 General Sherman proclaimed the Pacific Railway “the solution of the Indian question.” Railroad officials formed a hallelujah chorus. As Grenville Dodge of the Union Pacific later wrote, “Experience proves the Railroad line through Indian Territory a Fortress as well as a highway.” That there might be no need to fight the Indians if railroads were not being built into their country went unremarked. The wars railroads helped provoke became justification for their construction.
