“The era of military freighting upon the Great Plains dawned in 1846 with the outbreak of war with Mexico, when General S.W. Kearney’s diminutive Army of the West straggled off across the prairie to capture Santa Fe. . . .
In 1846 and 1847 the Army organized its own trains and hired civilian drivers or bullwhackers. Owing to ignorance of Army officers concerning the highly specialized business of freighting across the Great Plains, inefficiency of bullwhackers, and efficiency of raiding Indians, this plan proved a total failure in 1847. Was Department officials in Washington wisely acknowledged the inability of the Army to transport its own supplies and instructed the quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth to make contracts with civilian freighters.”