As settlement of northern Dakota Territory was well underway, two military leaders disagreed in letters to newspapers about the plains’ main attraction: fertility of the land. Brevet Major General William Hazen was commanding officer at Fort Buford, which was southwest of present day Williston at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. He bristled at the “false advertising” meant to attract settlers to the Great Plains, which he saw as arid and infertile. Hazen submitted letters