It was then that General Sheridan uttered the immortal words: ‘The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.’ Lieutenant Charles Nordstrom, who was present, remembered the words and passed them on, until in time they were honed into an American aphorism: The only good Indian is a dead Indian.
– Dee Brown
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. General Philip Sheridan is quoted saying this in response to Comanche Chief Tosawi stating ‘Me, Tosawi; me good Injun.’ Sheridan disputed having replied this, but biographer Roy Morris Jr. states that popular history credits Sheridan with saying it.