The Indian War of 1864 - Chapters 9-10



CHAPTER IX.
TELEGRAPH AND TELEGRAPHERS.--INDIANS AND THE WIRE.--MARCH 1, 1864.--
COMMANDING THE COMPANY.--SKIRMISH DRILL.--THE CONFEDERATE.--NEWSPAPERS.-- 
JIMMIE CANNON.--NOSTALGIA.--ACCIDENTAL SUICIDE.--JOHN RYAN.--ROBERT 
MCFARLAND.--A CONFEDERATE DESERTER.--RECRUITS.--CASUALTIES.

   TWICE before March 1, 1864, I went to Fort Kearney on business 
connected with the supply of the post and made quick trips; always rode 
fifty miles a day on these trips, and took two days going, and two days 
coming, Generally stopped at the ranch of Thomas Mullally, who was not 
quite half way. One of the celebrities along the line of the road was a 
telegrapher who was called Sloat. He was known to everybody, and went up 
and down the road looking after the telegraph line, which had not been 
long in operation. As the telegraph line was of immense importance, it was 
looked after most diligently. This man Sloat told many marvelous anecdotes 
connected with his adventures; I traveled with him more than once, and was 
much interested in his stories and exploits. There was afterwards another 
telegraph operator whom I may refer to, whose name was Holcomb, and both 
of them were men who were exceedingly expert, considering the then 
condition of the art. It may be thought strange that the Indians did not 
secretly destroy the telegraph line. There were a number of strange 
stories connected with it, and with Indian experience. In order to give 
the Indians a profound respect for the wire, chiefs had formerly been 
called in and had been told to make up a story and then separate. When 
afterwards the story was told to one operator where one chief was present, 
it was told at another station to the other chief in such a way as to 
produce the most stupendous dread. No effort was made to explain it to the 
Indians upon any scientific principle, but it was given the appearance of 
a black and diabolical art. The Indians were given some electric shocks; 
and every conceivable plan, to make them afraid of the wire, was indulged 
in by the officers and employees of the company, it being much to their 
financial advantage to make the Indian dread the wire.

   About a year before we were there, a party of Indian braves crossed the 
line up by O'Fallon's Bluffs, and one Indian who had been down in "The 
States," as it was called, and thought he understood it, volunteered to 
show his gang that they must not be afraid of it, and that it was a good 
thing to have the wire up in their village to lariat ponies to. So he 
chopped down a pole, severed the wire and began ripping it off from the 
poles. They concluded to take north with them, up to their village on the 
Blue Water River, about as much as they could easily drag. It was during 
the hot summer weather. They cut off nearly a half-mile of wire, and all 
of the Indians in single file on horseback catching hold of the wire, 
proceeded to ride and pull the wire across the prairie towards their 
village. After they had gone several miles and were going over the ridge, 
they were overtaken by an electric storm, and as they were rapidly 
traveling, dragging the wire, by some means or other a bolt of lightning, 
so the story goes, knocked almost all of them off their horses and hurt 
some of them considerably. Thereupon they dropped the wire, and coming to 
the conclusion that it was punishment for their acts and that it was "bad 
medicine," they afterwards let it alone. The story of it, being quite 
wonderful, circulated with great rapidity among the Indians, and none of 
them could ever afterwards be found who would tamper with the wire. They 
would cut down a pole and use the wood for cooking, but they stayed clear 
of the wire, and the operation of the telegraph was thus very rarely 
obstructed.

   Shortly after the first day of March, 1864, Major O'Brien, our Post 
Commander, was ordered down to Fort Kearney on some command, and my 
Captain O'Brien was made Post Commander. Our First Lieutenant and our 
Company Sergeant were both sent for, to come to Fort Kearney, and that 
left me in command of the company, and I was relieved from all duties of 
Quartermaster, Commissary and Ordnance Officer. My duties had been 
exceedingly onerous because there was so much company duty to do in 
addition to the general duties referred to, and I got but little time for 
leisure, although the scouting of the country around south of our post was 
indulged in upon all opportunities. Captain O'Brien took turns with me in 
that, and he generally went alone, as I did myself. We became thoroughly 
acquainted with every feature of the ground within fifteen miles of the 
post, south of the river, and we knew whereabouts Indians might hide, or 
might be found, should they want to come near us from the south.

   When I went into command of the company, Captain O'Brien suggested that 
it was about time for earnest drilling of the company to begin, although 
we were constantly engaged in finishing and improving our post. I started 
in by his order to drill twenty-five different men every day with the 
bugle skirmish drill, and to have the company adopt it for Indian warfare. 
We had heard a great deal about the Indian manner of fighting and the 
various engagements which the regular army had had with them for ten and 
fifteen years back, and what was necessary to be done to successfully meet 
the manner of fighting which the Indians adopted. We drilled entirely by 
skirmish drill. We deployed at from twenty to fifty yards intervals. We 
raced over the prairie, wheeling, deploying and rallying on the right, 
left and center, all by the bugle. We also adopted a drill on foot, in 
which the ranks would count off one, two, three, and four. The number 
"four" would hold horses, and numbers "one," "two" and "three" would 
deploy to the front as skirmishers, in which case the command was, "At ten 
paces take interval -- march." Then we would drill in firing and loading 
on the ground. Then, on a bugle-call, each number "one" would rise and 
rush forward twenty to fifty paces according to order, and lie down. Then 
number "two" would rise and make a dash, and pass number "one" fifty 
paces, and lie down, firing and loading. And then number "three" would go 
forward to the front in the same manner, everything being done on the 
double-quick, the men going to earth on the call of the bugle, while the 
number fours would follow from behind at considerable distance with the 
horses. We practiced this drilling day after day, generally with twenty-
four men and a sergeant. And the men ran for miles all over the Platte 
valley in every direction, practicing their skirmish drill by the bugle. 
They got so that they rather liked it, and it was good exercise. The 
horses got used to the firing, for we expended much ammunition; and they 
got hardened up for a campaign.

   One day Mr. Gilman and a nice-looking stranger came out and rode around 
with me on the drill. Our bugle-calls were from the army regulations, and 
had probably been handed down from Revolutionary days. The bugler, 
mistaking one of my orders, gave the wrong call, and this stranger spoke 
up and called my attention to it. This very much surprised me, and I said 
to him, "How do you know?" And he said, "Well, I have a good ear for 
music." Afterwards Mr. Gilman told me that the man stated, after we had 
separated, that for some time he had been in the Confederate cavalry and 
was familiar with the calls. As he was a fine-looking man and was going 
west, I always imagined he was a refugee from the Confederate army; the 
war was then going on. Most probably he was a Confederate officer, who had 
some sense and was willing to quit.

   It is of some interest to know how we managed to keep from being 
lonesome. As a matter of fact, the men all seemed to be very proud of the 
new nice cedar encampment they had built, and proud of the condition of 
the company. We got lots of newspapers. In fact, every stage that went by 
threw us a bundle of newspapers, and in the barracks after supper, men 
were reading the war news aloud, and we kept up with the movements, 
battles and skirmishes of the war. But of all amusements in the company, 
the greatest amusement was the man Cannon, of whom I have spoken 
heretofore. It turned out that Cannon had been in the regular army for a 
number of years before the war, and had been all over the great Southwest, 
from the Indian Territory and Texas, clear through to the Pacific Coast. 
He was, perhaps, the most talented and monumental liar that had ever been 
in the Government service. His stories were inexhaustible. He put in all 
of his time when at work or drill, thinking up something that he would 
give the boys when it came night. Night after night and month after month 
he was telling stories of wonderful adventures. Once in a while he came 
around to headquarters and started in at night to practice on the Captain 
and me. For a patient, interesting, and versatile prevaricator I had never 
seen his equal. According to his story he had been confidentially detailed 
by every officer in the regular army whose name had appeared so far during 
the war. He knew the secrets, the history, the private life and the 
capabilities of everybody that had ever graduated from West Point. He was 
not of very great benefit to the company as a soldier. He was inclined to 
shirk his duty, and once in a while liquor would get away with him, and he 
would have to be put in the guard-house. But when he went into the guard-
house he always had the guard, and the corporal of the guard, hanging with 
breathless interest on his stories of flood and field, of Indian warfare, 
and of adventures with wild beasts, wild birds, Mexico, and everything 
else. He finally went by the name of "Jimmie," and he is one of the last 
ones that the company would ever forget. He was not fit for promotion of 
any kind. He was good-natured, but in all respects he was absolutely 
unreliable. But next to the newspapers which came to the camp, he was the 
chief means of relieving the men from a feeling of lonesomeness or 
discontent. His stories were ninety-nine per cent pure fiction, at least, 
and sometimes about one hundred and ten.

   There is in all military bodies a feeling of homesickness, much more 
aggravated in some than in others, but which once in a while breaks out 
and becomes contagious. We had several spells in our company in which the 
men became homesick. In fact, almost as soon as we reached Cottonwood 
Springs, in October, 1863, and camped upon the bleak and desolate land, 
some of the boys nearly broke down. One of them I remember particularly, 
and I felt very sorry for him. He was a German named Hakel, over twenty-
one years of age. He had a sweetheart in Dubuque, Iowa. Something must 
have gone wrong, because he got a case called in military medicine 
"nostalgia," and he drooped around and seemed to take no interest in much 
of anything. He wouldn't even interest himself in the taste of the fine 
old whisky which I got from Fort Kearney. One day he said that he believed 
he would go down to the bank of the river and clean his revolver. There 
was no need of his going to that place, but he did go to the place, and 
shortly after we heard the sound of a firing, and on investigation he had 
killed himself. It was impossible to tell whether he had done it 
accidentally or not. But I made up my mind that the proper thing to do was 
to give him the benefit of the doubt, and it being my duty to report the 
fact to headquarters, I did so, and the way I reported it was quite brief. 
I gave his name and full description, and I stated the cause of death to 
be "accidental suicide." I thought the term "accidental suicide" was about 
as brief as I could make it. The Colonel of our regiment was an aged 
lawyer from an Iowa village. He immediately directed the regimental 
Adjutant to return the report to me for correction, saying there was no 
such thing as "accidental suicide." This illustrates the littleness of so 
many officers. The great affairs of the regiment, their supplies, drill 
and efficiency were taken little or no notice of. Except for the meddling 
at long intervals, we hardly knew we had a colonel. In this case this was 
the first time I had heard from the Colonel for a long while. But he 
claimed to be a lawyer, and he claimed that there was no such thing as 
"accidental suicide." So in my second report I described the death with a 
circumlocution that I think must have given him a pain. I described the 
death in about the words of a legal indictment, and stated that Hakel had 
come to his death from the impact of a leaden bullet, calibre .44, 
propelled by a charge of powder contained in the chamber of a Colt's 
revolver, calibre .44, number 602,890, which pistol was held, at 3:45 p. 
m. of said day, in the right hand of the said Hakel. I also set forth that 
the discharge of the said revolver was not intentional, but was an 
involuntary action on the part of the said Hakel, etc., etc. I managed to 
describe accurately and with considerable minuteness the portions of his 
shape through which the bullet went, and the result. The Colonel down at 
Fort Kearney, where he was then located, had made considerable fun of my 
statement of "accidental suicide," and I had received privately some 
letters containing his wise and oracular disquisitions upon the English 
language. So, when I afterwards sent a copy of my second report to some of 
the officers, it tickled them very much, but it produced a bad feeling 
between the Colonel and me; I had more friends in the regiment than he 
had. Some time afterwards, the strength of the regiment having been 
reduced by casualties to a number slightly below the minimum, concerning 
which no notice would have been taken except for the general opinion in 
which the Colonel was held, he was ordered to be mustered out. We shed no 
tears. He afterwards went back to Iowa, and was killed in a runaway while 
he was out driving a buggy. This death of Hakel took place on October 14, 
1863. Four of our men had already died of disease, but they were men whom 
we had left behind us, and four others had deserted before we had reached 
Omaha. During the entire history of the company we had nine desertions, 
and here I wish to speak of two men particularly.

   We had a man in our company by the name of John Ryan. He was a young 
Irishman from Dubuque. He was not inclined to get drunk, although he drank 
somewhat, but he was seized with the most intractable spells as to his 
disposition. He had wanted as a young man to be a prizefighter, and had 
taken lessons in pugilism. He would get along all right for two or three 
weeks, and then he would sort of get on the war-path, and he wanted to 
fight. Before he got through he had a dozen of them, and although he may 
have knocked over and whipped ten out of the dozen, he generally wound up 
by somebody pounding him up good and hard. I determined to see if I 
couldn't bring about a change, and I had a talk with him. The difficulty 
about it was that he was about as old as I was, and seemed to think that 
he understood, as well as I did, what ought to be done. I finally had a 
personal collision with him, and put him in the guard-house. Then he 
talked out openly that he proposed to shoot me before my term of service 
was over. I sent for him, and told him that he had committed a crime, and 
that I could have him court-martialed, and sent to the penitentiary; but, 
if I should have him court-martialed for threats, he might vainly form an 
opinion that I was afraid of him, and wanted to get away from him; that I 
did not propose to humor him by anything that would give him the opinion 
that I wanted to separate from him. I told him that it cost the United 
States a thousand dollars to get a soldier drilled up to efficiency, and 
it was my duty to see that he performed the work that the Government had 
paid him for; and that whenever he wanted to try determinations with me we 
would take a couple of revolvers and go up the canyon. He made no reply, 
and the interview ended. Ryan kept a-going from bad to worse. He seemed to 
have got an idea that he wanted to whip every soldier in the company. He 
wanted to have it understood that he was the best man in the company; once 
in a while, there being a good many men in the company of fine capability, 
some good man in the company who would get a cross word from Ryan would 
make a pretext of jumping onto Ryan, and, getting in the first blow, beat 
him up. I will have occasion to refer to Ryan further on, and the 
circumstances under which he finally deserted.

   This brings me to the description of a man who came into our company 
after we had been at Cottonwood Springs for a couple of months, and 
desired to enlist. His name was Robert McFarland. He came to me and told 
me that he wanted to enlist, and said that he was a Scotchman, and that he 
concluded that he would like to learn to be a soldier. I didn't like his 
looks very well, and referred him to Captain O'Brien. Captain O'Brien had 
him sign up enlistment papers, and swore him in, and he was assigned to 
one of the barracks in the company. He appeared to be a very dumb, 
ignorant sort of fellow for a while, say for three or four weeks. He 
claimed to be a farmer boy, although his record showed him to be twenty-
five years of age. My opinion is that he was, in fact, about twenty-eight 
at that time. He was always writing lots of letters. One day the Orderly 
Sergeant came to me and said that there must be something wrong about 
McFarland because he was writing so many letters. I told the Corporal of 
his squad to keep an eye on him, and see what he could make out of his 
actions. McFarland was a man who was inclined to shirk his duties, but he 
seemed to learn soldiering with wonderful speed, for after he had drilled 
a couple of days he seemed to drill as well as anybody. One day he was 
sent on a detail to go down to Fort Kearney and back. And while he was 
down at Fort Kearney McFarland fortunately got drunk, and he confided to 
one of his new friends in the company that he, McFarland, was an Irishman, 
and that he lived in New Orleans, and that he belonged to a military 
company there before the war. And when the war broke out he joined the 
Louisiana Tigers, and that he had been sent up to Virginia and was with 
Stonewall Jackson and in the battles of the army of the North Virginia 
until after Gettysburg, and until after Lee had returned to Virginia. And 
that he, McFarland, had made up his mind that the Confederacy was whipped, 
and that there was no use in fighting any more, and that he and several 
others had deserted with the intention of going out to the mountains and 
entering the gold-fields. He said that when he was coming along and saw a 
company of soldiers, he sort of made up his mind that he wanted to be a 
soldier again. As he was not fighting against his brothers in the South, 
he thought it wouldn't make any difference; that he wouldn't be captured 
by the Southern Confederacy and punished for deserting. And he also said 
that his name was not Robert McFarland, and that he had assumed that name 
for the purpose of enlistment. This was the brief of a long drunken story 
that lasted about all night, and was told to and listened to with great 
interest by one of our Iowa farm boys, who immediately came to me and gave 
it to me in detail; and I recognized the fact that the story was so 
coherent that it was without doubt true. So, one day while I was in 
command of the company, I sent for him and had a talk with him, and he 
with great reluctance admitted the facts. I told him then that he must 
brace up and be a better soldier, and do more work; that he was shirking a 
great deal; that the boys would notice it, and as he had been in the 
Confederate army they wouldn't like it. I had some writing which I wanted 
to do in some of the reports and returns, and I asked him how well he 
could write, and found out he was a most excellent penman, and I put him 
to work on writing. But he was a man who had a bad face, a bad 
disposition, and made a bad impression. He was not only a deserter, but he 
was evidently a great deal of a rogue. I will speak of him again further 
on.

   Along the latter part of January, 1864, two men who were driving on a 
train passed the Fort; came in and said that they had had a row with the 
wagon-master and wanted to enlist. One of them was named Joseph Cooper and 
the other John Jackson. Jackson was about thirty, and Cooper was somewhere 
between forty-five and fifty, but gave his age forty-five, because that 
was the age limit. We were about to reject Cooper, but he said that he was 
a practical veterinary surgeon, so we took them both into the company. As 
they were both absolutely worthless and had probably been thrashed out of 
their train by the wagon-master because they were worthless, the boys soon 
got down on them, caught them in little, petty thievery, and we dumped 
them both into the guard-house and kept them in there off and on for quite 
a while, making them work under the supervision of a corporal when they 
were out. We found them stealing rations and selling rations from their 
comrades to the pilgrims. And upon the suggestion of the Captain I made 
life such a burden for them that, having given them an opportunity to 
desert, they embraced the opportunity and we heard of them no more.

   We also lost two men by the fact that one of them was a minor and his 
mother took him out of the service with a writ of habeas corpus. This was 
before we got to Omaha. Another was a deserter from the Eleventh Iowa 
Infantry, then in the field; having been detected, he was placed under 
guard and sent to his regiment to be court-martialed.

   In March, 1864, we received a consignment of twelve recruits, which 
brought our company up again to a good standing. These men were Iowa farm 
boys, and twelve as good men as could be found in the army. Three of them 
had already been in the service, been honestly discharged from wounds 
received, recovered fully, and reenlisted. Four of them were discharged as 
sergeants and corporals when our company was mustered out in 1866, one 
being Milo Lacey as First Sergeant.

   The way that recruits came to a company during the Civil War was 
something like this: The boys at home were growing up, and wanted to get 
into the service, or for some reason obstacles to their enlistment had 
vanished, and when they got ready to enlist it became a question with them 
where they wanted to go. Each of them had several boy acquaintances or 
relatives who were already in existing regiments. Each one may have had 
two or three chums in some certain regiment, so when he made up his mind 
to enlist, he would enlist in a regiment in which he had friends or 
relatives. As the newspapers were full of the exploits of the regiments at 
the front, it often happened that some exploit would determine the recruit 
to go to that regiment if he had a friend or relative in it, in preference 
to some other regiment where he had a friend or relative. It so happened 
that the boys of our regiment had a great many friends and relatives in 
eastern Iowa, and these recruits would be brought together at some point 
and drilled preliminarily, and taught soldiering say for two or three or 
four months, and then they would be forwarded in squads to the regiment. 
If a regiment was not receiving the recruits that it wanted or thought it 
ought to have, it was common for the Colonel to pick out some good 
recruiting lieutenant and get him a recruiting furlough and then send him 
back where the bulk of the regiment had been recruited, and let him go to 
work. Many regiments were kept up to the maximum in that manner. Our 
company received subsequent batches of recruits, of which I will speak 
hereafter. Our company had first and last one hundred and fifty-one 
members. The casualties of the service were always heavy. For instance, we 
lost by death twenty-seven men, by desertion nine, and by transfer to 
other regiments and by other causes, nine. Then again while the majority 
of the company had enlisted for three years or during the war, there were 
a few who had enlisted for only one year. Nevertheless, many of these 
stayed in, and were either killed in battle or died of disease.



CHAPTER X.
RATIONS OF WHISKY.--ERA OF BITTERS.--ARTEMUS WARD.--MAJOR HEATH.--
LIEUTENANT HEATH.--HIS DEATH.--MACDONALD'S DANCE.--INDIAN INVITED IN.--
JOHN DILLON.--TOM POTTER.--CAPTAIN LOGAN.--THE FIRST COLORADO CAVALRY.--
HARRY DALL.--THE TRAVEL ON THE PLAINS.--THE WAGONS.--THE BULLWHACKERS.--
THE WAGON-BOSS.--THE DENVER TRADE.--THE MISSOURIAN.

   I HAVE referred to the store which Boyer kept where liquors were sold. 
We managed to get pretty good police regulations in our company in regard 
to liquors. My barrel of 1849 whisky didn't last very long, so that soon 
afterwards on one of my trips to Fort Kearney I went to the post commander 
and told him what my men were doing, and that they must have a ration of 
whisky if they did this hard pioneer work, that is, if they wanted the 
ration. I sat down with him and computed what it would take to build the 
fort for two companies and to make the work speed along rapidly. And I 
pointed out to him that it was the cheapest thing for the Government to 
give that inducement. After a considerable consultation he agreed with me 
that I might take out a supply that would last until the completion of the 
post, as they had much on hand and there did not seem to be a great 
demand. In short, I drew seven more barrels of good corn whisky as 
rations. And the arrangement which we made, and which was satisfactory to 
the men, and which worked exceedingly well, was this: Every man who worked 
as an axman or builder, or in other words did hard work that was strictly 
outside of military service, got a drink in the morning if he wanted it, 
and one in the evening if he wanted it, when he was through with his work. 
And if he shirked during the day, he did not get his evening drink. The 
men all seemed to be inspired, and they all wanted to work, and those who 
did work, as a rule, did well. The number of shirkers was not many. In 
order that there should be no intemperance in the morning, when the time 
for a jigger had arrived there was poured out in a tin cup a gill, and he 
drank it right there. The captain didn't allow him to carry it off. Our 
great big Corporal Forbush, who was the Hercules of the company, and who 
had passed a great deal of his life swinging an ax in the Northern 
pineries, was the man who gave the boys their drinks. He was liable to 
drink a little too much himself, but he was a good disciplinarian, and the 
boys could not get any whisky and carry it off. They drank it on the spot, 
and in his presence, morning and night. A gill is a pretty good-sized 
drink, and was all a man should have at one time. The seven barrels would 
not have lasted long if it had not been economically administered, and 
only to those who did the hard work. There was very little constitutional 
intemperance in our company. It was sporadic. None of the ranchmen would 
sell liquor to our men, nor would the sutler. And if a man was caught with 
liquor he was put at work on fatigue duty without liquor, so that we had 
but very little trouble during the winter.

   That good old ancient time was an era of drinking. There was no such 
thing known then in the West as "prohibition," and nearly everybody drank 
a little. It was also the age of bitters. Sometime back in the early '50s 
the manufacture of artificial bitters had been introduced. Before that 
time an old invention called "Stoughton" had been for a long while in 
vogue. In every saloon was a bottle of "Stoughton bitters," and if anybody 
wanted any bitters he called for some Stoughton and put it in. It was only 
occasionally the Stoughton was used, but the Stoughton bottle was always 
at the bar, and the synonym for an idle fellow, always in evidence and 
doing nothing, was to call him a "Stoughton bottle." And frequently men 
were spoken of in politics or religion or in a story as a mere "Stoughton 
bottle." That is, they were in evidence, but nobody paid much attention to 
them. The simile survived for a lifetime after the Stoughton bottle had 
gone. But someone afterwards invented "bitters" as a beverage; three 
celebrated kinds were thrown onto market, and made great fortunes for 
their inventors, as were early occupants of the field. The first in order 
was 'Plantation Bitters"; next, "Hostetter's Bitters"; third, "Log Cabin 
Bitters." By the time the war broke out these bitters had been advertised 
with an expenditure of money which at that time was thought remarkable. 
Plantation Bitters appeared in 1860, and every wall and fence and vacant 
place in the United States was placarded with the legend, "S. T. 1880 X." 
For several months everybody was guessing what the sign meant. It was in 
the newspapers. It was distributed in handbills on the street. It was seen 
at every turn, "S. T. 1860 X." After the world had long grown tired of 
guessing, there appeared the complete legend, "Plantation Bitters, S. T. 
1860 X." Plantation Bitters became the bottled liquor of the age. It was 
made out of alcohol, water and flavoring, and was really very attractive 
as to taste and results. The Hostetter and the Log Cabin followed closely 
behind in popularity. The Log Cabin got into sutler tents all over the 
district which the army occupied. Its principal advertisement was the 
strange glass bottle made in the shape of a log cabin. At about the time I 
speak of, all three of these liquors were on sale at Boyer's. The legend 
of the Plantation Bitters was that it meant "Sure thing in ten years from 
1860." That is, when the inventor had made the decoction, and submitted it 
to a friend as an invention and marketable article, the friend, so the 
story goes, told him that it was a sure thing for a fortune in ten years. 
So, acting on this thought, he had billed the United States, "S. T. 1860 
X.," and spent half a million advertising "S. T. 1860 X.," before anybody 
knew what it was all about.

   In March, 1864, while we were at the post, Artemus Ward, the great 
humorist, came through on a coach; and hearing that he was coming, Captain 
O'Brien and I went to the coach to greet him. It was late in the 
afternoon. The first thing he did was to ask us to go and take a drink 
with him, and Boyer's was the saloon. Artemus Ward went in, with us 
following him, and said, "What have you got to drink here?" Boyer said, 
"Nothing but bitters." Ward said, "What kind of bitters?" Boyer said, "I 
have got nothing but Hostetter; some trains went by here and they cleaned 
me out of everything but Hostetter." So Ward said, "Give us some Hostetter,
" and the bottle was shoved out on the cedar counter. We took a drink with 
Ward, who told us about some Salt Lake experience he had recently had. In 
a little while the driver shouted for him to get aboard. Ward turned to 
Boyer, and he says, "How much Hostetter have you got?" Boyer looked under 
his counter and said, "I had a case of two dozen bottles which I opened 
this afternoon and that is all I have got and I have used up five of 
them." Said Artemus Ward, "I have got to have eighteen of those bottles." 
Boyer said, "That only leaves me one bottle." Ward said, "It don't make 
any difference; your mathematics are all right, but I want eighteen of 
those bottles." The bottles sold for $1.50. Ward said, "I will give you $2 
a bottle." In a short time the money had been paid. Ward went to the coach 
with the box of eighteen bottles under his arm, and we bade him an 
affectionate adieu. The crowded coach greeted him with cheers, and I have 
no doubt that they finished the whole business before morning, on the 
coach.

   Our company kept constantly improving. Captain O'Brien had been a 
sergeant in the Fifth Wisconsin Battery, and I had been a sergeant in the 
Fourth Iowa Cavalry, and we had both served from the beginning of the war. 
Our First Lieutenant, of whom I have spoken, was a gray-haired and gray-
whiskered man, who said he was only forty-five. He was a very gentlemanly, 
placid old man, without the slightest particle of military instinct or 
habit. The other company at our post was officered by three as inefficient 
men as could be found in the regiment. They were of no account whatever. 
The Captain and First Lieutenant were well along in years, and had got 
their places because they had been the relatives of somebody, and had 
managed to get the appointment. The Second Lieutenant was the son of the 
senior Major of our regiment, Major H. H. Heath. This man Heath had served 
in the First Iowa Cavalry, and had been made a Major of our regiment 
through the influence of a very giddy wife, who was the daughter of a 
Syracuse barber in New York. Major Heath himself was a fine-looking, 
dressy, showy fellow, but a great scoundrel. Through the influence which 
his wife had with Senator Lane of Kansas, Heath became finally brevetted 
as a Brigadier-General. Heath was a self-important, dictatorial wind-bag, 
and he succeeded in getting his worthless, drunken son as Second 
Lieutenant in the Company. The elder Heath coquetted with Jeff Davis to 
get a Brigadier-Generalship in the Confederate army. He was willing to be 
a traitor to his country or do anything else. He was absolutely without 
principle. I have referred to him once before, but will repeat. When the 
Rebel archives were captured at Richmond, Heath's letter was found among 
the many other similar documents, and when Heath under President Andrew 
Johnson wanted an appointment, Major-General G. M. Dodge, who was one of 
Sherman's corps commanders and happened to be a member of Congress at that 
time from Iowa, got hold of the Heath letter, and read it on the floor of 
Congress, and Heath became a refugee, fled to Peru, and died a pauper and 
a tramp. Heath, on account of his rascality, at the close of the war was 
recommended to be cashiered, but his wife, in a beautiful blue moire 
antique dress, went on to Washington, saw President Johnson, saved him, 
and had his dismissal remitted to a discharge from the service. I am 
anticipating history somewhat in giving the pedigree of Second Lieutenant 
Heath. I had so much trouble with him in the barracks that I had made up 
my mind that I would have him court-martialed and disposed of, because he 
would fill himself with whisky and become offensive and insulting. He 
would go down among his private soldiers in the barracks and play poker 
with them and win their money, and he would cheat at cards, and if a 
soldier playing with him, protested, he would send him to the guard-house. 
On the afternoon of March 21, 1864, Heath was sent out with a squad of men 
to scout along the south side of the river to see if there were any 
Indians or tracks to be seen. He got in just about sundown, and as he was 
going by his own barracks close to a door, a gun went off in the hands of 
one of the soldiers, and the bullet went a dead shot through his head and 
killed him. It was believed that one of the men had taken advantage of the 
situation to arrange the accident. I was directed by the Post Commander 
(Captain O'Brien) to inquire into the cause of the death, and make report. 
The soldier said that it was an entire accident. Everybody seemed to be 
pleased with the circumstance; nobody seemed to find any fault with it, 
and there being no evidence to the contrary, and it being entirely to the 
benefit of the United States service, I reported the testimony, and 
nothing was done except to bury the Lieutenant. Major Heath showed no 
particular interest in the death of his only son. He was a son by a former 
wife, and was the only child he ever had. He did not attend the funeral, 
nor were any arrangements made except to put the Lieutenant under the 
ground. Then the Captain of the company summoned all the power he had to 
get his own worthless brother-in-law in as Second Lieutenant; but the 
other officers of the post objected, and succeeded in beating him before 
the Governor and Adjutant-General of Iowa, who made the appointments.

   For twenty-five miles along the line, including Jack Morrow's ranch, 
and Gilmans', there were ten ranches, and farm-houses. Wives and relatives 
of these settlers seeing the post well established, came out on stages 
from the East and joined their husbands and relations. Along about the 
first of April MacDonald said he was going to take the stuff out of his 
store-building as much as he could, and get up a dance on the first 
favorable opportunity. This plan was carried out, and women were there 
from the whole twenty-five miles. There were about twenty of them. 
Fiddlers were easily obtained, and the dance lasted until breakfast-time. 
I did not get much of an opportunity to be present except occasionally, up 
to twelve o'clock, after which I went on duty as officer of the guard. But 
it was a regular frontier dance. I have put down in my memorandum only two 
of the tunes that were played, and I give the names that the fiddler gave 
me. One of them was "Soapsuds over the Fence," and the other "Turkey in 
the Straw." All the men in the country were there except the soldiers, and 
a great deal of liquor was consumed, and several rough-and-tumble fist 
fights were had out of doors on the flat; but I arrested nobody, and let 
them all have just as good a time as they wanted to. Captain O'Brien was 
the mogul of the evening.

   Matters upon the road began to get very busy about the first of April. 
The grass was not up so that the ox teams could travel, but the early 
pilgrims with smart mule teams began to go through in large numbers. The 
weather was very stormy and unpleasant in the latter part of March, and 
considerable snow fell, which the wind would sweep off into the gullies, 
and fill up almost level, although they might be ten or twenty feet deep. 
The sand, gravel and snow would be swept off by the wind from the road, 
and the riverbottom, leaving the roads entirely passable.

   Word came from Fort Kearney that an effort would be made to have a big 
Indian council about the middle of April, and that word had been sent to 
all of the Sioux, both north and south. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes had 
not been invited, because it was believed if the Sioux could be influenced 
the others would remain neutral. So we planned for a reception that would 
strike terror into the red man when he came in to see us. The hospital 
which we had built was practically unused. The boys did not like to go to 
the hospital, and remained in their bunks until they recovered or got in 
pretty bad condition. And when they got in bad condition, if they could go 
we sent them down to Fort Kearney, where they could get good care.

   One day early in April, 1864, John Dillon, the actor, was passing 
through on a stage. He was coming from the west. Some telegraph operator 
notified the operator at our post. Captain O'Brien knew John Dillon 
personally, and as they were fellow-Irishmen, it was but natural that the 
Captain should warmly greet him, and I went along. The result was that we 
got Dillon to stop over. We had built an addition to the hospital so as to 
make it twenty by forty. We got everybody out of the hospital, hung up 
some blankets at the end, and we had as good an entertainment from John 
Dillon as we had ever listened to anywhere. Dillon had been playing in 
Denver, and was on the way to the States, and we organized him a house, 
fifty cents admission. We had no chairs nor anything to sit on, so the 
front row sat down on the floor, and formed a semi-circle about five feet 
from Dillon, all around in front of him. Then the next row sat on cracker-
boxes, flat side down, and the next row sat on cracker-boxes on edge, and 
the balance stood up. The entrance was through a window. Dillon was about 
two-thirds "full," and had a little monologue play to start on, in which 
he had some real drinking out of a real Hostetter bottle, and he kept the 
thing up for about three hours, to the amusement and delight of us all. We 
were packed like herrings in a box, and if John Dillon hadn't been one of 
the greatest comedians in the United States we could not have been kept 
there under those circumstances. When the show was over he came over to 
our quarters, and we all played poker until breakfast.

   During April a vacancy as Second Lieutenant took place at Fort Kearney, 
in Company A. The First Sergeant, Tom Potter, and I had been friends, and 
I had been working to help him get into the vacancy, and during April I 
was very much grieved to hear that he had failed in being commissioned. 
This Tom Potter finally became an officer of the company. Our relations 
were exceedingly friendly, but at this time he had no money, few friends, 
and no relatives. There was nobody to help him. He was alone in the world, 
and promotions did not always go upon their merits. Our friendship lasted 
for many years, until his death. He afterwards became president of the 
Union Pacific Railroad at Fifty Thousand Dollars a year, and worked 
himself to death. But in the very height of his powers in the army, he was 
unable to become Second Lieutenant, owing to the petty little rivalries 
and dishonest instincts of his superiors, until long afterwards.

   On April 9th we were visited by Captain Logan of the First Colorado 
Cavalry. Captain Logan was making the tour down the Platte from Denver to 
ascertain the condition of things, and the probabilities of an Indian war. 
He stayed with us a couple of days. He had talked with the ranchmen and 
settlers along the line. He told us that unless we could win the Sioux 
over at the approaching convention, we would have all kinds of Indian 
trouble. He said that be had been detailed to send out half-breed Indians 
as runners, and to assist in making complete the convention which was to 
meet at our post the middle of the month. We afterwards met most of the 
First Colorado Cavalry. They were a good regiment, and had saved New 
Mexico from going into the Confederacy. There is no more interesting 
regimental history than that which a young man named Hollister, who 
belonged to the regiment, has written of it. The regiment was a regiment 
of pioneers who were inured to the open air, and life on horseback; and as 
for being fighters, there were none superior, and we Iowa boys always 
liked them. Before we went out onto the plains, there had been part of the 
Eleventh Ohio Cavalry regiment sent to Fort Laramie, which was about two 
hundred and seventy-five miles northwest of us, on the Salt Lake trail. 
Once in a while we saw one of the officers or men of that regiment going 
down to Fort Kearney to get supplies.

   On April 13, 1864, Harry Dall reached our post, and, being tired of 
staging, thought he would stay over a day and rest. I ran across him 
shortly after he got out of the stage, and he told me his story. Secretary 
Seward had sent him from Washington to go to Alaska, and he was going to 
go and report upon the botany, biology and climate of Alaska. I never saw 
him before or since. He was one of the most companionable men I ever met. 
We went out with our greyhounds, and caught an antelope and gave Dall a 
good time. It is impossible for me to say what he afterwards did, except 
that he made a long and interesting report upon Alaska, which was widely 
published; and he was about the first of the Americans who knew anything 
of the land which Secretary Seward purchased from Russia. Those who in 
those days opposed the purchase, called it "our national ice-house." He 
was with us at the same time that a Mr. S. F. Burtch, of Omaha, was with 
us. Burtch was one of those breezy young men of the Western country, who 
had business all over it, got acquainted with everybody, and liked 
everybody and everybody liked him. Burtch and Dall came together 
accidentally at our place; they made a great team.

   One day a discussion grew up as to the amount of travel on the plains. 
Those who had lived on the plains for some time said that the travel from 
January 1st to April lst, 1864, had been the heaviest ever on the plains, 
for that season of the year; and that the probability was that the year of 
1864 would show more travel by far than ever before. Various persons began 
to tell about the trains which they had seen. Many persons told of trains 
that were from ten to fifteen miles long, being aggregations of several 
independent trains. They told of eight hundred ox teams passing their 
ranches in a single day. Mrs. MacDonald, the wife of the ranchman at our 
post, said she had many times kept account of the number of wagons which 
went by, and that one day they went up to nine hundred, counting those 
going both ways, That may sound like a very large story, and it is a large 
one, but is entirely credible. These ox teams would pass a store in their 
slow gait about one in a minute and a half or two minutes, after they had 
begun to start by. But that would only make from three to four hundred in 
ten hours; but when trains were going both ways as they were, it is not 
incredible by any means that nine hundred wagons passed a ranch in one 
day. I have stood on the "Sioux Lookout" with my field-glass, and have 
seen a train as long as I could definitely distinguish it with my glass, 
and it would stretch out until it would become so fine that it was 
impossible to fairly scan it. As the wind was generally blowing either 
from the north or the south, the teams had a vast prism of dust rising 
either to the north or south, and the dust would be in the air mile after 
mile until the dust and teams both reached the vanishing-point on the 
horizon. Fully three-fourths of this traffic was with oxen. The wagons 
were large, cumbersome wagons which I have heretofore described. And in 
addition to the description I will say that they had wooden axles, and 
were of what they called the thimble-skein variety. On the end of the 
heavy wooden axle was the iron thimble which revolved in another iron 
thimble in the hub, which was called the skein; the axle was held on by a 
linch-pin made by a blacksmith. The thimble-skein was lubricated with tar, 
and the tar-bucket hung on the rear axle. At every ranch were lift-jacks, 
so that these wheels could be raised, taken off, and the axles lubricated. 
The wind and the whirling sand and dust made it necessary for this to be 
frequently done.

   The drivers were called "bull-whackers," which was abbreviated down to 
"Whackers." They had long gads, and a long lash with whang-leather tip; 
this they could make pop like a rifle. And they could hit a steer on any 
part, with the whang tip as it cracked, and it could nip the hide out just 
like a knife. They generally drove walking along the left side of the 
team, but when the dust was heavy they walked on the clear side, whether 
right or left. The wagon-master was boss, he was king, and generally the 
most dangerous man in the lot. He carried a revolver or two, and his 
altercations with the whackers were very frequent. The wagons were piled 
full and the curtains drawn, so that it was not very easy to steal 
anything. One time Jack Morrow was at the post and was inebriated as 
usual, and he confided to me how he got his start. He said: "I came from 
Missouri, and got to whacking bulls across the plains; after a while I got 
onto a Government train loaded with ammunition. I unscrewed the boxes, 
took out the ammunition and sold it to the ranchmen, filled the boxes with 
sand, and screwed them down. Then before we got to Laramie I had a rumpus 
with the wagon-master and he pulled a pistol and I skinned out for 
somewhere else and nobody got onto it." He said, "I never heard a word 
from it ever afterwards, but I sold a big lot of ammunition." This 
statement might have been true, or not, but it was nevertheless the fact 
that in the commerce of the prairie, a great difficulty lay in guarding 
against theft in transit, and this was one of the main duties of the wagon-
master in conducting his train.

   It is perfectly safe to say that for several months during the summer 
there poured into Denver no less than a thousand tons of merchandise a 
day, and this seems almost incredible when we consider the hardship and 
privations which made it possible. But there was a class of people in the 
West, Missouri and Iowa, that liked fun, enjoyed freedom, despised luxury, 
and took no note of danger or privation; and they were not of the dumb and 
stupid class of society. Many were educated, some of them were gifted. 
They were full of fun, wanted to see the world, and tried to shoot each 
other up whenever they came in angry contact. I remember one of them 
standing up and reciting for ten minutes from memory one of the bucolics 
of Virgil. He had it in the original from end to end, and said he came 
from St. Genevieve, Missouri. As I now look back, the prominent, 
noticeable, rollicking dare-devils seemed to come principally from 
Missouri.