The Indian War of 1864 - Chapters 19-21



CHAPTER XIX.
A STUDY OF THE PAWNEES.--THEIR PECULIARITIES ON THE MARCH.--THEIR 
PHYSIQUE.--THEIR HABITAT.--THE SMOKY HILL ROUTE.--JULY 23, 1864.--MARCH
UP LODGEPOLE.--CAMP ON LODGEPOLE.--JULY 24TH.--JULES STRETCH.--WELL ON 
SUMMIT.--MUD SPRINGS.--PAWNEES SENT BACK.--COURT HOUSE ROCK.

   COMING up from Cottonwood Springs I had a very good chance to study the 
Pawnees. Up as far as Jack Morrow's they kept huddled together, but after 
we passed that place they began to spread around over the prairies. The 
Pawnees were one of the capable tribes, and this battalion was the pick of 
the whole. Major North was a brave, industrious officer, and did his best 
to keep his Indians in some sort of order and style, but it was almost 
like trying to command a flock of blackbirds. At Fort Kearney there had 
been issued to each of these Indians a hat, blouse, and pair of trousers. 
All the balance they furnished themselves. They rode their own horses, 
with Indian saddles and bridles. These saddles were shaped like sawbucks, 
and on the forks were hung their lariats and belongings. They did not care 
much for hats, and by the time we reached Julesburg there were not many 
hats left, and most of those were on the tops of their ponies' heads, with 
holes cut in the top for the ponies' ears to stick out through, and 
fastened to the bridle. In scouring over the prairie they would race their 
horses, and if a hat blew off the Indian paid no more attention to it than 
a bird would in flight, shedding a feather. They were not used to hats, 
and only those having some rank or authority seemed to desire to hold onto 
them. In addition to this, most of them from time to time took off their 
blouses and tied them to their saddles, and above their trousers they had 
on nothing but their naked, sunburned skin. The slang expression for an 
Indian out there in those days was "abbrigoin." General Mitchell would 
watch them skirmishing around and would say, "What in [blankety-blank] do 
you think those abbri-goins are good for anyhow?" Before we got to 
Julesburg every Indian had cut the seat out of his cavalry pants, and they 
were in two sections, held up by an outside belt to the waist. Ever and 
anon squads of them would take off their two separate trouser-legs and tie 
them to the saddle, and then the Indian would ride along with nothing on 
but a breech-clout and moccasins, and he as a soldier was a sight to 
behold.

   When we camped it was generally near the river, and Mr. Abbri-goin went 
in, not for the purpose of washing, or getting clean, but for the purpose 
of fun and cooling off. He generally came out as dirty as he went in. The 
Indian was kept as clean as he was accustomed to get, by abrasion. He wore 
off the surface dirt. It was attrition, not water, that kept him as clean 
as he got. The wild Indian if locked up in a room would soon kill himself 
with his own stench, were he not used to it. Horses could smell him half a 
mile to the windward, and civilized horses shied at him, sniffed and 
snorted at him, and tried to run away from him the same as from a buffalo 
or wild animal. The pioneers did not like the Indian, owing to the 
latter's unprintable manners and unspeakable habits. Our boys also would 
go into the river at the end of the days trip, and although the Pawnees 
were as good in physique as any of the Indians and were picked men, they 
were not up to our men, who were not picked men. Our men were only the 
average Iowa farm boys, but in physical appearance they exceeded the 
Indian. They had heavier shoulders and thighs, and as they were around in 
the water with the Indians the superiority of the white soldier was 
manifest. Only one of the Indians was the superior of our company, and he 
was a very large young Indian about six and a half feet high; he was in 
fact the only really handsomely shaped Indian in the whole battalion. He 
resembled the "Big Mandan" of whom I have spoken, but he was an exception.

   Besides all this, our men were the better horsemen, and as a class were 
better every way. The Indian as an individual was inferior, and as a race 
was inferior, to the Iowa farm boy, in whatever light it was desirable to 
consider it. There has been so much of fancy written about the Indian that 
the truth ought at times be told. The white man has done everything that 
an Indian can do, and I have seen things done during the Civil War that an 
Indian could not do, and dare not attempt to do. In physical strength, 
discipline and heroism the Indian does not compare and is not in the same 
class with the white man with whom the Indian came in contact. The Indian 
is not a soldier, and he cannot be made one. He has been tried and found 
wanting. He is spurty. He lacks the right kind of endurance, pertinacity, 
mind, and courage. We all got very much disgusted with Mr. Indian before 
we got through.

   The Pawnee Indians are the favorite Indians of many writers of romance, 
and perhaps they deserve the celebrity. They had better tribal and village 
organization than most Indians. They held a wide extent of country, and 
along, the Arkansas river on the south and along the Platte River on the 
north many places are pointed out as Pawnee battlefields. One numerous 
band of them had a large village on a stream in northern Kansas. The 
village was called the "Pawnee Republic." It was visited by Major Zebulon 
Pike in October, 1806. This village gives to the river the name of the 
"Republican River," in Kansas; the county in Kansas is called "Republic 
County," and the modern city on its site is a flourishing county seat 
named "Republic." The Pawnees were taken, finally, and held, as in a vise, 
between civilization on one side and their bitter Indian foes on the 
other, and they had to fall as all other Indian nations before them had 
fallen. After the Smoky Hill route through Kansas to Denver was opened 
they never got south of it. They finally were crowded in by their foes, 
and were compelled to submit to being put onto a reservation. Thereupon 
the Sioux of the Ogallallah tribe, together with the southern Cheyennes, 
claimed to be the sole proprietors of the territory between the Platte and 
Arkansas rivers, and they objected to the Smoky Hill Route. This Route ran 
nearly between the two latter tribes, who had confederated, and with both 
tribes it was a demand that the Route should be abandoned. In both of 
General Mitchell's Indian councils it was demanded that it should be 
abandoned by the whites. The Smoky Hill Route did run through the best 
buffalo country, and its occupation was a vital menace to the Indians, 
although the whites did not fully appreciate the fact at the time. The 
Indians finally closed the Smoky Hill Route for a while by war and a 
concentration of hostilities, and afterwards the Government sent 
Lieutenant Fitch, a very capable officer, to reëxplore the route, improve 
its location and alignment, and make report. This was done. Lieutenant 
Fitch made his report and read it to me from his retained copy. I begged 
it from him, and still have it, and I make it a part of this narrative by 
attaching it as an appendix hereto.

   On the morning of July 23, 1864, we left our camp at the mouth of 
Lodgepole Creek and started up the valley. It was one of the most 
beautiful mornings that ever was seen in what was then an empty and 
inhospitable country. The air was so pure and unvitiated that it was a 
delight to breathe it. It was a blessing to be alive, and be able to start 
with the cavalcade up Pole Creek valley. Our order of march was about as 
usual, except that Captain O'Brien rode ahead with the General and I 
stayed back with the company. We were never out of sight of thousands of 
antelope which played in vast droves as far as we could see. They were 
bounding about, and were enjoying the air and sun the same as we. Far off 
in the distances was an occasional wolf, lonesome and inquisitive, sitting 
on his haunches watching us closely. He might have been an Indian. Our 
Pawnee allies were acting like monkeys; they scattered out all over the 
country, bouncing on and off their horses, now in groups, now deployed 
out, as if in flight from some unseen foe behind them. They appeared to be 
examining tracks and trails, then appeared to be racing their horses, then 
they would all yell and run together in a bunch. Sometimes they would all 
be scattered out in front of us for a half-mile on each side, then they 
would all begin shouting and break and rally to our rear as if the devil 
was after them. We pushed on up the valley at a rate of about four miles 
an hour. The valley was quite wide -- in places miles; it then rose up the 
slopes to the edge of the plateau, which at the top on both sides of us 
was as level as a floor, but which at places along the dry stream was 
broken into ragged and projecting bluffs. All the way up, far in the 
distance from these bluffs, smoke signals were seen, but we never saw a 
hostile Indian. This was what made our Indian allies act so; they were in 
the presence of the enemy. In vain did General Mitchell order Major North 
to keep his men in close column in the rear, and in vain did Major North 
try to execute the order; the Indians were nervous and ungovernable. They 
knew that there were Indians somewhere, not so very far off, and so did 
we, but they were frenzied over it. We did not care much how many there 
were, so that we could see them. We could have taken a position on the 
side of the Pole Creek arroyo and stood off a thousand Indians. We had an 
advance guard ride along the arroyo so that we would not be surprised. I 
constantly searched the horizon with my field-glass, but could not see a 
single Indian, although the smoke signals kept going up in front of us all 
day. Our Pawnees rode mostly as a lot of savages, which in fact they were, 
having on but little. The best dressed had on a breech-clout, moccasins, 
and two cavalry trouser-legs separately swung up with a whang to a rawhide 
belt, but the majority were only one-third as well dressed, and their 
sunburned skins were well greased and polished. All of them had Government 
carbines, all had butcher-knives; some had lances in addition, and some 
had bows and arrows. We had got tired of the antics of our allies before 
we reached Julesburg, but by the end of this day of July 23rd, after a 
march of from 35 to 40 miles we got positively weary.

   We camped on the banks of Lodgepole, several miles above what appeared 
far off on our right to be the ruins of an old adobe hut. There was no 
visible water in the bed of the creek where we camped, but we found plenty 
of water by digging, and we were able to cook with the bunches of drift 
roots that the stream in its high career had dug up and floated down. We 
would find at places a wagon-load together of such fuel, dried and ready 
for use. We grazed our horses before night and put out our guards; we took 
our spades and dug rifle-pits for each guard. We put the Indians on the 
other side of the arroyo and told them to look out for themselves. We 
strung an inch-and-a-quarter picket-rope between our two company wagons 
near the bank of the arroyo, and tied our horses to the rope, one-half on 
each side. As night closed in and the smell of fried bacon and pancakes 
spread out upon the local atmosphere, the lamentations of what appeared to 
be a million wolves arose. Our stable guard said that the Pawnees did not 
appear to sleep much that night.

   On the morning of July 24th we started over the ridge to the north. It 
was a long, tedious climb up to the top of the plateau, but the scene 
behind us was beautiful. We could see up and down the valley of the 
Lodgepole for many miles, until the rotundity of the earth hid the view. 
There was not a tree or a bush in sight. The valley was as smooth and 
polished as if it had been sand-papered and varnished. There was not a 
riding-switch that could be cut between us and Julesburg. It was simply an 
undulating expanse of short, struggling grass. Before we started out in 
the morning we gave our horses all the water they would drink, for it was 
said to be fully thirty-two miles across the ridge from water to water. 
This was the short line which Jules had laid out, so as to change the 
route and bring the pilgrim travel past his ranch. This particular strip 
of road was called "Jules Stretch." The road became considerably rocky as 
we ascended.

   Late in the afternoon we reached the other side, at Mud Springs, eight 
miles east of Court House Rock. At these springs was the first water we 
got after coming over the Stretch. Up on the high land in the middle of 
the Stretch, at what might be called the summit, the stage company, years 
before, thinking to adopt it as a line of road, had attempted to dig a 
well. Great quantities of dirt and rock were piled out, but the story went 
that they never could find a drop of water, and that they went down three 
hundred feet. I cannot say how deep it was, but it was a very deep well, 
for I crawled up to the edge of it, and dropped rocks down, and heard no 
splash, and knew by the time of descent that the well was a very deep one. 
In fact, I threw down several, and they went bounding down from side to 
side. I peered over the edge, because, owing to extreme heat and dryness 
of the atmosphere, the boys were very thirsty, and I wanted to get some 
water out of it, if by tying lariat-ropes together we could get it. But 
the well seemed to be dry all the way down. 

   Along the ridge we saw where several wagons had been burned, and knew 
by this that there had been Indian troubles along the line at some time. 
We also counted forty-seven dead oxen at various places along the road, 
all dried and torn. Many had probably perished from thirst, but two or 
three had old, broken arrows in them. Horse skeletons were also frequent, 
and there were old buffalo heads and horns scattered along the ridge, but 
we never saw buffalo between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Laramie. We were 
told that they were seldom seen between the forks of the Platte in July.

   We went on past Mud Springs, after giving our horses plenty of water 
and a good rest, and camped on a little river east of Court House Rock. 
This river was composed of two streams, one called Punkin Creek and the 
other Lawrence Fork, but after the junction it was then called Lawrence 
Fork, and so on down to the North Platte.

   We saw no Indian signals until we were descending from the summit of 
the Stretch. When we began to see hills and broken land far off in the 
distance, and began to approach to the Platte River bluffs again, the 
signals reappeared. I could see at great distances, with my glass, puffs 
of smoke, almost instantaneous but quite visible. The Pawnees also saw 
them and began again to act, as one of my sergeants put it, "like all-
possessed." When we got to Mud Springs, after they had watered their 
ponies, the Pawnees spread out all over the country, following trails and 
tracks, or pretending to. They dashed around and yelled and charged back 
to camp, and charged out again; they were a sight to behold. Our guide, 
John Smith, said they were just showing off, and were trying to create the 
impression that they were warlike. It was much ado about nothing. General 
Mitchell had tried to stop it. They were wholly uncontrollable. We did not 
believe they would fight, and did not want to be bothered with them. 
Captain O'Brien and I expressed our views to the General and found that he 
agreed with us. He said, "The [blankety-blank] Abbri-goins, we will send 
them back." We all liked Major North, and felt what a disappointment it 
would be to him. But the General in the evening led the Major up and 
thanked him for his zealous services and had him call his Pawnees and get 
them in line. Then the General made a few remarks to them about their 
soldierly appearance and warlike spirit; and how pleased he was with their 
valourous services; and how he had taken them as far as was necessary; and 
that from now on it was safe for him and his escort; and that they could 
now go back to Fort Kearney and be mustered out and get their pay. The 
next morning with long-continued yells and shrieks and "monkey business," 
as O'Brien called it, the Pawnees left us and were soon out of sight, much 
to our satisfaction. The Government has many a time tried to utilize the 
noble red man for a soldier but has always failed, just as we tried and 
failed; he is no good for anything.

   These Pawnees went back and were reorganized at Fort Kearney during 
August, as scouts on the road. A new set of officers tried to do something 
with them, but finally had to ogive it up. The new Pawnee Company thus 
organized were 77 in number, and was under a Captain Joseph McFadden, with 
Frank J. North, of whom I have spoken, as Lieutenant. They served about 
forty days, until October 1, 1864, and were again and finally mustered 
out. I have in my possession a muster-roll of the Pawnee company, and as 
an exhibit hereto I insert on the following page a list of their Indian 
names, copied verbatim from the roll.

   Major North afterwards made a great reputation as a partner of Buffalo 
Bill in the Wild West show.

   As stated, we camped near Court House Rock. It was a very wonderful 
formation, very attractive and very beautiful. Captain O'Brien and I 
determined that we would go to the top of it, but gave it up for that 
particular evening because it seemed as if it might be too dangerous at 
that time of the day, but we agreed to get up early in the morning and 
climb the rock.

Names of the "Pawnee Scouts," 1864;
Under Command of Major Frank J. North:

Ah-roosh-ah-lah-kah-hoo-la-shar.
Ah-shah-wuck-ke.
Cha-kah.
Co-rooks-te-cha-rick.
Kah-kah-lah-la-shar.
Kah-kah-roo-re.
Kah-roo-re-ah-ris.
Kee-wuck-oo-te-lah-we.
Ke-wuck-oo-lah-li-e-coots.
Ke-wuck-oo-la-shar.
Ke-wuck-oo-roo-re.
Kiel-e-kah-ris-oo-too-rouh-tah-we.
Koot-tah-we-coots.
Koot-tah-we-coots-ooa-shar.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-kah-lah.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-let-kah-hah.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-rah-lah-ha.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-rooh-kah.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-te-lah-we-la.
Koot-tah-we-coots-oo-te-rer-reb.
Koot-tah-we-koots-oo-te-lah-lah.
Lah-li-e-coots-ta-shah.
Lah-li-e-coots-ta-shah.
Lah-he-ris-oo-rick.
Lah-hock-tah-we-la-shar.
Lah-li-e-coots-kit-e-buts.
Lah-roo-rit-kah-hah-la-shar.
Lah-roo-suck-hoo-la-shar.
Lah-roots-chah-koo-re-hoo.
Lah-roo-wuck.
Lah-we-li-ish.
Lah-we-teh-re-oots.
La-kit-tah-we-la-shah.
La-re-roo-tah-ka-chicks-ooke.
La-shah-kip-pe-re.
La-shah-roo-pit-coo.
La-shah-roo-roo-te-lah-kah-ta-rick.
La-shah-roo-te-wah-re.
La-shah-too-rou-tah-we.
La-tah-kots-too-ri-ha.
La-tock-kots-lock.
Le-re-ru-tah-kah.
Pe-tah-war-ucks-tee.
Roo-kit-tah-we-its-pah.
Roo-lal-re-roo-che-lah.
Roo-rah-rooh-kah-we.
See-te-kah-ricks-tah-hoo-re.
She-rer-re-hoo-le-tah-we.
She-te-le-lah-wis-sha-rit.
She-te-le-lah-we-tit.
Suck-koo-roo-te-wa-re.
Tah-hoo-rah-routs.
Tah-sah-hah-tah-he-ris-ah.
Tah-we-li-he-ris-shah.
Tah-weet-too-re-kah.
Ta-ker-re-rah-we-hoot.
Ta-lah-wih-kah-wah.
Ta-sah-hah-kah-roit.
Te-ah-kah-chicks-tus-peke.
Te-ah-ke-la-rick.
Te-ah-ke-wah-hoo-re-rick.
Teck-ta-re-roo-hut.
Te-er-re-ta-cosh.
Te-hus-tah-we-re-kah-wah.
Te-kah-ricks-tah-kah-lah-ta.
Te-lah-kah-ooh-ke.
Te-lah-kah-we-rick.
Tel-re-kit-tah-wa.
Te-reh-re-kucks-shah.
Te-suck-koo-loo-le-wits.
Too-ke-tah-we-he-ds-ah.
Too-lah-we-oo-roo.
To-rah-re-chi-e-tus.
Tuck-ke-leh-re-wah-tucks.
Tuck-ta-shah-ki-rick.
We-tit-te-la-shah-ris-pe.



CHAPTER XX.
ASCENT OF COURT HOUSE ROCK, JULY 25TH.--FICKLIN'S.--THE AGENCY.--FORT 
LARAMIE.--JULY 27TH.--BORDEAUX.--CHAMPAGNE.--THE POST SUTLER.--MR. 
BULLOCK.--THE SQUAW CAMP.--GRASSHOPPERS.--JULES COFFEY.--CHARLES ELSTON.--
LEO PALLADIO.--BRIDGER.--BRIDGER'S STORIES.

   ON JULY 25, 1864, the Captain and I got up early, and with a couple of 
lariat-ropes started out to ascend Court House Rock. We both succeeded in 
getting on top of the precipice. It had a covering of stone, not very 
hard, on which there were several names carved; we took a few minutes to 
add our names to the number. It was a good deal of a task to get to the 
top and one equally difficult and dangerous to get down. We rejoined our 
column, which had started on its march, and we camped in the afternoon at 
a deserted old place where it looked as if nobody had lived for a 
generation. It was called "Ficklin's," and was situated on the river sixty-
seven miles east of Fort Laramie. It was named before the war, from one of 
the officers of the Overland Stage Company, We had marched that day about 
forty miles from Mud Springs. From Mud Springs the weather had been cloudy 
and misty, and we did not get a chance to see the beauties of the route; 
this was so for several days, but on our return we had delightful weather, 
and I will wait until then to describe what we really saw.

   On July 26, 1864, we left Ficklin's and went up the North Platte River. 
We kept on the south side, and camped at what was called the "Agency." The 
weather was hot and dusty; the clouds seemed to fill the valley, which was 
entirely unusual. The guides said they had never seen anything like it 
before, and I must add that I myself never did afterwards. Antelopes 
appeared without number, and the hills where seen seemed to be alive with 
deer.

   There was water in the river all along the line. We passed Scott's 
Bluff, fifty-eight miles east of Fort Laramie. We also passed Alcohol 
Butte and the celebrated Chimney Rock. The Agency where we camped was 
called the Woc-co-pom'-any agency. It was the place where the Sioux 
Indians of the north came down to get their annuity goods. There was a 
large, long, one-story rambling stone house on the place, but there was 
not a soul there. In fact, there was nobody then living along the river at 
that time, from the Forks of the Platte River down at Jack Morrow's up 
nearly to Fort Laramie, over 250 miles, except near the Fort, at Julesburg.

   The next day, July 27, 1864, we camped north of Fort Laramie, and I 
went down to the Fort. Major Wood of our regiment was placed in command of 
the post by General Mitchell, and I was detailed as post adjutant. There 
were three companies of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry then at the Fort; at 
least, the Fort was the headquarters of three companies, but they were out 
scouting and guarding trains, all in command of Major Underhill of that 
regiment. The Captains were named Shuman, Koehne, and Marshall; and there 
were eight Lieutenants. Five miles down the river from Fort Laramie was 
the ranch of a Frenchman by the name of Beauvais, and five miles still 
farther down was the ranch of Bordeaux. These two Frenchmen had Indian 
wives and children, and Indian herders, drivers, etc., etc., making quite 
a retinue, and they did all they could to keep the Indians from being 
hostile, and breaking out in war. These two traders were rich. They had 
made a great deal of money, had very large stocks of goods, and were 
reported to own considerable property; but, trade was at a standstill, 
there being no emigration. A very interesting acquaintance opened while I 
was at the Fort, under the following circumstances:

   The ranchman, Bordeaux, had sent up word that there was a large band of 
Indians back in the hills; that he was afraid they might make a break on 
him; and he thought if the Government would send a few soldiers down for a 
demonstration, that the Indians would go away. The post commander, Major 
Wood, told me about four o'clock in the afternoon to take ten men and go 
down there and see what there was to it; stay all night, and come back in 
the morning. I got down to Bordeaux' before sundown, and he seemed very 
glad to see me, and he gave my soldiers a camping-place in his "pilgrim 
quarters," and we put our horses in the corral. I put the Sergeant in 
charge, and told him to keep a good lookout. The soldiers had their own 
rations, but Bordeaux insisted on being my host. After supper with him we 
went into his store. It was a large, rambling log building with sod end to 
it, and additions and outbuildings attached to it, so that it was a sort 
of wandering, straggling caravansary and store combined. He got to showing 
me what he had, and then he went into the front of the store-building, 
where he had some cigars. The doors were all bolted and barred. He got to 
telling me about his visit to France. The floor in this part of the 
building was made out of pine logs brought down to a grade with an adz. It 
happened that I could read his French language, and I expressed myself 
very much interested, and he told me all about his recent trip to "La 
Belle France"; and he had a new variety of bitters known as Red Jacket 
Bitters, of which he was partaking freely. We talked about Indians and 
Indian matters and Indian habits and Indian customs, and he said that the 
Indians that had been back of his house had gone off. But I was very much 
interested in his description of Indian manners and his adventures among 
them, until it got to be along about one o'clock in the morning. And Mr. 
Bordeaux again got off onto the subject of his visit to "La Belle France," 
and he seemed to be very much pleased with the bitters he had and the 
attention with which I listened to his story. He was a much older man than 
I, and I was, indeed, very much delighted to hear him talk. All at once he 
disappeared through the floor, by turning up a plank or puncheon, and the 
first thing I knew he came back from down below somewhere with two large, 
musty quart bottles of champagne, and sticking one down in front of me 
said, "We will drink to La Belle France." I was as much surprised as if 
the man had dug up a statue of Daniel Webster. The idea of a quart bottle 
of champagne in that dry, arid, heathen country almost paralyzed me, but I 
finally said to him that a quart bottle was more than my size, and that I 
would drink half of one of the bottles with him. I suggested that we 
split, and each drink half of the same bottle. Thereupon he got two tin 
cups, and with a hatchet knocked off the head. There in the stillness of 
night in that country we drank to the health of "La Belle France." I have 
never seen Mr. Bordeaux since then, but have retained a delicious memory 
of him and the occasion. In the morning we were up early, and at eight 
o'clock were back at Fort Laramie.

   My duties as Post Adjutant were very light, I had to superintend guard-
mount at nine o'clock in the morning, and act in dress parade every 
evening at six. The old regular army traditions of the post had been kept 
up, and everything was done exactly as it had been done before the war. 
Every little matter of detail had been handed down, and was perpetuated 
with nicety and zest. The post sutler was a man by the name of Ward. His 
manager was named Bullock, the most courteous old-school gentleman I ever 
saw. He was as dignified as a Major-General. Ward gave no personal 
attention to the sutler store, but he was making a great deal of money out 
of it. He had an enormous stock of goods, and as he had no competitors and 
as his prices were fixed by the post administration, he got the price, and 
sold enormous quantities. Bullock told stories of all the generals of the 
war. One afternoon he took about an hour and a half in explaining to me, 
and instructing me in making a whisky toddy. It was with him a work of 
art. I never could see anything about his toddies that was anything more 
than normal, but somehow he had a reputation that none might hope to 
equal. In addition to this he had a mint-bed in a secluded place which was 
carefully watered every day, and more attention given to it than almost 
anything else around the post.

   Off on one side in a low piece of land in a sheltered place, where the 
refuse of the cavalry stables had been hauled for years, a garden had been 
organized, and from a little irrigation-ditch water could be drawn with 
buckets, and the vegetables watered. The place, which I would say was a 
hundred feet wide and maybe three hundred feet long, had some vegetation 
on it.

   Up above the fort about a mile among the bushes was what was called the 
"Squaw Camp." It was a place where Indians during peaceful times could 
come, and pitch their tents, and trade. There were always a number of 
squaws there in their tents, and a lot of half-white Indian papooses 
running around. Once in a while an Indian would come in with some beaver-
skins and furs, and trade, and go out again; and old pioneers and trappers 
had their Indian wives there. And all together it was a jolly, careless, 
laughing, shouting lot of Indians, of whom nobody seemed to have much 
knowledge. It was said hostile Indians would occasionally run in, and 
secrete themselves there, and get all the knowledge they could as spies, 
and go back again.

   While we were there a flight of grasshoppers came, such as in after 
years on several occasions devastated the vegetation of the Western 
States. During August the air became filled with these insects, and they 
took the little garden of which I spoke and ate it up almost instantly. 
One of the officers of the Eleventh Ohio came to me to go out with him and 
take a look at that garden. The grasshoppers were bunched together in 
swarms like bees. I remember seeing upon a handle of a spade a bunch of 
interwoven grasshoppers as big as a man's hat. The Indian women at the 
squaw camp were catching these grasshoppers, roasting them, drying them, 
and pounding them up into meal to make bread of during the winter. The 
Indians seemed to be anxious to utilize all the grasshoppers they could 
catch, and they made up a great many hundred pounds of them. There was 
also a berry which grew on the bushes along the broken lands which was 
called the "buffalo-berry," not unlike a cherry; these the Indian women 
usually gathered, and put into parfleches. These berries had a sort of 
tart flavor something like a cranberry. The Indian women gathered these 
berries and put them away for winter by the thousand pounds, and it was 
said that the berries were taken out as good as when they were put in. 
They did not become dry. I was told that they also mixed with them in the 
parfleches the fat from deer, antelope and buffalo, and ate the combined 
fat and berries during the winter. A parfleche was a half-tanned hide of 
some animal, with the hair all taken off and the inside scoured or scraped 
down smooth.

   There was also at the Post, all the time I was there, Major Bridger, 
the celebrated scout and guide; also a hunter, trapper and guide named 
Jules Coffey. At least, that is the way they pronounced his name, although 
I imagine it might have been the French name of Ecoffe, because I heard 
one of them pronounce it Acoffay. He seemed to be very prosperous, and to 
have a great deal of money, and he loved to play poker wonderfully. He 
had, as all of those who fall into Indian life have, strange and intense 
superstitions. One of his superstitions was that "jacks" in playing cards 
was his good luck, and he always bet his hand for more than it was worth 
when he had jacks in it. It was a matter of much ridicule among those at 
the post, where there were poker games going from morning to night. There 
was also a celebrated pioneer and guide by the name of Charles Elston. 
Elston said that he was a Virginian, but he had been out forty years then 
among the Sioux. He knew the Sioux language, and the Sioux country, and 
Indian manners and customs by heart. He knew them with even more 
intelligence than an Indian knew them. As a white man is smarter than an 
Indian in civilization, so he is smarter than an Indian when it comes to 
competing in Indian matters and things. Elston was a most charming man. It 
was said that he had two Indian wives among the Sioux, and one among the 
Cheyennes, but he was a sort of high-toned fellow, and his wives were 
never seen at the squaw camp near the fort. He seemed to like pioneering 
and the frontier, and told many stories of his adventures. On one occasion 
he told a strange story of trying to take a load of furs down the Platte 
river in a bull-boat, that is, in a boat made of bull-hide, with wooden 
ribs. He lost everything he had, and barely escaped with his life, while 
trying to navigate a Platte river freshet.

   Another of these guides and pioneers was Leo Palladie. He was a pure 
Frenchman, but of the blue-eyed type. He had curly hair, and the happiest 
disposition of any frontiersman. He was a reader of books and newspapers, 
and yet he was a thoroughgoing mountaineer. He spoke all the Indian 
languages in the neighborhood, was an adept at their sign language, was 
always good-natured, telling stories and having fun. He was sunny-hearted 
from morning until night He told me a funny event about when the post 
commander up at Fort Benton, on the Missouri river, heard that the Indians 
were plotting to destroy the frontier and had mapped out among other 
things, a campaign against Fort Laramie. That was perhaps about 1861 or 
1862. The post commander of Fort Benton determined to send a messenger 
across the country during the winter for the purpose of notifying the 
commanding officers at Fort Laramie, because he thought the latter post 
could not stand in the dead of winter a heavy siege from the combined 
Indian nations. The mountaineer who was selected to go wanted a companion; 
a half-breed Indian was sent with him. This white courier was sent off 
with a letter which started out by saying: "I send you Mr. So-and-so, 
accompanied by a halfbreed, So-and-so, to convey you the following 
important information." The letter was presented to Fort Laramie by the 
courier to the post commander, and he, after reading the opening portion 
of it, said, "Where is your comrade?" and the courier said, "I eat him." 
They had floundered through the snow and the mountains, and the 
mountaineer had to eat the other man in order to carry the message through 
in safety. Leo Palladie would tell this story, and laugh and shriek every 
time he told it. It always seemed new and interesting to him. I never 
could find anybody who ever heard the name of the messenger that was sent, 
and I often used to think Palladie was telling the story of one of his own 
personal experiences.

   Of all these guides, Bridger was the most interesting. We left Fort 
Laramie on the 31st of August, and it is probably better to speak of 
Bridger once for all as of the time that we were there. Every night he was 
out in front of the sutler store sitting on the benches, and telling 
stories of his adventures. He was quite talkative, readily responded to 
questions, and would talk as long as he was talked with. I heard a funny 
story about Bridger soon after I arrived in camp. The largest building in 
camp was called Bedlam. It was the two-story large hospital building 
fronting on the parade-ground, and the upper part of it was used for 
theatricals at times. There were always some soldiers who were good at 
private theatricals, and occasionally there was one who had been an actor. 
So, during the long and tiresome winter evenings there were theatrical 
entertainments frequently. They were generally of some light, witty, 
flashy kind, with an occasional heavy piece from Shakespeare. Bridger had 
seen a couple of Shakespeare's pieces well played at the post, and 
concluded he would like to have somebody read Shakespeare to him. So, he 
had the sutler, Mr. Ward, send and get him a copy of Shakespeare, and 
Bridger got a man, a soldier, to start reading it to him. One evening 
while sitting in front of the adobe fireplace reading Shakespeare the 
soldier got to reading in the play where the eyes of the two boy princes 
were put out. After it had been read Bridger says, "Did he do that?" and 
when the reader said, "Yes," Bridger pulled the book from him and said, 
"By thunder, that is what I think of him," and threw the book into the 
fire, blazing in the fireplace, and that was all of Shakespeare he ever 
wanted to hear.

   Bridger was a celebrity. Some time after my stay at Fort Laramie I met 
down on the Platte a man named Morgan, on the preliminary survey of the 
Union Pacific. He had run a trial line up past Laramie, but Bridger told 
him that the Cheyenne Pass at the head of Lodgepole was a lower pass than 
Morgan would find. Morgan said that he then went and ran that trial line, 
and found that it was, indeed, much lower than any other. But how it was 
that Bridger, traveling over it without a barometer, could know the fact 
was something which was very puzzling; but it was part of Bridger's 
wonderful powers of observation. Traveling through the country, over 
scopes of great distances, he instinctively fixed the grades and elevation 
as well as other points of the landscape, and that which he had once seen 
he forever remembered. It was to this wonderful gift that his great 
reputation was to be attributed. He knew exactly what would be found, and 
what was the lay of the country, the distances, the peculiarities; all 
these came within the scope of his observation. For instance, he would 
start and tell of an unmapped country over which he had been, and he would 
describe it mile by mile, -- trees, rocks, grades, streams, everything. It 
seemed as if he made a moving panorama of the route as he rode through the 
country. In addition to this, he knew everything that an Indian knew. He 
could do anything that an Indian could do. He knew how Indians felt, and 
what to expect from them. And he apparently could do anything that a white 
man could do while in the country. One of the difficulties with him was 
that he would occasionally tell some wonderful story to a pilgrim, and 
would try to interest a new-comer with a lot of statements which were 
ludicrous, sometimes greatly exaggerated, and sometimes imaginary. For 
instance, one evening he told me that Court House Rock had grown up from a 
stone which he threw at a jackrabbit. This he did not give in response to 
a question, but he was on a philosophic and scientific strain of thought, 
and was saying that rocks grew the same as trees and animals grow, only 
they grew larger and for a longer time. He used to state that the 
mountains were considerably larger and higher than when he first came, and 
it was on one of his philosophical discourses that he told me with the 
utmost gravity the above story of the origin of Court House Rock. Laramie 
Peak was visible, although it was a considerable distance from the post. 
Bridger said that the peak showed up lots larger and plainer than it used 
to. In those days there was a vast amount of country that was unexplored, 
and Yellowstone Lake was not on the map nor was it known by white men to 
exist, and there were great scopes of country through which a white man 
had never yet gone. I often sat out with him on the bench to talk with 
him, and I became a good deal of a favorite with him. One time while 
talking with him I asked him about the country north of the California 
route which went west to South Pass. He said he had been hunting and 
trapping through it, and had seen a great deal of it; that he made a trip 
up through there once, dodging the Indians, and traveling principally at 
night, and he found a very rocky and romantic country. He told me that 
there was a large lake up there which he had seen that was so big he 
couldn't see across it in places, and that it was fresh water. He had told 
this story to others, but nobody believed him. He was somewhat indefinite 
as to its location, because he had taken a roundabout road, and was going 
through the country all alone, sort of scouting it, and dodging the 
Indians.

   No doubt but that he had seen Yellowstone Lake, but nobody believed it. 
I can recite accurately only one of his stories, because I took time to 
put it down, as follows. He said: "That is the greatest country that I 
ever see. I was up there riding around, and I didn't dare to fire a gun 
only at long intervals, and then I got right out of the country where I 
fired it as soon as possible. I would bring down a deer, and cut it up and 
carry it, and move out. One time I was up among some pines, sort of hid in 
the side-hill along the stream that had a pretty wide valley, and I saw a 
couple of Injuns coming along down through the grass on their ponies on 
the other side of the creek. I wanted to watch and wait until they got out 
of sight, so I kept my eye on them for a long while. I saw them coming for 
nearly an hour, and they took their time at it, and I was afraid they 
would cross over, and might run onto some of my tracks. But they didn't, 
and they went down the valley on the opposite side from where I was. They 
hadn't gone very far before the crust of the earth gave way under them, 
and they and their ponies went down out of sight, and up came a great 
powerful lot of flame and smoke. I bet hell was not very far from that 
place." This story I never could account for, unless he had seen some 
Indians drop through the ground in some part of the hot-spring or geyser 
country.

   One time I asked him what kind of a country it was west of the place 
where he saw the big lake, and he told me it was a very rocky country. 
Then he said: "Up there is one of the strangest mountains that I ever did 
see. It is a diamond mountain, shaped something like a cone. I saw it in 
the sun for two days before I got to it, and then at night I camped right 
near it. I hadn't more than got my horse lariated out -- it was a little 
dusky -- when I saw a camp-fire and some Injuns right through the mountain 
on the other side. So I didn't build any fire, but I could see them just 
as plain as if there hadn't been anything but air. In the morning I 
noticed the Injuns were gone, and I thought I would like to see the other 
side of the mountain. So, I rode around to the other side and it took me 
half a day." I said to him, "Might not that have been a mountain of salt?" 
I put this query to him because the country was entirely unknown, and I 
wanted to cross-examine him, but he said: "Oh, no. I went up and knocked 
off a corner of it, a piece of rock as big as my arm, a big, long piece of 
diamond, and brought it out, and afterwards gave it to a man, and he said 
it was a diamond all right." These were samples of Bridger's stories. He 
wasn't the egotistic liar that we so often find. He never in my presence 
vaunted himself about his own personal actions. He never told about how 
brave he was, nor how many Indians he had killed. His stories always had 
reference to some outdoor matter or circumstance. He never went on any 
scouts while we were there, but simply contented himself with telling the 
officers of the expeditions, or the scout who was going with them, just 
exactly where to go and what they would find.



CHAPTER XXI.
FORT LARAMIE.--THE INDIAN DASH.--THE PURSUIT.--THE RETURN.--MAJOR TWIST.--
VISITING INDIANS.--ISSUE OF RATIONS.--THE DAUGHTER OF SHAN-TAG-A-LISK.--
INDIAN WIVES.--MAJOR BRIDGER'S BEAR STORY.--THE BUFFALO DAM STORY.--CASPER 
COLLINS.--THE FINAL DRESS PARADE.--THE START FOR JULESBURG.

   ONE day a large detachment from the post had been out scouting through 
the hills, and around, for three days. They had been in separate details 
in different directions, but were all to be back at noon of a certain day. 
Their object was to find out whether there were any hostile Indians 
lurking anywhere around within twenty-five miles of the post. They all 
reported on their return, that nothing could be found; they had seen a few 
pony-tracks, they said, but probably from stray ponies; the scouting 
parties were disbanded upon the parade-ground about noon. The parade-
ground was level and sandy, and the officers thought it would be the best 
place for the horses to roll. So the boys were ordered to take off the 
saddles and bridles, and take these to the stables, but to leave the 
horses standing in the sun, and let them roll and rest awhile; then they 
could be taken to the stables. The horses on being unsaddled began to romp 
around on the parade-ground, and roll in the sand. Their backs were all 
more or less chafed with the saddle, and it was a pleasure for them to 
roll. They were on the parade-ground enjoying themselves rolling and 
cavorting, when all at once we heard a wild war-whoop, and through post 
and parade-ground rushed a body of wild Indians waving buffalo-robes, 
shooting fire-arms, and making a lot of noise. There could not have been 
to exceed thirty of them. They came so quickly and went through so fast, 
that there was hardly a shot fired at them, and they stampeded every horse 
on the parade-ground, and off they went with them. I got a look at them, 
and I thought that this raid was one of the most ridiculous things I ever 
saw. The Indians did not stop to shoot anybody, although they did fire 
some arrows at some of the groups of soldiers and officers that were on 
the side. But there was plenty of open way for them to go, and the horses 
went in front of them, and they after them. They made a dash for the 
north, and before anybody knew what was taking place the horses and the 
Indians were scurrying afar off. But the Indians did not get all of our 
horses. "Boots and saddles" was immediately sounded, and those who got 
ready first started off first. It took time, however, to get out of the 
stables and saddle the remaining horses; get the ammunition, get together 
rations for the trip, and some corn for our horses to be carried, some on 
each, and some on pack-mules. About a hundred of us got started after 
these Indians, but we were at least an hour behind. It was useless to go 
out without corn, without rations, and without ability to stay with them. 
Major Wood, the post commander, was the maddest man I ever saw. He started 
out the command; it was in charge of one of the Eleventh Ohio captains; 
but my Captain O'Brien was one of the leaders of the expedition. We didn't 
know what we were bound to run into, and although we started with a 
mountain howitzer we soon sent it back because it couldn't keep up with 
the procession.

   The Indians held together, and kept going steadily north. We chased 
them all night, but they had plenty of relays of horses, and each Injun 
could catch up a fresh horse from time to time. Although we went at as 
fast pace as our animals could endure, we did not seem to overtake them. 
We rode until morning, but during the night we could only follow a trail. 
We could not see the Indians. The next day we still kept after them, as 
the trail was plain. The next night the Indians scattered, and went every-
which-way. The trail pronged out so that we could only follow part of the 
Indians. We had to keep together, as we feared ambuscade, and didn't know 
but a large body of Indians might at any time appear. We followed the 
trail all night again. In the morning as the sun rose we came down into 
one of the most beautiful valleys I ever saw. We rode down through it in 
the rising sun. We had been floundering among the mountains all night. We 
had been doing our best to see what we could find. About a dozen of the 
captured horses were recovered, having been found along the trail, but 
they were all bunged up, and not worth bothering with. Some had been 
killed with arrows; others had just simply been abandoned because they 
were worn out, and ruined. Our own horses were about at the end of their 
usefulness. The beautiful valley lay in front of us, made charming by the 
rising sun. No Indian was in sight. There was only a light trail where 
perhaps a half-dozen had passed. It was useless, and practically 
impossible, for us to go farther. We camped and grazed our horses in the 
beautiful valley, each man holding on to his horse's halter lest some 
Indian should rise up out of the grass and stampede the herd. We were so 
tired and sleepy that we could hardly graze our horses. We had been up two 
days and two nights, and the last night had been very hard on us. We 
rested and let our horses graze until about noon. They got a good feed of 
grass; they had eaten up every grain of corn we had. Slowly and 
sorrowfully we wended our way back by another route.

   Our guide and scout had been Charles Elston. He seemed to know the 
country fairly well, but we were out of the usual Indian routes, and were 
in a country just as it had come from the primeval hand of nature. There 
was always something beautiful in the Rocky Mountain country when we got 
into those places where no ax had ever been. We had ridden about one 
hundred miles. Going back, the boys went slowly, slept on their horses 
some of the time, and walked and led their horses some of the time, so as 
to lighten their load and diminish their pain, for they were all suffering 
from the trip. In addition, we sort of explored the country, and made 
rough sketches or maps as we went. When we got back it was nearly a week 
from the time we started. All of the horses which the Indians drove off 
that were of any value, were lost, and the episode was freely commented on 
as showing how difficult it was to know whether or not there were any 
Indians around the post. It put the post upon the guard to keep a steady 
lookout, night and day, and was an additional illustration of the fact 
that it was cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them.

   Major Underhill had said to General Mitchell, who was telling about how 
the Pawnee scouts acted on our trip up Lodgepole: "They were afraid 
because they knew the danger they were in, -- you did not; there were 
enough hostile Indians always around you, though not in sight, to have 
eaten you all up blood-raw." At this time while we were in Fort Laramie, 
immigration had entirely stopped. No stages had been running up past 
Laramie for months; and no trains were passing. The road from Julesburg to 
Laramie had practically been sealed up, There was a telegraph line which 
was kept running, from repairs constantly made by details of soldiers.

   A very strange thing happened one evening at the sutler quarters. Along 
about sundown several squaws very finely dressed in mackinaw blankets came 
up to the sutler store with an old gentleman whose hair, long, white and 
curly, hung down over his shoulders, and down his back. He had a very 
venerable white beard and moustache. His beard bad been trimmed with 
scissors so that it was rather long, but pointed, Van Dyke fashion, below 
the chin. He was dressed thoroughly as an Indian. He wore nothing on his 
head, and had on a pair of beaded moccasins. He sat on one of the benches 
in front of the sutler store, having in his hand a cane, staff fashion, 
about six feet long. Some of the officers were discussing Grant's 
Vicksburg campaign, and about the dangerous character of his trip around 
and below Vicksburg, and they were analyzing it as a military feat. After 
listening a little while this old fellow got up, and got out several feet 
in front of the talkers, and said: "Grant did just what Napoleon did." 
Then, taking his staff, he began marking in the sand, and said, "At 
Borodino, Napoleon started out from here, and he marched around to here," 
and so on. The old gentleman went all through the Napoleonic campaign and 
then went through the Grant campaign, with all of us looking on silently 
and listening. He finished the demonstration at great length, talked very 
sensibly, and everybody, whether they knew him or not, paid attention to 
what he said. After a while the party broke up, and I asked several 
present who the person was; they said they didn't know. Finally I met a 
man who told me that this man belonged to a very fine Eastern family. That 
he was educated in West Point, had been a Major in the regular army, and 
made up his mind years before to become an Indian, and live with the 
Sioux. That his name was Major Twiss; was married into the Sioux tribe; 
came down to Fort Laramie occasionally, and went back up into the 
unexplored Indian country, nobody knew where. The next day I inquired 
about him further, because I wanted to see him again, but he had gone out 
to the squaw camp, and from there he and his squaws disappeared to the 
north.

   It now appeared that the condition of the country as to Indian troubles 
was that the Indians as tribes would not participate in the war, and that 
the whole Indian strength was not in the war; but that a large amount of 
trouble was made by individual young bucks who were bent on mischief, and 
on having what they considered fun; which was, the scalping of white men 
and women, and the getting of horses and plunder.

   General Mitchell had sent out for the chiefs to come in, and have a 
conference at Fort Laramie. Sometime in the latter part of the month there 
suddenly appeared a number of Indians, and their squaws, perhaps about 
thirty Indians and twenty squaws. They came into camp in the daytime, and 
were told to camp out at the squaw camp. The convention was a failure. 
There did not enough appear to make it of any force, and those who did 
come, very few of them, were of much importance. Shan-tag-a-lisk was said 
to be near the post, but was doubtful as to whether he should come in or 
not.

   General Mitchell ordered an issuance of rations to these visible 
Indians, and directed me to superintend the issue. He told me what stuff 
was to be issued -- so many sacks of flour, so many pounds of bacon, and 
other things. The Indian women of the squaw camp intruded themselves in on 
the party, so that about fifty Indian women sat around in a ring to get 
rations as distributed. The men stood off with great dignity, and would 
have nothing to do with it, because it was woman's work. I had the stuff 
brought inside of the ring. There was one young Indian woman who did not 
get into the ring, and I ordered her in, but she stood up on the outside. 
All of the other Indian women were sitting in a ring around the rations, 
which in boxes and barrels stood in the center. Finally I told that woman 
to get into the ring and told the interpreter to tell her that if she 
didn't get into the ring she wouldn't get any of the rations. She talked 
back, and upon my inquiring of the interpreter she said: "I am the 
daughter of Shan-tag-a-lisk. I have plenty to eat." Elsewhere I will speak 
more fully of this young lady; she was the one who wanted to marry a 
"Capitan." I wrote her up and published her story under the title of "The 
Daughter of Shan-tag-a-lisk" in a Kansas magazine, now defunct. I insert 
the story herein as an appendix. Shan-tag-a-lisk was afterwards killed, 
Aug. 1881, by a chief named "Crow Dog," over a woman.

   The Indians slipped in stealthily, until the first thing we knew the 
squaw camp was largely populated. At night new tepees were put up, and the 
post commander one afternoon sent me up to look them over, count them, and 
see how many bucks I could see loafing around. I have forgotten how many I 
reported, but I would say, lying around in the sun, were about twenty lazy 
Sioux "Injuns" smoking and taking their ease. All this occasioned some 
apprehension, and the guards around the post were doubled. We were in a 
peculiar position. We did not want to make any enemies among the Indians, 
because we were trying to make peace, and we were afraid all the time that 
they would run in some bad Indians on us, and make us a lot of trouble; so 
everything was well looked after. In fact, a picket-guard was stuck up 
near the squaw camp, to keep an eye upon the camp at night, but the 
Indians were not painted up, and made no war demonstrations. General 
Mitchell ordered that they should leave the reservation, and go away 
before the next full moon.

   I discovered in the course of my observation that two of the officers 
of the Ohio regiment had bought Indian wives, and had them stationed at 
the squaw camp. The Sioux were exceedingly technical in regard to the 
marriage relations. A marriage had to be preceded by the gift of a horse 
to the parent. This was an absolute requisite, and the acceptance of the 
horse by the parent was equivalent to consent to the marriage. If a parent 
did not want a certain young buck for a son-in-law, the young buck might 
come and keep offering horses until he had tied a dozen before the wished-
for father-in-law's tepee, but the father-in-law would not receive them, 
while if some other buck tied one horse there he would get the girl. Two 
officers of our command bought squaws, but in one case the father ran off 
with the horse and the young squaw disappeared, and the officer was out 
his horse. The matter was well known to the entire command, for it 
immediately got out through the interpreters, and the officer was very 
much ridiculed, and he was afterwards killed in battle by his Indian 
brother-in-law. Another one of our officers bought a wife for two horses, 
and the Indian girl fought and scratched him up in a most ridiculous way, 
so that he was in his quarters pretending to be sick for some time until 
he healed up. The Indian girl was a fighter and a perfect tigress, and 
broke through the door to the rear of the officers' quarters, and went to 
the squaw camp, and quickly disappeared. These matters became known, and 
resulted in hurting the reputation of these officers very much. The latter 
officer was pushed out of the service quite a while before the regiment 
was mustered out as a regiment. Elston, the scout, used to say that the 
Sioux Indians, that is, the women portion of them, were the most virtuous 
people on earth. Finally the squaw camp was very much decimated by order 
of General Mitchell, who took pains to reprove all improper relations; he 
asked his officers to be examples to their men, and I think, although I do 
not know, that three discharges of officers came about by General 
Mitchell's recommendations. No charges were made against the officers, but 
they were simply ordered mustered out upon some pretext or another.

   About the last evening that I was at the Post I had my farewell visit 
with Major Bridger. Major Bridger was a regular old Roman in actions and 
appearance, and he told stories in such a solemn and firm, convincing way 
that a person would be liable to believe him. I had received a letter from 
an officer down at Fort Kearney wanting me, when I came back, to bring him 
a cinnamon bear-skin. The cinnamon bear, so called from the color of the 
hair, was a favorite fur, and the Indian women at the squaw camp tanned 
them, and the skins were exposed for sale at the sutler store. On the 
evening to which I referred, Bridger was sitting out in front of the 
sutler store, and I sat down with him, and got to asking him about bears. 
He told me a bear story which I afterwards heard was quite a noted bear 
story, and gave rise to an expression of "only just sitting around." Bears 
were very plenty. The woods at that time had so many that it was not 
difficult to get sight of a bear. Bridger's story was that he was up on La 
Bouta Creek, where there were trees scattered all around, and he was in a 
nook cooking his breakfast, when he happened to look up, and under the 
trees around him in a great circle were about two hundred and fifty 
separate bears sitting down and watching him. They had smelt the frying of 
the meat, and had come in as near as they dared to come; each one was 
sitting down under a tree, and Bridger knew nothing of them until he 
looked up and saw them. His idea was to impress me with the plentiful 
supply of bear in the country. I said to him, "Well, what did you do?" and 
he replied, "Oh! I didn't do nothing." "Well, what did the bears do?" "Oh, 
they did nothing, only they just sot around." So the expression grew, 
that, as to the officers and others there at the post, like Bridger's 
bears, they "only just sot around."

   As orders had been given that we should return, and as we were going 
back by Pole Creek, I asked Bridger about Pole Creek, how long it was, and 
what there was up at the head of it. He described it to me with great 
detail, and the pass through the mountains at the head of it. After he got 
through he told me that when he first came to the country, Lodgepole 
Creek, which was then only a valley in the plateau, used to be an awfully 
deep canyon, "one of the deepest, worst canyons in the whole country, 
deeper than Thunder Canyon," and yet since he had been in the country it 
had filled up from the winds and the wash of the mountains. As Lodgepole 
was only a depression in the clay which composed the plateau, this story 
was evidently impossible. I asked him why we had seen no herds of buffalo 
coming all the way up from Cottonwood Canyon, although on the divide at 
Jules Stretch there were many old buffalo-heads, worn by the weather, 
which showed that forty years before they might have been in great 
quantities. He said that the buffalo had quit running so near the 
mountains, and that they were ranging farther east down through Nebraska 
and Kansas. He said that down below Cottonwood Springs, on the Platte, one 
time there was the biggest herd of buffalo he ever saw. His party was 
camped in a train on the south side of the river; they saw the buffalo 
coming from the north, and corralled their wagons and animals to keep from 
being "tromped" (trampled). The big herd came plunging into the river one 
over the other in enormous droves, miring down, and walking over each 
other's backs. They dammed the river so that the water rose to overflow 
the flat where the wagons were, and the water went plumb up to the axles, 
and it would not have taken but a little more to have all been washed away 
and drowned. I was afterwards told that this was one of Bridger's favorite 
stories, and was called his "buffalo dam story." Bridger at this time was 
sixty years of age, and had been in the mountain country over forty years.

   As there was no traffic upon the line of road, and no pilgrims coming 
or going, and the Indian scare all-prevailing, General Mitchell determined 
to make some military posts along the line of the road; also to put up 
fort at what was then called Julesburg. He ordered Captain Shuman of the 
Eleventh Ohio to build a fort at or near Scott's Bluffs; he also ordered a 
little fortified post to be put up at the ruins which were called 
"Ficklin"; and another at Mud Springs, which was at the north end of Jules 
Stretch. He ordered our company to go to Julesburg, and immediately begin 
the erection of a fort there, each place to have a telegraph operator and 
an assistant; he further ordered the road patrolled. Captain Shuman left 
Fort Laramie before we did, and the details referred to were also sent to 
Ficklin, and to Mud Springs. There was a sort of sub-district consisting 
of a territory from Mud Springs to South Pass organized, and this was put 
in charge of Lieut.-Colonel Collins, of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry. This 
Colonel Collins had a son, Lieutenant Collins, who was continually 
scouting through the country with details of men under orders from his 
father. The Lieutenant's first name was Caspar, and he generally went by 
the name of Lieutenant Caspar. The Indians were getting bad west of 
Laramie, destroying trains, killing pilgrims and carrying off women. Far 
down in the east they were making violent incursions upon the road between 
Cottonwood Springs and Fort Kearney, so that there was a condition of war 
between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Kearney and between Fort Laramie and 
South Pass. The territory between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Laramie was 
comparatively quiet, but the fear was that the Indians from the north and 
south would begin to harass that territory. There was a fort built and 
named Fort Caspar after Lieutenant Collins, and afterwards a Fort Collins 
built. Lieutenant Caspar was killed by the Indians not very far west of 
Fort Laramie, but it was after we had left Fort Laramie, which we did 
August 31st, 1864. The country south of Laramie had been scouted down a 
considerable distance, and Fort Collins had been recently established.

   Lieutenant Caspar (Collins) was a good deal of a favorite. He was a 
young man, full of life and energy, exceedingly brave, exceedingly 
reckless, and almost without ballast. He seemed to dash into things 
without much premeditation, played a strong and magnificent game of poker, 
took one drink too much, once in a while, but was apparently a young man 
entirely devoid of fear and with an ambition to have military success and 
renown; his characteristics finally led to the necessary result: he was 
killed in an engagement with Indians which he ought to have avoided.

   August 30th was a delightful day, and with my red silk sash, and 
imposing uniform, I mounted guard for the last time in due and ancient 
style, with the garrison, as usual, standing and looking on. In the 
evening we had our dress parade with all the style that could be 
displayed. It was my last one. Every soldier that could be got out was in 
line. The post commander was to issue a lot of orders which were to be 
read on dress parade. I marched up from the line; saluted the post 
commander with the customary formula, "Sir, the parade is formed"; walked 
around to his left and rear with the customary angular steps, and he 
drilled the post command for quite a while. We were cavalrymen on foot at 
the parade. Our parades were always on foot, and, the men were put through 
the saber drill. Then he gave me a lot of orders in which my company were 
ordered to one place, and others ordered to others, indicating that a 
permanent separation was about to take place, which made us all have a 
sort of depressed feeling. When the parade was closed, I went to my 
company and gave it a very careful inspection, and also carefully 
inspected the horses. That was by order of Captain O'Brien, who had been 
in charge of the company while I was post adjutant.

   In order to get a good start, for General Mitchell was a prompt 
marcher, we had bugle sounded at 2 o'clock in the morning, and hastily 
getting our breakfast we filed out on horseback at 3 A.M. and started down 
the road.