The Indian War of 1864 - Chapters 25-27



CHAPTER XXV.
JULES COFFEY AND THE JACKS.--SNAKE FIGHT.--INDIAN FIGHT.--OCTOBER 29, 
1864.--SAM DION.--THE INDIAN BABY.--CAMP SHUMAN.--THE "SIMPLE INSTANCE".--
53-MILE RIDE.--THE SNOW-STORM.--THE MORMON TRAIN.--THE BLACK-TAILED DEAR.--
SERGEANT LIPPINCOTT.--STEPHENSON AND THE WOLF.--VENISON.--ARRIVAL AT 
LODGEPOLE.

   On this visit to Laramie was the last I ever heard or saw of Jules 
Coffey. As stated before, Jules had a great deal of superstition about 
holding jacks while playing cards. He thought they were his lucky card. 
Happening in the back room of the sutler store where an almost continuous 
game of poker was going on, I saw Jules betting ferociously upon a poker 
hand. He said he would never lay it down, but he finally did. It consisted 
of three jacks, and Jules was beaten. His superstition had, in the 
language of the place, "busted him."

   There were a couple of civilians in the employ of the Government, or 
who had dropped in the post some time before, who were gathering snakes 
for the Smithsonian Institution. There was a great deal said about the 
great quantity of snakes that could be found around in the rocky ledges of 
that country. A great many stories were told about the Indians eating 
them, and about the scientific way of capturing them. It seems that the 
Indian women would go out and hunt for them, but had to be very careful in 
capturing the snake so that the snake would not bite itself, and poison 
its own meat. The Indian women with a long forked stick would try to pin 
the snake down close to its head so that it could not bite itself. The 
trappers said that a rattlesnake was good to eat, and worth catching, 
providing it did not bite itself. One evening one of these men in the 
snake business asked me to go around and look at some snakes he had in a 
box. He had got a musket-box which was made long, to hold a musket, but 
was not of very much interior capacity, and was heavily built. On one of 
these boxes they had fixed a heavy double glass top, and the snakes had 
been fastened in so that it wasn't expected that they could be fed or 
taken care of. The man said the snakes didn't need it. In this box were 
coiled, one at each end, two monstrous rattlesnakes, each one as long as 
the musket-box, and they were there motionless, looking at each other. The 
next day I was called to go and see the box again. The two snakes had 
coiled themselves around each other like strands of a rope from head to 
tail, except that the heads and necks were free. These were bent around 
looking at each other, and formed a picture not unlike the medical symbol 
of a caduceus. Just before I left Fort Laramie I was called again to look 
into the box. One of the snakes was dead, and the other was coiled loosely 
up in the end of the box, drooping as if hardly alive. The whole thing 
left me a most ghastly memory; one had strangled and killed the other.

   While at Laramie on this trip a beef was killed, and the Indian women 
came and carried off all of the entrails. There was one sight which 
attracted my attention: an old Indian woman with two or three children 
around her was feeding them the raw stuff. She took the smaller entrails, 
stripped out their contents and cut them up into mouthfuls, then punctured 
the gall-duct, and, dipping the point of the knife into it, put a drop of 
gall onto each mouthful as if it were Worcestershire sauce. It was raw, 
with a flavor of the bitter. The children seemed to enjoy it very much; it 
was Charlotte Russe for them. I was told that the Indians ate up all of 
the entrails of the beeves that were killed there at Laramie, at least 
during the time when there were many Indians at the squaw camp. I should 
have considered this revolting if it had not been for the happy, cheerful 
way in which the little Indians devoured this stuff, and shouted for more. 
And the old Indian woman seemed to be proud and happy to feed the little 
creatures so well.

   During my comments upon this in a talk with Bridger, he said: "It's all 
right. They like it, and it's all right. I have cleaned up that kind of 
stuff and eaten it myself, when I had to. The Injuns haven't got the same 
kind of tasting apparatus we have; their 'taster' is different from a 
white man's. Now, here is a band of Injuns that want to go off on a horse-
stealing expedition, each one of them riding a spare pony. They whistle up 
their dogs, and start off. The dogs can keep up with the horses, and when 
they camp, the horses can eat grass, and the Injuns eat the dogs. That is 
the reason they don't have to have any commissary wagons. They don't have 
to have any corn for their horses, nor any bacon and hard-tack, and that 
is the reason that they can always run away from our people, and we never 
can chase them down on one of these raids, and catch them, unless we can 
travel like they do. They will swap horses every hour or so, and ride all 
the time. If they did not have women and children to look after, they 
would never be caught. But when you go to chasing them with their women 
and children, the women and children die off pretty fast, and after a 
while you come up with them; they are at your mercy."

   Bridger also said that the Indians believed that like parts of the 
animal nourished like parts of the man, hence they ate all there was of 
the animal. When any organ of an Indian was sick he would eat the 
corresponding organs of animals and game for a cure. He told many 
revolting stories concerning this belief.(*)

(* Since the foregoing was set in type an article has appeared concerning 
Bridger, in a Kansas City newspaper, which I will copy as an appendix 
hereto.)

   While at Fort Laramie Lieutenant Williams was constantly engaged in 
taking affidavits of enlisted men and citizens as to some facts concerning 
which I never found out. Williams was very secretive. Rumor had it that 
there had been some misconduct on the part of quartermasters and 
commissaries at the post, and that Williams, as Provost Marshal of the 
district, had made up his mind to investigate. He swore all of the 
witnesses, when he got through, never to divulge what they had testified 
to until called upon by the court; so it was not very easy to know what he 
was at, although Williams about a year afterward incidentally remarked 
that his trip up to Fort Laramie resulted in the cashiering of several 
officers. I had a very pleasant visit again with Colonel Collins of the 
Eleventh Ohio Cavalry, and he again expressed his wish to lose me out on 
the desert prairie with nothing but a little salt and see how I would get 
along. This was one of his favorite remarks.

   There came word at the post that an empty Mormon train with quite a lot 
of extra men, and seventeen wagons drawn by mules, was coming down, bound 
for Omaha, to load up with goods to be brought back in the spring. These 
Mormons traveled through the Indian country more safely than if they had 
been Indians themselves. I suggested that as the Mormon train was 
traveling light, they be impressed into service, and that I be permitted 
to load them near Court House Rock with pine timber for building purposes 
at Julesburg. This seemed to meet approval, and Colonel Collins took it up 
over the telegraph with General Mitchell, commanding at Fort Kearney, who 
approved the plan. The train came along; we equipped it with axes, a few 
picks and shovels to make roads with, a small supply of provisions, and 
passing through Fort Laramie it went on down the road. I expected to 
overtake them on the route, which I did at Mud Springs. Lieutenant 
Williams wanted to start October 29th in the afternoon, and so we went on 
down with him ten miles to Bordeaux Ranch and camped there, so as to get a 
good start the next morning. At Bordeaux Ranch I met with a frontiersman 
whom I had heard considerable of, and whom I had met once before, by the 
name of Sam Dion. He was one of the pioneer Frenchmen of the period, a 
jolly, royal, generous fellow who cared for nothing particularly, was 
happy everywhere, and whom the very fact of existence filled with 
exuberance and joy. He gave me a beautiful Indian-tanned beaver-skin, one 
of the largest and prettiest I ever had seen. A beaver-skin has two 
classes of hair. One is a coarse hair which sheds water, and the other is 
a fine hair which is intended for warmth. Dion had a way of taking a sharp 
razor, running it over a beaver-skin, and cutting out the coarse hair 
without at all injuring the fine hair, so that the skin which he gave me 
was as beautiful a piece of fur as I ever saw. I afterwards made it into a 
collar and cape for my big blue military overcoat, and wore it all through 
the service and long afterward. At Bordeaux we met Captain Shuman and 
First Sergeant George Marsh, going up to Fort Laramie for supplies with a 
small escort. I was glad to meet "Shad-blow" again, and we sat up talking 
over the invasion of Arkansas.

   There rode with us from Fort Laramie an officer of the Eleventh Ohio, 
whose name I will not here mention, as he afterwards rose to considerable 
distinction in civil life. He had been stationed at Fort Laramie, and had 
been ordered to Leavenworth. Coming on down to Bordeaux Ranch he every 
once in a while took a nip from his canteen, and said that he felt bad, 
and hated to go from Fort Laramie and hated to stay there; that he had 
received a very excellent detail from the general commanding the 
department, and was going away from Fort Laramie, never to see it again. 
He went on in a somewhat melancholy strain all the way down, and took but 
little observation of the scenery on the route. After we had got down to 
Bordeaux Ranch, and had supper, he took me one side and told me his story. 
He said: "I came away from Fort Laramie and I did not act right. I have 
got an Indian baby up in that squaw camp, and I have got to go back and 
tell the baby's mother that I am never going to see her again, and it is 
going to raise Cain. I dreaded it, and I was too cowardly to go and tell 
her before I left. Now I will never see her again, nor will I ever see the 
baby again. I am going to get onto my horse and ride back there, and then 
I will be here in the morning ready to go on with you down the road." I 
told him that he was taking a good deal of a chance to be riding at night 
along that road, not knowing whom he would meet, and he said that he did 
not care; that he could get back there to Fort Laramie, kiss the baby good-
by, and be on hand in the morning. He quickly saddled up, and off he went 
through the darkness as swift as his horse could carry him. The next 
morning when we were ready to start he turned up all right, and we went on 
down. I asked him if he had much trouble on the trip, and he said that he 
had a whole lot of it. He said it was a heart-breaking sort of thing, but 
that it was now over; that he had made up his mind to it, and he would 
never be back again, and that the whole thing was now ended. He kept 
taking nips from his canteen all day, but never became talkative or 
effusive, and although I was with him off and on for quite a while after 
that, he never again referred to the circumstance.

   We left Bordeaux ranch at six o'clock on the morning of October 30, 
1864, and rode forty-three miles to Camp Shuman, now called "Camp
Mitchell," near Scott's Bluffs, as before stated. Captain Shuman had named 
it after General Mitchell. We all slept on the dirt floor in the 
headquarters room at Camp Mitchell that night. Lieutenant Williams never 
drank anything. He was one of the few officers I ever saw who were total 
abstainers. He and I slept under the same blanket on the floor. The room 
was about fifteen feet square, and Lieutenant Boyd, who was the Second 
Lieutenant, slept on the floor near us. Captain Shuman, as stated, had 
gone to Fort Laramie. Lieutenant Ellsworth commanded the post, and 
Lieutenant Boyd the company. This was a technical arrangement. There must 
always be a post commander although there is only a company present at the 
post, so that Lieutenant Boyd commanded all the men at the post as 
"Company Commander," and Lieutenant Ellsworth commanded all the men at the 
post as "Post Commander." While we were lying on the floor Boyd every once 
in a while got up and went to the corner of the room. We ascertained in a 
little while that he was going into Captain Shuman's box of "St. Croix Rum 
Punch." After a while Boyd got gloriously drunk, all by his lone self. He 
never offered us anything, but just filled up. Finally he got us up and 
wanted to tell us a "simple instance." What he meant was "a simple 
incident," but he was so full that he could not get his words straight, 
and he would pull at us and at the blankets over us and have us listen to 
his "simple instance." His "simple instance" was how he and Captain Shuman 
had recently had a fight, and he had "knocked Captain Shuman just twenty 
feet." It was not an inch more or less. He had measured and it was just 
even twenty feet; and after he had told it all over and we had dropped off 
into a doze he would wake us up again to relate this "simple instance," 
and tell it all over again. By one o'clock in the morning Lieutenant 
Williams got a little bit tired of the "simple instance," and finally Boyd 
dropped off to sleep. The next morning Lieutenant Williams took some 
affidavits at the post, and among others the affidavit of Lieutenant Boyd 
about his "simple instance," and the result was that Boyd got dismissed 
from service for striking a superior officer and for drunkenness, and my 
old acquaintance "Shad-blow" got to be Second Lieutenant.

   The ride of forty-three miles the day before had very much quieted down 
our horses; in the morning a storm came up, and the wind, blowing from the 
northeast, began to beat the snow into our faces. It was a very unpleasant 
day, and after a while it became positively distressing. Williams crept 
into the ambulance, and in its secure shelter ordered the driver to whip 
up, and then ordered me to keep up with the escort. The result was that we 
made fifty-three miles that day against the storm, and the men and horses 
were nearly used up.

   At Mud Springs, on the evening of October 31, 1864, we found the Mormon 
train camped, together with eight wagons drawn by nineteen yoke of oxen 
belonging to Alexander Noble, who had come down a little while before with 
an escort, having hauled some stuff up to Fort Laramie. Noble's wagons 
were in bad condition, and so were his oxen. I pressed them all in; two of 
the Mormon wagons had to be loaded up with blankets and stuff which the 
train was carrying, and one of Noble's wagons was too weak to hold up a 
load of logs. It had snowed and hailed all day, the wind was blowing hard, 
skits of snow were coming all night, and the weather was growing colder. 
On the morning of November 1st we made a road and got the wagons and stock 
several miles up to where the trees were, and as we had plenty of help we 
cut the trees as long as the wagons could hold them, loaded them up as far 
as we dared, then put the wagon-boxes and all on top of the load of logs, 
tied down or chained them on, and let the wagons start down to Mud 
Springs. We cut only small, straight trees that were easily handled. No 
sign of Indians was seen anywhere. On November 2, 1864, we finished the 
loading of the wagons and sent them all, except a weak one, on down to Mud 
Springs. My squad of men was camped up on the north side of Lawrence's 
Fork, in a very nice little grove that stood about forty feet above the 
stream and formed a sort of shelf, above which, back of us, rose the high 
ragged edges of the plateau. It was a beautiful little camping-place, and 
was up three or four miles above Court House Rock. All this time it had 
been snowing. And as the snow fell upon the plateau the wind blew it down 
onto our camp, and it began to get deeper and deeper. We had run out of 
provisions and had borrowed some from the Mormon train, that really did 
not have much to spare; we had divided with the men on Noble's train 
because they had only enough to get them to Julesburg. The result was that 
we were short of provisions all around.

   The snow kept falling and kept drifting all during the day of the 1st 
and 2nd, and all of the wagons had been loaded and got down to Mud Springs 
except one, and I determined that I would stay in camp over-night where I 
was, because there was plenty of wood for fires and we on horseback would 
overtake the train in the morning. Along in the evening of the 2nd the 
snow came furiously. We already had a couple of feet of it, and had dug 
paths around our little camp from the ground of shelter-tents to the fire. 
But during the night the snow fell so furiously that we got up and kept 
clearing the ground so as not to be entirely buried. The horse-feed and 
shovels were in the weak wagon then in camp with us. The snow fell on the 
plateau and the wind swept it all over onto the ravine, so that we were 
not contending with the snow that fell from above us, but with all the 
snow that fell upon the plateau for miles. The horses were tied to the 
trees, and they kept tramping the snow under them until they stood two or 
three feet above the ground. In the morning the snow around us was from 
ten to twenty feet deep. On the wind-swept plateau there was hardly any. 
Along about nine o'clock in the morning it cleared off cold. We dug out 
with shovels the places where the horses were standing and where our tents 
were and where our camp-fires were. We did not see any good way of getting 
out of camp. It was entirely a new experience for all of us, and we 
debated what to do. The snow all around us was deeper than a man on 
horseback was high. The worst of it was our shortage of provisions. While 
we were there undetermined what to do, Corporal Lippincott saw, up on the 
edge of the plateau, off about a mile, a black-tailed deer standing on a 
point and looking down into the valley; probably looking for water. It 
seemed to be absolutely necessary that we should get that deer. I had a 
fine target rifle, Smith & Wesson, caliber .44, which I always carried as 
if it were a carbine. There were several good shots in our party, but 
Corporal Lippincott was as good as any, and claimed the right to go after 
the deer because he had first seen it. The deer seemed to stand motionless 
for quite a while, and then it would disappear and then it would come up 
again to the edge of the rim of the plateau, The snow was rather hard and 
sleety, and Lippincott floundered through it slowly and patiently. We all 
stayed in camp and watched what his success would be. Up along the edge of 
the declivity of the plateau the snow was shallower, and Lippincott after 
going from the back part of our camp up towards the plateau floundered out 
of the deepest snow and got into snow that was about four feet deep. He 
then slowly progressed up until we saw him stop. The deer, if it was the 
same one, came up to the edge again, standing motionless for a few 
minutes, when, crack went the rifle, and the deer sprang tumbling over the 
crest and down into the snow below. This must have taken place about ten 
o'clock in the morning. We all started out to get the deer into camp, 
using shovels and lariat-ropes; we got the deer into camp along about four 
o'clock p. m. While out on this trip bringing in the deer, Sheldon, one of 
the men of the party, saw an antelope come up to the edge of the bluff 
between us and the camp, and while the antelope was looking with curiosity 
at the strange scene going on, Sheldon killed the antelope, and we 
succeeded in getting that also into camp. We built rousing pine-log fires 
and ate roasted deer and antelope, and we parched corn from the horsefeed. 
Roasted antelope hearts are fine.

   We had felled some large trees, and the brush part of them stuck up in 
places above the snow along near which our roads had been dug out. As the 
snow was over we went to uncovering places so that we could get around and 
give our horses places to stand. W melted snow for water because we could 
not get down to the river; the snow was too deep. Both men and horses had 
suffered a good deal from cold and snow. We cut pine boughs and piled them 
up pretty well, and over them made our puptents, which were the only tents 
we had and which we carried on our saddles. But we had great fires 
burning, and did not suffer any more than we could help. During the night, 
about one or two o'clock in the morning, I heard a noise and some 
shouting, and jumped up with great anxiety; it proved to be a strange 
scene. One of the men, a brave little fellow by the name of Stephenson, 
who was afterwards made corporal, was in a fight with a big gray wolf; and 
a strange fight it was. The wolf had a trap on one of its hind legs. Where 
it got the trap we of course never could be able to tell, unless it had 
been set out by some of the detail camp at Mud Springs. It was profitable 
to set out traps and to poison wolves, and this was one of the occupations 
at every frontier post. The wolf with this trap on was unable to catch 
game, and was hungry. Being attracted by the fire and smell of meat at our 
camp, it had crawled through the snow and had got hold of the hide of the 
black-tailed deer, which Corporal Lippincott had thrown over the pine 
brush right on the edge of our clearing. The wolf when I got there was 
muttering and growling and pulling on that hide, and Stephenson was 
holding onto the other end of the hide, trying to scare the wolf off and 
pull the hide away from him. Stephenson had his carbine in his right hand 
and tried to shoot, but the cartridge would not go off. He snapped it 
twice at the wolf, and just as I came up Stephenson with more bravery than 
good judgment went after the wolf with his carbine as a club. He struck 
the wolf over the head and stunned it, and bent the barrel of his carbine 
at almost a right angle. All of the boys were up and saw the blow with the 
carbine; one of the boys then put an end to the wolf with a revolver. 
Thereupon Stephenson skinned the wolf. It was as interesting a little 
encounter as I ever saw. Of course if the wolf had not had a big trap on 
its hind leg it would not have lost its life as it did. But it was very 
hungry, and was weak with hunger, and with running through the deep snow 
trying to catch game.

   The next morning we had nothing for breakfast but venison and antelope. 
We each ate a hearty breakfast of it and cooked pieces to take along with 
us, and going up towards the bluffs upon the path we had already made, we 
circumnavigated along and got up onto the plateau, and finally got into 
territory where the snow was not deep, and arrived at Mud Springs; but we 
had to leave the wagon because we could not take it with us, and in fact 
we were very glad to get out of the place as well as we did. It took us 
until noon to go the short distance that it was to Mud Springs.

   On arrival at Mud Springs I found a telegram directing me to wait on my 
way home at Lodgepole, where a reconnoissance for an exploring expedition 
had been sent to look for Indians up Lodgepole, and who would be back 
about the time I got there. The log wagons had well strung out, and were 
en route for Julesburg over the ridge; the snow was blown from the road. 
After dinner we started and crossed Jules Stretch, and arrived in the 
evening at the crossing of Lodgepole and went into camp to await the 
appearance of the reconnoitering party that had gone up Lodgepole. We 
passed en route the log train as we crossed over the Stretch.



CHAPTER XXVI.
DESCRIPTION OF LODGEPOLE CREEK.--THE DESERTED WAGONS.--NO CLUE TO 
OWNERSHIP.--THE ELECTION.--THE POLITICAL SITUATION.--TRIP TO ASH HOLLOW.--
ADVENTURE OF LIEUTENANT WILLIAMS.--CANNON'S PUZZLE.--THE STABLES 
FINISHED.--THE INDIAN SCARE OVER.

   OUR camp at Pole Creek the night of November 4, 1864, was very bleak 
and dreary. Pole Creek was a vast trough in the plateau. It had a bed wide 
enough for the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Through this bed the arroyo 
of the stream ran, a bed of beautiful tawny sand about a hundred yards 
wide, and cut down from ten to fifteen feet. Sometimes the arroyo was 
wider, and sometimes narrower, but from Julesburg to the crossing, thirty-
five miles, there was nothing, as before stated, in the shape of a tree or 
bush. It was absolutely devoid of any vegetation except the grass. And 
above the arroyo the "flood plain" of the stream, if it could be so 
called, was as level as a floor for distances out of sight. Occasionally 
in the arroyo there were little clumps of drift roots and brush, sometimes 
a small, dead, drifted pine. Lodgepole Creek was said to have a well-
defined bed for two hundred miles, and to head at the Cheyenne Pass, in 
the Rocky Mountains.

   Above the crossing, which, as stated, was thirty-five miles up from 
Julesburg, there was no traveled roadway up Lodgepole. The only road from 
the crossing turned north across Jules Stretch; but, for a hundred miles 
up-stream from the crossing, the smooth bed of Lodgepole was said to 
furnish a most excellent route west to the mountains. The stream seemed to 
have no tributary of any consequence. A few miles above the crossing there 
was another arroyo coming in from the south, but hunters said there were 
no running streams whatever entering the creek. On November, 1864, the 
date of which I am speaking, there was not a drop of water in the creek-
bed, nor did I ever in fact see a drop of water in it. We could get water 
by digging, but we had to dig down two or more feet, and the supply seemed 
at this time to be scanty.

   On the morning of November 5, 1864, we stayed in camp, the men got some 
drifted brush and roots out of the creek-bed, and were able in sheltered 
spots to make a little fire. I thought I would wait for the expedition 
which had been sent from Julesburg up Lodgepole during my absence, to 
which I have heretofore referred.

   About nine o'clock a.m. I started up Lodgepole to see if I could 
discover any trace of them. We had seen no Indian signs of any kind 
anywhere. Soon I saw a horseman approaching me, and with my glass I 
discovered he was a soldier, and when he came up I found that he had been 
sent down to get in touch with me. He said they had made a find up 
Lodgepole, and would like to have me come up there, take a look at it, and 
pass an opinion on it. So, taking one of my men with me, I started up 
Lodgepole with the messenger. In the mean time the log train had got down 
to the crossing, and I ordered it to go into park and stay there until I 
got back.

   Going up Lodgepole about fifteen miles, we came onto a strange 
condition. Out towards the bluffs were sixteen emigrant wagons. They were 
all deserted, and yet everything outwardly appeared to be orderly. They 
were arranged as if they had gone into camp for the night, and were in a 
sort of circle, in manner and form as was then the custom of parking horse 
and mule wagons. They were arranged so that the right front wheel of one 
wagon was against the left hind wheel of another, all curved in so as to 
throw the tongues inside of the circle, which sort of locked them 
together. On the tongues of each of these wagons, propped up with the neck-
yokes, were the harness of four mules or four horses. Everything seemed to 
be in order except that the wagon-covers were all torn by the winds, and 
inside of the wagons everything was in disorder. The grass was growing up 
around the felloes of the wheels. The winds and storms had eliminated all 
appearances of newness; the camp might have been ten years old, or it 
might have been two years old; we couldn't tell. The parties had driven up 
in the grass and camped. There were appearances in several places on the 
wagons of bullet-marks, as we believed. There were from one to three 
trunks in each wagon, all of them with the tops open or torn off. There 
were no provisions nor any blankets, but there were dilapidated, worn, 
cotton-filled bed-quilts. There was nothing in the shape of guns and 
ammunition, nor was there any camp equipage. It was one of the most 
puzzling sights I ever saw. We tried our best to see if we could solve it; 
we were greatly mystified. The wagons were old-looking, as if sand-storms 
and prairie weather had beaten them up considerably. I finally made up my 
mind that the Indians had been the cause of it, years before, although I 
was not really sure. Indians would, of course, take away everything in the 
way of cooking apparatus, blankets, food, and ammunition. The other stuff 
they would not take; as, for instance, in one of the open trunks was a 
real nice little writing-desk with a very fine little ornamental inkstand, 
and a nice ivory penholder, and pens. On the other hand, these parties 
might have been swamped in a storm, lost the greater part of their horses, 
and had been able to arrange a couple of teams loaded up with what they 
wanted, and get away. But these wagons were off from any known road, or 
any line of travel which anybody then knew of or heard of.

   There were in our detachment a dozen cavalry soldiers; so I brought 
them up, picked out four of these wagons, the best ones, four sets of 
harness, hitched up, and started down Lodgepole. The harness was 
dilapidated and rotten, but by selecting from the various sets and by 
using some of our own stuff we managed to get enough for eight horses that 
worked reasonably well. We also took articles from the wagons: for 
instance, there were two sheet-iron washtubs in one of the wagons, also a 
couple of sheet-iron stoves. There were several good pine boxes with 
hinges on their covers, several articles of underwear. In short, we took 
about what there was that was of any value, and came down fifteen miles to 
the crossing.

   Strange as it may appear, we searched everywhere to find something that 
would give us some clue to the ownership of the wagons, but not a thing 
could be found. Everything in the shape of letters had been carried off. 
This is one reason why we believed that it was an abandoned camp. But 
guides to whom we afterwards spoke, said that the Indians would have taken 
off or destroyed any letters or books which they might find. But this did 
not seem reasonable, because why should not the Indians have carried off 
the harness and burned the wagons? We gave the utmost publicity to this 
strange find, and had it published in the Denver and the Omaha papers, but 
never did anything occur which gave us any knowledge of the facts, or any 
clue to the ownership of the property.

   We got down to the crossing, and the log train had pulled out for 
Julesburg. The next morning, the 6th, the men all rode down to Julesburg 
in the wagons, and took turns riding and leading the bunch of horses which 
went in front. We got into Julesburg the evening of the 6th of November.

   The next day we had a muster of the company, because the National and 
State election was to come off on the 8th. Lincoln was candidate for the 
second term and McClellan was the candidate back in the States of all the 
Copperheads, rebels, thieves, deserters, bounty-jumpers, and other 
branches of the then so-called Democratic party. The fight made on Lincoln 
was incredibly bitter. McClellan the "ever unready," ambitious, and 
incompetent, was the idol of every man who did not want to see the Union 
saved. A vast amount of Copperhead literature had been sent to the 
soldiers to get them to become disloyal. From time to time the wagons that 
carried the mail had delivered, at our post direct to our soldiers, 
barrels of mail. Some of it was from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, edited 
by Brick Pomeroy, who wanted to see Lincoln in hell, as he said, playing 
poker with red-hot sheet-iron cards. When this mail came, which was about 
every two weeks as the mail went through to Denver, Captain O'Brien and I 
went into the barracks, gathered up this literature, talked to the men 
about it, and burned it. Very much to my surprise, I found the company 
largely impregnated with McClellan doctrine. Captain O'Brien made a speech 
to the men that was brief, sharp and pithy, and he had the advantage in 
doing it, because, as his name was O'Brien, he had an opportunity to put 
the Irish handle on McClellan's name, and to denounce him as an unworthy 
Irish-American citizen.

   When the time came for voting, a great number of the soldiers, fully 
one-half, declined to vote one way or the other, and when the vote was 
taken it was twenty-six for Lincoln and fourteen for McClellan. This shows 
in what a dangerous condition, and how perilous a crisis, the nation was 
in. It is a great wonder and a great mystery that the Union was saved, as 
I look at it now; although I was in the middle of it all, I cannot 
understand it. It seemed that from year to year, in one great crisis after 
another, we were just merely able in each crisis to save it, and that was 
all; time after time it was saved almost by a scratch. The Union managed 
to just get through, and that was all. Lincoln thought for a while that he 
was beaten.

   At the time of which I speak, Price had raided up through Missouri as 
far as Kansas City, and we were dismally disappointed with the news. From 
time to time it seemed as if he were going to take Fort Leavenworth, turn 
the tide of war west of the Mississippi, and break the United States in 
two. However, Price was defeated, but scarcely anything more, and our side 
just did manage, and that is about all, to get him started back. I was 
feeling very despondent after our election, as I did up the returns, and 
handed them to Captain O'Brien to be forwarded to the Governor of Iowa.

   We unloaded the logs at headquarters, and Captain O'Brien thought I had 
better go over again to Ash Hollow, and get some more wood. In the mean 
time the Government had furnished us, through their quartermaster at Fort 
Kearney, a few more tents suitable for campaigning in winter, if we had to 
make a winter campaign. We pressed in some of the wagons that we had 
freighted down Lodgepole, and with our company wagons, all together making 
a train of ten wagons, I started for Ash Hollow.

   I may perhaps be permitted to go back, and say that on the entire road 
from Fort Laramie we had seen no Indians, and no Indian signs. Charley 
Elston said that the Indians had gone up into winter quarters, except the 
young bucks, who had gone off farther down the Platte. These young bucks 
were only in detached squads, and there was nothing for them to get on the 
Platte River west of Cottonwood; so that the Indian scare appeared to be 
over. I found that the ranches were being reoccupied. Gillett's ranch, 
about nine or ten miles west of Julesburg, had been filled up, and a large 
lot of cattle had been brought in. And the ranches east of Julesburg clear 
down to Cottonwood Springs had been filled up again. People had fortified 
the ranches, and the stages had started running regularly up the South 
Platte. The old stage-drivers said there was no difficulty, and although 
troops were stationed about every twenty-five miles along the road, there 
seemed to be no work for them to do except to escort the mail and the 
stages, and the caravans of teams which occasionally went by.

   Lieutenant Williams had gone on down the road. He told us the story of 
his adventures between Fort Kearney and Cottonwood Springs, coming up. He 
and an officer named Hancock were riding west in the stage, and there was 
a man sitting up on the box with the driver. It was a bright moonlight 
night. It was a four-horse stage. After they had got well out of Plum 
Creek coming west, and were out on the broad plains, all at once about a 
dozen shots came from the Indians, and they killed the two horses that 
were in the lead, and these two horses dropped in their tracks. This was 
part of the Indian plan, and then they commenced shooting into the stage. 
Williams and Hancock with Smith & Wesson carbines, and the other two with 
Sharpe rifles, got down flat on the ground and kept up a fire with the 
Indians, who besieged them all night. The two dead horses kept the stage 
from being run away with, and the Indians soon killed the other two. As 
the Indians skirmished around, the men lay on the ground or got in between 
the horses, and when morning came they had fired off a greater part of 
their ammunition, and had succeeded in getting two or three Indians, but 
were themselves unharmed. They were reinforced in the morning by a party 
who had been warned by someone who had heard the firing. This was hardly 
to be called a night attack, for there was a bright full moon.

   West of Cottonwood Springs everything seemed to be perfectly safe. The 
Cheyennes had met with some rough treatment down in Kansas, and along the 
Arkansas river, and had got over their war fever somewhat. But every once 
in a while some of the young bucks got out, and succeeded in capturing 
some emigrant wagons, or some frontier house, and killing somebody. It got 
to the point that everybody said that the only safety was to exterminate 
the Cheyenne Indians, but nothing had happened around our post to show an 
Indian present, nor had we seen any fire-arrows or smoke-signals for quite 
a while. And in my last trip from Fort Laramie, as stated, nothing of the 
kind was in view.

   On the 9th of November, 1864, we got all ready to go to Ash Hollow, and 
I determined to make the trip in the night, so as to get there after 
sunrise, deeming it the safer. The several days of rest my horse had got 
made him almost unmanageable. I mean my Hermitage horse, "Old Bill." He 
seemed to be determined to run, and he started off on his hind legs, 
pawing the air, going on the tips of his toes, and frisking so that I 
found that I was in danger of having a runaway horse, or one which would 
be uncontrollable in case of danger. So, in order to get him down to 
business, I got him down in the Pole Creek arroyo, where the sand was 
about up to his knees, and I ran him a mile up the creek as hard as he 
could go, and a mile back. That was a very severe test. I made him go his 
best. This took the wire edge off of him, and for the balance of the trip 
he went along like a good, sensible horse.

   We got to Ash Hollow, kept well on the lookout, worked hard most of the 
day, and filled our wagons, then went into camp, parking everything up as 
if for a fight. All at once, on the other side of the river, went up a 
smoke signal. We saw it answered up the river as far as a field-glass 
could spy. In the evening in the earliest dark a fire-arrow went up. I 
then concluded that trouble would begin in the morning; so we had the 
mules all hitched up, and the men all mounted, and we started up the road 
leading out of Ash Hollow, and finally got up on top of the plateau. The 
men were very tired, and I was very tired, for I had been at work as much 
as the men. I got them all together and told them that nobody could tell 
what there was behind us; that we could park upon the plateau, and go in 
by daylight, but that the Indians wouldn't tackle us by night, in all 
probability, and that we could go across to Julesburg three teams abreast, 
and in solid order, but that I was not going to make the order to march if 
they thought they were too tired or worn out to make it. They all spoke up 
that they were not very tired, and would be willing to make the trip. So, 
deploying out the men who were on horseback as scouts, and putting a white 
wagon-cover on the man who was to follow the trail and go in advance, so 
that we could keep line on him, we started across. About eleven o'clock a 
fire arrow went up far in front of us along the line of our probable 
trail, and a little after that an arrow went up behind us. Deeming it 
unwise to go any farther in the night, we parked our wagons, and waited 
for daylight. The starlight was very bright, and we could see considerably 
well. The wolves howled most fearfully, and as to some of it we could not 
tell whether the howling was wolves or Indians; so we got the log-wagons 
in such a position that we were within the circle of them, and we waited 
for daylight to come. The men dozed off alternately, and we each got two 
or three hours of sleep. As soon as it became dawn, we started on.

   During this trip I rode, for a while, with the soldier Cannon, of whom 
I have heretofore spoken. When Cannon had no whisky in him, he was a very 
reliable soldier. That is to say, he had had good experience, and was 
sensible. Riding along, he told me that he was with Captain Pope, 
afterwards Major-General Pope, of the Civil War, when Pope was marking out 
the "Staked Plains" of Texas. That was a route for a future road projected 
by the Government over the wild and unending plains of northwestern Texas. 
Where this road was laid out it was called the "Staked Plains," but went 
down on the map under the name "Llano Estacado." He said he heard Captain 
Pope ask a question of another officer, and he always wanted to hear the 
answer to it. He said Pope asked this officer as follows:

   "Supposing the Staked Plains are a thousand feet above the level of the 
sea, and on the first day of June a man gets up in the morning on 
horseback, and starts out following his shadow from sunrise to sunset at a 
rate of four miles an hour, where would he be at night, and what would be 
the shape of his course?"

   This particular problem was very interesting. I had at that time a 
pocket diary showing the moon's phases, and the time of the rising and 
setting of the sun every day, for different latitudes. At first I could 
not grasp the puzzle, but before I got to Julesburg, I had it solved in an 
offhand way, and I told him the nature of the course. He would be at night 
twenty-eight and one-half miles north of the place where he started, and 
about a quarter of a mile east of it. This is not really accurate, but is 
as nearly so as a person could work it out on horseback with the aid of a 
pocket almanac.

   When I got back from Ash Hollow, I found the men had all got into the 
new adobe post quarters, with battened doors made from lumber hauled down 
from Denver, and with some square glass windows. The boys had about 
finished the stables. The stables were 140 feet long, and 30 feet wide. 
There was a ten-foot door at each end and on one side. The sod was put up 
eight feet high; eight feet from each side we put up two rows of upright 
poles on the inside, marking each double stall. We put light logs across 
each of these, then split posts on top of the logs close together. The 
boys had waded around in the Platte River and cleaned off all the willows 
up and down the islands and banks. These had been put down on top of the 
roof-rails, and then on the willows was spread some spoiled hay, and it 
was well tramped down; then the whole was leveled off with dirt. When the 
dirt was all leveled we plowed more sod, and tightly sodded the top of the 
whole stable. It was fire-proof, cold-proof, and bombproof. It was one of 
the best stables I ever saw, and by all means the cheapest, considering 
the quality, I ever saw.

   Confidence along the road seemed to he restored. There was always a 
surging impulse to go ahead and take chances. The East demanded an outlet 
West, and a reflex tide much weaker was always seeking the East. An open 
road between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean was a constant 
necessity. Although one Indian raid followed another, the tide flowed on 
between-times. And although the current was at times dammed up, it broke 
loose again with an increasing volume. No attention was seemingly paid to 
Indian hostilities; they were looked upon in the same light as a bad spell 
of weather: the hostilities would, like the weather, change from time to 
time, but no one made calculation about them or took them much into 
account. People relied on the Government and the soldiers and themselves, 
and their own good-fortune. Thus, when anybody wanted to cross the plains 
they just started and trusted to luck and their ability to go through. 
More than this, the great majority of the pilgrims and whackers rather 
enjoyed the prospect of having a little skirmish with the Indians, at some 
point, so as to have something to enliven the trip and something to tell 
when they got back to the "States." But it was all hard work for the 
soldiers along the line. Besides all this, the Civil War was loosening up 
whole blocks of society and giving them an impulse to the West. The war 
was on; in strong Union communities, if situated anywhere near the lines 
of the combatants or within the sphere of their influence, they made it 
hot for the secesh or for people who had relatives in the Confederate 
army. In places where Rebel sympathizers prevailed the Union men were 
hung, or driven out; hence in both such cases the minority party in groups 
sold out and moved away. The Union men went to the open lands of the North 
and the Northwest, and the secesh to the mountains, the West and the 
Pacific Coast, away from the theatre of possible strife, as if trying to 
forget it. These conditions, coupled with the growing demands of 
legitimate business, gave a constantly increasing impetus to the vast 
travel westward and eastward along the Platte River. This travel could 
finally be accommodated only by a railroad.

   The Indian policy of the government was necessarily crude. The Indians 
were powerful, quite free, and fond of devilment; yet between them there 
was not much coherence, owing to rivalries and feuds. They were divided 
into bands under the control and leadership of favorite chiefs, who often 
envied and hated each other. Hence it was that we could not mistreat any 
Indian without taking the chances of making trouble; thus, if an Indian 
would suddenly appear at our post we could not kill him or imprison him or 
treat him as an enemy, because the particular Indian had done nothing that 
we could prove as an overt act. As far as the Sioux were concerned we had 
to keep on the defensive, because some of the Sioux chiefs were trying 
their best to keep their bands and young men from acts of war. It was 
cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them, and the constant efforts 
of the commanding officers were to make treaties of peace; which resulted 
practically in our buying privileges and immunities from them. The demands 
of the Civil War which was straining the nation's resources added much to 
the difficulties of the occasion. So we were in an attitude all the time 
of about half war and half peace with the Indian tribes. We could not 
punish them adequately for what they did, nor could they drive us off from 
the Platte Valley. We let them alone if they kept out of our way, and they 
let us alone when the danger seemed too great. Of all the Indians in our 
territory, the Cheyennes seemed to have the least sense. They lacked 
judgment, and were entirely unreliable; the pioneers placed the Arapahoes 
next; for respecting treaty obligations, the pioneers placed the Brule 
Sioux at the head of all the northwestern Indians.



CHAPTER XXVII.
NOVEMBER 10, 1864.--JIMMIE CANNON.--THE SOBRIETY DRILL.--THE STAGEDRIVER'S 
ARROW.--THE WAGON TRAIN FINE.--THE QUALITY OF THE EMIGRATION.--COMMISSARY 
MEASUREMENTS.--THE RATION.--DESICCATED VEGETABLES.--PRICKLY-PEAR SAUCE.--
DENVER AND THE CHEYENNES.--THE WOOD TRAIN.--THE ENGLISHMAN.--THE BETS..--
THE TRIAL.

   WITH the returning confidence of the public, and our orders to let no 
train go by except such as had one hundred armed men, and with the 
necessary continuous work upon the improvement of our fort and barracks, 
and on account of the necessity of keeping up our target practice, the men 
were quite busy. They had been free from annoyances, had been well fed and 
clothed, and whisky, except as we issued it sparingly to those doing extra 
duty, had disappeared from the camp. But with the return of trains and 
confidence, great numbers came down from Denver bound to the East, and the 
men began to get whisky again, and at times wild and violent occasions 
took place.

   On November 10th, Cannon, who had a large white horse that was very 
frisky, got intoxicated, and while he was endeavoring to show off how the 
horse would follow him around like a dog, the horse took it into his head 
to go off frantically across the plains, canter around in a circle, and 
come back to the post. I was out in front of what we called our parade-
ground when the horse came up, and Cannon ran up to try to stop him. The 
horse playfully wheeled, and kicked up its heels at Cannon. And Cannon 
grabbing his revolver from the holster, took it by the barrel and threw it 
at the horse. The revolver struck the ground right in front of me, and 
went off, and a bullet went so close to my head that I felt a little 
irritated. I grabbed Cannon by the collar, called on the sergeant to bring 
a lariat-rope, and tied Cannon up to a piece of artillery which was near.

   About a dozen of the men suddenly appeared to be nearly as full of 
whisky as Cannon. I told the sergeant to immediately go to the barracks, 
get all their names, tell them all that they were detailed on a scout, and 
in fifteen minutes I had them all on horseback headed towards the hills, 
under command of a corporal, to get the whisky trotted out of them. I told 
the Corporal privately to take his men around, scare them a little bit if 
he could, and work them until they were all sober. This the Corporal did, 
and the trouble for that day was ended.

   The stage-drivers had got to be very confident and reckless, and got so 
that they would drive off, and run away from their escorts who were on 
horseback, and were all pretending not to fear anything. Many of them were 
new, and affected to despise the soldiers. Some of them had been in the 
Confederate service, and really did.

   On the evening of November 11th a stage-driver with a stage coming from 
Cottonwood Springs, drove up shortly after dusk. He came lashing his 
horses as if all of the imps were behind him, and well he might, because 
down a little way below the post, just as he was going along the plains 
where nothing appeared but clumps of cactus, an Indian rose quite near and 
shot an arrow at him. It was splendidly aimed. It went through his coat 
collar at the back of his neck, and the iron head of the arrow whipped 
around and hit him on the face, and he started his horses on a run. He 
said that all he saw was this one lone Indian. The Indian had refrained 
from firing a gun for fear of alarming the post. The stage-driver got off 
from the coach with the arrow in his coat collar, balanced about half-and-
half on each side. Those in the stage coach did not know the full extent 
of the matter until the driver had driven quite a little distance, and 
seeing that he was not followed, the driver stopped and told the 
passengers, two of whom had seen the Indian, but were not aware of what 
had been done. The stage-driver was very proud of that arrow in his coat 
collar and wore it there for a long while.

   Seventeen miles east of Julesburg was a ranch that was owned by Dick 
Cleve. He had at one time abandoned it, but was now back again. An 
Atchison firm by the name of Byram & Howes had a train, and were coming 
from Denver en route home; they went on down with the caravan, and stopped 
at Cleve's. There were a good many in the caravan, and the particular 
wagon-master of said train got to be domineering, smart, and overbearing, 
and proceeded to help himself to things generally, and made up his mind 
that he was the boss of the track.

   Cleve came up to our post and made complaint. I happened to be in 
command of the post that day, Captain O'Brien having gone down the road on 
orders from General Mitchell. So it was my duty as post commander to act 
as judge. Cleve said the wagon-master was a dangerous man; would shoot, 
and had a lot of roughs and toughs who would like to take a hand in the 
shooting, and that if I expected to get the man I had better send down 
about fifty men. I concluded a corporal with eight men was enough. I told 
them to go down, present my order to the wagon-master, and bring him in; 
and if he wouldn't come voluntarily, to bring him anyway; and if he 
offered resistance, to be sure that he didn't get away. And that if 
anybody else took a hand, to bring him also.

   The corporal went down, stopped the whole caravan, and delivered my 
order. The wagon-master refused to come; the Corporal put a revolver under 
his ear, and made him mount his horse, and come. Two or three rough-neck 
bullwhackers wanted to take a hand in the matter, and there was quite a 
display of firearms, which resulted in the Corporal saddling up some of 
their horses and bringing the wagon-master and three of his party to the 
post. Cleve came along.

   Cleve presented his bill for $162.50, told the story of what had been 
done, and the wagon-master did not dispute what had been done, nor what he 
had taken; simply made a defense that the stuff he had destroyed or taken 
was not worth as much as Cleve said it was.

   I thereupon rendered judgment upon the fellow in favor of Cleve for 
$162.50. The wagon-master then said he would not pay it. I told him then 
he would go into the guardhouse. He then said he would have General 
Mitchell order him out, and would have me cashiered. Thereupon, I put the 
whole bunch of them in the guard-house, and kept them over-night. The next 
morning the wagon-master said he would pay Cleve with a draft on his 
house. Cleve didn't know whether it would be honored or not; I told the 
wagon-master that he would have to stay in the guard-house until he paid 
that money in cash. Thereupon, after consultation with his mates, he paid 
Cleve the money, out of a big wad of other money he had.

   I then detailed ten soldiers to go back with Cleve, escort the wagon 
train ten miles east of Cleve's ranch, and then tell them that I said if I 
caught any of them back on the road I would put them in confinement. The 
Corporal saw the outfit go down past Beauvais, which was twenty-five miles 
east of us, and that is the last we ever heard of them.

   This was about as bad a trouble as I had, and was perhaps the most 
insubordinate. Almost every day appeals were made to the post for the 
settlement of disputes, quarrels and bets. We did the best we could, came 
as near to doing justice in each case as we knew bow, and let the matter 
go at that. It was the only court that could enforce its decrees. I always 
thought the people had confidence in it, and that it was a good thing, 
because there were many disputes over matters that people did not want to 
kill each other for. Shortly after that there was a killing in a wagon 
train going down from Denver. One man shot another about fifteen miles 
west of our post. We arrested and held the man up, and finally sent him 
down to Fort Kearney, in confinement.

   On November 17. 1864, news reached us that Lincoln was elected, and 
that Sherman had swung loose into the Confederacy. I thought it the 
occasion for jollification, and so as temporary post commander I fired off 
several shots from our mountain howitzers. I desired target practice with 
the howitzers, and combined that with the celebration of the political 
victory, and the action of Sherman. If McClellan had been elected, Sherman 
would have been called home. There was on that day quite an assemblage of 
pilgrims at our post, going either one way or the other, and held up for 
consolidation into trains, but they did not seem to me to have very much 
enthusiasm over national benefits and victories. They did not seem 
interested. I have heretofore spoken about the Loyal League. It was my 
custom to make signals often to those who were coming to Julesburg on the 
trains, or traveling in the stages, for the purpose of seeing how many of 
them belonged to the League. It was rare to find one, not one in a 
hundred; and the reason was that the people out in that part of the 
country were of the Democratic party faith. They included bounty-jumpers, 
secesh, deserters, people fleeing from the draft, or those who did not 
care one way or the other how the war turned out.

   While we were at Julesburg we had been told from time to time of trains 
which had displayed on the road below us secesh flags, but nothing of the 
kind was ever visible from our post, or was ever seen in the neighborhood 
of Julesburg by any detachment of our company. The Colorado cavalry had 
been down in New Mexico, fought a good fight, and saved that Territory, 
and they were vindictively loyal, and were inclined to shoot. It was not 
good form for secesh to run up against any of the Colorado soldier-boys, 
because none of them had gone into the service except those who meant 
business, and were trying to save the Union.

   But about this time there were a good many who were going west, through 
the country, toward the latter part of November, in trains of mule wagons. 
They were going rapidly, and always got escorts when needed. The report 
was that Price's invasion of Missouri having turned out disastrously, a 
great number of secesh citizens, seeing that they could not be rescued 
from the Union, and a great many deserters from Price's army, feeling that 
their secesh war was about over, had started for the mountains. The final 
repulse of Price from Missouri had reawakened very strong Union sentiments 
there, and the Union men were in favor of cleaning out all those remaining 
citizens who were disloyal. Hence it was that there appeared during the 
latter part of November, and through December, a perfect hegira of 
emigrants and mule teams, mostly from Missouri. Many of these trains came 
through loaded with nothing but corn; many were loaded with nothing but 
nails. They were loaded lightly, and went as fast as the animals could be 
driven.

   In the crisp November air, everybody at the post seemed to improve. The 
duty was quite heavy. There was much to do in taking care of the horses, 
watering and feeding and exercising them; there was continual work upon 
the barracks, and sod walls and fortifications, if they could be called 
fortifications.

   Our family of dogs by gift had been increased until we had five of the 
finest greyhounds that were ever found in any place. They were named 
Fannie, Fly, Nellie, Kearney, and Lady. Lady was jet black, and the best 
of all. Nellie was a large white one, and was next best. With these dogs 
and Bugler no antelope or wolf could get away unless it had the start by a 
very long distance. Quite often we would take the men, by turns in squads, 
out into the hills, and show them a chase, and the men enjoyed it very 
much. Thereafter some of the men got some strychnine from some of the 
ranchmen, and proceeded to poison wolves by baiting the wolves with 
poisoned beef-livers. About fifty wolves were poisoned, and all of the men 
of our company thus obtained heavy fur collars and fur mittens. But one 
day on a chase our best dog, Lady, happened to strike some poisoned meat, 
and was killed by it. After that the poisoning of wolves was discontinued.

   We killed our own beef at the Post, and the cattle were selected from 
time to time from a herd that was kept in a corral down near the river. 
The method of measuring meat was different out in the Western country from 
what it was down South in the army. I never heard of the method pursued 
until we were at Cottonwood Springs. Army beef was to be heavy beef so far 
as it could be obtained, and was to be well cleaned and trimmed, and to 
contain as much net meat as possible. The way they measured was this: They 
put a line around the beef, back of the fore legs, and allowed a hundred 
pounds for every foot of circumference. That is to say, if an animal were 
eight feet around he would net, for army ration purposes, eight hundred 
pounds, although the animal might be live weight twice as heavy. If he 
measured seven and one-half feet around, it was called seven hundred and 
fifty pounds. The Quartermaster used to say that as cattle ran, the above 
method was exact enough. As to hay, the measurement was, after the prairie 
hay had been stacked ninety days, --seven feet cube represented a ton, the 
whole stack being taken into consideration. So our meat and hay were 
bought and figured by the above rules.

   We never had any fresh vegetables at Julesburg; they could not be got 
to us. But there were issued to us what were called "desiccated 
vegetables." In the true pronunciation of the word the second syllable is 
long, but it was called by the boys as if it were dessy-kated, with accent 
on the third syllable. It was made of onions, cabbages, beets, turnips, 
carrots and peppers, steamed, pressed and dried. They were almost in the 
form of leaves pressed together. They were pressed, after they were dry, 
into cakes twelve inches square, and an inch thick. They were pressed so 
hard that they weighed about as much as wood, and came sealed up in tin 
cans about a foot square. They were intended to be put into the soups, and 
were largely used by us for that purpose. They were very nutritious, and 
it was convenient, when we went on scouts, for the boys to break off a 
piece and put it in a saddle-pocket. The boys would nibble at it as they 
were riding along; it was a kind of leguminous bread, and they ate about 
as much of it dry as they did by putting it into soups. But we had been so 
long without vegetables that indications of scurvy began to make 
themselves noticeable. Along in November, the first thing we knew one of 
our men was suddenly taken ill; black spots formed over him, which very 
much worried Dr. Wisely, and the soldier was immediately sent east on one 
of the trains to Fort Kearney. Other of the boys complained of the 
symptoms.

   One day Dr. Wisely came to me, and told me that he had made a discovery 
that he thought of great value. He asked me to send out and have about a 
bushel of the "hands" of the prickly-pear gathered from the plains, and 
brought in. I ordered the quartermaster sergeant to attend to it, which he 
did. And Dr. Wisely, taking these prickly-pear hands, the common, coarse, 
ordinary opuntia, scraped the bristles and prickles off from it, cut it up 
and boiled it with sugar, and made a variety of apple-sauce which was 
quite new, and not altogether undesirable. Those men who were afflicted 
with symptoms were immediately cured, and the Doctor continued to use the 
remedy all of the winter, and as long as we stayed at the post. I have 
never heard of such a food, before or since, but think from the 
experiments of Dr. Wisely it must have much of merit in it.

   All of this time we kept busy laying sod. There was always improvement 
to be planned, and more things to be built. There had been some little 
cold snaps, and some little snow, but as yet there had been no such 
weather as to freeze up the sod, and prevent us from plowing it.

   On November 25, 1864, being in command of the post, I ordered the First 
Sergeant, Milo Lacey, to take the wagon-master, Donley, and all of the 
teams that he could get, and go over to Ash Hollow for another supply of 
wood. The trail was well laid out now to Ash Hollow and all the 
noncommissioned officers knew where to go, and how to handle the business.

   We had no Indian scare for some time. It was reported that the 
Cheyennes had sent a delegation to Denver asking that a definite treaty of 
peace be made between the Cheyennes and the people of Denver, and that the 
Indians be permitted to come in near Denver below the town where there was 
plenty of wood, and go into winter quarters. As these Cheyennes had been 
ravaging Colorado and Kansas, killing men and murdering women and 
children, and driving in all the frontier settlements, and as the Colorado 
people were very much wrought up about it, a conference is reported to 
have been had in Denver, and to have given back word that the Cheyenne 
chiefs could not control their men, or would not if they could; that now 
the summer was over, and the raiding season past, they could not entertain 
the Cheyennes in that sort of way. They further said that they believed 
they would not make peace with the Cheyennes until they had given them a 
good whipping. And it was reported that the Indian delegation retired from 
Denver in very sullen anger.

   The wood train, after four days, did not turn up on the evening of the 
28th as was expected. It did not turn up on the 29th. There was not a 
sliver of wood at the post, nor was there anywhere anything that would 
burn except the hay, and that could not be burned to any advantage. We had 
received a lot of sheet-iron from Fort Kearney, out of which our company 
blacksmith had made several stoves and some pipe. The stovepipes ran up 
through the roof. These stoves were economical heaters, and we burned 
splinters and bull-chips in them. On the 30th we burned some wisps of hay 
in the forenoon; we were getting cold, and I concluded to go out and see 
if I could get word of the train. One of the boys said that he had seen a 
smoke signal go up from the Lodgepole Lookout, which I have heretofore 
described as on the northeast comer of the junction of Lodgepole and the 
Platte.

   Going over onto the plateau, I saw the train coming, quite near. They 
had seen Indian signals from time to time, and had felt constrained to 
march closely and well packed, but no attack had been made upon them. We 
were delighted to receive the wood train and get warm again.

   While the wood train was over at Ash Hollow, a very ridiculous 
circumstance occurred. An Englishman, who claimed to be of some degree of 
nobility, turned up at the post with two four-mule wagons, a camping 
outfit, some dogs and servants, and said that he had come to the Western 
country to kill game. He wanted to get bear, buffalo, black-tail deer, and 
everything else which ran on four legs. He was a man of about thirty-five 
to forty years. He considered himself the smartest man that ever crossed 
the plains. He was always talking about English manners, and English 
etiquette. He was a scamp with a lot of money.

   He came up, as he said, to pay his respects to the post commander. I 
soon saw that he was a rich, unprincipled scalawag. His egotism was 
enormous. He was talking about himself and his family most of the time; 
his idea of good morals was confined to the impression that a man should 
not eat with a knife. That seemed to be the sum total of his views of 
morality and good form. He was vulgar, indecent, loud, and a general 
nuisance in every respect; but he didn't eat with his knife.

   He spoke of his traveling in America, and how he had been entertained 
by some of the best families of the land, and he had actually seen people 
eat with the knife. There was nothing else coarse enough or vulgar enough 
to attract his attention. I got tired of him in a short time, and launched 
him back onto the prairie with my kind regards, and he went to his wagons 
down at the station. Among his dogs was a very nice thoroughbred 
greyhound. The frontiersmen, who were all smart enough for anybody, and 
could read the new-comers like books, immediately began to make this 
Englishman their prey.

   In the first place they got some green coffee, boiled it until it was 
tender, then soaked it in strychnine. The Englishman wanted to bet on 
everything, and was so all-wise that nobody could offer a bet that he did 
not take, either one side or the other of it. Some of the pioneers got 
into a conversation with this Englishman, and asked him if he had ever 
traveled in Java. Of course, the Englishman had traveled in Java, and knew 
all about it, and then one of these pioneers suggested that he had heard 
that green coffee was one of the most fatal poisons to swallow; that while 
it would not hurt a cat or a horse or a human being, that five grains 
swallowed by a dog were fatal. The Englishman sneered at the idea. Then 
one of the bystanders said that he had heard the same thing, and would bet 
a hundred dollars that it was true, because his old friend A. B. C. had 
told him so. The Englishman immediately took up the bet, and thereupon 
they slid down the dog's throat the five grains of green coffee, well 
prepared, and in a short time this beautiful dog was in articulo mortis, 
and the Englishman had lost his $100 and his dog.

   At the ranch there was a man who sold, among other things, beans, the 
common navy beans, out of a sack, having a sack holding about a bushel, 
dipping them out with a quart cup. One of these fellows took a quart of 
the beans somewhere to the rear, and spent a sufficient time to count how 
many beans there were in the quart, and then he came around to where the 
Englishman and the beans were. One of the pioneers made a bet with another 
pioneer in regard to how many beans there were in a quart. After they had 
guessed wildly and at random, from three thousand to twenty-four thousand, 
the Englishman got into the game, and they took him for another $100.

   It would have been all right, and would have ended here if the joke had 
not been too good, and some one told the Englishman of the tricks that had 
been played upon him. He came to our post to have the "bloody scoundrels" 
arrested for robbery.

   The whole story was told by the Englishman, and vouched for by one of 
his servants, and the confession of one of the parties was related. There 
were at our post headquarters, and standing out alongside of the door, 
about forty men, as tickled a lot as I ever saw; soldiers and all seemed 
to enjoy it immensely. After I had heard the evidence I asked the 
Englishman why he made the bet. He said he supposed it was an honest bet. 
I then asked him if he had won, what he would have done with the money. He 
said he would have put it in his pocket. I then told him that out in the 
Western country people got their experience in the manner that he had got 
his. That people paid for it, and therefore came by it honestly; and that 
I considered the matter as only a little question of propriety between man 
and man, except as to the killing of the dog. The man was in the room who 
had given the dog the strychnine coffee. I told the Englishman that he had 
lost his money, and deserved to lose it, and I would not order it paid 
back to him. But that any man who would kill a good dog ought to be 
imprisoned. I told the Englishman he had no right to risk the life of his 
dog by betting on it. I ordered the sergeant to take the poisoner to the 
guard-house and lock him up; I ordered the proceedings adjourned, and told 
all the civilians to get off the reservation. They all went off, enjoying 
the discomfiture of the Englishman very much.

   As to my prisoner, I ordered him to be kept until he paid a fine of 
$200 into the post fund. I also had him put at work currying horses. This 
post fund was for the purpose of general post benefits, extra things for 
the sick boys, and such matters as were needed, and which the Government 
did not issue. The post fund was really the company fund of our company. 
The man was kept working in the stables about two weeks. He finally proved 
to me that he was a worthless scamp, without any resources, and couldn't 
pay anything. Afterwards there was a train going down the road; I let him 
go and told him not to appear on the Platte again, and I never saw him 
afterwards.

   The arrival of Lacey and Donley from Ash Hollow with the wood put us 
all in good spirits, and we entered the month of December with but little 
apprehension for the future.

   Upon the first of December Captain O'Brien returned from Cottonwood 
Springs, and assumed command of the post. Our First Lieutenant, Brewer, 
was made Quartermaster of the post, and that left me the only officer to 
command the company, and on December first I took personal command of the 
company.