for our famished animals, we arrived at Scott's Bluffs on the
afternoon of the 25th. This is a bold escarpment of sand and clay,
about a half a mile in length and near a thousand feet in height,
extending southward from the river and rising like a gigantic barrier
to obstruct our way. It was for a long time visible, and at a distance
seemed impossible to be surmounted. The road forks before we reach the
bluffs, one trail passing around its southern end and re-joining the
main road at some distance beyond it, the other passing directly over
its summit. The latter is the worse road of the two, but it being the
shorter, we chose it. We were detained some time at the foot of the
bluff by the breaking of one of our wagons, but we at last got under
way, and commenced our toilsome journey over it. The ascent was easy
and gradual, until we came to a deep gorge, which intersected our road
at the foot of the main bluff. Crossing this at the imminent risk of
being run over by the teams as they plunged headlong to the bottom, we
came to a series of steep hills and narrow, deep and sandy defiles,
through which there was barely room for a wagon to pass. So squarely
hewn were some of these passes, that one could hardly believe that art
had not a hand in their formation. After a vast deal of exertion we at
last reached the summit, when we commenced the still more dangerous
descent. Tumbling pell-mell down narrow passages, slowly crawling over
abrupt ascents, we at length reached the bottom, and in two miles
struck the river and encamped, but not till long after dark.
In 1857, the year of the Utah War, there was quite a crop of Scotts
Bluff enthusiasts. Cornelius Conway, a freighter with the Utah
Expedition, went into raptures over the scenery. He refers to Mitchell
Pass as "Devil's Gap," because of its tortuous passage. Capt. Jesse A.
Gove tells of passing through "the celebrated Scott's Bluff, a cut of
some 7 miles from the old road." Being rear guard, he had time to
"sketch the notch." In 1857, according to Capt. Randolph Marcy's
guidebook, _The Prairie Traveller_, from the pass "the road descends the
mountain, at the foot of which is the Platte and a mail station."
[Illustration: _Freighters at Independence Rock._ Original sketch in
Oregon Trail Museum.]
William A. Carter, civilian trader bound for Fort Bridger with a U. S.
Army contingent, noted the "gigantic mass" of Scotts Bluff, which split
the trail. The old road to the left was taken by the troops, but Carter
himself was advised
... to take the straight forward road leading through the chain of
Bluffs and descending by a nearer rout to the Platt again. This, we
afterwards regretted as we got through the pass with great
difficulty--we found a large freight [wagon] stopped in the pass, the
mud being very deep. The axle of one wagon was broken and a dying ox
lying crippled in the road--The bellowing of the Ox which reverberated
along the bluff--and the croaking of the thousands of Ravens that were
hovering over, had a gloomy and ominous sound. This pass is truly a
wonder. The bluffs here form a semi circle and on each side rise up
into huge towers which make the head dizzy to look up at. The passage
through is level, but has been cut into deep ravines by the torrents
which run down the sides of the Bluffs.
The mystic spell that Scotts Bluff seemed to weave about early travelers
continued unbroken during the following decade. Perhaps the high point
in romantic imagination was reached in 1860 by the English adventurer,
Richard Burton:
... In the dull uniformity of the prairies, it is a striking and
attractive object, far excelling the castled crag of Drachenfels or
any of the beauties of romantic Rhine.... As you approach within four
or five miles, a massive medieval city gradually defines itself,
clustering, with a wonderful fullness of detail, round a colossal
fortress, and crowned with a royal castle.... At a nearer aspect
again, the quaint illusion vanishes. The lines of masonry become
yellow layers of boulder and pebble imbedded in a mass of stiff,
tamped, bald, marly clay; the curtains and angles change to the
gashings of the rain of ages, and the warriors are metamorphosed into
dwarf cedars and dense shrubs, scattered singly over the surface....
[Illustration: _William H. Jackson painting of bull train in
Mitchell Pass based on original sketch of 1866._]
The Sioux uprising of the 1860's kept pleasure travel to a minimum, but
even U. S. soldiers, intent on hammering the redskins, gave pause to
express wonder at "the Gibraltar of the Plains." For the first time we
have evidence of travelers clambering up the sloping side to the summit
of the bluff, to survey the countryside. In 1862 Burlingame described
the view as "a scene seldom vouchsafed to mortals." The following year
A. B. Ostrander, a drummer boy with the volunteer infantry, laboriously
scaled the cliffs, then scrambled hastily down again to catch up with
his regiment when he thought he saw Indians.
Also in 1863 Benjamin M. Connor made note of the wind wailing dismally
through the gap, which he erroneously called "Marshall's Pass, for a
captain of my company." Guide Jim Bridger, who had been one of the first
white men to see Scotts Bluff, back in the 1820's, told Connor that the
bluff "was named for a man who saved his life from pursuing Indians by
taking refuge in the cliffs." Bridger, who had been an associate of
Hiram Scott, must have known better.
[Illustration: "_Yoking Up._" From original sketch by William H.
Jackson.]
_Scotts Bluff--The Artistic Record_
The last noteworthy Oregon Trail journalist was a young "bullwhacker" of
1866 named William H. Jackson, who was destined to become the "living
link" between Scotts Bluff National Monument and its historic past. When
he came to Mitchell Pass he found the going tough. He reports that "we
had one of the steepest and worst gulches to drive through that we have
yet had." His outfit camped just west of the pass. Finding no spring in
the vicinity, someone had to go 3 miles to the river for water. Young
Jackson, a man of notable artistic talent, stopped to sketch the pass.
Today, nearly a century later, his original sketch of Mitchell Pass,
together with dozens of his other original Oregon Trail sketches and
paintings, hang in the William H. Jackson Room of the Oregon Trail
Museum.
William H. Jackson achieved fame as the "Pioneer Photographer" of the
Rocky Mountain West, being the first to make a photographic record of
Yellowstone geysers, the Teton Mountains, and many other scenic wonders
now preserved in National Parks. In 1936, at the age of 93, he accepted
an invitation to make the dedication speech for the history wing of the
new museum-administration building. In 1938 on a visit here he staked
out his 1866 campsite, which is now identified by a trailside marker.
After his death in 1943 the American Pioneer Trails Association donated
many of Jackson's original sketches and later watercolors to the
National Park Service, while Julius F. Stone donated $10,000 as the
nucleus of a fund to build a Jackson Memorial Room. The building fund
was supplemented by public contributions and the completed wing was
dedicated in 1949.
The A. J. Miller sketch of 1837 and the Jackson sketch of 1866, the
earliest and the latest known pictures of Scotts Bluff made during
Oregon Trail days, are the best known today. The Piercy sketch of 1853,
above noted, has been rather widely reprinted. Other authentic
contemporary drawings are found only in obscure or rare out-of-print
guidebooks or journals. Noteworthy among these are those of David Leeper
in 1849, Benjamin Ferris in 1854, Cornelius Conway in 1857, T. S.
Kenderdine in 1858, Richard Burton in 1860, and Alfred Lambourne, date
uncertain.
_Pony Express to Iron Horse, 1860-69_
The California gold rush had not yet abated when strikes of precious
metals were made in Nevada and Colorado (1858-59), later in Montana and
Idaho (1864). The result was a ramification of the old Oregon-California
Trail, with major branches up the South Platte to Denver, and from Fort
Laramie northward along the Bighorn Mountains to Virginia City, Mont.
(the Bozeman Trail). The new mining communities added their demands to
those of Utah and California for improved communication with the States.
In the fifties and sixties Scotts Bluff witnessed dramatic changes.
The first mail service up the Platte route was inaugurated by the
Mormons; after the army occupied Fort Laramie, military dispatches were
carried on regular schedules to Eastern command posts. Public mail
service to California began in 1851. By 1860 the Central Overland and
Pike's Peak Express Company held a monopoly on mail contracts between
the Missouri and the Pacific.
No frontier institution better dramatizes the spirit of American
enterprise than the famed Pony Express, fast biweekly mail service. From
April 1860 to October 1861 youthful riders on fleet mustangs pounded
between St. Joseph, Mo., and Hangtown (Placerville), Calif., braving the
elements and Indian dangers. William Russell of the freighting firm was
the promoter of the Pony Express. Although financially disastrous, it
demonstrated the need for Government mail subsidies.
[Illustration: _View southeast from summit of Scotts Bluff to Dome
Rock. Gering Valley (Robidoux Pass Route) in background._]
[Illustration: _Scotts Bluff from the Mormon Trail._ Courtesy,
Downey's Midwest Studio, Scottsbluff, Nebr.]
[Illustration: _Changing mounts at Pony Express Station._ Original
sketch in Oregon Trail Museum.]
Pony Express stations were about 15 miles apart and each rider made up
to 100 miles at a time, changing to fresh ponies at each station.
Stations in the Scotts Bluff vicinity were at Chimney Rock, near present
Melbeta (the Scotts Bluff Station at Ficklin Spring, named for a company
official), and at Horse Creek. The Scotts Bluff Station, made of massive
adobe walls, later became the Mark Coad Ranch. The thrill of watching a
Pony Express rider gallop past is vividly described in _Roughing It_ by
Mark Twain, who was a stagecoach passenger bound for Nevada. The
incident took place just east of the pass at Scotts Bluff.
We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a
pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met
us managed to streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and
a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could
get our heads out of the windows. But now we were expecting one along
every moment, and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the
driver exclaims:
"HERE HE COMES!"
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away
across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears
against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think
so! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and
falling, rising and falling--sweeping toward us nearer and
nearer--growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply
defined--nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes
faintly to the ear--another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our
upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and
horse burst past our excited faces, and go swinging away like a
belated fragment of a storm!
The first transcontinental telegraph line, up the Platte route through
Mitchell Pass, ended the meteoric Pony Express. In 1860 Edward Creighton
of the Pacific Telegraph Company had reconnoitered the Oregon Trail via
Mitchell Pass. The active construction of the line took but a few
months, in 1861, and in October telegrams were going to California.
Service in the early days was hampered by Indians, suspicious of the
"singing wires," who frequently burned down the poles. There was an
early telegraph station at Fort Mitchell, at the foot of Scotts Bluff.
In 1861, Russell, Majors, and Waddell subcontracted with the Butterfield
Overland Mail Company to operate overland stage and mail service over
the Central Route (moved up from the Southwest because of the imminent
Civil War). There was daily coach service to California via Scotts Bluff
until 1862, when Indian troubles required the new operator, Benjamin
Holladay, to transfer the route southward, via Lodgepole Creek and Elk
Mountain. The days of the famed Concord stage in the Scotts Bluff area
were short lived.
[Illustration: _Pony Express rider and the advancing telegraph._
Original sketch in Oregon Trail Museum.]
As the telegraph made the Pony Express obsolete, so the railroad spelled
the doom of the stagecoach and the prairie schooner. The easy gradient
over the Continental Divide at South Pass was the geographic reason for
the centrally located Oregon Trail. However, political rather than
geographic reasons dictated the central location of the first
transcontinental railroad. During the 1850's there were many "Pacific
Railroad Surveys" which did much to fill in the blank pages of Western
topography, but none of these touched the North Platte. At the outbreak
of the Civil War, President Lincoln decided that a central overland
railroad would strengthen the ties of the Union. It was in August 1865,
however, before the seasoned engineer and Indian fighter, Gen. Grenville
M. Dodge, made his reconnaissance for the future Union Pacific Railroad.
Although the route finally selected followed Lodgepole Creek to Cheyenne
Pass, the general did examine the North Platte, pausing to sketch
Mitchell Pass on August 27. The "iron horse" reached Cheyenne in 1867,
and joined the Central Pacific with due ceremony at Promontory Point,
Utah, May 10, 1869. This date can be accepted as marking the end of the
historic Oregon-California Trail.
_Warfare on the Plains_
In the early 1860's the mounted eagle-plumed warriors of the plains,
including the Sioux and Cheyenne, went on the warpath. Scotts Bluff
looked down upon many exciting scenes of conflict.
During the days of the trapper and the emigrant, the Indian had been
generally peaceful, despite occasional pilferings and "greenhorn"
alarms. Indeed, many white traders, such as Robidoux, had freely
intermarried with the Indians. The migration of 1849, giving evidence of
the white man's strength, coupled with his wanton slaughter of the
life-giving buffalo, caused some uneasiness among the tribes. In October
1850, Col. E. V. Sumner with a company of mounted infantry en route to
Fort Laramie met and counseled with one band of Sioux at Scotts Bluff.
They, like their red brethren throughout the plains, were full of
complaints. To quiet them, old mountain man Thomas Fitzpatrick, Indian
agent for the Upper Platte, engineered the greatest Indian peace council
ever held on the Plains. This was at Horse Creek, a few miles west of
Scotts Bluff.
In September 1851 around 10,000 Indians from the tribes of the Sioux,
Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Snake, Ree, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboin
assembled at Fort Laramie. The U. S. Government was represented by
Fitzpatrick; the famed missionary, Father De Smet; Robert Campbell (one
of the founders of Fort Laramie); and D. D. Mitchell, superintendent of
Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Jim Bridger and other oldtimers showed up
to help keep peace among traditional enemies. Because there was not
grass enough for the horses of this vast assemblage, the council moved
downriver. It was an historic occasion with much colorful pageantry. The
negotiations went smoothly, and by "the First Treaty of Fort Laramie"
the Indians promised to permit peaceful passage of travelers through
their domain in exchange for an annuity of $50,000 in provisions and
trade goods.
This peace treaty, like so many others, was soon broken. In August 1854
a misunderstanding between an Oglala Sioux and a Mormon emigrant,
compounded by the inexperience of Lt. John L. Grattan from Fort Laramie,
led to the massacre of Grattan, 30 soldiers, and his interpreter 8 miles
east of Fort Laramie. This was "avenged" in September 1855 by the
slaughter of innocent Brule Indians by an expeditionary force under Gen.
William S. Harney, near Ash Hollow. En route to Fort Laramie, the
cavalrymen trooped through Mitchell Pass with over 200 fresh Indian
scalps in their baggage.
[Illustration: _"The Gorge, Scott's Bluff." sketched by Dodge in
1865._ From Perkins' Trails, Rails and War.]
In 1862 there was a bloody uprising of the Minnesota Sioux. Hostilities
spread to the Plains, with grave danger to lines of communication and
army outposts with garrisons depleted by the Civil War. During this
period, Fort Laramie was a headquarters post, occupied during the
crucial years principally by the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, under Col.
William O. Collins. There was a chain of outposts up and down the North
Platte, from Mud Springs near present Bridgeport to South Pass, Wyo.
These were frequently harassed by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. One of
these beleaguered outposts was adobe-walled Fort Mitchell, about 2 miles
northwest of Mitchell Pass.
Initially called "Camp Shuman" for its builder and first commander,
Capt. J. S. Shuman, it was constructed in 1864, according to official
records, and was last heard of in 1867. The little fort (and later
nearby "Scott's Bluffs Pass") was named for Brig. Gen. Robert B Mitchell
(1823-82), commander of the Nebraska Military District, a citizen of
Kansas Territory who earlier fought gallantly in the Civil War and later
became Governor of New Mexico Territory. Fort Mitchell saw its share of
frontier action. Colonel Collins' report of 1865 to the regimental
adjutant advises:
Co H has been Stationed at Fort Mitchell 55 Miles East of Laramie on
the Platte River. The company participated in the celebrated Indian
fights at Mud Springs and Rush Creek where 150 Men under Command of Lt
Col Wm O Collins fought from fifteen hundred to two thousand of the
dusky warriors, since that time this Company has carried the Mail from
Julesberg to Laramie. This has been heavy and laborious duty, yet they
have never flinched but have had the Mail through in good time.
Besides this company has built one Mail Station, near the noted Land
Mark Chimney Rock, besides repairing the one at Mud Springs.
[Illustration: _Cavalrymen leaving Fort Mitchell._ Original sketch
in Oregon Trail Museum.]
[Illustration: _William H. Jackson sketch of Fort Mitchell at Scotts
Bluff._]
The Battle of Mud Springs in February 1865 was an aftermath of the siege
of Julesburg by a horde of Sioux and Cheyenne who were enraged by a
massacre of Cheyennes at Sand Creek, Colo. In zero weather the small
garrison at Fort Mitchell joined Colonel Collins' forces in an attempt
to intercept the north-bound Indians. After skirmishing and light
casualties, the Indians withdrew across the North Platte.
A second engagement near Scotts Bluff was known as the Battle of Horse
Creek. In June 1865, Capt. William D. Fouts led a company of the 7th
Iowa Cavalry who were escorting 185 lodges of supposedly peaceful Brule
Sioux from Fort Laramie to Fort Kearny. Between Horse Creek and Fort
Mitchell the Indians treacherously attacked, killing Captain Fouts and
three soldiers. The Fort Mitchell garrison rode out to aid the Iowans,
but again the Sioux retreated across the Platte. Colonel Moonlight at
Fort Laramie, advised by telegram from Camp Mitchell, futilely pursued
the Indians with a cavalry force.
Other skirmishes, including besieged wagon corrals, ambushes in Mitchell
Pass, and troops from Fort Mitchell galloping to the rescue, are
reported in the literature, though with scanty evidence.
Fort Mitchell was occupied at various times by units of the 11th Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry, the 12th Missouri Volunteers, and the 18th U. S.
Infantry. The last identifiable commander was Capt. Robert P. Hughes, of
the latter regiment. He was detached there in 1866 by Col. Henry B.
Carrington who, with 2,000 troops and 226 mule teams, was en route to
construct posts along the Bozeman Trail in the Powder River country.
Among the few brief eyewitness descriptions which survive is this
impression of Colonel Carrington's wife:
... [Scott's Bluffs are] of mixed clay and sand, plentifully supplied
with fossils, and throw a spur across the Platte basin so as to compel
the traveler to leave the river and make a long detour to the south,
or to pass through the bluffs themselves. This passage is by a
tortuous gorge where wagons can seldom pass each other; and at times
the drifting snows or sands almost obscure the high walls and
battlements that rise several hundred feet on either side....
Almost immediately after leaving the Bluffs, and at the foot of the
descent, after the gorge is passed, we find Fort Mitchell. This is a
sub-post of Laramie of peculiar style and compactness. The walls of
the quarters are also the outlines of the fort itself, and the four
sides of the rectangle are respectively the quarters of officers,
soldiers, and horses, and the warehouse of supplies. Windows open into
the little court or parade-ground; and bedrooms as well as all other
apartments, are loopholed for defense.
All trace of Fort Mitchell has disappeared but a ground plan of the
enclosure is preserved in the Collins Collection of the Colorado
Agricultural College. Three authentic contemporary sketches of Fort
Mitchell have been discovered; one of 1865 by an unidentified soldier of
the 11th Ohio reproduced in _The Bozeman Trail_; one by an unidentified
artist with the Hayden Territorial Survey of 1867, published in _U. S.
Geological Survey of Wyoming_, in 1871; and the one by William H.
Jackson, preserved in the Oregon Trail Museum.
Hostilities on the Plains came to a climax when Colonel Carrington built
Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith on the Bozeman Trail.
This trail extended from Fort Laramie northwestward to Virginia City,
Mont., scene of a new gold rush. Capt. William J. Fetterman and 80 men
were slain in an ambush in December 1866 at Fort Phil Kearny (near
present Buffalo, Wyo.). In 1867 Red Cloud's warriors were repulsed at
the Wagon Box and Hayfield Fights; but the Government decreed that this
trail to the Montana mines must be abandoned. By the second treaty of
Fort Laramie, in 1868, the Sioux were granted an extensive hunting
domain between the North Platte and Missouri Rivers.
The treaty of 1868 marked the end of major Indian hostilities in the
North Platte Valley. In 1870 Red Cloud was induced to visit the Great
White Father (President Grant) in Washington; he was also taken to New
York City, where he gave an impressive oration in his native tongue to
the assembled palefaces. Red Cloud wanted an agency and trading post set
up near Fort Laramie, long the traditional camp of the Oglala Sioux. The
Government wanted to set up the agency far north of the Platte, on the
White River. To humor the Indians, still in a resentful mood, the first
Red Cloud Agency was established on the north bank of the Platte, half
way between Fort Laramie and Scotts Bluff, at present Henry, Nebr., on
the Wyoming boundary. This became the temporary home of more than 6,000
Dakota Sioux (mainly Oglala and Brule), 1,500 Cheyenne, and 1,300
Arapaho.
[Illustration: _Chief Red Cloud._ Original sketch in Oregon Trail
Museum.]
Under the prevailing peace policy the Episcopal Church took over the
Sioux Agency. Their first agent was J. W. Wham. Unable to control Red
Cloud and his excitable warriors, Wham was soon replaced by another
churchman, J. W. Daniels. It was not easy for the victors of the Bozeman
Trail war to mend their ways. The Sioux ambushed Pawnee buffalo-hunters
in 1873 at Massacre Canyon on the Republican River; others joined
hostiles on the Powder River in an attack on the Crow Indians and on the
Northern Pacific survey parties on the Lower Yellowstone River. In 1873,
Daniels finally managed to persuade these "peaceful" Indians to move the
agency to White River, where Fort Robinson was established the next
year.