SUFFERINGS OF THE "FORLORN HOPE"--RESORT TO HUMAN FLESH--"CAMP OF
DEATH"--BOOTS CRISPED AND EATEN--DEER KILLED--INDIAN _Rancheria_--THE
"WHITE MAN'S HOME" AT LAST.
Although we were so meagrely informed, it is well that my readers
should, at this point, become familiar with the experiences of the
expedition known as the Forlorn Hope,[6] and also the various measures
taken for our relief when our precarious condition was made known to
the good people of California. It will be remembered that the Forlorn
Hope was the party of fifteen which, as John Baptiste reported to us,
made the last unaided attempt to cross the mountains.
Words cannot picture, nor mind conceive, more torturing hardships and
privations than were endured by that little band on its way to the
settlement. It left the camp on the sixteenth of December, with scant
rations for six days, hoping in that time to force its way to Bear
Valley and there find game. But the storms which had been so pitiless
at the mountain camps followed the unprotected refugees with seemingly
fiendish fury. After the first day from camp, its members could no
longer keep together on their marches. The stronger broke the trail,
and the rest followed to night-camp as best they could.
On the third day, Stanton's sight failed, and he begged piteously to be
led; but, soon realizing the heart-rending plight of his companions, he
uncomplainingly submitted to his fate. Three successive nights, he
staggered into camp long after the others had finished their stinted
meal. Always he was shivering from cold, sometimes wet with sleet and
rain.
It is recorded that at no time had the party allowed more than an ounce
of food per meal to the individual, yet the rations gave out on the
night of the twenty-second, while they were still in a wilderness of
snow-peaks. Mr. Eddy only was better provided. In looking over his pack
that morning for the purpose of throwing away any useless article, he
unexpectedly found a small bag containing about a half-pound of dried
bear-meat.[7] Fastened to the meat was a pencilled note from his wife,
begging him to save the hidden treasure until his hour of direst need,
since it might then be the means of saving his life. The note was
signed, "Your own dear Elinor." With tenderest emotion, he slipped the
food back, resolving to do the dear one's bidding, trusting that she
and their children might live until he should return for them.
[Illustration: BEAR VALLEY, FROM EMIGRANT GAP]
[Illustration: THE TRACKLESS MOUNTAINS]
The following morning, while the others were preparing to leave camp,
Stanton sat beside the smouldering fire smoking his pipe. When ready to
go forth, they asked him if he was coming, and he replied, "Yes, I am
coming soon." Those were his parting words to his friends, and his
greeting to the Angel of Death.[8] He never left that fireside, and his
companions were too feeble to return for him when they found he did not
come into camp.
Twenty-four hours later, the members of that hapless little band threw
themselves upon the desolate waste of snow to ponder the problems of
life and death; to search each the other's face for answer to the
question their lips durst not frame. Fathers who had left their
families, and mothers who had left their babes, wanted to go back and
die with them, if die they must; but Mr. Eddy and the Indians--those
who had crossed the range with Stanton--declared that they would push
on to the settlement. Then Mary Graves, in whose young heart were still
whisperings of hope, courageously said:
"I, too, will go on, for to go back and hear the cries of hunger from
my little brothers and sisters is more than I can stand. I shall go as
far as I can, let the consequences be what they may."
W.F. Graves, her father, would not let his daughter proceed alone, and
finally all decided to make a final, supreme effort. Yet--think of
it--they were without one morsel of food! Even the wind seemed to
hold its breath as the suggestion was made that, "were one to die, the
rest might live." Then the suggestion was made that lots be cast, and
whoever drew the longest slip should be the sacrifice. Mr. Eddy
endorsed the plan. Despite opposition from Mr. Foster and others, the
slips of paper were prepared, and great-hearted Patrick Dolan drew the
fatal slip. Patrick Dolan, who had come away from camp that his
famishing friends might prolong their lives by means of the small stock
of food which he had to leave! Harm a hair of that good man's head? Not
a soul of that starving band would do it.
Mr. Eddy then proposed that they resume their journey as best they
could until death should claim a victim. All acquiesced. Slowly rising
to their feet, they managed to stagger and to crawl forward about three
miles to a tree which furnished fuel for their Christmas fire. It was
kindled with great difficulty, for in cutting the boughs, the hatchet
blade flew off the handle and for a time was lost in deep snow.
Meanwhile, every puff of wind was laden with killing frost, and in
sight of that glowing fire, Antonio froze to death. Mr. Graves, who was
also breathing heavily, when told by Mr. Eddy that he was dying,
replied that he did not care. He, however, called his daughters, Mrs.
Fosdick and Mary Graves, to him, and by his parting injunctions, showed
that he was still able to realize keenly the dangers that beset them.
Remembering how their faces had paled at the suggestion of using human
flesh for food, he admonished them to put aside the natural repugnance
which stood between them and the possibility of life. He commanded them
to banish sentiment and instinctive loathing, and think only of their
starving mother, brothers, and sisters whom they had left in camp, and
avail themselves of every means in their power to rescue them. He
begged that his body be used to sustain the famishing, and bidding each
farewell, his spirit left its bruised and worn tenement before half the
troubles of the night were passed.
About ten o'clock, pelting hail, followed by snow on the wings of a
tornado, swept every spark of fire from those shivering mortals, whose
voices now mingled with the shrieking wind, calling to heaven for
relief. Mr. Eddy, knowing that all would freeze to death in the
darkness if allowed to remain exposed, succeeded after many efforts in
getting them close together between their blankets where the snow
covered them.
With the early morning, Patrick Dolan became delirious and left camp.
He was brought back with difficulty and forcibly kept under cover until
late in the day, when he sank into a stupor, whence he passed quietly
into that sleep which knows no waking.
The crucial hour had come. Food lay before the starving, yet every eye
turned from it and every hand dropped irresolute.
Another night of agony passed, during which Lemuel Murphy became
delirious and called long and loud for food; but the cold was so
intense that it kept all under their blankets until four o'clock in the
afternoon, when Mr. Eddy succeeded in getting a fire in the trunk of a
large pine tree. Whereupon, his companions, instead of seeking food,
crept forth and broke off low branches, put them down before the fire
and laid their attenuated forms upon them. The flames leaped up the
trunk, and burned off dead boughs so that they dropped on the snow
about them, but the unfortunates were too weak and too indifferent to
fear the burning brands.
Mr. Eddy now fed his waning strength on shreds of his concealed bear-meat,
hoping that he might survive to save the giver. The rest in camp
could scarcely walk, by the twenty-eighth, and their sensations of
hunger were deminishing. This condition forebode delirium and death,
unless stayed by the only means at hand. It was in very truth a pitiful
alternative offered to the sufferers.
With sickening anguish the first morsels were prepared and given to
Lemuel Murphy, but for him they were too late. Not one touched flesh of
kindred body. Nor was there need of restraining hand, or warning voice
to gauge the small quantity which safety prescribed to break the fast
of the starving. Death would have been preferable to that awful meal,
had relentless fate not said: "Take, eat that ye may live. Eat, lest ye
go mad and leave your work undone!"
All but the Indians obeyed the mandate, and were strengthened and
reconciled to prepare the remaining flesh to sustain them a few days
longer on their journey.
Hitherto, the wanderers had been guided partly by the fitful sun,
partly by Lewis and Salvador, the Indians who had come with Stanton
from Sutter's Fort. In the morning, however, when they were ready to
leave that spot, which was thereafter known as the "Camp of Death,"
Salvador, who could speak a little English, insisted that he and Lewis
were lost, and, therefore, unable to guide them farther.
Nevertheless, the party at once set out and travelled instinctively
until evening. The following morning they wrapped pieces of blanket
around their cracked and swollen feet and again struggled onward until
late in the afternoon, when they encamped upon a high ridge. There they
saw beyond, in the distance, a wide plain which they believed to be the
Sacramento Valley.
This imaginary glimpse of distant lowland gave them a peaceful sleep.
The entire day of December 31 was spent in crossing a cañon, and every
footstep left its trace of blood in the snow.
When they next encamped, Mr. Eddy saw that poor Jay Fosdick was
failing, and he begged him to summon up all his courage and energy in
order to reach the promised land, now so near. They were again without
food; and William Foster, whose mind had become unbalanced by the long
fast, was ready to kill Mrs. McCutchen or Miss Graves. Mr. Eddy
confronted and intimidated the crazed sufferer, who next threatened
the Indian guides, and would have carried out his threat then, had Mr.
Eddy not secretly warned them against danger and urged them to flee.
But nothing could save the Indians from Foster's insane passion later,
when he found them on the trail in an unconscious and dying condition.
January 1, 1847, was, to the little band of eight, a day of less
distressing trials; its members resumed travel early, braced by
unswerving will-power. They stopped at midday and revived strength by
eating the toasted strings of their snowshoes. Mr. Eddy also ate his
worn out moccasins, and all felt a renewal of hope upon seeing before
them an easier grade which led to night-camp where the snow was only
six feet in depth. Soothed by a milder temperature, they resumed their
march earlier next morning and descended to where the snow was but
three feet deep. There they built their camp-fire and slightly crisped
the leather of a pair of old boots and a pair of shoes which
constituted their evening meal, and was the last of their effects
available as food.
An extraordinary effort on the third day of the new year brought them
to bare ground between patches of snow. They were still astray among
the western foothills of the Sierras, and sat by a fire under an oak
tree all night, enduring hunger that was almost maddening.
Jay Fosdick was sinking rapidly, and Mr. Eddy resolved to take the gun
and steal away from camp at dawn. But his conscience smote him, and he
finally gave the others a hint of his intention of going in search of
game, and of not returning unless successful. Not a moving creature nor
a creeping thing had crossed the trail on their journey thither; but
the open country before them, and minor marks well known to hunters,
had caught Mr. Eddy's eye and strengthened his determination. Mrs.
Pike, in dread and fear of the result, threw her arms about Mr. Eddy's
neck and implored him not to leave them, and the others mingled their
entreaties and protestations with hers. In silence he took his gun to
go alone. Then Mary Graves declared that she would keep up with him,
and without heeding further opposition the two set out. A short
distance from camp they stopped at a place where a deer had recently
lain.
With a thrill of emotion too intense for words, with a prayer in his
heart too fervent for utterance, Mr. Eddy turned his tearful eyes
toward Mary and saw her weeping like a child. A moment later, that man
and that woman who had once said that they knew not how to pray, were
kneeling beside that newly found track pleading in broken accents to
the Giver of all life, for a manifestation of His power to save their
starving band. Long restrained tears were still streaming down the
cheeks of both, and soothing their anxious hearts as they arose to go
in pursuit of the deer. J.Q. Thornton says:
They had not proceeded far before they saw a large buck about eighty
yards distant. Mr. Eddy raised his rifle and for some time tried to
bring it to bear upon the deer, but such was his extreme weakness
that he could not. He breathed a little, changed his manner of
holding the gun, and made another effort. Again his weakness
prevented him from being able to hold upon it. He heard a low,
suppressed sobbing behind him, and, turning around, saw Mary Graves
weeping and in great agitation, her head bowed, and her hands upon
her face. Alarmed lest she should cause the deer to run, Mr. Eddy
begged her to be quiet, which she was, after exclaiming, "Oh, I am
afraid you will not kill it."
He brought the gun to his face the third time, and elevated the
muzzle above the deer, let it descend until he saw the animal
through the sight, when the rifle cracked. Mary immediately wept
aloud, exclaiming, "Oh, merciful God, you have missed it!" Mr. Eddy
assured her that he had not; that the rifle was upon it the moment
of firing; and that, in addition to this, the animal had dropped its
tail between its legs, which this animal always does when wounded.
His belief was speedily confirmed. The deer ran a short distance,
then fell, and the two eager watchers hastened to it as fast as
their weakened condition would allow. Mr. Eddy cut the throat of the
expiring beast with his pocket-knife, and he and his companion knelt
down and drank the warm blood that flowed from the wound.
The excitement of getting that blessed food, and the strength it
imparted, produced a helpful reaction, and enabled them to sit down in
peace to rest a while, before attempting to roll their treasure to the
tree near-by, where they built a fire and prepared the entrails.
Mr. Eddy fired several shots after dark, so that the others might know
that he had not abandoned them. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Foster, Mrs.
McCutchen, and Mrs. Pike had moved forward and made their camp half-way
between Mr. Eddy's new one and that of the previous night. Mr. Fosdick,
however, being too weak to rise, remained at the first camp. His
devoted wife pillowed his head upon her lap, and prayed that death
would call them away together. Mr. Thornton continues:
The sufferer had heard the crack of Mr. Eddy's rifle at the time he
killed the deer, and said, feebly, "There! Eddy has killed a deer!
Now, if I can only get to him I shall live!"
But in the stillness of that cold, dark night, Jay Fosdick's spirit
fled alone. His wife wrapped their only blanket about his body, and lay
down on the ground beside him, hoping to freeze to death. The morning
dawned bright, the sun came out, and the lone widow rose, kissed the
face of her dead, and, with a small bundle in her hand, started to join
Mr. Eddy. She passed a hunger-crazed man on the way from the middle
camp, going to hers, and her heart grew sick, for she knew that her
loved one's body would not be spared for burial rites.
She found Mr. Eddy drying his deer meat before the fire, and later saw
him divide it so that each of his companions in the camps should have
an equal share.
The seven survivors, each with his portion of venison, resumed travel
on the sixth and continued in the foothills a number of days, crawling
up the ascents, sliding down the steeps; often harassed by fears of
becoming lost near the goal, yet unaware that they were astray.
The venison had been consumed. Hope had almost died in the heart of the
bravest, when at the close of day on the tenth of January, twenty-five
days from the date of leaving Donner Lake, they saw an Indian village
at the edge of a thicket they were approaching. As the sufferers
staggered forward, the Indians were overwhelmed at sight of their
misery. The warriors gazed in stolid silence. The squaws wrung their
hands and wept aloud. The larger children hid themselves, and the
little ones clung to their mothers in fear. The first sense of horror
having passed, those dusky mothers fed the unfortunates. Some brought
them unground acorns to eat, while others mixed the meal into cakes and
offered them as fast as they could cook them on the heated stones. All
except Mr. Eddy were strengthened by the food. It sickened him, and he
resorted to green grass boiled in water.
The following morning the chief sent his runners to other _rancherias,
en route_ to the settlement, telling his people of the distress of the
pale-faces who were coming toward them, and who would need food. When
the Forlorn Hope was ready to move on, the chief led the way, and an
Indian walked on either side of each sufferer supporting and helping
the unsteady feet. At each _rancheria_ the party was put in charge of a
new leader and fresh supporters.
On the seventeenth, the chief with much difficulty procured, for Mr.
Eddy, a gill of pine nuts which the latter found so nutritious that the
following morning, on resuming travel, he was able to walk without
support. They had proceeded less than a mile when his companions sank
to the ground completely unnerved. They had suddenly given up and were
willing to die. The Indians appeared greatly perplexed, and Mr. Eddy
shook with sickening fear. Was his great effort to come to naught?
Should his wife and babes die while he stood guard over those who would
no longer help themselves? No, he would push ahead and see what he yet
could do!
The old chief sent an Indian with him as a guide and support. Relieved
of the sight and personal responsibility of his enfeebled companions,
Mr. Eddy felt a renewal of strength and determination. He pressed
onward, scarcely heeding his dusky guide. At the end of five miles they
met another Indian, and Mr. Eddy, now conscious that his feet were
giving out, promised the stranger tobacco, if he would go with them and
help to lead him to the "white man's house."
And so that long, desperate struggle for life, and for the sake of
loved ones, ended an hour before sunset, when Mr. Eddy, leaning heavily
upon the Indians, halted before the door of Colonel M.D. Richey's home,
thirty-five miles from Sutter's Fort.
The first to meet him was the daughter of the house, whom he asked for
bread. Thornton says:
She looked at him, burst out crying, and took hold of him to assist
him into the room. He was immediately placed in bed, in which he lay
unable to turn his body during four days. In a very short time he
had food brought to him by Mrs. Richey, who sobbed as she fed the
miserable and frightful being before her. Shortly, Harriet, the
daughter, had carried the news from house to house in the
neighborhood, and horses were running at full speed from place to
place until all preparations were made for taking relief to those
whom Mr. Eddy had left in the morning.
William Johnson, John Howell, John Rhodes, Mr. Keiser, Mr. Sagur,
Racine Tucker, and Joseph Varro assembled at Mr. Richey's
immediately. The females collected the bread they had, with tea,
sugar, and coffee, amounting to as much as four men could carry.
Howell, Rhodes, Sagur, and Tucker started at once, on foot, with the
Indians as guides, and arrived at camp, between fifteen and eighteen
miles distant, at midnight.
Mr. Eddy had warned the outgoing party against giving the sufferers as
much food as they might want, but, on seeing them, the tender-hearted
men could not deny their tearful begging for "more." One of the relief
was kept busy until dawn preparing food which the rest gave to the
enfeebled emigrants. This overdose of kindness made its victims
temporarily very ill, but caused no lasting harm.
Early on the morning of January 18, Messrs. Richey, Johnson, Varro, and
Keiser, equipped with horses and other necessaries, hurried away to
bring in the refugees, together with their comrades who had gone on
before. By ten o'clock that night the whole of the Forlorn Hope were
safe in the homes of their benefactors. Mr. Richey declared that he and
his party had retraced Mr. Eddy's track six miles, by the blood from
his feet; and that they could not have believed that he had travelled
that eighteen miles, if they themselves had not passed over the ground
in going to his discouraged companions.
[Footnote 6: The experiences of the Donner Party, to which he refers in
a footnote, suggested to Bret Harte the opening chapters of "Gabriel
Conroy"; but he has followed the sensational accounts circulated by the
newspapers, and the survivors find his work a mere travesty of the
facts. The narrative, however, does not purport to set forth the truth,
but is confessedly imaginative.]
[Footnote 7: Mr. Eddy had killed the bear and dried the meat early in
the winter.]
[Footnote 8: His body was found there later by the First Relief Party.]