ACROSS THE PLAINS
The overland migration attracted the more hardy and experienced
pioneers, and also those whose assets lay in cattle and farm equipment
rather than in money. The majority came from the more western parts of
the then United States, and therefore comprised men who had already some
experience in pioneering. As far as the Mississippi or even Kansas these
parties generally traveled separately or in small groups from a single
locality. Before starting over the great plains, however, it became
necessary to combine into larger bands for mutual aid and protection.
Such recognized meeting-points were therefore generally in a state of
congestion. Thousands of people with their equipment and animals were
crowded together in some river-bottom awaiting the propitious moment for
setting forth.
The journey ordinarily required about five months, provided nothing
untoward happened in the way of delay. A start in the spring therefore
allowed the traveler to surmount the Sierra Nevada mountains before the
first heavy snowfalls. One of the inevitable anxieties was whether or
not this crossing could be safely accomplished. At first the migration
was thoroughly orderly and successful. As the stories from California
became more glowing, and as the fever for gold mounted higher, the pace
accelerated.
A book by a man named Harlan, written in the County Farm to which his
old age had brought him, gives a most interesting picture of the times.
His party consisted of fourteen persons, one of whom, Harlan's
grandmother, was then ninety years old and blind! There were also two
very small children. At Indian Creek in Kansas they caught up with the
main body of immigrants and soon made up their train. He says: "We
proceeded very happily until we reached the South Platte. Every night we
young folks had a dance on the green prairie." Game abounded, the party
was in good spirits and underwent no especial hardships, and the Indian
troubles furnished only sufficient excitement to keep the men
interested and alert. After leaving Salt Lake, however, the passage
across the desert suddenly loomed up as a terrifying thing. "We started
on our passage over this desert in the early morning, trailed all next
day and all night, and on the morning of the third day our guide told us
that water was still twenty-five miles away. William Harlan here lost
his seven yoke of oxen. The man who was in charge of them went to sleep,
and the cattle turned back and recrossed the desert or perhaps died
there.... Next day I started early and drove till dusk, as I wished to
tire the cattle so that they would lie down and give me a chance to
sleep. They would rest for two or three hours and then try to go back
home to their former range." The party won through, however, and
descended into the smiling valleys of California, ninety-year-old lady
and all.
These parties which were hastily got together for the mere purpose of
progress soon found that they must have some sort of government to make
the trip successful. A leader was generally elected to whom implicit
obedience was supposed to be accorded. Among independent and hot-headed
men quarrels were not infrequent. A rough sort of justice was, however,
invoked by vote of the majority. Though a "split of blankets" was not
unknown, usually the party went through under one leadership. Fortunate
were those who possessed experienced men as leaders, or who in hiring
the services of one of the numerous plains guides obtained one of
genuine experience. Inexperience and graft were as fatal then as now. It
can well be imagined what disaster could descend upon a camping party in
a wilderness such as the Old West, amidst the enemies which that
wilderness supported. It is bad enough today when inexperienced people
go to camp by a lake near a farm-house. Moreover, at that time everybody
was in a hurry, and many suspected that the other man was trying to
obtain an advantage.
Hittell tells of one ingenious citizen who, in trying to keep ahead of
his fellow immigrants as he hurried along, had the bright idea of
setting on fire and destroying the dry grass in order to retard the
progress of the parties behind. Grass was scarce enough in the best
circumstances, and the burning struck those following with starvation.
He did not get very far, however, before he was caught by a posse who
mounted their best horses for pursuit. They shot him from his saddle
and turned back. This attempt at monopoly was thus nipped in the bud.
Probably there would have been more of this sort of thing had it not
been for the constant menace of the Indians. The Indian attack on the
immigrant train has become so familiar through Wild West shows and
so-called literature that it is useless to redescribe it here. Generally
the object was merely the theft of horses, but occasionally a genuine
attack, followed in case of success by massacre, took place. An
experience of this sort did a great deal of good in holding together not
only the parties attacked, but also those who afterwards heard of the
attempt.
There was, however, another side to the shield, a very encouraging and
cheerful side. For example, some good-hearted philanthropist established
a kind of reading-room and post-office in the desert near the headwaters
of the Humboldt River. He placed it in a natural circular wall of rock
by the road, shaded by a lone tree. The original founder left a lot of
newspapers on a stone seat inside the wall with a written notice to
"Read and leave them for others."
Many trains, well equipped, well formed, well led, went through without
trouble--indeed, with real pleasure. Nevertheless the overwhelming
testimony is on the other side. Probably this was due in large part to
the irritability that always seizes the mind of the tenderfoot when he
is confronted by wilderness conditions. A man who is a perfectly normal
and agreeable citizen in his own environment becomes a suspicious
half-lunatic when placed in circumstances uncomfortable and
unaccustomed. It often happened that people were obliged to throw things
away in order to lighten their loads. When this necessity occurred, they
generally seemed to take an extraordinary delight in destroying their
property rather than in leaving it for anybody else who might come
along. Hittell tells us that sugar was often ruined by having turpentine
poured over it, and flour was mixed with salt and dirt; wagons were
burned; clothes were torn into shreds and tatters. All of this
destruction was senseless and useless, and was probably only a blind and
instinctive reaction against hardships.
Those hardships were considerable. It is estimated that during the
height of the overland migration in the spring of 1849 no less than
fifty thousand people started out. The wagon trains followed almost on
one another's heels, so hot was the pace. Not only did the travelers
wish to get to the Sierras before the snows blocked the passes, not only
were they eager to enter the gold mines, but they were pursued by the
specter of cholera in the concentration camps along the Mississippi
Valley. This scourge devastated these gatherings. It followed the men
across the plains like some deadly wild beast, and was shaken off only
when the high clear climate of desert altitude was eventually reached.
But the terrible part of the journey began with the entrance into the
great deserts, like that of the Humboldt Sink. There the conditions were
almost beyond belief. Thousands were left behind, fighting starvation,
disease, and the loss of cattle. Women who had lost their husbands from
the deadly cholera went staggering on without food or water, leading
their children. The trail was literally lined with dead animals. Often
in the middle of the desert could be seen the camps of death, the wagons
drawn in a circle, the dead animals tainting the air, every living human
being crippled from scurvy and other diseases. There was no fodder for
the cattle, and very little water. The loads had to be lightened almost
every mile by the discarding of valuable goods. Many of the immigrants
who survived the struggle reached the goal in an impoverished condition.
The road was bordered with an almost unbroken barrier of abandoned
wagons, old mining implements, clothes, provisions, and the like. As the
cattle died, the problem of merely continuing the march became worse.
Often the rate of progress was not more than a mile every two or three
hours. Each mile had to be relayed back and forth several times. And
when this desert had sapped their strength, they came at last to the
Sink itself, with its long white fields of alkali with drifts of ashes
across them, so soft that the cattle sank half-way to their bellies. The
dust was fine and light and rose chokingly; the sun was strong and
fierce. All but the strongest groups of pioneers seemed to break here.
The retreats became routs. Each one put out for himself with what
strength he had left. The wagons were emptied of everything but the
barest necessities. At every stop some animal fell in the traces and had
to be cut out of the yoke. If a wagon came to a full stop, it was
abandoned. The animals were detached and driven forward. And when at
last they reached the Humboldt River itself, they found it almost
impossible to ford. The best feed lay on the other side. In the
distance the high and forbidding ramparts of the Sierra Nevadas reared
themselves.
One of these Forty-niners, Delano, a man of some distinction in the
later history of the mining communities, says that five men drowned
themselves in the Humboldt River in one day out of sheer discouragement.
He says that he had to save the lives of his oxen by giving Indians
fifteen dollars to swim the river and float some grass across to him.
And with weakened cattle, discouraged hearts, no provisions, the
travelers had to tackle the high rough road that led across the
mountains.
Of course, the picture just drawn is of the darkest aspect. Some trains
there were under competent pioneers who knew their job; who were
experienced in wilderness travel; who understood better than to chase
madly away after every cut-off reported by irresponsible trappers; who
comprehended the handling and management of cattle; who, in short, knew
wilderness travel. These came through with only the ordinary hardships.
But take it all in all, the overland trail was a trial by fire. One gets
a notion of its deadliness from the fact that over five thousand people
died of cholera alone. The trail was marked throughout its length by
the shallow graves of those who had succumbed. He who arrived in
California was a different person from the one who had started from the
East. Experience had even in so short a time fused his elements into
something new. This alteration must not be forgotten when we turn once
more to the internal affairs of the new commonwealth.