We have been here a week, and both of us like the post very well,
although it is far from being a handsome post either on the outside
or inside, but you know one's content is measured in a great degree
by comparison with others that surround you, so we are more than
contented with a log house, when we remember that Fort Whipple is one
of the few posts in this territory where they have any quarters at
all, almost all being quartered in tents, men, women and children.
We have fixed up very comfortably, have the carpet on the parlor and
gunny sacks on the dining room and bedroom. We have the damask and
lace curtains up at the parlor windows, which are arranged so as to
hang a good piece from the windows, making a sort of bow window (bowed
the wrong way, however), and as it stands a good way into the room it
helps fill up, which is a very good thing, as articles of furniture
are very scarce at present; the company carpenter is busily at work.
He has made us one table and a place to hang clothes. He was fixing
the latter, and after he had finished I gave him some newspapers
to read and some oranges, when he informed me that he could make
anything I wanted, that he hadn't much to do and might as well do
that as anything else. I suppose you would like to see how our house
is arranged as to rooms, so I will make a plan of the ground floor,
and if you can find any other floor you are smarter than I. I wish I
could draw, and I would send you a sketch of the view from our window,
which is very beautiful, mountains covered with pine. The wind roaring
through the pines sounds just like the cars. Anson has laughed a great
deal at me because I vowed that never would I leave Fort Whipple 'til
we changed stations or went home, and actually I hadn't been in the
post twenty-four hours before I was off for town with Mrs. King, and
have been down town once since then. There is no danger between here
and town, as it is only a short distance, and before one gets out of
calling distance of the post the hospital is reached, and before you
get out of sound of that the town is reached. There is not much in
Prescott to tempt one, and well it is for our pockets that this is
so, for the price of some things would make your hair stand on end,
although other things are quite reasonable. Luckily for us we can
get anything we want almost in the commissary, as it is excellently
supplied. Everything has fallen in price even in Prescott, and flour
there is now only thirty-six dollars a barrel; it was forty-two a
short time ago. We only pay seven dollars in the commissary. Butter is
two dollars, eggs the same. I saw some of the commonest kind of heavy
Delft soup plates marked _fifteen_ dollars a dozen. We bought a lamp
in San Francisco for which we paid seventy-five cents. Mrs. King has
two just like it which cost five dollars each, and a parlor lamp like
that which cost us three dollars in San Francisco was sold here for
twenty-five dollars, and kerosene oil is only five dollars a gallon.
Mrs. King tells a good joke on the chaplain. She went with him to town
one day to assist him in making some purchases. After buying some
things and paying for them he spied some quart cans for filling lamps,
empty, of course. He wanted one, so asked the price. He was told
"seven dollars." The chaplain put down his bundles and money, raised
his hands, heaved a deep groan and uttered his favorite ejaculation,
"tre-men-jious." There is only one lady here besides myself, and
fortunately she is a very pleasant one, Mrs. King. Tell Gussie Porter
I met her friend Mrs. King at Camp Halleck, not the Mrs. King who is
here, but another one. She met Gussie at Lancaster, and is now in our
regiment. She was very pleasant.
* * * * *
Nannie describes this journey so completely I can add little to it.
Mr. Lummis, librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, asked me,
in 1908, as one having something to do with the development of the
country, to write something descriptive of its wonderful growth, to be
placed in an album for strangers visiting the library. I contributed
the following:
In 1871, as Captain 3d Cavalry, with the headquarters and band,
my wife in an ambulance, I traveled from San Pedro to Whipple
Barracks, Prescott, Arizona. The route lay through Los Angeles,
then a small adobe village, where we stopped March 9th at the
Little Pico House, then by the now beautiful City of Redlands,
at that time a waterless cactus desert, and through the Salton
Sink.
In all the tide of time I think there has not been a more
instructive example of the efforts of man to "replenish the
earth" than shown by the brave men of Southern California in the
intervening thirty-seven years.
To those who may look over this volume of autographs in the
future, I think this simple statement of facts will be more
interesting than any literary effort I could possibly render.
The desert over which we traveled, purchasing water at twenty-five
cents a bucket, is now productive and beautiful. The Salton Sink,
through which we passed, is a depression in the earth one hundred
and fifty miles long by seventy-five wide, with its lowest point
two hundred and fifty-six feet below sea level. It was formerly the
northern end of the Gulf of California, but ages past was cut off by
the sand and silt deposited by floods of the Colorado River, the water
evaporating in the arid atmosphere and extreme heat. Immense deposits
of salt from evaporated sea water were visible, and we saw on the foot
of the adjacent mountains the water-mark of the sea level.
We arrived at Fort Whipple on April 14th, only to be ordered to
Fort McDowell on the Verde River, one hundred and twenty-five miles
distant, over an almost impassable road. Nannie tells the story of
that journey:
May 12 (NEW RIVER).
Our first three days' travel was very pleasant, as we had good roads,
and it is much better to travel with one's own company. We have four
mules in our ambulance, the back seat of which I occupy alone in
my glory as Anson rides his horse. We have five six-mule wagons, a
teamster, of course, to each, and over seventy men, so you see we have
a very large escort. Our fourth day's travel was a little the worst
of anything I have ever seen. Anson and Mr. Wessels have traveled a
great deal and over very bad roads, but they both say that this was
the worst one that they have ever seen. You may judge how bad it was
when we were from seven o'clock in the morning 'til six at night going
about fifteen miles, and the wagons were an hour later. The first
nine miles was over rocks that jolted the ambulance so that I could
hardly sit in the seat, and I was almost wearied out. The rest of
the road was up hill and down hill, and the most terrible hills that
I ever saw--they were almost perpendicular. I walked several miles,
because the hills were so bad I was afraid to ride. Anyone living in
the States would think it an utter impossibility to take vehicles up
some places where we went. One wagon was upset, and that of course
caused a delay. You would have been amused to see how they brought one
wagon up a hill. The wagons were all lightly loaded and had six mules;
they put an extra pair of mules in, one man rode one of the wheel
mules, another walked on one side with a whip, and two boys were on
the other with stones, pelting the mules, and with a volley of oaths
and cracking of whips, up they came. One wagon was eased down a hill
by twenty men taking hold of a rope behind, and another was helped
up with the men's assistance. It was a wearisome day for men and
mules. This morning, when we were about a mile out, the lead bar of
our ambulance broke, which caused another delay to fix. Mr. Wessels'
horse got lame, and a horse kicked one of the mules so badly that they
couldn't use him. We have had a chapter of accidents for two days, and
in addition, today we ran across a fresh moccasin track, evidently
made today.
May 18th (CAMP MCDOWELL).
We reached here on the 15th, being just seven days on the road. The
day before we got in we rested a day, as one of the men who had been
over the road said there was a thirty-five miles march without water,
and the weather being warm the men and animals can do with less water
by traveling at night, so we left our last camp at about five o'clock
in the evening and traveled 'til midnight, then rested for four hours,
spreading our bedding in the sand and with the sky for a covering,
then at four in the morning starting again, and got in the post at
six, finding that the man had made a mistake in the distance, as it
was only twenty-three miles. One of the mules strayed away and was not
found again.
We lived very well on the road, as we had quails, fresh fish, and best
of all, Anson shot a large deer with his revolver. It was a mighty
good shot, as the deer was a hundred yards off. It weighed over a
hundred pounds dressed. We had one hind quarter, kept the other one
for Major Dudley, who is in command here, and the rest made a meal for
all the men, teamsters and laundresses, so you see it was a pretty
large one. I told Anson father would have enjoyed it. You know you
thought it would be so unpleasant for us to be without vegetables,
well today for dinner we had peas, lettuce, and young onions out of
the government farm. Anyone can have a garden here if he chooses to
take the trouble.
Our quarters are very comfortable; the houses are built of adobe and
have three rooms and a kitchen. On first entering the quarters you
would say, "It would be folly to put down carpets or attempt in any
way to fix up here, for it would only serve to make the rest look
worse," but you have no idea how much good a little fixing up does.
The floors are mud, which is as hard and as dry as a bone. I have
spread the curtains out to hide as much of the wall as possible, and
as there is only one window I have arranged the remaining curtains
in festoons over and around the front door, which is half of glass.
The parlor is only twelve by twelve, so I ripped off one breadth of
the carpet and turned it in over a yard on the length. The post is
almost destitute of furniture, so we have a large barrel covered with
a board, then a red blanket which, with Anson's desk on top, makes
a respectable piece of furniture; then a chest with the ambulance
cushions on top and covered with the carriage blanket, does duty as
a divan, which, with two tables and three chairs furnishes (?) the
parlor, the bedroom being luxuriously filled with a bedstead and a
washstand, and the dining room being amply furnished with _one table_.
The worst of it is there is no lumber in the post to make any of. I
have sent by one of the wagons that went back to Whipple for a few
articles of furniture I left in the house, as they have plenty of wood
up there to make more. I do not know whether I will get it or not, as
it is not customary to send furniture from one post to another. They
have also sent there for lumber, so we will be able to have things
made.
* * * * *
_En route_ we stopped to examine an ancient fort of eight rooms with
embrasures on all sides for defense probably for bows and arrows.
The walls were twelve feet high, but the roof had been destroyed.
Inside one of the rooms was a scrubby cedar tree, perhaps a hundred
years old. While walking around on these walls, which were made of
thin broad granite rocks, evidently once held in place by mortar, I
displaced a stone which rolled down the mound, frightening a large
deer, which I killed with my pistol. Tied to my horse's tail after the
fashion of the Indians, I dragged it to the train. It is this deer of
which Nannie writes.
At Cave Creek, where there were many cougars (Mexican lions), I found
in a cave near the spring, which was some distance from our camp, the
remains of many deer which had been caught by these lions, dragged
into the cave and devoured, some of them being only partly eaten.
McDowell was the most unhappy post at which we ever served. Its
commander was of an overbearing, tyrannical disposition, and much
addicted to drink. The post traders abetted him and brought about
many quarrels between the commander and the officers so that, in the
garrison of five companies, there were few friendships.
At this unhappy station Nannie lost about twenty and I thirty pounds
in weight.
One day she said to me, "Anson, I am going to Europe some day."
"Whom are you going with?" I asked. It was a joy for me to see her so
much more cheerful than I.
"You," she replied.
I never had any such hope, but, as will be seen later, she actually
accomplished it. (Text, 178.)
Nannie was for about a year the only lady in the post. On December 1,
1871, to our great relief, we received orders to exchange posts with
the 2d Cavalry, at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, the regiments exchanging
horses to save transportation.
WESTERN EXPERIENCES
Just as we left Arizona a new second lieutenant, Schwatka, joined
me. He served with me for eight years, one of the most interesting
officers Nannie and I ever met. He afterwards gained a national
reputation in his search for the remains of the Franklin Expedition.
Three companies and the band went by wagon train to Fort Yuma, where
we sold our ambulance to Captain Taylor, 2d Cavalry. Here we embarked
on a river vessel for Puerto Isabel at the mouth of the Colorado,
where we took the government steamer Newbern for San Francisco.
So disgusted with our Arizona experience were all the officers that
when the boat pulled out from Yuma, we took off our shoes and beat the
dust of Arizona over the rail, at the same time cursing the land.
The bore created by the contraction of the north end of the Gulf of
California forces tides, sometimes eighteen feet high, along the lower
Colorado, and the river is so tortuous that the distance from Yuma is
three times what it is in a straight line. On our trip down, there
being a very high tide, the captain endeavored to make a cut-off over
the sand bars to save twelve miles. But the tide stranded the boat
several miles from the main channel, and when morning came we could
see no water. We remained until high tide the next night.
After a long but eventful journey we arrived at McPherson January 17,
1872, General Reynolds, who had been serving as general of volunteers
in the reconstruction of Texas, assuming command of the regiment.
May, 1872, I was assigned to the sub-post of North Platte, in the fork
of the North and South Platte Rivers on the Union Pacific Railroad.
Here we met Spotted Tail, chief of the Brulé Tribe. (Appendix, 397.)
In July, 1872, General Sheridan ordered two companies of my regiment
to escort Professor Marsh, of Yale College, with thirty students of
that institution, on a paleontological expedition in the Bad Lands
along the Niobrara River (one hundred miles north of the North
Platte). We spent two months on that very interesting and successful
duty, recovering from the washing sands of the steep banks of the
Niobrara several wagon loads of prehistoric bones.
On December 2, 1872, Nannie and I spent three months of leave with her
parents in Zanesville, during which we purchased an elaborate and very
fine ambulance, shipping it to North Platte.
Next year General Sheridan detailed me to escort Lord Dunraven and
three friends on a hunting expedition on the Loop River. Accompanied
by Buffalo Bill (Cut, 154), the party was very successful in killing
many elk, deer and antelope, remaining out about six weeks. One night
Lord Dunraven came to my tent and we talked until long after midnight.
I have never forgotten his declaration that the possibilities of the
development of the American Republic were greater than any ever known
in history; adding, "the curse of my country is its nobility."
In 1873 the agent for the Ogallala and Brulé Sioux gave permission for
a large party of those sub-tribes to hunt buffalo on the Republican
River, southern Nebraska, near the Kansas line. Unfortunately, the
agent of the Pawnees gave a large party of that tribe permission to
hunt in the same direction. These tribes were traditional enemies. I
warned both agents of possible trouble, but without avail. The Pawnees
arrived first; placed their women and children in camp and started
out for the buffalo. When the Sioux arrived, their scouts discovered
the Pawnee families, attacked the camp and killed one hundred and
twenty-five, all save one or two children and a squaw, found by
Captain Meinhold of the 3d Cavalry, sent out from Fort McPherson the
next day. These were so badly wounded that they died.
The Pawnees, inferior to the Sioux, were compelled to return in
sorrow to their reservation; the Sioux continuing their hunt.
[Illustration:
W. F. CODY (BUFFALO BILL).
(Text, 153.)
JIM BRIDGER.
(Text, 107.)
JACK ROBERTSON.
]
In September, 1874, the Sioux entered the parade grounds at Forts
Fetterman and Steele, and killed several soldiers (Appendix,
399). General Ord selected me to take five troops of cavalry, and
two companies of infantry by rail to Rawlins, Wyoming, thence to
Independence Rock, cross the Rig Horn Mountains, and destroy a camp of
hostiles supposed to be near old Fort Reno. Unfortunately the Indians
discovered our movements, and moved north beyond our reach.
April 14, 1875, General Crook ordered me to take command at Camp
Sheridan, Nebraska. This march (Nannie accompanying me in her
ambulance) was through a roadless, sandy country, with many streams
and difficult crossings, practically unexplored.
Relieving Captain Sutorious of the command, I found Spotted Tail,
chief of the Brulés, with about five thousand Indians at his agency,
some of them Ogallalas. All were much excited at the encroachments of
the whites on the reservation, and the scarcity of food. Spotted Tail
declared the agent, Mr. Howard, deprived them of their governmental
rations. The winter had been very severe and the snow very deep,
driving the game out of the country.
Finding his statements true, I complained to the agent, who said he
gave them all they were entitled to, and if they starved it wasn't his
fault. There was no telegraphic communication, so without authority,
I issued them several thousand dollars' worth of bacon and hard
bread, telling the agent and reporting it to the War Department. Very
shortly Jesse M. Lee, a first lieutenant of infantry, arrived with his
appointment as Indian agent, dispossessing Howard.
Reef was issued by driving it in on the hoof, but flour, which was the
principal ration, supplied by a contractor in Baltimore, was shipped
to Cheyenne by rail, and there loaded onto wagons.
On the plea that so long a wagon journey would break single bags, and
spill the contents, 100 pounds of flour was covered with three sacks.
At Cheyenne a Federal inspector marked and weighed the bags.
The Baltimore contractor arranged with this inspector to stamp each
sack "100 pounds." This trebled the weight, as the agent emptied
the flour into vessels brought by the squaws and kept the sacks as
evidence that he had delivered three times the actual weight. Lee,
finding that flour was delivered unweighed, looked at the sacks, found
they were certified to contain one hundred pounds by the inspector,
reported the trick and the contractor was arrested, tried and
convicted.
Many of Spotted Tail's young men were getting up war parties to drive
back the miners and settlers who were organizing on the Missouri River
to enter the Black Hills. It was a violation of our treaties with
the Indians, and it was part of the duty of the army to see that the
treaties were respected. Captain Fergus Walker, 1st Infantry, wrote me
from a point eighty miles east of Wounded Knee, May 15, 1875, that he
had captured one such invading party and sent it under guard to Fort
Randall, but that his thus greatly weakened force was unable to cope
with others, particularly Major Gordon's mining company. He asked me,
accordingly, to co-operate with him in this work, and arranged for
the Indian scout by whom he sent the letter to intercept him on the
Niobrara River with my reply.
General Sheridan's General Order No. 2, of March 17th, directed
commanding officers in Indian reservations adjacent to the Black
Hills "to burn the wagon trains, destroy the outfits and arrest the
leaders, confining them at the nearest military post," of trespassers
found on a reservation. Accordingly, with two companies of cavalry
and a battery of gatling guns, commanded by Lieutenant Rockefeller, I
marched to relieve Captain Walker.
Arriving at Antelope Creek at night, I sent two men in citizens'
clothes to Walker's camp to tell him I would at daylight surround
Major Gordon's mining company. At daybreak I threw my companies into
line, the battery in the center, and when Walker's force appeared,
Gordon's men, wakened by the noise, found themselves utterly helpless.
Gordon's camp was in a river bend, between precipitous bluffs, with
only a few hundred yards' space for entrance or exit.
Seizing Gordon and putting him in a bull pen, I ordered his second in
command, Mr. Brockert, to parade his men and surrender their arms.
While doing this, one of their guns went off. I called out they
might have the first shot, but we would have the last, when they
submissively declared they would make no resistance.
The prisoners were sent back to Fort Randall under Captain Walker,
except Gordon, whom I took to Sheridan, where he was put in the guard
house.
Both the newspapers and the public at Sioux City made complaints about
my "arbitrary and unlawful act," and the grand jury found true bills
against me, but I never had service.
Gordon was a Mason, as was my post trader at Sheridan. They concocted
a scheme for Gordon's release. One Sunday morning the post trader
approached and read me his commission as United States Commissioner,
serving a writ demanding the delivery of Major Gordon. I told him if
he did not tear up his commission I would put him in the guard house
with his friend Gordon, as there was not enough room in that post
for a commanding officer and post trader who, as U. S. Commissioner,
would attempt to dominate the action of the military authorities. He
destroyed his commission. Later, Gordon was transferred to the guard
house at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, and was there held under indictment for
violating the Indian non-intercourse laws. What finally became of him
I never knew.
The government contemplated building a permanent post (the one then
occupied was temporarily constructed of logs) and furnished a saw
mill, lathe, shingle machine, sash and doors, and thirty skilled
artisans to take timber from the pine forests, and construct the post
as rapidly as possible.
While absent on this expedition, General Crook, who had relieved
General Ord, appeared at the post with some of his staff on
inspection. He left an order for me to select a new location for a
five-company post and construct it after my own plans, which I did.
Having an excellent quartermaster in Lieutenant Rockefeller, we
accomplished the most expeditious post construction in the history
of the army. Each captain constructed his own barracks and quarters,
after plans I prepared, dividing the skilled artisans between them.
As the men were anxious to get into their new homes, trees felled in
the morning were often part of buildings before sundown, Lieutenant
Lemly of the cavalry being particularly active, and all the officers
strove hard to complete their quarters as soon as possible. We were
comfortably housed before the first of October. All the buildings were
constructed as a shell of upright inch boards around a framework,
lined with the ordinary sized unburnt bricks, dried in the sun and
plastered inside.
Meanwhile, Nannie formed an agreeable acquaintance with Spotted Tail,
whom she liked from first sight. He was a fine-looking man, with
engaging manners, perfectly loyal to the government, a lover of peace,
knowing no good could come to his people from war with the army. He
had the highest respect for and confidence in officers.
There was a sub-chief under Spotted Tail named No Flesh, a weakling,
not thought much of by the head chiefs. Nannie frequently invited
Spotted Tail to dinner, sometimes with other most respected chiefs,
and No Flesh tried in every way to establish friendly relations
with her. He proffered his services to paint her some pictures of
his exploits as a warrior, for which she paid him. In one of these
pictures he represents himself engaged in a great battle with U. S.
Cavalry, killing a captain. I regret I can not reproduce his detailed
description of his heroism.
[Illustration:
Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.
BRULÉ CHIEF SPOTTED TAIL.
Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.
BRULÉ CHIEF NO FLESH.
]
[Illustration: NO FLESH]
[Illustration: BATTLE PICTURE.]
The shod horse tracks in the picture represent the cavalry, and the
unshod pony tracks represent Indian ponies. The faces on the margin
are the attacking cavalry. It will be seen that he killed a soldier
before he killed the captain.
Engaged in this work, he would remain at the house for hours, hoping
to gain favor with Nannie.
Observing Nannie had great influence with me and with Spotted Tail,
and noticing she bought fruits and paid for them herself, he knew of
course that she was no squaw, and that she had authority.
One day Captain McDougall and several officers of the 7th Cavalry
arrived at the post, with a scouting command to rest for a few days
and secure supplies.
Nannie invited the officers to dine with Spotted Tail, Standing Elk,
and White Thunder, but, as usual, did not include No Flesh. No Flesh
learned the news rather late, but, a few moments after we had taken
our seats, announced himself at the door and was seated in the parlor
by the orderly.