CAPTAIN LA BARGE IN WASHINGTON.
In connection with his work for the government it became necessary for
Captain La Barge to make several visits to Washington. Considering the
interesting period through which the national Capital was then passing,
it was to be expected that these visits should present some features of
note. The Captain went to Washington in all three times, once in each
of the winters of 1862–65.
[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN.]
On the occasion of his first visit he was a member of a party who
called upon the President to present him with a fine robe of fur. Three
years before this Captain La Barge had promised Lincoln to procure for
him a good buffalo robe; but the rapid march of events and the great
matters that weighed upon the public mind had so far kept him from
fulfilling his promise. On the present occasion it was proposed to give
the President an elegant robe composed of ten beaver skins, the whole
richly lined and embroidered.
The members of the party were Dr. Walter A. Burleigh of Yankton,
Dak.; Captain La Barge, Charles E. Galpin,[63] and several others. Dr.
Burleigh acted as spokesman. The delegation were shown to a room apart
from the general reception room, and Lincoln, after a little while,
came in, saying that he had sent them in there so that he might have
some uninterrupted talk with them about the West. He remembered at once
the old steamboat Captain with whom he had ridden on the Missouri,
and he greeted La Barge with great cordiality. After some general
conversation Dr. Burleigh arose, took the robe, asked the President
to stand up, and then threw it over his shoulders. Lincoln folded it
around him like a blanket and danced about for an instant in Indian
fashion. He seemed greatly delighted with the gift. He then asked the
party many questions about the West, for the Indian troubles were at
that time causing the administration a great deal of annoyance.
[Sidenote: LINCOLN AND THE INDIAN.]
In the winter of 1863–64 La Barge saw the President again. The only
subject of importance which was touched upon on that occasion was the
Indian, in whose welfare he always displayed the deepest interest. As
it was a subject which had often aroused the Captain’s indignation and
pity, he made the most of his opportunity to acquaint the President
with the facts. He told him of the gross frauds practiced on the
Indians, and how their annuities, under present conditions, had to
pass through the hands of some of the worst rascals on the face of the
earth, who deliberately cheated the Indians right and left. Lincoln
replied that he knew it; that, under the stress of war, he was not
able to send just the men he would like to into that country as Indian
agents, and that too many of them were importunate place-seekers of
worthless character whom members of Congress were anxious to get rid
of somewhere. “But wait,” said he, “until I get this Rebellion off my
hands, and I will take up this question and see that justice is done
the Indian.”
The Captain made his third visit to Washington in the winter of
1864–65. His particular business was to secure payment on his
government contracts, which had been approved by the Department of
War and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but disallowed by the Treasury.
He went to Secretary Chase, but was told by that gentleman that all
Missourians were _prima facie_ Rebels, and that that was why his
account was being held up. La Barge did not relish this very much, as
he had been doing business for the government all through the war, and
had even gone so far as to take the oath of allegiance. He went to
Lincoln and laid the matter before him. The President smiled at Chase’s
remark, gave La Barge a card with his autograph on it to hand to Chase,
and said he presumed that would fix matters all right. La Barge went
back, and the account was paid without further delay. La Barge, with
his usual distrust of the American Fur Company, suspected that some of
its members had been giving him a bad character in Washington in order
further to cripple his opposition.
[Sidenote: THE BLACKFOOT’S ANNUITIES.]
[Sidenote: FINAL EVIDENCE.]
On the occasion of his interview with the President he brought up the
matter of the Blackfoot annuities, explicitly charging that these
goods had been wrongfully disposed of and had not reached their
proper destination. Lincoln sent for the proper officer of the Indian
Department to hear La Barge’s accusation. This officer stated that he
had receipts signed by the Indian chiefs saying that they had received
their annuities. The signatures of the Indians were witnessed by agents
of the American Fur Company. La Barge declared that the receipts were
false; that he had himself carried these goods and knew that the
Indians had not received them, but that they had been appropriated by
the American Fur Company and sold. “Well,” said the official, “there
are the receipts; we cannot go back of them; they have been considered
final evidence in such cases since the foundation of the government.”
And there the matter rested.
While in Washington on this visit La Barge was summoned before the
Senate Committee on Pacific railroads and questioned by B. Gratz Brown
upon his knowledge of the Western country and his opinion upon the
availability of certain routes for a transcontinental line.
[Sidenote: LOOK AT YOUR MAP.]
Before he left Washington the Captain was the central figure in an
amusing little incident that occurred at Ford’s Theater. _Harper’s
Weekly_ had published a story of La Barge’s steamboating experiences
which ran something like this: On one of his trips up the river in the
earlier part of his career there were several Englishmen aboard. They
had a map and applied themselves industriously for the first day or
two in trying to identify the various places upon it with those along
their route. They were in the pilot-house a good deal, and one of them
questioned La Barge rather officiously about the geography of the
country.
“What place is this that we are approaching, Mr. Pilot?” he asked.
“St. Charles, sir,” La Barge replied.
“You are mistaken, sir; according to the map it is ----”
La Barge made no reply. He stopped as usual at St. Charles and then
went on his way. Presently they came to another village.
“What place, Captain?” inquired the Englishman.
“Washington, Mo., sir.”
“Wrong again. The map gives this place as ----.”
This experience was gone through several times, the Captain’s temper
becoming more ruffled with each repetition, though no one would
have suspected it from his unruffled exterior. Presently a flock
of wild geese passed over the river and drew the attention of the
passengers and crew. The Englishmen were standing on the hurricane roof
immediately in front of the pilot-house.
“What kind of birds are those, Captain?” asked one of them in eager
haste.
The Captain, whose language still smacked somewhat of the French idiom,
replied:
“Look at your map; he tell you.”
The printed programme of the evening at the theater happened to have
this story under the heading of “Old Joe La Barge.” The Captain and
some friends occupied a box, and as there were several persons in the
audience who knew him, the fact that the hero of the story was in the
box soon spread itself about. At one of the pauses in the performance
someone called out for La Barge to stand up, and cries of “La Barge”
soon came from all parts of the house. The modest steamboat pilot was
panic-stricken at the occurrence and clung desperately to his seat,
whereupon the audience called for him the more; but nothing would
induce him to stir.
[Sidenote: AN EXTENSIVE ACQUAINTANCE.]
We may here properly refer to Captain La Barge’s extensive acquaintance
with public men of the West. His prominence in the carrying trade of
Western rivers, when travel was largely done by boat, brought him into
contact with distinguished characters from all parts of the country.
There were few public men in the West whom he did not know, and his
personal estimate of their character as they appeared to him is not
without interest and value. We have already noted his acquaintance with
Audubon, General Warren, Dr. Hayden, Brigham Young, and others.
The Captain knew General Lee when the latter was stationed in St. Louis
as an officer of engineers in charge of river and harbor works on the
Mississippi and the Missouri rivers.
He knew both of the Johnstons,--Albert Sidney and Joseph E.,--and
at the time of the Mormon War transported much of the supplies and
munitions of war used by Albert Sidney Johnston on his arduous and
perilous campaign.
[Sidenote: GENERAL GRANT.]
He saw Grant for the first time during the Mexican War, and frequently
in later years when he lived near St. Louis. In Grant’s visits to town
La Barge became well acquainted with him. He saw him in the early part
of the war, while Fremont was in command at St. Louis. He was trying to
get an interview with the General, but that officer was harder to reach
than a king or the Pope. He would keep people waiting for hours, and
then as like as not refuse them an audience. In the winter of 1864–65
La Barge saw Grant in Washington. The head of the armies of the Union
spoke to the steamboat pilot in as equal and friendly a way as when
he was unloading wood in St. Louis. He asked the Captain if there was
anything that he could do for him, and expressed his desire to serve
him if he could.
[Sidenote: GENERAL FREMONT.]
La Barge saw a great deal at one time and another of General Fremont.
He first met him when he went up the river as the assistant to the
distinguished geographer and scientist, Jean I. Nicollet. Nicollet’s
party traveled on the boat which La Barge was piloting. At Leavenworth
there was an extremely rapid current, and La Barge expressed a
curiosity to know what its velocity was. Nicollet at once sent Fremont
to measure it. It was found to be eleven miles per hour in the swiftest
place. La Barge’s opinion of Fremont was that which seems to have
universally prevailed in St. Louis--that he was a greatly overrated
man, and that his success was due more to his fortunate marriage than
to his own merit. We must dissent, in a measure, from this view. In his
proper niche, Fremont was a great man. He found that niche in the work
of exploring the unknown West. In the faculty of making the unknown
known, of doing work in such a way as to make its results popular with
the public, in spreading a knowledge of the Great West throughout his
country and throughout the world, he stood without a peer among the
explorers of that region. In the broader field of national politics or
great military responsibility, he was wading beyond his depth.
[Sidenote: THOMAS H. BENTON.]
Thomas H. Benton, Fremont’s father-in-law, and Missouri’s greatest
statesman, was an intimate acquaintance of Captain La Barge, the
two men having known each other from La Barge’s childhood until
Benton’s death. Captain La Barge had a great admiration for the bluff
old Senator, although he did not like the way in which he used his
powerful influence in shielding the American Fur Company on so many
occasions from the just consequences of their illegal acts. Benton
was a frequent passenger on the Missouri River boats, and La Barge saw
a great deal of him there. He recalled particularly a trip which the
Senator made as far up as Kansas City, where he went to meet Fremont,
who was returning from the West. It was a very interesting voyage.
The people all along the river wanted to see him, and calls for “Old
Bullion” compelled him to appear at every landing place. He made
numerous addresses, and the boat was frequently delayed to permit this
interchange of greetings between the people and their distinguished
servant. Benton was in the pilot-house a great deal,--as every traveler
in those days liked to be,--and La Barge never forgot his expression
of deep faith in the future of the West, so unlike that of most of
his Congressional associates from east of the Mississippi. He said
once to Captain La Barge: “You will live to see railroads across to
the Pacific, and up the Missouri beyond the Great Falls.” La Barge,
a much younger man, replied that he scarcely expected to see that
in his lifetime. “But I have,” said the Captain, in telling of this
conversation, “and I have seen far more than even Senator Benton dared
to hope for.” In the same line of thought the Senator once said, as he
pointed to the west, which was overspread with the marvelous glow of
evening: “That is the East”--for he felt that we should yet go in that
direction to reach the treasures of the Orient.
[Sidenote: NOTED MEN OF THE WEST.]
The interesting notes of Captain La Barge’s observations of public
men with whom he was thrown in contact would fill a volume. His
acquaintance with the army was very extensive, owing to the Indian wars
along the Missouri, and he personally knew nearly all the principal
officers from General Sherman down. The same was true of the Indian
agents, Territorial officers, and leading business men of the West.
In a time when so much public travel went by steamboat he enjoyed
exceptional opportunities of seeing and knowing the men who made the
history of the Western country.