have another case of it.
While stationed at Cottonwood Springs, the post commander had some assumed political duties, and among others he had to act as justice of the Peace. I was post adjutant all the time, and these matters were very largely submitted to me. I prepared the cases, obtained the facts, and brought the parties before the post commander, who would hear my statement, listen to anything that either side wished to submit, and then render judgment. These matters consisted of complaints by 'whackers' against the wagon-bosses, assaults, thefts, borrowed-money matters, and a great variety of other trivial things. The post commander did not only decide the cases, but he carried his decisions into effect. For instance, if a wagon-master wrongfully quarreled with a whacker in such a way as to justify the latter in leaving, and then refused to pay him, the post commander ordered the payment to be made in his presence, and if there was any hesitation or demurrer to it, the defendant was immediately stuck into the guard-house. We had such a summary way of enforcing justice that there was no appeal, and what was decided went as accepted, and that was the end of it. If some man unjustly quarreled with the wagon-boss we put the man into the guard-house until the train had got ten days on its journey, and then let him go to take care of himself. If a man with a team committed an assault, and was unable to pay, we just took enough of his stuff to pay the plaintiff. It might be a sack of corn, or a saddle, or something. Everybody was made to behave; and, it being well understood that we were there for that purpose, it served as a useful check upon the lawlessness of the plains.
Major O'Brien, the post commander, was a good lawyer, and had practiced law, and he knew how to get at things quickly, and knew how far he ought to go. The decisions of Major O'Brien were sought by the people up and down the road for a hundred miles, and he was not a bit backward in assuming jurisdiction in any kind of a case, and carrying his decrees into force. Several men who were charged with having committed crimes were put under ball and chain and delivered down at Fort Kearney, which had become the headquarters of our district. The commanding General of our military district, Gen. R. B. Mitchell, of whom I have spoken, was a good lawyer himself, and his adjutant was John Pratt, of Boston, a most accomplished gentleman, also a lawyer. The General made headquarters at Fort Kearney, instead of Omaha (as his predecessor had done), and he was very anxious that justice should be dispensed through his district, and that civilized methods should prevail. Although there were no civil officers, General Mitchell worked out the whole scheme through military instrumentalities in very good shape. From time to time he instructed his subordinate post commanders how to carry on their civil functions, and protect life and property. He was a great stickler for protecting property, and if some pilgrim stole a saddle or a lariat, it was his theory that the man should be arrested, and punished, even if a soldier had to chase the man for two weeks and it cost the Government $1,000. Hence it was, that our duties were civil as well as military, and we were obliged to briefly report all civil infractions, decisions and punishment. Once or twice we put people into the guard- house and they appealed to the General; he sent for them to be forwarded under escort with the next train to Fort Kearney, where he re-heard the case. One of the peculiarities of the civil jurisdiction was that people applied to the post to enforce the payment of bets which they had made. Parties would make bets, and then when they lost, sometimes would not pay. It was a betting age, and a betting country. We did not go according to the statute law in this matter. We recognized that the payment of bets was an obligation which persons should honor; that betting was recognized by the community as legitimate, and the non-payment of bets tended to disturb social conditions and make enemies, and bring about aggressions. But the debt must either be proven in writing or admitted by the defendant. We enforced gambling debts when reduced to writing and signed. More than once men had the alternative given them of paying a gambling debt or a bet fairly proven, or else of going to the guard-house. If they didn't have the money, they went to the guard-house anyway. There had to be some punishment.
Along early in April one of our best men, having been recently appointed sergeant, played a very nice scheme upon our post. He said that our post needed a laundry; that we ought to have a building in which the soldiers could do their washing with a well and appurtenances; and that we ought to make some nice tight, cedar boxes for washtubs, etc., etc. This struck us as a good thing, so we went to and built a laundry building twenty feet square, but without a well, because it was not far from the stockade where our horses were, and where there was a good well. Now it happened that sometime in February a woman left a train was going west, came to MacDonald's ranch and asked if they wanted to employ a cook or woman to assist in work of the house. It was exactly what MacDonald wanted; his wife had been trying to get somebody for quite a while. The applicant was a woman, tall, slim, razor-faced, about six feet three inches high, and she looked like a human being that wasn't afraid of wild man or wild beast. She started in with MacDonald and did a power of work-washing, cleaning up the store, and everything else; she was a perfect giantess to work. She said that she was raised on a farm in Missouri, was unmarried, and was thinking of going through to Denver where some relatives were, but had concluded she had gone about as far west as she wanted to go. MacDonald was very much pleased with her work and services. As Captain O'Brien used to say, 'She was as ugly as a mud fence.' She obtained the nickname of 'Lengthy.' After a couple of months this nickname was reduced to 'Linty.' One day this Sergeant of whom I spoke above, came to us and suggested that we employ 'Linty' as a laundress and give her the laundry-house, and arrange it so that whenever she did any washing for the soldiers it should be reported and taken from the soldier's pay at the pay- table. That was in accordance with the army regulations, providing the company should approve of it. We called up the company and stated the proposition. The Sergeant in the mean time worked the company all right, and the company without objection all agreed that their washing might be taken out of their pay if done by 'Linty,' but that they had the right to do their own washing nevertheless, if they wanted to. MacDonald objected a great deal towards letting the woman go, but she went, and took up quarters in the new laundry, and curtained off a part of it where she kept her trunk and bedstead. She went to work washing for the boys. She understood it well. She was very strong and industrious, and was doing very nicely, when one day, on May 6, 1864, this Sergeant and 'Linty' appeared before the post commander and demanded to be united in marriage. The Captain had never married anybody before, but he had the right as post commander to perform the rite. So the Captain sent for me as the company commander to be present. The Captain fixed up a good deal of ceremony and it was pretty near a mock marriage, except that it was strictly legal. The Captain asked, 'Who giveth this woman away?' and I said, 'I do,' and we went through the ceremony in great shape. Thereupon, arm-in-arm the Sergeant walked down with his bride to the new laundry-house, and started to take up his abode there. Some of the boys, finding it out, determined to have some fun. Late in the evening they got mess-pans and about a hundred of them surrounded the laundry and commenced giving an old-fashioned 'shiviree.' They ought all to have been arrested, because it was about nine o'clock at night, but the Captain and I concluded we would let the boys have some fun. All at once the noise stopped, and the next morning I heard that the Sergeant had gone to his wife's dress, got her pocketbook, took all the money she had, $5, gone out in stocking feet and had given the money to the boys and told them to go off and get drunk, and leave them, as, he said, that was all they both had. Thereupon the Sergeant took up his headquarters at the laundry and stayed there. Under the army regulations he drew rations for himself and his wife separately, and we saw that from first to last the Sergeant together with the woman had studied up the whole plan. They had
worked us. We held this against the Sergeant until things had calmed down, and then we reduced him to the ranks; afterwards, having been a blacksmith, we put him over with Woodruff, the other blacksmith, shoeing horses and repairing wagons. They were not discharged from the service until they were mustered out, in May, 1866, and the couple stayed together as well as any married couple I ever saw, for in all future marches and expeditions of the company this woman went along, and followed the troubles and dared the dangers of the service, so that we finally got to thinking more of 'Linty' than we did of her husband.
Owing to troubles reported from the south, Company 'G,' which was at our post, started May 2nd for Fort Kearney, from which post they went directly to Fort Riley, Kansas. Fort Riley was at the junction of the Republican River, upon which the Indians were very numerous, and, owing to emissaries from the Southern Confederacy, that country was becoming very dangerous ground. From time to time we heard that emissaries from the Confederacy were making inflammatory speeches, and doing their best to alienate the southern Cheyennes, and the Ogallallah Sioux. But this influence did not extend strongly across the Platte to the northern Sioux or Cheyennes, because such emissaries would be shot if they fell into our hands. Nevertheless, there were rumors that efforts were being made in the Indian villages north and northwest of us. From a Sergeant, Ellsworth, who afterwards was an officer in Company 'G,' the fort and town of 'Ellsworth,' in Kansas, was named. Shortly after the departure of Company 'G' from our post, Company 'C,' Seventh Iowa Cavalry, arrived and occupied their barracks. Schenck, who was First Lieutenant of the company, had been detailed at Fort Kearney. The company was poorly officered and the captain was shortly afterwards court-martialed.
On May 7th a Mr. Trivit, of Denver, entered complaint against Ingram amp; Christie, who had a train passing
