known to the entire command, for it immediately got out through the interpreters, and the officer was very much ridiculed, and he was afterwards killed in battle by his Indian brother-in-law. Another one of our officers bought a wife for two horses, and the Indian girl fought and scratched him up in a most ridiculous way, so that he was in his quarters pretending to be sick for some time until he healed up. The Indian girl was a fighter and a perfect tigress, and broke through the door to the rear of the officers' quarters, and went to the squaw camp, and quickly disappeared. These matters became known, and resulted in hurting the reputation of these officers very much. The latter officer was pushed out of the service quite a while before the regiment was mustered out as a regiment. Elston, the scout, used to say that the Sioux Indians, that is, the women portion of them, were the most virtuous people on earth. Finally the squaw camp was very much decimated by order of General Mitchell, who took pains to reprove all improper relations; he asked his officers to be examples to their men, and I think, although I do not know, that three discharges of officers came about by General Mitchell's recommendations. No charges were made against the officers, but they were simply ordered mustered out upon some pretext or another.
About the last evening that I was at the Post I had my farewell visit with Major Bridger. Major Bridger was a regular old Roman in actions and appearance, and he told stories in such a solemn and firm, convincing way that a person would be liable to believe him. I had received a letter from an officer down at Fort Kearney wanting me, when I came back, to bring him a cinnamon bear-skin. The cinnamon bear, so called from the color of the hair, was a favorite fur, and the Indian women at the squaw camp tanned them, and the skins were exposed for sale at the sutler store. On the evening to which I referred, Bridger was sitting out in front of the sutler store, and I sat down with him, and got to asking him about bears. He told me a bear story which I afterwards heard was quite a noted bear story, and gave rise to an expression of 'only just sitting around.' Bears were very plenty. The woods at that time had so many that it was not difficult to get sight of a bear. Bridger's story was that he was up on La Bouta Creek, where there were trees scattered all around, and he was in a nook cooking his breakfast, when he happened to look up, and under the trees around him in a great circle were about two hundred and fifty separate bears sitting down and watching him. They had smelt the frying of the meat, and had come in as near as they dared to come; each one was sitting down under a tree, and Bridger knew nothing of them until he looked up and saw them. His idea was to impress me with the plentiful supply of bear in the country. I said to him, 'Well, what did you do?' and he replied, 'Oh! I didn't do nothing.' 'Well, what did the bears do?' 'Oh, they did nothing, only they just sot around.' So the expression grew, that, as to the officers and others there at the post, like Bridger's bears, they 'only just sot around.'
As orders had been given that we should return, and as we were going back by Pole Creek, I asked Bridger about Pole Creek, how long it was, and what there was up at the head of it. He described it to me with great detail, and the pass through the mountains at the head of it. After he got through he told me that when he first came to the country, Lodgepole Creek, which was then only a valley in the plateau, used to be an awfully deep canyon, 'one of the deepest, worst canyons in the whole country, deeper than Thunder Canyon,' and yet since he had been in the country it had filled up from the winds and the wash of the mountains. As Lodgepole was only a depression in the clay which composed the plateau, this story was evidently impossible. I asked him why we had seen no herds of buffalo coming all the way up from Cottonwood Canyon, although on the divide at Jules Stretch there were many old buffalo-heads, worn by the weather, which showed that forty years before they might have been in great quantities. He said that the buffalo had quit running so near the mountains, and that they were ranging farther east down through Nebraska and Kansas. He said that down below Cottonwood Springs, on the Platte, one time there was the biggest herd of buffalo he ever saw. His party was camped in a train on the south side of the river; they saw the buffalo coming from the north, and corralled their wagons and animals to keep from being 'tromped' (trampled). The big herd came plunging into the river one over the other in enormous droves, miring down, and walking over each other's backs. They dammed the river so that the water rose to overflow the flat where the wagons were, and the water went plumb up to the axles, and it would not have taken but a little more to have all been washed away and drowned. I was afterwards told that this was one of Bridger's favorite stories, and was called his 'buffalo dam story.' Bridger at this time was sixty years of age, and had been in the mountain country over forty years.
As there was no traffic upon the line of road, and no pilgrims coming or going, and the Indian scare all- prevailing, General Mitchell determined to make some military posts along the line of the road; also to put up fort at what was then called Julesburg. He ordered Captain Shuman of the Eleventh Ohio to build a fort at or near Scott's Bluffs; he also ordered a little fortified post to be put up at the ruins which were called 'Ficklin'; and another at Mud Springs, which was at the north end of Jules Stretch. He ordered our company to go to Julesburg, and immediately begin the erection of a fort there, each place to have a telegraph operator and an assistant; he further ordered the road patrolled. Captain Shuman left Fort Laramie before we did, and the details referred to were also sent to Ficklin, and to Mud Springs. There was a sort of sub-district consisting of a territory from Mud Springs to South Pass organized, and this was put in charge of Lieut.-Colonel Collins, of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry. This Colonel Collins had a son, Lieutenant Collins, who was continually scouting through the country with details of men under orders from his father. The Lieutenant's first name was Caspar, and he generally went by the name of Lieutenant Caspar. The Indians were getting bad west of Laramie, destroying trains, killing pilgrims and carrying off women. Far down in the east they were making violent incursions upon the road between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Kearney, so that there was a condition of war between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Kearney and between Fort Laramie and South Pass. The territory between Cottonwood Springs and Fort Laramie was comparatively quiet, but the fear was that the Indians from the north and south would begin to harass that territory. There was a fort built and named Fort Caspar after Lieutenant Collins, and afterwards a Fort Collins built. Lieutenant Caspar was killed by the Indians not very far west of Fort Laramie, but it was after we had left Fort Laramie, which we did August 31st, 1864. The country south of Laramie had been scouted down a considerable distance, and Fort Collins had been recently established.
Lieutenant Caspar (Collins) was a good deal of a favorite. He was a young man, full of life and energy, exceedingly brave, exceedingly reckless, and almost without ballast. He seemed to dash into things without much premeditation, played a strong and magnificent game of poker, took one drink too much, once in a while, but was apparently a young man entirely devoid of fear and with an ambition to have military success and renown; his characteristics finally led to the necessary result: he was killed in an engagement with Indians which he ought to have avoided.
August 30th was a delightful day, and with my red silk sash, and imposing uniform, I mounted guard for the last time in due and ancient style, with the garrison, as usual, standing and looking on. In the evening we had our dress parade with all the style that could be displayed. It was my last one. Every soldier that could be got out was in line. The post commander was to issue a lot of orders which were to be read on dress parade. I marched up from the line; saluted the post commander with the customary formula, 'Sir, the parade is formed'; walked around to his left and rear with the customary angular steps, and he drilled the post command for quite a while. We were cavalrymen on foot at the parade. Our parades were always on foot, and, the men were put through the saber drill. Then he gave me a lot of orders in which my company were ordered to one place, and others ordered to others, indicating that a permanent separation was about to take place, which made us all have a sort of depressed feeling. When the parade was closed, I went to my company and gave it a very careful inspection, and also carefully inspected the horses. That was by order of Captain O'Brien, who had been in charge of the company while I was post adjutant.
In order to get a good start, for General Mitchell was a prompt marcher, we had bugle sounded at 2 o'clock in the morning, and hastily getting our breakfast we filed out on horseback at 3 A.M. and started down the road.
Chapter XXII.
Departure from Laramie – Points on the Road – Camp Shuman – Shad-blow – Chimney Rock Court House Rock – Table of Distances – Mud Springs – Camp on Lodgepole – September 4, 1864 – Julesburg – The Indian Situation
I WILL give a better description of the country over which we marched on our return than on our march up, because on the march up it was cloudy and we were very tired and fagged out; but we started down with our horses well shod, rested, and well fed, and everything in good condition for a rapid march.
