That day we marched thirty-seven miles, passing the ranch of Beauvais, five miles from Fort Laramie; Bordeaux ranch, ten miles from Fort Laramie; the 'First Ruins,' so called, eighteen miles; and the Woc-a-pom-any agency, twenty-eight miles. We camped at the mouth of Horse Creek which was thirty-seven miles from Fort Laramie. This Horse Creek was the scene of a celebrated ancient treaty with the Indians, but which was no longer observed or recognized. But there had been heretofore many provisions in it which were referred to as the provisions of the 'Horse Creek Treaty.'
The ruins, first and second, were ruins of stone stations which had been put up by ranchmen for the overland express company running through to Salt Lake; but the express company, for the time being, was knocked out of existence, so that there was at the time of which I speak no mail, stage or express carried over the road except by soldiers. There was also a pile of stone about two feet high and ten feet square, where the celebrated Gratton massacre had taken place. This has been written of so often that I will not refer to it except to say that a lieutenant with a few men was sent to deal with some Indians, several years before, and make them surrender some property, and having a piece of artillery, the Indians being obstinate, he fired over the heads of the Indians to scare them, and the Indians immediately massacred the whole detachment.
The Woc-a-pom-any Agency was a little grassy flat consisting of several acres of land on the Platte river, susceptible of irrigation. In fact, there were old ruins of the irrigation ditch. The Indian agent at the time for that agency was named John Loree, so I was told, but he did not stay around the agency, and confined his time and services, as was said, to keeping in a safe place, and drawing his salary.
The road from Fort Laramie to Horse Creek, almost the entire distance, was sandhills and deep dust. The dust was almost insufferable. There was but little air stirring, and the long line of horsemen kept the dust in the air so that it was very difficult to breathe. Horse Creek, when we reached it, was absolutely dry, although there was said to be plenty of water up ten miles, and the guide said that forty miles farther up it was a very rapid and beautiful stream. But the stream sinks down in the sand, and in dry weather disappears. We were very much disappointed to get no water at the Horse Creek crossing, and tried to dig for it with our sabers, but could not make much headway, although we went down a couple of feet. We then went down to the Platte River and camped on its banks, where there was no wood, and where we ate a dry supper of bacon sandwiches made up of sliced raw bacon between pieces of hard-tack.
We got up September 1, 1864, at four o'clock, but did not get started until half-past five. On our road down we passed Camp Shuman. The men were busy building sod quarters with adobe trimmings on the North Platte River bank, south side, three miles west of the gap of Scott's Bluffs. Captain Shuman had just received a box marked 'Saint Croix Rum Punch,' and he opened a bottle in our honor. He introduced us to his First Lieutenant, named Ellsworth, and showed us the outline of the proposed walls which they were hurrying to build before cold weather set in. While there I noticed a young man who appeared to be the busy man of the occasion. He was ordering the men around, and keeping them at work, All at once he recognized me. He was First Sergeant, afterwards Lieutenant, of the company. We had a most fraternal meeting, because two years before that we had parted down in Arkansas, both being members of an Iowa cavalry regiment. I didn't know what his real name was when we met this time, because in the army the enlisted men all had 'army names,' and this young man's army name was 'Shad-blow.' I ought to stop to tell how this happened.
Shad-blow was the chief bugler of a battalion of Iowa cavalry in the invading army under General Curtis, who was marching down through Arkansas from the Pea Ridge battle-ground to Helena. We had reached Batesville. I at that time, as Sergeant, had been detailed as forage master of the brigade, and being out with a large number of wagons, and a detail of cavalry, had scouted up Black River, Arkansas, and not finding forage enough, and supposing that we were going to fortify at Batesville, I had loaded in the balance of the wagons with slaves. They said that they could live on corn, and they were not adverse [sic] to going with us to camp. This was early in July, 1862, and I came stringing in on that day with four hundred husky negro slaves, cotton-growers, almost all of them grown men, and a few old negro mammies among them. I dumped them down alongside of
the river (White River) and dumped out a wagon-load of corn to begin on, expecting the quartermaster to do the rest. Major-General Curtis's headquarters were not far from there, and his Adjutant came over to protest. He said I ought not to have brought those people in, and I said they were just what we wanted. We had been coming down through the mountain country where there were no slaves; we had been in favor of abolishing slavery from the beginning of the war, and that was the first time the occasion had come up in Arkansas. The negroes had some banjoes along, and the boys got some boards and doors and end-gates, and started a lot of them dancing, and 'patting juba.' In the evening, about as the dancing was over, this sergeant, Marsh, came down to see the fun and look at the colony. He was a nice trim fellow with a bright uniform, and with a burnished bugle, which hung over his shoulder with a yellow cord. He was a very conspicuous-looking young man. He was so tall and lean that the army name had been given to him of 'Shad,' and we all called him 'Shad.' He had been called that about a year. The darkies clustered around him with great admiration, and not knowing but what he was a brigadier-general, they asked him a lot of questions, and among them some one asked him what his rank was. Several of the men of our regiment were down there. Marsh, in order to bring his rank within the understanding and conception of the bystanders, said, 'I's the chief blow-man of the regiment.' The soldiers all laughed, but the darkies all stared with wonder. The remark of Marsh was evasive. The chief blow-man might be the man who gave the command to the army through the bugle, and they looked at him with much awe and admiration. The boys afterwards told this story, and Houghton, the Sergeant Major, treasured it up in his mind. The boys began to call Marsh 'Chief Blowman,' and finally, 'Mr. Blowman,' but Houghton with great sagacity combined the two names, and called him 'Shad-blow,' which tickled everybody, and Marsh always afterwards went by the name of 'Shad-blow.'
When by order of the War Department there were mustered out all non-commissioned staffs of cavalry battalions, Marsh was mustered out, and went back to his father's home in Ohio and reлnlisted. So it was that we parted at Helena, Arkansas, and less than two years afterward met at Scott's Bluffs, in Idaho Territory, as it was then called. We hugged each other. He could only remember my army name, which was 'Link,' abbreviated from Lincoln, which I was formerly called, not by way of compliment, but because I was tall and lean. The customary nickname for one who was tall and lean in those days was 'Shanghai,' which was abbreviated to 'Shang,' but as we had one Shang in the company I was called Lincoln, abbreviated to 'Link.' So that when Marsh and I met, and hugged each other there at Camp Shuman, he called me 'Link' and I called him 'Shad-blow'; then we explained what our real names were, and got back onto a true personal and military basis.
Leaving Camp Shuman, we passed through the gaps of Scott's Bluffs, halting at Ficklin, where a detachment of the Eleventh Ohio was stationed, and reported by telegraph our whereabouts to Major Woods in command at Fort Laramie.
Alcohol Butte, on the North Platte.
The marching down along the Platte River was indescribably beautiful. The days were tranquil, and ahead of us there seemed to be old castles, ruined cities, and vast cathedrals strung along the route. The plateau of the country, formed of what the pioneers called 'joint clay,' seemed to stand up in columns, joined closely together. The wind and storms of centuries had worn the plateau in places in to the most beautiful and fantastic shapes, and we could see everything depicted in the outlines of these hills and bluffs that could be seen along the Rhine or amid the ruins of Europe. The weather was most delightful. A haze hung over the whole country, the mirage was in front of us, and ever surrounding the foot of these worn rains were lakes and moats of water. We saw wild sheep sporting on Scott's Bluffs. We saw a lot of deer on Alcohol Butte, which was separate from the Bluffs at no great distance. We camped three miles east of Ficklin's, on the river, and in front of Alcohol Butte. We were apparently near the base of Chimney Rock, but were in fact some distance from it. We had marched this day about forty miles. The story about Alcohol Butte was that some half-breeds had 'cached' some alcohol there to be used in making up 'pilgrim whisky,' and that the wolves dug it out.
Upon September 2, 1864, we got up as usual at about 3 o'clock, and started at 4:15. The names of all the hills and objects along the river had been named long before by the army officers, pioneers and trappers, and Charles Elston, our guide upon this occasion, told us the names as we passed by.
Chimney Rock, on the North Platte.
Most of the names had some tradition connected with them. When we started in the morning Chimney Rock was apparently quite near us, but we were two and a half hours reaching it. The air was so clear that the distance was very deceptive. Off to the south we saw lots of deer, and great droves of antelopes, and an occasional wolf. Our dogs jumped up rabbits from time to time near the highway, but we kept on without stopping for anything, General Mitchell being in a hurry. He was going down with us. Of Chimney Rock we talked considerable, and it was
