would make an attack on the mules and horses. Every once in a while a sort of dusky blur would whisk past the wagons, and as I wanted to keep awake anyhow so as to give the men a good sleep, for they had a big day's work to do, I from time to time, with my drawn saber, walked around the wagons, so as to be sure that the gang of wolves did not pitch onto some animal and have a feast. When morning came I was very tired and sleepy, but felt better after I had drunk a quart of hot coffee.
We then drove the wagons up Ash Hollow, put out pickets, and started cutting and loading the wood. It was a kind of cedar. I really don't now remember whether it was the piлon pine or whether it was cedar. The trunks were thick at the base, short and bushy, and hard to cut. But the men worked hard, and reinforced each other, and the pickets came in, and were relieved, and
took turns, and in the afternoon about three o'clock we had as much on the wagons as could be safely loaded to get out of the gulch with. We then left them standing, and took all the mules and horses and everything down to the river, grazed the horses, cooked supper, and went back so as to get out of the gulch before it was too dark. Along in the afternoon a smoke signal was plainly seen to go up from the bluffs on the North Platte. We came from the river, hitched up the teams, and started to get out of the gulch. We deployed in a sort of circle. We went slowly, for the teams had to keep together. In some places we had to unhitch the animals from one wagon, and double team, to get up steep grades. But we kept at work with it, and by ten o'clock at night we were up on the plateau; but the men were very tired.
We parked the wagons together in quadrangular shape, took the saddles off from the horses because we now had wagon-loads of wood to fight behind if necessary, and we were not in any wise afraid that we could be taken in. We put out four sentinels at a considerable distance from the wagons, and one of them came in, saying he had seen a fire-arrow go up southwest of us. This was in the direction of Julesburg. It happened this time that I was looking in that direction; it was the apprehension of the soldier; what he really saw was a shooting star. The next morning we followed our road back, gave the horses a little of the dirty water that we could find at what we called Horse Lake, and got into Julesburg late that night. The boys chopped up the wood, saving every little splinter of it, dug holes in the ground, cooked coffee and bacon, and got a good square meal, which was the first one that they had had for a long while. In fact, the boys had not had a good square meal since we had left Laramie on the evening of August 31st, and it was now about the 10th of September. I told Captain O'Brien the wolf story; be just hooted at it, and I had to bring up one of the boys to prove it to him.
About a mile west of Julesburg station, and almost exactly south of the mouth of Lodgepole, a man had started a ranch which had been almost completed during peaceful times. He had an adobe house one story high, an adobe store-room, and a sod corral not entirely finished. The man's name was Samuel D. Bancroft. A fine well had been dug in front, and was curbed up; it yielded very good water. The road led straight past the house. There was also a stock well in the rear. We were ordered by telegraph to make a fortification, and prepare to hold the place at any odds. The weather was getting chilly, and we came to the
conclusion that we could not get a fort built in time for the cold weather, and by aid of the telegraph, we got permission to negotiate for Bancroft's ranch. Captain O'Brien carried on the negotiations; we got a provisional agreement, and went immediately to work on the ranch to enlarge and strengthen everything. There was a large sod-plow at the station, which had been much used. Our blacksmith took the share of the plow, drew it out wide and thin, and proceeded to harden it very hard all through. We put the company mules onto this plow, and, going down into the bottoms where the sod was tough and fibrous, we began to plow it in slices twelve inches wide. The tangled grassroots that had been forming for centuries were tough as felt, and we had to plow at least six inches deep in many places to get under them. The way we worked was systematized as follows: A soldier rode the front team of mules to the plow. We had about five spans of mules. Another man held the plow, and another with a gad kept the mules almost on the trot. The furrows were long, and the slices were thrown up over-lappingly. Men came behind with broadaxes, and, guessing at a three-foot length, chopped down through with a blow onto the furrow- slices. Men and teams followed, who hauled this sod up to the Bancroft Ranch, and others there laid it up as fast as it came, while others were puddling mud to make a mortar junction. The sod was laid up, breaking joints, and there were alternate running and cross layers, and it was rammed down as fast as laid. There was lots to do, and everybody worked well. Bancroft continued to occupy one of the houses, and let us go ahead and build, but he would not surrender complete possession until he got a Government voucher. Captain O'Brien and I went into one of the houses, and Bancroft in the other.
By telegraph we got a lot of cedar poles cut down at Cottonwood Canyon, and the post wagons there brought us up a lot under escort. There was nothing growing along the Platte of much consequence. The statement used to be that one could not get a riding-switch for seventy miles on each side of Julesburg along the Platte. It was thirty miles south of Julesburg to what was called the White Man's Fork of the Republican River, but it was seventy miles, nearly, to the Republican River. Pioneers had said that there was nothing on White Man's Fork and nothing until we went seventy miles to the Republican, and there only cottonwoods.
Inside of the corral we started to build our stables, and company quarters; the rear of the company quarters was the sod wall around the outside of the place. These we divided into rooms. On following page is a plan of the post as we established it.
Bancroft, during the summer, had cut down a great quantity of grass, on the north side of the river, and raked it up for the purpose of selling to the pilgrims, but he had been disturbed, and could with difficulty get assistance. He still had the grass, and was fearful that a prairie-fire at any time would sweep the country. We hauled up and piled the hay on the inside of our inclosure, and we set the mowing-machine at work upon the grass that now remained. There was plenty of it, but it was somewhat frosted, and dry. We continued however, to cut that grass so as to carry us through the winter, and it was brought up and stacked inside of our fort.
Down at Julesburg station was a great quantity of shelled corn. There had been an intention of trying to put the stages to running on the Salt Lake trail, in which event a large amount of shelled corn would be necessary. So there were stored at Julesburg station many thousand bushels of shelled corn. As the stage line on the Salt Lake trail was not yet restored, via Fort Laramie, we confiscated and took what we wanted, giving vouchers for it, which were honored and paid by the Government; so that we had hay and corn for our horses.
On the 15th of September 1864, we were busy at work, as busy as bees, when, under an escort, along came Major Fillmore of the army, and paid us off. We had not been paid since back in the spring sometime, and there was no money left in the company. The boys were in the habit of lending to each other, so that the members of the company always went broke about the same time. Now that Major Fillmore had paid us up the boys felt better, but there was nothing they could buy. All that they could do with their money was to play cards for it or send it home. Those who wanted to send home money notified us, and the money was put in separate envelopes and duly sealed, for we had plenty of sealing-wax, and I wrote my name across the back of the envelopes as a witness to the amount which was put in. After all the money which the boys desired to send home had been fixed up, Lieutenant Brewer waited until a train and escort were going down, and he took the money down as far as Fort Kearney, where it could be safely turned over to a responsible express company.
It is interesting to note, as illustrating the conditions of the times, that there were issued to us, as a company, so many quills for pens, and so much red sealing-wax, and so much tape, as stationery supplies for the company. No mucilage was issued, because that had not yet become a matter of scientific manufacture, but the druggist sold gum-arabic in the cities; and as for us, we made boiled paste from flour. Our muster-rolls used to come in sections, and we boiled the flour, pasted them together, and then with some smooth piece of hot iron, would iron down the junction smooth; we had no difficulty.
There was but very little sickness in our company. There were sick civilians from time to time who needed attention, and our application for a post surgeon was granted.
There was sent to our post a doctor named Wisely. My recollection is that he came down from Denver to us, but the first thing I knew of him he appeared at the post, and went directly to work on some of the sick who were there, and he was a very satisfactory doctor. His title was Acting Assistant Surgeon. He was thoroughly and loyally devoted to his profession, didn't know anything or talk anything but medicine and surgery, stayed with the boys carefully and attentively, drank no whisky, played no cards, and was in fact as satisfactory an army surgeon as I ever saw. He had a peculiar face. His nose was the most grotesque and disproportionate nose that I ever saw on a man. It was more than a nose – it was a combination of beak and snout. The boys, quickly catching onto these things, started to speak of him as Dr. Snout; but Dr. Wisely would have received no permanent nickname had not one of the boys one day called him Dr. Nosely. This appellation stuck. The Doctor received it good-naturedly, and we always after that called Dr. Wisely, 'Dr. Nosely.'
