there were dilapidated, worn, cotton-filled bed-quilts. There was nothing in the shape of guns and ammunition, nor was there any camp equipage. It was one of the most puzzling sights I ever saw. We tried our best to see if we could solve it; we were greatly mystified. The wagons were old-looking, as if sand-storms and prairie weather had beaten them up considerably. I finally made up my mind that the Indians had been the cause of it, years before, although I was not really sure. Indians would, of course, take away everything in the way of cooking apparatus, blankets, food, and ammunition. The other stuff they would not take; as, for instance, in one of the open trunks was a real nice little writing-desk with a very fine little ornamental inkstand, and a nice ivory penholder, and pens. On the other hand, these parties might have been swamped in a storm, lost the greater part of their horses, and had been able to arrange a couple of teams loaded up with what they wanted, and get away. But these wagons were off from any known road, or any line of travel which anybody then knew of or heard of.
There were in our detachment a dozen cavalry soldiers; so I brought them up, picked out four of these wagons, the best ones, four sets of harness, hitched up, and started down Lodgepole. The harness was dilapidated and rotten, but by selecting from the various sets and by using some of our own stuff we managed to get enough for eight horses that worked reasonably well. We also took articles from the wagons: for instance, there were two sheet-iron washtubs in one of the wagons, also a couple of sheet-iron stoves. There were several good pine boxes with hinges on their covers, several articles of underwear. In short, we took about what there was that was of any value, and came down fifteen miles to the crossing.
Strange as it may appear, we searched everywhere to find something that would give us some clue to the ownership of the wagons, but not a thing could be found. Everything in the shape of letters had been carried off. This is one reason why we believed that it was an abandoned camp. But guides to whom we afterwards spoke, said that the Indians would have taken off or destroyed any letters or books which they might find. But this did not seem reasonable, because why should not the Indians have carried off the harness and burned the wagons? We gave the utmost publicity to this strange find, and had it published in the Denver and the Omaha papers, but never did anything occur which gave us any knowledge of the facts, or any clue to the ownership of the property.
We got down to the crossing, and the log train had pulled out for Julesburg. The next morning, the 6th, the men all rode down to Julesburg in the wagons, and took turns riding and leading the bunch of horses which went in front. We got into Julesburg the evening of the 6th of November.
The next day we had a muster of the company, because the National and State election was to come off on the 8th. Lincoln was candidate for the second term and McClellan was the candidate back in the States of all the Copperheads, rebels, thieves, deserters, bounty-jumpers, and other branches of the then so-called Democratic party. The fight made on Lincoln was incredibly bitter. McClellan the 'ever unready,' ambitious, and incompetent, was the idol of every man who did not want to see the Union saved. A vast amount of Copperhead literature had been sent to the soldiers to get them to become disloyal. From time to time the wagons that carried the mail had delivered, at our post direct to our soldiers, barrels of mail. Some of it was from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, edited by Brick Pomeroy, who wanted to see Lincoln in hell, as he said, playing poker with red-hot sheet-iron cards. When this mail came, which was about every two weeks as the mail went through to Denver, Captain O'Brien and I went into the barracks, gathered up this literature, talked to the men about it, and burned it. Very much to my surprise, I found the company largely impregnated with McClellan doctrine. Captain O'Brien made a speech to the men that was brief, sharp and pithy, and he had the advantage in doing it, because, as his name was O'Brien, he had an opportunity to put the Irish handle on McClellan's name, and to denounce him as an unworthy Irish-American citizen.
When the time came for voting, a great number of the soldiers, fully one-half, declined to vote one way or the other, and when the vote was taken it was twenty-six for Lincoln and fourteen for McClellan. This shows in what a dangerous condition, and how perilous a crisis, the nation was in. It is a great wonder and a great mystery that the Union was saved, as I look at it now; although I was in the middle of it all, I cannot understand it. It seemed that from year to year, in one great crisis after another, we were just merely able in each crisis to save it, and that was all; time after time it was saved almost by a scratch. The Union managed to just get through, and that was all. Lincoln thought for a while that he was beaten.
At the time of which I speak, Price had raided up through Missouri as far as Kansas City, and we were dismally disappointed with the news. From time to time it seemed as if he were going to take Fort Leavenworth, turn the tide of war west of the Mississippi, and break the United States in two. However, Price was defeated, but scarcely anything more, and our side just did manage, and that is about all, to get him started back. I was feeling very despondent after our election, as I did up the returns, and handed them to Captain O'Brien to be forwarded to the Governor of Iowa.
We unloaded the logs at headquarters, and Captain O'Brien thought I had better go over again to Ash Hollow, and get some more wood. In the mean time the Government had furnished us, through their quartermaster at Fort Kearney, a few more tents suitable for campaigning in winter, if we had to make a winter campaign. We pressed in some of the wagons that we had freighted down Lodgepole, and with our company wagons, all together making a train of ten wagons, I started for Ash Hollow.
I may perhaps be permitted to go back, and say that on the entire road from Fort Laramie we had seen no Indians, and no Indian signs. Charley Elston said that the Indians had gone up into winter quarters, except the young bucks, who had gone off farther down the Platte. These young bucks were only in detached squads, and there was nothing for them to get on the Platte River west of Cottonwood; so that the Indian scare appeared to be over. I found that the ranches were being reoccupied. Gillett's ranch, about nine or ten miles west of Julesburg, had been filled up, and a large lot of cattle had been brought in. And the ranches east of Julesburg clear down to Cottonwood Springs had been filled up again. People had fortified the ranches, and the stages had started running regularly up the South Platte. The old stage-drivers said there was no difficulty, and although troops were stationed about every twenty-five miles along the road, there seemed to be no work for them to do except to escort the mail and the stages, and the caravans of teams which occasionally went by.
Lieutenant Williams had gone on down the road. He told us the story of his adventures between Fort Kearney and Cottonwood Springs, coming up. He and an officer named Hancock were riding west in the stage, and there was a man sitting up on the box with the driver. It was a bright moonlight night. It was a four-horse stage. After they had got well out of Plum Creek coming west, and were out on the broad plains, all at once about a dozen shots came from the Indians, and they killed the two horses that were in the lead, and these two horses dropped in their tracks. This was part of the Indian plan, and then they commenced shooting into the stage. Williams and Hancock with Smith amp; Wesson carbines, and the other two with Sharpe rifles, got down flat on the ground and kept up a fire with the Indians, who besieged them all night. The two dead horses kept the stage from being run away with, and the Indians soon killed the other two. As the Indians skirmished around, the men lay on the ground or got in between the horses, and when morning came they had fired off a greater part of their ammunition, and had succeeded in getting two or three Indians, but were themselves unharmed. They were reinforced in the morning by a party who had been warned by someone who had heard the firing. This was hardly to be called a night attack, for there was a bright full moon.
West of Cottonwood Springs everything seemed to be perfectly safe. The Cheyennes had met with some rough treatment down in Kansas, and along the Arkansas river, and had got over their war fever somewhat. But every once in a while some of the young bucks got out, and succeeded in capturing some emigrant wagons, or some frontier house, and killing somebody. It got to the point that everybody said that the only safety was to exterminate the Cheyenne Indians, but nothing had happened around our post to show an Indian present, nor had we seen any fire-arrows or smoke-signals for quite a while. And in my last trip from Fort Laramie, as stated, nothing of the kind was in view.
On the 9th of November, 1864, we got all ready to go to Ash Hollow, and I determined to make the trip in the night, so as to get there after sunrise, deeming it the safer. The several days of rest my horse had got made him almost unmanageable. I mean my Hermitage horse, 'Old Bill.' He seemed to be determined to run, and he started off on his hind legs, pawing the air, going on the tips of his toes, and frisking so that I found that I was in danger of having a runaway horse, or one which would be uncontrollable in case of danger. So, in order to get him down to business, I got him down in the Pole Creek arroyo, where the sand was about up to his knees, and I ran him a mile up the creek as hard as he could go, and a mile back. That was a very severe test. I made him go his best. This took the wire edge off of him, and for the balance of the trip he went along like a good, sensible horse.
We got to Ash Hollow, kept well on the lookout, worked hard most of the day, and filled our wagons, then went into camp, parking everything up as if for a fight. All at once, on the other side of the river, went up a smoke signal.
