January 1, 1865 – Ordered to Cottonwood Springs – No Escort – Driver Drunk on Prairie – The New Recruits – February 6, 1865 – Detailed as Aide-de-Camp – The Man-frog – The Premonition – Drilling Co. 'I' Ordered to Julesburg – Ordered Back – Alkali – Returned to Cottonwood – Indian Expedition Forming at Cottonwood
ON THE first day of January, 1865, I received a telegraphic order to proceed immediately to Cottonwood Springs and not wait for anything; to be there to receive instructions by wire at noon on the third. In a little while afterwards I received a specific telegram to be in Cottonwood Springs at 12 o'clock, noon, January 3rd, with the addendum to it, 'This order is peremptory.'
I saw that it would not be possible to make it in the winter on horseback without great inconvenience, and I went down to the stage station to see if I could get a stage with four horses, to run me through, night and day; which would bring me in in good time. There was an old driver there, a reckless fellow, the man who got the arrow through his coat collar, of whom I have spoken. He said that be would hitch up as soon as he could have a couple of horses shod, and he would start off with me. I told him I would have ten men detailed as an escort. He said, 'What in thunder do we want of an escort? I'll drive you through all right.' I said, 'Suppose some Injun shoots you off from the box?' He said: 'Well, if they get me they get you; but I'll take you through all right. The Injun won't trouble us at night, and I can get you through to O'Fallon's Bluffs before morning; then if you want an escort at O'Fallon's Bluffs we can get it there.'
Of course, it would never do for me to appear scared, if a stage-driver wasn't scared. I would have eternally lost my reputation if I had said anything more about an escort. If my men should ever hear that I had wanted an escort when the stage-driver didn't, they would have probably called upon me to resign. I thought it very unsafe, but still I told him that if he didn't want an escort I didn't, so I put up the 'bluff' that all I wanted of an escort was for his benefit; that I could take care of myself. This seemed to please him.
About nine o'clock on that evening, all by our lone selves, on the stage, we started for Cottonwood Springs. There was no snow on the ground anywhere to be seen. It had all gone. The whole landscape was slate-gray as far as could be seen; there was no moonlight – just a bright starlight.
The stage-driver told me to get inside, which I did, with a little bundle of blankets and paraphernalia done up in a strap; a Smith amp; Wesson carbine, two revolvers strapped on, a box of ammunition, a field-glass, a big heavy overcoat, and two buffalo-robes. The driver primed himself with ranch whisky before we started, and asked me to keep the windows of the coach down so that I could fire out on either side, and be ready to get out whenever he shouted.
So we started, I with a revolver on the seat on each side of me, and with the carbine across my lap. The wind whistled in with a strong December chill through the open sides of the coach door, and it was anything but pleasant and comfortable. We heard wolves yelping from time to time, and I kept on the lookout for fire signals. On and on went the coach at a mad rate. Every once in a while the driver would shout back to me, 'Do you see anything?' or 'Do you hear anything?' or 'How are you getting on?'
At about broad daylight I woke up. I had been asleep. The stage was stopped. It took me a little while to gather myself together. I looked out, and saw that we were right close to the hills. From the other side I saw we were two or three miles from the river, and the horses had their heads down to the ground, nipping the dried grass. It immediately occurred to me that the driver had been killed on the box. The next thing occurred to me was that there were some Indians around; so I began to peer cautiously around the sides from one side to the other, and I could see the driver's foot sticking out on one side above me. I spoke to him, then again and again, louder and louder, and got no response. I soon, by gazing around, was satisfied that there was no Indian around the coach nor under it, and I got out. And there lay the driver extended out on the box. The horses were nipping along, and the reins were tangled up with the horses' heels of the rear span. I got up and shook the driver, and saw no blood, but I did smell a good deal of whisky, and saw the cork end of the bottle sticking out of his overcoat pocket. I pulled it out, and it was empty. I then shook him some more. He stupidly aroused himself up, and I saw that he had got drunk on the box. I got the lines up as fast as I could from the horses amid the tangle, and, unaccustomed to driving a stage, I managed to get the horses twisted around, and started back to the road. I got them back there as fast as I could. I expected every minute to see some Indian rise up somewhere or come over the hill. In a little while the stage-driver began to come to, after I had got the horses into the road. They were galloping down, and I with my foot on the brake was trying to keep the stage in the road, and right side up. The driver came to – slowly and painfully, but he came to. Come to find out, we had not made much progress. He had got primed up high, and in a little while the coach had slowed down; I, with the carbine across my lap, had gone to sleep, and we had been camping out a couple of miles off from the road all night. And when we got back to the road we found that we had come only about twenty miles.
We finally got down to O'Fallon's Bluffs. We got breakfast, and I sent a telegram to my orderly to come down with the next train that came to Cottonwood Springs, and bring my stuff and the two horses with him. At O'Fallon's Bluffs a regular stage-coach pretty full of passengers overtook us, under escort. I preferred to let my stage-driver go back, and I got aboard the crowded stage, and went on down to Cottonwood Springs, where I arrived about nine o'clock in the morning.
The object of my mission and the order for me to go to Cottonwood, was this: Recruiting officers in Iowa had forwarded to Omaha a lot of recruits for our regiment, and they were to arrive, one hundred and sixteen of them, that day from Fort Kearney, whence they had been brought in six mule wagons. I was to take command, and immediately organize them into a company, and go to work drilling them as rapidly as possible. I was told privately that an Indian expedition bad been organized to go down and drive the Indians out of eastern Colorado and northwestern Kansas. That the object was to keep the Indians on the go; that an Indian expedition for that purpose had been arranged, and that these new recruits had to be drilled, so that when they were divided up and put into the companies they would be able to know what to do. I was authorized to appoint corporals and sergeants, was told to drill the company on foot in all the cavalry movements, and to instruct the non-commissioned officers in their duties, so that by the time the horses would get there, which they thought would be in a week, the men could go to work drilling on horseback. I was further told to drill them all they would stand, clear to the point of exhaustion. Of course, this meant exhausting myself as well. When I found out what I was detailed to do I did not like the job.
I received the men, drew them up into line on their arrival, told them that they were a company, and that we would call it Company 'I' (The real Company 'I' of the regiment was many miles off, up at Sioux City, Iowa.) I told them that they had just come in time to get in a glorious Indian campaign, and would all be covered with glory; that I wanted them to be drilled in shape before they went, and wanted their hearty coцperation, for I would drill with them and do just as much as they. I then went and telegraphed my arrival and the assuming of the command, and that I had begun work, and suggested that someone be sent to relieve me, as my own company demanded all of my services. My telegram received no response.
The weather turned off blusteringly cold. The poor young recruits dressed in their overcoats were got out for a drill right after breakfast, and I drilled them all over the country until noon. Then I gave them an hour in which to get dinner, and an hour to play poker, and then I drilled them until supper-time. After supper-time I opened at the post headquarters a school of instruction. With wrapping paper and charcoal I made a wall blackboard, and demonstrated to them the calls, and the movements. The boys took hold of it all in a strenuous way. There was no grumbling; they were tired out every day, but learned quite rapidly. They learned it theoretically at night by the lectures I gave them, and in daytime by the drill.
On the morning of January 6th, I received a telegram from General Mitchell, commanding the district at Omaha, asking me if I would act as his personal aide-decamp; and, if so, for me to proceed immediately to Omaha. I wired him that I would be glad to serve as aide-de-camp, and that I would start early the next morning. In the mean time my orderly and two horses had arrived, and I was all ready to proceed to Omaha. Owing to the crowded condition of the post, I was sleeping on the floor which was temporarily used by the adjutant of the regiment, Mr. Sheffield, who had moved his headquarters to Cottonwood Springs. Cottonwood Springs had become in point of strength and equipment the largest and most important post at that time from Fort Kearney to Denver, but in point of importance and danger Julesburg, or, as we called it then, 'Fort Sedgwick,' was of the most consequence. The post had been named 'Fort Sedgwick' from Major-General Sedgwick, who served in the Civil War. On the forenoon of the 6th of January a band of Indians made a dash on a train near Julesburg, killed four men, and retreated. It could not be ascertained what tribe they were of, or whither they went.
That evening I went to sleep rolled up in a blanket, and lying upon a buffalo-robe stretched upon the dirt floor. I
