had all my equipment and worldly possessions right there, and the next forenoon was going to start according to orders with my orderly and an escort for Fort Kearney. I was tired, had eaten a hearty supper, and during the night I had a very strange sort of nightmare. It is not unusual for soldiers to grow superstitious, but I think that I had gained as little of it as anyone. But in the night I was awakened by something like a great man-frog jumping upon me, with knees and feet, and weighing about a ton, and saying to me in a stern and threatening tone, 'You will never see Omaha.' I woke up, making an effort as if to throw off the incubus which was heavy on top of me, and in a little while went again to sleep. After having slept soundly for a while, this incubus was weighing me down again with its knees on my chest, and its hands on my shoulders, looking me in the face, and saying, 'You will never see Omaha.' I knocked him off again, and after lying awake, and thinking of what I had had for supper, and imagining my nerves were a little bit unstrung at my very sudden and unaccounted for promotion to being aide-de-camp for the General, I went again to sleep. And in less than an hour the whole thing was done over again; this frightful object which was holding me down, told me again, 'You will never see Omaha.' This third time scared me. It seemed so natural, vivid and real, that I couldn't sleep. I floundered around a little, started a chip fire in the sheet- iron stove, got up and smoked some pipefuls of tobacco, and began to philosophize on the whole business, and think of all the strange things I had heard in regard to spiritualistic manifestations and premonitions. I remembered how in another regiment an old Mexican war soldier had always said that the initial of a man's name was on the bullet which killed him, and that people always had premonitions about these things. During the war the newspapers were full of premonitions, most of them written up by imaginative novelists. As dawn came I rolled up and got a little bit of a nap, and was called for breakfast. Here is a copy of my order.
Head Quarters District of Nebraska,
OMAHA, N.T., January 6th, 1865 GENERAL ORDERS No. 2. 2nd Lieut. Eugene F. Ware, Co. F, 7th Iowa Cav. is hereby
detailed and announced, as Aide de Camp upon the staff of the
General Commanding, and will be obeyed and respected
accordingly. By order of BRIG. GENL. ROBT. L. MITCHELL. Jno. Pratt,
A.A.G.
Official.
/s/ Jno. Pratt, A.A.G.
As I had a march of several hundred miles to make on horseback, I started to have my horses shod with great heavy shoes. I counted and inventoried the ordnance stores, pistols, and everything which my company had been drilling with, and took a receipt from the post commander. I also turned over all the stuff which I had received in shape of quartermaster stores for the company, and by the time I had got through getting receipts for the public property, and got ready to go, in the forenoon, a telegram came that the Indians were besieging Fort Sedgwick, and that my company had lost several men, killed, and wanted help. I immediately received an order from General Mitchell by telegram to take a detachment of forty men, and a piece of artillery, and proceed to Julesburg; and before I got started the commander at O'Fallon's Bluffs telegraphed that the Indians had run all around his post, and had halted a train and killed several persons. It was difficult to organize the new detachment quickly, and word came that the Indians had been seen around Gilmans' ranch east of us, at which place a company of Nebraska cavalry had been stationed.
The Post Commander at Cottonwood did not want to give me more than ten men, but I finally succeeded in getting twelve mounted men, a twelve-pound mountain howitzer, and thirty-two of Company 'I.' The latter were armed and put into covered wagons with three drivers, making twelve cavalrymen and thirty-two infantrymen, and four drivers. I determined also to throw a wagon-sheet over the artillery, so as to make it look like a wagon. This would lead the Indians to believe that twelve mounted men were escorting four wagons loaded with supplies, and might induce them to pitch onto the train, and try to take it. The men on the inside all had their guns and ammunition, and the wagons were filled with hay as forage for the horses, and shelter for the men.
We started out, and rode all night against a northwest wind, making good time. We saw a fire-arrow go up from the 'Sioux Lookout' near Jack Morrow's ranch, and we saw a fire-arrow go up in the air ahead of us, farther on. We stopped at O'Fallon's Bluffs, and were told that a train had been wrecked and burned within three miles of there by the Indians, the horses all lost, but none of the white people killed. They had all got to the post.
The ride had been very hard upon my twelve cavalrymen, and the drivers of the howitzer and wagons. It was about 40 miles. Some of the men in the wagons had frosted their feet, or thought they had, and had suffered a great deal from cold. They had been obliged to get out in little detachments, and hold on to the end-gates of the wagons and run, to keep up their circulation.
At O'Fallon's Bluffs I received a telegraphic order to come back with the detachment immediately to Cottonwood Springs. In fact, this order had got to O'Fallon's Bluffs before I got there. We stopped to cook a meal, and give the men some sleep before starting back, when all at once the order was countermanded, and I was ordered to proceed on immediately to Alkali Station, which was being threatened by Indians, and to lose no time. Thereupon all the men were waked up, and, amid a great deal of grumbling, we started out for Alkali Station, getting in there late in the afternoon. I then said to myself: 'I see now what the premonition meant. I was ordered to go back to Omaha, and here now I am under orders going west. It was a very wise and sensible premonition that knew what was going on. I may never see Omaha.'
When I got to Alkali I wired my arrival, and told them that there was news that the Indians were dancing around Julesburg, said to be Arapahoes and Cheyennes, and that Alkali Station was all right. I thought I had better be permitted to go on to my destination. The word was that quite a battle had taken place at Julesburg, but the telegraph line was so occupied that I could not get into it. As soon as I had reported my arrival at Alkali I was immediately ordered to send back the men and artillery to Cottonwood Springs. Hearing of the trouble my company was having at Julesburg, I did not obey the order, and protested to Colonel Livingston, commanding the sub-district, asking him to rescind it, and let me go to the relief of my company. At 10 A.M. on January 10, 1865, Colonel Livingston sent me a very cross and peremptory order, telling me to send back the whole detachment immediately. I construed the words 'send back the detachment' to mean that I need not go back myself, but that it could go back under any proper commander so it got back. So I sent the detachment back in the charge of a sergeant, and I remained at Alkali to get into communication with Captain O'Brien, and ascertain what the trouble was at Julesburg. Finally I heard from Captain O'Brien the full reports of the battle.
I quickly received a peremptory order to return to Cottonwood Springs. I rode that night all by my lone self down to O'Fallon's Bluffs on my horse 'Old Bill.' I knew no Indian could catch me as long as I rode him. At O'Fallon's Bluffs a caravan going east had been halted for some little time, and with ten men belonging to Captain Wilcox's company, that was stationed at O'Fallon's Bluffs, we started late in the afternoon, marched all night, and arrived in the morning of the 13th of January at Cottonwood Springs, and there I found General Mitchell, and to him I reported for duty. This riding all night up and down the dreary, arid wastes of Nebraska in winter was no fun. The General detailed me as Acting Assistant Adjutant-General of the district, and told me that an Indian expeditionary command would march on the second day, January 15, 1865.
All this time companies of cavalry were arriving from the East. The Indians had disappeared, having committed great depredations all along the route from within fifty miles of Denver to Cottonwood Springs. Almost every ranch had been besieged or had had a fight with the Indians. The Indians had captured a number of horses, killed a lot of people, and had disappeared, going south. And while this was going on on the Platte, they had raided the Arkansas River, and had done great damage. They had burned trains, and great quantities of stores and supplies. Newspapers said that a million dollars of damage had been done on the Platte, and another million had been done on the Arkansas River. I think it must have been overdrawn considerably, but yet much damage had been done. The Indians had had a fight wherever they had appeared. They had either struck frontiersmen, pioneers or soldiers, and they made no movement without they had a fight. The country was all ready for a fight, and every man in it expected to fight. I will stop now here to tell of the fight at Julesburg, in which my company was engaged. It was a matter of great regret that I was not with my company at the time it happened, but it was all unexpected at Julesburg. I will make it the subject of the next chapter.
