for not keeping the Indians where they would not restrict trade. Jack's legal ideas upon this subject were quite hazy, but he easily found out how, through the negligence of the Government he had 'lost a million dollars.'
In the morning we pushed on to Alkali, and there overtook a stage which had been driven in, and kept there. Alkali was a mere sod stage station with a sod corral, and with some sod works to fight the Indians from. Captain Murphy of Company 'X' was there with his company, together with Tom Potter, my old friend. I had formerly belonged to Company 'A,' and I was glad to meet the boys at this time. The First Lieutenant of Company 'A' was named Smith, and he had learned the Sioux war-song from a Sioux, and he got so that he could sing it as well as an Indian. That evening he lay in his bunk with his clothes on, for we never undressed in the Indian country, and he sang that war-song pretty near all night. In fact, I heard it so much that I was able to sing it myself, after a fashion, but none of us could come up to Lieutenant Smith in the tones, quavers and curlicues of the song. In the station was one of the agents of the stage company, going through to Denver, by the name of Andrew Hughes, a royal fellow, brave as could be, and pushing his way through to Denver, from post to post, seeking to reлstablish his stage line and then attend to the duties of his position. And with him was a man named Clift. They had a stage of their own.
We were furnished by Captain Murphy with an additional escort to go through on. Captain O'Brien and I had our piece of artillery and gun squad with us from Cottonwood Springs, making in all ten men. One of the men was taken ill, and we were furnished with ten more, and started on to Beauvais's ranch, which was twenty-five miles east of Julesburg. This was on the last day of January – the 31st. The coach kept up with the procession, and in it were the two citizens referred to, and their camping outfit. They had two drivers on the box. Everybody was armed to the teeth. The provisions and bedding and baggage of the stage outfit were tied up on the rear of the stage on the trunk-rack. The stage had four horses. Our piece of artillery had only two, but they were large, strong horses.
We had hardly left Alkali in the morning before we saw smoke signals in the valley, and in a little while we saw Indians on the other side of the river in squads of two, seldom more or less. They seemed to be searching the other side of the river for cattle and horses which had been turned out to graze. We saw two Indians driving about fifteen head of horses. We went along the road as rapidly as possible, keeping our eye upon the Indians across the river, but passing them rapidly, and they were soon out of sight in the rear. But we noticed that when the Indians had a bunch of cattle they struck north through the bills, as if going to the North Platte. We had no guide with us, but we knew the route perfectly, and were enough familiar with the Indian manners and customs to be able to know that we were in danger. From time to time some Indian would rise up out of a swale or out of the grass on the other side of the river, and defiantly fire a gun or a pistol at us; but the distance was such that no good aim could be taken nor much danger experienced, except as showing the threatening conditions of the march. We camped at Beauvais's ranch, where there was a detachment of one of the companies, and where there was a telegraph operator. We sat up late at night, and told our superiors, by wire, how the Indians were acting along the river. Colonel Livingston, commanding the eastern sub-district, in the meantime had come to Cottonwood Springs, with some of the First Nebraska Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, owing to the rumors that were coming down the river in regard to the appearances of Indians along the line of route. Livingston ordered us to proceed immediately to Julesburg, and await his arrival; that he feared the Cheyenne Indians were to make another effort to cross the river, and go north and join their brother tribe, the Northern Cheyennes, which, at that time, was up in southern Dakota somewhere near the Deadwood country. The garrison at Beauvais was so small that we felt that we ought to leave some men there to help protect it. We were in entire ignorance of what was ahead of us, as we shall see; so we left six men there.
In the morning of February 2, 1865, we started out from Beauvais's ranch, and saw Indians from the very start. When we got to Dick Cleve's ranch, we saw some Indians rounding up his cattle on the other side of the river. There was quite a number of ranchmen gathered there, a sort of conglomeration left over from a train which, together with the garrison of a few soldiers, made a place which the Indians could not very well capture. But the Indians around Cleve's ranch were so numerous that we left them four men of our cavalry. They expected an attack, but we did not feel alarmed, because we had the piece of artillery, and our horses were the best.
From Dick Cleve's we started on, and Captain O'Brien and I with the coach, the piece of artillery and nine men, being the gun squad and four others; with the four civilians we were fifteen men. We had not gone far past Cleve's when we saw ten or fifteen Indians on the other side of the river. Having a very fine Smith amp; Wesson target rifle, I thought I would go down towards the river, and give them a trial shot. They were some little distance on the other side of the river, and after I had made my shot, an Indian arose out of the willows on the bank on the other side of the river, and, pulling a revolver, fired six shots, and then he pulled another and fired six shots more, and then he fired a gun at me. It was evidence that the Indian was better armed than I was, and as I stopped to reconnoiter, he began to fire a lot of good American words at me, and they were shot in such good English that I became satisfied that the Indian was not a Cheyenne or a Sioux, and I concluded he was one of the Confederate emissaries sent from the Indian territory. I was afterwards confirmed in this supposition.
As we got near to Julesburg but not in sight of it, we saw large bunches of cattle over on the north side of the river, being driven. At one time on the other side of the river there were five little droves of from five to ten cattle each, being driven separately by two or three Indians each. They seemed to be heading diagonally northwest towards the bluffs. That is to say, they were going up the river and obliquely to the right so as to strike the valley of Lodgepole. They paid no attention to us, and never attempted to rally and come over and make an attack on us, nor did they appear at all alarmed. We also saw Indians peering up over the hills far to the south, but they did not appear to be in motion or active. They just stood and looked at us. They made no signals and did nothing to alarm us, knowing we were marching right into danger.
Our line of march was that the Captain and I marched at the head, then came eight men on horseback, then one man, the ninth, riding the near artillery horse, and behind them the coach. The captain and I had an anxious consultation as we went along. We determined to push forward, and get into the post at Julesburg as rapidly as we could, but we did not know what was ahead of us. East of Julesburg the plateau pushes a promontory north to the edge of the river, so that the view of the fort at Julesburg was shut off from us until we had got entirely around that plateau and promontory. On the other side was the arroyo of which I have spoken before, called the 'Devil's Dive.' As we got up to this promontory it was a little after noontime. We noticed a number of black specks far out on Lodgepole. They were Indians, but we could not see our fort, on account of the intervening bluff. We stopped there to reconnoiter a little as to the passage around this promontory. The ground was quite broken, and we did not wish to run into an ambuscade.
While we stopped there I inspected the artillery fully, to see that everything was all ready for use; imagine my horror to find that the priming-wire had jolted out of its fastening and been lost. The priming-wire was an absolute necessity, because the cartridges were in thick flannel bags, and when rammed down they had to be opened, so that the friction primer would throw the fire down into the powder. This priming-wire had to be pushed down through the vent into the flannel or the charge could not be exploded. A feeling of great horror ran over me as I vainly searched in the chest of the howitzer. Near us ran the telegraph line. I told one of the boys to climb up a pole, swing out on that wire band over hand, and pull it down to the ground. With the aid and assistance of several, we finally got the wire swung down nearly to the ground, but not near enough. Thereupon, with an artillery hatchet, we chopped down a telegraph pole so as to give the wire more sag. We then cut the wire, and tying one end of it to the rear of the coach we had the four horses pull on it until we got all the slack that could come from that direction. Then we pulled the other line and got all the slack that could come from the other, and we managed to get off two feet of wire, and then put the wire together, and make a new connection. This took us nearly half an hour, but we got a priming-wire made out of this telegraph wire which was all right. We pounded it to a point on the iron tire of the howitzer, and were then ready to go ahead.
When we had finished with this telegraph wire, Captain O'Brien observed a smoke over the promontory, and called my attention to it. He said: 'What do you think that smoke can be? It is this side of the post, and yet beyond the hill. Go carefully up with your field-glass, and see what is the matter, and see what those black specks mean up the Lodgepole valley.' I went up on horseback, looking in all directions, and could see no indications of Indians nor ambuscade, and finally peeped over the hill Indian fashion through a cactus bush. And lo, and behold I could see Indians scattered everywhere in front of us; they were crossing the river, running around the stage station, blacksmith shop and telegraph office, which were burning. The haystacks of the stage station were also burning. Back on the hills west of the post was a large group of Indians, apparently motionless, while between us and the fort was a body of Indians running around and evidently shouting and yelling and having a good time, although they were so far off I could hear no noise. I came down to see the Captain, and told him what I had seen, and I said,
