was used up. He was too well along in years to stand so much; he was resolute, but he had to succumb. During the night he was quite ill. His trouble was principally over-work.
Many were the congratulations which we received for our quick work in putting up the line. The Denver papers and the Omaha papers gave us great commendations.
We started back at 8 a.m., just as a train under escort arrived from the west with a squad of soldiers who were trying to overtake us, they having by wire found out our whereabouts. The soldiers (I think, Third Colorado Cavalry) were
ordered to stop and garrison Valley Station, and to hold it so that the stage line could be reлstablished. We started on down to Julesburg with a great retinue of travelers. Murphy was being hauled in a wagon. The command fell to me. We marched carefully, solidly and slowly. We saw no Indians, not even a smoke signal. The weather in the morning changed to bad, and the wind began to blow from the north terrifically. It blew so hard we could not see ahead of us, and we rode with our capes over our heads and faces. Twenty miles down, we struck Moore's ranch, and having the stumps of some of the telegraph poles in our wagons, we camped for the night, and made fires. The weather turned quite cold, and it was zero weather. We saw no Indians during the whole day's march of twenty miles, but we marched solidly and carefully all day. Twenty miles was the best we could do for that day. We were thirty-two miles west of Julesburg. I am not now sure about it, but I believe the place was called Lillian Springs.
The next morning when we got down to Buffalo Springs, which was twenty-five miles west of Julesburg, we were overtaken by another detachment of cavalry from the west, with a convoy of stage coaches from the west. The soldiers were ordered to garrison Buffalo Springs and turn the coaches over to us, for us to guard to Julesburg. This opened up and completed the stage line again from Denver to Omaha, and thereafter the stages ran regularly. It was a bitter day going down to Julesburg, but every one did his best to make it cheerful.
We arrived in Julesburg at 6 p.m., after a march of thirty-two miles. The wind blew hard all day and the weather was exceedingly disagreeable, and we went with our wagon-train and stages in a compact and solid column. When we got in I found a telegram for me to immediately come to Fort Kearney. I also found Colonel Livingston ready to start back to the east, and we were told of the proceedings which had taken place up on the North Platte while we were gone, which I will tell of in the next chapter.
Chapter XXXVIII.
Another Expedition – Fighting on North Platte – The Indians Get Away – Colonel Livingston Starts Back – I Return to Kearney – The Poker Game – Orderly Turns Up – Dance at Columbus – Hunting Plumb's Regiment – The Postoffice at Beatrice – Prairie-grass – Galvanized Yanks – General Conner Assumes Command – Declined Appointment as Aide-de-Camp – March 30, 1865 – Started for Omaha – Arrived at Omaha – Richmond Surrendered – Trip toLeavenworth – The War Ended – Lincoln Assassinated – Lieutenant-Colonel Hoyt – Troops Sent West – Made Captain and Aide-de-Camp – General Grenville M. Dodge
CONCURRENTLY with our telegraph repair expedition which went west under Captain Murphy, of which I have just spoken, another expedition was organized to go north, repair the line, open up communication with Salt Lake, and punish the Indians. In addition to getting in touch with Laramie and the garrisons on the 'Salt Lake Trail,' Colonel Livingston had determined to go over on the North Platte and see if he could get back some of the cattle from the Indians. When he got up to the North Platte he found a very peculiar condition of things. The Indians had got the cattle all across the river by sanding a track on the ice, the river being frozen solidly across. The Indians had to go slowly and it took a long time to get the cattle over. The moment that Colonel Livingston appeared in sight, the Indians, being on the north side, came charging over the river on the sanded track. Colonel Livingston's command was not near enough to the river to be able to command the track with his artillery, and the Indians came on over before he could get near enough. When it was seen that the Indians were going to come over and make a fight, the first thing which the Colonel did was very properly to corral his wagons and men and prepare to resist the attack, because if the cavalry should be deployed out the Indians could defeat them in short order. The Colonel occupied a spot where he thought he could deliver a good fight, and the Indians surrounded him, lying on the ground and in the gullies and shooting under cover, so that the fight was a very difficult and desultory one. Our soldiers got scarcely any opportunity of firing the artillery, but the cannon was sufficient to scare off the Indians from a charge upon the command; the Colonel could see other Indians across the river driving the cattle off, until he watched them drive plumb out of sight in the hills to the northeast. Several of the soldiers were killed, also several of the horses, and several of the Indians. The soldiers understood Indian fighting as well as the Indians did themselves, and were able to hold them off.
During the night the Indians withdrew, and in the morning there was not an Indian to be seen; they had all gone up into the hills and struck northeast for the head of the Bluewater River, a most beautiful stream, the 'Minne-to-wacca-pella' – 'Water-blue-river.' So the Colonel returned to Julesburg, but there was one big feature of his trip: about two hundred head of the wildest of the cattle had got away from the Indians, and not having time to bother with them, the Indians had let them go and our boys gathered them up and brought them in. Colonel Livingston got into Julesburg just about as I did, on the evening of the 15th, and he proceeded to communicate by wire with General Mitchell.
This was the last that I ever saw of Julesburg until more than forty years after. I visited the place in 1908, and tried to find where the post had been; nobody could tell me. I finally located it, and found a house standing on the site of the old stables. The house was occupied by renters who had no knowledge or tradition of the old post, although it was occupied by the regular army after we left it, and was one of the important posts of the frontier for a time. Thus does glory fade. Near it was a promising field of corn, growing well without irrigation, a thing impossible to conceive of when we were there. Across the river near Julesburg was a modern bridge.
Colonel Livingston told me to get ready immediately to start with him on horseback, together with a small detail of well-mounted cavalry, down the Platte, leaving the balance of the command to return to their respective posts. The roads were now all opened up both ways to Denver and Salt Lake, and the telegraph working both ways, and the post of Julesburg relieved from siege; so the Colonel got ready to start east. I was exceedingly tired from the work that I had been doing of late, and from riding all that day thirty-two miles in the wind, and I was a little surprised when the Colonel said that he would start promptly at eight o'clock that night on horseback; but I got ready, and off we rode. We rode all night, halting in the morning for breakfast; we then rode all day in a most terrible windstorm, and arrived at Cottonwood Springs, a distance of one hundred miles, late at night on Feb. 16th, 1865, making the trip in a little over twenty-four hours.
As this was also my last visit to Cottonwood Springs, until the year 1908, I will briefly describe what I found on the latter visit. Nobody could tell me where the old fort was. The whole country was peopled by foreigners. I located MacDonald's ranch in the midst of a fine corn-field. I located the well by a depression where it had caved in. Beside it I plucked an ear of corn that would have looked well at a county fair. Upon the site of the old post a field of wheat had been harvested and was being stacked. Of eleven men working in and around the field a few of them could not speak English, and none of them knew anything about the military post or had any tradition of its existence. Up in the caсon, several miles, was a large horse ranch, but nobody was at home. Not a cedar tree was in sight. On the old parade-ground, which I could pick out by its location with the hills, I found a few of the trees which we had planted. Such a field of wheat, grown without irrigation, would have been impossible in 1864. Not far off, in the junction of the Plattes, was the bright new city of 'North Platte.'
Between the old site of the post at Cottonwood and the spot where Jack Morrow's Ranch was, there is now a National Cemetery, of recent date. In it are buried all of my men who lost their lives on the plains. Their bones have all been taken up from their original resting-places and all placed together under the trees where the sun is shining and the birds of summer singing; guarded by the great nation they fought for; unknown heroes, the vanguard of their race, they did their share, and they loved their country. If they could rise from their graves they would do their work over again if it were necessary. I went up to where Jack Morrow's ranch stood; I found near its site a house in which people were living in much comfort, surrounded with trees and smiling gardens; they were Swedes, they had never heard of Jack Morrow, and had lived there 18 years. The entire valley of the river was a mass of fine farms, and about all I could recognize in the landscape was the Sioux-Lookout. Pardon the digression; I now return to
