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Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army. Augustus Meyers
Читать онлайн.Название Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066155094
Автор произведения Augustus Meyers
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The river was now at its lowest. The summer had been unusually dry, and when we got to the mouth of the L'Eau qui Court River, now called the Niabrara River, it was found to have formed a sand bar across the Missouri. This new barrier made a lot of trouble, although we had only half a load of freight. So, when Captain Throckmorton reached the place just below the Big Bend, on the way up, where he had left a part of his freight, consisting of a lot of barrels of salt pork, he decided that he could not make his way through the Bend. The freight was once more divided, and we went into camp on the east side of the river, while the boat steamed on to Fort Pierre again.
This camp was named "Camp O'Connell", after our lieutenant. It was in the woods, where we were sheltered from the hot sun, but we found the ground rather damp. We cleared away the underbrush and covered the floors of our tents with brushwood and leaves. When this did not keep out the moisture, we built bunks about a foot high. We did not build a bake oven this time, as we expected the boat to return in a week. We were now only about one hundred miles from the end of our journey. By this time we had become more indifferent about Indians, as we had encountered none at Camp Gardner, and wandered further from camp, in small squads, always taking our rifles and ammunition. A few men got permission to go hunting. One of them shot a small deer, but they had little success with rifles on small game and prairie hens.
One day some of the men discovered a large cornfield in the bottom land near the river. The stalks were tall enough to hide a man on horseback, but there were many weeds. The ears of corn seemed as large as a man's forearm, and were just about ripe enough to eat on the cob. Next day I was one of a party that brought a kettle from camp, and we boiled corn on the river bank. For a few days we had a daily feast of this delicious corn. Many of the ears were red or blue or mixed in color. We did not let the officers know about our find, fearing they would forbid us to take any of it. We learned later that this corn belonged to some of the Yankton tribe, whose squaws had planted it in the spring before the Indians started on their summer buffalo hunt. No care was taken of it, but it grew to immense size in the rich soil, despite the weeds. On their return, late in the fall, the Yanktons gathered it.
In about a week the Genoa returned, and once more we reembarked. In taking down our tents, it was found that some snakes had lodged in the brush and leaves under some of the low bunks, and it made some of the occupants turn pale on learning that they had peacefully slept so close to the dangerous reptiles. As the boat now carried only about one quarter of the amount of freight she had started with, we made better progress, and were only delayed by frequent soundings. I think we reached Fort Pierre on the morning of the fourth day from Camp O'Connell, about the middle of September, 1855, just fifty-one years since the Lewis and Clark expedition had passed that way on its long journey across the continent.
As I look back over this long, weary and unfortunate journey, I realize that it took about three and a half months to go from Carlisle, Pa., to Fort Pierre, Nebraska Territory. Of this time, we were more than seven weeks on the Missouri River, and it had cost the company seven lives—one officer and four privates, by cholera, and two non-commissioned officers, by drowning—a rather mournful remembrance for this early period of my service.
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