The Indian War of 1864: Events in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Eugene Fitch Ware
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miles a day, and was to furnish transportation for men, trunks and baggage, and feed them en route; he made a through rate. It was a train pulled by horses and mules. He said that he had to halt his train; that his animals needed shoeing; that their feet were badly worn; and while he was there he wanted to get something for the men to do. Major O'Brien suggested that he put in a bid for cedar cordwood; that he should go up in the canyon, take the tops, limbs and refuse of our cutting, make it up, and cord and stack it near the post. He went up, and came back and said he would do it for $4 a cord. Major O'Brien sent for me, and asked me what I thought about it; we concluded to offer a voucher for $3 a cord piled up near the barracks, at a point which I should designate. Burke and his men debated the thing the whole day, and finally came back, took the contract and piled up the four hundred cords of wood. Burke said afterwards that there was about $20 profit in the contract; that he "would liked to have made ten cents a cord on it," but hadn't done it -- had made only five.
During the months of January and February at least twenty coaches of Mormon officers and missionaries went past our post, going and coming. They traveled all by themselves; asked no protection nor odds of anybody. They always said that they did not fear the Indians, and that the Indians never harmed a Mormon. So, they passed by us, went up the North Platte and through the South Pass without an escort of any kind. Along in January a large mule train came up, loaded with shell corn and flour from Denver. As they neared our post a most terrific blizzard set in. It was, indeed, a fearful one. It caught this train three or four miles east of our post, down by the river. The train parted, its wagons got scattered, some of its horses and mules were literally blown away. They got started before the wind, and they could not be overtaken nor caught. The result was that the train was wrecked. They came to the post and asked us to take their corn and flour. Having no authority to buy, I told them that I would take it, receipt for it, and store it, and that they could return to the river, and if I received word from the Quartermaster-General there, I would take the stuff up on my accounts. This was satisfactory. The train immediately fastened the empty wagons together with what animals they saved and had recaptured, and pulled back to Leavenworth, from which place I got an order to take the property up on my returns, it having been bought by the Government.
Along about the latter part of February the weather became very severe. Storms came down from the northwest, one chasing after the other in close succession, that kept us very closely hived up in the barracks. Considerable snow fell upon the level ground, which blew over into the canyon, and in places there it was quite deep, so that our cordwood was a very great benefit to us. We took the horses out whenever we could, and rode them around and exercised them, but they were getting soft and unfitted for hard campaigning. We had always taken good care of our horses; in fact, when we left Omaha we adopted a frontier custom of placing a gunny-sack under the horse-blanket. I never saw that practiced anywhere else, except on the plains: Every soldier smoothed out a gunny-sack when he saddled his horse; it prevented the woolen horse-blanket from scalding the horse's back. The wind and alkali and sand had made it necessary to take care of the backs of our horses, and we arrived at Cottonwood Springs with our horses in good condition, but the keeping of them penned up was reducing their effective capacity very much. We did not dare to turn them out loose, to play, for fear some unexpected Indian might turn up and stampede them.
When the bad weather set in, it was our principal duty and object to keep our horses up, and we rode them around as best we could, occasionally trying to go through the forms of a drill. Owing to the fact that we were among the Indians, we adopted the bugle-drill almost entirely, and all movements were executed not by word of mouth, but from the note of the bugle. And in order to keep the men and subordinate officers efficient in that we practiced considerably at nights in the barracks, to keep the men's ears alert to distinguish the calls. Most of the men were inclined to forget.
While this rough and inclement weather was in progress a man named Gardner came to our post, and went to headquarters. He represented that he was the Government agent among the Cheyennes, at a considerable distance southwest of us. Gilman had said that there were twenty thousand Indian warriors within three days' ride (one hundred fifty miles) north of us, and an equal number south of us, but nobody knew exactly where they were. This man Gardner was not particularly specific, nor do I remember where he said the headquarters of the tribe were which he represented. The first thing that I heard of the matter was the end of a heated conversation with Major O'Brien, in which he demanded of Major O'Brien that the Major send out a company of cavalry with a brass howitzer, and arrest the head chief of the Cheyenne band; this the Major refused to do, but said he would consider. Gardner went out in a very lofty way, went across to Mr. Boyer's, where liquor was to be had, and I didn't see him until the next day. Major O'Brien said that this man Gardner had reported that he had been to the tribe to see about certain annuities and the carrying out of certain treaty obligations, and that the head chief had insulted him and slapped his face and told him that he was a coward and that the Government of the United States couldn't do anything with the Cheyenne tribes, and that they didn't care whether there was peace or war, and so on, and so on. The Major was of the opinion that as Gardner was a Government officer and had a right to call upon troops, something ought to be done, because, if the matter were left to go, there was no telling where the end might be in our dealings with those Indians. And he told me to think it over, and get ready and plan what I would do, because if that trouble arose he would want to send me out on the expedition. As I came out of headquarters to go and tell Captain O'Brien about it, I met J. K. Gilman near our company line, who was going to make a call upon Captain O'Brien, and I asked him to come in so that we could talk it over. Gilman's idea came quickly to the front. He said: "That man Gardner is a worthless, drunken fellow, who has been put in through political influence, and don't know how to handle himself, the Cheyennes, or anybody else. If you go out and demand the surrender of the Chief or any of the head-men they will refuse to do it, and all you will have to do is turn around and come back. If you go to showing fight your posse will last about thirty minutes." He said: "My advice for you is to go out there and take this man Gardner with you, and a good interpreter, and not to go nearer than five miles of their village. Send in for a delegation of their head-men and have a little preliminary council, and listen to the complaint those Indians have got to make, and then come back." The next day at the post Gardner was roariously drunk, and not much business was done. In two or three days, however, he had got Major O'Brien up to the idea of sending me out, and Major O'Brien told me to get ready and start within seven days. Thereupon I outlined the policy which Mr. Gilman had suggested, and Major O'Brien considered it wise, and sensible; so he sent for Gardner and outlined it. Gardner refused to go with me; said that it wasn't his business; that it was his business to call for Government troops to do what he ordered them to do, and he accused Major O'Brien of trying to shirk his responsibility. This made the Major very indignant, and he rose up in his wrath, and being a great big, strong man himself, he ordered Gardner out of headquarters, and told him not to come back until he was sober. Gardner went out, got onto a stage and went down to Fort Kearney. In a little while instructions both by wire and letter came, saying under no circumstances to send out a force against the Cheyennes; that the General commanding the District had the matter under consideration, and would give the necessary order when the time arrived, and for the post commander to take no orders from any civilian whomsoever. The rumor of our sending out a hundred men to the Cheyenne village with a brass howitzer went around with great rapidity, and it was not long before different ranchmen came in and said that it would simply precipitate the Cheyenne war, which would come anyhow as soon as the Indian ponies could live on the grass; that it was folly to send less than one thousand armed men, and that no cavalry company could get within ten miles of the Indian village before it would be annihilated; that it would bring a raid on the Platte valley, for which nobody was quite ready. Major O'Brien took the consensus of opinion and forwarded it with his own recommendations down to headquarters, and I felt somewhat relieved when I knew definitely that I was not to go out on such a forlorn expedition.
Turning from the subject of indians to another far more interesting, I will relate an occurrence that happened early in March; but I must go back into the past. I had been with the first army of General Curtis that marched down through Arkansas from Pea Ridge to Helena in 1862. We arrived at Helena, on the Mississippi River, shortly after the river was opened up by the gunboats at Memphis, the bombardment of which we heard over in Arkansas. As the Rebel gunboats were chased down the river