The Indian War of 1864: Events in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Eugene Fitch Ware
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upon all opportunities. Captain O'Brien took turns with me in that, and he generally went alone, as I did myself. We became thoroughly acquainted with every feature of the ground within fifteen miles of the post, south of the river, and we knew whereabouts Indians might hide, or might be found, should they want to come near us from the south.
When I went into Command of the Company, Captain O'Brien suggested that it was about time for earnest drilling of the company to begin, although we were constantly engaged in finishing and improving our post. I started in by his order to drill twenty-five different men every day with the bugle skirmish drill, and to have the company adopt it for Indian warfare. We had heard a great deal about the Indian manner of fighting and the various engagements which the regular army had had with them for ten and fifteen years back, and what was necessary to be done to successfully meet the manner of fighting which the Indians adopted. We drilled entirely by skirmish drill. We deployed at from twenty to fifty yards intervals. We raced over the prairie, wheeling, deploying and rallying on the right, left and center, all by the bugle. We also adopted a drill on foot, in which the ranks would count off one, two, three, and four. The number "four" would hold horses, and numbers "one," "two" and "three" would deploy to the front as skirmishers, in which case the command was, "At ten paces take interval -- march." Then we would drill in firing and loading on the ground. Then, on a bugle-call, each number "one" would rise and rush forward twenty to fifty paces according to order, and lie down. Then number "two" would rise and make a dash, and pass number "one" fifty paces, and lie down, firing and loading. And then number "three" would go forward to the front in the same manner, everything being done on the double-quick, the men going to earth on the call of the bugle, while the number fours would follow from behind at considerable distance with the horses. We practiced this drilling day after day, generally with twenty-four men and a sergeant. And the men ran for miles all over the Platte valley in every direction, practicing their skirmish drill by the bugle. They got so that they rather liked it, and it was good exercise. The horses got used to the firing, for we expended much ammunition; and they got hardened up for a campaign.
One day Mr. Gilman and a nice-looking stranger came out and rode around with me on the drill. Our bugle-calls were from the army regulations, and had probably been handed down from Revolutionary days. The bugler, mistaking one of my orders, gave the wrong call, and this stranger spoke up and called my attention to it. This very much surprised me, and I said to him, "How do you know?" And he said, "Well, I have a good ear for music." Afterwards Mr. Gilman told me that the man stated, after we had separated, that for some time he had been in the Confederate cavalry and was familiar with the calls. As he was a fine-looking man and was going west, I always imagined he was a refugee from the Confederate army; the war was then going on. Most probably he was a Confederate officer, who had some sense and was willing to quit.
It is of some interest to know how we managed to keep from being lonesome. As a matter of fact, the men all seemed to be very proud of the new nice cedar encampment they had built, and proud of the condition of the company. We got lots of newspapers. In fact, every stage that went by threw us a bundle of newspapers, and in the barracks after supper, men were reading the war news aloud, and we kept up with the movements, battles and skirmishes of the war. But of all amusements in the company, the greatest amusement was the man Cannon, of whom I have spoken heretofore. It turned out that Cannon had been in the regular army for a number of years before the war, and had been all over the great Southwest, from the Indian Territory and Texas, clear through to the Pacific Coast. He was, perhaps, the most talented and monumental liar that had ever been in the Government service. His stories were inexhaustible. He put in all of his time when at work or drill, thinking up something that he would give the boys when it came night. Night after night and month after month he was telling stories of wonderful adventures. Once in a while he came around to headquarters and started in at night to practice on the Captain and me. For a patient, interesting, and versatile prevaricator I had never seen his equal. According to his story he had been confidentially detailed by every officer in the regular army whose name had appeared so far during the war. He knew the secrets, the history, the private life and the capabilities of everybody that had ever graduated from West Point. He was not of very great benefit to the company as a soldier. He was inclined to shirk his duty, and once in a while liquor would get away with him, and he would have to be put in the guard-house. But when he went into the guard-house he always had the guard, and the corporal of the guard, hanging with breathless interest on his stories of flood and field, of Indian warfare, and of adventures with wild beasts, wild birds, Mexico, and everything else. He finally went by the name of "Jimmie," and he is one of the last ones that the company would ever forget. He was not fit for promotion of any kind. He was good-natured, but in all respects he was absolutely unreliable. But next to the newspapers which came to the camp, he was the chief means of relieving the men from a feeling of lonesomeness or discontent. His stories were ninety-nine per cent pure fiction, at least, and sometimes about one hundred and ten.
There is in all military bodies a feeling of homesickness, much more aggravated in some than in others, but which once in a while breaks out and becomes contagious. We had several spells in our company in which the men became homesick. In fact, almost as soon as we reached Cottonwood Springs, in October, 1863, and camped upon the bleak and desolate land, some of the boys nearly broke down. One of them I remember particularly, and I felt very sorry for him. He was a German named Hakel, over twenty-one years of age. He had a sweetheart in Dubuque, Iowa. Something must have gone wrong, because he got a case called in military medicine "nostalgia," and he drooped around and seemed to take no interest in much of anything. He wouldn't even interest himself in the taste of the fine old whisky which I got from Fort Kearney. One day he said that he believed he would go down to the bank of the river and clean his revolver. There was no need of his going to that place, but he did go to the place, and shortly after we heard the sound of a firing, and on investigation he had killed himself. It was impossible to tell whether he had done it accidentally or not. But I made up my mind that the proper thing to do was to give him the benefit of the doubt, and it being my duty to report the fact to headquarters, I did so, and the way I reported it was quite brief. I gave his name and full description, and I stated the cause of death to be "accidental suicide." I thought the term "accidental suicide" was about as brief as I could make it. The Colonel of our regiment was an aged lawyer from an Iowa village. He immediately directed the regimental Adjutant to return the report to me for correction, saying there was no such thing as "accidental suicide." This illustrates the littleness of so many officers. The great affairs of the regiment, their supplies, drill and efficiency were taken little or no notice of. Except for the meddling at long intervals, we hardly knew we had a colonel. In this case this was the first time I had heard from the Colonel for a long while. But he claimed to be a lawyer, and he claimed that there was no such thing as "accidental suicide." So in my second report I described the death with a circumlocution that I think must have given him a pain. I described the death in about the words of a legal indictment, and stated that Hakel had come to his death from the impact of a leaden bullet, calibre .44, propelled by a charge of powder contained in the chamber of a Colt's revolver, calibre .44, number 602,890, which pistol was held, at 3:45 p. m. of said day, in the right hand of the said Hakel. I also set forth that the discharge of the said revolver was not intentional, but was an involuntary action on the part of the said Hakel, etc., etc. I managed to describe accurately and with considerable minuteness the portions of his shape through which the bullet went, and the result. The Colonel down at Fort Kearney, where he was then located, had made considerable fun of my statement of "accidental suicide," and I had received privately some letters containing his wise and oracular disquisitions upon the English language. So, when I afterwards sent a copy of my second report to some of the officers, it tickled them very much, but it produced a bad feeling between the Colonel and me; I had more friends in the regiment than he had. Some time afterwards, the strength of the regiment having been reduced by casualties to a number slightly below the minimum, concerning which no notice would have been taken except for the general opinion in which the Colonel was held, he was ordered to be mustered out. We shed no tears. He afterwards went back to Iowa, and was killed in a runaway while he was out driving a buggy. This death of Hakel took place on October 14, 1863. Four of our men had already died of disease, but they were men whom we had left behind us, and four others had deserted before we had reached Omaha. During the entire history of the company we had nine desertions, and here I wish to speak of two men particularly.