c^, P « ^ cf^ >"-n^. '^ A * (fOv §g A .%• '** ,0' O M •..•*c A SOLDIER-DOCTOR OF OUR ARMY JAMES P. KIMBALL A SOLDIER-DOCTOR OF OUR ARMY JAMES P. KIMBALL LATE COLONEL AND ASSISTANT SURGEON-GENERAL, U.S. ARMY BY MARIA BRACE KIMBALL WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM C. GORGAS SURGEON-GENERAL, U.S. ARMY And tvitb Illustrations BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COiMPANY (€bc J\i\JcrjJiDc pre?? (CambriOflC 1917 ■ K'^f Mf COPYRIGHT, I917, BY MARIA BRACE KIMBALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March iqiy MAR 22 1917 ©GI.A455995 % PREFACE The heroism of the army surgeon has been by many people overlooked. Noncombatant the surgeon may be in the technical sense of the word, but Dr. Kimball's letters from track- less plains and mountain-tops, from battle- fields, "civilized" and savage, show him ''ever a fighter." Ready to attack death or disaster, he was indeed a true soldier-doctor. I like the name familiar to every man in the ranks, "Captain-Doctor," " Major-Doctor,"— hence Soldier-Doctor. The extracts from my husband's letters and journals I have collected, first, for my sons, and second, for all who may like to know an American officer, — "Whose powers shed round him In the common strife, Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face VI PREFACE Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; And through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw." Maria Brace Kimball CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM WILLIAM C. GORGAS, SURGEON-GENERAL, UNITED STATES ARMY xi I. COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR I II. FORT BUFORD THE FRONTIER 27 III. THE YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 64 IV. THE BLACK HILLS AND THE BIG HORN 80 V. THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 92 VI. TEXAS EUROPE TEXAS IIO VII. NEW MEXICO SANTE FE 1 25 VIII. NEW MEXICO — FORT WINGATE 1 37 IX. governor's ISLAND — THE WAR WITH SPAIN 161 X. THE END 176 INDEX 185 ILLUSTRATIONS DR. JAMES P. KIMBALL, UNITED STATES ARMY, 1898. Photogravure Frontispiece ' From a photograph by Hollinger & Co. A CANDIDATE BEFORE THE ARMY MEDICAL EXAMINING BOARD 3O ^'^ From a drawing FORT BUFORD, DAKOTA TERRITORY, IN 1 868 38 ' From a drawing SITTING BULL 60 ^ From a photograph by 0. S. Goff, Bismarck, D.T., 1881 ZUNIS SELLING POTTERY 76 SALLY-PORT, BRIDGE, AND MOAT 90 Fort Columbus (now Fort Jay), Governor's Island INSCRIPTION ROCK, NEW MEXICO 110 ^ OLDEST HOUSE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1 53 5 1 26 Near San Miguel Church, Santa Fe "hunting-leave" — ^^ SUPPER ON THE PLAINS 128 ^ CHILDREN OF ACOMA, N.M. I3O" THE GOVERNOR AND HIS " STAFF," ACOMA I30' CHURCH AT ACOMA, BUILT IN 1710 I32 ' ^ X ILLUSTRATIONS " NAVAJO CHURCH," ROCK FORMATION NEAR FORT WINGATE, N.M. I32 officers' row in winter, fort WINGATE, N.M. 138 ' "boots and saddles," camp on RIO SAN JUAN, N.M. 144^ A WATER-CARRIER AT ZUNI I48 "" A NAVAJO WOMAN AT HER LOOM I48" CROSSING RIO SAN JUAN, N.M. 154^' found! private JENSEN AFTER HIS ^ RESCUE 158' THE HARBOR FROM CASTLE WILLIAM 162 ^ LITTER DRILL, GOVERNOR'S ISLAND ^ 162 ^ INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM SURGEON-GENERAL GORGAS War Department, Office of the Surgeon-General, Washington, D.C., January 29, 1917. Mrs. James P. Kimball, Washington, D.C, Dear Mrs. Kimball: — I have looked over, with a great deal of in- terest, the manuscript you sent me dealing with the life of Doctor Kimball. It gives an excellent picture of the life of an Army Medical Officer, as lived on the frontier, when I first entered the service. As the frontier no longer exists, it is well to look back upon the making of the present West, which has been accom- plished largely since the close of the Civil War. During these fifty years, Indians have been con- quered, railroads constructed, cities built, and Territories have become States. Medicine and surgery have also advanced greatly through- xii INTRODUCTORY LETTER out this period. Serums, antitoxins, asepsis, trained nursing, specialism in medicine were practically unknown on the frontier. The Army Medical Officer on the plains was obliged to combine the duties of surgeon, oculist, aurist, dentist, obstetrician, general practitioner, with scanty help in nursing from the enlisted men of the Hospital Corps to whom he, himself, had taught "First Aid." He was also general health officer of the garrison ; was compelled to study and inspect water supply, to plant and irrigate post gardens, and sometimes to manufacture ice. In addition, he often had a large free clinic among Indian neighbors, trad- ers, and ranchmen. Yet this busy man, who happened to be interested also in ethnology, botany, geology, or biology, did not fail to make use of his rare opportunities for study. Our museums and libraries have been enriched by collections and monographs made by Army Surgeons. To-day, well equipped Army Hospitals, with their corps of Red Cross nurses and specialists, are in marked contrast to those we used to know. In this slow and difficult evolution, Doctor INTRODUCTORY LETTER xiii Kimball did his part ably, as is shown in the sketch of his career. It is a human document worthy of record and remembrance. 1 am much obliged for the reading of the book. With kindest regards, I remain Yours very sincerely, « A SOLDIER-DOCTOR OF OUR ARMY I COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR Home and college — Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Volunteers, Army of the Potomac — First battle, Hatcher's Run — Lee's surrender. The Kimballs were a sturdy race, and brought their loyahy to religion and country to the new land. Richard and Ursula, with two chil- dren, sailed in the ship Elizabeth for Boston in 1634. "Fortis non Ferox" reads the coat of arms of the Kimballs ; and in the midst of savage Indians and a savage climate they had need of Fortis, and perhaps a little of Ferox, too. Our first American ancestor's farm lay in a part of Cambridge (Watertown), and a corner of Richard Kimball's cornfields was not far from Harvard College. It is not sur- prising, then, that one Benjamin Kimball was 2 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR graduated in the Harvard class of 1753, and that many others followed him. John Kim- ball, father of James, was born in Connecticut, and thence he migrated to southwestern New York. There Ruth Ellis became his wife. In her ancestry another strain — the Welsh — was added to the English stock. In this new land, with new necessities, our English ancestors, who brought their trades with them, often added other occupations to their handicrafts, and became soldiers, diplo- mats, teachers, statesmen. This was true of many Kimballs. John Kimball, while he used his trade, increased his acres, taught school, and collected a library. So, though living on a farm in New — very new — York, his son James and two sisters grew up in a book- reading and book-loving family. Both Ellises and Kimballs were always "good fighters," from the days when John Kimball, of Ipswich, responded promptly to Paul Revere's cry. Their names are found in records of the Revolution, of the War of 181 2, COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 3 of the Civil War, and of the war with Spain. Major Peleg Ellis, of Ellis Hollow, was a hero of the neighborhood, and his tales of the War of 1812 made a deep impression upon his lis- tening grandson, James Peleg Kimball. This Bible name, Peleg, was a part of his inheritance from his grandfather Ellis, together with clear- cut features and an ardent temperament. The name was his only objection to his grandfather; and, while he wrote it "Peleg" in early war records in later life he changed the "P" into another family "P" — Patterson. James Kimball was born in Berkshire, New York, August 21, 1840. He grew up with two sisters, Olive and Grace, one older and one younger. The older sister, who was his play- mate, gives a pretty picture of their outdoor life together on the farm. It is a placid, roll- ing country, this rich farmland of southern New York, with blue hills, woods, and fields in the distance; nearer, are the apple trees bending down to the kitchen garden, and be- yond, the "Gulf." This awful chasm has been 4 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR photographed, and seems just a quiet water- course descending gently through the glades. But in that dark "gulf" the brother and sister built stone houses "tall enough to stand up in," and there they dreamed of Indians and bears. The hillocks were Indian graves, and uprooted trees were bears' dens. One special bear, half pet and half monster, was named " Tige." To him they offered propitiatory meals of nuts and apples, and as the food always disappeared between one visit and the next, they felt sure that "Tige" had come true. They never thought of this unknown wood-lord as anything so humdrum as woodchuck or squirrel. Their greatest discoveries were a partridge's nest, or the first spring flower. *' Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places." How soon the boy was to leave his play- ground and follow in the train of "pain and fear and bloodshed " ! Not far below the "Gulf" and the orchard stood the district schoolhouse. There young COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 5 James and his sisters began their education. The boy's taste for books developed at the same time with his love of outdoor life and adventure. Throughout his life in his stations on the plains or in the cities, in war and in peace, he was reader, hunter, and naturalist. A pocket edition of Pope's Iliad he always took with him on long marches or campaigns. So it came about that as a boy he was sent first to a near-by academy at Ithaca, and then to Ham- ilton College. The family, strong in New Eng- land traditions, devoutly hoped that their only son would enter the ministry. It was the year 1 86 1. The children of to-day cannot know what the date meant to the young men of that generation. War is a horror, and alas! not ob- solete: to-day Kaiser, King, and Czar tell us that it is war that teaches men to ** speak plain the word country." In 1861 the country needed surgeons, therefore medicine was the only profession to be considered. So reasoned the young Freshman at Hamilton College. But how to hurry through the four academic 6 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR years, get in a medical course, and not lose a chance of a battlefield ? That was the problem and it was ably worked out. Read this letter, written to one of his sisters, from James Kim- ball, Sophomore : — Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., October i, 1862. College is a very different place from what it was last year. Nearly, or quite, one third of the students who were here have gone to war. But the boys all like it, and those at the seat of war say they have no desire to be back at college. The letter ends: — I am glad, indeed, that I am to leave to teach next year, as college honors have but little attraction for me in this lonesome place. Should n't be surprised if owls and bats should hold their carnivals in these classic halls at the beginning of another year. I don't know but we shall all go yet. In the same letter he speaks of his decision to study medicine, with the intention of en- COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 7 taring the army as soon as possible, either as Hospital Steward or Assistant Surgeon. This determined young student actually carried on simultaneously college work, medical studies, and teaching. In 1864 he secured his degree as Doctor of Medicine at Albany Medical Col- lege, with his Bachelor of Arts at Hamilton, in 1865, in absentia. In response to a toast, "The Army," Dr. Kimball in 1897 made the following reference to his early history. He was speaking before the New York Alumni Association of Albany Medical College : — "But for the Army — the soldier *in the air,' so to speak, in a time of war, I should probably not have had the good fortune to be an alumnus of the Albany Medical College ; and but for the Albany Medical College, I should probably not have followed the career of the soldier. I was a student in the Medical Department of New York University, and ex- pected to obtain my degree in that institution and enter the medical service of the Union 8 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Army. But after the victories of the summer of 1864 I began to fear that the war would be over before I should be ready to share in it. At the University I could not get the re- quisite M.D. until March, 1865. But I found that up at Albany was a medical college whose degree would answer just as well, and that here the session closed in December, 1864. So it came about that one December day I became a doctor of medicine, and the next day a sur- geon in the 121st New York Volunteers, then serving in the Army of the Potomac, — where I arrived in time to be present at Lee's sur- render." This work, though done quickly, was not slightingly or easily done. James Kimball had learned the lessons of industry and economy at home; he himself earned a large share of the money for his education by teaching in vacations. College life in those days, too, es- pecially in the little community at Hamilton, was simple — meager and narrow, the boys of to-day might call it. We do not hear of COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 9 "Junior Proms/' glee and banjo clubs, drama- tic associations, nor much of athletics. Toiling up and down the snowy hills of Clinton was an athletic feat in itself. But if college luxuries did not exist, the necessities did; there were scholars at Hamilton in the faculty and among the students too. Of the scholars no one was more loved and honored than Professor Edward North — "Old Greek," as he was affectionately called. For fifty years he was professor of classics at Hamilton, and it was he, perhaps, more than anyone else, who succeeded in keep- ing those boys of '61 on their seats when the alarums of war sounded outside their class- room doors. His son's biography of Edward North, "An Old-Time Professor in an Old- Fashioned College," shows how rare scholar- ship grown in a noble nature can stir the en- thusiasm and devotion of students for Greece, for the Greek language, and for the teacher of Greek. Thirty years afterwards, when my hus- band walked up the hill of the Acropolis at Athens and stood under the shadow of the lo A SOLDIER-DOCTOR great temples, the light in his eyes, the glow in his face, proved his lasting enthusiasm for Greece and for this teacher. In the medical schools, as well as in the col- leges, there was a constant clamor for service on the firing line. A glance at Brady's photo- graphs of fifty years ago shows that camps and battle-fields were filled with boy generals, boy sergeants, boy surgeons. To meet this demand of medical students for service, a special corps called "Medical Cadets" was created. This corps, by the way, contained several young surgeons who have since won name and honor the world over. In July, 1864, Dr. Kimball was admitted to the Cadets, and ordered to McDougall Hos- pital, at Fort Schuyler (Throg's Neck), New York. The hospital contained about one thousand patients, and the sick and wounded were constantly arriving by transports from the front. Into this huge unknown world of suffering and death went the country boy, fresh from his classrooms. Already he had COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR ii something of the true surgeon's self-control and alertness, with a boy's interest in every- thing new. He writes home of his salary, his rations, his negro servant, and tells of his duties — the dressing of minor wounds, and keeping the register of the ward. "The sick and wounded," he writes, "bear their misfor- tunes bravely — don't make as much fuss at having a leg or arm amputated as I have seen in civil life at the drawing of a tooth." The last thing at night, the young officer, with an assistant, visited the "dead house." Lantern in hand, they passed up and down the rows of silent sleepers. Once, as they were about to lock the door, they heard a low moan ; just in time they turned to save the life of a man who had been left as dead among the dead. After several months' service at Fort Schuyler, the young soldier-surgeon obtained his heart's desire, and received his commission as Assistant Surgeon in the I2ist New York Volunteers. He arrived at General Meade's headquarters, Army of the Potomac, at City 12 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Point, in January, 1865. "My regiment," — proud word! — he writes to his father, "is in the extreme front, about two and a half miles from Petersburg. The breastworks are not over forty rods from us, and the picket firing is very distinct, the line being about half a mile in advance of the breastworks." Then, to relieve his father's anxiety, he changes the subject: "I was very cordially received at headquarters, and had a tip-top supper of baked potatoes, pan-cakes, and mackerel." To add to the good supper was a good horse — always a welcome friend — and a ride about the camp. The glamour of war, however, soon wears off for the new recruit ; for he learns that war does not mean fighting a battle every day, but that waiting — sleeping, eating, drilling, often under great hardship — makes half the battle. So the next letter is written, somewhat wist- fully, "To the dear ones at home." "Our camp is pitched on rather wet ground, which is, or rather was, covered with woods of pitch COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 13 pine. These are all cut off where our camp stands, and are fast disappearing all around us for firewood. It does n't make very good wood to burn, but then we have plenty of it. Our grounds have been drained and the stumps cut close to the soil, so that we have a very good parade-ground, smooth and quite dry. Not far away runs Grant's military railroad, which is rather a curiosity, as it is not graded, but runs up and down little elevations, like a common carriage road. They make good time on the road, however, and if you don't object to now and then pitching into your own next-door neighbor, or having him pitch into you, it is good riding." The postscript to this letter is more significant: "Feb. i, 1865. We have orders to pack up, and be ready to move at a moment's notice — no one knows where." He adds that he had been left as Surgeon in charge of the regiment, with plenty to do. He never forgets to mention his good horse, then the five servants, and lastly himself — "Am well, and growing fat." The young surgeon 14 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR was proud of his "veteran" regiment, a vete- ran three years old ; for a regiment ages fast on the battle-field. The idol of the command was the Sixth Corps. Grant's dry comment after the battle of Cedar Creek, "Sheridan was a lucky man to have had the Sixth Corps with him that day," became the theme of a song. In the camp-fire jingles, Sheridan thus speaks : — **Come up with me, you Nineteenth, Eighth, Come up with me, I say. Why do you lag so far behind? We have not lost the day — Come up upon that crest of hill. You'll see a glorious sight; You won't get hurt; you need not fire, But see that Sixth Corps fight!" I have often heard my husband sing these lines long afterwards as he buckled on ac- couterments for a day's march across the mesas of New Mexico. Ten days later, the Sixth Corps once more went into action, in the battle of Hatcher's COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 15 Run, and here all the corps did their part nobly. As this was the surgeon's first battle, he wrote of it very carefully to his mother, and the anniversary of that day he always "kept," not as a noisy holiday but as a solemn, sacred memory : — Before Petersburg. Dear Mother: — When I wrote to you last, we were under marching orders, but did not move until about nine o'clock last Sunday evening. We then marched silently out of camp, leaving our drum corps behind to beat the various calls, that the "Rebs" might not miss us. About midnight we halted, formed in line of battle, and lay down to sleep, with nothing above us save the clear sky, through which the moon shone brightly and the "stars of heaven were looking kindly down." We did not move from this place until four p.m. of the next day, Monday. We marched then across Hatcher's Run, and about five o'clock came into an open field fifty rods in width, on one side of which were the Rebels, in the woods, behind entrenchments. We formed in line of battle as a reserve, and the Fifth Corps i6 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR charged on the enemy. But the "Rebs" were too much for them, cutting them up terribly, and causing them to break and fall back in terrible confusion. The "Johnnies" — Con- federates — charged, not on the skedaddlers, as they supposed, but on the unbroken first division of the Sixth Corps, who sent them back behind their breastworks, on the double- quick. Up to this time I, in company with the other surgeons of the Brigade, had been idle but interested spectators of the scene. Now the wounded began to be brought back, and we had business, plenty. We merely applied tem- porary dressings, arresting hemorrhages, etc., saw them put into ambulances and sent to the rear. There we confiscated a large white house in a beautiful grove of pine trees, put the occu- pants, an old gentleman, a middle-aged lady, two girls, and a boy, into one room, and of the rest made a hospital. The parlor we took for an operating-room, and there, where once, I suppose, promenaded the "flower and chiv- alry" of the "Old Dominion," now ran streams of human blood, and instead of the merry laugh of Southern beaux and belles, now were heard only the groans of our brave soldiers. COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 17 The counterpart of this incident is one often spoken of by my husband : after an exhausting night of work over the wounded, a party of surgeons was riding hastily forward to over- take the division. As they rode through the darkness, almost reeling from the saddle with sleep, the mistress of a beautiful Virginia man- sion stopped the party, and begged the officers to come in and care for the wounded. These were our brothers, the enemy, and here the wearied Northern doctors performed their services in the true spirit of knight and doc- tor ; services received by these wounded men with the Southern courtesy and gratitude, unfailing even in their hour of agony. This first stage of "Hatcher's Run" was followed by a night under arms, when our troops had fallen back behind the outer line of breastworks. **I spread my rubber blanket on the ground," writes the surgeon, "put my case of instruments under my head for a pillow, had another blanket thrown over me, and went to sleep with cap, overcoat, boots and spurs on. i8 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR and an orderly standing near holding my horse, ready for action at a moment's notice." It was into this sleep that came dreams, not of bugle-calls and bloody duty, but of the pretty excitement of squirrel-shooting at home on the farm ; distinctly he heard the patter of shots on the dry autumn leaves, I have heard my husband say, but he awoke to find that the " shots " were the shells of the enemy " screech- ing noways musically" over his head. "At five A.M. Tuesday," continues the let- ter, "I crawled out from under my blanket, which was covered with half an inch or more of frozen rain and snow, took my coffee, hard tack, and pork, and again fell into position. As the day advanced, it snowed and hailed, and finally rained hard, almost freezing, but not quite, making it awful overhead, underfoot, and all around. All day long I sat in the saddle, wet through and through, watching and wait- ing" — a large part of every campaign — " and occasionally giving a pass to a sick man, not, however, if he was able to stand up and COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 19 hold a musket, or I should have excused my whole regiment. At length, at four p.m., the bugle sounded, and we moved. Everybody was desperate, and the *Rebs' must have felt it, for they fell back with very little resistance, leav- ing us masters of the ground. We accomplished what we came out for, viz: to extend our lines, thus taking more of Lee's army to front us, and so prevent him from sending reinforce- ments against Sherman. The enemy fired so high, that but little damage was done us. The Second and Fifth Corps suffered most. Our officers say they never endured greater hard- ships.'' "Peace," he adds, "seems to be played out for the present. The North must come down with her men and force a peace, if she wants one. ... I am as well contented, for what I know, as though sleeping on down — and faring sumptuously every day. Am glad to have a *hand' in this struggle for freedom." After "Hatcher's Run" came the monot- ony and suspense of camp life again. Reports 20 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR consume a large part of the surgeon's time, and red tape methods prevail, even in camp. The daily " sick call " brings out many instances of heroism, no less in the hospital ward than in the field. Thus: "I have lost but one patient since being here, and he was brought in mor- tally wounded. He was shot accidentally, while returning to camp from picket duty Sunday morning." (The waste of war ! Probably shot by one of his own comrades.) "I amputated his arm and dressed his other wounds, and kept him alive on brandy until yesterday morn- ing. He was a Pennsylvanian named Car- penter, only twenty years old" — Surgeon Kimball was then twenty-five years old — " and as intelligent and bright a lad as I have seen in a long time. Could have lost half the men in my ward with less regret than I did him." He writes, too, of the enemy and their maneuvers: **Our lines and theirs are so close that very little can be done on either side without the knowledge of the other. A day or two since, when we were out on a review, the COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 21 Rebels massed troops opposite us, evidently thinking we were about to attack them." Apropos of these reviews, he writes : " I am obhged to have a sword to wear during the coming reviews, but I am in hopes the mud will cause them to be put off until after pay- day, and so am not going to be in a hurry to purchase." Again, still near Petersburg: "The First Division, Sixth Corps, was reviewed yesterday by General Grant, Admiral Porter, and other distinguished generals, who complimented the Division in the highest terms for their soldierly bearing, etc. It was amusing to see Admiral Porter in the saddle; for, although he rode a horse that seemed to possess the least amount of life consistent with breathing, he rolled in the saddle as though he was in a gale of wind on an ironclad." The doctor writes, too, of visits from sev- eral college friends. The Adjutant's clerk was a member of his class at Hamilton, and in general the society of the camp before Peters- 22 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR burg was excellent. The outdoor life of the early Virginia spring they found agreeable. Yet the devastation of war had touched the fields: "Grass is growing (March 22, '65) wherever there is any chance for it to grow, as all of this country that I have seen is tramped and trodden as bare as any highway." But these idle March days were big with destiny, for the end was approaching. The next letter was written on coarse brown pa- per, in fading pencil lines. I copy it, from the address on the rude envelope, to the sig- nature : — To John F. Kimball, Esq. Head-Quarters, First Division, Sixth Corps. Near Appomattox Court House, Va. Twenty-five miles from Lynchburg. April 10, 1865. Dear Father, Lee has surrendered, and the War is over. The Army is crazy, and we are having Fourth of July on a grand scale. The Sixth Corps has done most of the fighting in this short and final COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 23 campaign. We have had forced marches, and hard fighting since we left Petersburg, and are nearly tired out. Are going to rest now. I don't know what will be done with the Army now. Will write again soon. This is Rebel paper and envelopes. Hope to be with you before a great while. Very truly your son, James P. Kimball. So ends this great chapter in Dr. KimbalFs life — in one way the most significant half- year of his life. The march northward, the mustering out of the valiant 121st New York, and the transfer to the 65 th New York, are like the fifth act of a tragedy. A letter dated April 28, 1865, is written from Danville, Virginia, where the Sixth Corps and Sheridan's Cavalry were encamped after a smiling march through magnificent "wheat-fields, corn, roses in blossom, and darkies in abundance. I asked an old woman what she thought of the Yanks, and she said, 'Lor bress you, I'se so glad you's come. I 24 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR b'longs to myself now, I reckon.' And they are all of the same opinion." Another bit of local color occurs in the picture of an old planter, whose house and gardens had become Sheridan's headquarters. "The grounds are beautiful," writes the young conqueror; "flow- ers in profusion, graveled walks, and oak and maple shade trees, girls and a piano in the house, good stables, and plenty of forage for our horses. I don't know how long we shall stay here — long enough, I hope, to eat him out and make him realize there is war in the land." These young officers could not forget that this rich planter was the first man to raise the Confederate flag in Danville, and they did not waste an opportunity to "eat him out "when invited. "We are in sight of the hills of North Carolina, and if Johnston does not surrender when he hears how close the Sixth Corps are to him, we shall press the acquaintance more closely. Later, three p.m. Have just had a 'right smart' dinner with the old secesh and family. The first time I have COLLEGE AND CIVIL WAR 25 sat down to a table since the 14th of January- last. For dinner had ham boiled and ham fried, greens of some kind, new potatoes, new onions, lettuce, radishes, roast turkey, hoe- cake, hot rolls, pickles, etc., with wine and cigars to wind up with. The Colonel, Chap- Iain, Adjutant, and myself were the guests, and we ate as only men can eat who live in the open air, exercise freely, and seldom have more than two dishes at a meal." He adds: "The young ladies were very affable — played the piano, lent me a volume of poems to read this after- noon, and were on the. whole, quite entertain- ing." Who knows what might have happened if Johnston had delayed his surrender ! But the letter continues an hour later: "Four P.M. We have just received official news of Johnston's surrender. Cannon are firing, bands playing, men cheering, and everything sounds as though the 'day of jubilee had come.' The old gentleman has gone down to head- quarters to take the oath of allegiance. He has five large plantations and two hundred 26 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR negroes." An eventful day for host and guests ! June, 1865, chronicles the mustering out of the 1 21 St New York and the surgeon's trans- fer to the 65th New York Volunteers. Al- though this appointment delayed his return home, he thought it best to accept the nomina- tion to a vacancy and to the service of peace. He says frankly, too, that he would rather spend the summer in a tent here than in a house anywhere. While stationed at Wash- ington he finds his official duties very light and rides ten or fifteen miles a day with great pleasure. If Dr. Kimball had lived to write this bit of personal history, doubtless he could have filled in many details of these last days of the Army of the Potomac. Of the grand review at Washington I have heard him speak. And when, on one occasion, a little company was comparing notes upon the greatest man each had ever seen, he said quietly, "I have seen Lincoln." II FORT BUFORD THE FRONTIER Adventures in California, 1865 — Stage-coach robbery — Earthquake — Surgeon, U.S. Army — Ordered to Fort Buford, Dakota Territory — The journey — Indians hostile and friendly — Sitting Bull — An Indian raid. After being mustered out of the Volunteer Army (65th New York), Dr. Kimball spent a wander-year with an old friend, also a young physician. They set out for the Pacific Coast — not to search for gold directly, but to see the wild life of the mining towns and to find a paying medical practice. They sailed to Aspinwall and stayed long enough on the Isthmus of Panama to study the then ever-present Chagres Fever. Thence up the Mexican Coast, touching at Acapulco and tasting the first delights of travel in a foreign land. Thus they arrived in San Fran- cisco — twenty-three and a half days from New York. Then another twenty-four hours 28 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR over the Sierras by stage to Carson City, Nevada. Carson City was already in a decline and prospectors had betaken themselves to the newer and richer silver leads at Virginia City. There the young doctors established them- selves, rather dazzled by large fees, but doubt- ful whether riches, after all, could make up for life in a desert and in mining camps. The friend was of a delicate constitution and the altitude (6500 feet) proved too much for him, so that in less than two months they found themselves back in New York. Meantime they had their fill of adventure; they had undergone a stage-coach robbery, a financial panic, an earthquake, and all but shipwreck ! The traveler writes to his mother: "The ship we came back on had over a thousand pas- sengers, whereas when we went out there were about four hundred. . . . We had a terrible voyage — never expected to be here on dry land a few days ago, when we lay helpless in the trough of the sea ; our engines broke down. FORT BUFORD 29 the ship sprang a leak and only the hand- pumps could be worked ; we vv^ere on an al- lowance of two hard biscuits a day. I shall observe Thanksgiving Day with a thankful heart this year, for no less than ten times have I escaped unharmed from what seemed threat- ening certain death/' Then came the question where to settle, or whether to settle at all. An opening offered in a small town near Syracuse, New York (Pom- pey), and there Dr. Kimball seriously tried to become a country doctor. In less than two years, however, he writes to his mother that he has attained the "height of his ambition for the present — the honorable position of an officer in the United States Army." This posi- tion he held for thirty-five years — until al- most the day of his death. The unbroken routine of a country practice, the frequent encounter with "quacks," together with "the icy blasts on Pompey's hills" — all strength- ened his determination to go back to the Army. So he "worked hard and said nothing," stole 30 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR down to New York, and passed the examina- tion for a surgeon's certificate. And what an ordeal! Here is the letter telling about it (March, 1867): "The examination lasted a week ; there were six candidates and I was the only one that passed ! You can imagine it was something of an examination, as we were examined in Latin, Greek, French, and Ger- man ; Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigo- nometry, and Calculus, Geography, political and physical. Ancient and Modern History and Literature, Mineralogy, Conchology, Botany^ and Natural Physics, etc., and then a most exhaustive examination in Medicine and all its branches." What do you think of unload- ing upon paper in one short week the substance of your whole education — you pampered college boys of to-day ? In later years, when Dr. Kimball himself sat upon a Board and in turn helped to torture his victims, he enjoyed with his fellow surgeons some amusing episodes. The accompanying sketch, made by a brother officer, suggests < X w < CJ Q < I! H W O fa w M FORT BUFORD 31 what the young man went through, less the tears of the candidate. The army surgeon's first station was Fort Delaware, Delaware. There, in May, 1867, he found himself Surgeon in charge, — "a pleasant station, with just enough to do to make it agreeable and leave plenty of time to read and study" The element of the unex- pected is part of the fascination of the young soldier's or sailor's life. That he was not bound for years to this island in Chesapeake Bay, that there were whispers of the border, the unknown, the wilderness, in store for him, made him contented with his post. ; Meantime, he employed the leisure of hos- pital attendants and convalescents in garden- ing. "Am turning my attention to that busi- ness I used to be so determined to dislike — farming." He really learned to love his gar- den, and for many years, as he went from post to post, he added to his regular duties those of "chief gardener." The annals of the post garden would bring out a pretty phase of gar- 32 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR rison life. I remember well the plot at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, where by irrigation and careful planting the desert was made to blos- som, in sweet peas as well as cabbages and kohlrabi, dear to the sauerkraut barrel of the enlisted man. So to utilize the otherwise wasted energy of the unoccupied soldier was good hygiene, and quite abreast of modern ideas. Orders for Fort Buford, Dakota, on the Upper Missouri, were not long delayed, and the journey began in July of the same year, 1867. The journey across the continent in those days was a test of the tenderfoot's grit. However, the school of the Army of the Potomac proved good training, and the young army surgeon gloried in every difficulty. A railroad accident, combined with freshets in the Missouri, caused him to miss the boat from St. Louis, at Council Bluffs, Iowa. The jour- ney from St. Louis to Fort Buford by boat took a month, on account of the strong current of the Missouri — the return trip with the cur- FORT BUFORD 33 rent occupied from seven to nine days, only. The young surgeon found himself in company with Major Howell, U.S.A., who was bound for Fort Benton, Montana, five hundred miles beyond Fort Buford. Together they con- trived a plan to stage across the country and meet the boat at Sioux City — the stage jour- ney being one hundred miles, the river route two hundred and eighty. All went well at first with relays of horses every fifteen miles, until they reached the river bottom, which was overflowed, with the water still rising. The driver at first refused to go on, but " ten dollars tempted him and we struck out to cross a place five miles wide, with the water in many places coming into the stage." The horses mired, the stage stuck fast, and Sur- geon and Major were left to compose jingles and sing away the swarms of mosquitoes, while the driver went back to the station for fresh horses. Soon after a second start came another pause ; the driver declared that he had lost the way! Still the plucky travelers were 34 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR undaunted — they consulted the stars and moved on, until the horses went down in a ditch. "The Major and myself," writes Surgeon Kimball, in a letter to his mother, "then stripped to the work and went in; got our horses out and by means of a chain hitched to the wagon pole, pulled it over. We then went ahead with a light, feeling the ground with our toes, and when we found eight or ten rods of good ground, held up our light and the driver came on. Notwithstanding our precautions, the horses went down five or six times, but finally we conquered and reached dry land about half-past three in the morning, just as the gray dawn began to break in the east, having been seven hours in the water, making five miles." This was the morning of July Fourth, and the day was not forgotten by the two servants of their country. "We wrung some of the water out of our clothes, fired a salute from our revolvers in honor of the Fourth of July, and moved on." The two adventurers at last fell upon good FORT BUFORD 3^5 times; they might have been Launcelots or Galahads riding through some Old-World for- est but for the background of our Far West. "At noon/' says the letter, "as we passed through a cottonwood grove we found a picnic party assembled from various ranches; they invited us to dine with them on cold turkey, cake, etc., so that we had a Fourth of July din- ner according to regulations!" At Sioux City they arrived at four o'clock and found them- selves comfortably lodged in a hotel looking over the city — "the prettiest and neatest and most civil Western town I know of." Wonders continued, for the disaster was turned into a blessing. "The boat we missed lies forty miles down the river, a complete wreck, hav- ing run into a snag and stove a hole in her. Should probably have lost our baggage and perhaps been injured if we had been aboard." At Sioux City Dr. Kimball and the Major waited ten days for another boat and amused themselves in the mean time with hunting and fishing. The young enthusiast writes to his 36 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR anxious mother — "I would n't exchange this free, breezy, adventurous Hfe for the most luxurious idleness. '' And this spirit of youth Dr. Kimball never lost. The journey through the Western country was one long delight. The windings of the Mis- souri presented every variety of scenery: the bleak and barren Black Hills and Big Horn Mountains — known then only to the Indians — the dry sagebrush-covered plains and occa- sional rich river bottoms, showing the possi- bilities of the soil when subjected to irrigation. Glimpses of savage Indians along the shores, of antelopes and herds of buffalo on the hills, made the progress as enticing to the lover of outdoors as Colonel Roosevelt's railroad trips through the African hunting fields. Probably fewer settlements and settlers were to be seen from the armored decks of the steamboat Miner on the Missouri in 1867 than are to be seen to-day in East Africa or in the Valley of the Amazon. At last, in August, 1867, the party reached FORT BUFORD 37 Fort Buford, in the "land of the Dacotahs." As Fort Buford was a type of all the early Western forts, now mostly abandoned, I copy Dr. Kimball's own account of its history, and the life there. Like all our frontier forts Bu- ford was surrounded by a wooden stockade only, which enclosed the adobe structures; on one side of the square the enlisted men's quarters; opposite them, the officers' quar- ters; west, the hospital and storeroom; east, the bakery, magazine, and blacksmith's shop ; and beyond, the stables and corral for the cattle. It was this precious herd of cattle which was the envy of the hungry and thievish Indians; and it was this corral (cattle pen) which kept the garrison under arms and the trumpeter ready to sound the "long roll" at any moment. The little group of Indian tepees outside the stockade was the camp of the friendly Indian scouts ; for our officers and our Army have always made friends among the Indians. Here is what the doctor wrote of Buford and its Indian neighbors : — 38 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR "In 1830 the Northwest Fur Company es- tabhshed in Montana, on the left bank of the Upper Missouri, two miles above its conflu- ence with the Yellowstone River, a trading- post which was named Fort Union. Situated on the grazing-ground of countless herds of buffalo, and surrounded by numerous Indian tribes engaged in hunting, the location of the post for purposes of trade was admirable. The white men engaged in the fur-trade in these distant regions were little given to literary pur- suits, and have left but scanty material for the historian. But from such accounts as have come down to us relative to the aborigines, at the time of the establishment of Fort Union, and the course of events during the ensuing thirty years, it would seem that history had but repeated itself, and that instead of relat- ing tales of early days on the Atlantic Coast, Washington Irving might have had a prophe- tic vision of the Sioux and Assiniboines of the Upper Missouri in the middle of the nineteenth century when he wrote: *A11 the world knows ' "jfl^ "n* ''''* ?"~I^lju^(ji Lfl I- -isf*. mc^H^ ft?^V4^ mP^ » ■J, #4MyV^ " iMw- ^ "w^ "^ *xa««^- ^^"^m ■.•M'ny il?»M),tAj^ )i)!i;»^ •Ji^ FORT BUFORD, DAKOTA TERRITORY, IN l868 From a drawing FORT BUFORD 39 the lamentable state in which these poor sav- ages were found, not only deficient in the com- forts of life, but what is still worse, most pite- ously and unfortunately blind to the miseries of their situation. But no sooner did the be- nevolent inhabitants of the East behold their sad condition than they immediately went to work to ameliorate and improve it. They intro- duced among them rum, gin, brandy, and the other comforts of life, and it is astonishing how soon the poor savages learned to estimate those blessings : they likewise made known to them a thousand remedies by which the most inveterate diseases are alleviated and healed, and that they might comprehend the benefit and enjoy the comforts of these medicines they previously introduced among them the diseases which they were calculated to cure.' One of the earliest recorded deeds of Fort Union ofwhich we have any knowledge relates to the establishment of a still for the manu- facture of whiskey; corn [for this purpose being procured from the Mandans and Rees, 40 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR living about two hundred miles down the river. "The Indian tribes resorting to Fort Union to trade were the Sioux, Assiniboines, Crows, Crees, Arichavees, Mandans, and Gros Ven- tres. Of all these the Sioux appear to have suf- fered least from contact with the whites. While many tribes were decimated by small- pox and other diseases, and despoiled of their wealth of horses and robes by the traffic in whiskey, the Sioux appear in great measure to have avoided both physical and moral con- tagion. They held themselves aloof from the white intruders and tolerated them as evils necessary to secure the coveted articles of sugar, coffee, tobacco, and gunpowder. "Just what relations subsisted during all these years between Fort Union and the Unk- papas it would be difficult to ascertain. That these relations were at least strained is evi- dent from the remarks of Bear's Rib, an aged chief of the Unkpapas. He had become in his declining years a friend of the whites, and had FORT BUFORD 41 betaken himself to government rations at the Indian Agency at Fort Rice, D.T. But a few days before his death, in 1866, he made the following address to his brother, to his son, then aged about eight years, and to the Agent at Fort Rice: — " ' Brother, a voice from the spirit land has called for me. Before I go I wish you all to hear my words. I know you will. My counsel is to be friends with the whites, and the great men of the whites will help you in times of need. But above all things, when I am no more, I desire you not to mourn about the place where I lie, as is the custom of our people, — the burial place provided me by my friends, the whites, — but visit it quietly, and when you do so remember my words, and when my people come in, tell them where I lie and what I said. My spirit will hear your words, and let not one of them think my wishes are not for their good. To those who are so foolish as to think they can master and rule the whites, let their bows be at once un- 42 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR strung, and listen to one who knows and feels only good from the whites. My son cannot hear my words, but, brother, you do, and when he grows up repeat to him these re- quests.' "In July, 1866, the site for the future Fort Buford was selected ; on the left bank of the Missouri about a mile below the mouth of the Yellowstone, and three miles east from Fort Union. Camp was pitched here and work be- gun. A sawmill which had been brought was put in operation, logs were cut, and a plot of ground was speedily enclosed with a stockade, within which were erected the quarters neces- sary for the shelter of troops. Opposition was encountered from the first, but not of a vigor- ous character until late in the fall, the elite of the Sioux warriors, fortunately for the new post, having been occupied with the Fort Phil Kearny massacre and similar enterprises. At length, in October, Sitting Bull appeared on the scene. Henceforward the situation be- came serious. He sent orders to the garrison FORT BUFORD 43 to leave the country at once, and proclaimed his uncompromising hostility. The work of procuring wood for the winter's use was carried on with the utmost difficulty. " During the winter, reports found their way into the Eastern newspapers, stating that Fort Buford had been captured, its garrison mas- sacred, and that the wife of the Commandant, bound to a horse, had disappeared. "In July, 1867 [date of Dr. Kimball's ar- rival], the garrison was increased by the ad- dition of four companies of infantry, of about one hundred men each, thus raising the strength of the command to a little over five hundred men. The troops were also armed with breech-loading rifles in place of the old muzzle-loading muskets hitherto in use. In consequence of these changes, the chances of victory for the Sioux warriors were seriously diminished. Ceaseless watch and guard over the fort was, however, none the less maintained. "One afternoon in August, the Colonel's cow having strayed a few yards too far, was 44 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR trussed with arrows by Indians concealed in a coulee y and immediately afterward a war party of about a dozen savages mounted on ponies showed themselves on a small rise of ground scarcely a thousand yards from the fort, where they performed a pantomime of gestures expressing contempt and defiance, and rode off toward the hills. Twenty mounted soldiers started as soon as possible in pursuit, with wholly negative results. War parties continued constantly to hover around, and the smallest diminution of watchfulness on the part of the squads engaged in gathering wood and hay was almost certain to be sharply re- proved by a sudden shower of arrows from thicket or ravine. "Messages from Sitting Bull were received from time to time announcing that at no dis- tant day Fort Buford was to be destroyed from the face of the earth." The winters inside the stockade were a com- pound of danger and monotony — the usual FORT BUFORD 45 chances of war. Here is a specimen day de- scribed in an old letter: — "I rise about eight a.m., and finish break- fast at nine o'clock. The next hour is spent in the hospital and from that time until one P.M. I am busy writing up my reports, reading or studying. At one o'clock we have lunch, a bowl of bread and milk and a piece of pie, and the afternoon is then usually spent with my horse, dogs, and gun, and other hunters, on the prairie or in the woods. At five p.m. we have dinner, to which I bring an appetite that would do honor to a wolf — and by the way, we have a good cook. The evening is spent in reading, writing, and visiting." A menu of the officers' mess for a day shows that the afternoon chase was often success- ful:— Breakfast — antelope chops. Dinner — Missouri River catfish, prairie chicken (grouse), and roast buffalo. Supper — Elk steak. 46 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR At that time buffalo skins were the coin cur- rent of the trappers and Indians. " I get a buf- falo robe, that in the States would be worth from $20 to ^30, for a professional visit or pre- scription." Skins of all sorts were used for clothing. The surgeon's outdoor winter dress is humorously described : ** First a pair of buf- falo overshoes — buffalo hide with the hair on, making a shoe about two inches thick all around, thus adding four inches in length and four in breadth to my natural foot; gloves reaching nearly to my shoulders, woolen, and lined with deerskin, a shaggy buffalo overcoat, and bearskin leggins. My cap is made from a beaver's skin and is the respect- able feature of my outlandish outfit." This was a unique "fatigue" uniform suited to the Arctic winters of Dakota. Dr. Kimball always made friends with the Indians, and doubtless did them many a good turn professionally. His interest in their lan- guage and ethnology grew from day to day and he soon acquired the six hundred words of the FORT BUFORD 47 Sioux vocabulary, and spoke fluently. As this was the court language of the Northern In- dians, he was able to make himself under- stood among several friendly tribes who often visited Buford to trade and to receive their annuities from the Government. Among these tribes were the Assiniboines and their relatives. The oflScers occasionally visited these Indian camps and the surgeon writes of their reception, on one occasion: "The camp, composed of 1500 individuals, was arranged in circular form; the tepees or lodges, built of poles stuck in the ground and coming together at the top in the form of a cone, were covered with buffalo skins. Around this circle they kept a constant picket, as they were in a state of continual warfare with other tribes." The furniture of these nomadic homes consisted of a blanket or two, some robes and skins, tomahawks, bows and arrows, bark cra- dles, pipes and tobacco-pouches, paint-boxes, and three or four villainous wolf-dogs. The Indians received the officers with great dignity 48 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR and conducted them to their chief's lodge. There he offered them the peace-pipe and "paw-paw" (dried buffalo meat); of course they partook of these dainties, and exchanged compliments, briefly, as to the Great Father at Washington, with execrations upon all enemies of the Assiniboines. An Indian dance followed — somewhat of a bore, I fancy, as the rites and ceremonies lasted an hour and a half. The guests were then suffered to depart, " poorer as to tobacco and cigars but with our scalps where they belong." Dr. Kimball again interested himself in gardening, and under cultivation, the desert soil produced corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cabbage — potatoes proved a failure. The herd at pasture on the hills furnished milk and butter for the table. But these pastoral de- lights and diplomatic exchanges with the In- dians were sometimes interrupted by war. One fine August day (1868) the herd of two hundred and fifty cattle was grazing about a mile and a half from the fort, guarded FORT BUFORD 49 by twenty-five cavalrymen. "All at once," writes the doctor, "from half a dozen ravines and on all sides Indians came tearing down on them, with their hideous yells, stampeding the herd and taking the men by surprise. They, however, immediately rallied and fought an overwhelming force of Indians until the troops from the fort could get there, which was in a very few minutes, as the 'lookout' saw the first dash and gave the alarm to men — who had their guns ready at a moment's notice. A mile and a half was never run more quickly by a body of footmen. During this time some of the Indians had been driving the cattle at the top of their speed into the hills, or *bad lands.' And now the fight became interesting — the liveliest fight I have seen since the days of the Rebellion. These Indians were select war parties from several different tribes, — Sioux, Ogallalahs, Cheyennes, and Comanches, — all splendidly mounted and the best horsemen I ever saw. They fought to cover the retreat of the herd — and several times they charged 50 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR down on us, forcing us to stand on the defen- sive, as they outnumbered us three to one. It was exciting in the extreme to see the prairie covered with those splendid horsemen, hide- ously painted, whooping and yelling, riding at the top of their speed right into our fire, trying to break our line. We drove them, how- ever, as fast as infantry could, and recaptured between fifty and sixty of the cattle. One Lieutenant (Lieutenant Cusick) with eight mounted men made a most gallant charge, and only by what seems a miracle escaped with his life. The Indians always make extra exertions to capture an officer and gave their whole attention to killing the Lieutenant; being better mounted, they were soon neck and neck with him, shooting their arrows like hail, bury- ing them in his saddle and sending them all around him. For nearly half a mile the break- neck race was run until our men, who were coming up at a double-quick, got within range, when an Indian struck the Lieutenant on the back with a war club — a 'coup' — and re- FORT BUFORD 51 treated. The Indians fairly won the day in this fight, for they made off with two hun- dred cattle, leaving the garrison to face a winter with meat once a week only, and scant supplies of milk and butter." It seems a great blunder in tactics to have garrisoned Fort Buford chiefly with infantry, when the fort was surrounded by hostile In- dians, notably the best riders in the world. Fortunately for the garrison, the tribes were as yet unarmed with the rifle. The surgeon made at Buford careful and laborious studies of arrow wounds, only to find, before his book was ready for publication, that the In- dians were all furnished with the white man's weapons. Invariably Dr. Kimball discovered the best traits of his Indian neighbors. His knowledge of their language and his gentle manners in- spired their confidence, and induced them to speak out to him. One old chief. Red Stone, thus expounded to the surgeon the tribe's re- ligious creed. "There is," said he, "a great 52 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR spirit — Wakon — who made the earth. He is awake and looking after his children during the summer, and sleeps during the winter and forgets them and lets them get cold. In the moon of the falling leaf, before he composes himself to his winter sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a long smoke ; the balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, filling the air with the haze of the Indian summer." Red Stone is puzzled by the white man's conduct as compared with his beliefs : " If a man is poor among the whites," said he, "none of you notice him or give him anything, but treat him like a dog; whereas a Dakota gives his poor neighbor meat, he gives him horses, he makes his heart glad. Wah-k-tesh! the whites are very strange." No wonder that the story of our double-dealings with these savages has been called a " century of dishonor " ; no wonder that the guileless Indian thinkers were confused by the contradiction between our words and our doings. **If the whites," reasons Red Stone, "believe there is a good place for the good FORT BUFORD 53 people and a bad place for the bad, why are the white men all so bad?" • But not every Indian found the white men "so bad." Hear this story of Crow Chief, a celebrated Mandan chief. His people, unlike most of their nomadic neighbors, lived in houses of mud and logs which they left only for long hunts. Their village was about two hundred and fifty miles below Fort Buford on the Missouri. The old chief, however, had outlived his days of hunting and war, and one icy day in December was found by the doctor and a young lieutenant lying helpless on the prairie. The man was really a victim of tuber- culosis, but with good food, medicine, and hospital care he began to improve. He became able to walk about the garrison, constantly telling how kindly he had been treated by the whites. But at last his strength suddenly failed and the day of his death (February 21, 1869) he sent for his two rescuers and in In- dian fashion addressed them formally. Here is the translation. (Indian orators who are not 54 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR skilled narrators often grow tiresome, but they have great moments.) "Soldier chiefs, my brothers," said the dy- ing Mandan, "in the moon when the wild geese were flying southward, I left the village and started with my people on their winter hunt. I was feeble then, having this bad cough which teases me so much, but thought I should get better hunting on the prairie and drinking the warm blood of the deer and buf- falo. But I could not hunt ; the game all ran away from me and laughed at me, and I had to lie in the camp and let my young men hunt. We slept fourteen nights from our village be- fore we saw the smoke of the white soldier's village [Fort Buford], and my body was more sick than when we started. So when my people decided to go farther and my son brought me a horse and told me to ride in company with the women, I concluded to go no farther with my people, but told them I would go and live with Medicine Bear until they returned. Medicine Bear received me kindly [Greek hos- FORT BUFORD 55 pitality was no better], and gave me a comer in his lodge, but he was poor. I had to sleep on the naked ground, and every night this bad cough, which teases me so much, grew worse. At last buffalo were getting scarce and Medi- cine Bear with his people decided to move. I was too weak to go with them, and I resolved to go to the traders and see if they would be hospitable to a poor sick old man who had always been a friend to the whites. The trad- ers kept me one night, and then next morning, as I had no robes to trade, they told me to go away and not to trouble them. My heart was very bad, and I started across the prairie without anything to eat, going in the direction of my people. I traveled until the sun was far in the west, and then, being very weak and hungry and knowing that my nation was a long distance off, I lay down on the prairie to die, when you, soldier chiefs, my brothers, found me. I was at first afraid of the soldiers — they looked so fierce and stern with their bright guns and long knives ; but now I know 56 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR that the soldiers are the only men that have big hearts. You brought me to your lodge and said kind words to me and I have slept in a good bed, better than I ever expected to lie in ; I have had plenty to eat and drink and good medicine to take. My brothers, I am very thankful; I am now about to die. The Great Spirit wants me and I must leave you. I would like to be buried with my war dress wrapped around me. My medal that the Great Father gave me, I wish to be given to my son when he returns, that he may look at it and be a friend to the whites, as his father has been. My pipe — the best pipe of the Man- dans, which has been smoked with my nation — I give to the Medicine Man^ the soldier chief y my brother, [I don't believe Dr. Kim- ball ever attained any higher rank or title than that !] When he smokes it, let him think that the Mandan chief had a big heart and was thankful. My brothers, I have but one more request to make of you and I shall not take it hard if you cannot grant it. It is dark here, I FORT BUFORD 57 cannot see the fire through that iron [the air- tight stove of the hospital ward]. In an In- dian lodge they will keep a bright fire burning all night and I think it would do me good and make my heart warm. I would like to be car- ried to an Indian lodge where I can die look- ing at the fire. My brothers, I shall look for you in the other country. Shake hands with me. How! How!" All this I find in fading pencil lines written down by the "soldier chief" at the time. He adds : " Crow Chief was sent in an ambulance to an Indian lodge, as he requested, and placed in a corner where he could see the fire burning in the center of the wigwam. In this position he died. I have seldom been more interested than I was in the old man, or mourned a per- son more sincerely. He was by nature a great man and a gentleman. Every morning when I visited him, he would manifest great pleasure and, placing his hand on my shoulder, would almost caress me. He is among the last of a 58 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR noble race — for the Mandans are now almost obliterated by war and smallpox. They are, in many respects, unlike other Indians ; many of them have light hair and blue eyes and a pleasant, kind expression. They have never been enemies to the whites. The Mandan pipe I would not part with for many a surgeon's fee. By virtue of owning it, I am now a Man- dan chief and can speak with authority in the tribe." That rash saying — '*The only good Indian is a dead Indian" is surely belied by the story of Crow Chief. The great changes of that day, the overland telegraph and railroad, can be traced in the Indian's expressions. "Big medicine" means to them anything mysterious, wonder-working or supernatural. Thus an Indian from the Platte (Military Department, Nebraska) re- ported that the whites over in that country had got "big medicine" to kill Indians and game. "It is," he said, "a long, small iron, stretched on poles, away across the country. You can put your ear to the pole and hear the FORT BUFORD 59 medicine humming along/' He added that he and some others were going to cut it down, but left after they had worked a short time for a big storm came up and fire began to run along the iron and it commenced curling up. "They have got a steamboat over there that runs on the ground ; now you see it and now it is gone. Best horses can't keep up with it." The last word on aviation is not more mag- ical to us than the wire and the rail to the Dakotas of the sixties. Buford mails were very uncertain ; the bags were often captured by the Indians; and on one occasion, after three months of waiting, the doctor received nothing but a torn medical journal from the railroad mail pouch ! His dis- appointment perhaps accounts for an out- burst of wrath in one of his letters to his fam- ily ; he writes of this "forsaken land, this sweet country which ought to be left to the wolves and red-skins, at least until we can get letters from civilization in less than three months." In general, however, he was thoroughly con- 6o A SOLDIER-DOCTOR tented, absorbed in his professional work and his studies of climate, soil, and people. It was at Buford that Dr. Kimball secured the autobiography of Sitting Bull — in pic- ture writing. This precious " manuscript " was sent to the Curator of the Army Medical Mu- seum at Washington, and is there preserved in the archives. The book was brought into Fort Buford by a Yanktonnais Sioux and of- fered for sale and purchased for provisions worth $1.50. The doctor's keen eye saw the ethnological value of the rude drawings, and with the aid of the vender, other interpreters, and his own knowledge of Indian lore and lan- guage, deciphered the story and prepared an index. The sheets upon which the drawings were made were the muster-roll blanks of the 31st U.S. Infantry and were doubtless stolen by Sitting Bull upon some raid. "Since the establishment of Fort Buford in 1866," writes Dr. Kimball, in his introduction to the find, " Sitting Bull, at the head of from sixty to seventy warriors, had been the terror of mail- SITTING BULL From a photograph by O S. Goff, i8Si FORT BUFORD 61 carriers, wood-choppers, and small parties in the vicinity of the post, and from one hundred to two hundred miles from it either way up and down the Missouri River. During the time from 1866 to 1870, when the autobiography was written, this band had several times de- stroyed the mail and had stolen and run off with over two hundred head of cattle and killed a score of white men in the immediate vicinity of the Fort. . . . The word *coup,' which occurs frequently in the index, has been appropriated by the Sioux from the French (Sioux itself being the French name for Da- kota) \ 'Counting coup' signifies the striking of an enemy, either dead or alive, with a stick, bow, lance, or other weapon. The number of 'coups' counted are enumerated along with the number of horses stolen and scalps taken in summing up the brave deeds of a warrior." The preface, index, and woodcuts of the draw- ings were published by the "New York Her- ald" in 1876. One of the sports of the Buford sojourn was 62 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR the buffalo run ; " a helter-skelter race of miles ; a yell and we were off, — who that joined in such a chase can ever forget it!" It is not strange that the officers, shut within their stockade, cut off from newspapers, letters, news of the outside world, were ready to risk their lives for such a chase. An Indian cap- tured in a raid on Fort Buford, confessed to the surgeon and his friends, who had ridden out in search of game the day before: "We should have killed you all yesterday, but big chief was not ready." Dr. Kimball's many-sided life in the little Buford garrison often included the dignity of Judge-Advocate in courts martial. His trained mind and judgment enabled him both to prosecute and to advise. "How he would wrestle with death!" said a friend. With the same zeal and wisdom he could deal with messroom quarrels and camp misde- meanors. These tales of Buford explain why we named our mountain home in the quiet green Cats- FORT BUFORD 63 kills, "Buford Lodge." The name "Buford," once associated with danger and daring, now recalls only happy memories of "dangers passed." Ill THE YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION Survey of proposed route of the Northern Pacific Rail- road — Chief medical officer under General Terry and General Stanley, in command of three thousand men — Indian fights — General (Lieutenant-Colonel) Custer — Journal. " In all respects Dr. Kimball has been faithful, upright, and conscientious, discharging all his duties with signal ability and beloved by those with whom he has served. . . . "We well know how important is that column in the Merit Roll designated 'General Aptitude'; and Dr. Kimball fulfills all its re- quirements." (Extract from an official letter of the Medical Director, Department of the Dakotah, written after the young medical officer had passed his second examination for promotion in 1869 and become Surgeon-Cap- tain.) In 1869 occurred his marriage, July 15, to Miss Sarah Eddy, of Albany, New York. To- YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 65 gether they returned to Fort Buford, where they spent some happy months in their Httle adobe quarters. Little Rock, Arkansas, was the next station. The three years spent there (1870-73) were uneventful; the climate seemed languorous and the duty tame after wind-swept plains and Indian wars. When, therefore, orders were received to take the field, they were welcome. The Yellowstone Expedition was organized to lay out and survey the route of the North- ern Pacific Railroad, and incidentally to select new sites for army posts. The military escort consisted of one regiment of cavalry, the famous Seventh, commanded by General — then Lieutenant-Colonel — Custer, and por- tions of four regiments of infantry, under General Stanley and General Terry. These officers were warm personal friends of Dr. Kimball, and it was at the special request of General Terry and Colonel Custer that he was ordered to this duty. It was a great responsi- 66 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR bility for a young man in his thirties to have entire charge of the medical department of so large an expedition. The "Captain-Doctor" eagerly undertook the work and successfully prepared a medical outfit for three thousand men who were to spend four months cutting their way through an almost unexplored and hostile country. Again the Upper Missouri was followed as far north as Fort Rice, where the column left the river and struck out into the unknown. The route lay through the valley of the Yellow- stone at its junction with Powder River and onward. In May they had reached Fort Sully, South Dakota. There the surgeon wrote: "Camp on Oka-bo-gie Creek. Cold, bad weather — continue to wear our overcoats every day while in the saddle and to sit around rousing camp-fires in the evening, but I like it much better than the sunny South [Arkan- sas], hot, murky, and malarious." At this point the party was in sight of the Black Hills. The column advanced cau- YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 67 tiously through country occupied by tribes who were said to be "always as bad as they could be." The command was arranged with a column of infantry in front and in the rear, and a column of cavalry on either side of the train. The Indians at first kept in the background, though small war parties were occasionally seen. On went the doughty col- umn, two hundred and fifty miles' march, until they arrived in July at the Yellowstone River. There they met a steamboat with further supplies and were ferried across the river, the work of a week. Thence the route was up the Yellowstone Valley, two hundred miles to Pompey's Pillar, then northward about fifty miles to the Mussel Shell River, a tributary of the Missouri, and back again to Fort Rice. Do the travelers on luxurious overland trains or dwellers in prosperous towns ever think of the hard fighting and campaigning that made possible their comfort and good fortune ? Yet the same landscape meets the eye to-day, bar- ring, perhaps, something of its savage quiet 68 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR — "the stream [Yellowstone] broad and rapid, dotted with islands of cedar and fir trees, winding through broad savannas green with waving grass, while bold, high, precipitous bluffs destroy any tendency to tameness." Thus the doctor saw the river in 1873. The Indians soon lost their first awe of the large body of troops, and again and again harassed the expedition. "After a march of five hundred miles, fighting Indians and moun- tain passes, we are back at the crossing of the Yellowstone. The medical service during the war never labored under the difficulties we have had to encounter, cut off as we have been from our base of supplies for nearly seven weeks. I have had a case of fractured thigh produced by a bullet ; we transported the pa- tient about three hundred and fifty miles, and he is doing well." The fight was described by the late Samuel J. Barrows, then a young war correspondent of the "New York Tribune," with the Yellowstone Expedition. " It was at a critical time in the engagement," he writes, YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 69 "and Custer, seeing that the Indians in large force had cKmbed the bluffs and were advanc- ing upon us, ordered Braden, with a detach- ment, to take and hold the bridge in front. It was a fierce onslaught which the Sioux made on this, one of the key-points to the battle-field. But Braden and his men held their ground stubbornly and repulsed the Indians with steady fire until the cavalry charge came to their relief; but the brave lieutenant fell, dan- gerously wounded in the thigh." The jolting of the ambulance over the untrodden prairie became unbearable to the wounded officer, and after a day or two of torture, he sent for the Chief Surgeon and begged him to dispatch him. Dr. Kimball calmly faced the situation, and devised on the spot a new species of litter. A canvas stretcher, hung between two pairs of wheels, was drawn by a mule led by a sol- dier. On this cot the wounded officer accom- plished his journey of nearly four hundred miles, declaring that the change was heaven after hell. He lives to tell the story with 70 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR triumph, never forgetting his indebtedness to surgeon and commanding general. Add to this litter on wheels a motor and a canvas top, and you have the field ambulance used to-day upon all the battle-fields of Eu- rope. Such is the ingenuity and "prepared- ness" of the surgeon's mind. A description of litters and ambulances adopted by different nations was later much quoted from Dr. Kimball's article on "Transportation of the Wounded in War" (1898). A few items from his journal written on the march give vivid pictures of the route : — "August, 1873; eight miles through the 'Bad Lands.' Main features are lava, scoria, cactus, rattlesnakes, and prairie dogs." (General Stanley states that the expedition passed over sixty miles of " Bad Lands.") "Thirteen barrels of whiskey destroyed to- day — thank God ! "Custer Creek — discovered by, and named for, him. "Frequent battles with Indians. Custer in YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 71 advance; men often killed while hunting outside the camp.'* (General Stanley says in his report that Custer always volunteered to lead the column.) "'Cactus Camp'; two men killed — their bodies have been brought along to-day from last night's camp, to throw the Indians off the track of their grave : buried to-day at Retreat, in an open place between four large cotton- wood trees, Camp no. 35, just below lower end of an island in the Yellowstone ; both in one grave, over which the horses will be picketed to-night, to pack the ground, and so prevent discovery by Indians; coffin consisted of a wagon-cover. "Wolves made last night hideous. "Custer fighting Indians. "Alarm and Long Roll [to arms] in night, from Dickey's camp. "August 13th, 1873: Killed fifteen elk to- day. "Carried Braden on a litter — by twelve men. 72 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR " August 1 5 th : * Pompey's Pillar ' — a mound one hundred and fifty feet high, on right bank of the Yellowstone. Big Horn Mountains with snowy summits seen in the distance. "Wheeled litter constructed for Braden proves a success. "August i6th: Indians stole in across the prairie and hid behind * Pompey's Pillar' in the timber. About eight a.m., when the river-bank was covered with men, many in bathing, the Indians opened fire on them. The scampering of naked men up the hill was very comical. After the volley, the Indians ran across the valley and got into the hills. Captain French got a bullet in his saddle, — nobody hurt. "August 17th. Saw buffalo to-day; killed several. "August 1 8th. Buffalo in thousands. Herd (beef cattle) stampeded again last night, and nine head have not been recovered. Four thousand feet above the sea. Snowy moun- tains and Judith Pass in view. Snow in sight for several days. YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 73 "August 19th. Mussel Shell River, at two- thirty P.M. Countless buffalo. "August 20th. A fine river it is; cotton- woods, lots of cherries, and beaver. To-day we commence our eastward march — two months out from Fort Rice. "August 22d. Chickens (prairie) ; antelope, buffalo, deer, and fish in our mess. Grass would be good here, but has everywhere been destroyed by the immense herds of buffalo. "August 24th. Grizzlies abundant in the 'Cherry Gardens.' "August 26th. Indians seen by Bloody Knife — scout. "September ist. Had the last chicken- shooting of the season on this plain to-day. Shot every bird on the wing, and did not miss a shot. — Hospital full. "September 3d. [The return journey.] On the battle-ground of Tongue River. The re- mains of Private John Ball, killed by Indians August 4th, while out hunting, were found this P.M., and identified by a pair of trousers 74 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR near him. All that was left was the skull and a portion of the other bones. The man's flesh had been eaten by wolves and the bones cracked for the marrow, some being destroyed entirely. All that were left were buried at Retreat to-day, on the battle-field. "Very good duck hunting — got half a dozen teal. "September 5th. Wagon again upset, spill- ing out everything ; did not get into camp until two hours after the train. This makes six times I Ve had a wagon over since leaving Yankton. "September 8th. Killed a fine buffalo cow this P.M. Between one and two hundred mules escaped last night. " Prairie kept from taking fire only by con- stant effort. "Best prairie-chicken shooting on Davis Creek, through the *Bad Lands,' I ever saw; got ten. "Great number of antelopes found dead on the prairie — murrain or epizootic. "Prairie fire of yesterday put out by the YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 75 rain, but has started anew from Custer's camp of last night ; fire is seen shortly after we make camp coming toward us. By a counter-fire to leeward, and by moving on, we can escape it. "September 22d. Near Fort Abraham Lin- coln, D.T. Stock and men nearly worn out. Custer, with the engineers, arrived at six p.m. yesterday." An article written fourteen years later by Mr. Barrows, still correspondent of the "New York Tribune," might be called a postscript to the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873. It is dated West Point, New York: — "As the boat landed at West Point, a pleas- ing surprise awaited us. The officer in blouse and fatigue cap who came down to meet the crowd of visitors from the boat, seen from the deck was simply an officer in the United States Army; but when the gangplank was laid and we stepped ashore and caught a view of his features and heard the tones of his voice, there was no mistaking it ; it could not be anybody 76 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR else — it was Kimball, without a shadow of doubt. It speaks well for the life of an army surgeon that fourteen years had left no traces of care upon his face and no silver in his hair. When you have eaten at the same mess-table, morning, noon, and night, through a whole campaign and marched together on horseback hundreds of miles over the Western Plains and camped in the same sagebrush and cactus, and drunk of the same alkali water, and longed together for a good many things that you could n't get, the memory of the experience is too well rubbed in to be easily rubbed out. One impression made so long ago was easily revived and strengthened, — namely, that the duties of the army surgeon do not necessarily impair the finer sensibilities, and that our friend with the gold leaf on his shoulders, wherever found, — in tent, in saddle, or on the piazza of his home at West Point, — was always and for- ever in word and deed a gentleman." That same mess-table of the Yellowstone party was rather remarkable for its make-up. N YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 77 Literally, the board was, as the surgeon wrote, "my amputating-table, which we carry along in the medicine wagon." But this fact did not disturb the appetites of the convives. They were six, including General Stanley, several young lieutenants, the war correspondent, and the Chief Surgeon. As Mr. Barrows wrote, the intimate camp life promoted good fellowship and made some lasting friendships. At headquarters of the Expedition there was a distinguished group of scientific men, with the commanding generals. Colonel Fred Grant and others. From time to time this society was varied by English guests, often younger sons who were seeking their fortunes in the Far West, or others who were simply en- joying the wild for its own sake. At one time there were at headquarters three of these high-bred camp-followers; among them Lord Frewen. Men like Morton Frewen brought into the camp the culture and ideas of the Old World; others, mere triflers, — good fellows, too, perhaps, — spent most of their time over 78 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR cards and cups. The doctor used to recall laughingly two such comrades. After a long bout one of them rose in wrath, declaring in language worthy of Scott, "Donald of Caith- ness ( .?) ; I will cleave you to the chine — if — if—!." The last word about the Yellowstone coun- try was summed up by the campaign poet in the following verses : — "After Hood" "No clouds, no rain. No dew, no grain, No night, no noon, no proper time of day, No trees, no interrupted view. No dearth of sand or distance blue. No track, no path, no road, no well-known way, No end to plain and mound. No scene but barren ground, No end to dust and heat, No decent thing to eat. No shade, no meadow streams nor rivers clear, No mountains, no forests green, No soft grasses to be seen, No growth, no warmth, but three months of the year. YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 79 No buffalo in the land, No mines or golden sand; "No water, except in stagnant pool, No ice our fevered throats to cool, No settlers on the road. No profit to make bonds good. With no necessity, no purpose, no empire's way; — Heaven cut short the No'-thern Pacific's day." The verses may have been written at the close of a bad day, but we give them with apologies to the great Northwest and its railway. IV THE BLACK HILLS AND THE BIG HORN Chief Surgeon of the Indian campaign under General Custer, 1876 — At Fort Lincoln, after the battle of the Big Horn — Fort Brady, Sault Sainte Marie — A Jesuit missionary, Father Ferard — Ordered to Governor's Island, New York Harbor. The "Captain-Doctor's" next station was Fort Randall, in South Dakota: "The most southerly of the chain of military posts along the Missouri River in Dakota Territory, and the last one between the hostile Indians and the white settlements of Southeast Dakota and Northern Nebraska." So he wrote in 1875, in a letter to the "New York World," for the doctor found time, in the midst of many duties, to write occasional letters to the New York papers describing the situation at these frontier posts. The little garrison at Fort Randall was in the midst of a troubled re- gion. Sioux and half-Sioux (Brules) were at war among themselves ; when the enemy was a BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 81 tribe friendly to the United States, the Sioux did not hesitate also "to rob, fight, and scalp their nearest neighbors — sometimes poor, hard-working settlers, sometimes the United States troops themselves. The logic of the Brule is that the Great Father at Washington feeds him because he fears him, and he looks with a patronizing air on Wa-See-Chee, the white man (literally, *the man that works'), who is a pretty good fellow so long as he pro- vides plenty of rations, but is to be stimulated in case of any remissness by a raid of robbers, murderers, and scalpers; and, in fact, to be raided upon once in a while on general Indian principles." The familiar raid was sometimes varied by a day like this at Fort Randall : after twenty miles in the saddle, the doctor was met by a telegram summoning him to the Fonca Agency on account of an outbreak of cholera. Then followed a night ride on a wild Mexican mus- tang pony, through swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, over a swampy and uncertain road. 82 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR After several hair-breadth escapes, "we made it at last," he writes, "fifty-six miles in the saddle, a bag of prairie chickens and thirty- six dollars for a day's work." How to deal with the hostile Indians, how to treat the friendly ones, were living questions on the plains in the seventies. Dakota, — the Black Hills, and Wyoming, — the Big Horn region, were the great battle-grounds. In 1875 an expedition against the Indians was proposed. The following letter from General Custer was dated Fort Abraham Lincoln, Da- kota Territory, April 25, 1875: — My dear Doctor: — I write to say that it would be extremely agreeable to me if you would accompany the expedition as chief medical officer. In fact, I can further say, if permitted to choose from the medical officers of this Department the one I most prefer for that position, you would be my unhesitating choice — and I hope the detail may fall to you. Very truly yours, (Signed) G. A. Custer. BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 83 The long marches of the Yellowstone Ex- pedition had brought General Custer into most friendly relations with Dr. Kimball. By a cu- rious tangle of circumstances, the expedition against the Indians was delayed for a year. Dr. Kimball was ordered to the duty of its Chief Surgeon, in March, 1876. He left Fort Randall and proceeded to St. Paul — head- quarters of the Department — to await the arrival of troops and hospital supplies. Just as he was ready to join General Custer, a great blizzard delayed the departure of the troops. Meantime, the command, under General Terry and General Custer, had marched from Fort Lincoln, and the fatal battle of the Big Horn occurred in June, 1876. But for the extra- ordinary blizzard undoubtedly the Chief Sur- geon would have shared the fate of his subor- dinates. Assistant Surgeons Lord and DeWolf. With General Custer and his command, they were killed in the fight on the Big Horn. Two weeks later Dr. Kimball accompanied the be- lated detachment of five hundred troops from 84 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Fort Brady (Sault Sainte Marie), Michigan, to the mouth of the Big Horn River, on the Yellowstone. It was a long journey by the Lake to Duluth, thence to the Missouri River, past Fort Buford, and up the Yellowstone again. On July 21, 1876, he writes : " Steamer Carroll, thirty miles below Fort Stevenson, Dakota Territory: I found Mrs. Custer at Fort Lincoln greatly prostrated." Dr. KimbalFs comment on the loss of his friend. General Custer, was a copy, found in his notebook, of Longfellow's poem, "The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face.'' He was said to have been the slayer of General Custer, the "White Chief with yellow hair." ''In that desolate land and lone, Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux Chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs And the menace of their wrath. • ••••••• "Whose was the right and the wrong .^ Sing it, O funeral song With a voice that is full of tears, BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 85 And say that our broken faith Wrought all this ruin and scathe, In the Year of a Hundred Years." We all know of Mrs. Custer's wonderful marches with her husband on the great plains — she has told her own story vividly and ably. The surgeon and several officers of the Sev- enth Cavalry, often rode hour after hour with the ladles, Mrs. Custer and her sister-in-law; General Custer was frequently in advance. The invariable orders on the plains were that, in case of attack, the women should be shot by the nearest officer, rather than be subjected to murder or torture at the hands of the In- dians. Mrs. Custer herself refers to this order, and gratefully mentions her officer guard — among them, the surgeon. In a recent letter she writes: "I remember well the long march I made, riding so much of the five hundred miles beside the doctor — turned over to him by the general. The doctor, having little to do, —since we were such a healthy lot, — was the best sort of a ' squire of dames.' " 86 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR On July 29, Dr. Kimball writes again from the steamer Carroll: "Had a skirmish with the Sioux at the mouth of Powder River, this, five to seven, p.m. There were about two hundred of them, apparently ; but it was only a long-range skirmish, in which we had one man slightly wounded, and the Indians lost a few horses killed, and we captured a few guns and pistols." A petty incident of travel on those wild rivers ! In contrast with the rude episode is the glimpse of Fort Buford revisited. "The place had a strange fascination for me," he writes. "... Our little house, with its flat dirt roof, pink walls, and red cross, is in fair preservation, and the barren hills and bleak prairie are alike unchanged." The next few years of Dr. Kimball's career show the constant changes of army life. A slight lull in Indian warfare finds him at Fort Brady, Michigan (1877), — "hibernating in the im- mense snow-banks of this Arctic region, writ- ing, reading, and sleighing." He adds: "The Indian war is by no means over, but I hope to BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 87 be let alone next season, to enjoy here the cool, quiet summer, the fishing and sailing and the aromatic breezes, fragrant with balsam and fir. But if not [ever the debonair spirit], there is good to be got in roaming the prairies, and I shall not grumble." At this time the surgeon made the acquaint- ance of Father Ferard, a Jesuit priest who had long been a missionary to the Indians and settlers in the neighborhood. The doctor's mind and sympathies were broad enough to see the great good accomplished by the unselfish men of the Roman Catholic belief in these remote lands and among simple peoples. I know that he greatly prized the friendship of this Jesuit priest, who was a man of learning and of piety. Father Ferard aroused his friend's interest in the Jesuit "Relations," and in the country surrounding Fort Brady. I find a sketch of the place written during his station there. Here are a few extracts : — "At the foot of these rapids is the village — no mushroom town of modern Western growth, 88 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR it boasts an antiquity of more than two cen- turies, and is but little the junior of Plymouth Rock. Here, in 1667-68, was the station of Father Marquette, the Jesuit Missionary and explorer ; and here the young Marquette died, at the age of thirty-eight. The mission is now sustained by Father Ferard, a worthy succes- sor of the devoted and self-sacrificing priests. [Father Ferard was at that time compiling a dictionary of the Ojibway language.] He finds a great affinity between the roots of this language and those of the Semitic and Aryan, or Indo-Germanic, tongues. Apropos of this and the origin of the Indian is a very remark- able anecdote related to me by Father Ferard. A Jesuit priest, after having been attached to the Huron mission in Canada for several years, was recalled to Europe and sent to China. During his missionary travel in the North of China, he was surprised to meet a squaw whom he had formerly known in Canada. In answer to his inquiries, she stated that she had been taken captive, and had journeyed from camp BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 89 to camp with her different captors until she had come to that part of Chinese Tartary where she met him. When he asked her how she made herself understood, she repHed that the language of the country and her own lan- guage were not so dissimilar but that she could understand and be understood. Upon which the priest had the curiosity to compare some of the most common words of both languages, and found the radicals in the two tongues strikingly related. "The military occupation of the Sault [*Soo'] dates back to 1750. After the fall of Quebec it became in succession French, Eng- lish, Indian (in Pontiac's War — 1763), Eng- lish again, and finally American, when the gar- rison was known as Fort Brady. The village is unique; it now contains [1878] about fifteen hundred inhabitants, a motley crew of English, French, Indians, and half-breeds. The Creoles trace back their lineage for more than two hundred years, to the early days of the Hud- son's Bay Fur Company; and not a few bear 90 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR the surnames of the chevahers of France. They are usually honest, not lazy or idle, but a shiftless, improvident class — fishermen and hunters." The Sault prospered in the days of the port- age and the first canal, when Michigan copper was a new find : but the big government lock then in construction promised to obliterate the falls (eighteen feet in height) and blot out the village with all its sometime prosperity. With or without the lock, however, Sault Ste. Marie is now a town of more than twelve thousand inhabitants. After the station at Fort Brady, Dr. Kim- ball was ordered eastward, instead of west- ward. At Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the riots in the mining region made it necessary to call in the Army. The duties were not se- rious or prolonged, and the officers found the grateful townspeople gracious and hospitable. When the rioters were silenced, orders were received to proceed to Governor's Island, New York Harbor. This detail came by request of < O Q < 2 S M O BLACK HILLS AND BIG HORN 91 Dr. Kimbairs friend, General Hancock, the commanding officer of the Department of the East. Colonel John M. Cuyler, one of the most distinguished and able men of his corps, was Medical Director of the Department. He be- came a loyal and devoted friend of his young Assistant Surgeon, Captain Kimball. The son born April 24, 1878, at Governor's Island, was christened James Cuyler, a name which per- petuates the friendship of two noble spirits. Nearly two years were spent on Governor's Island. It must have been a delightful station, with two such men as General Hancock and Dr. Cuyler in the little Island circle. Gov- ernor's Island is a unique spot in our national history, and Dr. Kimball's two "tours" of duty there — twenty years apart — mark it also in our family annals. The two sons spent each a babyhood of eighteen months on the Island ; thence each boy went westward — one to Wyoming, one to Nebraska. THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE The Ute War — Forced cavalry march for relief of Thornburgh's command — Pursuit of Indians — Fort Sidney, Nebraska — Garrison notes — Whist clubs. An army post is hard to find on the map : gen- erally speaking, it is sure to be as remote from civilization, as difficult to reach, as possible. Fort Sanders, Wyoming Territory, means a spot on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide, six hundred miles west of Omaha, near the towns of Cheyenne and Laramie. In the autumn of 1879, father, mother, and son found themselves at this frontier post, a far cry from the Island garrison in New York Harbor. No sooner unpacked than the surgeon was hur- ried into the field in the Ute War. For, regard- less of seasons, the Indians "break out" sum- mer or winter, whenever sufficiently provoked, by hunger or rage. The Ute War was, there- fore, a bitter experience on the slopes of the THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 93 Rocky Mountains in midwinter. The following letter to his mother tells in part the story of the doctor's share in the campaign : — December 15, 1879. Dear Mother: — ■ Just home from the Ute War, and I write a line to let you know that neither Ute bullets nor Rocky Mountain storms have harmed me. The campaign has been a hard one by reason of the season of year and the rugged country. From the first of October to the ninth of De- cember I was not in a house, nor, indeed, saw one. We were encamped on White River — I left there December 2 with six men, and after a journey of eight days got on this side of the Rockies. While crossing the "Divide," the weather was bitter cold; the wind blew fu- riously, and drifting snow made it hard to fol- low the path, a mere mountain trail. We lost it, in fact, twice, but were so fortunate as to recover it, and the first log ranch-house we reached looked better to me than ever did the Fifth Avenue Hotel. 94 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR This incident of the return from White River gives no idea of what went before — the forced march of the cavalry, under General Merritt, for the relief of Major Thornburgh's command. The story of the march was writ-^ ten by Dr. Kimball nearly twenty years later for a dinner given by officers of the Second Cavalry at Fort Wingate, New Mexico. I quote from this after-dinner address : — "Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I am thoroughly loyal to my own corps, but if I did not belong to the Medical Department, I should choose the Cavalry arm of the Service ; and if I belonged to the Cavalry, I should by all means choose the Second Cavalry. As to- night we are one in spirit, it is with a trooper's pride that I recall a march famous in the an- nals of Cavalry. General Merritt has told me that he had searched history and records in vain for a parallel of this march of the Second Cavalry, the strength of the column and other circumstances being taken into consideration." The Thornburgh disaster was the result of THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 95 an attempt to force the Indians to become farmers and cultivate the soil. "When Agent Meeker, at White River, tried to plough some land which the Utes wished to keep for grazing purposes, the quarrel became an open revolt. Meeker and his family were massacred, but not before he had asked for military assistance. To this end Major Thorn- burgh and his command were on their way from Rawlins, one hundred and eighty-five miles distant, when, at Deer Creek, Colorado, they were met by the Ute chiefs who protested against further advance. The following morn- ing the Indians made a furious attack upon the small detachment (one hundred and fifty- five men and six officers), which was then separated by nearly a mile from the remainder of the command. This small body at length succeeded, after hard fighting, in joining the rest of the troops, and the wagon train was 'parked' in a hastily selected camp on the bank of Milk Creek. As usual, the corral was in the form of an ellipse open at one end. 96 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR This open end was filled with wounded ani- mals, shot down and placed there as a cover for the troops. Bundles of bedding, sacks of flour and grain were also used for the same purpose. . . . Meantime the Indians kept up a steady fusillade, also setting fire to the grass to the windward of the corral. The beleaguered men had to fight prairie fires, shoot Indians, unload stores, and build breastworks all at once. After a struggle of five hours the troops, carrying their wounded with them, withdrew into the shelter of the corral. The Indians, dis- appointed in their expectation of at once an- nihilating the command, gathered on a hill overlooking the corral, concentrated their fire on the mules and horses, and killed three fourths of them before sundown. At last all was quiet on Milk Creek, and the besieged had opportunity to look about them and con- sider the situation. One third of the force which had marched in the morning was killed or wounded. Ten men, including Major Thorn- burgh, were dead, and forty-one were wounded, THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 97 one of whom was the medical officer. The com- mand had devolved upon Captain Payne, Fifth Cavalry, himself twice wounded. To move was impossible, to obtain assistance from the outside world was their only hope. Dispatches were written out, and at midnight the messenger started. Whether he should get safe through the Indian lines and reach Raw- lins — one hundred and sixty-five miles away — was a burning question in the little garri- son of the corral. During the night the troops dug pits for better protection, and brought from the creek a supply of water. The next day and the following days, the Indians again took position on the hill commanding the cor- ral, killed the remainder of the animals, and fired occasional volleys into the enclosure. At sundown the Indians withdrew, to camp on lower ground, as the nights were cold. From daybreak to dark the pathway from the creek — two hundred yards away — was covered by the Indian rifles, but was unmolested during the night, so that the troops did not suffer for 98 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR want of water. Thus passed six long days and nights in the corral. "The messenger was fortunate. He passed out unharmed, and by great good luck found a stray horse. Procuring remounts at the ranches on the way, he arrived at Rawlins soon after midnight of September 30th, hav- ing covered the distance in but little more than twenty-four hours. On the morning of October 1st, orders for the march were received by General Merritt at Fort D. A. Russell. Fort Russell is two hundred miles by rail from Raw- lins. In the afternoon a train pulled out with four companies of the Fifth Cavalry, and reached Rawlins at five-thirty next morning. Four companies of the Fourth Infantry from Fort Sanders had arrived at Rawlins during the night. The^work of unloading the train and organizing the command occupied until eleven A.M., when the march began. Captain Payne's messenger acted as our guide. The train con- sisted of escort wagons for the Infantry, an ambulance, and a few wagons lightly loaded THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 99 with grain and supplies. About three p.m., we stopped and made coffee, and then kept on until half-past ten, when we halted for the night, forty-two miles from Rawlins. The day, like all following days, was warm, and the dust stifling. The nights were cold — ice forming on standing water. The moon was about half full, so that the first hours of the night were light. The next morning we started at seven o'clock, and at nine-thirty p.m., biv- ouacked on Fortification Creek, fifty-eight miles farther on the way. The usual alter- nation of walking, trotting, and marching on foot over the hills, was the order of the day. Soon after midday a halt of an hour was made, and the horses were unsaddled. As the road was good, except in occasional sandy stretches, the wagons kept well up with the command this day. "The following morning, Saturday, Octo- ber 4th, we were in the saddle at six o'clock, with sixty-five miles between us and Captain Payne's Camp, which, it was decided, must be loo A SOLDIER-DOCTOR reached before the next sunrise. At noon we arrived at Bear River, and rested for three hours. Here we met some settlers who had been raided by a war party of Indians, and were fleeing for their Hves. In their wagons they brought a number of wounded men who were in great need of surgical aid. This was given them at the expense of the nap which I had promised myself while reeling in the saddle from sleep. My chief recollection of this halt, aside from the wounded settlers, is of a field covered with men and horses stretched upon the ground as profoundly still as though the sleep of Sennacherib's host had fallen upon them. "At three p.m., we moved on. About sun- set we entered the canons, into which the moon did not shine until nearly midnight. The road was dark and rough, and we soon passed the wagons, which had kept on during the halt, and saw no more of them until the next day. We scarcely halted during the night; not more than once or twice for a few minutes to THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE loi close up. About five o'clock in the morning the guide raised his hand and, pointing to a hill dimly outlined in the darkness, — perhaps a quarter of a mile away, — said, 'There is the hill; and to the left of it was the corral/ The column halted, and officer's call was sounded, the object being to inform the be- sieged that the coming tramp of horses was not that of hostile Utes, but of friends and comrades, and also to secure, if possible, a reply which should indicate the site of the camp and give assurance that the garrison still held out. Soon an answering call was heard; the command then moved on at a gallop, and in a few moments reached the beleaguered corral. When the character and number of the early visitors was known, a weak but thankful cry went up ; men tumbled out of the pits and ran around in the chill morning, throwing their arms wildly and falling on one another's necks, showing by every gesture the sudden revulsion of feeling. One soldier, who had become pos- sessed of a can of preserved peaches, was re- 102 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR serving them for the last strait, as a priceless treasure. As we rode in, he brought up this can and wanted to give it to General Merritt. The general told him he could eat it himself now. The march had been made in just two and three quarters days, at an average speed of sixty miles per twenty-four hours. " But little time was spent at the corral, as the enemy had yet to be apprised of our arrival. We at once appropriated the position on the hill held by the Indians during the daytime. Just as the sky was reddening in the east, a long line of mounted Indians rose up out of the valley about half a mile distant. At the same instant they discovered that their vantage- ground was taken, and came on in a wild charge. The troopers moved out at equal speed to meet them. The Indians, however, did not wait for the collision, but, firing a few shots at long range, scattered into the hills, whither no attempt was then made to follow them. The casualties of the morning were one man and one horse slightly wounded. THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 103 "About nine o'clock the Infantry came up. The Indians then raised a white flag on a distant hill, and under it several of the chiefs and a white man advanced to hold a parley. The burden of their message was, that if the white soldiers would go back, they would. Having been assured that the white soldiers had no intention of going back, the Indians concluded to go anyway, and we saw no more of them on Milk Creek. "The bodies of the dead were brought in and buried. That of Major Thornburgh was found about five hundred yards from the corral. Lying upon the bullet wound in his breast was the photograph of Colorow, a Ute chief who had thus signed his bloody work. All the men were accounted for except one, and it was not until the troops moved on to White River, a few days later, that his body was found, two or three miles beyond Payne's camp. His horse had bolted with him, and carried him into the enemy's lines, where both horse and rider were killed. 104 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR "It was necessary to move to a new camp- ing-ground, as the old one was far from water, and the decaying bodies of over three hun- dred animals tainted the air. Another site was chosen, and the wounded were cared for. I had a busy time, having no assistant, except the wounded surgeon, who was able, however, to administer chloroform. In the evening, cheerful camp-fires dotted the valley, the soldiers talked, laughed, and smoked, as usual ; even the stock jokes between horse and foot were overheard — Cavalryman: 'Why do they call you dough-boys .f* ' Infantryman: 'Because we are so much needed when you get into trouble.' 'Got a brush and comb.?' 'No; when we get over and have a brush with the Indians, they will fix your hair for you.' The horror of the past week remained a mem- ory only. Give a rouse for the Cavalry!" So ended the after-dinner reminiscence. During the next few years — 1879-85 — Dr. Kimball was still on the mountain-tops, or THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 105 on the plains at their feet. Fort Sidney, one hundred and sixty miles east of Fort San- ders, in Nebraska, became his station in 1881 ; there he descended from an altitude of seven thousand feet to four thousand. The Indians were peaceable for the moment, and the chief medical officer found himself, in addition to garrison work, a busy doctor in civil life; for he had all the surgery up and down the Union Pacific Railroad for two hundred miles. As this service then included frequent railroad accidents and private stabbings, the fees were often considerable. On one occasion, temporary duty took him to Denver and vicinity. Speaking of Idaho Springs — then little known as a health re- sort — he writes: "I explored this place well, and found much of interest, human, animal, and mineral — not much vegetable. One speci- men interested me much. On the top of Mount Seton, ten thousand feet in the air, we found a solitary man living in a rude cabin which constantly creaked and swayed to and fro in io6 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR the ceaseless winds. He had lived there six- teen years, digging away in the mountains for gold and silver, getting out ore sufficient to purchase his simple fare, and expecting every day to strike a vein that should make him a millionaire. Two cats kept him company, and when he returned from his occasional visits to town after supplies, the cats would come down the mountains to meet him." The small routine of garrison life always grew tiresome to Dr. Kimball sooner or later. He preferred the march and the camp — the vivid life of the campaign. Yet he writes to his father at this time: "With my books, a few congenial persons, a gun, and something to shoot, I can be contented anywhere." His books and a group of friends he had in every garrison. I well remember the officers' whist club in the old days. The four men smoked and played and supped together with military pre- cision once a week. It was a silent, thought- ful game, and my husband's keen powers of observation and analysis had many opportuni- THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 107 ties for study of character. He often jotted down comments, searching and amusing, after a game of whist; thus, without date — "Col- onel—a gentleman, but can't play whist; Captain — a pig-headed but good-natured Dutchman; Captain— (No. 2) — a plump toad ; Captain — (No. 3) — of excellent heart, but light brain." Here are lieutenants: "Lieu- tenant — (No. i) — a gentleman of unusual information, a very great talker, and apt to be prolix and prosy." (He became a special friend.) "Lieutenant — (No. 2) — a recent arrival, apparently an inoffensive gentleman, running rather more to good clothes than to brains. Lieutenant — (No. 3) — and wife of large, blundering make, — physically, — an infant in common sense, having a wife of childish proportions mentally and physically, and no health at all — two babes in the wood." Dr. Kimball never tolerated gossip, but he did thus unburden himself to the pages of his jour- nal. "General — a fair player, a man of good average ability and a good deal of force and io8 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR character. Lieutenant — a good player, good ability, fond of good living, and already fat and flabby — will die early." Most of Dr. Kimball's life was spent far away from his old home, yet anniversaries and incidents were never overlooked by this loyal son and brother. To his sister he writes upon her birthday festival: "To do the duty that lies nearest is, I believe, the true way of life well spent ; and most certainly, in all my wanderings, have I nowhere, nor ever, seen this duty performed more faithfully, untir- ingly, and conscientiously than by you and all the circle of the dear old home." To his mother, after an illness of hers: "One thought comforts me, and that is, that of all the women I have ever known or seen, you are the best, and that for you, neither sickness, nor death itself, can have any terrors. . . . Now, in the mature years of my manhood I often look back at the temptations through which I have come, and appreciate, as I did not at the time, that it is the influence of my mother's early teach- THE THORNBURGH MASSACRE 109 ings which guided me. How vividly your fig- ure comes before me in those childhood days! Father was much away — but we will save this to talk over when I come to see you." In August, 1883, a letter to his mother an- nounces an order to report for duty in New York as member of an Army Medical Ex- amining Board. So ends this chapter of Indian wars and garrison life on the frontier. VI TEXAS — EUROPE — TEXAS . From West Point to Texas — Europe: visits to Rome, Florence, Athens, Paris, London — Return to Texas — Sick-leave. At the conclusion of service on the Examining Board in New York, Dr. Kimball was ordered to West Point (1884). General Merritt was then Superintendent of the Military Academy. With him and other congenial friends, the whist club flourished, and the peaceful gar- rison life moved on agreeably for three years. At the end of this "tour" of duty, the sur- geon was again found in his familiar longitude — at Fort Elliott, Texas. The more formal life of the Eastern garrison was, not reluc- tantly, exchanged for the freer service on the Western plains. The name of Texas sounds sad and glad in our family annals. My older son can doubtless recall days of illness and anxiety at Fort Elliott, and the death of his TEXAS 1 1 1 beloved mother in March, 1890. Two years later at Fort Clark, Dr. Kimball suffered, in common with many enlisted men, from the prevailing epidemic of "Texas Fever," and narrowly escaped with his life. As it was in Texas, however, that I first "joined" an army station, for me the name is linked with the pre- cious associations of a newly made home, in its deepest and most sacred meaning. After a short service in the (then) Indian Territory at Fort Supply, Dr. Kimball ob- tained six months' leave of absence, with per- mission to go "overseas." Our marriage took place in 1892, and we sailed at once for Italy. To us both it was a promised land. To my husband, after the long course of Indian wars on the desert, Rome was, indeed, a new life. "Rome thrills my very soul," he wrote in his journal. Like all travelers, we treasured cer- tain "remembered moments." I will recall only a few of them. We landed at Genoa, and after lingering briefly on the Riviera — at Nice and San Remo 112 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR — we arrived one midnight at Rome. Before breakfast the newcomer was abroad and had tasted the first delights of the city — city of which Emerson wrote: "There is great testi- mony of discriminating persons to the effect that Rome is endowed with the enchanting property of inspiring a longing in men there to live and there to die." These words, so full of restrained enthusiasm, were no stronger than were Dr. Kimball's on his return from his walk. The rainy March days we spent in the Vati- can among Greek marbles and masterpieces of painting; as the spring sunshine dawned, we walked and drove, from the Forum and the Capitoline to St. Peter's and the Catacombs, through the labyrinth of ancient and mediaeval and modern Rome. One day we were absorbed in Romulus and Remus, with memories of the Latin reader, the next, lost among emperors, popes, and saints; and again, moved by the Lenten and Easter services of the Roman Church of to-day. Of St. Peter's my husband EUROPE 113 wrote in his brief journal: "Sunday, March 6th: Visit St. Peter's — another great expe- rience. Imposing, but earthly." Like many other symbols, at St. Peter's, on Palm Sunday, the palms, braided and twisted into fantastic shapes, seemed to have lost their old and simpler meanings ; but in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the Tenebrce and Miserere^ unchanged by usage, were to us the most touchingly beautiful of all the services of Holy Week. In the late afternoon of Thursday, taper after taper was extinguished on the al- tar, to typify the passion and death of our Lord. At the close of the last psalm, both apse and nave were in darkness except for the glow of ancient mosaics in the April twilight. The moving crowd of many nationalities, hushed by the thrilling music, left the church in silence. This hour of worship, in a church so foreign to all my husband's training, seemed to arouse and awaken in him a wealth of deep and tender feeling, which had, perhaps, never before found words. 114 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR From Rome we went the usual journey to Naples ("Beautiful, dirty Naples," he wrote), and thence, by way of Salerno, to Brindisi. From that port we sailed by an Italian steamer for Greece. On a lovely May morning we walked up the Acropolis, and drank deep of Hellas, in temple, sea, plain, and mountains. Dr. Kimball said, as we walked over historic stones and looked between Doric columns into the sacred precincts of Pallas Athene, "It is like finding old friends." The hard-conned lessons of "Old Greek" at Hamilton College came back to him then in glorified form; and again, when he found that he could read the daily newspapers in modern Greek, though the spoken tongue was unintelligible. Every step in Athens was a wonder and a delight ; and our ten days between steamers were all too short. The Sumatra carried us through a summer sea from Piraeus, around Peloponnesus, among Ionian isles, to Brindisi again; thence our coastwise steamer sailed up the Adriatic, and stopped for commercial errands at Bari, An- EUROPE 115 cona, and, last, at Venice. A few hours at each place gave us many interesting glimpses of Italian Kfe, a little off the beaten track. "No Italian city is without interest," said one of our fellow travelers. Finally we were promised Venice in the morning. We had given orders to be called early, that we might see the approach to the city from the lagoons. About five o'clock the cabin-boy knocked at our door. "II signore Commandante ci an- nuncia i lagune " (The Sir Captain announces the lagoons), said he. We made haste on deck, and saw the lovely Queen of the Adriatic from her own domain — pale opal tints on the placid waters of the misty lagoons slowly gave place to dawning light on the towers and pal- aces of Venice. Then followed days when we "swam in a gondola," looked at Tintorettos and Carpaccios, dreamed in St. Mark's, ate ices at Florian's — days that every one knows who has visited that city of enchantment. Next, Florence: "A city which has never been sacked and plundered," wrote my hus- ii6 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR band to his sister, "and is, perhaps, the best- preserved mediaeval city of Europe. The nar- row streets and massive stone buildings give a stern and somber air to the place — like its heroes, Dante, Savonarola, Michael Angelo, Galileo. The Cathedral and other bells are this moment ringing vespers, and are the most beautiful bells we have heard in Italy." After Florence, Paris, with breaks in the journey at Milan, Turin, and Geneva. At Milan he writes: "Spend all morning in and on the wonderful Cathedral, getting my first view of the Alps." At Geneva we saw Mont Blanc from our hotel window, and at Chamo- nix, we walked at the feet of the great White Mountain. Paris was Paris, of course. Then London, with a halt en route at Canterbury. "Walk to Cathedral and around town — a thrilling sensation I find it — my first touch of England. Strange to hear again the English tongue spoken by all the world." (From the journal.) To his mother he writes from London: "I find EUROPE 117 England fully as interesting, perhaps more so, than any other country we have visited." The doctor's love of history made the actual " Lon- don Stones " a book of absorbing interest. Said a friend, a well-known literary woman, upon reading one of his letters, "Why, he is a poet !" The bells and the music of the cathedrals touched him deeply: once at evensong in Westminster, where we chanced to hear our own Bishop Brooks preach. Of this service he wrote to his mother: "It was just in the deepening twilight that the eventide hymn was sung ('Abide with Me'), and as the last strains of the magnificent choir and organ rolled through the great dim arches of the glo- rious old abbey, one almost caught a glimpse of the better world." Another time he wan- dered into St. Paul's: "Magnificent music," he writes in his notebook. " First, for fifteen minutes rang with a crash and a go, St. Paul's chimes; then the heavy bell tolled a dozen grand, solemn strokes, of which the vibrations, as they were slowly dying away through the ii8 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR arches, were gathered by the grand organ on the same key, and slowly swelled into a volume of harmony, filling the vast Cathedral. A good, stupid, British sermon followed the beauti- ful music. The congregation numbered thou- sands/' The following Sunday, at Westminster, his comments were not less drastic upon the sermon of a distinguished Oxonian: "An in- firm old man, who preached three quarters of an hour in an unintelligible voice on John Wesley." In London and in Rome, Dr. Kimball paid several visits to military hospitals, and pre- sented his letters of introduction to the sur- geons in charge. Nor did he neglect a cricket match at Lord's or the charms of Rotten Row. Of a Sunday meeting in Hyde Park, he writes: "Meeting of the great unwashed, being addressed by two rampant old-coat ora- tors." After a month in London, we made brief stops in Oxford, Stratford, and Chester, and sailed for New York from Liverpool. One of the last jottings in his notebook is this : "We TEXAS 119 grieve over the near end of our journey — a long holiday filled with glorious memories. Earth has nothing more perfect than have been these heavenly weeks." In less than a month we had reached our "proper station" at Fort Clark, Texas. To my husband, arrival at Fort Clark meant the usual routine of unpacking and resuming official duties in a land already familiar to him. To me, Texas and an army garrison were strangers; hence, my first impressions were novel. When we descended from the train a few miles beyond San Antonio, we found awaiting us an army ambulance, the usual quartermaster's stage on the plains. We fol- lowed a sixteenth-century Spanish road across twenty-five miles of desert to Fort Clark. The limestone ledges, slowly cracking off into jagged fragments strewn carelessly about, made the almost grassless prairie look like a roughly macadamized road. The monotony was em- phasized by miles of mesquite trees — the " chaparral." The mesquite tree, growing only 120 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR ten or twelve feet high in orchard-like rows, forms a pigmy forest. Its pale olive green and prim regularity of growth were at first depress- ing to the eye, but I soon learned that the mesquite is a blessing to Texas ; its seed-pods and gums have an economic value, and its tough wood makes excellent fuel. At Las Moras ("The Mulberries") our mules left the chaparral and descended into an oasis formed by one of those strange underground rivers which rise on the lofty Staked Plains (Llanos Estacados) of Texas. Las Moras had flowed for hundreds of miles underground, and here . emerged, a noble volume of water fifteen feet deep and thirty feet broad. We left our car- avan and enjoyed the shade of mulberries, pecans, and towering live-oaks ; also the sight of water-lilies and plain green grass, with the welcome sound of streams. Again the white dusty road — here vast beds of cactus, there a towering yucca (Span- ish bayonet). At the top of a rocky ledge, gates opened before us and we entered the TEXAS 121 fort. The bugle was just sounding Retreat, and the tempered sunset Hght lent a rosy charm to the rather severe and rectangular stone quarters. The vine-covered verandas, tiny lawns, and trim rows of China trees (Pride of India) bespoke careful home-making: for these trees were planted in trenches blasted out of the solid rock and filled with soil ; the grass was a layer of sod placed over the out- cropping limestone. Since I am recalling first impressions of a frontier garrison, I cannot omit the surgeon's first notable case, which could hardly have occurred elsewhere than in a tropical country. It was officially reported "a case of maggots in the nose." A soldier had fallen asleep in the sun, and during his unconscious half-hour a fly peculiar to the tropics deposited its larvae in his nostrils. It was only heroic treatment with chloroform that destroyed the maggots and saved the man from suffocation. The days in September were very hot, but the starry nights on our balcony were delight- 122 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR fully cool after nine o'clock when the "Gulf breeze" arrives. Promptly as Tattoo is sound- ing the cool current from the ocean rushes in across a hundred miles of scorching prairie. Blinds creak, doors slam, windows rattle, the horizon is aglow with heat lightning, the earth seems astir and alive again. The garrison wakes up, neighbors talk from house to house and even exchange visits. A blessed gift this sea wind to the nights of Texas ! Italy, its language and its memories, which we daily recalled, soon had to give place to other things. Dr. Kimball was absorbed with many serious cases of "Texas Fever," which proved to be plain typhoid, caused by a con- taminated water supply. Finally, he himself was stricken, and lingered for weeks between life and death. Daily the Hospital Steward reported new cases, and repeatedly the fu- neral march sounded across the parade ; each time I trembled lest it should sound again in front of our door. In those days the Red Cross TEXAS 123 army nurse was unknown, and I, who had Httle knowledge of sickness, was obliged to learn nursing under the tutelage of my patient. But my husband's strong constitution won the fight at last. In March he was able to travel, and received a long sick-leave. He often told me that, during those hours of weakness and suffering, he saw again — perhaps with a new vision — the Italian Madonnas we had learned to know so well in the galleries of Europe. After two months of illness, while still conva- lescent, he wrote to his mother, December 29, 1892: "Ah, dear mother, how much I thought of you in the days when my recovery was un- certain — of all you taught me in my child- hood; the Saviour whom you taught me to know and place my trust in, and whom I found a sure comfort in the hour of need." Such words are the joy of mothers; happy the one who lives long enough to hear them from a son who has weathered the questionings and temptations of life and come back to her simple teachings. 124 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR We left Texas, went East to New York and to Maine, whence, in the following autumn (1893), we again "rejoined" at Fort Marcy, Santa Fe, New Mexico. VII NEW MEXICO — SANTA FE The old Spanish capital; our Fort Marcy — Cliff dwell- ings — Turquoise mines; Indian pueblos — Tesuque, Acoma — "Debs Railroad War"; the great strike — Troops ordered to Raton to protect tracks and trains — A lieutenant captures and runs an engine — End of strike. In the City of Santa Fe (City of the Holy Faith) we were living in Spanish America. Tra- ditions and language are Spanish ; even land- scape and climate suggest Spain. In 1893 New Mexico was only dreaming of statehood, and the old Spanish atmosphere still hung about its capital. Santa Fe is built around an open plaza of which the long, low adobe palace of the Span- ish Governors forms one side. Inside the pal- ace recent alterations have exposed the conical fireplaces and meal bins of an ancient Pueblo tribe. The site was doubtless occupied by In- dians long before the conquest. The palace and plaza mark the end of the Santa Fe Trail, 126 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR famous in American annals of the nineteenth century. From the site of old Fort Marcy we could almost hear again the cries of the crowd as the long caravan of white wagons descended the high mesa into the town; "Los Ameri- canos! Loscarros! Lacaravana!" When our Fort Marcy band played on the plaza in the afternoon, the scene was perhaps not unlike that of a century ago. The audience, Ameri- cans, Mexicans, and Indians, strolled or lounged under the venerable cottonwood trees ; dark- eyed Mexican girls, each with a black shawl draped over head and shoulders, cigarette- smoking youths, Indians with their fagot- laden burros, priests and nuns, visitors from hotels and sanatorium, shopkeeper and shop- pers, all took time to dream and dawdle in this land of "poco tiempo." We soon found the old capital a delightful place to live in. With our two sure-footed ponies we rode every day into the hills, explor- ing Indian pueblos, turquoise mines, cliff dwellings, and the windings of the Rio Grande CO W H ni «^ ;^ S H C/2 P o SANTA FE 127 before it had really become the "Great Wild River of the North." We dipped into the early Spanish history of Western America, and the names of Da Vaca, De Vargas, and Coronado became familiar to our ears. We entered into the local rivalry as to the "oldest house in America," disputed with one at St. Augustine, Florida. Near this primitive dwell- ing, and of contemporary date, stands the little church of San Miguel. The present struc- ture, which is not the first, dates from 1630. Fort Marcy formed a part of the town itself. The quarters were cottages of gray adobe, sur- rounded by fields of alfalfa. This is the only unfailing green, as grass requires constant irri- gation. Hospital and barracks were, of course, on the reservation ; and the band-stand on the public plaza brought us pleasantly in touch with our neighbors of the town. The practice march was a recognized in- stitution at the Western forts. Here is an account of a visit to cliff dwellings, a detour from the march proper. The surgeon writes: 128 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR "We made camp on the Mancos River, at a point where the cliffs graciously permit ap- proach to their well-guarded treasure. In- stead of the brawling mountain stream we had looked for after descending a steep canon four miles long, we found only water in holes — a warm, brownish liquid, bitterly alkaline. One man was made so sick by it that he could not go on next day. As we found the trail up the river in places so narrow, steep, and difficult that our pack-mules could not travel it, we left mules and baggage and most of our men where we had encamped, — a place of no trees and no grass, — and went up the river about twenty miles, looked at the cliff dwellings, took some photographs, and returned. The sun was blistering hot, and in the afternoon the scorching wind from the desert swirled the white dust in our faces. When we reached camp, our lips were bleeding, and we were con- sumed with thirst — generally desiccated. Rio Mancos water on fissured lips and tongue was like caustic. But by boiling it and making < W a H o (< w PL, Oh g' SANTA FE 129 a weak infusion of tea, it was improved some- what ; — we drank what we must and went to bed. (No tents.) Mother Nature showed not the least solicitude for her children except in the beautiful night breeze, which brought a dewy coolness to our fevered throats. In the morning twilight yesterday, we bade good- bye to the Mancos and its shadowy history, and moved homeward. . . . Stonewalls do not lend themselves kindly to the camera, and those wolf-haunted chambers have little to offer so long as we know nothing of the life and history and folk-lore of the people who once lived in them. And so, in our present perspec- tive, the journey is bigger than the cliff dwell- ings." Yet there is something deeply sugges- tive in these ancient, dateless homes. After a march like this, to come upon distinctly human documents, bits of pottery, ashes, bones ! A hunting-leave in April proved a series of battles with wind, sand, water, cold, and heat. A wagon with clothing and equipage sinks in 130 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR a bottomless creek, horses break loose — al- most stampeded by coyotes; but the party arrives at the famous Indian pueblo of Acoma. Travelers on the Santa Fe Railroad often meet some of these Indians with their pottery for sale, near Albuquerque. The pueblo is situ- ated some miles away, on the top of an almost impregnable mesa — the "enchanted mesa." The cliffs and canons which lead up to the vil- lage are like the ancient Greek fortifications near Syracuse, in Sicily, — a labyrinth of rocky trails. I quote from my husband's notes : — "Camp near Acoma, April iSth, 1896: Goz;^r- nor Lorenzo Lino visits us at eight a.m., and is entertained on hard tack and bacon. We all go to the village with him, and are received in his mansion [doubtless, one of the cells in the pueblo hive]. He wants ten dollars from us for the privilege oi doing and photographing the town, but compromises on two dollars, and I begin with him and staf. The Governor, wearing a silk hat, is the chief figure, flanked CHILDREN OF ACOMA, N.M. THE GOVERNOR AND HIS "STAFF," ACOMA SANTA FE 131 by the Secretary of State and of the Treasury — presumably. The cane of ebony carried on state occasions, has a silver head, and bears the inscription, *A. Lincoln, President U.S. to Acoma, 1863.'" One cane was given to each of the loyal Indian pueblos at that time, and at Acoma it has been preserved as a part of the insignia of office. The hat looks as if it might bear the same date. "Visited pueblo and took pictures. Bell, Spanish, in the Acoma church, bears date 1710. Returned to camp at White Sulphur Spring, two p.m. Struck by whirlwind, but tent held, except two pegs. Covered with sand. "Four-thirty p.m. Our tent has been over- run with Indians, and at this moment one dirty black devil is sitting on the head of my bed watching me write. Governor returns visit and eats more bacon and hard tack. Rabbits and doves here." This last is almost the only reference to game during the whole leave of a fortnight. 132 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Snow, and a blizzard set in, and a stove was actually put up in the tent. However, the trip brought a variation of garrison monotony and proved invigorating. The doctor's health steadily improved in this high altitude. The even and cheerful life of our garrison at Santa Fe was broken in upon by the so- called "Debs War" — the great railroad strike of 1894. Drill was interrupted one July morn- ing by orders to go to Raton, New Mexico, two hundred miles eastward, to protect trains. It was an adventurous journey from Santa Fe to Raton; a few extracts from diary and let- ters tell the story: — "I am very well, and in camp with about two hundred U.S. troops, the Tenth Infantry, at Raton, New Mexico, — a town of railroad shops, etc., where strikers about one thousand strong have stopped and held all trains for a week past. About two hundred passengers have been living all this time on the cars, with scanty food, getting sick and in a wretched condition generally. The strikers have burned [Sj"'''i CHURCH AT ACOMA, BUILT IN 1 7 10 "NAVAJO CHURCH," ROCK FORMATION NEAR FORT WINGATE, N.M. SANTA FE 133 and destroyed much property — a fiendish crowd. "July 3d, 1894: All goes well to Las Vegas, at ten-thirty a.m., when crew desert train. Pull out with soldiers in charge. But, whether through incompetence of soldiers, or whether engine had been tampered with by strikers, no water could be injected into boiler, and four miles north of Las Vegas we came to a halt, about eleven a.m. Worked at machine, getting master mechanic from town. At four p.m., pitched tents and went into camp. At six p.m., the engine reported in order, we broke camp, ran three or four miles, — again no water could be forced into boilers. Twilight about eight P.M., Lieutenant Stokes with ten men volun- teered to march back to Las Vegas to secure another engine. I spread my blankets down on the ground by a telegraph pole and slept — slept hard and sound, the sleep of a tired-out man, a cool breeze of the prairie fanning face and hair. (A broad, grassy plain here, with bald, and truly rocky, mountains, in north- 134 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR west, twenty or thirty miles distant. Great herds of sheep.) "July 4th : Breakfast, six a.m. — coffee, bread, and bacon. Pitch tents. At ten a.m.. Lieuten- ant Stokes, who has carried out his mission well, returns with locomotive and master me- chanic for engineer. [No mean feat for a young- ster fresh from West Point.] Strike camp and move forward, leaving at first switch our old dead locomotive. At Dillon find a wreck of coal cars run down a mountain grade of over one hundred and fifty minutes to a mile, from Blossburg Coal Mines. Track had been greased to let our train smash into station at Raton. Arrive at Raton at six-thirty p.m., and charge on skating-rink — rendezvous for miners and storehouse for arms. Found the miners had skipped." Ringleaders were arrested, and, though crowds continued here and there, all trains were soon on their way both east and west. When appealed to on behalf of many suffering passengers the strike leader tele- graphed, "Let not a wheel turn!" With the SANTA FE 135 help of the Army, wheels did turn ; " Have got all the passenger trains started," wrote Dr. Kimball, "with loaded rifles in the hands of disciplined soldiers who are stationed on the cow-catchers, in the engine-house, and on the car platforms. If interfered with, there will be shooting, and it will not be into the air." The "war" over, the troops stayed on for nearly two months to guard the property and preserve peace. It was the season of rains in New Mexico. An afternoon thunder-shower usually broke over camp about three o'clock so that pedestrians were obliged to time their trips accordingly. The Colonel and the surgeon, however, explored the country North, South, East, and West on foot, and greatly enjoyed the experience. Evenings were either damp or cold, and grew very tiresome towards the end. At last, orders were received for re- turn to Santa Fe ; thence the doctor proceeded eastward for his hard-earned leave. Scarcely had he reached Onteora-in-the-Catskills, when he received the following telegram: "Fort 136 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Marcy abandoned." The result was that he had to turn rightabout face, retrace his steps to Santa Fe, there make an inventory of hospital property, and transfer our household effects to a new station — Fort Wingate, New Mex- ico. Well do I remember looking out the spot which was to be home, and waiting patiently at a railroad ticket office for the agent to con- sult a map before he could reckon up the fare. When I arrived at a lonely station one Octo- ber morning at five o'clock, a few miles west of the Continental Divide, the desert seemed indeed no paradise. My husband said flatly in his notebook: "A desolate, windy place. Heaven help us out for the year we must spend here." Yet we both learned to love our desert, and when orders came for the East, it was with a secret pang of regret that I heard our friends say, " Probably the Major will never again serve on the frontier." VIII NEW MEXICO — FORT WINGATE Friendly Indian neighbors; Navajos and Zunis — Their customs and industries — Troops ordered to San Juan, New Mexico, to protect the Navajos from intruders — Camp life — A Mormon church and bishop — Indian and Mormon patients — Disastrous fire at Fort Wingate — Incident of a practice march; lost in the desert. Fort Wingate lies on a vast sandy plain sur- rounded on one side by mesas cut by frequent canons, and on the other by the towering foot- hills of the Rocky Mountains. The vegetation is chiefly the piiion (dwarf pine-tree), sage- brush, greasewood, and amole, or yucca. From the top of the nearest mesa the landscape, dotted with bristling pifion trees and broken by the jagged walls of rocky caiions, looked depressing and repellent. We saw no trace of human life except a Santa Fe Railroad train vanishing eastward. In the course of two years, with the help of our sturdy Indian po- nies, much was revealed to us in these caiions, 138 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR on the plain, and on the mountain-tops. Walk- ing in that altitude is laborious, but riding — at seven thousand feet above the sea — is ex- hilarating. We soon discovered our Navajo neighbors, their houses hidden away in a canon, or among the pinon trees, and from the top of Zuiii Mountain, we were but forty miles from the Zuiii Pueblo. The Navajos, once notorious bandits, are now peaceful shepherds. Their blankets, which we found them weaving in the woods near their nomad houses, are wonderful chronicles of Indian life. The houses (hogdns) are merely nests of logs, boughs, and earth, a blanket at the opening, and a hole in the top for chimney. The Indians were frequent visi- tors at the fort, for they soon learned what a good market it was for blankets. Our shopping was unique ; the venders, man and wife, walked silently through the garrison, the squaw carry- ing the blanket, and waiting for a summons to the verandas. The man spoke only a word or two; ^^ Bueno, este buenOy senora''; and with FORT WINGATE 139 stiffly extended fingers — five, seven, or ten — told the price in dollars. A certain amount of bargaining followed, and the purchase ended with the Indian's carefully weighing the silver, drawing up his belt, and pointing to his mouth. Coffee and meat were then served to the group around the kitchen fire. In this way we came to know personally our Indian neighbors, and through their inter- preter, the doctor was often called upon to prescribe for them, either at the hospital or in the woods. While following an obscure trail one winter day, we found ourselves at the entrance to a hogdn. The occupants were singing in full chorus their wild chant, "Yaa-yaa, haio-oh! Yaa-yaa, hai-oh !" At the sound of our horses' hoofs, the blanket portiere was pushed aside, and out trooped men, women, children, and dogs. Among them was a white-haired squaw, Washi, a venerable Meg Merriles of the tribe. She at once recognized the post surgeon, and begged "el sefior doctor" to come into the hut 140 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR and see her grandson, who was dying. The Navajo medicine men had done their utmost; the sacred chant we had heard had accom- pUshed nothing. "Iznaga no wake up — him hit with stone — him die; come," she said imperiously, brandishing her stick to drive away the dogs, as she raised the blanket for us to enter. A hot fire that filled the place with smoke was blazing in the center of the hogdn. On the ground lay the wounded Indian, his head bolstered up with skins, his body wrapped loosely in a blanket. He was breath- ing heavily, in the last stages of a comatose condition. A double row of gentle savages — at least twenty-five of them — surrounded the victim. They sat smoking in silence for some time, when suddenly one of the men arose and formally addressed the company. With sol- emn gesture he pointed to one of the group and charged him with having bewitched Iz- naga and hindered the cure. "Take off the spell," he cried. But the appeal fell unanswered when they were told by the "senor doctor" FORT WINGATE 141 that Iznaga must die. "How long him live?" they asked, and accepted absolutely the word of civilized medicine. The man's skull had been fractured two weeks before, and with proper treatment he might have been saved. Two days later Grandmother Washi came wailing to our kitchen door: "Iznaga dead, Iznaga dead; me go away — me no stay here without Iznaga.'' We expressed our sym- pathy — in coffee, sugar, and bacon, which she thriftily stuffed into her blanket ; and she rode away comforted, with a surviving grand- son mounted behind her. According to Washi, all the Navajo funeral pomp was observed — three horses and one sheep having been killed at the last rites. When we visited the hill in the spring, we found that the Navajo tradi- tions had been strictly followed; the hut in which the man died had been burned, and the family had vanished. Flowers grew inside the neighboring hogdns, and grama grass waved over the brush heaps. The usual garrison life at Fort Wingate was 142 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR varied by several practice marches, a hunting- leave now and then, and one campaign against intruders upon the Navajo Reservation. The Zuni Pueblo was only forty miles away, and we greatly enjoyed a visit to that interesting tribe. The Zufiis being makers of pottery, often visited us in the spring to sell their winter products. One of the most interesting episodes of the Wingate Station was the San Juan Expedi- tion. I quote from Dr. Kimball's account of it, read at a dinner in New York a few years later: — "Twenty years of my life," he says, "have been spent on the central bridge of the conti- nent, from Dakota to Texas. The most at- tractive and habitable portion of this tract is, in my experience. New Mexico, the land of * sun, silence and adobe.' Habitable it is though not inhabited except for a few towns along the lines of railway and in the valley of the Rio Grande, a few settlements on the San Juan and other small rivers, a few Indian FORT WINGATE 143 pueblos lurking in the canons of its infrequent water-courses, and a few straggling Mexican villages. But the wide and high tableland is for the most part a desert solitude. Prairie dogs here and there chatter and whistle at you as you pass and a few songless birds fly by with noiseless wing. The great plateau stretches away for hundreds of miles, with scarce a hu- man habitation, and the stillness is so intense that the faintest breeze can be heard as it comes creeping along the plain stirring the dry grass. "The Army on the western frontier is inter- posed like a buffer between the red men and the white men — now called upon to protect settlers from Indians, and now Indians from settlers. In this case we were called upon to protect the red men. One April Day in 1896, word came that a party of miners was organ- izing in Colorado to invade the Cariso Moun- tains, reputed to contain gold, and situated on the reservation of the Navajos. The message said that troops were needed to keep the min- 144 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR ers off the reservation and prevent an Indian war. For this kind of service our army was prepared, and the following day we moved out, two troops of cavalry, comfortably equipped with tents and bedding, and amply supplied with provisions and medical stores. The march to the Colorado border was about one hundred and twenty-five miles. This por- tion of New Mexico lies in the same latitude as North Carolina, but the high tablelands, five thousand to seven thousand feet above the sea, have a very different climate. The barren sand waste in April, under the South- ern sun, is intensely hot by day, and bitterly cold by night. Sand-storms are frequent. Water is scarce and strongly alkaline. Grass and fuel are found only in occasional oases. But for weeks we had not seen a new face, nor heard a new story at Fort Wingate, and, tired of the monotony, we welcome change even though it is to be sought in the desert. "On the afternoon of the sixth day of our march we descend from the mesa into the o N W « Q r O S Q i o ^ o a S FORT WINGATE 145 valley of the Rio San Juan, near the 'Four Corners,' — where if you lie down properly you can put your head in Utah, your feet in New Mexico, one arm in Colorado, and the other in Arizona, — the only instance, I be- lieve, on our map where four States meet at a common point. The San Juan is a tributary of the Colorado River. Here were budding Cot- tonwood trees, green grass, and water to spare. When our thirsty horses caught sight of the river's sparkle it was too much for discipline, they broke from ranks and made a wild charge into the stream. He best appreciates the good things of life who knows its hardships, and this green vale, which would be only common- place in New York State, was to us a veritable paradise. We pitched our tents on the grass, and soothed our bleared eyes with the restful green. The would-be intruders on the Indian lands, learning of our presence, abandoned their plans and left us to watch and wait. We watch the willows and cottonwoods come into full leaf, the blooming of the honeysuckles and 146 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR wild roses, and the nest-building of the robins and thrushes, the rise and fall of the river. "For society we have the Navajos, and across the stream is the Mormon settlement of Fruitland. The Indians come for long smokes and short talks. Their interest centers chiefly in the commissary and the doctor. From the commissary department they get sugar and coffee, bacon and tobacco, in exchange for fresh mutton. To the army surgeon they have long been accustomed to bring their serious cases of disease or injury. One morning at sick-call, after the disabled soldiers had been prescribed for, I was not surprised to see an Indian come up with his wife. She had a broken collar bone which had failed to unite under savage surgery, and her arm hung use- less at her side. The husband, who spoke a little English, said, ^Him bad wife, him no work.' The Indian is loyal to his family physi- cian, and he went on to explain, as I had often heard before, that this was through no fault of the Indian doctor, but that a witch of great FORT WINGATE 147 power had thrust her spell into the injured limb and made of no avail the best efforts of the Navajo medicine man. I promised to do the best I could, but said that a cure would take time. The husband, as the wife could not work, constructed a temporary shelter among the willows, where my directions were most faithfully carried out. After about three weeks the bone had knit, and they were told that they could go. The woman smiled on me, the man shook hands, and the pair walked away toward their hut in the mountain, and I supposed the incident closed. But some days later, as I was lying under a tree reading, I looked up and saw Costiano, the Indian hus- band, standing silently before me. As soon as he had attracted my attention he held out an archaic stone hammer, and in his staccato style said: * Aztec hammer. Him good wife. Him work.' [No feminine gender in Navajo?] And laying the hammer at my feet he turned to go. But I called him back, and under the genial influence of a pipe he told me howhe had 148 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR once acted as guide to an exploring party, and had then learned how highly the white man prizes the relics of the stone age ; accordingly he had ridden nearly a hundred miles, to the district of the ancient cliff dwellers, to pick up his doctor's fee. "My practice extended also into the Mor- mon settlement, where fees consisted of dona- tions of pies and cakes. Fruitland is a village which contains about thirty Mormon, and four or five Gentile, families. They have found a bend of the river where they can readily irrigate a few thousand acres of land, and have transformed the desert into gardens, grain-fields, and fruit-orchards. Scores of miles from any market, the coming of the troops was hailed with delight by the money- less community. A cash market was now at their door for corn and oats and hay, for bread and meat and laundry work. The or- ganization of the Mormon community well fits it for the struggle with the wilderness, and from Salt Lake, where they settled in 1847, the A WATER-CARRIER AT ZUNI A NAVAJO WOMAN AT HER LOOM FORT WINGATE 149 Latter Day Saints have spread their settle- ments through these mountains along the ridge of the continent for more than a thousand miles. The Army often comes in contact with them, and finds them not vicious outlaws, but plodding and useful citizens. **Mormonism suggests polygamy, and usu- ally I think this is about all it does suggest. The village of Fruitland has its bishop, its elders and deacons, a Young Men's and a Young Women's Mutual Improvement So- ciety, and a Relief Society. The church, which is also the State, makes every villager an office- holder in something, and by this policy secures unity of aims and interests. Whiskey and to- bacco are forbidden, and there is no saloon in Fruitland. Religious services are faithfully at- tended by every member of the community. One Sunday afternoon, with two or three com- rades, I went to church. As soon as we were observed, we were hospitably invited to seats on the platform, where the uniforms of the United States mingled fraternally with the 150 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR plain frontier dress of bishop and deacons. The low adobe building was filled to overflowing. Men and women talked freely, and children ran back and forth to drink from the water pail on the window ledge, until the bishop called the assembly to order. After prayer and a hymn came the communion service. Bread was blessed, and water from the aforesaid pail, and young and old partook of the sacrament. Though some of the babies could not swallow the bread, none were too small to have the glass of water put to the lips. The sermon by the bishop followed. To his humble, hard- worked parishioners in this lonely river- reach, his closing words must have been cheer- ing indeed: 'The future celestial world,' said he, 'will not be in the sun, or moon, or stars, or thousands of miles off in space, but it will be this world when made pure as glass ; and the Latter Day Saints shall inherit it.' What is to become of the Gentiles was left us to sur- mise. *'Amid these surroundings weeks went by, FORT WINGATE 151 and the summer days lengthened, until one day orders came for us to march homeward. We returned bearing no trophies of war, no halo of battle, but we had performed the chief duty of a standing army — to prevent war. The treaty with the Indians had been kept inviolate, and incidentally a poor struggling community had been made opulent. " Public opinion, in America is inclined to frown upon the professional soldier ; he is looked upon as an accessory of government, useful on occasion, but ordinarily a costly and use- less instrument. A strong military power ap- pears to be popularly considered a menace to liberty and free institutions. So far as my ob- servation goes the military spirit tends, not to destroy, but to uphold and protect, the free- dom of the citizen in all that is consistent with good government. The soldier as individual and as citizen profits by his military training. While his body gains in strength and endur- ance, his spirit learns courage, self-sacrifice, and obedience. He acquires habits of order, 152 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR punctuality, attention, and courtesy that are invaluable in the arts of peace. " But above these civic virtues is the active patriotism which the soldier learns, — 'that a country 's a thing men should die for at need.' No further proof is needed that the lesson has been well learned, than the deeds of our soldiers on San Juan Hill, and the graves they have left behind them in Cuba." This picture of a day in camp on the San Juan gives a few more details : — "May 19, 1896: Breakfast in the bower at seven a.m., then hospital [sick-call], which is over by eight : — I may say in passing that not the smallest of one's cares for the sick in the desert lies in seeing that proper food is forthcoming. At eight ' Baldy ' comes up ; and as he, like all other horses, finds existence with- out company unendurable. Trumpeter Jori- man comes along, and I start on my morning round. This morning I visited a family in which there is a sick lady. There was not a glass nor an earthen cup, — only a tin can in FORT WINGATE 153 which to mix the fever potion. The house has two rooms only and one bed. There are eight children, the oldest aged eleven. The baby of seven months was cradled in an empty box. The mother was born in Boston — has the Boston speech. When the eight can be left, she goes out to teach some of the neigh- boring children, and earns a trifle. The father once studied theology at Andover. At present I don't think he does much, aside from raising children. In fact, the motto of the establish- ment seemed, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' In the doorway was a hen brooding over a flock of newly hatched chickens, and on the floor by the baby's box was a cat suckling two kittens. "Back in camp at ten. Letters arrive at eleven. In the afternoon I am going to work on the Problem. [These problems, stated by the Chief Surgeon of the Department, were imaginary camps or marches in New Mexico, confronted by imaginary difficulties, to be met and solved by the Surgeon in charge.] 154 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Dinner at six p.m. and the camp-fire — for the evenings are cold — until about nine." Wherever he went Dr. Kimball's skill was generously used for the sick and suffering — Indians, Mormons, ranchmen, cowboys — even prairie dogs : — "June 25th. Dream under the pines around my tent. Hear a squeaking among the cones and find a bit of a prairie dog — eyes scarcely open. Near by was his dead brother. Appar- ently the mother was dead, and the children had started out for help. I picked up the little squeaker and took it to a hole, into which it ran." For me the San Juan Expedition was a beau- tiful idyl of spring, — written in my husband's letters. His story of the homeward march gives a picturesque account of the lights and shad- ows of New Mexico : — "June 23d, 1896: Reveille, four a.m. Break- fast over, we — Troop E, Second Cavalry — leave camp at five-fifteen a.m. At five-forty- VO o\ 00 < O o in O u FORT WINGATE 155 five A.M., we have crossed the San Juan and commenced march up the hill and across the desert. I ride * Baldy ' to Cottonwood — eight- een miles, — called * Cottonwood' from two trees; trunks at ground two feet apart; as they grow up, one leans to east and one to west — the only trees for forty miles. No life on desert, except brown lizards lying on hot sand in sun, running away when disturbed. A heavy, sandy road, so that wagons have to be drawn downhill. In places not even sagebrush. At noon not a breath of air, intensely hot — sand burns feet through shoes. At one p.m. a hot wind, sirocco-like, then gusts, or whirl- winds, lifting a hundred square feet of sand in the air and sweeping across the plain. Encountered one which nearly buried us; from one-thirty p.m., a gale of hot air in our faces — wind hot as from a blast fur- nace. Arrive at White Sulphur Springs three-thirty p.m., thirty-five miles from Fruit- land. Violent wind makes us search shelter from it, but unsuccessfully. No trees, only 156 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR rocks. Full moon, uncomfortably bright for sleep." The next day the troop climbs the foothills of Chaska Mountains, and camps among the pines — nine thousand feet altitude: "First we ride among cedars and pifions brushing our hats and faces, then in the shade of the tall yellow pines, and at length, at about ten thou- sand feet, among quaking aspens. Delightful camp here among the pines ; beautiful spring of clear, cold water." Thus the march goes on for a week, until they reach Fort Defiance, for- merly an army post, now an Indian school. There the teachers — several ladies — spend the evening in camp : what an event to those shut- ins! Another troop of the Second Cavalry, also in the field, joins the troop here, and to- gether they arrive at Fort Wingate. Never shall I forget that cloud of dust moving toward us across the plain; first a few outriders, then wagons, and last, our weather-beaten, travel- stained husbands emerged from the cloud. But they looked as if campaigning agreed FORT WINGATE 157 with them, and their errand had been worth while. Scarcely was the routine of garrison life be- gun when Officers' Row was startled one June afternoon by the fire-call. The fire started in the Band Barracks, and as the air was still, we did not fear a conflagration ; but the wind rose, and in a short time the whole parade ground was surrounded by blazing quarters. All the barracks, the public buildings, as well as five sets of officers' quarters, were destroyed. As the fire reached the quarters next us, our friends and many enlisted men rushed in, and within a few minutes we found ourselves and our house- hold goods on the prairie, across an arroyo, watching the flames as they approached our house. Fortunately at this point the fire was stopped, and instead of spending the night on the prairie, at six o'clock we began to move back. Not so the enlisted men ; they camped on the parade ground, cooked their supper with planks from the half-burned sidewalk, and ate it in jolly mood. 158 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR Among the experiences of these frontier stations is "getting lost." A practice march is usually made into the absolute wilderness, and in a country with no distinctive landmarks, it is very easy to become bewildered. On one of these marches, the troops were encamped near Fort Apache, New Mexico. One morning a young Danish trooper — private Jensen — went out hunting with dog and gun. Early in the afternoon he prepared to return to camp, but, instead of going toward the encampment, he went directly away from it. Day after day he hunted in vain for a friendly trail. His ammu- nition — twenty rounds — was used up. His dog disappeared, and he became so weak and lame that he could scarcely walk. At first he lived on game, then on berries, prickly pears, and wild grapes — the last he shared on one occasion with a bear. On the ninth day he met some Indians, who gave him corn, bread, and raw meat ; but either they could not or would not understand that he wanted to get back to Fort Apache. "I found out afterwards," said in s w H <; :^ w w 1— > > Q O FORT WINGATE 159 Jensen, in a quaint account which he gave to the surgeon, "that they had reported me as soon as they got into Apache — that I was out there and could n't get anywhere/' He continues : "The eleventh night I stayed at the old camp [where he had spent two nights]. Next morning I ate the last of the Indian bread, and at that time I could eat the meat (raw) too.'' At this point the rescue party caught sight of the poor fellow; his shoes were worn out, his feet wrapped in the lining torn from his blouse. Lame and footsore he limped along with a crutch that he had made from the branch of a tree. "I saw them first and stood still — I heard the Lieutenant say, 'Halloo! What have we got here? That must be the lost man.'" The man had gone about seventy-five miles into the wilderness, near Black River. He was so weak and dazed that he could scarcely speak, but with good hospital care and diet, he soon recovered. In telling his story he said : "At first I thought I was n't quite lost, but by the third day I felt myself lost." When sure i6o A SOLDIER-DOCTOR that he must die, ''I thought most of my mother in Denmark/^ said he. When Jensen was returned to duty at Fort Wingate, he really enjoyed the posing with rags and crutch for our camera. I believe a print was sent to Jensen's mother in Denmark. Two years we spent in the desert. When, in 1896, we took our last ride, sold our ponies, and turned our faces eastward, we were both glad and sad. The desert and waste places have a charm of their own, a charm which we had learned to understand and enjoy. IX governor's island — THE WAR WITH SPAIN Duties official and social — Summer Encampment at Sea Girt, New Jersey — Declaration of war — Hospital enlarged; arrival of wounded — Red Cross nurses — Letters to the surgeon — Engrossing and exhausting work. There is great fascination about the garrison of Governor's Island — a little green oasis in the watery waste of New York Harbor. After our long absence in the desert, the sights and sounds of port and street gave us keen pleasure. The Island, with its martial history of nearly two centuries, still keeps a flavor of the pastoral days when it was known to the Dutch as Not- ten Island ("Nut Island"). For a time it was merely a pasture, " useful for the grazing of a few coach horses and cows for the Governor's family." Not until 1755 was the Island garri- soned and in Revolutionary days it first became a fortified place. In 1809 Fort Columbus was i62 A SOLDIER-DOCTOR built, with a true sally-port, drawbridge, moat, and glacis, and ten years later. Castle William. In our time, twenty years ago, the warlike and the homelike were still in evidence. The Commanding General's cow grazed peacefully among piles of cannon balls (now vanished) ; strawberries ripened and roses bloomed, hedged about by cast-off guns. A pleached alley of willows, skirting the old sea-wall, led to the back door of the Island and "Laundress Row." Fishermen pitched their tents and cast their nets under the shadow of South Battery, and found in the Row a ready market for their catch. The harbor at times was an echo of Broad- way itself (a campaign against unnecessary noise was then unknown). "Ugly but magni- ficent" are the sky-scrapers, so too are the traffic boats ; huge liners, bustling tugs, unsav- ory barges, gaudy ferryboats, gray men-o'-war, fleet yachts, plodding schooners moved past our doors day and night. They shrieked, warned, threatened, in an endless clamor of p J — .0m -1^^^^ THE HARBOR FROM CASTLE WILLIAM k + A * '^^'^^ '/Pip.- ^^< V « • >^o^ • ^-^<.^ ,-l°«. >°-n*.. < • o 7%.' .0 A. H^ N. MANCHESTER, Ss#^ INDIANA 46962 ?;»* .0