0' ^'^ "I" , ^^: V'' .^^ ^^>. tS" '^y-^ V- % ,^^ -^, ,0 '^ o 'V "^^ ,^^' A'' S^-"^. > .0- e^. * 9 I \ " x'C- \\- , •• - fl -p y s' :/\^^-.'\ -•^^ -0- ^^''-s * ^' 0^ V^ V xO^r. % ^ ,G^^^ '\ . * . ^-^ ^'\ i-^" \ . N ,, <^ ^ O o >- \ ^ aX^ ... e^ V^ "00^ ^° ^r. ^ * 8 1 A-* >^^^ s ^ "^ / '.#£^'^ .^^%. * o^ ■. ^\- -vl ,^ V * n '/- * 8 1 V ■" \^ A^ % .-^' \>^ s^ >.V , o N '. ^ '/^ ' ■o- ■^ .#^ a\ ■^^ THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI GRANT MARSH THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI The Conquest of the Missouri Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh BY JOSEPH MILLS HANSON WITH MAP AND 36 ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1909 COPYRIOHT A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1009 Published October, l»09 Eit ILakraitit ^ttSB R. R. DONNBLLEY * SONS COMPANY CHICAGO 2EI005 ^0 MY MOTHER PREFACE IN preparing the following narrative of the principal events in the life of Captain Grant Marsh, the author has naturally been furnished by the latter with much the larger part of the material set forth. Captain Marsh was an actor in events of great historic moment, covering almost the entire period of the conquest of the upper Mis- souri River Valley, the subjugation of the Sioux Indians and the opening to civilization of the vast territory which they had occupied. But the direct observations of a man in his position were generally and necessarily limited to his immediate surroundings, and the recital of his expe- riences alone during his years of activity in the Northwest would give to the reader but an indistinct impression of the conditions prevailing there and of their underlying causes. Hence it has been deemed best to amplify the story of the Captain's adventures with as much general history as is essential to a clear understanding of the period and of the part which he played in it. Such a course is rendered more imperative by the fact that many of the events treated have never received more than pass- ing attention from historians, and remain to-day practi- cally unknown save to those who participated in them. , The author has endeavored, whenever possible, to verify Preface Captain Marsh's recollections of events possessing any historical significance, by reference to oflScial or other reliable documents, and very rarely has the Captain's memory been found at fault, even in details. In cases where documentary evidence was unobtainable, verifica- tion has been sought from other sources, chiefly by cor- respondence with persons intimately acquainted with the facts, either through historical research or by reason of personal experience. Most of the latter to whom the author has applied have been associated with Captain Marsh at one time or another during his years on the rivers of the West. The correspondence with them has been undertaken for the double purpose of securing evidence on historical facts, and of obtaining from them their personal recollections of the Captain. All of them have responded most generously to requests for informa- tion and the author's thanks are particularly due to those mentioned below. The late Major-General James W. Forsyth, U. S. A., and the late Brigadier-General Samuel B. Holabird, U. S. A., both of whom have died since their kind assist- ance was rendered. The late Mary Louise Dalton, Librarian of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Mo., for placing the collec- tions of the Society at the author's disposal, and for critical reading of his entire manuscript. Miss May Simonds, Reference Ijibrarian of the Mer- cantile Library, St. Louis, Mo., for assistance in obtaining works of reference. viii Preface Mrs. Laura E. Howey, Secretary and Librarian of the Montana State Library, Helena, Mont., for researches among the records of the Historical Society of Montana. Doctor W. J. McGee, Director of the St. Louis Public Museum, formerly Ethnologist in Charge, Bureau of American Ethnology, for assistance in determining the proper spelling and use of Indian names. Brigadier-General Edward S. Godfrey, U. S. A., Com- mandant of the Special Service School of Application for Cavalry and Field Artillery, Fort Riley, Kansas, for pains- taking assistance in the preparation of many chapters. The following other officers and non-commissioned officers of the United States Army, all retired, for written communications or for the critical reaching of portions of the manuscript: Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, Lieutenant-Colo- nel and Brevet Brigadier-General George A. Forsyth, Major William H. H. Crowell, Major Frederick M. H. Kendrick, Major Luther R. Hare, Lieutenant Charles Braden, Sergeant M. C. Caddie. The following steamboat men, for communications or for the loan of photographs : Horace Bixby, Alexander Lamont, Nicholas Buesen, George Foulk, William H. Gould, Grant C, Marsh. The following other persons, for critical reading of portions of the manuscript, for communications, or for the loan of photographs: Colonel William F. Cody, James M. Sipes, John H. Fouch, Major Luther S. Kelly, Walter H. Carr, Major Preface Joseph R. Hanson, Samuel L. Clemens, Peter Koch, George W. Kingsbury, St., Joseph H. Taylor, Colonel C. A. Lounsberry, A. C. Leighton, J. R. Mann, Olin D. Wheeler, Major Martin Maginnis and the late Robert E. McDowell. The following institutions for the loan of photographs: The Historical Society of Montana, the Carnegie Pub- lic Library, Miles City, Montana. Many of the chapters have been submitted to competent authorities for critical reading. Such errors as existed have thus been found and corrected, while, in a number of instances, additional facts have been inserted. Mrs. Laura E. Howey and Major Martin Maginnis have read the chapters relating to the first trip of the steamer Luella to Fort Benton, in 1866; Major-General Samuel B. Holabird, those on the trip of the Ida Stockdale; Briga- dier-General George A. Forsyth, those on the exploration of the lower Yellowstone River by the Key West; Lieu- tenant Charles Braden, that on the Stanley Expedition; Major William H. H. Crowell, those on the exploration of the upper Yellowstone by the Josephine; Brigadier- General E. S. Godfrey, those on the Little Big Horn campaign; General Godfrey and Colonel C. A. Louns- berry, that on the run of the Far West with the wounded from the battlefield of the Little Big Horn ; and Lieuten- ant- General Nelson A. Miles, those on the campaigns immediately succeeding the battle of the Little Big Horn. Joseph Mills Hanson. CONTENTS I Westward by the Main Channel n The Ice Gorge of '56 . Ill Old-time Packets and the Men Who Ruled Them rV "Mark Twain" at the Rudder . V Cupid at the "Apple-butter Stirring" VI The Battle Morn of Shiloh VII Barbarism at Bay .... Vin With Sully Into the Sioux Lands IX Three Roads to El Dorado X The "Luella" at Fort Benton in Vigilante Days ....... XI The Troubles of a Treasure Ship XII The Captain Encounters a "Bad Man" XIII Blockaded by Buffalo XIV A Game of Strategy .... XV Ice-bound on the "Nile" . XVI Wood Hawks XVII The Vegetable Trip of the "North Ala bama" ...... XVIII The Hare and the Tortoise XIX A Three Thousand Mile Race XX The Railroad Comes .... XXI With Forsyth of Beecher's Island XXII "Yellowstone" Kelly Guides the "Key West" ...... XXIII Campaigning with the Seventh Cavalry xi PAGE 3 10 16 24 30 35 48 53 61 69 80 88 93 99 105 115 121 129 136 144 149 158 171 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XXIV Pioneer Paths . . . . . 189 XXV Bound for the Mountains 193 XXVI Breasting Unknown Waters . 202 XXVII "Lonesome Charlie" . . . . 210 XXVIII By Line and Spar to the Head of Navi- gation ....... 214 XXIX First Blood for Crazy Horse 226 XXX Custer to the Front . . . . 233 XXXI The Heroine of the Upper River . 237 XXXII Strong Men and True . . . . 245 XXXIII The Last Council of War 252 XXXIV The Seventh Marches Into the Shadow . 261 XXXV The Messenger of Disaster . 268 XXXVI The Squadron that Perished 281 XXXVII The Aftermath of Battle 290 XXXVIII The "Far West" Races with Death 301 XXXIX The Battle at Powder River 316 XL Terry Takes the Field . . . . 331 XLI Patrol Duty With Miles and "Buffalo Bill" ....... 337 XLII The Fruits of Struggle . . . . 353 XLIII The "Rosebud" Carries the Gener.\l of THE Army ...... 368 XLIV The Bones of Heroes . . . . 376 XLV Rustlers ....... 385 XLVI With Kendrick to the Musselshell 396 XLVII The Sioux Bend to Fate 406 XLVIII Turned Turtle . . . . . 420 XLIX The Garden Out of the Wilderness 426 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FAOB Grant Marsh ....... Frontispiec* Old Post Trader's Store at Fort Buford, Dakota . 8 Steamer Nellie Peck at Fort Benton Levee . . 26 Steamer Washburn at the Levee, Washburn, N. Dak. 26 Fort Thompson, Crow Creek Indian Reservation . 58 Mandan Village at Fort Berthold, about 1870 . . 58 Sioux War Dance ....... 66 Camp of Grosventres Indians at Fort Buford, 1874 . 84 " Fast Walker," Brule Sioux, as He is To-day . .112 Company "G," 6th U. S. Infantry, at Fort Buford . 126 Fort Abraham Lincoln . . . . . .146 "Yellowstone" Kelly in 1870 154 Group of Officers and Ladies of the 7th U. S. Cavalry at Fort Lincoln, about 1875 .... 172 Key to Foregoing Photograph . . . . .172 Summer Camp of Troops at Fort Buford, 1875 . .194 Pompey's Pillar, on the Yellowstone River, Montana. Reached by the Steamer Josephine June 3, 1875 216 Cavalry Camp on the Yellowstone, 1876 . . . 228 General Gibbon's Wagon Train .... 228 Steamer Far West 238 Where Reno Crossed . . . • • .252 Scene on the Big Horn River 270 xiii List of Illustrations PAGK Heart Arch, Near Tongue River, Montana . . 270 Sitting Bull 288 Graves of Unknown Dead on Custer Battlefield . . 296 First Monument on Custer Battlefield in Course of Construction . . . . . . .296 First Headboard Over the Grave of Lieut. James G. Sturgis, 7th Cavalry, on the Custer Battlefield . 300 First Monument on the Custer Battlefield . 300 Stanley's Stockade on the Yellowstone . . 306 First Monument Over the Grave of Capt. Myles W. Keogh, on the Custer Battlefield . . . 306 Original Copy of the Bismarck Tribune, July 6, 1876 . 310 Custer Monument . . . . . . .314 The Crow Scout, Curley 324 Gen. Nelson A. Miles 337 Steamer Rosebud on the Missouri River . . .370 Steamer F. F. Batchelor 394 National Cemetery and Present Monument on the Battlefield of the Little Big Horn . . .418 THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI CHAPTER I WESTWARD BY THE MALN CHANNEL The rousters are rushing the cargoes on. In the flush of the early dawn. While the packets ride an the rocking tide. And chafe to be out and gone. SINCE the days when the first far-scattered Spanish and French and Enghsh adventurers forced their slow way into the untamed North American wil- derness, striving mightily against savage foes and more savage nature, the rivers of the continent have marked the lines of warfare and the boundaries of conquest. The natural avenues of communication between one region and another, it has been beside and upon their waters that the pioneers have ever pushed their persistent way through dangers and difficulties until the whole land lay open at their feet. It was but yesterday that the last strongholds of barbarism along the Rio Grande del Norte, and the Colorado of the Southwest, and the Missouri with its fretful tributaries of the Northwest, still stood locked and defiant against the besieging hosts of civilization. To-day they are fallen, never to rise again. 3 The Conquest of the Missouri But amid the regions traversed by those historic streams, where the echo of the war whoop and the sharp crack of the cavalry carbine have scarce died away, still linger many of the men who helped to bring to submission those final citadels of savagery. Gray-haired they may be, feeble, perhaps, some of them. But in their carriage is a manner of self-reliant freedom and in their eyes a light of power which men bred to milder modes of life cannot know. For they have looked upon Nature in her uncon- quered strength and majesty; they have grappled with her creatures in equal combat, and have come off victors. The continent will not know their like again. Though for the most part these survivors of a vanished era have retired into the peaceful old age which their years of effort have earned for them, a few are still living and working in the fields of their earlier activities. So, if one should walk down to the river front of the little town of Washburn, North Dakota, on almost any day during the summer season, he would be apt to encounter there, busied about the loading or unloading of one of the small, stern-wheel steamboats which still ply the upper waters of the Missouri, a man whose whole appearance and manner would at once call to mind the history and ro- mance of the days when the Big Muddy ran far beyond the confines of civilization and was the scene of military activity and frontier adventure. Nor does the truth belie his appearance. Tall, broad-shouldered and powerful of frame, clear-eyed and gentle of voice, this veteran naviga- tor of the Missouri has lived and worked, shoulder to 4 Westward by the Main Channel shoulder, with many men famous in history, and passed through as many strange and rugged experiences as would stock the biography of an adventurer of the Spanish Main. Though the river traffic of the Missouri is generally held to have died out many years ago, Grant Prince Marsh, steamboat captain and pilot, still finds on its tawny waters the home and the congenial occupation to which he has been devoted since the long-ago day in 1846 when, as a small lad of twelve years, bent upon seeing the world, he applied for a position to Captain Alfred Reno, of the steamer Dover, lying at the levee of Pittsburg, Pa., and was shipped as cabin-boy for the first of his hundreds of voyages on the waterways of the West. The impulse which sent him to seek the life of the river at so tender an age was as natural as that which impels many a boy born within sound of the ocean's breakers to seek a home on the face of the deep as soon as he can contrive to slip away from the paternal roof. Since his baby eyes had first learned to see, this child of the fresh- water regions had known steamboats. When scarcely more than old enough to talk, he and his playmates in his little native town of Rochester, thirty miles below Pitts- burg, had been accustomed to rush to the river bank whenever a packet came by, watching her in awe and admiration until she passed beyond view. Sometimes, impelled by a childish impulse of mischief, they would throw stones at the laboring monsters. The veteran boat- man remembers with amusement an afternoon when the big side-wheeler Isaac Newton, Captain Mason, came 5 The Conquest of the Missouri puffing up from Cincinnati, and he and his playmates began their pastime of throwing stones at her. The Newton was a short, wide boat, very difficult to handle, and as she passed she suddenly "ran away" with her pilot and came straight toward the shore where the boys were assembled. Smitten with terror, and thinking that she was in pursuit of them, they fled precipitately up the hill, never stopping until safe in their homes. But young Marsh had learned a larger respect for the puissant steamboat when, a few years later, he proudly took his place as a member of the crew of the Dover and heard the paddles churn as she swung out into the current, bearing him away upon his first voyage. The Dover was an Allegheny River boat, plying between Pittsburg and Freeport, Pa., and her trade was heavy and continuous, as was that of her numerous consorts on the Ohio and its tributaries. West of the Allegheny Mountains no rail- roads had penetrated at that date, and the steamboats controlled all the commerce of the teeming river towns as well as the immense volume of immigration which was rolling constantly westward into the great, undeveloped regions of the Mississippi Valley and the fertile vastnesses beyond. It was a time when men's thoughts turned westward irresistibly, drawn by the fascination of unknown but alluring lands. The prairies of Iowa and the wooded hills of Missouri were as attractive to thousands of home- seekers as was the lure of the far-off California gold-fields to other thousands. Young Marsh, being of a disposition to follow where 6 Westward by the Main Channel fortune might lead, with increasing years gradually drifted westward on the universal tide, leaving the Allegheny to work on the boats running between Pittsburg and Ohio River points, and finally catching his first glimpse of the Mississippi when, in the early spring of 1852, he found employment as a deckhand on board the Pittsburg-St. Louis packet Beaver, commanded by Captain Sharp Hemp- hill, and went on her to St. Louis. This city, the metropo- lis of the Mississippi Valley then as now, presented a very different aspect to its present one when young Marsh first beheld it from the deck of the Beaver. Spread along the river bank was a city of 95,000 people, containing many great business establishments and commanding the com- merce of a vast territory. But not a foot of railroad was then in operation out of the city, nor, indeed, was there a foot in operation anywhere west of the Mississippi. On the other hand, her levee was lined with scores of steam- boats whose trade routes radiated to the four points of the compass and brought to her merchants produce to the value of over $10,000,000.00 annually. The arrivals of steamboats in the port of St. Louis at this time averaged 3,000 yearly, and the total rated capacity of these was about 50,000 tons, making St. Louis the third port in the Union in amount of enrolled steam tonnage, New York and New Orleans alone exceeding her.* The young boatman's first recollections of the western city carry with them something of gloom, for 1852 was one of the years when Asiatic cholera was scourging the * J. Thomas Scharf, "History of St. Louis City and County." 7 The Conquest of the Missouri country; and St. Louis suffered heavily from the plague. Just as Marsh first stepped on the levee from the deck of the Beaver, he met a man leaving another boat with two babies in his arms. This gentleman accosted him and stated that the parents of the children he was carrying had both died of cholera on the boat and he, in pity, had taken charge of the helpless orphans in the hope of find- ing them a home. Having attained the Mississippi, for two years Grant Marsh contented himself with remaining in the Louisville and St. Louis trade. Then once more the restless desire for new lands took possession of him, and in the spring of 1854 he shipped as a deck hand on the Missouri River steamer F. X. Aubrey, commanded by Captain Ambrose Reeder, and running in the open season between St. Louis and St. Joseph, Mo. Thus the boy of nineteen, already familiar with the intricate duties and versed in the peculiar kinds of knowledge demanded by western river naviga- tion, first came upon the waters of that greatest and most erratic of American streams where most of his life was to be spent. For one year he remained with the Aubrey and then changed to the A. B. Chambers, Captain Bowman. There was plenty of business to do, for until the summer of 1855, when the Missouri Pacific was completed to Jef- ferson City, no railroad extended westward along the Mis- souri from St. Louis. All the commerce of the prosperous agricultural country lying between the Mississippi and the Kansas line was handled by steamers, and a particularly heavy business was always done in the autumn, when the 8 Westward by the Main Channel great crops of tobacco, hemp, and small grain, produced by slave labor on the plantations of the valley, began to pour into the steamboat landings for shipment to the St. Louis markets. Kansas City did not yet exist and West- port was the northern terminus of the historic old Santa Fe Trail, and also the distributing point for the section of country of which the former city is now the center. Goods for Sedalia, Marshall, Warrensburg, Holden and other important towns in the interior were put ashore at the nearest river landing and hauled thence to their destina- tions in large freight wagons, drawn by several span of oxen or horses. CHAPTER II THE ICE GORGE OF '56 And then that gorge sent up a roar That shook the solid ground; The sort that splits your ears in two When a side-wheel packet drops a flue Ari" hhrws six Vilers amongst her crew An' cooks them that ain't drowned. DURING the winter of 1855-1856, the A. B. Cham- bers lay in ice-harbor at the St. Louis levee and Grant Marsh remained on board her as watch- man. The winter was an unusually severe one, and the river, which does not often freeze over at St. Louis, closed hard and fast on New Year's Day, 1856, the ice con- tinuing to grow thicker for some time after that. The river front, says Captain Marsh, was so solidly lined with steamboats that without stepping ashore one could walk upon their decks from Belcher's sugar refinery to Almond (now Valentine) Street, a distance of twenty blocks. Late in February a period of warm weather set in on the upper rivers, causing a rise of water at St. Louis before the heavy ice had begun to thaw there. The result was terrible. On the day following, February 28th, a local newspaper* published an account of the disaster which is so graphic that it may well be reproduced here: * The Missouri Republican, after the editor of which the steamer A. B. Chambers was named. 10 The Ice Gorge of '56 "The ice at first moved slowly," says the chronicle, " and without perceptible shock. The boats above Chest- nut Street were merely shoved ashore, and for five minutes sustained no damage. Messrs. Eads' and Nelson's Sub- marine Number 4, which had just finished her work at the wreck of the Parthenia, was almost immediately cap- sized, and became herself a hopeless wreck. The Sub- marine floated down, lying broadside against the Federal Arch, which boat was being wrecked and of little value. Here the destruction commenced. The Federal Arch parted her fastenings and became at once a total wreck. Lying below were the steamers Australia, Adriatic, Bru- nette, Paul Jones, Falls City, Altoona, A. B. Chambers and Challenge, all of which were torn away from the shore and in company with the Submarine and Federal Arch, floated down with the immense field of ice. "The fleet of ten boats were more or less damaged at starting by crowding against one another. All the upper works of the Brunette and Australia were torn to pieces and the Altoona was badly damaged. The shock and the crushing of these boats when they were driven together can be better imagined than described. All their ample fastenings were as nothing against the enormous flood of ice, and they were carried down apparently fastened and wedged together. The first obstacles with which they came in contact were a large fleet of wood boats, barges and canal boats. These small fry were either broken in pieces or forced out of the water upon the levee in a very damaged condition. We are not able to state the number, 11 The Conquest of the Missouri but there could not have been short of fifty in all, which were either sunk, broken or carried away with the descend- ing boats. About twenty of them met with the latter fate, and the whole fleet lodged about one mile below, against the point of the island at the Lower Dyke. The Adriatic lost one of her wheels by swinging against the Falls City after they landed upon the bar below. The Falls City and the Paul Jones are very badly damaged, the A. B. Chambers but slightly. The Challenge is also badly injured. "After these boats had passed down, the Bon Accord and Highland Mary, lying together, were carried off and are both a total loss. The new St. Paul, on the docks, was slightly damaged, and part of the docks swept away from under her. The Highland Mary struck against the Die Vernon, damaging the latter boat considerably. The Louisville was also torn away from her moorings, and at last accounts was lying broadside and across the current with the other boats below. She is probably a total loss. The Lamartine was carried away in the same manner and will doubtless be lost. The Westerner broke her fasten- ings and swung against the Jeanie Deans, injuring the latter considerably. "Some of the boats lying above Chestnut Street fared badly in the meantime. The F. X. Aubrey was forced into the bank and had her larboard wheel broken. The noble Nebraska, which every one thought in a most 12 The Ice Gorge of '56 perilous situation, lost her larboard wheel and was not otherwise much injured. The Gossamer, Luella, Alice and Badger State were forced ashore and slightly damaged. Both the Alton wharf boats were sunk and broken to pieces. The old Shenandoah, being wrecked, and the Sam Cloon were forced away from shore and floated down together against the steamer Clara. The latter did not part her fastenings, and she and the Shenandoah lodged, when they were soon torn to pieces and sunk by the ice and one of the ferryboats, which came down alone. The ferryboat floated on to the foot of Market Street, carrying part of the Shenandoah with her. The steamers Clara and Ben Bolt were both badly damaged by the ice and forced partly ashore. The G. W. Sparhawk was sunk, and looked as if broken in two lying at the shore. The Keokuk wharf boat maintained its position against the flood and saved three boats below, the Polar Star, J. S. Pringle and Forest Rose, none of which were up to this time materially injured. " After running about one hour, the character of ice was changed and came down in frothy, crumbled condition, with now and then a heavy piece. At the end of two hours it ran very slowly, and finally stopped about half-past five o'clock. During this interval a number of persons crossed it from the ferry landing on Bloody Island. They were chiefly passengers by a train just arrived, anxious to reach the city. The experiment was daring, but they landed safely on this side. " Just before the river gorged, huge piles of ice twenty 13 The Conquest of the Missouri and thirty feet in height were forced up by the current on every hand, both on the shore and at the Lower Dyke, where so many boats had come to a halt. In fact, these boats seemed to be Hterally buried in ice. It had not been broken below Cahokia Bend, and all the drift thus far had gorged between the city and that point ; hence its sudden stop. At six o'clock P. M. the river had risen at least ten feet. At dark the people went home. "The terrible sweep of waters with its burden of ice, the mashing to pieces of boats, the hurrying to and fro of the excited crowd, was one of the most awful and at the same time most imposing scenes we have ever witnessed. The officers and crews of many of the boats went down the river with them; the lookers-on became alarmed and sprang from boat to boat in a rush for the shores. The captains and owners of canal, flatboats and barges fled, leaving their property to the mercy of circumstances. At seven P. M. the gorge below broke and the ice began running again. The current was now much more swift and the night very dark, a heavy and steady rain having set in." That night and the next day the escaping ice com- pleted the demolition of several boats already damaged, but the second day's destruction was not so great nor so unexpected as that of the first, whose record will always remain one of the most appalling of those in the history of the Mississippi. The A. B. Chambers came through with less injury than many of her consorts, though Watchman Marsh, floating upon her alone and helpless 14 The Ice Gorge of '56 through the splintering wreckage along the levee, ex- pected nothing less than to be killed, until she finally lodged against the wall of the United States Arsenal, three miles from her starting point, and he found himself once more safe. 15 CHAPTER III OLD-TIME PACKETS AND THE MEN WHO RULED THEM Sing hoi fer the pilot at the wheel, A-shavin' the shoals on a twelve-inch keel. Enough to scare yeh sick. EVEN such a wholesale loss of boats as that just described could not more than temporarily injure the vast floating traffic of the western rivers, for in those long years "before the War" steamboating was in the zenith of its prosperity, and the majestic packet had no rival to contest its right to commercial supremacy. Vast sums of money were expended in fitting up palatial vessels, and passengers paid well for the privilege of trav- eling upon them, as, indeed, would have been necessary in any case, for the expense of running the boats by the im- perfect methods then in vogue was very great. Certain mechanical features of these old steamers which would seem curious indeed to the present-day marine engineer, are remembered by Captain Marsh. At that time the size of a boat was determined by the number of boilers she carried, and in describing any vessel a riverman would term her "a two-boiler boat," or "four-boiler boat," without reference to her length or breadth of beam. The reason for this was that every 16 Old- Time Packets and Men Who Ruled Them vessel was obliged to carry as many boilers as could be crowded upon her in order to make her go at all. The waste of steam and fuel was enormous, for the practice of exhausting in the chimneys had not yet been thought of nor had that of heating the water before it went into the boilers. The big steamer Eclipse, Captain Sturgeon, built in the '50s, had a battery of fifteen boilers, eight large and seven small, and to keep them heated required wood by the car load. Captain Marsh tells a story, once current along the river, of the old Nebraska, a boat of the same class as the Eclipse. It is to the effect that once on a trip to New Orleans she landed at a yard and took on one hundred cords of wood. As there were no snubbing posts at the landing to tie to during the progress of the work. Captain Jolly held her up to the bank by the out- side wheel, which made it necessary to keep the engines going. When the fuel was loaded and the boat ready to start, it was discovered that all the wood taken aboard had been used up in holding her to the bank! While this same steamer Nebraska was being built at Cincinnati, her mate, a man named Bassett, ordered for her a hawser eight inches in diameter. The rope manu- facturers were dazed on receiving an order for a rope of such extraordinary size, but they rigged up special ma- chinery and made it. When finished it required two freight cars to carry the cable to the steamboat. The captain saw at once that it was too large and unwieldy for service and sent it back to the factory where, after enough ropes for the Nebraska's use had been made from 17 The Conquest of the Missouri it, the remainder was still sufficient to equip several other steamers. Asbestos and spring packing were unknown in the '50s and the engines were packed with cotton rope and cedar blocks, materials which served their purpose but indiffer- ently. When it came to the control and navigation of a steamer, the methods then in force also differed greatly from those of later years. For example, it was customary to have a speaking trumpet extending from the hurricane deck down to the fire-doors on the main deck. When making a landing, the captain, standing on the upper deck, would use this trumpet to direct the firemen. At such times the engineer had nothing to say; the captain engineered her from the roof, shouting through the tube: " Open the quarter doors ! " " Fill up the wing doors ! " "Fill up clear across!" or whatever other orders he chose to give. But the captain was by no means the most important individual on the ante-bellum steamboat. In point of authority, of prestige and of general indispensability, he loomed exceedingly small beside that truly despotic lord of the old-time river, the pilot. Upon the pilot depended absolutely the safety of vessel, passengers and cargo, and when the boat was under way, his word was a law before which every one bowed. His profession was a very diffi- cult one to learn, requiring years of apprenticeship, and as the pilots themselves were the only ones who could train new men for places in their ranks, they took good care that their numbers were kept down to small and select 18 Old-Time Packets and Men Who Ruled Them proportions in order that neither their power nor the princely salaries which they commanded should be di- minished. Every pilot was, as he is to-day, licensed by the Government and no boat could move without him, but as the profits of steamboating were great then, he could demand almost any wages he chose, and Captain Marsh relates several amusing anecdotes in this connec- tion of pilots whom he knew and worked with. One of these was Joe Oldham, a man famous in his time for three things; his skill as a pilot, his independence and his extravagance in personal adornment. His was the distinction of possessing the largest, heaviest and most expensive gold watch on the river. Its stem contained a diamond worth five hundred dollars, and he wore it sus- pended about his neck by a massive gold chain. In the winter he wore huge fur mittens reaching to his elbows, and in the summer kid gloves of the most delicate hue. One day a small, side-wheel packet, the Moses Green- wood, on her way up from the Ohio bound for Weston, Mo., came into St. Louis looking for a Missouri River pilot. It happened that Oldham was the only one in town and when the captain came to him, he blandly stated that he would take the Moses Greenwood to Weston and back, about a week's trip, for one thousand dollars. The captain demurred, but after several days, during which no other pilots appeared, and being in a hurry, he went to Oldham and said that he would pay the price. "Well, I can't accept now. Captain," answered the pilot, nonchalantly. "I'm going to a picnic this afternoon." 19 The Conquest of the Missouri Pleadings were of no avail, and to the picnic he went. On another occasion the steamer Post Boy, Captain Rider, came into St. Louis on her way to Leavenworth. Captain Rider sent for Oldham, who was again the only member of the craft in town, and he came down to the levee, bedecked with diamonds as usual, wearing a silk hat and patent-leather shoes, and shielding himself from the summer sun with a gold-handled, silk umbrella. " How much will you charge to take my boat to Leaven- worth and back, Mr. Oldham?" asked the captain. "Fifteen hundred dollars," answered the pilot, gently. "What?" shouted Captain Rider. "Man, that's more than the boat will make." Oldham shrugged his shoulders. "Well, talk fast, Captain," he said. "I won't stand here in the hot sun fifteen minutes for fifteen hundred dollars." The captain ground his teeth, but there was nothing to be done save pay the price or lie in port. So at length he said: "All right, I'll consent to be robbed this time. We're all ready to start. Come aboard." "But I'm not ready," quoth the pilot. "Just call a carriage and send me up to my rooms for my baggage." Nevertheless, once aboard he did his work well, making the round trip in the excellent time of nine days and with no mishaps from the pitfalls of the treacherous Big Muddy. Despite all the money he earned during the years of the river's prosperity, when it was over, poor, improvident 20 Old-Time Packets and Men Who Ruled Them Oldham found himself penniless, and when he died, years after, it was in abject poverty, in a wretched hovel near the river bank at Yankton, South Dakota. It was fortunate for Captain Rider in his transaction with Oldham, that the latter was not of as sensitive a dis- position as was the pilot in another similar case. This man's name was Bob Burton and one day when the steamer Aleonia, Captain Miller, appeared at St. Louis, Bob demanded one thousand dollars for taking her to Weston, with the result that Captain Miller called him a robber and ordered him off the boat. As usual, the cap- tain could secure no one else, and after several days, sent for Bob and told him that he would pay the thousand dollars. "I won't go for less than fifteen hundred," replied Bob. "What?" growled the captain. "You said you'd go for a thousand." "Yes," said Bob, "but you insulted me, sir, and I charge you five hundred dollars for that." Whatever the wages they could command, the pilots were not always entirely successful in navigating the diflS- cult Missouri, but they seldom permitted themselves to be criticised or to appear disconcerted even in the face of repeated mishaps for which they were responsible. This was aptly demonstrated in the case of a certain member of the craft who once, in steering a boat up from St. Louis, met with so many accidents such as running aground, breaking the wheel and otherwise mutilating the vessel, that at last the captain came to him angrily and demanded : 21 The Conquest of the Missouri "Look here, how many times have you been up the Missouri River, anyway?" "Twice," responded the navigator unabashed. "Once in a skiff and once on horseback." Another of Captain Marsh's brother pilots of early days was Jim Gunsalis, who almost rivaled Oldham in the bar- baric splendor of his apparel. When he was pilot of the A. B. Chambers No. 2, his regular salary was eight hun- dred dollars per month. His particular weakness was for diamonds. Though the cabin was always so filled with passengers that the officers of the boat were accustomed to take their meals in the Texas,* Gunsalis positively refused to do so, insisting on a seat at the saloon table, where his jewelry might receive its due meed of admira- tion. He, like Oldham, died in poverty, his last occupa- tion being that of tender for a dump boat at Carondelet, below St. liOuis, and his funeral expenses were paid by subscription. Next to the pilot, the most important individual on the old-time steamboat was the barkeeper. No sooner would the papers announce that a contract had been let for a new packet than every one would begin speculating as to who would be selected for barkeeper. On a first-class boat, the barkeeper's dignity would not permit him to descend to the vulgarity of mixing drinks. He employed help for * It is said that in early days, when steamboats were small and their cabins few, it was customary to name the cabins after the States of the Union, and the cabin which was superimposed upon the others, being much the largest, was called the "Texas" cabin, after the largest State. In course of time the custom died out with respect to the other cabins, but the "Texas" has always retained its name. — J. M. H. 22 Old- Time Packets and Men Who Ruled Them that purpose and himself mingled with the passengers and assisted the professional gamblers, who infested every boat, in fleecing them, receiving for his services a hand- some commission. The gamblers never took long trips, but after making a "winning," would disembark before they should be suspected. But the barkeeper, like the poor, the passengers had always with them. 23 CHAPTER IV "mark twain" at the rudder He jammed her bow through the buckin' tide Till the -painter floated free. With blinded eyes and drippin^ skin. He fought for the race he had set to win. Like a soldier fights, till the ice rolled in And ground against her lee. IN the year following the disastrous St. Louis ice gorge, young Marsh once more extended the horizon of his experiences by going to Omaha on the large side- wheel packet Alonzo Child, of which he was enrolled as mate under Captain Joe Holland. The young man had passed the stage of apprenticeship and entered upon that of command. In Omaha he found a town of the old frontier in the truest sense. It was a veritable mudhole, consisting of two wretched streets straggling along the river bank and lined with the flimsy frame and log structures of a people too eagerly bent upon the pursuit of success to squander time or expense on the niceties of civilization. It was the outfitting place for the thousands of emigrants preparing to take the long trail across the desert and mountains for the California goldfields, and as such its squalid thorough- fares were thronged with every type of man, from the 24 '*Mark TwairC^ at the Rudder earnest home-seeker to the desperado, all drawn forth by dazzling dreams of wealth to be gathered in that far El Dorado beyond the Rockies. Fifteen miles above Omaha lay Florence Landing, and forty miles below that of Wyoming, which points were then the places of rendezvous for the caravans of Mormons moving westward to their newly established Promised Land of Deseret, beside the dead waters of the Great Salt Lake. In some sense outcasts from their kind, these peculiar people would not mingle with the " Gentiles " in Omaha, preferring to make preparations for their long journey at the more secluded if less convenient landings mentioned. In the autumn of this year. Marsh changed from the Alonzo Child to the Hesperian, Captain F. B. Kercheval, and went out with her on a late trip to Omaha, carrying freight for that place and intermediate points. The whole country was in the throes of a financial panic at that time, due to the deplorable system which permitted the issue of "wild-cat" currency by irresponsible banks. When the Hesperian got beyond St. Joseph, it was found that the merchants had nothing with which to pay the freight charges on their goods except paper money. At some of the good steamboat landings, speculators were found who had come out from the East with a bale of "wild-cat" money and, going into camp, had opened a "bank." Captain Kercheval refused to accept the worthless stuff, and as a consequence the Hesperian returned to St. Louis with her cargo nearly intact. At only two places. Council 25 The Conquest of the Missouri Bluffs, la., and Forest City, Mo., was gold or silver offered in payment of freight charges, and at those places the mer- chants received their goods. When cold weather put an end to navigation on the Mis- souri, it was usual for many of the boats regularly engaged there to enter the St. Louis and New Orleans trade during the winter months. At that season the cold weather of the North and Northwest locks the headwaters of the Missouri and Mississippi in an icy grip and the latter stream falls to a very low stage below St. Louis, compelling many of the deeper draught steamers to lie up and wait for the spring freshets to raise the channel. But to the light-draught Missouri River boats, built for service on waters normally shoal and full of shifting sandbars, the low stage of the Mississippi furnished an opportunity. Most of the regular packets being out of commission, freight rates rose high and the small steamers would wait until they could demand a dollar a barrel for transporting flour to New Orleans and proportionate rates on other merchandise, and then load for the metropolis of the Gulf, certain of making a modest fortune on each trip. During the winter of 1858-1859, the Missouri River boat of which Marsh was then mate, the A. B. Cham- bers No. 2, commanded by Captain George W. Bowman, thus became engaged in the New Orleans trade. Before setting out from St. I^ouis, two Mississippi River pilots were hired to take her down to New Orleans. One of these, James C. Delancey, proved unfortunate, frequently running the boat aground, and his services were dispensed 26 PhotiiKriiph liv S. J. Mori-. Steamer Nellie Peck at the Fort Benton I^evee, 1872 The piles of freight on the bank give some idea of the commercial importance of Fort Benton in its steam- boating days. Steamer Washburn, Loaded witli Sacked Wheat at the J-e\ee, \^a.■^hl)urn North Dakota. lOO-V ^^Mark Twain^^ at the Rudder with at the end of the trip.* But the second pilot of the A, B. Chambers, a smooth-faced young fellow, whose quiet and retiring manner did not prevent his being very popu- lar with all his associates, proved a most excellent navi- gator, knowing his river thoroughly and possessing the judgment to make the best use of his knowledge. This young man was familiarly known as Sam Clemens, who has since become the most famous and beloved of Ameri- can humorists, "Mark Twain." An incident showing his almost instinctive familiarity with the snares of the big river occurred while the A. B. Chambers was making her second trip to New Orleans, and is narrated by Captain Marsh with enjoyment. The weather had been very cold and on the day that the Chambers set out from St. Louis, masses of floating ice filled the channel, rendering progress difficult. The next afternoon, when about 165 miles from St. Louis and two miles below the town of Commerce, Mo., the boat was hugging the shore of Power's Island to avoid the grinding pack of the mid-channel, when she went hard aground on the foot of the island. No efforts availed to get her off and soon the fuel gave out. The cabin was full of passengers and the lower deck laden with live stock, so it was impera- tive that she should be floated as soon as possible. In common with all the boats of her day, the Chambers * Whatever his errors as a pilot on this voyage, however, James De- lancey proved himself a hero a few years later, when, as captain of the Confederate River Defense ram. Colonel Lovell, in the naval battle before Memphis, he fought his vessel until she went down with colors flying, carrying seventy of her eighty-five men to watery graves. 27 The Conquest of the Missouri burned wood in her furnaces. To supply the demands of traffic, hundreds of woodyards and scores of flatboats were scattered along the banks of all navigable streams, but it so happened that no yard was near the point where the Chambers had come to grief. Therefore Captain Bowman instructed the mate to take a crew in the yawl, return to Commerce and float a wood-flat down, Clemens going with him to navigate. To keep out of the ice-filled channel, Clemens crossed to the Illinois shore and then turned upstream through a narrow cut-off between Burnham's Island and the main bank. This cut-off the yawl followed to the head of the island, near the town of Thebes, 111., across the river from and slightly above, Commerce. The river, wide above and below, was here very narrow, flowing swiftly between high banks. The drifting ice frequently jammed in the cut, leaving a space of open water in front, until the vol- ume of cakes piling up behind would break the gorge and the whole mass come sweeping down resistlessly. To cross a small boat through one of those spaces of open water, into which at any moment the grinding cakes might rush, was an exceedingly hazardous undertaking, but there was no other way of reaching Commerce. With anxious eyes the little party in the yawl scanned the menacing waters. When the ice lodged above, no man could tell whether it would remain stationary long enough for them to cross, or break and overwhelm them in mid-channel. At length a favorable opportunity seemed to come and the pilot ordered the men to pull for 28 'Mark Twain" at the Rudder the Missouri shore. They had gone but a few yards when the jam broke and surged down upon them. "Turn back quick, Sam!" shouted Marsh to Clemens. "We'll be crushed." "No," answered the pilot quietly, watching the river and continuing to hold his rudder square. " Go ahead, as fast as you can." Putting every ounce of muscle into their arms the crew rowed on, the ice seeming to open before them, while between them and the shore they had left, it closed in a seething caldron. Almost miraculously they slipped through and reached Commerce in safety, though, but for Clemens, Captain Marsh declares the lives of all would undoubtedly have been lost. The incident occurred many years before "Mark Twain" became world-famous, but he still remembers it well to-day* as one of the exciting episodes of the times when his chief ambition was to be- come an expert steamboat pilot. He and Grant Marsh grew to be fast friends during their association on the A. B. Chambers No. 2, and for a long time after he had left the river and entered upon his literary career, they maintained a more or less regular correspondence. * In response to a letter requesting his recollection of this incident, Mr. Clemens kindly communicated with the author regarding it. His remembrance of it agrees in every particular with that of Captam Marsh, related above. — J. M. H. Z9 CHAPTER V CUPID AT THE " APPLE-BUTTER STIRRING" Down there in the valley, house lights twinkle out. Homeward-wending cattle low, laughing children shout, While those two stand dreaming of anotlier home to be. Close beside the river, slipping swijtly toward the sea. A MONG the shipmates of Grant Marsh during the /-% season of 1860 was a young "striker" engineer* who may be referred to here as Jonathan Poore, though that was not the name by which his friends knew him. He was an industrious lad and allowed nothing to deter him from a diligent application to his work, but when moments of idleness overtook him he could think clearly and converse fluently upon but one subject. This subject was a certain young lady residing in St. Louis, and it was evident from his glowing descriptions of her that he thought her nothing less than the one ideal repre- sentative of her sex. Realizing his condition of mind, his comrades on the boat for a time patiently submitted to his interminable monologues on this favorite topic, but at length the endur- ance of all became exhausted and they turned upon the love-sick swain in open protest. That is, all excepting * An engineer's apprentice, in river parlance. 30 Cupid at the '^Apple-Butter Stirring*' Marsh, who, being perhaps of a more tolerant disposition than the average, still allowed himself to be used as an escape-valve for the young engineer's pent-up emotions. The result of this generosity was that Poore attached him- self closely to his sympathetic listener and became more communicative than ever. Now and then Marsh, to relieve himself, would laughingly express doubt as to the young lady possessing all the perfections attributed to her by her admirer, and at such times Poore would exclaim earnestly: "All right. Grant, believe it or not, but it's so, and I wish some evening when we're in St. Louis you would go up with me to see her and judge for yourself." The family of which the young lady was a member belonged to a colony of Pennsylvanians which had moved to St. Louis a few years before, bringing with them all the manners and customs of their native region. Poore and Marsh were both from the same section, but Marsh had not mingled much with the colonists in St. Louis, who naturally maintained close social intercourse with one another. But at length, late in the autumn, he was pre- vailed upon by Poore to accompany him to his lady's home. The mate's curiosity had at last been aroused and he desired to see the girl who had stirred such a tem- pest of emotion in the bosom of his friend. Poore sent word in advance of their coming, and she prepared to entertain them pleasantly by summoning a few of her friends to an " apple-butter stirring." This was a form of entertainment very popular among the young 31 The Conquest of the Missouri people of Pennsylvania at that time, combining work with pleasure in a manner similar to the "husking bees" and "quilting parties" of other sections. It was, moreover, ^s easily to be arranged in St. Louis as in Pennsylvania. '\. quantity of apples would be prepared beforehand, and vvhen the guests arrived they would find the apple-butter, which had already been cooking for a long time, in a large kettle over the fire, just approaching its final stage of preparation. By that time it was thick and heavy and required frequent stirrings with a large ladle to keep it from burning. Here was where the fun came in, for the ladle was too large, in theory, at least, to be handled by one person, and it was customary for the girls and boys in pairs to take turns in stirring. The lady always had the choice of a partner to assist her when her turn came, and whichever swain she selected was regarded by the others as her favorite "beau," he and she both being subjected to all the good-natured banter that the wits of the assem- blage could devise. When the work was completed, the guests partook of as much of the fresh apple-butter as they cared for, while the remainder went to replenish the home larder of the hostess. On the evening set for the entertainment in their honor, the young steamboat men carefully arrayed themselves in their best apparel and set forth to the lady's home, Jona- than in an ecstacy of anticipation, Grant possessed merely by a mild curiosity. They found the other guests already gathered, but the hostess met them at the door with a gra- cious welcome, and the engineer, after partially recovering 32 Cupid at the ** Apple-Butter Stirring^* his equilibrium, introduced his companion. But upon looking into the smiling face before him, the lord of the lower deck found himself all at once bereft of that easy flow of language which he commanded when addressing the roustabouts. A wave of admiration and embarrass- ment swept over him which left him almost speechless, and as he took his seat among the others and furtively watched his hostess chatting with Poore, he could only repeat to himself in a helpless way: "Well, Jonathan certainly has good taste." Never before had the thought of marriage entered his mind, but now there was borne in upon him suddenly a conviction that he needed a wife more than anything else on earth. At length the time came for stirring and Poore proudly walked up to the kettle with his hostess. As he watched them talking and laughing confidentially, their hands very close together on the big ladle. Grant could bear the sight no longer. Mustering up his courage with a more des- perate effort than he ever found necessary in later years when facing the bullets of Indians, he stepped to her side and while Jonathan frowned at him across the kettle, tremblingly whispered in her ear: "Let's you and I stir this apple-butter next time." Instantly she turned and looked searchingly into his eyes. And then, with a dazzling smile, she said simply: "All right." It did not seem, on the surface, a very portentous ex- change of words, but it was one of those moments which 33 The Conquest of the Missouri come in life when words count for little and unspoken thoughts for much. At all events, it marked the end to the hopes of poor Jonathan, for a few months later Grant moved into a cozy little home of his own, a married man. And the wife who accompanied him there and who for forty-six long years was to walk at his side, faithfully and lovingly sharing his joys and sorrows, his triumphs and disappointments, was the girl he had met and won at an old-fashioned, Pennsylvania "apple-butter stirring." 34 CHAPTER VI THE BATTLE MORN OF SHILOH Rushing the foe in fury ere yet his ranks can form. Gulfing his scattered field-guns in the plunging shrapnel's storm. Charging the tumbled earthworks like bolt from cross-bow set. Clinching the bloody triumph with the savage bayonet. IN the spring following Grant Marsh's marriage, the terrible tragedy of the Civil War burst upon the country. For many years the political controversies between North and South had been growing more bitter until a resort to arms became inevitable. The men who made their living on the rivers of the West found them- selves in a position much resembling that of the people of the border States. The latter were torn by conflicting emotions of loyalty to the Union and love for the ideals and institutions of the South, and so it was with the steamboat men. Their vocation called them to all the regions reached by the Mississippi, from St. Paul to New Orleans. Among their friends and business associates most of them numbered as many cotton and tobacco plant- ers of Tennessee or Louisiana as they did lumbermen and farmers of Wisconsin or Illinois. On the outbreak of hostilities it was not surprising, therefore, that as many steamboat men cast in their lot with the young Confed- eracy as remained true to the Union. 35 The Conquest of the Missouri It was with deep regret that a man so given to warm attachments as Grant Marsh saw many of his dearest friends thus turn their faces from the old flag and become its enemies. But despite his sorrow that they should go, his own loyalty to the Government did not for a moment waver. Though he dreaded the effects of the fratricidal war on those of the South who were dear to him, he held himself ready to serve the Union whenever opportunity should arise. The call did not come at once, but in the early spring of 1862 General Grant began preparations for moving his army from Fort Donelson, Tenn., which he had recently captured, southward to Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River, in an offensive campaign against General Beauregard's army at Corinth, Miss. For the transportation of Grant's forces, an immense flotilla of steamboats was gathered at St. Louis. The fleet consisted of eighty-two steamers, among them being the John J. Roe, a St. Louis and New Orleans packet, one of the largest on the river, of which Grant Marsh was mate. Before leaving St. Louis the Roe was loaded with army supplies, and on arriving at Fort Donelson she took on board the 8th Missouri Infantry, Colonel Morgan L. Smith, and the 11th Indiana Infantry, Colonel G. F. McGinnis. Both of these regiments, which had done heroic service in the fighting about Donelson, belonged to the division of Major-General Lew Wallace, who accom- panied them up the river on the Roe. When the two regi- ments came aboard, they filled the vessel so completely that it became necessary for Captain Simmons, the com- 36 The Battle Morn of Shiloh missary officer in charge of the suppHes brought from St. Louis, to remove his goods to the hold, that the troops might have room. The shifting of cargo was quickly ac- complished, and with General Wallace in military com- mand, the steamer proceeded on her way up the Tennessee. The John J. Roe was an old boat and had long borne the reputation of being a slow one. Mark Twain, who saw service on her before the outbreak of the war, has made some characteristically witty observations in his "Life on the Mississippi" concerning the vessel's lack of speed. He says: "For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in. But, of course, this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documents for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid. This boat, the John J. Roe, was so slow that when she finally sank in Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, anjTvay. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days. But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a place in a pretty lively way." It is evident from the above that the crew and the numerous passengers of the John J. Roe had plenty of time for enjoying the scenery while sailing up the Ten- nessee from Fort Donelson. But the voyage was not 37 The Conquest of the Missouri devoid of redeeming features. The 8th Missouri was composed almost entirely of St. Louis steamboat men, and its officers were in great part gentlemen who had been passenger agents of some of the principal packet lines doing business there before the war. Among these were Colonel Smith, his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Giles A. Smith, and Major John McDonald. In the organization, therefore, Mate Marsh found many old friends whose presence served to make the journey a pleasant one. At Crump's Landing, a point about four miles below Pitts- burg, General Wallace debarked with his troops. The General took up his headquarters on the stern-wheel packet Jesse K. Bell, which was lying there at the bank. A number of other regiments of his division had already arrived and were encamping, and the scene about the land- ing as the Roe came in was one of lively martial interest. After clearing her crowded decks she went on to Pittsburg Landing, near which the greater part of Grant's forces were in position, and Captain Baxter, the commissary officer having in charge all the water transportation of the army, assumed control of the boat and moved his office and clerks on board. It was now late in March. For several days life ran smoothly on the many steamers gathered there along the shores of the Tennessee, and the dangers of battle seemed far away. Though Beauregard and Albert Sidney John- ston were concentrating their forces at Corinth, eighteen miles distant, preparatory to their momentous advance upon Shiloh Church and Pittsburg, inside the Union 38 The Battle Morn of Shiloh lines nothing was known of their movements and appar- ently no preparations were being made for receiving them. At length one day there came up from Cincinnati to join the fleet the side-wheel steamer Madison, having in tow a large model barge loaded with new army wagons. The Madison made her charge fast to the bank at Savannah, a small town seven miles below Pittsburg and on the eastern side of the river, where the main commissary depot of the Army of the Tennessee was located. Here one night the water fell and left the barge high and dry on the shore. She was a valuable craft and Captain Baxter instructed Mate Marsh and Carpenter Frank Borden, of the John J. Roe, to go down and work her off the bank, detailing a detachment of the 14th Wisconsin Infantry under Lieu- tenant Fox to assist them. The release of the barge proved a rather difficult task, and a number of days were consumed in the work. Mean- while the party thus engaged had frequent opportunity for seeing General Grant, the quiet, self-possessed man who was in chief command of the army, and whose name was already famous throughout the country by reason of his brilliant victory at Fort Donelson. The General's headquarters were in the Cherry mansion, a large brick house in Savannah standing within sight of the stranded barge, and he often appeared on the river bank, going to or returning from the private boat on which he made his daily visits to the army at Pittsburg. This boat was a small, side-wheel, Ohio River packet named the Tigress, and was commanded by Captain Perkins. Before the war 39 The Conquest of the Missouri she had been accustomed to go to the lower Mississippi during the winter months and there engage in the cotton trade, and she was regarded as a speedy boat for her class. On the evening of Saturday, the 5th day of April, the work of restoring the barge to the water had been nearly completed, and Mate Marsh and his assistants retired that night expecting to complete their labors next day. No news had^ come of a disturbing nature and all was quiet along the wide front of the army. But when they awoke at dawn it was to hear the morning air throbbing with sounds which drove all thought of the barge from their minds. It was the roar of artillery beating down from Pittsburg Landing, seven miles away, while in the clus- tered infantry camps about Savannah arose a turmoil of excited preparation. Marsh and Borden threw on their clothes and ran to the river bank, where in the first dim flush of dawn the Tigress, with steam up, lay fretting at the landing. Just as they arrived. General Grant and his staff and orderlies, all mounted, came clattering down the bank and rode aboard. The two steamboat men, con- sidering, simply and loyally, that at such a time their place was with the John J. Roe, scrambled aboard also, and in a moment the lines were cast oflF, and the Tigress, trembling in every timber, was rushing away up the river. General Grant had dismounted from his big buckskin horse and seated himself in a chair on the boiler deck near the front stairs. Here, surrounded by his staff, he calmly listened to the roar of battle. The boat had proceeded but a mile or two when she met the steamer John Warner 40 The Battle Morn of Shiloh racing downstream. The Warner hailed, and on both boats slowing down, a lieutenant hurried on board the Tigress, bearing a dispatch from General Stephen A. Hurlbut to General Grant. Hurlbut was in command of one of the five hard-pressed divisions now hotly engaged near Shiloh Church with Hardee's and Bragg 's advance. Marsh was standing near Grant when the staff-officer handed the latter his dispatch and verbally reported that the enemy were massed in great numbers all along the front and were driving the army back on the river. With perfect composure Grant read Hurlbut 's message and listened to the remarks of the bearer. He did not move from his chair, and his only comment was to the effect that when he arrived he would surround the enemy. Leaving the Warner behind, the Tigress resumed her headlong course, but at Crump's Landing, in obedience to an order from the General, she again slowed down and went to the bank alongside the Jesse K. Bell, where Grant and Wallace, standing on their respective boats, held a short conversation. Wallace inquired what Grant's or- ders were for him. The Commander replied that he should remain at Crump's, holding his division ready to march, and would receive his orders from the field. Mate Marsh did not note the exact hour at which this brief exchange of words occurred, but Grant has stated it at about eight o'clock A. M., while Wallace placed it at about nine. The events following it gave rise to one of the most celebrated controversies of the war, for when Wallace did receive his orders he marched for the front by 41 The Co7iquest of the Missouri the wrong road, had to be recalled and did not arrive on the field in time for his division to be of any service in the first day's fighting. Grant blamed him for mistaking his road, while Wallace contended that he took the only road he had been expected to take and the disputed point was not settled between the two noted soldiers for many years.* The delay was but for a moment or two, and the Tigress then backed out into the stream and did not again halt until Pittsburg Landing was reached. Here General Grant and his party hurriedly mounted and took their departure. It was the last time that Grant Marsh ever saw the dis- tinguished commander, and the scene was indelibly im- pressed upon his memory as the General rode away up the smoke-shrouded hill into the turmoil of battle to rescue his disorganized army from impending destruction. About the landing everything was in an uproar as the Tigress came in. The fight seemed to be raging just beyond the brow of the hill, and shells were bursting over the woods and river. A little way upstream lay the wooden gunboats Lexington and Tyler, impatiently waiting an opportunity to open fire with their deadly 64-pounders which later in the day did so much to repulse the last des- perate assaults of the Confederate columns. The river bank was crowded with a confusion of wounded soldiers, stragglers and commissary guards, staff-ofiicers and steam- boat men, for this was the rear of the army, the base of ammunition supply, and the furthest point to which the * For a more extended discussion of the matter, by General Grant and others, see Vol. I, " Battles and Leaders of the Civil War." 42 The Battle Morn of Shiloh waves of panic could roll, here finding a barrier which proved insurmountable. On the morning of April 6th, the Army of the Tennessee was truly in a perilous position, with an exultant enemy pounding along its front, and the river in its rear. But help was near at hand. The ad- vance of General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio, marching from Nashville, had already reached Savannah the day before, and if these fresh troops could be brought upon the field in time, defeat might yet be turned to victory. Marsh and Borden found the John J. Roe lying at the landing with steam up, and immediately after their arrival she received orders to go up to Savannah after troops. All that long, bloody Sunday, while the waves of battle surged to and fro through the scrub-oak thickets about Shilph, she continued this work, making several round trips between Savannah and Pittsburg. After one of these trips, and while she was debarking a load of troops at Pittsburg, the steamer Fort Wayne came in to the landing near her, bringing a cargo of pontoon boats from Cincinnati. At the moment of her arrival, Mate Marsh noticed an ofiicer of General Buell's army standing on the bank, whose nerve had been badly shaken by the events of the day. This officer no sooner caught sight of the Fort Wayne than he shouted excitedly to her commander: "For God's sake. Captain, land and get those pontoons in position so that the army can cross the river!" Such an action at that critical time would have been a disastrous blunder, but it fortunately happened that General Rawlins, of Grant's staff, was also on the bank, directing the 43 The Conquest of the Missouri arriving troops to their positions on the field. He heard the appeal of the frightened officer of Buell's command, and shaking his finger at the captain of the Fort Wayne, cried : " You take your boat away from the landing and keep her away or I will burn her up. Do you understand?" It was obvious that Rawlins was by no means whipped, and his peremptory order was promptly obeyed. He was at the landing through most of that eventful day, and did much to maintain order there. Another instance of his cool courage was witnessed by Mate Marsh a few moments after the Fort Wayne, with her undesirable cargo, had retired from the bank. There was lying at the landing a small stern-wheel boat named the Rocket, Captain John Wolf, having in tow two barges loaded with ammunition. A line of army wagons was engaged in hauling these from the river up to the battle field. Presently a shell swooped down and burst close to one of the barges. This was too much for Captain Wolf. He yelled to his mate to cut the lines and commenced backing the Rocket out. General Rawlins saw her going and, hurrying over, shouted to the captain to come back or he would shoot every man on the boat. The Rocket came back very expeditiously, and made no further attempt to run away. Another man who aroused the lively admiration of Grant Marsh on that day was a young private on board the Roe named E. P. Wilcox, one of Captain Baxter's commissary clerks. Once during the afternoon, as the Roe lay at Pittsburg, young Wilcox was standing on the bank with a manifest in hand, checking a pile of com- 44 The Battle Morn of Shiloh missary goods. While thus engaged, a shell came down and decapitated a cavalryman within a few feet of him. Wilcox scarcely even glanced up, but, undisturbed, con- tinued his work as if the perils of battle were a thousand miles away. After the fight, Marsh did not see the plucky private again during the war. But one day nearly ten years later, his Missouri River packet steamed up to the landing at Sioux City, Iowa, and the captain saw, stand- ing on the levee, a man, at sight of whose face there swept over him in a rush of recollection all the fierce excitement of that long-past battle Sunday at Shiloh. He hastened to the bank and grasped the hand of Wilcox. The latter was surprised at the warmth of his greeting, for he did not at first recognize the captain, but his memory was soon refreshed, and they enjoyed a long talk over old times. When the captain's boat pulled out up river, Wilcox was aboard and went with her to Yankton, Dakota, then Marsh's home. There he concluded to establish himself, and there to-day he still resides, one of the town's most respected citizens. By Sunday evening a large number of troops had arrived on the river bank opposite Pittsburg, and all that night and next morning the John J. Roe and her consorts spent in ferrying the divisions of Nelson and Crittenden to the west shore. Throughout the night a rain was falling so heavily as to amount almost to a cloudburst, adding much to the difficulty of the movement, and the river rose eight feet before dawn. Nevertheless, the work went on with- out interruption, on one trip the capacious Roe carrying 45 The Conquest of the Missouri over an entire brigade at a single crossing. General Thomas L. Crittenden himself went on this trip. It was the first time Marsh had ever seen the well-known com- mander, but they were destined to come into frequent intercourse in after years on the upper Missouri, where Crittenden, as colonel of the 17th United States Infantry, was for a long time stationed during the Indian wars. His only son. Lieutenant J. J. Crittenden, fell with Cus- ter's ill-fated command at the Little Big Horn, where Captain Marsh also rendered such conspicuous service. With the superiority of numbers established by Buell's providential arrival. Grant was able to assume the offen- sive on Monday, April 7th, and speedily drove the Con- federates from the field. The steamboats continued bringing up additional reenforcements during most of the day, the Roe taking, along with others, from Savannah to Pittsburg, Colonel Hassendeubel's famous 17th Mis- souri Infantry, one of the many regiments raised during the war from among the loyal Germans of St. Louis. By afternoon the Confederate forces had all withdrawn in the direction of Corinth, and the great battle was over. Early next morning Mate Marsh and some of his ship- mates set out through the woods to find the 8th Missouri, and learn how their friends in that regiment had fared. They had walked a mile or more from the river, finding the way strewn with many dead and wounded men to remind them of the dreadful struggle just over, when to their consternation a volley of musketry suddenly crashed out close at hand. The officers of the regiment through 46 The Battle Morn of Shiloh whose bivouac they were passing, sprang to their feet, shouting to their men; "Faliin, boys! Fall in!" For a few moments, while the troops were forming, eon- fusion reigned, for every one believed the enemy had returned to the attack. Then word was passed that the volley had been fired by an adjacent command merely to empty their muskets of wet cartridges, and amid a chorus of relieved laughter and jokes, the battle-line dissolved again. That night the John J. Roe started down river with 600 wounded men on board, principally Indianians, who were conveyed to Evansville. The remainder, being Missouri troops, were taken on to St. Louis. The next summer Grant Marsh participated in some of the operations of the army in Arkansas, and for a time his boat again had on board the 17th Missouri, whose gallant commander. Colonel Hassendeubel, was mortally wounded a few months later before Vicksburg. Marsh's vessel was pres- ent at the mouth of the Yazoo River when, on July 1st, 1862, the Gulf Squadron under Flag-Officer David G. Farragut, and the Mississippi Flotilla commanded by Flag-Officer Charles H. Davis, were united there by the action of the Gulf Squadron in running the Vicksburg batteries. But he was soon ordered North, and missed by a few days the spectacular engagement which occurred when the Confederate ram Arkansas, defiantly steamed out of the Yazoo and, passing through the entire Union fleet at anchor, made her way safely to Vicksburg. 47 CHAPTER VII BARBARISM AT BAY The whoop of the hostile at midnighi. The glare of tJie flaming log shack, A beacon of hate and destruction As we flee, with the foe on our track. GRANT MARSH'S interesting experiences in the Civil War were now over, but the spring of 1864 found him serving his country quite as effectively in a territory far removed from the battle grounds of Dixie, for it was then that he first ascended to the regions of the upper Missouri, where he was to remain for so long and be identified with so many stirring and momentous events. In the year 1864 the Government was engaged in prose- cuting a vigorous campaign against the hostile Indian tribes of the Northwest who, since the Minnesota massa- cres of 1862, had united in a desperate effort to prevent the people of the United States from encroaching further upon their hunting grounds. Up to the commencement of the gold rush to California in 1849, both the Comanche and Arapahoe Indians of the South and the numerous tribes comprised in the great Sioux Nation of the North, had remained practically at peace with the whites, for the reason that they were left in undisturbed possession of their vast domains, stretching from the Mississippi and 48 Barbarism at Bay the western borders of Missouri on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west, and from the British border to the Rio Grande, north and south. Previous to that time these Indians of the plains had maintained no intercourse with the white race save along the frontiers of settlement and with those few and scattering adventurers who came among them as peaceful and conciliatory traders and trap- pers. But when the flood of emigration to California set in, cutting its resistless way up the valley of the Platte and across what is now Wyoming, through the very heart of their ancestral empire, it was like the thrust of a lance into their vitals, and they commenced relentless warfare upon the emigrants. Their conduct caused the Government to exert its power, and military posts were established along the line of travel. At Fort Laramie, in 1851, a treaty was made with most of the principal tribes which was so skilfully drawn that for a few years the animosity of the Indians was lulled and they permitted the emigrant trains to pass through their territory with comparatively little inter- ference. Then a trifling incident led to the massacre of Lieutenant Grattan and his detachment near Fort Lara- mie, in 1854, and the speedy punishment of the murderers by General Harney, who inflicted a crushing defeat upon them at Ash Hollow, Nebraska, in the following year. After the battle, General Harney moved with his troops to Fort Pierre, on the Missouri River, a fur trading post which the Government had recently purchased from the American Fur Company. Here he spent the winter of 49 The Conquest of the Missouri 1855-56, pacifying and making new treaties with the dis- turbed tribes, and the next spring moved 194 miles down the river and estabhshed Fort Randall, which continued for some time to be occupied as the most advanced mili- tary post of the Missouri Valley. Faith in General Harney's treaties and the presence of the troops at Fort Randall combined for several years to keep the Sioux on their good behavior. But in 1862 sev- eral causes operated to produce an outbreak which in extent and ferocity exceeded anything in the history of Indian warfare. The first and most potent cause was the growing dissatisfaction of the Indians with the manner in which their treaty annuities were distributed. These con- sisted of goods, such as clothing and food, a certain quan- tity of which were to be distributed to them annually for a stated number of years as payment for the great tracts of land which from time to time they had ceded to the Government. The distribution of the annuity goods was put in the charge of agents who, in many instances, shame- fully abused their trust. The Indians, seldom receiving more than a fraction of the supplies to which by treaty they were justly entitled, year by year b(^came more in- censed and more distrustful of the Government, until a time came when they waited only a favorable opportunity for venting their anger in open hostility. With the commencement of the Civil War in the United States the opportunity seemed to .arise. Stories of the imminent overthrow of the Government and of the weak- ness of frontier settlements due to the dispatch of volun- 50 Barbarism at Bay teers to the south, were industriously circulated among the Indians by interested parties, some, perhaps, from the Southern Confederacy, many, certainly, from the British settlements and trading posts in the valley of the Red River of the North. The Indians of the Minnesota Valley, after much hesitation, finally took the warpath in August, 1862, and immediately all the tribes of Minnesota and Dakota Territory, with a few exceptions, blazed forth into fierce revolt. A thousand settlers, men, women, and children, were massacred in Minnesota before the savages were checked. They were then driven north to the vicinity of Devil's Lake by General H, H. Sibley, and would doubtless have been pursued even farther had not the advent of winter put an end to military operations for that year. During the cold season the Indians prepared for the next summer by recruiting and solidifying their forces, and when spring opened they presented a strong and united opposition to the columns sent against them. From the valley of the Minnesota General Sibley again moved toward Devil's Lake and the upper Dakota River, with the purpose of driving them westward to the Missouri, while General Alfred Sully with another force ascended the latter stream to intercept their retreat. Sibley defeated them in three successive engagements between the Dakota and the Missouri, but owing to the fact that low water detained the steamboats on which his supplies were em- barked. Sully was unable to accomplish his part of the plan. The Indians made good their retreat to the west 51 The Conquest of the Missouri bank of the Missouri, and it was a month later before Sully reached their crossing place. Meantime the Min- nesota expedition had begun retiring toward its starting point, and the Indians, still unbroken in spirit, had re- crossed the Missouri and followed it. Sully, ascertaining their movements, pursued them in turn, defeating them in a pitched battle at Whitestone Hill, Dakota, though he and Sibley were unable to make such dispositions as to catch and crush their elusive enemy. Again the approach of cold weather compelled the abandonment of field operations, and General Sully moved down the Missouri to a point on the east bank some four miles below the present city of Pierre, South Dakota, where he established Fort Sully and maintained a garrison through the winter. Fort Randall thus ceased to be the most advanced post of the valley. 52 CHAPTER VIII WITH SULLY INTO THE SIOUX LANDS We are waging a war for a new land. As the East wages war for the old. That the mountains and plains of the red man's domains May be brought to Cdumbi