A little while before we went into camp at Center we made a halt to let the horses graze upon the luxurious grass down in the valley. The wagons were parked and the horses unsaddled and picketed. The Captain and I went out into the road to await the coming of a train which was ahead of us. Suddenly we heard a lot of shooting, and the Captain and I immediately with great anxiety directed our steps in that direction. It seems that a buffalo had been discovered down near the river-bank, and, endeavoring to escape, had plunged into the water and quicksands, and the boys had rallied around it and killed it. It was pulled out onto the bank and skinned and put into our wagon, and that night we camped at the place called Center, where there were a couple of houses, and the whole company sat up until late at night frying and eating buffalo-meat. We divided some of the meat with a party of "pilgrims" as they were called, who overtook us going west. Everybody traveling west in those days was called a "pilgrim." The next day, October 4th, we marched, crossed the river to the south side, and went into Fort Kearney, where we arrived shortly after noontime.
Chapter IV.
Fort Kearney – Dobytown – Shooting Telegraph Poles – Quartermaster Stores – Commissary Stores – Post Buildings – The Chimney Register – Post Garden – The Buffer Strip – Greyhounds – To Start a Frontier Post – Supplies – The Buffalo Hunt – The Poker Game – The Start
FORT KEARNEY at that time was an old frontier post. It was said to have been established in 1848. It was situated south of the river, and somewhat east from the crossing of the Platte, so that the trains going west, and crossing the river, would not come past the post, but would cross above and west of it. There was a tough collection of frontier habitations just on the west edge of the reservation; this place, called Dobytown, was two miles west of the Fort. All of the buildings, so far, west of Columbus, had been covered with clay roofs. We first noticed them at Columbus. The roofs were made of poles, in the interstices of which willow brush had been placed, over these swale-grass from the bed of the river, and on top of it all from six to ten inches of hard clay dug out from the lower portion of some of the gullies. This clay had been tamped and pounded down, forming a complete shelter from rain and cold. It was almost like cement. In fact, there was nothing in the country to make any other kind of a roof out of. There were no shingle machines, or wood from which shingles could be made. Dobytown was a collection of adobe buildings of Mexican style, containing the toughest inhabitants of the country, male and female.
Fort Kearney was at the junction of the two regular roads, one coming west from Omaha, and the other up to the Platte from Fort Leavenworth, the trail being augmented by roads from Weston and St. Jo. These all united at Dobytown and went together in one track west. The volume of travel was much the larger on the southern prong, and these two great currents of overland commerce meeting at Dobytown fixed the spot there where the toughs of the country met and had their frolics. Large quantities of the meanest whisky on earth were consumed here, but, strange as it may appear, there were also quantities of champagne sold and drunk here. Persons suddenly enriched, coming from the west and the mines, met here with old chums and cronies and with them drank champagne; or met old enemies, and with them fought a duel to the death. The cemetery was larger than the town. Three of the men of my company disappeared immediately upon our arrival, and it was suggested that I would find them in Dobytown. The next morning a man who lived in Dobytown being down at the Fort, offered to go up with me and go around, as he was acquainted with the places, and help me find the men. There was a row of telegraph poles between the Fort and Dobytown, and after we had started, this new acquaintance of mine, who had on two Colt's pistols, told me he could ride the line as fast as his horse would run, and put six bullets out of each revolver into successive telegraph poles; that is to say, he could hit a telegraph pole with every shot. Being somewhat experienced myself from a couple of years' service in the cavalry, I did not think he could do it, but I rode along with him, and he did it with the missing of only one telegraph pole in twelve shots. The road along was about eighteen feet from the poles. He afterwards told me he had practiced on it hundreds of times. I often practiced on it myself after that, but never could quite attain so good an average. His name was Talbot.
There was at Fort Kearney a vast warehouse in which supplies for the west were stored in great quantities. In this big warehouse were rations enough for an army. And this at that time was needed, because under the law as it then stood, the commissary had the right to sell provisions to indigent and hungry persons who made a requisition approved by the Post Commander, and these sales were made at the Government cost price. There were a great many people who through accidents and improvidence ran out of provisions in the wild barren country, and there was a constant sale by the post commissary. Post commanders were very particular in these matters, and quite frugal in their way of giving orders, yet nevertheless in the aggregate the sales were large, and it was necessary that large storehouses of provisions should be kept, so that Fort Kearney and other frontier posts west of it could be supplied in cases of emergency. In addition to that, a post commander always had the right to gratuitously feed the Indians, and the Indians were very prone to come in and see, in their way of expressing it, "What the white brother would do for them." These stores were all rated at cost according to a schedule prepared by the assistant quarter-master-general at Leavenworth. When we went there this great warehouse was almost full. And in the warehouse there was a large room almost as big as a small house, which was built up with heavy planks. The commissary unlocked it one day to show me, and there he had racks in which barrel upon barrel of liquor was stored. He said that there had been liquor piled in there since 1849, and that owing to the difficulties and troubles which ensued from its sale and use, it was carefully handled and only used for issue to fatigue parties. He then said, "The report is that you are going west to build a fort, and if so I will let you have a barrel, at cost price." He then kicked the head of a barrel in one of the lower racks, and said: "Here is a barrel that has been here since 1849, as you see by that mark. That is rye whisky, invoiced at twenty-six cents a gallon." It was fully fifteen years old. He said, "There must have been considerable evaporated out of it, so you will have to buy it at what its marked capacity is." Thereupon I told him to save it for me in case the time came. There was also a large quartermaster depot for everything in the shape of necessary tools, and frontier utensils. There were axes, whip-saws, anvils, blacksmith and carpenter tools, shovels, spades, plows, and almost everything that would be needed at a frontier post.
The post itself was a little old rusty frontier cantonment. The buildings were principally made out of native lumber, hauled in from the East. The post had run down in style and appearance since the regulars left it. The fuel was cottonwood cordwood, cut down on the island of the Platte. The parade-ground was not very large, and had around it a few straggling trees that had evidently been set out in large numbers when the post had been made; a few had survived, and they showed the effect of the barrenness and aridity of the climate. They looked tough. On the south side of the square was the largest building, and on the second floor of it was a large room which seemed as if it had at one time been used as a sort of officers' club. There was a large brick fireplace, and above it the masonry of the chimney had been plastered with a hard, smooth finish. Upon this white surface on the breast of the chimney were written a large number of names. It looked as if it had been a sort of register of all the officers who from first to last had ever visited the post. Each one had taken a little space and written his name. And it was one of the most interesting experiences of my stay there that I put in the afternoon reading the names of Captain So-and-so, Lieutenant So-and-so, and Major So-and-so, who since that time had become well-known celebrities in the military service, North or South, in the civil war then pending. It seems as if about all the officers then being distinguished in the war from the regular army, had at one time registered their names upon that chimney-front. Among them was Lieut. R. E. Lee. I will speak more particularly of Fort Kearney further on.