Bierce continued to work as a treasury agent throughout the spring and summer of 1865. His duties were not arduous and he was seeing new scenes and experiencing new adventures daily. The monotony of the work was broken by frequent trips to New Orleans. The old St. Charles Hotel was a special delight; it was his first introduction to the grand manner of living. Even if New Orleans suffered from post-war depression it yet had certain charms which one cannot associate with Elkhart, Indiana. It was not the New Orleans that Walt Whitman visited in 1848, but the outline of its loveliness still lingered about the town. To the young treasury agent it was probably as exotic as Tahiti.
In the fall of 1865, while he was in New Orleans on a holiday, he suddenly decided to take a boat to Colon, or Aspinwall, as it was then called. The trip was a vital experience; he saw such scenes as his imagination had never conceived. His interest was aroused, and, with the instinct of an artist, he began to draw sketches and make notes. In the back of his Civil War notebook are a few pages of notes about this expedition, into which he crowded his impressions. The notes are written in a legible script but reveal a meager education. Because it is perhaps the earliest specimen of his style, it will be quoted in full:
“After witnessing some of the phenomena of a tropic sea, we arrived at Aspinwall on the 10th day of September at daylight and found ourselves at once in the heart of the tropics. The first object that attracted my attention after going ashore was a groop of Cocoa Palms with the nutes thick upon them. The next thing that impressed me was the free and easy impudence of the native black boys asking to carry my luggage. I noticed the gardian of the Washington full of roses and brillant blossoms. Coming out of the companies grounds I could glance down the main street of the town. It was filled with a throng of natives, mostly women, peddling fruits and confctionory. I walked back and forward through the crowd to enjoy the strange sights and sounds. Buy oranges calls a tall tawny mulatto girl, ‘good lemoneed honey,’ cries another. Not satisfied with what I saw on the main street, I went round to explore the back part of the town. Aspinwall is built on a coral reef. Hollows in all directions form malarious swamps. Filith universal the rude cleanliness in the dresses of the woman formed a pleasing contrast. The main part of the town is buildt of slovenly wooden houses back of those are Palm hutts. Some pleasant houses are on the esplanade. Palm trees of different kinds I found growing all through the town, unknown plants on every side. The throngs of great black buzzards sitting on every roof and tree, and opping fearlessly about the offal strewn streets was in keeping with the general appearance. The people cut beaf into long stripes and hang it on racks in the sun to dry. One of these racks I noticed the buzzards were watching suddenly a daring old fellow hopped towards it; flapping up amongst the long tempting slices commenced a ravenous attack; at this a half nude old woman rushed out upon him with cries and after repeatedly walloping him over the head with a towl succeeded in dring him off.
They have a respectable episcopal Church here. The principal fruit vended in the street were oranges from Jamaica, large and fresh Lemons, Limes, Alagator Pairs, Pomagranits, Mauva Peirs, Mangos, Cocoa Nuts, Pineapples, Agauvas. I procured an indifferent meal at the Howard House for one Dollar in silver. The train started at 12:30. We went dashing along through the midst of tropical swamps. Tropical in earnest. Scarcely a single plant or three had I seen before. And every thing growing so luxurious and on so jigantic a scale. From Aspinwall the first 10 or 11 miles of road is mostly through swamps. Near Panama Hills and Mountains predomenate.
All along the R R the ground is covered with the sensitive plants, prospate, prickley, compound leaved, and very sensitive. Cane grew in the swamps, the same we have in the South, only it was 80 or 100 feet in length and from 4 to 6 inches in diamiter. Palmettos grow but not plenty. Four different kinds of Palms I noticed. Besides the broad fruit tree with fruit well matured, I plucked some of the fruit and punctured it, a milky sap jeted out, which rapidly thickened like starch, tasted like sage. The stevenst — I saw many parots and one ring-tailed monkey.
Panama is a quaint old town almost crowded into the sea. By the Mountains, sentinells were stationed at each car as we halted. They were slovenly negroes and looked quite unservisable. The Bay of Panama is full of Islands — is very shole so that Steamers have to lie out miles. Passengers are taken out in a kind of steamferry. The bay is full of large fish, sharks, etc., that dashing about make a beautiful display of its phosphoresence.”
If Aspinwall gave Bierce fresh images and new interests, an even more important adventure awaited him on his return to New Orleans. There he found a letter from his old commander, W. B. Hazen, offering him the post of engineering attaché to an expedition of exploration, survey and inspection that the General was to conduct through the Indian Territory. The government had directed General Hazen to map the Indian region, and to inspect the fortresses that gave protection to settlers and emigrants. Bierce was tired of his work as treasury agent and he welcomed the chance to see new lands and to seek even more romantic adventures. He was the more eager to join the expedition, as Hazen suggested that he might obtain a commission, perhaps a captaincy, in the regular army. Without waiting for the commission to be issued, and, apparently without returning to Indiana, he left to meet Hazen in Nebraska where the little party was assembling. This is borne out by the circumstances. His commission, a second lieutenancy in the Fifth U. S. Infantry, was actually issued. I. C. Kelton, Assistant Adjutant General, wired to Bierce, care of Lafayette Burr, former adjutant to the Ninth Indiana, offering the commission. But the wire was returned to Washington by Burr; apparently Bierce was not in Indiana. It was then sent to Hazen in Nebraska, but by that time the expedition was already on its way west. It did not catch up with Bierce until the spring of 1867 in San Francisco. From these circumstances it is obvious that his family in Indiana did not know his whereabouts, or at least that they did not know his exact address. How Bierce could have been a free-lance writer for the newspapers in Indiana after the war, as Dr. Danziger suggests, is a rather difficult problem to solve.
In fact, Bierce’s attitude towards his family and towards his early life is shown by the brusque and peremptory manner in which he dropped all former associations and jumped at the chance to go west. There was no reason why he should return to Indiana. “I was one of those poor devils born to work as a peasant in the fields, but I found no difficulty in getting out,” he once remarked. His home life was never congenial. His brother, Albert, was the only agreeable companion of all his innumerable brothers and sisters. One sister early evinced symptoms of the missionary impulse and Bierce knew that it was time to leave before shame took the place of affection. Moreover, Indiana meant a flat country, literally and figuratively, and such an inflated experience was unthinkable. After the glamour of the war, culminating in the starry honor of Brevet Major, and after the levees of New Orleans at dusk, he could never be content with swamps and corn fields and barnyards. The war saved Bierce from Indiana and turned his face westward. He did not follow his brother Albert to the coast, as has so often been stated. Upon receiving his discharge, Albert returned to Indiana and married. He did not arrive in San Francisco until Christmas Day, 1869. approximately three years after Ambrose reached the coast.
When Bierce joined Hazen, the little Nebraska village was dotted with the white canvassed emigrant wagons leaving for the West. The days of’49 were over, and the real westward movement was now in full swing after the interruption caused by the war. The number of stray dogs, herds of cattle, and mule-teams, indicated that the great trek was in progress. Through the unmarked streets of this outpost on the fringe of civilization, General Hazen rode at the head of his expedition. They were soon lost in a brown immensity of earth. The trip that followed was a great liberating force in Bierce’s life. The scenes were new, fresh and unknown. The strange atmosphere jolted him out of his habit of complacency and opened new vistas. The trip gave him a chance to recover his health, too, for he suffered from the disease o
f asthma which he had inherited from his mother. It had not bothered him much during the war, but it had sorely harassed him in the South. No sooner had the expedition started west than he began to feel better with every change in climate.
The expedition was really a camping trip. There were few duties to perform. Bierce made topographical maps of much of the territory through which the party passed, and kept them in a note-book. The first maps were drawn in the Dakotas where the party journeyed to inspect a few forts. Bierce was particularly impressed with the Black Hills country and noted its topography with care. He was interested, too, in the rumors of gold in the hills, but the territory was not then open for settlement. Years later he was to make good use of this information. As the little caravan trotted along its route, they would occasionally see an impromptu grave or the ashes of a hastily extinguished fire. It was like revisiting an old scene for Bierce. As a boy he had devoured the romances of Capt. Mayne Reid and to be actually traveling through the “Indian Country” was as pleasurable as it was “romantic.” Along the North Platte, the party passed before the great Court House Rock, the famous landmark of the western emigrants. Of it Bierce wrote in later years, the memory saddened and romanticized: “What a gracious memory I have of the pomp and splendor of its aspect, with the crimson glories of the setting sun fringing its outlines, illuminating its western walls like the glow of Mammon’s fires for the witches’ revel in the Hartz, and flung like banners from its crest.”
It was not long before the Dakotas were lost and they entered a region that was new, and therefore marvelous, to them all. Something of the exuberance of their spirits is indicated by the sketches and drawings, and data for maps, recorded in the journal that Bierce kept. These blurred lines on fading paper were symbols to Bierce and represented the wild grandeur of the Rockies. Some of them actually look as interesting as pictures. There were penciled maps with notations of the Big Horn Mountains, Crazy Woman’s Flat, Clear Fork, Tongue River, Little Big Horn, and a map of the Judith Mountains. Nothing seems to have escaped his eye: the book opens with a large drawing of a bison’s head; interpolated with the maps are copies of Indian inscriptions seen on the rocks at Powder River and on the stumps of trees in the Yellowstone Valley. The party moved rapidly on horseback and Bierce had little time to draw, but he captured every significant scene and landmark and tried to express the lovely contour of a hill by hasty shadings in a ten-cent notebook. To him all these lines, dots, and circles were the symbols by which he could recreate the memory of the foaming waters that roared over the Shoshone Falls and drifted into glistening mists that floated soundless to the rocks below, lost in a roar that seemed to come from a distance.
Hard and disagreeable as some of their experiences were, they yet had time for amusement and sport. Just as some of the maps are significant of the romantic glamour in which the valleys were veiled for Bierce, so are the penciled notations interspersed throughout the book full of their own potential amplification into accounts of amusing enterprises. Fort Benton brought this note: “Improvised Program. The Ladies, H. Beveridge, Enthusiastic single man. ‘The Ladies, God Bless Her.’ Labored effort (painful one) in response by Whatisname Gomer Evans. Song, Mary of Argyle, Sam Mayer. Bloom is on the Rye encore. R. Kohler, Cornet Solo, The Last Rose of Summer.” It must have been a maudlin carousal ending with that music so dear to the heart of the inebriate: a sad cornet solo. But they were marching fast: Fort Fetterman, Fort McPherson, Fort Kearney, and Fort Bridger passed in swift succession. They were stern little outposts where army officers taught Hardee’s tactics to the uninitiated. The great log gates rolled back, and the little cavalcade trotted through into the fort. The garrison was prepared for General Hazen’s inspection, and the place was a model of orderliness: arms glistened. uniforms were spotless, flags resplendent, and headquarters was decked for the occasion. After the inspection was made, there were moments of entertainment and leisure, and, over the glasses and cigars, reminiscences. These fellows lost in the wilderness guarding Indian braves had been in the Civil War, too. “Orchard Knob? That afternoon? Of course!”
The expedition was ordered to return to Washington, via Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Panama. At Salt Lake, Bierce had an opportunity to inspect the Mormon experiment in colonization, and he was most enthusiastic. He never failed to raise his voice in defense of the Mormons, when, in later years, people still permitted the peccadillo of polygamy to blind them to the undeniable evidence of fine economy, industry and genius in government. One excerpt is sufficient to show how Bierce reacted to the settlement at Salt Lake: “I have no religious convictions. I do not care a copper for the Mormons. But I do care a good deal for truth, reason and fair play; and whenever I cease to be indignant at the falsehood, stupidity and injustice that this harmless people have suffered at the hands of the brutal and harmless mob of scribblers and tonguesters who find profit in denouncing them, I shall have had a longer life than I merit.”
On this western trip he had occasion to see something of Indian warfare, and he always scoffed at the bravery of the pioneer. Part of his denunciation of the pioneer as a warrior, sprang from his deep-seated admiration for the regular army. He once wrote in “Prattle”: “I have marked the frontiersman’s terror-stricken hordes throng tumultuous into the forts before the delusive whoops of a dozen lurking braves. I have observed his burly carcass scuttling to the rear of the soldiers he defames, and kicked back into position by the officers he insults. I have seen his scruffy scalp lifted by the hands of squaws, the while he pleaded for his worthless life, his undischarged weapon fallen from his trembling hands. And I have always coveted the privilege of a shot at him myself.” This sounds rather like Three Star Hennessy dicta, but it no doubt is based on actual observation.
One of the military posts visited was Fort Phil Kearney.
Shortly after Bierce’s party left this fort, some Indians lured a force of ninety men and officers outside and slaughtered them to a man. From Fort C. F. Smith, the party turned north and swam the Yellowstone. In the Valley they found herds of elk, deer and buffalo. It was a magnificent region. It eclipsed even his memory of the mountains of Virginia. Surely if there was this much grandeur in nature, there must be a similar current in human life, if one but acted magnificently enough to strike the right chord. He began to act on this principle. After leaving Yellowstone, the country was bare and without game. They proceeded to Fort Benton and arrived there a “sorry-looking lot,” as Bierce phrased it. Then they went north to Helena, Montana, and back south again to Virginia City, most fabulous of all western mining camps. The last bivouac of the party was on the camping ground of the famous Donner party, where Bierce first heard the story of that memorable expedition.
These months of camping and riding, from Omaha to San Francisco, were for Bierce an introduction to the western manner. He was still young enough to be impressed with the feeling of liberation that the fresh and untrammeled life of the West created. He was essentially a Westerner in many ways. Of late years the influence of the West has been made the subject of sharp comment by Eastern critics. Mark Twain, we are informed by this criticism, was not the splendid fellow that the West always envisaged: care-free, lazy, laughing and full of a great gusto for life, but a hen-pecked journalist, bitter with disappointment. Such criticism overlooks the fact that Twain, if he was ever overawed by social prestige, was victimized in the East. Both Bret Harte and Mark Twain lost their early force and vitality when they went East. But this fact should not obscure the values that the West did create, for, as Mr. George West has written, “it offered a certain masculine freedom and zest and some very genuine values.” Many of these values are invariably associated with Bierce’s name. The West gave such a character elbow-room and if he became an excessive individualist it should not be too seriously deplored. His enormous energy, personal bravery, forceful directness; his impatience with pettiness and disdain for social fetishes, all these qualities were Western. Of course it is always difficult, if not speci
ous, to localize a virtue. But the West did emphasize certain values which have come to be called Western. Bierce’s best work was done in San Francisco, and it was to San Francisco that he was now journeying.
As the party left Salt Lake and began the last part of their trip, the talk was rife as to the nature of the land they approached. California was a magical word in the fifties and sixties; it was “El Dorado” as Bayard Taylor had written. And what of San Francisco? They had heard nothing but stories about this city since leaving Nebraska. They were so impatient to see San Francisco that they only lingered a few days in Virginia City, and then turned westward again, skirted the edge of Lake Tahoe, and came to the end of their wilderness route at Dutch Flat in Placer County. From this point to San Francisco they could travel along the road-bed of the new transcontinental railroad. Through Placer County they saw marks of “diggin’s”; miners were along the hillsides and the creek bottoms. They hastened forward; Sacramento did not detain them long. They visited “The Plains” saloon and admired the paintings of the Wind River Mountains and Fort Laramie that adorned the walls, but they were eager to be gone. The journey down the Sacramento River was one fraught with expectancy. The soft brown hills dropped into bottom lands and finally rose to the last ridge of bluffs along the bay. Monte Diablo gleamed in the distance. They sailed through the Straits of Carquinez and the bay was outspread before them. The picture was sharp, swift and unforgettable. Such a bay!
But what of this fabulous San Francisco? The miners and traders on board, obdurate to the scene, grunted that it was “over across the bay,” and pointed to a reach of land veiled in mist. The boat struck the currents of the bay; winds swept in from the ocean; the waves slapped softly against the boat; and the desert was quite forgotten. San Francisco could be seen rising behind the sand dunes: a wind-swept city that sprawled along the water front and climbed up its three hills for a look at the bay. Flocks of white sea birds fluttered about the boat and dove down to ride the slate-colored waves. Alcatraz huddled in the bay like an iron-backed turtle that had risen to the surface with an effort. Dusk came and suddenly the place seemed ageless: full of shadowy sorrows, a mezzotint of dark hills, the spars of ships and the rickety frame houses on the hillsides.... He would like to stay here for a while, but his commission undoubtedly awaited him and he would soon leave for Panama. The chatter of the waiting crowd at Clark’s Landing interrupted his thoughts. It was the voice of a new mob, a polygot mob, a miniature world with which his destiny was to be inextricably woven. There was surely something lively and envigorating about this city. He had arrived in San Francisco.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 344