by Eugeine Ware
Along the latter part of January, 1864, two men who were driving on a train passed the Fort; came in and said that they had had a row with the wagon-master and wanted to enlist. One of them was named Joseph Cooper and the other John Jackson. Jackson was about thirty, and Cooper was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but gave his age forty-five, because that was the age limit. We were about to reject Cooper, but he said that he was a practical veterinary surgeon, so we took them both into the company. As they were both absolutely worthless and had probably been thrashed out of their train by the wagon-master because they were worthless, the boys soon got down on them, caught them in little, petty thievery, and we dumped them both into the guard-house and kept them in there off and on for quite a while, making them work under the supervision of a corporal when they were out. We found them stealing rations and selling rations from their comrades to the pilgrims. And upon the suggestion of the Captain I made life such a burden for them that, having given them an opportunity to desert, they embraced the opportunity and we heard of them no more.
We also lost two men by the fact that one of them was a minor and his mother took him out of the service with a writ of habeas corpus. This was before we got to Omaha. Another was a deserter from the Eleventh Iowa Infantry, then in the field; having been detected, he was placed under guard and sent to his regiment to be court-martialed.
In March, 1864, we received a consignment of twelve recruits, which brought our company up again to a good standing. These men were Iowa farm boys, and twelve as good men as could be found in the army. Three of them had already been in the service, been honestly discharged from wounds received, recovered fully, and reenlisted. Four of them were discharged as sergeants and corporals when our company was mustered out in 1866, one being Milo Lacey as First Sergeant.
The way that recruits came to a company during the Civil War was something like this: The boys at home were growing up, and wanted to get into the service, or for some reason obstacles to their enlistment had vanished, and when they got ready to enlist it became a question with them where they wanted to go. Each of them had several boy acquaintances or relatives who were already in existing regiments. Each one may have had two or three chums in some certain regiment, so when he made up his mind to enlist, he would enlist in a regiment in which he had friends or relatives. As the newspapers were full of the exploits of the regiments at the front, it often happened that some exploit would determine the recruit to go to that regiment if he had a friend or relative in it, in preference to some other regiment where he had a friend or relative. It so happened that the boys of our regiment had a great many friends and relatives in eastern Iowa, and these recruits would be brought together at some point and drilled preliminarily, and taught soldiering say for two or three or four months, and then they would be forwarded in squads to the regiment. If a regiment was not receiving the recruits that it wanted or thought it ought to have, it was common for the Colonel to pick out some good recruiting lieutenant and get him a recruiting furlough and then send him back where the bulk of the regiment had been recruited, and let him go to work. Many regiments were kept up to the maximum in that manner. Our company received subsequent batches of recruits, of which I will speak hereafter. Our company had first and last one hundred and fifty-one members. The casualties of the service were always heavy. For instance, we lost by death twenty-seven men, by desertion nine, and by transfer to other regiments and by other causes, nine. Then again while the majority of the company had enlisted for three years or during the war, there were a few who had enlisted for only one year. Nevertheless, many of these stayed in, and were either killed in battle or died of disease.
Chapter X.
Rations of Whisky – Era of Bitters – Artemus Ward – Major Heath – Lieutenant Heath – His Death – MacDonald's Dance – Indian Invited In – John Dillon – Tom Potter – Captain Logan – The First Colorado Cavalry – Harry Dall – The Travel on the Plains – The Wagons – The Bullwhackers – The Wagon-boss – The Denver Trade – The Missourian
I HAVE referred to the store which Boyer kept where liquors were sold. We managed to get pretty good police regulations in our company in regard to liquors. My barrel of 1849 whisky didn't last very long, so that soon afterwards on one of my trips to Fort Kearney I went to the post commander and told him what my men were doing, and that they must have a ration of whisky if they did this hard pioneer work, that is, if they wanted the ration. I sat down with him and computed what it would take to build the fort for two companies and to make the work speed along rapidly. And I pointed out to him that it was the cheapest thing for the Government to give that inducement. After a considerable consultation he agreed with me that I might take out a supply that would last until the completion of the post, as they had much on hand and there did not seem to be a great demand. In short, I drew seven more barrels of good corn whisky as rations. And the arrangement which we made, and which was satisfactory to the men, and which worked exceedingly well, was this: Every man who worked as an axman or builder, or in other words did hard work that was strictly outside of military service, got a drink in the morning if he wanted it, and one in the evening if he wanted it, when he was through with his work. And if he shirked during the day, he did not get his evening drink. The men all seemed to be inspired, and they all wanted to work, and those who did work, as a rule, did well. The number of shirkers was not many. In order that there should be no intemperance in the morning, when the time for a jigger had arrived there was poured out in a tin cup a gill, and he drank it right there. The captain didn't allow him to carry it off. Our great big Corporal Forbush, who was the Hercules of the company, and who had passed a great deal of his life swinging an ax in the Northern pineries, was the man who gave the boys their drinks. He was liable to drink a little too much himself, but he was a good disciplinarian, and the boys could not get any whisky and carry it off. They drank it on the spot, and in his presence, morning and night. A gill is a pretty good-sized drink, and was all a man should have at one time. The seven barrels would not have lasted long if it had not been economically administered, and only to those who did the hard work. There was very little constitutional intemperance in our company. It was sporadic. None of the ranchmen would sell liquor to our men, nor would the sutler. And if a man was caught with liquor he was put at work on fatigue duty without liquor, so that we had but very little trouble during the winter. That good old ancient time was an era of drinking. There was no such thing known then in the West as "prohibition," and nearly everybody drank a little. It was also the age of bitters. Sometime back in the early '50s the manufacture of artificial bitters had been introduced. Before that time an old invention called "Stoughton" had been for a long while in vogue. In every saloon was a bottle of "Stoughton bitters," and if anybody wanted any bitters he called for some Stoughton and put it in. It was only occasionally the Stoughton was used, but the Stoughton bottle was always at the bar, and the synonym for an idle fellow, always in evidence and doing nothing, was to call him a "Stoughton bottle." And frequently men were spoken of in politics or religion or in a story as a mere "Stoughton bottle." That is, they were in evidence, but nobody paid much attention to them. The simile survived for a lifetime after the Stoughton bottle had gone. But someone afterwards invented "bitters" as a beverage; three celebrated kinds were thrown onto market, and made great fortunes for their inventors, as were early occupants of the field. The first in order was 'Plantation Bitters"; next, "Hostetter's Bitters"; third, "Log Cabin Bitters." By the time the war broke out these bitters had been advertised with an expenditure of money which at that time was thought remarkable. Plantation Bitters appeared in 1860, and every wall and fence and vacant place in the United States was placarded with the legend, "S. T. 1880 X." For several months everybody was guessing what the sign meant. It was in the newspapers. It was distributed in handbills on the street. It was seen at every turn, "S. T. 1860 X." After the world had long grown tired of guessing, there appeared the complet
e legend, "Plantation Bitters, S. T. 1860 X." Plantation Bitters became the bottled liquor of the age. It was made out of alcohol, water and flavoring, and was really very attractive as to taste and results.
The Hostetter and the Log Cabin followed closely behind in popularity. The Log Cabin got into sutler tents all over the district which the army occupied. Its principal advertisement was the strange glass bottle made in the shape of a log cabin. At about the time I speak of, all three of these liquors were on sale at Boyer's. The legend of the Plantation Bitters was that it meant "Sure thing in ten years from 1860." That is, when the inventor had made the decoction, and submitted it to a friend as an invention and marketable article, the friend, so the story goes, told him that it was a sure thing for a fortune in ten years. So, acting on this thought, he had billed the United States, "S. T. 1860 X.," and spent half a million advertising "S. T. 1860 X.," before anybody knew what it was all about.
In March, 1864, while we were at the post, Artemus Ward, the great humorist, came through on a coach; and hearing that he was coming, Captain O'Brien and I went to the coach to greet him. It was late in the afternoon. The first thing he did was to ask us to go and take a drink with him, and Boyer's was the saloon. Artemus Ward went in, with us following him, and said, "What have you got to drink here?" Boyer said, "Nothing but bitters." Ward said, "What kind of bitters?" Boyer said, "I have got nothing but Hostetter; some trains went by here and they cleaned me out of everything but Hostetter." So Ward said, "Give us some Hostetter," and the bottle was shoved out on the cedar counter. We took a drink with Ward, who told us about some Salt Lake experience he had recently had. In a little while the driver shouted for him to get aboard. Ward turned to Boyer, and he says, "How much Hostetter have you got?" Boyer looked under his counter and said, "I had a case of two dozen bottles which I opened this afternoon and that is all I have got and I have used up five of them." Said Artemus Ward, "I have got to have eighteen of those bottles." Boyer said, "That only leaves me one bottle." Ward said, "It don't make any difference; your mathematics are all right, but I want eighteen of those bottles." The bottles sold for $1.50. Ward said, "I will give you $2 a bottle." In a short time the money hadeen paid. Ward went to the coach with the box of eighteen bottles under his arm, and we bade him an affectionate adieu. The crowded coach greeted him with cheers, and I have no doubt that they finished the whole business before morning, on the coach.
Our company kept constantly improving. Captain O'Brien had been a sergeant in the Fifth Wisconsin Battery, and I had been a sergeant in the Fourth Iowa Cavalry, and we had both served from the beginning of the war. Our First Lieutenant, of whom I have spoken, was a gray-haired and gray-whiskered man, who said he was only forty-five. He was a very gentlemanly, placid old man, without the slightest particle of military instinct or habit. The other company at our post was officered by three as inefficient men as could be found in the regiment. They were of no account whatever. The Captain and First Lieutenant were well along in years, and had got their places because they had been the relatives of somebody, and had managed to get the appointment. The Second Lieutenant was the son of the senior Major of our regiment, Major H. H. Heath. This man Heath had served in the First Iowa Cavalry, and had been made a Major of our regiment through the influence of a very giddy wife, who was the daughter of a Syracuse barber in New York. Major Heath himself was a fine-looking, dressy, showy fellow, but a great scoundrel. Through the influence which his wife had with Senator Lane of Kansas, Heath became finally brevetted as a Brigadier-General. Heath was a self-important, dictatorial wind-bag, and he succeeded in getting his worthless, drunken son as Second Lieutenant in the Company. The elder Heath coquetted with Jeff Davis to get a Brigadier-Generalship in the Confederate army. He was willing to be a traitor to his country or do anything else. He was absolutely without principle. I have
referred to him once before, but will repeat. When the Rebel archives were captured at Richmond, Heath's letter was found among the many other similar documents, and when Heath under President Andrew Johnson wanted an appointment, Major-General G. M. Dodge, who was one of Sherman's corps commanders and happened to be a member of Congress at that time from Iowa, got hold of the Heath letter, and read it on the floor of Congress, and Heath became a refugee, fled to Peru, and died a pauper and a tramp. Heath, on account of his rascality, at the close of the war was recommended to be cashiered, but his wife, in a beautiful blue moire antique dress, went on to Washington, saw President Johnson, saved him, and had his dismissal remitted to a discharge from the service. I am anticipating history somewhat in giving the pedigree of Second Lieutenant Heath. I had so much trouble with him in the barracks that I had made up my mind that I would have him court-martialed and disposed of, because he would fill himself with whisky and become offensive and insulting. He would go down among his private soldiers in the barracks and play poker with them and win their money, and he would cheat at cards, and if a soldier playing with him, protested, he would send him to the guard-house. On the afternoon of March 21, 1864, Heath was sent out with a squad of men to scout along the south side of the river to see if there were any Indians or tracks to be seen. He got in just about sundown, and as he was going by his own barracks close to a door, a gun went off in the hands of one of the soldiers, and the bullet went a dead shot through his head and killed him. It was believed that one of the men had taken advantage of the situation to arrange the accident. I was directed by the Post Commander (Captain O'Brien) to inquire into the cause of the death, and make report. The soldier said that it was an entire accident. Everybody seemed to be pleased with the circumstance; nobody seemed to find any fault with it, and there being no evidence to the contrary, and it being entirely to the benefit of the United States service, I reported the testimony, and nothing was done except to bury the Lieutenant. Major Heath showed no particular interest in the death of his only son. He was a son by a former wife, and was the only child he ever had. He did not attend the funeral, nor were any arrangements made except to put the Lieutenant under the ground. Then the Captain of the company summoned all the power he had to get his own worthless brother-in-law in as Second Lieutenant; but the other officers of the post objected, and succeeded in beating him before the Governor and Adjutant-General of Iowa, who made the appointments.
For twenty-five miles along the line, including Jack Morrow's ranch, and Gilmans', there were ten ranches, and farm-houses. Wives and relatives of these settlers seeing the post well established, came out on stages from the East and joined their husbands and relations. Along about the first of April MacDonald said he was going to take the stuff out of his store-building as much as he could, and get up a dance on the first favorable opportunity. This plan was carried out, and women were there from the whole twenty-five miles. There were about twenty of them. Fiddlers were easily obtained, and the dance lasted until breakfast-time. I did not get much of an opportunity to be present except occasionally, up to twelve o'clock, after which I went on duty as officer of the guard. But it was a regular frontier dance. I have put down in my memorandum only two of the tunes that were played, and I give the names that the fiddler gave me. One of them was "Soapsuds over the Fence," and the other "Turkey in the
Straw." All the men in the country were there except the soldiers, and a great deal of liquor was consumed, and several rough-and-tumble fist fights were had out of doors on the flat; but I arrested nobody, and let them all have just as good a time as they wanted to. Captain O'Brien was the mogul of the evening.
Matters upon the road began to get very busy about the first of April. The grass was not up so that the ox teams could travel, but the early pilgrims with smart mule teams began to go through in large numbers. The weather was very stormy and unpleasant in the latter part of March, and considerable snow fell, which the wind would sweep off into the gullies, and fill up almost level, although they might be ten or twenty feet deep. The sand, gravel and snow would be swept off by the wind from the road, and the riverbottom, leaving
the roads entirely passable.
Word came from Fort Kearney that an effort would be made to have a big Indian council about the middle of April, and that word had been sent to all of the Sioux, both north and south. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes had not been invited, because it was believed if the Sioux could be influenced the others would remain neutral. So we planned for a reception that would strike terror into the red man when he came in to see us. The hospital which we had built was practically unused. The boys did not like to go to the hospital, and remained in their bunks until they recovered or got in pretty bad condition. And when they got in bad condition, if they could go we sent them down to Fort Kearney, where they could get good care.
One day early in April, 1864, John Dillon, the actor, was passing through on a stage. He was coming from the west. Some telegraph operator notified the operator at our post. Captain O'Brien knew John Dillon personally, and as they were fellow-Irishmen, it was but natural that the Captain should warmly greet him, and I went along. The result was that we got Dillon to stop over. We had built an addition to the hospital so as to make it twenty by forty. We got everybody out of the hospital, hung up some blankets at the end, and we had as good an entertainment from John Dillon as we had ever listened to anywhere.