Authors: H.W. Brands
William Swain’s turn arrived on June 16, not far from Fort Kearny.
This afternoon when I was in the rear I observed a commotion in front. The horsemen galloping along the train, the footmen, the drivers, all seemed anxiously inquiring for something. Soon the train formed a telegraphic line, on which the word “buffalo” was transmitted. All hands seized their guns and every man at liberty started for the head of the train. The drivers all mounted the wagon tongues and drove with one hand, having hold of the wagon cover with the other, while eyes and mouths were wide open in search of the subject of the commotion.
I was driving, and from the tongue on which I stood I soon fixed my eye on the object of all the feeling and interest of the company: a troop of some twenty buffalo who had come across the river and were making for the bluffs across the head of our trail. They had far the start on our boys and were doing their best. Footmen ran and horsemen put the ponies under whip and spur.
The plain was three miles wide, and the chase was very even for the first half way; but the buffalos’ wind proved the best and all but three of the horsemen gave up the chase, one of whom came up on the buffalos. He was far in advance of the train when he saw them and had no arms but his revolver, and from that he shot four balls, two of which took effect but only made the buffalo run the faster.
Thus ended our first buffalo chase. I confess I was much displeased, as I had made up my mind for some steak this evening.
The hunts were often more successful, though rarely less strenuous. Lewis Manly described several hunters on horseback pursuing a solitary bull. The horsemen caught the buffalo and plugged the beast with multiple balls.
He still kept his feet, and they went nearer. Mr. Rogers, being on a horse with a blind bridle, got near enough to fire his Colt’s revolver at him, when he turned, and the horse, being unable to see the animal quickly enough to get out of his way, suffered the force of a sudden attack of the old fellow’s horns; he came out with a gash in his thigh six inches long, while Rogers went on a flying expedition over his head, and did some lively scrambling when he reached the ground.
The other hunters worried the animal along for about half a mile, and finally, after about forty shots, he lay down but held his head up defiantly, receiving shot after shot with an angry shake, till a side shot laid him out.
This game gave us plenty of meat which, though tough, was a pleasant change from bacon.
Significantly, Manly—a professional hunter rather than an enthusiast—declined to take part in the chase. But his professional curiosity was piqued by the bull’s ability to absorb so much fire before succumbing. The answer soon appeared. “On examination it was found that many of the
balls had been stopped by the matted hair about the old fellow’s head, and none of them had reached the skull.”
The Gold Rush marked the beginning of the end of the great buffalo herds. Tens of thousands of hunters turned loose on the plains, each determined to bag a buffalo—or two or ten—led to killing far in excess of any conceivable need. One emigrant witnessed a half-day’s devastation and commented, “I presume that not less than fifty buffalo were slaughtered that morning, whereas not three in all were used. Such a wanton destruction of buffalo, the main dependence of the Indians for food, is certainly reprehensible, but still the desire of engaging at least once in the buffalo chase by the emigrant can scarcely be repressed.”
O
NE REASON FOR THE
slaughter was that the emigrants were often simply bored. For nine hundred miles west of the Missouri, every day was essentially like the last. Rise before dawn, cook and eat breakfast, gather the animals, hitch up the wagons, head out, halt around midday, cook and eat dinner, march again to whatever camp the captain or scouts had discovered, undo what was done at dawn with the animals and wagons, cook and eat supper, set guards on the stock, go to sleep under the stars or the canvas.
The marching itself was slow, at the pace of the slowest oxen, no more than two miles per hour. All but the lead wagons choked on the dust; for this reason the lead rotated among the wagons of each train. Women and children, who typically had expected to ride in the wagons, often abandoned their seats to escape the dust and walked well to the side of the trail.
Once out on the plains, the scenery scarcely changed from day to day, week to week. The trail climbed gradually; the rolling plains leveled out. Occasional landmarks—Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, Scott’s Bluff— afforded the only visible signs of progress. When mountains finally appeared on the western horizon, they grew so slowly that they seemed on the far side of the world.
Under the circumstances, the emigrants welcomed anything that
broke the monotony. Practicing Christians were a majority on the trail, and many trains initially observed the Sabbath by resting. “We are determined to
not
travel on Sunday,” Hugh Heiskell wrote, “unless some times we are compelled to do so in order to get wood & water. We rest, altho many things are done which would not look right at Fruit Hill—for instance, wood is cut, although if near we cut it Saturday evening; cooking, and sometimes sunning whatever may be damp in the wagon. Some in the company have washed. Our mess of nine will not.” Whether this trailside sabbatarianism demonstrated the authenticity of the Mosaic law or simply its practicality, the halts refreshed the travelers and their livestock, and readied them for the new week. (Yet some of the observant among the emigrants grew anxiously indignant at the impiety of the nonobservant. Thomas Van Dorn of Illinois fretted and scolded in his diary on Sunday, May 13: “Over 100 teams have passed us today. It is a novel thing to see men in their career for gain rush forward like a herd of wild buffalo as though led on by some instinctive influence, with apparently no further aim in view.” Yet Van Dorn and others—including Hugh Heiskell—eventually modified their theology under the duress of distance and desire to reach the mines. “Many are more pious than we are,” Van Dorn noted on Sunday, August 19, his remorse yielding to a sense of triumph, “for the crowd we were with yesterday have all been left behind.”)
Other breaks in the routine were based in patriotism rather than religion—although religion wasn’t entirely absent. July 4 fell on a Wednesday in 1849, and nearly all the trains observed the anniversary of American independence. “At twelve o’clock we formed a procession and walked to the stand [a makeshift of a table spread with a blanket] to the tune of ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ ” William Swain recorded. “The President of the day called the meeting to order. We listened to a prayer by Rev. Mr. Hobart, then remarks and the reading of the Declaration of Independence by Mr. Pratt, and then the address by Mr. Sexton. We then listened to ‘Hail Columbia.’ This celebration was very pleasing, especially the address, which was well delivered and good enough for any assembly at home.” A brief parade around the camp was followed by a banquet. “Dinner consisted of
ham, beans boiled and baked, biscuits, john cake, apple pie, sweet cake, rice pudding, pickles, vinegar, pepper sauce and mustard, coffee, sugar, and milk. All enjoyed it well.”
Further festivities followed. “After dinner the toasting commenced. The boys had raked and scraped together all the brandy they could, and they toasted, hurrayed, and drank till reason was out and brandy was in. I stayed till the five regular toasts were drunk; and then, being disgusted with their conduct, I went to our tent, took my pen, and occupied the remainder of the day in writing to my wife, in which I enjoyed myself better than those who were drinking, carousing, and hallooing all around the camp.” The carousers doubtless would have differed, had they stopped to consider the matter, which they didn’t. “At night the boys danced by moonlight on the grass, or rather on the sand.”
A
LL COULD AGREE
that American independence ought to be celebrated, even if some disputed the role of drink in the celebration. Other issues elicited no such consensus. Slavery divided wagon trains just as it divided America as a whole. Hugh Heiskell’s company of Tennesseeans and Alabamians had added various persons from the South and beyond, including an English couple named Thomas. The Thomases’ distaste for slavery had been evident from the start, although it hadn’t prevented them from joining a group that included slave-owners and slaves. At one point, however, they could abide the issue no longer. “A flare up in camp today,” Heiskell wrote.
Mr. Thompson was whipping Wash [his slave]. Thomas, running in, said he should not whip him. Thompson said if he interfered he would whip him too, & seizing a hatchet seemed ready to execute this threat. At this stage Mrs. Thomas, rushing in, addressed Thompson, “If you kill my husband you shall not live.” Thomas, going back to his wagon, now came out with a pistol. Others now interfered with, telling Thomas he had no right to say anything to Thompson for whipping his Negro. “No!” says Mrs. Thomas [to
her husband], “You are in the States, you are not in England.” “Well, but what’s the difference? Didn’t the Americans all come from England?” And so ended the battle.
Other differences in mores simmered below the surface. When Lewis Manly’s party had almost reached Fort Kearny, the members were surprised to see an unsaddled horse gallop into camp from the west and fall in with the party’s horses as they grazed among the willows in the river bottom. Next morning two soldiers from the fort arrived, inquiring after the stray. Charles Dallas, speaking for the company, said he hadn’t seen the beast, and the soldiers accepted his word. When the train approached the fort, Dallas tied the horse to his own, on the side away from the fort and any inquisitive eyes there. Then he dismounted and walked ahead, distracting the officers while the rest of the party drove on past. “I did not like this much,” Manly recalled, “for if we were discovered we might be roughly handled, and perhaps the property of the innocent even confiscated. Really my New England ideas of honesty were somewhat shocked.”
M
ANY ROADS LED FROM
the emigrants’ starting places—in Tennessee for Hugh Heiskell, upstate New York for William Swain, Wisconsin for Lewis Manly, Iowa for Sarah Royce—but only one road led from the plains into the mountains. The Platte River wasn’t much to look at (“a mile wide and six inches deep,” according to one saw; “too thin to plow and too thick to drink,” by another), but it ran all summer in a region where many streams failed; its valley ascended in the right direction, namely west; and its ascent into the mountains was gradual enough for the most heavily laden wagons and teams. Whether the emigrants crossed the Missouri at Independence or St. Joseph or Council Bluffs, all reached the Platte at or before Fort Kearny (in the middle of what would become Nebraska). From Fort Kearny they followed the main stem of the river to its forks, then up the northern branch past Courthouse Rock, past Chimney Rock, past Scott’s Bluff, to Fort Laramie.
The North Platte remained roughly the route to its juncture with the
Sweetwater, the ascent of which took the travelers to within a day’s drive of South Pass. For most emigrants, this was the best part of the journey. The scenery above Fort Laramie was breathtaking, with the Laramie Range to the south and the Wind River Range to the north. A mile above sea level, the air possessed a clarity unmatched at lower elevations. Days were warm; nights were cool; the grass was plentiful; the water was sweet (hence the name of the river); the emigrants and their livestock had gained strength from the exercise of the road and not yet begun to lose it to fatigue.
For most of the emigrants, South Pass was a disappointment. North America was a grand continent, and grandeur was anticipated in its continental divide. But anyone who had crossed the Appalachians had surmounted passes more impressive. In a region of high, open valleys, South Pass was simply the highest point in one such valley above the Sweetwater, distinguishable only (and barely) by the fact that the lay of land shifted almost imperceptibly from east to west. “Our Guide Book gave very elaborate directions by which we might be able to identify the highest point in the road, where we passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Slope,” Sarah Royce wrote. “Otherwise we could not have noticed it, so gradual had been the ascent, and so slightly varied was the surface for a mile or two on all sides.”
After South Pass the trail diverged again, requiring the emigrants to make some basic decisions. Before 1849 most travelers in this region had been bound for Oregon; from South Pass they steered north toward Fort Hall on the Snake River, then down the Snake to the Columbia River and the Willamette Valley. A few emigrants of 1849 followed the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall and the Snake before turning south and picking up the road west to California. The route from South Pass to the Snake wasn’t easy, but it was familiar, with its camping sites and river crossings well marked on reliable maps. For those who liked to know where they were going, this northern branch of the trail had considerable merit.
Less familiar than the Oregon Trail, but still well known, was the Mormon Trail from South Pass to Salt Lake City. This was shorter than the Snake River route, trending more directly west. But because it had been
blazed by those who intended to go no farther than the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, it had the signal disadvantage of depositing California-bound travelers on the eastern edge of the most forbidding desert in North America, the Great Salt Lake Desert. For nearly a hundred miles, the white salt shimmered in the brilliant sunlight—a stunning scene, but incredibly daunting and nearly impassable to any but the best prepared. The Mormon Trail had another drawback: the Mormons. The majority of orthodox Christians in the army of overlanders disliked and distrusted the heretical sect of Saints—for their heresy (including the strange and dangerous practice of polygamy), and for the desire for revenge the Mormons were presumed to harbor after their harsh treatment in Illinois and Missouri.
A third route was the one chosen by most Forty-Niners. After following the Oregon Trail for some distance, along what was called Sublette’s Cutoff, this route split the difference between the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail. Veering south of the Oregon Trail and the Snake River, it remained well north of the Great Salt Lake, finally delivering travelers to the headwaters of the Humboldt River west of the Salt Desert.