Eugene Ware - The Indian War of 1864

All day long that head wind blew, increasing in violence until the air was filled with sand and pebbles. It seemed almost impossible to stem the wind. We started early in the morning. It was cold, and as we rode on our horses, we wrapped the capes of our overcoats around our faces, and only exposed one eye at a time, and most of the time we had our eyes shut, and leaned forward to give the horses the advantage of the wind. We could not see a hundred feet ahead of us. Two men kept the road, and we told them to keep a mile ahead of us, if possible, so that we might not run into any Indians. The Indians could not see us any better than we could see them. Every half-hour we stopped and gave our horses a rest. It was a snail's pace. We had on our horses five days of cooked rations, which consisted of boiled beef, raw and fried bacon, and hardbread. I never experienced a day of misery that impressed itself more upon my mind than that day. The horses could hardly be made to face the gale, and every once in a while would turn as a particularly swift wave came, and they would go milling around among themselves, and we had to straighten out the cavalcade and start again. The men in the ambulance, Rulo and Lynch, of Co. D, Eleventh Ohio Cavalry, suffered as much as we. The mules were continually leaving the track, and it was impossible for a person to hold his eyes unprotected against the wind, and the wind grew colder and colder. I made the following comment in my diary in regard to that wind: "Awful headwind; never suffered so much in my life from cold. Made fifty miles this day. Camped at Mud Springs."

We did not get into Mud Springs until long after dark. I had got my woolen shirt dry by this time, but I had a cold that was about as severe as anything I ever had. I coughed and rolled and tossed all night, and only got to sleep at some time towards morning. The next morning everything was clear and pleasant. The wind had subsided, and the beautiful castellated landscape charmed me again as it had before. I never mentioned my feelings, and tried to pretend that I was all right, and I commenced the procession, and rode at its head all day. We made forty miles, and camped that night at Ficklin ranch. That night I was aching all over.The men themselves were all used up. I asked Lieutenant Williams to make a short march, but he had got to riding in the ambulance and dozing as he went along, and consequently was not tired. I regret to say that he marched us, or rather he insisted on our marching, and we rode on that day, October 20, 1864, fifty-six miles. I then told Lieutenant Williams what I thought about his way of doing things; that while he had the right to set the pace, and command the squad, that he ought to be cashiered, and I told him that my men should have a rest even if he had to go on alone. He got up in the morning bright and fresh, and ordered me to follow him. My men were complaining considerably, and I was feeling used up myself, and I told him that I was going to rest my men until noon. He told me that he was going to report me to the General for disobedience of orders, and I told him that I was going to report him to the General for not understanding his business. The result was that he started out on horseback and with the ambulance alone, and I let the men get all the sleep they wanted in the morning, and a good hearty breakfast, and let them rest their horses, and after dinner I rode them into Fort Laramie, a distance of ten miles from Bordeaux Ranch. When I got into Laramie I got good quarters for my men, saw them all well established, and they started in eating and sleeping, and getting rested. I went around to the doctor and he took my case. He began feeding me with quinine and whisky, and cured my cold, from which I fully recovered in a couple of days, although I was up and around all of the time. I put in most of my time at headquarters with Major Woods (afterwards of Ottumwa, Iowa), who was still commander of the post, and in the evening we all gathered at the sutler store. Williams told me that he would go back with me in less than a week.

While at Fort Laramie I ran across my new friend Bridger, and in conversation with him there we talked a great deal about the country, and the Indians, and he told me over again his Buffalo Dam story, and his Diamond Mountain story, and I recognized the fact that he told them verbatim as he told them before. That is to say, that he had told each story so often that he had got it into language form, and told it literally alike. He had probably told them so often that he got to believing them himself.

There were among the soldiers at Fort Laramie several very fine voices, and they had organized a glee club who were accompanied by musicians. And they were in the habit of going around and serenading various officers, and places, and among others the sutler store. There was an old ordnance sergeant at the post who was a sort of permanent detail. He was one of those who had been left over from the regular army, a perfect martinet, knew everything which there was to be known about the details of post service, and he looked after the ordnance and ordnance stores. I recognized a piece which I had heard sung two or three times before, and when I heard it this last time the old ordnance sergeant asked me if I knew what that was; when I told him, No, he said that it was the favorite piece of General Albert Sidney Johnston. He said that on the Salt Lake campaign, before the Civil War, Albert Sidney Johnston had a headquarters brass band, and that he used to ask them every night to play that piece of music. It was a rather nice piece, pleasant and easy to learn, and the refrain to it when sung, at least all I remember of the refrain, was:

"Ever through life's campaign I'll be a soldier still."

The ordnance sergeant used to describe Albert Sidney Johnston in very kind terms as a melancholy man of great genius and ability, apparently cramped by his jurisdiction and command, bigger than the flower-pot in which he was growing, devoted to duty, and, in matters outside of duty, very orderly and very kindly. He arrived at considerable distinction in the Confederate army, and had been killed in battle at the time when the sergeant had told me of this, his favorite piece of music. I had heard that piece of music down at Fort Kearney. I have never heard it since I left Fort Laramie.

Jules Coffey and the Jacks – Snake Fight – Indian Fight – October 29, 1864 – Sam Dion – The Indian Baby – Camp Shuman – The "Simple Instance" – 53-mile Ride – The Snow-storm – The Mormon Train – The Black-tailed Dear – Sergeant Lippincott – Stephenson and the Wolf – Venison – Arrival at Lodgepole

On this visit to Laramie was the last I ever heard or saw of Jules Coffey. As stated before, Jules had a great deal of superstition about holding jacks while playing cards. He thought they were his lucky card. Happening in the back room of the sutler store where an almost continuous game of poker was going on, I saw Jules betting ferociously upon a poker hand. He said he would never lay it down, but he finally did. It consisted of three jacks, and Jules was beaten. His superstition had, in the language of the place, "busted him."

There were a couple of civilians in the employ of the Government, or who had dropped in the post some time before, who were gathering snakes for the Smithsonian Institution. There was a great deal said about the great quantity of snakes that could be found around in the rocky ledges of that country. A great many stories were told about the Indians eating them, and about the scientific way of capturing them. It seems that the Indian women would go out and hunt for them, but had to be very careful in capturing the snake so that the snake would not bite itself, and poison its own meat. The Indian women with a long forked stick would try to pin the snake down close to its head so that it could not bite itself. The trappers said that a rattlesnake was good to eat, and worth catching, providing it did not bite itself. One evening one of these men in the snake business asked me to go around and look at some snakes he had in a box. He had got a musket-box which was made long, to hold a musket, but was not of very much interior capacity, and was heavily built. On one of these boxes they had fixed a heavy double glass top, and the snakes had been fastened in so that it wasn't expected that they could be fed or taken care of. The man said the snakes didn't need it. In this box were coiled, one at each end, two monstrous rattlesnakes, each one as long as the musket-box, and they were there motionless, looking at each other. The next day I was called to go and see the box again. The two snakes had coiled themselves around each other like strands of a rope from head to tail, except that the heads and necks were free. These were bent around looking at each other, and formed a picture not unlike the medical symbol of a caduceus. Just before I left Fort Laramie I was called again to look into the box. One of the snakes was dead, and the other was coiled loosely up in the end of the box, drooping as if hardly alive. The whole thing left me a most ghastly memory; one had strangled and killed the other.