Eugene Ware - The Indian War of 1864

The wood train, after four days, did not turn up on the evening of the 28th as was expected. It did not turn up on the 29th. There was not a sliver of wood at the post, nor was there anywhere anything that would burn except the hay, and that could not be burned to any advantage. We had received a lot of sheet-iron from Fort Kearney, out of which our company blacksmith had made several stoves and some pipe. The stovepipes ran up through the roof. These stoves were economical heaters, and we burned splinters and bull-chips in them. On the 30th we burned some wisps of hay in the forenoon; we were getting cold, and I concluded to go out and see if I could get word of the train. One of the boys said that he had seen a smoke signal go up from the Lodgepole Lookout, which I have heretofore described as on the northeast comer of the junction of Lodgepole and the Platte.

Going over onto the plateau, I saw the train coming, quite near. They had seen Indian signals from time to time, and had felt constrained to march closely and well packed, but no attack had been made upon them. We were delighted to receive the wood train and get warm again.

While the wood train was over at Ash Hollow, a very ridiculous circumstance occurred. An Englishman, who claimed to be of some degree of nobility, turned up at the post with two four-mule wagons, a camping outfit, some dogs and servants, and said that he had come to the Western country to kill game. He wanted to get bear, buffalo, black-tail deer, and everything else which ran on four legs. He was a man of about thirty-five to forty years. He considered himself the smartest man that ever crossed the plains. He was always talking about English manners, and English etiquette. He was a scamp with a lot of money.

He came up, as he said, to pay his respects to the post commander. I soon saw that he was a rich, unprincipled scalawag. His egotism was enormous. He was talking about himself and his family most of the time; his idea of good morals was confined to the impression that a man should not eat with a knife. That seemed to be the sum total of his views of morality and good form. He was vulgar, indecent, loud, and a general nuisance in every respect; but he didn't eat with his knife.

He spoke of his traveling in America, and how he had been entertained by some of the best families of the land, and he had actually seen people eat with the knife. There was nothing else coarse enough or vulgar enough to attract his attention. I got tired of him in a short time, and launched him back onto the prairie with my kind regards, and he went to his wagons down at the station. Among his dogs was a very nice thoroughbred greyhound. The frontiersmen, who were all smart enough for anybody, and could read the new-comers like books, immediately began to make this Englishman their prey.

In the first place they got some green coffee, boiled it until it was tender, then soaked it in strychnine. The Englishman wanted to bet on everything, and was so all-wise that nobody could offer a bet that he did not take, either one side or the other of it. Some of the pioneers got into a conversation with this Englishman, and asked him if he had ever traveled in Java. Of course, the Englishman had traveled in Java, and knew all about it, and then one of these pioneers suggested that he had heard that green coffee was one of the most fatal poisons to swallow; that while it would not hurt a cat or a horse or a human being, that five grains swallowed by a dog were fatal. The Englishman sneered at the idea. Then one of the bystanders said that he had heard the same thing, and would bet a hundred dollars that it was true, because his old friend A. B. C. had told him so. The Englishman immediately took up the bet, and thereupon they slid down the dog's throat the five grains of green coffee, well prepared, and in a short time this beautiful dog was in articulo mortis, and the Englishman had lost his $100 and his dog.

At the ranch there was a man who sold, among other things, beans, the common navy beans, out of a sack, having a sack holding about a bushel, dipping them out with a quart cup. One of these fellows took a quart of the beans somewhere to the rear, and spent a sufficient time to count how many beans there were in the quart, and then he came around to where the Englishman and the beans were. One of the pioneers made a bet with another pioneer in regard to how many beans there were in a quart. After they had guessed wildly and at random, from three thousand to twenty-four thousand, the Englishman got into the game, and they took him for another $100.

It would have been all right, and would have ended here if the joke had not been too good, and some one told the Englishman of the tricks that had been played upon him. He came to our post to have the "bloody scoundrels" arrested for robbery.

The whole story was told by the Englishman, and vouched for by one of his servants, and the confession of one of the parties was related. There were at our post headquarters, and standing out alongside of the door, about forty men, as tickled a lot as I ever saw; soldiers and all seemed to enjoy it immensely. After I had heard the evidence I asked the Englishman why he made the bet. He said he supposed it was an honest bet. I then asked him if he had won, what he would have done with the money. He said he would have put it in his pocket. I then told him that out in the Western country people got their experience in the manner that he had got his. That people paid for it, and therefore came by it honestly; and that I considered the matter as only a little question of propriety between man and man, except as to the killing of the dog. The man was in the room who had given the dog the strychnine coffee. I told the Englishman that he had lost his money, and deserved to lose it, and I would not order it paid back to him. But that any man who would kill a good dog ought to be imprisoned. I told the Englishman he had no right to risk the life of his dog by betting on it. I ordered the sergeant to take the poisoner to the guard-house and lock him up; I ordered the proceedings adjourned, and told all the civilians to get off the reservation. They all went off, enjoying the discomfiture of the Englishman very much.

As to my prisoner, I ordered him to be kept until he paid a fine of $200 into the post fund. I also had him put at work currying horses. This post fund was for the purpose of general post benefits, extra things for the sick boys, and such matters as were needed, and which the Government did not issue. The post fund was really the company fund of our company. The man was kept working in the stables about two weeks. He finally proved to me that he was a worthless scamp, without any resources, and couldn't pay anything. Afterwards there was a train going down the road; I let him go and told him not to appear on the Platte again, and I never saw him afterwards.

The arrival of Lacey and Donley from Ash Hollow with the wood put us all in good spirits, and we entered the month of December with but little apprehension for the future.

Upon the first of December Captain O'Brien returned from Cottonwood Springs, and assumed command of the post. Our First Lieutenant, Brewer, was made Quartermaster of the post, and that left me the only officer to command the company, and on December first I took personal command of the company.

The Unfriendly Dinner – Apostle Cannon – Joe Smith – The Mormon Doctrine – Alkali Station – The Mormon Train – The River Crossing – Champagne with Bancroft – Elston's Prophecy

SHORTLY after the Captain reassumed command of the Post, he and I were invited to the stage station, one day, for dinner. There was a long table with about ten on each side. They were the drivers of the stage line, about as rough and jolly a lot of men as I ever saw. They were talking about the Indian scare, and the probabilities of an Indian outbreak, and how General P. Edward Connor was coming through from Salt Lake to take charge. And the whole dinner was a loud and uproarious occasion. The profanity was pyrotechnic.