Eugene Ware - The Indian War of 1864

During the night the Indians withdrew, and in the morning there was not an Indian to be seen; they had all gone up into the hills and struck northeast for the head of the Bluewater River, a most beautiful stream, the "Minne-to-wacca-pella" – "Water-blue-river." So the Colonel returned to Julesburg, but there was one big feature of his trip: about two hundred head of the wildest of the cattle had got away from the Indians, and not having time to bother with them, the Indians had let them go and our boys gathered them up and brought them in. Colonel Livingston got into Julesburg just about as I did, on the evening of the 15th, and he proceeded to communicate by wire with General Mitchell.

This was the last that I ever saw of Julesburg until more than forty years after. I visited the place in 1908, and tried to find where the post had been; nobody could tell me. I finally located it, and found a house standing on the site of the old stables. The house was occupied by renters who had no knowledge or tradition of the old post, although it was occupied by the regular army after we left it, and was one of the important posts of the frontier for a time. Thus does glory fade. Near it was a promising field of corn, growing well without irrigation, a thing impossible to conceive of when we were there. Across the river near Julesburg was a modern bridge.

Colonel Livingston told me to get ready immediately to start with him on horseback, together with a small detail of well-mounted cavalry, down the Platte, leaving the balance of the command to return to their respective posts. The roads were now all opened up both ways to Denver and Salt Lake, and the telegraph working both ways, and the post of Julesburg relieved from siege; so the Colonel got ready to start east. I was exceedingly tired from the work that I had been doing of late, and from riding all that day thirty-two miles in the wind, and I was a little surprised when the Colonel said that he would start promptly at eight o'clock that night on horseback; but I got ready, and off we rode. We rode all night, halting in the morning for breakfast; we then rode all day in a most terrible windstorm, and arrived at Cottonwood Springs, a distance of one hundred miles, late at night on Feb. 16th, 1865, making the trip in a little over twenty-four hours.

As this was also my last visit to Cottonwood Springs, until the year 1908, I will briefly describe what I found on the latter visit. Nobody could tell me where the old fort was. The whole country was peopled by foreigners. I located MacDonald's ranch in the midst of a fine corn-field. I located the well by a depression where it had caved in. Beside it I plucked an ear of corn that would have looked well at a county fair. Upon the site of the old post a field of wheat had been harvested and was being stacked. Of eleven men working in and around the field a few of them could not speak English, and none of them knew anything about the military post or had any tradition of its existence. Up in the caсon, several miles, was a large horse ranch, but nobody was at home. Not a cedar tree was in sight. On the old parade-ground, which I could pick out by its location with the hills, I found a few of the trees which we had planted. Such a field of wheat, grown without irrigation, would have been impossible in 1864. Not far off, in the junction of the Plattes, was the bright new city of "North Platte."

Between the old site of the post at Cottonwood and the spot where Jack Morrow's Ranch was, there is now a National Cemetery, of recent date. In it are buried all of my men who lost their lives on the plains. Their bones have all been taken up from their original resting-places and all placed together under the trees where the sun is shining and the birds of summer singing; guarded by the great nation they fought for; unknown heroes, the vanguard of their race, they did their share, and they loved their country. If they could rise from their graves they would do their work over again if it were necessary. I went up to where Jack Morrow's ranch stood; I found near its site a house in which people were living in much comfort, surrounded with trees and smiling gardens; they were Swedes, they had never heard of Jack Morrow, and had lived there 18 years. The entire valley of the river was a mass of fine farms, and about all I could recognize in the landscape was the Sioux-Lookout. Pardon the digression; I now return to February 16, 1865.

We slept four hours at Cottonwood. I met some of the officers of the post and they all said to me, "You will never see Omaha." I thought that was about true, as I was almost ready to drop from fatigue. After four hours of sleep, we started out before daylight, and rode all day and night until two o'clock a.m. of the 19th; making two hundred miles, in the dead of winter, through that country, which we had ridden from eight o'clock in the evening of the 15th to two o'clock in the morning of February 19th, 1865. Colonel Livingston was as nearly used up as we were and we got into Kearney without any of the soldiers that we started with. From time to time their horses had given out and we had left them at the various posts. I had my big black horse, "Old Bill," and my Indian pony, which I rode alternately, and we made the two-hundred-mile ride on a run about all the way. I had averaged sixty miles a day for four days after leaving Lillian Springs. My horses were tired but uninjured. As we arrived at 2 p.m., I wanted to smoke a cigar before I went to sleep. I saw a light in the sutler's store, went there to get the cigar, and found a party of officers, all of whom I knew, engaged in a poker game. I was most enthusiastically received, and was asked to sit in the game, or, to use the language of the period, to "take some of the chicken pie." I do not like to tell these stories, but it is necessary to do so in order to depict the men and the times. It is due to history. Of course I sat in; it would not have done for me to do otherwise; an officer must never get tired, must never admit he is tired. He is judged and rated, and his usefulness considered, according to his durability. It was the best possible thing I could do, to raise myself in the esteem of those officers, to sit in the game. They knew the kind of work I had been on for a week, and not to be tired was a matter of admiration to them; under the circumstances I could not help "sitting in." I was, in fact, very tired, but I told them I felt gay and frisky and was just looking for a game. I would have given forty dollars for a chance to sleep, but I sat in, and when we quit at breakfast-time I had won $55.

Then I slipped away and slept all day. War furnishes a great outlet for a superabundant energy.

Returning now to the North Platte, I will briefly describe what took place. When the Cheyennes appeared before Julesburg on February 1st, and before the telegraph was destroyed, Laramie and the North Platte posts were all notified. The sudden destruction of the line caused them all alarm. Scouts came down from Mud Springs, saw what the trouble was, and, being unable to cope with the situation, returned and gave the alarm to the other posts. Soon afterwards, seeing an advanced scouting party of the Cheyennes, all the posts east of Scott's Bluffs retired west to Camp Mitchell at that place, and some cavalry from Laramie came down to Fort Mitchell to prevent it from being taken. When the Indians were crossing "Jules Stretch," the whole command from Camp Mitchell came down to oppose them, but were soon driven back with several killed; but this turned the Indians to the northeast, towards the head of the Bluewater river. These troops had been driven west before Colonel Livingston had come up with the Indians. Owing to loss of telegraph line they did not know of each other's movements, and could not make a junction. Between both parties, however, the telegraph line was finally restored through to Laramie and Salt Lake.