Dee Brown on the Civil War

  On November 6, some of Captain Nash’s Winnebagoes took the horse herd four miles out of camp to graze. A band of Arapahos made a sudden strike, killed and mutilated one of the herders, stampeded a few horses. After that the Winnebagoes’ vigilance became so strict and so deadly that hostiles in the area soon learned to keep their distance from the fort on Powder River.

  The days grew shorter and colder. For lack of other recreation, gambling in the barracks became prevalent, and Williford felt compelled to issue a general order on November 15:

  It having come to the knowledge of the Commanding Officer that the habit of gambling is freely indulged in by both non-commissioned officers and soldiers of this command and that in many instances pecuniary embarrassment has resulted therefrom, be it ordered that hereafter any non-commissioned officer or soldier convicted of gambling, shall if a noncommissioned officer be reduced to the ranks; if a soldier, be confined at hard labor, during the pleasure of the Commanding Officer; and all monies staked shall be confiscated and appropriated for the benefit and comfort of sick soldiers in hospital.23

  As Williford must have foreseen, gambling did not stop, but he had to make an example of at least one man. The luckless one was Corporal Michael Kelly, 21 years old, former carpenter’s apprentice of New York City. Mike Kelly’s loss was 22-year-old Private John Ferguson’s gain; Ferguson, a Canadian, won the lost stripes.

  Blankets and winter uniforms, bacon and flour, came up the trail from Fort Laramie just in time for the first big snows, and from then on—through December and January—life became dreary and monotonous for the men in the stockade. Soon after New Year’s Day, 1866, Williford received notification that the fort’s name had been changed from Connor to Reno.

  By February half the command was ill. Lack of vegetables in their diet brought on scurvy, and pulmonary diseases spread rapidly through the poorly ventilated barracks. Williford himself was ailing, with swellings in his face and legs which Surgeon Smith diagnosed as dropsy.

  Within a few days of each other four men died in the hospital. Ephraim McClure, 26 years old, Missouri, farmer—of scurvy. M. K. Liggett, 20 years old, Mississippi, farmer—consumption. Thomas Kelly, 40 years old, Florida, seaman—typhoid fever. James Holt, 30 years old, Kentucky, farmer—congestion of lungs.

  It seemed that spring would never come to the lonely post on the Powder. The weekly mail couriers from Fort Laramie—which was now headquarters for Maynadier’s 5th Regiment—brought no news of their relief, and the men began to wonder if they might not be marooned at Fort Reno for the two years remaining of their enlistments. Early in March, Captain Tubbs and Lieutenant Marshall received transfer orders, leaving Williford short of officers. On March 24, Sergeant Owen Healy and a detail of 11 men took advantage of the situation and deserted. Several days later seven of them were picked up near Laramie and confined in the guardhouse there. On April 9, Sergeant Michael Enright of Limerick, Ireland, and four men also departed without leave, and were not seen again.

  By this time Williford was so seriously ill that Surgeon Smith recommended his transfer to a post with more adequate medical facilities. The captain left in an ambulance, could go no farther than Fort Caspar (formerly Platte Bridge Station). He died there April 29.

  During May, Captain Nash acted as post commander. The first emigrant trains of the season bound for Montana came up the Bozeman Road from Laramie, and also from Laramie came new rumors and new orders. The rumors cheered the U.S. Volunteers; regular army troops were said to be en route from Fort Kearney to relieve them. The orders were for Captain Nash. He was to start marching his Omaha Scouts to Laramie for mustering out.

  Lieutenant Dana, acting commander in place of Nash, also received new orders. He was to assign detachments of his men as escorts to wagon trains going to Montana. Some of the men assigned to these trains never returned to Fort Reno; also some of those at Reno who were not assigned to wagon trains decided to go to Montana on their own. At last, on June 28, Colonel Henry B. Carrington and a battalion of the 18th Infantry arrived with orders relieving the Galvanized Yankees from further duty at Fort Reno.24

  “They were certainly glad to be relieved,” one of Carrington’s enlisted men recorded. “They had had no trouble with the Indians but had found the place far from being desirable as a permanent place of residence.”25

  Before departing from Fort Reno, the men of C and D Companies celebrated their second Fourth of July in the service of the United States Army. A review, patriotic orations, firing of salutes from the fort’s field howitzer, completed the formal ceremonies. In the afternoon some of the boys imbided too freely of “tanglefoot” whiskey obtained from a portable road ranche in the vicinity. One fatal accident marred the holiday: Private Joseph M. Thompson, 25 years old, former carpenter from Davis County, Kentucky. The report of his demise was devoid of details: “Killed accidentally by discharge of a revolver by a soldier of the 18th Infantry.”26 Private Thompson had been a Rebel; the 18th Infantry was made up partly of green troops who were awkward at handling their weapons, partly of Union veterans who had marched through Georgia with Sherman. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps not.

  On July 6, Lieutenants Dana and Stull led their companies out of Reno for Fort Laramie, where they were to report to Colonel Maynadier for further assignment. Of the 137 men who had made the long march up the Niobrara, 104 still endured, ready for whatever the future held in store for them.

  While C and D Companies were having their adventures along the Niobrara and the Powder, far to the south their comrades in other companies of the 5th U.S. Volunteers were also seeing a great deal of the Plains and the Rockies. From May through July of 1865, Company A remained camped at Lake Sibley on the Republican River; B, E, and F performed escort duties out of Salina and Fort Riley, G, K, and I moved farther west on the Santa Fe Trail, and a detachment of H Company traveled all the way to New Mexico with an army supply train.

  In August, when Patrick Connor started north on the Powder River Expedition, he asked General Dodge for soldiers to replace those he was taking from stations along the Platte. As Indian hostilities in Kansas appeared to be coming to an end, Dodge decided to transfer Maynadier’s regiment to Connor’s district of the Plains. “I have ordered the 5th U.S., about 800 strong, to you,” he informed Connor on August 15. “This with the 6th U.S. and what California infantry you have, is all the infantry we will have this winter … that portion of the 5th U.S. Volunteers with Colonel Sawyers’ wagon party is ordered to report to you when he discharges them. They must be up in that country some place.”27

  Maynadier marched from Fort Riley on August 26 with six companies. H and I would come up later from Fort Dodge and Camp Wyncoop. On September 9, the 5th arrived at Fort Kearney, meeting for the first time Galvanized Yankees from the 3rd and 6th Regiments. After drawing rations, they traveled on west to Julesburg and camped for several days outside Fort Sedgwick, headquarters for the 3rd U.S. Volunteers, who were awaiting orders for mustering out. The boys of the 5th would have been pleased to move into the adobe barracks recently constructed by the 3rd, but orders from General Connor dispersed the regiment by companies to other stations. “The regimental staff will be held in readiness to move to Fort Laramie,” Maynadier announced on September 20.28 The colonel had been chosen to command that important post in Connor’s absence. As events turned out, Maynadier would remain at Laramie throughout the crucial Indian peace negotiations of 1866, and was there when Colonel Carrington marched north to fortify the Montana Road.

  Maynadier took only his headquarters staff with him to Laramie, sending Companies A, E, and F to Fort Halleck, G and K to Camp Wardwell, and B to Denver for quartermaster duties. In the spring of 1866, A and E were moved back east to Fort Kearney to replace Carrington’s 18th Infantry battalion which had been there most of the winter. H, I, and K marched south to Fort Lyon, Colorado, the center of new Indian disturbances on the far western section of the Santa Fe Trail. G went to Fort McPherson. F replaced a company of State
volunteers at Fort Collins, a key station on the Overland Stage Line north of Denver. Near Fort Collins ran a clear mountain stream, Cache La Poudre, and off to the west the Rockies “seemed to hang in the sky like clouds.” Duties were light until late in the summer when half the company was detached and sent up the trail to help build a new post, Fort John Buford (later renamed Fort Sanders).29

  The men of B Company meanwhile were out of the action, living like peacetime soldiers in Denver, where they worked in a quartermaster base, loading wagons and dispatching trains to all the army posts in the area. Their commander was Captain Thomas McDougall, a thoroughgoing officer who permitted no slackness among his men.†

  When soldier details from other 5th Regiment companies came into Denver for supplies, they must have been envious indeed of B Company. In their off-duty hours, the B Company men had a booming town of 5,000 people for a playground. No dugouts, no sod houses, but solid brick buildings—stores, churches, a school, newspaper office, and the U.S. Mint. Gambling houses were wide-open until the small hours of the morning. “There was always a brass band in front and a string band in rear, so if one wanted to dance, he could select a partner of almost any nationality, dance a step, step up to the bar, pay two bits for cigars, drinks or both and expend his balance on any game known to the profession.”30 The B Company soldiers may occasionally have regretted being out of the action along the Platte line, but they had spent enough time doing escort duty in Kansas to know they were the luckiest Galvanized Yankees of the entire 5th Regiment.

  “It is impossible to conceive of a more dreary waste than this whole road is,” General William T. Sherman wrote from Julesburg on August 24, 1866, “without tree or bush, grass thin, and the Platte running over its wide, shallow bottom with its rapid current; no game or birds; nothing but the long dusty road, with its occasional ox team, and the everlasting line of telegraph poles. Oh, for the pine forests of the South, or anything to hide the endless view.”31

  Sherman never liked the Plains country. He saw it first at its worst time of the year—the end of summer—when the roadway was a mass of powdery stifling dust and all color was faded from the land. He had come out on an inspection tour of military posts, and one of the decisions he had to make was how soon the 5th U.S. Volunteers could be mustered out. The regiment still had more than a year of enlistment service remaining, but Sherman was determined to replace all Volunteers with regular Army troops as soon as possible.

  He was not impressed by the new post at Julesburg—Fort Sedgwick, with its adobe walls and earthen roofs and floors. “As lumber can be had … I have instructed that good roofs and floors be made. … There are a few of the 5th U.S. Volunteers left behind, their companies being out escorting surveying parties for the Pacific Railroad.”

  During that summer the shining rails of the Union Pacific had moved a mile a day up the Platte Valley, signaling the eventual end of Ben Holladay’s Overland Stage Line, as well as much of the freight wagon traffic. “Fort Kearney is no longer of any military use, so far as danger is concerned,” Sherman said,

  and now that the railroad is passing it in sight, but with a miserable, dangerous and unbridgeable river between, it must be retained for the sake of its houses and the protection of wagon travel, all of which still lies to the south side of the river. General Wessells commands, and has two companies at Kearney, and two companies higher up at Plum Creek, where General Pope thought there was or might be danger from some roving bands of Indians that hunt buffalo to the south, over about the Republican. All these companies belong to the 5th U.S. Volunteers (rebel) that I want to muster out, and must muster out somehow this fall; but I will defer making an emphatic order till I look up the line farther, and see where other troops are to come from to protect the stock and property. At Kearney the buildings are fast rotting down, and two of the largest were in such degree of tumbling that General Wessells had to pull them down, and I will probably use it to shelter some horses this winter, and next year let it go to the prairie dogs. Same of the temporary station at Plum Creek32

  The two companies Sherman found at Kearney were A and E. Those at Plum Creek were the survivors of the late Captain Williford’s Niobrara adventure, the men of C and D, who had been sent there from Laramie after their march from Fort Reno in July.

  Commander at Plum Creek was Captain George M. Bailey, D Company, and his first problem was to halt an excess of drinking among his men. “In the future under no circumstances,” he ordered on August 7, “will Ranchemen, Storekeepers or Sutlers be allowed to sell Spirituous, Ale or Malt Liquors to any troops of this command or to troops passing here. … Any offender will suffer loss of all Liquors in his possession. The Post Sutler will be allowed to sell Ale to the men in modest quantities.”33

  Undoubtedly the main reason for the drinking problem at Plum Creek was monotony—almost as bad as at Fort Reno, where liquor seldom had been obtainable. The expected Indian raids—which had been so frequent the previous summer when the 3rd Regiment was patrolling the Platte line—did not materialize. Aside from occasional uneventful escort rides over the dusty trail to Fort Kearney or Midway Station, there was little to break the deadly routine.

  One bright event was the arrival of the wife of Corporal Patrick Welch. Her cheerful Irish face was a tonic; the men smartened up their appearances, and in no time at all Mrs. Welch was the unofficial camp laundress. It was a black day at Plum Creek when Corporal Welch was transferred to Fort Kearney. As soon as Captain Bailey realized the importance of having a woman in camp he urged General Wessells to return the corporal and his wife. “Corporal Welch does a great many things,” Bailey explained, “and then I need the services of his wife as Laundress, there being none at the Post and the men do not get time to do their washing.”

  Late in August all of Company C was transferred to Fort Kearney, and again Bailey discovered he had lost another indispensable corporal, Russian-born Nicholas Korber, the post’s only bugler. “Respectfully request he may be returned as soon as possible, as I have no one who can blow calls until he returns.”34

  In September there were rumors of hostile Indians lurking in the vicinity of Plum Creek. Bailey led out a scouting party, found no sign of Indians, reported to Wessells that the Indian scare had been invented by one Daniel Freeman, who had a contract to bring out 4,000 railroad ties from Spring Creek for the Pacific Railroad. “I am of the opinion that Freeman wants soldiers sent down with his wagons simply to save the hire of laborers.” Bailey may not have been aware that timbered places on the Plains were usually Indian burial sites, and that peaceful tribes sometimes became violently hostile when these sacred places were logged. Before the matter could be settled, however, Company D received unexpected orders to move to Fort Kearney.

  One of the last pieces of military business in the regiment’s records concerned the case of Private George Washington Johnson, awaiting dishonorable discharge. An itinerant printer before the war, Johnson had joined a Confederate artillery, was captured by Sherman’s army at Resaca, Georgia, and after becoming a Galvanized Yankee was made first sergeant of Company D. He was soon reduced to the ranks for drunkenness; he reformed briefly and was promoted to corporal, then reduced again on the same charge. He was of a sort found in all armies—the amiable, purposeless soldier, growing old in the service, fearful of the responsibilities of civilian life.

  Private Johnson’s poignant plea for mercy is presented as he wrote it:

  Guard House, Fort Kearney

  Sept. 18, 1866.

  Gen’l H. W. Wessells,

  Hon. Sir

  Circumstances alter cases, but never more so than in mine.

  The Specification was false which charged me with being drunk two or three days. When I was only two days out of the Guard House, and on the morning of the second day, Capt. Bailey told me I was sober. I was hastened from work, or should have plead differently.

  I served the U.S. in the 3d Infantry in Mexico under Scott, in the taking of Vera Cruz, Cero Gorda (where
I was wounded,) Contrerass, Cheribusco (again wounded) three weeks after to Molin de del Ray and Chepultipec, from thence to the gates and taking of the city.

  During the entire time I was Orderly Sergt of D Company. Returned and was discharged as such.

  I am well aware of the position in which I am placed. I was driven to accept it, and am therefore compelled to adopt it. I am somewhat advanced in years. If you could consistently allow me to return to duty in any of the companies at this post, I will guarantee you will find me a soldier.

  Obediently yours,

  Geo. Wash. Johnson.

  At the end of Johnson’s letter was an indorsement by his commanding officer: “Private Johnson could be a splendid soldier if it were not that he always gets drunk when he has an opportunity of doing so.”35

  Regardless of how General Wessells may have decided the case, Private Johnson’s army career was soon to be ended. A few days later orders came to muster out the entire 5th Regiment. Sherman had made up his mind that he could return the Galvanized Yankees to civilian life before winter. He reached that decision on the last day of September at Fort Lyon, where Companies H, I, and K of the 5th were garrisoned in unfloored, flat-roofed buildings subject to flooding. “Anybody looking through them,” he commented, “can see full reasons for the desertions that have prevailed so much of late years. The quicker we get our garrisons and military establishments down to the regular army, the quicker we will secure economy.”36

  And so the 5th U.S. Volunteer Infantry Regiment came to the end of its service. Regimental headquarters and the seven companies along the Platte assembled at Fort Kearney and were discharged there by General Wessells on October 11. Companies H, I, and K had to wait a few weeks longer at Fort Lyon, then marched to Leavenworth, and were the last companies of Galvanized Yankees to be mustered out, November 11, 1866.‡