* Earlier in the year, Nash’s 70 scouts had served with the 3rd U.S. Volunteers at Fort Kearney. The Omaha Scouts were mostly Winnebagoes, recruited from a tribe uprooted from their Minnesota homeland and who had been living on the Omaha reservation.
† After leaving the U.S. Volunteers, McDougall joined the 7th Cavalry, and was in command of the pack train at the Little Big Horn.
‡ See Chapter XI for a more complete account of Company H.
VII
From Camp Douglas to Camp Douglas
1
“I’M GOING AWAY, I’M going away, but I’m coming back if I go ten thousand miles.”
So went one of the popular songs of the Confederacy, and no soldiers deserved more to sing it than the men of the 6th U.S. Volunteer Infantry. The 6th was the last regiment of Galvanized Yankees to be organized, following the 5th out of Fort Leavenworth by about two weeks. While the 5th was replacing the 2nd Regiment along the relatively peaceful Santa Fe route, the 6th moved up to busy Fort Kearney to take over from the 3rd.
It was June 1865—two months after Appomattox—when the 6th reached the Plains country. State Volunteers who had been guarding the Overland Mail and Pacific Telegraph lines were being mustered out in haste to avoid mass mutinies and desertions. In a matter of a few days, the 10 companies of the 6th found themselves almost the sole guardians of 2,200 miles of telegraph lines and stage roads.1 From June until the spring of 1866, they marched and countermarched over considerable areas of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Utah, until some of them truly must have traveled the 10,000 miles of their war song.
Six of the 10 companies of the 6th were recruited at Camp Douglas, Illinois, two at Camp Chase, Ohio, two at Camp Morton, Indiana. Regimental commander was Colonel Carroll H. Potter, a young man who had received two years of training at West Point before the Civil War. During the war, he won the rank of brevet brigadier-general for meritorious service. To assist him in directing the widely scattered operations of the 6th, Potter was assigned an experienced lieutenant-colonel, William Willard Smith, who had served during the war on General H. W. Halleck’s staff in Washington.
Unlike most other Galvanized Yankee commanders, Potter joined his regiment before it left Camp Douglas for the West. Companies organized at the Indiana and Ohio prison camps were transferred to Camp Douglas, and in early April marched out to Camp Fry, a training center which had been established in 1864 on the outskirts of Chicago for the Hundred Days’ volunteers. There Colonel Potter took command, treating the former prisoners as if they were raw recruits, insisting that they be taught first how to stand at attention and salute. Drums and bugles awakened the men each morning and directed their daily round of activities, which included several hours of drill. Potter held frequent inspections, required coats and blouses to be always buttoned, saw that the grounds were regularly policed and barracks kept neat and clean. He permitted no laxness among his company officers, held them responsible for all infractions committed by their men, and excused no absences from any roll calls.2
Within two or three weeks, the 6th was a smart regiment, and doubtless would have compared well with Colonel Dimon’s highly polished 1st. On April 27 General Dodge put in an urgent plea for immediate transfer of the 6th for service on the Plains, and two weeks later the regiment moved by rail from Chicago to Fort Leavenworth, arriving there May 11. It was the first regiment of Galvanized Yankees to reach the frontier intact and at full strength—organized, trained, and officered. “I have the honor,” Colonel Potter proudly notified General Dodge, “to report to you for orders … the 6th U.S. Volunteers, 950 enlisted men and 26 commissioned officers present for duty.”3
Less than 24 hours later, Dodge ordered the Leavenworth commandant to “get the 6th U.S. Volunteers off for Kearney and Julesburg as soon as possible.” On May 14th the regiment marched, and on May 31 arrived at Fort Kearney.4
During the early days of June, companies moved out rapidly to relieve the hard-pressed 3rd Regiment at unguarded posts along mail and telegraph routes. E Company took over the 80-mile route east of Fort Kearney between Muddy Creek and Big Sandy. A, F, and G marched to Fort Laramie; H and I to Camp Rankin at Julesburg; K to Post Cottonwood; B farther west to Camp Wardwell; C and D remained at Kearney.
In recognition of Colonel Potter’s experience, General Connor placed him in command of the South Sub-District, which included the Overland Mail Route between Forts Collins and Halleck, a section then suffering severe Indian raids almost daily. Conditions had become so bad, in fact, that the stage company was threatening to suspend service unless more military protection was guaranteed.
Potter transferred his headquarters to Denver on June 14, and began an energetic effort to make the route secure. By shifting his troops, he was able to restore armed escorts for each coach between all stations. “Instruct your non-commissioned officers,” he directed post commanders, “to have two of the escort ride about 100 yards in advance of the coach; the other two post in the rear, keeping careful lookout for Indians or any signs of them.”5
On June 27, Potter informed General Connor at Fort Laramie that he anticipated no more trouble along his section of the route. “I took through with me from Fort Halleck, with a government team, all the mails that were there, one entire wagon load, and returned from Sulphur Springs with a mail of nearly same amount returning east … had no trouble with Indians … if stock tenders from the Overland Mail Company will watch the stock while feeding on grass in the day, and keep them near the station, and at night place them in a corral, which I have ordered to be guarded every night, they will not lose so much of their stock.”6
Three days later, Potter’s optimism suffered a blow when he received reports of new Indian raids. One soldier was killed at Rock Creek, 60 head of stock lost. The raiders drove away all stock at Willow Springs. On July 4, the hostiles mocked the national holiday by striking at a strongly guarded herd outside Fort Halleck, sweeping away 14 of the best stage horses. That same day at Fort Collins, two companies of Kansas Volunteer cavalrymen almost mutinied when one of the 6th Regiment’s staff officers, Major Henry Norton, ordered them up the road to pursue the raiders.
While Potter was endeavoring to clear up trouble west of Denver, the Indians began raiding along his line to the east. On July 6, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith reported from Camp Wardwell that wagon trains near Wisconsin Ranch were under attack, and that he was in urgent need of mounted men to retaliate. Potter was able to scrape together only a paymaster’s escort of one sergeant and nine men, dispatching them to Smith with a cheery message to “do the best you can with the force you have. Whip the Indians if possible.”7
In his reports to General Connor of these developments, Potter hinted that he needed more troops. Had he known how little military use was being made of his three Galvanized Yankee companies at Connor’s Laramie headquarters, Potter might have been more demanding.
At Laramie, Companies A, F, and G spent most of July performing the same dreary garrison routines they had endured at Camp Fry. They listened to lectures on how to salute, what the proper uniform consisted of, and the necessity for maintaining a respectful attitude toward officers. Occasionally they escorted a logging train, or served on sawmill details8—all this at a time when their regimental commander down in Colorado Territory was desperate for men with arms to fight off Indian raids.
Connor probably was unaware of this misuse of the Galvanized Yankees. In July he was occupied in organizing his expedition to Powder River, and no doubt viewed Potter’s stagecoach troubles as only a temporary annoyance which would soon be cleared up by a thrust at the Indians in their Powder River villages. As the time for the campaign neared, Connor began collecting all available mounted troops. He was especially eager to use his own California cavalry which he had left at Camp Douglas—a post overlooking Salt Lake City. After some deliberation, Connor decided to order the Californians from Utah to the Powder, and replace them with Galvanized Yankees.
Consequently, ins
tead of sending more troops to Potter in Colorado, Connor advised the commander of the 6th U.S. Volunteers to transfer headquarters to Utah, taking along three companies of his regiment. At about the same time (early August) Connor ordered Companies H and I from Nebraska to replace cavalry along the harassed telegraph line west of Fort Laramie.
Potter selected Companies A, D, and F for the transfer to Camp Douglas, and then because he could not immediately relinquish his duties in Colorado, he assigned Lieutenant-Colonel Smith responsibility for marching the battalion over the arduous route to Utah.
One can easily imagine the shock to these former Confederates, who had survived the ordeal of Camp Douglas prison, when they suddenly learned they were under orders for a march to Camp Douglas. A majority of the soldiers of the 6th Regiment were Southern mountaineers, keen-witted but unblessed with a knowledge of much reading, writing, or geography, and then as now, army orders were never very explicit by the time they sifted down to the level of the enlisted men. It is quite probable that when the three companies marched out of Laramie for Utah many of these men believed they were on their way to the same wretched Camp Douglas from which they had been emancipated by taking the oath of allegiance. Even for those who knew it was a different place, the very name Camp Douglas created an image so repugnant they scarcely could have been blamed for not wanting to go there. As events proved, the two Camp Douglases were as different as hell and heaven. In 1865 the luckiest soldiers in the West were those privileged to be assigned to Camp Douglas, Utah.
Nevertheless, during the month’s march across Wyoming and Utah, 35 of the 275 men of the three-company battalion deserted. Lieutenant-Colonel Smith ordered company commanders to compile descriptive lists, and he sent these out to military posts where passing wagon trains were inspected. Teamsters and wagonmasters were warned not to give any men on the lists employment, clothing, or money, nor aid them in any way in escaping to the States or the mining districts of the Territories.9 Very few of these deserters, however, were ever apprehended.
On September 30, Smith’s battalion of Galvanized Yankees reached Fort Bridger. They trailed on across the yellow-aspened Wasatch Mountains, passed through Echo Canyon, and at 2:30 P.M., October 9, marched into Camp Douglas, Utah, to receive the surprise of their lives.
Instead of the gray, rotting, cottonwood-log barracks they had known back on the Plains, they saw a military post built of white-painted frame lumber and solid stone. Out from the entrance marched the entire post command, headed by a brass band playing a stirring martial air. For the first and probably only time in the short history of the Galvanized Yankees, they were welcomed by a formal review of Union soldiers—men from California and Nevada.
While this astonishing performance was underway, the newcomers had a chance to observe their surroundings. Camp Douglas lay on a bench of land above Salt Lake City, with a breath-taking view of a long valley. Within the panorama lay the coppery expanse of Great Salt Lake, snow-capped mountains reaching to the clouds, and the town itself. From the heights, Salt Lake City resembled a fairyland village, with broad regular streets, handsome buildings, and gardens of trees and flowers. On the fringes were farmhouses with livestock grazing in green fields.
Camp Douglas seemed but a smaller model of this City of the Saints. Close-clipped grass carpeted a spacious parade ground. The post’s streets were of smooth hard-packed gravel, and along the gutters ran perpetual streams of sparkling water diverted from a creek foaming down from the mountains.
This pleasant garrison was only three years old, having been founded by General Patrick Connor himself in October 1862. Ostensibly it was located as a base to protect the Overland Stage and Pacific Telegraph lines from Indians, but its principal objective was to intimidate the Mormons, whose loyalties to the Union were in doubt and under aggravation as a result of recent anti-polygamy laws passed by Congress. Most Mormons also took a neutral attitude toward the Civil War, a position which by 1862 was considered by ardent Unionists as equivalent to disloyalty.
As highest-ranking representative of the United States military authority in Utah, Connor went about his duties with deadly seriousness. His viewpoint was typical of contemporary anti-Mormon sentiment among Westerners, some of whom regarded polygamy with even more distaste than secessionism. “General Connor never jokes,” his friends said of him. One of his first acts was to mount a cannon on the Camp Douglas esplanade, facing down on Brigham Young’s tabernacle.10
Relations between the military post and Salt Lake City’s Mormon leaders were decidedly cool, of course, and when Connor began replacing temporary buildings with stone from nearby quarries, Brigham Young protested vigorously. The post was taking on too permanent an appearance to suit him. He demanded that the U.S. government abolish Camp Douglas, claiming that it was taking up valuable space within the corporate limits of Salt Lake City, that it was a constant annoyance to the inhabitants, and that its cavalry horses fouled the city’s water supply.
The government, however, supported Connor, who continued to develop and improve the post, until it became virtually a luxury garrison. Among other cultural activities, he sponsored a camp newspaper, the Union Vedette, and ordered a special building erected to house its office and plant. The paper, “published by officers and enlisted men of the California and Nevada Volunteers,” carried on a continuous feud with the Mormon press, one of its regular features being an editorial attacking polygamy or Mormonism.11
When the Galvanized Yankees arrived in October 1865 they knew nothing of this long-standing contention between military and church. Yet already they had become involved in the quarrel. Even before they set foot in Utah Territory, a Mormon elder referred to them publicly as “thieving, rascally ‘galvanized’ ruffians from the plains … intent on coming into Zion to sojourn here.”12
The Vedette editor, recalling that Mormons had described California and Nevada soldiers as “rag-tag and bob-tail of society,” was quick to reply: “Why is it that soldiers are so feared in Utah? Are the virgin daughters of Zion in danger from them?” He described the Galvanized Yankees as “a splendid looking lot of men; and have the reputation of being intelligent, disciplined and thorough soldiers … staunch and tough as Trojans. … The men who have fought bravely against the Union cause have shaken hands with the men who have fought for it, and ‘the Union one and undivided’ is again their joint motto. It is the policy of the truly brave to forget past differences, which the soldiers of Camp Douglas, who are now a mixed class, will endeavor to do. During the war they fought on opposite sides, but they are all members of the one family of Americans.”
Evidently Mormons were not the only local critics of the 6th U.S. Volunteers, for later on the Vedette found it necessary to mention the “quiet, gentlemanly conduct of our Volunteers” in the face of some verbal abuse from citizens at Camp Douglas. “If these people take it upon themselves to provoke our Volunteers causelessly,” the editor warned, “they will perhaps at sometime or other be made to know better.”13
The Galvanized Yankees meanwhile were enjoying the unexpected comforts and delights of Camp Douglas. On weekday evenings they could attend a camp theater where the “best stock company in Utah” presented dramas, pieces, and parts. Admission for enlisted men was 50¢. Between acts they could patronize the theater’s refreshment stand, which served “pies, cakes, candies, fruits, choice temperance drinks, and sugars, all at reasonable prices.” On Saturday evenings free dances were held in Camp Douglas Hall, girls from Salt Lake coming up for some “merry tripping of the ‘light fantastic’” Other amenities of the camp included a fruit wagon which rolled past the barracks every day, the services of an expert bootmaker, a dentist, and two “artists in the razor and hair brush business” who operated a “fashionable hair dressing salon” next to the theater.
In addition to all this, a jolly temperance group addressed a special invitation to “our comrades of the 6th U.S. Volunteers”: “There is a flourishing lodge of Good Templars in Camp, in which we wou
ld like to have you enrolled as members. The regular meetings are held every Tuesday evening. Send in your names and help the noble cause which so many of the Californians and Nevadans are advocating. Do not be backward, you will be welcome. You will pass many pleasant evenings in their hall, besides being benefitted by becoming temperate soldiers.”14 Among the advantages of becoming a Good Templar, it was rumored, was the availability of young lady guests who “went around and kissed the boys to see if they have not been breaking the pledge.” No records are available of the number of Galvanized Yankees who took the pledge and joined up.
After a few days of adjustment to this dreamlike existence, the boys of the 6th were given passes into town during their off-duty hours. A four-horse, double-decker omnibus ran regularly between camp and Salt Lake City, which was then a bustling capital of 20,000. Here they discovered liquor and cigar stores, bakeries, ice cream resorts, book and newspaper dealers, luxurious merchandise emporiums, and numerous saloons.
The Salt Lake Theater offered performances by well-known actors and actresses from the East. “Miss Alexander made a dashing appearance in unmentionables,” the Vedette reported on October 16, “gallant and gallous, gay and festive.” She was acting in Our American Cousin, a play which everyone wanted to see because President Lincoln had been enjoying it at the time of his assassination. For music lovers, there was still another theater, the Academy of Music, designed for perfect acoustics and furnished with elaborate stage scenery and a handsomely painted drop curtain. Admission prices ranged from $1.00 to $10.
The men in the ranks soon discovered one big flaw in their wonderful new world: the constant drain upon their pocketbooks. Opportunities to spend were numerous and seductive; their $16 per month simply would not stretch from payday to payday.