Travel orders were not received until early October. Their first destination was Fort Leavenworth. Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn put his four companies aboard a Missouri River steamer, and a few days later they disembarked at Hannibal, Missouri. From there they journeyed by rail to St. Joseph, and then again by boat to Fort Leavenworth. On October 21, they went into camp outside the fort, and soon learned that they had been selected to guard the stations of a new stage line across far western Kansas. This new route was the creation of David A. Butterfield, who had raised $6,000,000 in the East to establish competition with the Ben Holladay stage-line monopoly. It was known as the Butterfield Overland Despatch, and was to run from Atchison to Denver by way of the Smoky Hill River Valley in Kansas.
On September 23, 1865, Butterfield arrived in Denver on the first coach run, and announced the beginning of regular daily service. Nine days later, hostile Indians made their first strike, near Monument Station in western Kansas. A westbound coach was surrounded and a sharp fight resulted. Finally the coach had to be abandoned, the travelers cutting the horses loose and racing to safety. Western newspapers editorialized: Will the Smoky Hill Route Be Abandoned?2
Butterfield immediately denied any intentions of abandoning the route, but he did ask for military assistance. On October 4, General Grenville Dodge boarded an eastbound coach in Denver to have a close look at the practicalities of guarding the new line. Dodge evidently recognized the advantages of the Smoky Hill route. It was 116 miles shorter than the Holladay route from the Missouri River to Denver, and much more grass was available for horses. The only thing lacking was military protection. Soon after General Dodge arrived in Atchison, Butterfield announced that his stagecoaches would be protected by Army escorts.
The escorts would consist of the four companies of 1st U.S. Volunteers, supplemented by detachments of the 13th Missouri Cavalry. Late in October, Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn was ordered to march 225 miles west to Big Creek and establish a new post to be called Fort Fletcher. (The name was later changed to Fort Hays.) Companies F and G would garrison Fort Fletcher. Company A under Captain Hooper B. Straut would march an-other 100 miles westward to Monument Station. Captain Richard Musgrove’s Company I was assigned to the farthest point west, Pond’s Creek Station, 50 miles beyond Monument.
On November 1, Tamblyn set his column in motion. It consisted of 108 six-mule-team wagons loaded with rations, grain, ammunition, and lumber to supply his 250 men. “Rain fell most of the time during the first two or three days, and the roads were heavy, the soil being clayey, similar to that of Virginia, but the mud soon disappeared with the appearance of the sun and we then made about twenty miles each day.”3 On November 4, they camped on the Potawatomi reservation, 80 miles from Leavenworth, and two or three days later marched into Fort Riley to rest for a day.
At Salina we passed the last dwelling house on the frontier. Here was located a public house, on the outside of which was spread an immense piece of canvas on which was lettered: THE LAST CHANCE TO PROCURE A SQUARE MEAL. The price was one dollar. We looked inside at the small table spread in the middle of the room that constituted the first story, and concluded we would let the last chance pass and trust to army supplies for our next meal, rather than partake of a meal in that place.
Here we left the habitations of civilized man behind us, and entered that vast tract of country called the Great American desert, the domain of the Indians, the buffalo, the antelope, the deer and the wolf.4
On November 20, the column reached Big Creek, previously selected as a fort site because of the availability of timber and water. Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn ordered half the wagons unloaded, laid out locations for barracks, and established Fort Fletcher as new headquarters for the last battalion of the 1st U.S. Volunteers. (Back in Leavenworth, Colonel Dimon had arrived with the other six companies from Fort Rice, and was preparing to muster them out.)
After a two-day rest, Companies A and I resumed march with the remaining wagons of supplies. “The first three days out, the weather was fine, the trail in good condition, and we covered a longer distance than usual. A vast number of buffalo were in sight, and we killed two or three to furnish meat for the men of our commands.”5
About noon on November 26, Straut and Musgrove decided to go into camp and rest the remainder of the day, as it was Sunday.
Three hours later, a band of mounted Indians swarmed down on a herd of grazing stock, sending 57 mules flying wildly across the plain. Captain Musgrove mounted some of his men and started in pursuit, but the raiders and the stolen mules were already out of sight.
After a conference between the two captains, it was decided to transfer the contents of nine wagons to others in the train, and abandon the empty ones. “The afternoon and night passed without further alarm, but towards night a smoke was seen a few miles to the west, which we understood to mean that the Indians were at work at a ranch just west of us and so the events of the morrow proved.”6
As luck would have it, Companies A and I had run head-on into one of the year’s worst raids in western Kansas—Cheyennes led by the half-breed Bent brothers, who were still wreaking vengeance on all white men in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.*
Next morning before starting out, Straut and Musgrove told the teamsters to be ready to corral the wagons at the first signs of an attack. They also ordered wagon covers rolled back, and posted two soldiers in front of each one with rifles at ready.
After a few miles, Musgrove sighted a party formed in a circle not far down the trail. “I took a dozen men and advanced under cover of a ravine,” he said, “intending to fire on them without warning, but I discovered that the party consisted of six white men and two women.”
They were Butterfield employees from Castle Rock Station, fleeing from Cheyenne raiders. Livestock belonging to the company had been run off by the Indians, but the ranchers had made their escape. They reported that when they passed near Downer’s Station during the night, they had seen buildings blazing and heard screams, but had not dared offer assistance; the Indians were too numerous. When the column reached Downer’s, they found three dead men.
The body of one lay in front of the ranch, stripped of all clothing, and from his chest protruded more than twenty arrows. … Not far away lay another, also nude, his body pierced with many arrows, his tongue cut out, and he was otherwise namelessly mutilated. In the rear of the ranch a still more sickening sight met our view. Here the fiends had made a fire … and across the yet smouldering embers lay the body of a man half consumed from the knees to the shoulders. The arms were drawn to the chest, the hands clenched, and every feature of the face indicated that the man had died in agony. Without doubt he had been burned alive.7
This was only the beginning of a day of appalling discoveries. As the two companies continued westward, they found a succession of mute witnesses to the cruelty of the raiders. Always there had been torture and mutilation.
When night fell, Straut and Musgrove corraled their wagons and kept an alert watch until dawn, fully expecting an attack. They were still 40 miles from Monument Station, Company A’s destination, but the two captains decided to try to cover the distance in one day. The march proved uneventful except for immense herds of buffalo which kept crossing the trail in front of them, heading south for winter grazing. As dusk fell they reached Monument, and to their great relief found there a detachment of the 13th Missouri Cavalry, quartered in adobe huts and dugouts.
Next morning, Captain Straut had his first look at the place where he was to construct dugouts for his new headquarters. The camp site lay on the west bank of the Smoky Hill, with a broad stretch of waving prairie grass extending for a mile or more along the bottomland. Beyond were the eroded clay formations known as “monuments,” which gave the station its name.
The morning was spent in unloading Company A’s supplies; then, late in the afternoon, a stagecoach arrived. It was a special coach carrying Butterfield’s general superintendent, William R. Brewster, and several Eastern newspaper
reporters whom he had invited to make the journey. Among them was Theodore R. Davis, special artist for Harper’s Weekly. Brewster’s mission was to show the newspapermen the safety and efficiency of the new stage line. Unless he had waited for the winter blizzards, he could not have chosen a more untimely week for the demonstration.
The travelers passed a quiet night at Monument, but before they could depart the next morning, a band of mounted Indians made a sweep at the mule herd. This time Captain Musgrove was ready for them. He ordered his men into firing positions and gave the raiders a shower of bullets. “The result was highly satisfactory, and to veterans of the hard fought battles of Virginia extremely ludicrous. The savages instantly whirled, threw themselves on the sides of their ponies farthest from us and were off with even greater speed than they had come.”8
The Indians, however, refused to leave the vicinity. They kept out of rifle range until their numbers had grown to 400 or 500, then began circling the adobes, occasionally dashing in close. Determined rifle fire drove them away. Late in the afternoon, the dry prairie grass on the bottomland burst into flames. The Indians were trying to drive the soldiers out with smoke and fire.
Artist Theodore Davis later sent Harper’s Weekly a series of on-the-spot drawings of this incident. “The strong breeze,” he wrote, “brought the smoke and flame rapidly down, nearly reaching the adobe before we could check the fire by beating it down and out with our blankets.”9
Soon afterward the attackers retired from the scene, and Superintendent Brewster announced that the coach would depart. This act of bravado did not go unnoticed by the officers at Monument, but they understood that Brewster was attempting to impress upon his guests that a stagecoach could pass unmolested through western Kansas.
As for Captain Musgrove, he had no intention of taking his slow-moving supply wagons across 50 miles to Pond’s Creek until he had scouted the trail. Waiting until the next morning, he started out with a reconnaissance party of 12 men mounted on mules. They saw a few Indians watching them from distant hills, but no attack was offered.
About noon, as Musgrove was nearing a stock-tender’s ranch, he noticed an abandoned stagecoach standing beside a corral. A moment later a man stepped out of a dugout; he was followed by seven or eight others. They were Superintendent Brewster and his guests, marooned after a chase by Indians. Although they had managed to reach the safety of the dugout, they had lost their team to the raiders. (Brewster, who had been so anxious to impress the newspapermen, must have been chagrined a few weeks later when Theodore Davis’ exciting drawing of a Butterfield stagecoach in flight before Indians filled a full page of Harper’s Weekly.)
“These men regarded my party as their deliverers,” Musgrove said, “and gladly accepted my proposition to return to Monument with us. We rested our animals, partook of hardtack and coffee, and were on the point of starting east, when we observed horsemen approaching from the west.”10 The patrol proved to be a detachment of Company A, 13th Missouri Cavalry, under Captain DeWitt C. McMichael. The Missourians, who were to share duties with the Galvanized Yankees at Pond’s Creek, were marching to meet Captain Musgrove’s company, which was overdue.
After a consultation, McMichael agreed to use some of his horses to pull Brewster’s coach on to Pond’s Creek. Musgrove then returned to Monument with his squad, and on his arrival issued orders to Company I and the wagon drivers to prepare to march for Pond’s Creek at dawn. “We pushed ahead as rapidly as possible, all the time using the utmost vigilance to guard against a surprise. Our constant preparation for trouble may have been observed by the Indians and thus saved us from an attack. After an hour’s rest at noon for man and beast and for feeding the mules with grain rather than allowing them to graze, we again pushed on and arrived, late at night, at Pond’s Creek.”11
Pond’s Creek Station—which was later to become Fort Wallace—was one mile from Smoky Hill River, on a low bluff surrounded by a treeless plain. The Missourians had already begun construction of dugouts, and as soon as the men of Company I unloaded their wagons they began digging similar excavations. They dug 8 by 10 foot holes six feet into the slope, covering them with poles, brush, and earth. Gunny sacks served as entrance covers.
The first order of business between Captains Musgrove and McMichael was to compare dates of muster. As McMichael proved to be the ranking captain, he assumed command of the new post, which was garrisoned by 120 men—70 Missouri cavalrymen and 50 U.S. Volunteer infantrymen. Musgrove was not impressed by the discipline of McMichael’s troops. One of the cavalry lieutenants, he noted, had lost his voice because of a bullet that passed through his neck when he was trying to quell a disturbance among his men.
“Life at Pond’s Creek Station was decidedly dreary. By the time quarters were completed winter had set in.” Only the arrival of stagecoaches broke the daily monotony, and soon they were running on irregular schedules. After Superintendent Brewster’s unfortunate experiences with the Eastern newspapermen, Butterfield had persuaded the army to provide escorts for all coaches crossing the Western division of his line, but by December passenger traffic dwindled, and service was cut to triweekly departures. When the first snowstorms swept down from the Rockies, the coaches stopped running entirely.
The snows also meant trouble for Pond’s Creek and Monument.
The soldiers had brought only enough rations to last until midwinter, and unless additional wagons could get through they would face starvation. To make matters worse at Pond’s Creek, a large part of the rations were found inedible. Pork and bacon were spoiled and the hardtack was mildewed. As a deep snow cover remained on the ground, the horses also began suffering for lack of forage.
About a week before Christmas, a buffalo herd was sighted several miles out. Captains McMichael and Musgrove selected their best marksmen, saddled up, and went for a hunt. They brought in eight buffaloes. The meat was a welcome addition to the sparse diet of the post, but by Christmas Day it was all gone. No other herds were seen, and McMichael believed it unlikely that more would appear before spring.
On New Year’s Day, 1866, the two captains made an inventory of their provisions and estimated that even on short rations the Pond’s Creek garrison could subsist for only 15 more days. A few days later, with the frigid weather showing no sign of relenting, McMichael announced that he had decided to make his way East through the snow with his mounted men, leaving Musgrove’s infantrymen to hold the station until relief could arrive.
“I regarded this as cowardice on his part,” Musgrove recorded, “and involving a positive peril to my command. … I therefore sent him a written protest against his proposed course of action. Immediately on reading my communication, he strode into my tent, evidently excited, and prepared to finish me then and there.”
Musgrove managed to calm the hot-blooded Missourian, but could not persuade him to change his mind about withdrawing the cavalry. On January 8, McMichael with an escort of eight men started for Monument, after issuing orders for the remainder of his company to follow the next day if he had not returned. “As soon as the captain left the post,” Musgrove said, “I assumed command and forbade any one leaving the post except by orders issued by me. But Captain McMichael was evidently ill at ease. After he had been gone a few hours, he returned to the post, assumed command, and issued orders for the evacuation of the station.”12
After waiting one more week in hopes that a supply train would reach Pond’s Creek, McMichael ordered all remaining supplies loaded in two six-mule wagons, and on the morning of January 18, the 120 men began a 50-mile march to Monument Station.
Drifted snow had obliterated the trail, and much of the time they had to travel by dead reckoning. Horses and mules stumbled into deceptive hollows; shovels had to be used frequently to keep the wagons rolling.
They made only 12 miles the first day, and when darkness fell the men had to bivouac in the snow. “Those who had them spread rubber blankets upon the snow with woolen blankets on those, on which they lay down
and covered themselves with other blankets. No faces were left exposed and the more the snow drifted over those beds the warmer were the occupants. Each morning long rows of snowy mounds looked like a graveyard in winter, but there was life there, and without the roll of drum or the bugle note the snow would heave and from the mounds men would issue, shake the snows from their bodies and their beds and prepare for another day’s tramp.”13
Each day their difficulties increased. Horses and mules began to fail for lack of forage, and one by one the animals were left to die along the track. On the second day out, wolves and coyotes appeared in the wake of the column, a gathering host of scavengers, depressing the spirits of the struggling soldiers.
“Most of the time,” wrote Musgrove, “the weather was intensely cold—how cold we could not determine, as there was no thermometer in the party, but one night a mule was frozen to death while tied to the tongue of a wagon, and water left in an iron kettle was frozen to a solid mass and the kettle broken.” Contemporary newspapers attest to the bitter weather of January 1866 in western Kansas. A Santa Fe stage arriving in Kansas City reported crossing the Arkansas River on the ice. Twenty wagon trains west of Fort Zarah were snowbound, their teams dying of cold and starvation. Snow was two feet deep at Salina. “Winter is severe on the plains.”14
When they reached Monument Station they found Company A nearing the end of its provisions, and Captain Straut needed no persuasion to join his men to the hegira. Next day the enlarged column resumed march; almost a hundred miles of deep snowdrifts lay between them and Fort Fletcher, the nearest source of supplies.
A day or so later a blizzard struck. “The air was full of falling snow, driven by a pitiless and unceasing gale, but fortunately, we were … where we had a small quantity of fuel and therefore did not attempt to move.”15
At last, after 16 days on the trail from Pond’s Greek, and with practically all rations exhausted, the half-frozen column reached Fort Fletcher. There the men’s hopes for nourishing food were quickly dashed. For a week, Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn’s garrison had been existing on parched corn and had nothing else to offer the starving men from the West.