Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-08-22

vous at Crittenden, Grant county. On the
18th we were headed for Mount Sterling
with orders to head off MOrgan's com
mand. then coming in from East Tennes.
see. On the night Of the Goth the rain
came down in torrents, and the darkness
was OF the consistency Of cheese. Yet on
we r~ushed-h0rseS breaking down and my
ambulances filling up with dismounted
men and their accountrements. l started
to ride to the head Of the column, which
was about two miles long, the men march
ing four abreast, to request the colonel to
slacken his pace, but before reaching it
my horse, having been crowded to the
flew from under him, and he came down
with a crash. pinning my left leg TO the
stone road. In an instant my mOuth was
as dry as powder, and a feeling of faint
ness Overcame me. l was soon released
and placed in the ambulance when it came
the ambulance, I witnessed the surrender
OF portion Of the historic John Morgan
command under Colonel Giltner, with $40
men and Sixty.eight Commissioned officers.
NY stepbrother was one OF the latter, but
ash was lying on my back in the ambu-
lance'with acrushed ankle it was hard to
say which was in the worst plight, and we
met in perfect harmony. 5@&f's r
again was my regiment broken up into
half a dozen commands and stationed IN
the eastern counties bordering on the Ohio
river, and the adventures we then had
with the lawless characters of both armies
until Y muster out in September 1885,
own, only, l will relate. One night on re
turning from a visit to a detachment at
Brookville, to Falmouth, our regimenta1
headquarters, | found the Licking river so
swollen as to be impossible at the usual
crossing, even by swimming: 1t was 10
couch was on the opposite side of the river
800 feet long and 100 feet above The water.
Along one side ran a single plank for pc
destrians. l threw the reins over the neck
of my blooded steed and directed him to
follow me, and we both walked that plank
in safety, My horse was a knowing, sure
conscious of the vital Importance of put
ting each foot in the right place. On riding
up to headquarters 1 was met by a shower
of questions as to how | got across the
river. Had they not known that swim.
ming it was impossible, l believe I would
have been given the lie. As it was, some
of them were out there early next day ex-
amining that plank for horseshoe marks.
They found them.
Our regiment was mustered out on Sep
TENDER 10, 1856. Officers and men seperat-
ing with feelings of mutual respect and
regard. The officers of the regiment pre-
sented me with a ~splendidly mounted
sword with Damascus blade suitably en-
graved, which | still prize as one Of my
most cherished possessions, and the en-
listed men of the command purchased and
presented to me, with many other tokens
of good will, a thoroughbred horse, with
saddle and bride and silyer-mounted spurs,
alas, | could not keep that horse; and
brave Sergeant Watkins, who made the
pracantatiOn Snppah with q hoct Of Othpr
good f~ellows-oficers and privates-is no
more, but the memory of their comrade-
ship, and of the stirring scenes in which
they participated will never fade.
After receiving an honorable discharge
from the service, l returned home to find
and the darkies gone to the "demnition
bow wams." | went to Louisville, estab-
lished myself in private practice and ac-
cepted the chair OF demonstration of Anat-
omy in my alma water, the Kentucky
school of medicine. l became a writer for
medical journal. and the State University
of Kentucky conferred upon me the ad
eundum degree.
But a professors chair had little attrac.
ton for me, and [ entered the regular
army as A. A. Surgeon in April, 1857:
served during the reconstruction period in
western Tennessee. Here I met the lady
who is now my wife. She was a young
poetess, II years of age, who had made a
successful venture in the literary world.
tiful and talented, yet she had deliberately
chosen the lot of a missionary in prefer
ence to the luxurious life of literary and
social successes at her command. She had
gone on horseback over the entire district
Of western Kentucky and Tennessee
where our hostile armies had so lately
marched, agent of the American Mis-
nln&, 49,, NJ orrnr,sp;n~ kI,1 ,,...
lied freedmen into schools and cOngrega-
tons, building school-houses and churches
for them and installing teachers and pas
tors to carry on the religious work OF the
society; and now that her herculean work
was done, was to sail in a few weeks for
India, as a missionary, commissioned by
the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary soci-
lady's writings, and no sooner saw her on
horseback than l decided that Il girl who
could ride like that should not waste her
life in India if l could help it. But it was
a difficult task to convince her that there
was more glory in reforming one unregen-
crate Kentuckian than there would be in
converting a nation of heather. We were
married in August, 1868, and
remained in Tennessee until the
consolidation of troops IN the south, when
I was west. In April. 1871, [ left Wash
ing city for st. Paul and reached Fort Rice
via Dubuque and Sioux City, June 4, 1871.
We were three weeks on the river. In the
next August, early one morning, a war
party of Sioux attempted to run off the
herd belonging to the post. The most excit-
ing scene l ever witnessed TRANSFERRED
within fifty PAGES of the palisades Of the
fort. The herd escaped and ran back to
the corral, but the Sioux captured thirty
five ponies belonging to our Rec scouts.
| That month | was with a detail ordered to
build mounds to mark the military mail
route between Forts Rice and Stevenson.
| In the early spring of 1872 was in camp
with a surveying party in the big bend Of
| Heart river several weeks. We removed
in May to the bench where now stands
Fort Lincoln and established a camp. The
following July [ was M of a board Of
| officers appointed by General Hancock to
locate a new post, at or about the supposed
crossing of the Northern Pacific, for which
surveys had been made. We located it on
the hill as a measure of protection against
Indians. 1t was named Fort Mexican but
afterwards was rechristened Fort Abra-
ham Lincoln and moved down the hill to
its present site. In August, 1872, I was
ordered with with one company to take
the post on the opposite side Of the river,
at "Otter Crossing" after Camp Greedy
then Camp Hancock and finally Edwinton.
Bismarck.
On the day 1 landed at 'the crossing" 1