The coaches were all built alike, upon a standard pattern called the "Concord Coach," with heavy leather springs, and they drove from four to six horses according to their load. The drivers sat up in the box, proud as brigadier-generals, and they were as tough, hardy and brave a lot of people as could be found anywhere. As a rule they were courteous to the passengers, and careful of their horses. They made runs of about a hundred miles and back. I got acquainted with many of them, and a more fearless and companionable lot of men I never met. There seemed to be an idea among them that while on the box they should not drink liquor, but when they got off they had stories to tell, and generally indulged freely. They gathered up mail from the ranches, and trains, and travelers along the road, and saw that it reached its destination. They had but very few perquisites, but among others was the getting furs, principally beaver-skins, and selling them to passengers. Most of them had beaver-skin overcoats with large turned-up collars. We soon understood the benefits of these collars, and the officers of our post put large beaver collars on their overcoats, and the men of the company fitted themselves out with tanned wolfskin collars, which were equally as good. Wolves were so numerous that there was quite an industry in shooting or poisoning them, and tanning their skins for the pilgrim trade.
The Commanding Officer of Our Post was, as stated, Major George M. O'Brien, of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry. For a while I acted as Adjutant, Quartermaster, Commissary, and Ordnance officer combined. Major O'Brien was a fine-looking, high-strung Irishman, educated in the University of Dublin. He was the oldest brother of Captain O'Brien of my company. Major O'Brien took an active interest in the establishment of the post, and getting it ready for the outbreak which was to come in the summer. A squad from one or the other of our companies was sent down with teams nearly every week to Fort Kearney for supplies. The teams would go down one week, and come back the next. The distance was called one hundred miles.
On December 23rd the officers of our posts were invited up to Jack Morrow's ranch to dinner. Myself and Captain O'Brien went up, leaving the company in charge of our First Lieutenant. A couple of the officers of the other company, the First Sergeant and the Post Sutler (Ben Gallagher), were in the party. Jack Morrow's ranch was out on the prairie, nearly south of the junction of the two Platte rivers. North Platte had much more water in it than the South Platte. Between our post and Jack Morrow's the high hills of the tableland ran far north in a bold promontory, broken at the point into a sort of peak, which could be seen a long distance both up and down the river, towards which it projected. We had to go past this to get to Morrow's ranch. This point was called the "Sioux Lookout." Going up, we detected with a field-glass an Indian's head peering over the top of the ridge at us, but he afterwards scudded away and disappeared. We were told at Morrow's that the Indians were keeping constant lookout from that point, although the weather was exceedingly cold. There was a canyon came in near there called "Moran Canyon," also filled with large cedars. Jack Morrow was said to have cut out five thousand cedar logs from the canyon for his own use, and for sale to other persons; and to have got out two thousand fine cedar telegraph poles. It was also said that he would not allow anybody else to cut any timber in that canyon. Morrow had as large an outfit, nearly, as the Gilmans. He claimed to have cattle and goods and improvements worth $100,000, but he overstated it. He was a tall, raw-boned, dangerous-looking man, wearing a mustache, and a goatee on his under lip. He was said to be a killer, to have shot a man or two, and to have passed his life on the plains. He was said to have daily altercations with pilgrims, and to have gone on drunks that were so stupendous in their waste of money and strange eccentricities that he was known from Denver to Fort Kearney and very largely in Omaha. He was said to have had an Indian wife, although I never knew whether that was true or not. He had a very large stock of goods, and a row of "pilgrim quarters." His ranch-house was built of cedar logs, and was two and a half stories high and sixty feet long. The third story was divided into rooms, and the cross-logs were not sawed out to admit doors, so that in going from one room to another it was necessary to crawl over six feet of cedar-log wall to get into these rooms. Yet he had people sleeping in those rooms a great deal of the time. He stored away great quantities of furs, robes, dried buffalo-meat and beef, and other stuffs, for shipment, in a sort of annual caravan, which he made down to Omaha. He had a very capable and accomplished First Lieutenant who acted as foreman, salesman, and cashier. His name was Hewey Morgan. When Morrow went on a spree Hewey Morgan's authority began, and he must have exercised it very capably, because Morrow trusted him implicitly.
About five o'clock in the afternoon -- it was after sundown, when we arrived there -- Morrow was either two-thirds full or pretended to be. My opinion of it was that it was merely pretense. In a little while he brought out a basket of champagne, and after we had paid our attention to it our dinner began. It was broiled antelope heart, baked buffalo hump, fried beaver tails; a regular pioneer banquet, and Hewey Morgan poured out the champagne in tin cups all around. There were two or three residents at the table, neighboring ranchmen from down near the post. Among others a young man named Sam Fitchie, who could recite poetry, and was a regular declaimer, and impersonator, and withal a fine-looking and well-educated young gentleman. He was out there trying to work into the stock business, and had not been there very long. Many years afterwards I met him as a prominent minister in Ohio. His Indian name was Wa-pah-see-cha (bad matches).
Jack Morrow.
Ranchman at the Forks of the Platte, 1864.
When the banquet was over, Morrow got out his paraphernalia, and offered to deal faro bark. We agreed to battle away at his bank for thirty minutes while the horses were being saddled and brought around, which we did without any material loss to anybody. Captain O'Brien whispered to me that he thought the whole business looked as if Jack Morrow was after a Government contract with our post. I sort of received the same impression. Just before the leave-taking began, Hewey Morgan wanted to ask me a question privately, and I went out with him. And the question was, whether he couldn't get a contract to furnish the Government with one hundred thousand pounds of shelled corn at five cents a pound, and if I would not use my efforts with the post commander. I told him that I certainly would not; that the corn could be put down much cheaper than that and that I couldn't recommend it. He took it good-naturedly, and on the way back to the post, when we got to comparing notes on the point, Hewey Morgan or Jack Morrow had each spoken to every member of the party. This whole proceeding was so raw that none of us ever made any visit again to Jack Morrow. Captain O'Brien was an honest man, and was very indignant.
A few days after that a little short, stubby Irishman named Burke came into camp, and said that he and the people with him wanted a job of work. I sent him to the post commander, Major O'Brien, and Major O'Brien sent for me. This man Burke had left Denver with some empty wagons, and had agreed to haul about fifty men through to Omaha at a rapidity not less than twenty-five