Ought I to tell these things in writing of my illustrious company? Well, it is history, and future times will want to know what manner of men wrought out the surprising details of that age.
Captain O'Brien was exceedingly rough, but his conduct was exactly the right thing. There was no better man in the company, physically, than the Captain, and next to the Captain in that respect I thought I was a very close second. The troubles we had with the men came largely from whisky. As to the doing of any dangerous duty the men had no lack of courage, nor of will to go into any fight, or into any dangerous place, or to do any valiant military act. They were all right as fighters, and as soldiers, with the exception that being volunteers and being taken out of the great body of people along with their officers, they felt that they were about as good as their officers were, and that they had a right to a will of their own. They thought that if they wanted to drink and raise Cain it was all right, providing they were ready to fight when the emergencies of the service demanded it. The volunteer soldier of that day was a very strongheaded, willful, obstinate fighter. He had been brought up from his boyhood to fight. The men fought around among themselves, pounding each other up, and exercising the same sort of a feeling of emulation that a lot of roosters would in a barnyard. When they wanted to stand off in a ring, and fight each other according to what were then considered "prize ring rules," we as officers never interfered. They had to fight somebody at some time, and little private fisticuffs were only an outlet for the energy and vigor of the men individually. In fact, one night without our knowledge, one of our sergeants got into a fist fight with one of the men, and they went at it, when a ring was formed, "hammer and tongs." I never knew anything of it until the next morning at roll-call, when I noticed the sergeant's face all black-and-blue. I asked what was the matter; he said he had been hurt. I guessed immediately how he had been hurt, and pursued the inquiry no further. It was, of course, against good order and military discipline that a private soldier should pound up a non-commissioned officer, but I did not deem it wise to take notice of such things if the non-commissioned officer did not care to say anything upon the subject. We took occasion some time afterwards to reduce this sergeant to the ranks, on the ground that when he made out his reports he did not write plainly enough. Our non-commissioned officers were sturdy young fellows, and kept pretty good order, and assisted us very greatly to keep and establish discipline.
Every man in the company could sign his name, and the large majority of them could write well. Although the company was a sort of fiery and untamed company, still the Captain and I could not help having a good deal of affection for the men, because there was one thing they wouldn't do -- they wouldn't get scared. And they wouldn't dodge any hardship or danger, and would march all night and all day, and all night again, with perfect composure, and the more difficult and dangerous the work and necessities of the occasion, the more good-natured they seemed to be. But whisky changed it all when they got too much of it.
In the morning of October 2, 1863, the Captain desired me to go on ahead to Fort Kearney, and arrange for quarters at that place, or pick out a camping-ground, and see about rations. I moved along with the command until we got to a place called the O. K. Store, which I think was the beginning of what is now the city of Grand Island. I remember hearing Grand Island spoken of, and remember of one of our Corporals going down to what he called the "North Channel," at which place he killed somebody's hog, skinned it and brought it into camp with all appendages cut off, and called it "antelope." Captain O'Brien and I had some of it for our supper, and having served in the army down South, we distinctly identified the flavor, and knew that it was pig. We sent for the Corporal and asked him about it, and he said that it was wholly wild, and nowhere near any habitation, and he thought it was too good a thing to let go by. Upon which we told him that if anybody made complaint we would pay for the hog and see that it came out of his pay-roll, to which he with apparent readiness consented.
At the O. K. Store there was a telegraph station of the Overland Telegraph, and the Captain desired me not to wait, but to take that night's stage and go through to Fort Kearney. In order to do that I had to telegraph on down to Fremont or Columbus to know what the condition of things was, and whether there were any vacant seats in the coaches. I was up that night trying to get this information until two o'clock in the morning, at which time a stage came, loaded down to the guards with passengers. Every available person that could get on the stage was there. On the inside they were sitting by turns on each other's laps. The settlement around the store seemed to be German. The person in charge of the store was a German, and they had a very large stock of goods. There was another stage coming along, shortly after the two o'clock stage, as was believed, but I could not reach it by wire, and finally, having sat up all night, I went around to the company and took breakfast.
On October 3rd we marched along the road and camped on Wood River at a place which was then called "Center." On Wood River, near where we camped, Major Wood, who had rejoined us, took us out and showed an old crossing of the river where his train had a fight with the Indians over fourteen years before. These Indians he thought were the Pawnees. Upon the trip this day we passed a camp with several tents of Indians. The Indians which we had seen farther down called themselves Omahas. These Indians called themselves Ponkas, and we were told that they were a part of the same family as the Omahas. These Ponkas seemed to be a kindly, lazy, inefficient set of Indians, but the women had the same industrious appearance as other squaws. The men had a sort of effeminate look. They seemed to have small feet and to be more feminine than the women. They were strutty, with a sort of Indian pride. The women did all the work and appeared to think that it was the proper thing for them to show off their husbands all fixed up; they thought that they would not be considered good housekeepers if they could not show a well-dressed, idle husband. The squaws all appeared to be of such fiber that they could trounce their husbands easily, and throw them out of the tent when they wanted to. In fact, it seemed to me that the women were about fifty-five per cent masculine, and the men about fifty-five per cent feminine. I think that some of the contempt which the early settlers had for the Indian was due to his effeminate actions and appearance. In addition to this, the Indian grew no whiskers, and had a general inefficient manner, and was not in stature and build the equal of the white boys that were in our company.
The travel on the road continued incessant. The greater part of the travel, however, was towards Omaha. I was told that the heaviest trains and the greatest travel westward started with the grass in the spring. It now appeared as if the main travel was back towards Omaha, it being autumn, and that the trains had herded and left the greater part of their oxen somewhere west and with ox teams reduced in number were hauling back the empty wagons coupled together. With them were a great many returning travelers riding on horseback with their trunks in the wagons. These travelers were engaged in having a good time on their return and in hunting game along the route. There were a good many greyhounds with the trains. Jack-rabbits had become very plentiful after reaching Wood River, and antelopes were seen from time to time in great numbers towards the hills. These travelers and riders wore no coat or vest. They wore heavy woolen shirts with silk handkerchiefs around their necks, and one or two revolvers buckled on. I always stopped and talked to the wagon-masters of the trains, and it was the custom of the plains to give each other all the information possible in regard to the routes. As these people were all very observant, we could always tell pretty nearly what there was ahead of us. The Indians had entirely disappeared from the route. We were told that there were buffalo over in the hills both north and south of the river, but they seemed to stay away from the valley, being frightened by the hunters. Many of the wagons began to have large pieces of buffalo-meat hung up on the bows which supported the wagon-covers. At one point about noon of this day (October 3rd), I saw in the very great distance the black specks