The bodies were brought to camp and prepared for burial in the trenches on opposite sides of the camp, and the work was so done as to obliterate all signs and prevent the Indians from locating the spots and desecrating the graves. The service was touchingly solemn, and many tears were shed, as we thought of these lonely graves so far away from the homes of the living relatives.
Lieutenant Beaver had friends in England who were abundantly able to have his remains disinterred and removed to a more suitable place of burial. Money was sent out from England for this purpose, and trusted agents sent up to the Missouri banks for the purpose of bringing back the remains. There is a grave at Graceland, in St. Paul, on the top of which rests a slab of granite, and engraven on this are the words:
“Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant F. J. H. Beaver, who died July 28, 1863. Peace to his ashes.”
On the banks of the Missouri is a lonely grave. The winter’s storms and the summer’s heat have come and gone. The night vigils of the strange birds have been kept, the requiem of gentle breezes has been sung over this lonely grave. Comrade Nicholas Miller, private of Company K, Sixth Minnesota Infantry Volunteers, sleeps in his lonely bed, and “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.”
HOMEWARD BOUND.
We remained but two days at this Missouri camp, when the reveille sounded early in the morning of August 1st, and the troops were astir. We were a long way from home, and on short rations; and, in addition to this, we felt some anxiety about the boys we left at Camp Atchison, having heard nothing from them. The sun was very hot the day we left; one of the kind the boys called “muggy,”—disagreeable in the extreme. At dress parade the night before, we received the compliments of the General in orders read, announcing that the purpose of the expedition had been accomplished. This was, of course, good news to us, and we speculated as to how early a date would find us taking leave of this far-away camp.