The road, until we reached the South Pass, was over the finest line of level country for traveling by wagons, with plenty of water and grass at almost every step of the way. Crossing the South Platte at what was then called Julesburg, and going across the divide to North Platte, at Ash Hollow, we continued in the valley of the North Platte to the mouth of the Sweetwater, and up that stream until we passed through the South Pass. After passing that point it was somewhat more difficult to find grass and water, but we were fortunate enough all along the road to get sufficient subsistence out of nature for the sustenance of our animals, and were not obliged to feed our oxen. They did the work allotted to them, and gathered their own living at nights and noon-times.
In the fall of 1857 a report was sent by the engineers who were with General Johnston's army at Fort Bridger, and who had crossed the plains that year, to the Quartermaster's Department at Washington, stating it was impossible to find subsistence along the road for the number of animals it would require to transport the freight necessary for the support of the army. General Jessup, who was then Quartermaster of the United States Army at Washington, and as fine a gentleman as I ever met, gave me this information, and asked me if it would deter me from undertaking the transportation. I told him it would not, and that I would be willing to give him my head for a football to have kicked in Pennsylvania Avenue if I did not supply the army with every pound that was necessary for its subsistence, provided the Government would pay me to do it. We satisfied him after the first year's work had been done that we could do even more than I assured him could be done.
There is no other road in the United States, nor in my opinion elsewhere, of the same length, where such numbers of men and animals could travel during the summer season as could over the thoroughfare from the Missouri River up the Platte and its tributaries to the Rocky Mountains. In fact, had it been necessary to go east from the Missouri River, instead of west, it would have been impossible in the nature of things to have done so, owing to the uneven surface of the country, the water being in little deep ravines and, as a rule, in small quantities, often muddy creeks to cross, at other times underbrush and timber that the animals could have roamed into and disappeared, all of which would have prevented progress had we started with such an enterprise east instead of west. But the country west of the Missouri River for hundreds of miles, so far as making roads for travel of large numbers of animals is concerned, is as different from the east as it is possible for two landscapes to be. The whole country from the west border of the Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas was thoroughly practical, before inhabited by farmers, for carrying the very largest herds and organizations of people on what one might term perfectly natural ground, often being able to travel hundreds of miles toward the sunset without a man having to do one hour's work in order to prepare the road for the heaviest wagons and teams.
The road from Missouri to Santa Fé, N. M., up the Arkansas River, a distance of 800 miles, was very much like the one up the Platte River, and over which millions of pounds of merchandise were carried, and where oxen almost invariably, but sometimes mules, did the work and subsisted without a bite of any other food than that obtained from the grasses that grew by the roadside.
The roads all running west from the Missouri River came up the valleys of the Platte, Kansas, or Arkansas rivers, running directly from the mountains to the Missouri River. These rivers had wide channels, low banks, and sandy bottoms, into which a thousand animals could go at one time, if necessary, for drink, and spread over the surface, so as not to be in each other's way, and whatever disturbance they made in the water, in the way of offal or anything of that kind, was soon overcome by the filtering of the water through the sand, which kept it pure, and thousands of men and animals could find purer water on account of these conditions.
Then again the first expedient in the way of fuel was what was called buffalo chips, which was the offal from the buffalo after lying and being dried by the sun; and, strange to say, the economy of nature was such, in this particular, that the large number of work-animals left at every camping-place fuel sufficient, after being dried by the sun, to supply the necessities of the next caravan or party that traveled along. In this way the fuel supply was inexhaustible while animals traveled and fed upon the grasses.
This, however, did not apply to travel east of the Missouri River, as the offal from the animals there soon became decomposed and was entirely worthless for fuel purposes. This was altogether owing to the difference in the grasses that grew west of the Missouri River on the plains and in the Rocky Mountains and that which grew in the States east of the Missouri. Thus the fuel supply was sufficient for the largest organizations of people who, in those days, were traveling on the plains. Armies, small and great, that found it necessary to cross the plains, found sufficient supply of this fuel, and it seemed to be a necessity supplied by nature on the vast open and untimbered plains lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, far beyond the Canadian line to the north, without which it would have been practically impossible to have crossed the plains with any degree of comfort, and in cold weather would have been absolutely impossible.
The small groups of timber growing along the streams would soon have been exhausted if used for fuel, and there would have been nothing to supply those who came later.
History records no other instance of like nature, where an immense area of country had the same necessity and where that necessity was supplied in such a manner as on the vast plains west of the Missouri River. These chips would lay for several years in perfect condition for fuel.