Our boats had been very heavily loaded at St. Louis, Mo., with a cargo of military and sutler's stores and material for portable wooden houses. The company was quartered in the forward staterooms on the cabin deck, two to each room. We found the rooms stripped of every article of bedding and furniture. Even the slats in the bunks had been taken out, and we had to lie on our blankets on the floor. For our morning ablutions we went to the lower deck and threw overboard a bucket at the end of a rope. In these pails of muddy Missouri River water we washed ourselves. The company cooks prepared our meals in a kitchen on the lower deck and we ate them wherever we could find room to squat down on the deck among the deckhands, who were all whites. While on board we got no fresh bread and only salt meats. The boat's crew, or "roust-a-bouts," had better food than we, plenty of it and a variety. They often guyed us about it, but we had the laugh on them when the boat landed at a wood pile and the burly mate chased them along with a club or rope's end while they loaded cord wood.
We drank from barrels in which the muddy river water had stood until the mud had settled. It became fairly clear, when undisturbed for about twelve hours, and was not unpalatable.
We had a citizen doctor on board, hired by the Government for the trip. There was no work for him just then, but when we got to Fort Leavenworth he was kept busy.
On leaving Alton we went down the Mississippi to its junction with the Missouri, the "Big Muddy," where we could see the distinctly marked line of the two rivers for miles before the waters seemed to blend. The water of the Mississippi was comparatively clear and seemed loath to mingle with that of its murky companion. The Missouri was high at this time, during the usual June rise. The current was strong, and our heavily laden boats made but slow progress. This, however, did away with the necessity for sounding and enabled us to run at night, at least as far as Fort Leavenworth or further.
Except for three daily roll calls I had nothing to do. The weather was fine. I watched the engines occasionally but spent most of the day sitting in the front of the cabin deck looking out upon the mighty river whose windings disclosed constant changes of scenery. I was enchanted with it, and it never became monotonous to me. Sometimes a steamer carrying many passengers passed us, for no railroads then connected any of the river towns, except one inland from St. Louis as far as Jefferson City, the capitol of Missouri. A few of the passenger boats were equipped with a calliope, or steam organ, and would play old plantation melodies on approaching or departing from a town. To hear "Suwanee River," "The Old Folks at Home" or "Susannah" reverberating from the hills on a calm summer's evening was charming.
There were not many towns on the Missouri in 1855; the principal ones that I remember were St. Charles, Hermann, Jefferson City, Booneville, Glasgow, Kansas City, Leavenworth and St. Joseph, which was then about the end of civilization and the white settlements. Smaller places, not yet even named, were starting up, and some of them are prosperous towns now. I had a good school atlas with me so that I could locate the direction of the river and its principal tributaries. It proved to be an interesting and useful companion, giving me general information about the country and the distances between various points.
All of the steamboats used cord wood for fuel. This was supplied from wood yards along the river as far north as the white settlements extended. They were generally located in the wilderness far away from any town, but were well known to the pilots, who, when running short of wood, would sound a warning whistle on nearing a wood yard, which would bring out of the woods to the river bank a bushy-whiskered, matted-haired individual in a red shirt, with one suspender holding up his corduroy pants, the bottoms of which were thrust into cowhide boots.
The pilot would run the boat close in to shore and slacken speed while the captain opened a parley with the man in the red shirt about the price of the wood per cord and haggle about it until a bargain was made. If the price was low a large quantity would be shipped, or on the contrary, only enough to reach the next yard. Occasionally it happened that the captain would not take any fuel at the price offered and would start away to take his chances at the next wood pile, if he was sure he had enough fuel to get there.
When it was decided to take in wood, the boat tied up to the trees. Two gang planks run out, and the captain, the chief engineer and the purser of the boat went on shore and inspected and measured the wood. If satisfactory, they gave the word to the mate, who had his crew ready, and with a shout started them off on a run. Each man rushed to the pile, grabbed as many sticks as he could carry and ran into the boat on one gangway and out on the other. The mate, in the meantime, shouted and swore at them on the run, sometimes giving a slow man an unfriendly rap over the shoulders, to hurry him along. This was kept up without a moment's rest until all the wood wanted was on board. The poor devils of deck hands and firemen were exhausted and dripping with perspiration when their hard task was over. When this scene was enacted at night time under the fitful blaze of pitch-pine burnt on shore in iron baskets, it had a weird, unearthly aspect.
We made fair progress, without delay or accident, until we were within a few miles of the village of Booneville, Mo. It was noon, the weather was beautiful and the boat was making her best speed. I was sitting on a barrel on the lower deck forward, and had just finished my dinner and was talking to some comrades, when suddenly a crashing shock threw me down to the deck some distance away. I could hear the timbers and upper wood work of the boat crunching and straining. I looked up and saw the two tall smoke stacks wobbling dangerously and straining at their guys. The two great spars at the bow of the boat were swinging to and fro, and threatened to fall to the deck.