Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army

by Augustus Meyers

Captain Lyon, who had imported some hogs, presented them to his company to be killed as a Christmas treat of fresh pork. The captain sometimes visited the pen and gave directions for their care. A sow had a litter of pigs in the fall, and fearing that she might kill them, he directed his first sergeant to have her watched for a few days. The Sergeant detailed some men for this purpose, among them a young German, who, considering this a very unmilitary duty, refused to serve, saying "To h—— mit der piggins, I'm no swiney doctor!"

There was very little sickness during the winter, but a number of cases of frost bites, none of them very serious. One death occurred during the midwinter in our little hospital, that of Sergeant Fiske of my company who was a veteran of the Mexican War, and had suffered for a long time from a malady to which soldiers long in the service are liable. Sergeant Fiske was an inveterate card player and smoker. On the evening of the night on which he died he sat cross legged on his bed and played his favorite game with some of the other hospital inmates. When he was placed in his coffin, some of his comrades slipped in a pack of cards and his pipe to be buried with him, Indian fashion. With great labor a grave was dug through the deeply frozen ground. On the top of a hill near the fort, we buried Sergeant Fiske with military honors, Lieutenant George H. Paige reading the burial service. A board was put up to mark the lonely grave; but in that bleak spot it probably remained only a short time before the weather obliterated all signs of it.

During this winter I saw but little of the Indians. There were only a small number in camp near the fort, and no others arrived. During the long winter evenings we played games or read the few books, magazines and occasional newspapers that we could procure. A mail from the "States" arrived but twice a month, and life at the post was monotonous.

At Christmas and on New Years' day an extra dinner was served for all the soldiers, with a dessert of pie made with dried apples by the company's baker. Whiskey punch was also provided. There was no chance for the soldiers to procure whiskey at Fort Lookout unless one of the officers gave them a drink of it, which happened rarely. This drove some of them who had a craving for it, to use essence of Jamaica ginger and bay-rum which they could buy at the sutler's store. They sometimes made a punch of it by adding sugar and hot water. The sutler had some imported ale and porter, which he was allowed to sell to soldiers; but as the price was seventy-five cents a pint bottle, very little of it was consumed.

In April, when the snow had melted, we began to drill again for the first time since leaving Carlisle Barracks. We had lived more like pioneers than soldiers. Early in May orders were received to abandon Fort Lookout, where we had worked so hard to build quarters, and to proceed to Fort Randall, where the regimental headquarters and four companies had gone when Fort Pierre was abandoned a year ago. We went into camp and began to tear down the company quarters for they were built of hewn timber, which it was desirable to save. We also took down the officers' houses. All this material was hauled down to the river bank to be made into a raft, and floated down to Fort Randall. We left all of the log cabins and the brick chimneys standing but removed the doors and sashes. Early in June a steamboat which had discharged her cargo at Fort Randall arrived at Fort Lookout and took on board the three companies and all of the commissary and quartermaster stores and other moveable property. The wagons and mules were sent overland in charge of an officer and escort.

When the steamboat started down the river, I went up on the hurricane deck to have a final look at what remained of Fort Lookout. I saw some Indians prowling around the abandoned log cabins. Brick chimneys alone marked the places where our quarters and the officers' houses had been. I could also make out the white board which marked the lonely grave of Sergt. Fiske on the hill.

We were soon out of sight, and arrived at Fort Randall in a few days.

PART VI.
Service at Fort Randall, Campaigning in Kansas and Expiration of My Enlistment—1857-1859.

We arrived at Fort Randall in June, 1857. It was located on the west bank of the Missouri river, about a hundred and twenty-five miles north of the Big Sioux river as the crow flies; but more than two hundred miles by following the tortuous water course. At Fort Randall an unusually sharp turn to the east, and another to the south, gave the fort a river front on two sides, east and north, with the protection of high banks sloping to a wide strip of bottom land along the shore. That the location was desirable is proved by the fact that it has been used as a military post up to the present time, and is now in the midst of a large reservation.

The four companies that went there when Fort Pierre was abandoned a year before, had also worked hard and put up substantial log houses, rough, but comfortable, around a parade ground of reasonable size. Our three companies went into camp and waited for the arrival of the raft from Fort Lookout, which came in about a week. Then the re-erection of our quarters and officers' houses commenced. The cabins for the married soldiers were all placed on the bottom land called "The Hollow". There also were the cabins of all the citizen commissary and quartermaster's employees, married and single, and near by was a considerable camp of Ponca Indians.