The river was still high and the current swift. The boat was but lightly loaded, so we did not strand on any sand bars and made good progress, running at night on the latter half of our trip. We still had to tie up now and then and cut wood to feed the boilers, but occasionally there was a pile of cord-wood for sale.
The great changes that had taken place since we had ascended the river three years before, were surprising to me. Then St. Joseph, Mo., marked the limit of the white settlements. Less than a hundred miles from Fort Randall by river, we made the first landing at Niobrara, where the river of the same name, flows into the Missouri. There was a small cluster of houses, and a somewhat pretentious hotel, a three-story frame building which some enterprising citizen had erected. Next we stopped at Sioux City, which had become a considerable village near the river bank of one and two story frame buildings, with a general store and a small church. Then came Council Bluffs, Omaha; Nebraska City; Atchison and some smaller places. All of them had sprung up within three years, and were busy and rapidly growing. We stopped at all these places to take on passengers or a little freight.
Such comfort as the staterooms afforded was not for the soldiers. They were set apart for the use of the passengers and our officers, while we were very uncomfortably limited to the lower or boiler deck. We had to sleep anywhere we could find room to lie down, on piles of freight or on the bare deck. The weather was raw at first, and we had cold rains. With half a dozen others I slept under the boilers several times after the fires were banked and the boat laid up for the night. The rear of the boilers was elevated on iron supports three feet or more above the deck. It formed a warm and sheltered place when the cold wind blew fore and aft through the open deck from stem to stern. After the boat began to run at night, the place became too hot for us and we had to sleep elsewhere.
There were no docks or wharves at any of the landings. When the boat approached a town she sounded her whistle and rang a bell, which brought many of the inhabitants to the river bank. In making a landing while going down stream, the pilot slowed down, approached the shore at an acute angle and pressed "her nozzle ag'in the bank." There he held the boat, until the force of the current swung her around and the bow pointed up stream. The impact of the boat always dislodged a large quantity of soft earth from the river bank, which fell into the water and left a big dent in the shore line. Every steamboat on its way down stream deprived the town of some of its real estate, if it made a landing.
In ten or twelve days, we reached Fort Leavenworth and went into quarters. I found the place very much improved. It had been cleaned up, the old buildings had been renovated and some new ones added. There was no cholera or other infectious sickness there then. It was a very busy place at that time. Soldiers were arriving and departing frequently, on their long march via Forts Kearney and Laramie to Fort Bridger, near Salt Lake City, where Col. Johnson was assembling a little army to punish the Mormons. At Leavenworth post I saw Robert E. Lee, who was then the colonel of one of the cavalry regiments and soon to become the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Army.
A few days after our arrival at the fort some comrades and myself obtained a twenty-four hour pass to go to Leavenworth City, only a few miles down the river. It had grown to a thriving town with many stores, hotels and saloons, on the business streets; churches, dwellings and shacks on others. All were built of wood and very few were more than two stories high.
We were in luck—a circus had come to town and was parading through the streets when we arrived. There was a steam organ on a decorated truck followed by a band and the mounted circus performers which drew a great crowd. Of course, we were on hand at the afternoon performance in the tent and thought it was great. In the evening we went to a theater in a barn-like building in the heart of the town, where we sat on wooden benches which were all on a level. There was no gallery. Three or four disreputable looking musicians, playing on wheezy instruments, made up the orchestra. The stage and the auditorium were lighted with candles. The floor of the stage creaked when the performers walked over it, and the scenery threatened to topple over. I distinctly remember that the piece played by the ambitious actors was "The Lady of Lyons," which they probably murdered. However, the audience that crowded the place applauded and seemed to enjoy it, and so did we. We slept at a hotel that night on a real bed for the first time in years, and next morning walked back to the fort.
A few days later we received orders to start for Utah. Each man bought a gray felt hat at the sutler's store, as we had seen other detachments do. These we wore on the march instead of the fatigue cap, which was a poor protection against the fierce rays of the sun on the prairies. Our first objective point was Fort Kearney on the Platte River, about two hundred and fifty miles away. But we had marched only about a week when we were recalled and retraced our steps to Fort Leavenworth. I felt disappointed, I had hoped to see the Great Salt Lake and the Mormons. The long weary march did not intimidate me. On our return to the fort, we learned that fresh trouble had broken out on the Kansas border, and we were to go to Fort Scott in the south-eastern part of Kansas, a few miles from the Missouri border, to protect the settlers. In a few days our little command was ready to start. It included Companies B and D and a section of a battery of artillery consisting of two of the old style brass six pounders with their caissons, and necessary complement of artillerists commanded by First Lieutenant Beekman Du Barry, Third Artillery, who attained high rank later in the Army of the Potomac. Second Lieutenant J. B. Shinn was his assistant. The surgeon who accompanied us was Samuel W. Crawford, who later commanded the division of Pennsylvania Reserves at the battle of Gettysburg as a brigadier general. Captain Nathaniel Lyon, being the ranking officer, commanded the detachment. Captain Lyon, the firm abolitionist, and Captain Gardner, the ardent pro-slavery advocate, were there together, on a mission to keep the peace between rival factions, the free-soilers and the partisans of slavery. Whatever their feelings may have been, but they did not exhibit them. They were polite to each other but not cordial.
Our first day's march ended at a creek which was almost dry when we crossed it. That night there was a cloud-burst which drenched us, and next morning the dry creek had become a raging torrent many yards wide. We witnessed the drowning of a man and a horse, who attempted to swim over to our side, and to whom we could give no aid.
A few nights later we were encamped on low bottom land at the Kansas River, when after midnight a terrific rain storm flooded our camp with several inches of water. I sat until daylight in my tent on an inverted quart tin cup. My bare feet were in the water and I held my knapsack and clothing on my knees to keep them dry.