Several resident families had also taken advantage of this privilege, and elected to pay tuition and place their children under his instruction, thus bringing together forty-nine energetic boys and girls to whet each other's ambition and incite class rivalry. Among the number were the five clever children of the [Hon. Tod Robinson]; three sons of [Judge Robert Robinson]; Colonel Zabriskie's pretty daughter [Annie]; Banker Swift's stately [Margaret]; General Redding's two sons; Dr. Oatman's son [Eugene]; beloved [Nelly Upton], daughter of the editor of [The Sacramento Union]; [Daniel Yost]; [Agnes Toll], the sweet singer; and [Eliza Denison], my chum.
At the end of the term, The Daily Union closed its account of the public examination of Jefferson Grammar School with the following statement: "Among Mr. White's pupils are two young ladies, survivors of the terrible disaster which befell the emigration of 1846 among the snows of the California mountains."
Even this cursory reference was a matter of regret to Georgia and me. We had entered school silent in regard to personal history, and did not wish public attention turned toward ourselves even in an indirect way, fearing it might lead to a revival of the false and sensational accounts of the past, and we were not prepared to correct them, nor willing they should be spread. Pursued by these fears, we returned to the ranch, where Elitha and her three black-eyed little daughters welcomed our home-coming and brightened our vacation.
Almost coincident, however, with the foregoing circumstance, Georgia came into possession of ["What I Saw in California,"] by [Edwin Bryant]; and we found that the book did contain many facts in connection with our party's disaster, but they were so interwoven with wild rumors, and the false and sensational statements quoted from [The California Star], that they proved nothing, yet gave to the untrue that appearance of truth which is so difficult to correct.
The language employed in description seemed to us so coarse and brutal that we could not forgive its injustice to the living, and to the memory of the dead. We could but feel that had simple facts been stated, there would have been no harrowing criticism on account of long unburied corpses found in the lake cabins. Nor would the sight of mutilated dead have suggested that the starving survivors had become "gloating cannibals, preying on the bodies of their companions." Bare facts would have shown that the living had become too emaciated, too weak, to dig graves, or to lift or drag the dead up the narrow snow steps, even had open graves awaited their coming. Aye, more, would have shown conclusively that mutilation of the bodies of those who had perished was never from choice, never cannibalistic, but dire necessity's last resort to ease torturing hunger, to prevent loss of reason, to save life. Loss of reason was more dreaded than death by the starving protectors of the helpless.
Fair statements would also have shown that the First Relief reached the camps with insufficient provision to meet the pressing needs of the unfortunate. Consequently, it felt the urgency of haste to get as many refugees as possible to Bear Valley before storms should gather and delays defeat the purpose of its coming; that it divided what it could conscientiously spare among those whom it was obliged to leave, cut wood for the fires, and endeavored to give encouragement and hope to the desponding, but did not remain long enough to remove or bury the dead.
Each succeeding party actuated by like anxieties and precautions, departed with its charges, leaving pitiable destitution behind; leaving mournful conditions in camp,—conditions attributable as much to the work of time and atmospheric agencies as to the deplorable expedients to which the starving were again and again reduced.
With trembling hand Georgia turned the pages, from the sickening details of the Star[[18]] to the personal observations of [Edwin Bryant], who in returning to the United States in the Summer of 1847, crossed the Sierra Nevadas with General Kearney and escort, reached the lake cabins June 22, and wrote as follows:
A halt was called for the purpose of interring the remains. Near the principal lake cabin I saw two bodies entire, except the abdomens had been cut open and entrails extracted. Their flesh had been either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to dry atmosphere, and presented the appearance of mummies. Strewn around the cabins were dislocated and broken skulls (in some instances sawed asunder with care for the purpose of extracting the brains). Human skeletons, in short, in every variety of mutilation. A more appalling spectacle I never witnessed. The remains were, by order of General Kearney, collected and buried under supervision of Major Sword. They were interred in a pit dug in the centre of one of the cabins for a cache. These melancholy duties to the dead being performed, the cabins, by order of Major Sword, were fired and, with everything surrounding them connected with the horrible and melancholy tragedy, consumed.
The body of [(Captain) George Donner] was found in his camp about eight miles distant. He had been carefully laid out by his wife, and a sheet was wrapped around the corpse. This sad office was probably the last act she performed before visiting the camp of Keseberg. He was buried by a party of men detailed for that purpose.