In this Appendix I set forth some of the unwarranted statements to which frequent reference has been made in the foregoing pages, that they may be examined and analyzed, and their utter unreliability demonstrated by comparison with established facts and figures. These latter data, for the sake of brevity, are in somewhat statistical form. A few further incidents, which I did not learn of or understand until long after they occurred, are also related.
The accounts of weather conditions, of scarcity of food and fuel, also the number of deaths in the camps before the first of March, 1847, are verified by the carefully kept ["Diary of Patrick Breen, One of the Donner Party,"]; which has recently been published by the [Academy of Pacific Coast History]
The following article, which originally appeared in The California Star, April 10, 1847, is here quoted from "[The Life and Days of General John A. Sutter]," by [T.J. Schoonover]:
A more shocking scene cannot be imagined than was witnessed by the party of men who went to the relief of the unfortunate emigrants in the California Mountains. The bones of those who had died and been devoured by the miserable ones that still survived were around their tents and cabins; bodies of men, women, and children with half the flesh torn from them lay on every side. A woman sat by the side of the body of her dead husband cutting out his tongue; the heart she had already taken out, broiled, and eaten. The daughter was seen eating the father; and the mother, that [viz. body] of her children; children, that of father and mother. The emaciated, wild, and ghastly appearance of the survivors added to the horror of it. Language can not describe the awful change that a few weeks of dire suffering had wrought in the minds of the wretched and pitiable beings. Those who one month before would have shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh, or of killing their companions and relatives to preserve their own lives, now looked upon the opportunity the acts afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of deaths as providential interference in their behalf.
Calculations were coldly made, as they sat around their gloomy camp fires, for the next succeeding meals. Various expedients were devised to prevent the dreadful crime of murder, but they finally resolved to kill those who had least claims to longer existence. Just at this moment some of them died, which afforded the rest temporary relief. Some sank into the arms of death cursing God for their miserable fate, while the last whisperings of others were prayers and songs of praise to the Almighty. After the first few deaths, but the one all-absorbing thought of individual self-preservation prevailed. The fountains of natural affection were dried up. The chords that once vibrated with connubial, parental, and filial affection were torn asunder, and each one seemed resolved, without regard to the fate of others, to escape from impending calamity.
So changed had the emigrants become that when the rescuing party arrived with food, some of them cast it aside, and seemed to prefer the putrid human flesh that still remained. The day before the party arrived, one emigrant took the body of a child about four years of age in bed with him and devoured the whole before morning; and the next day he ate another about the same age, before noon.
This article, one of the most harrowing to be found in print, spread through the early mining-camps, and has since been quoted by historians and authors as an authentic account of scenes and conduct witnessed by the first relief corps to Donner Lake. It has since furnished style and suggestion for other nerve-racking stories on the subject, causing keener mental suffering to those vitally concerned than words can tell. Yet it is easily proved to be nothing more or less than a perniciously sensational newspaper production, too utterly false, too cruelly misleading, to merit credence. Evidently, it was written without malice, but in ignorance, and by some warmly clad, well nourished person, who did not know the humanizing effect of suffering and sorrow, and who may not have talked with either a survivor or a rescuer of the [Donner Party].
When the Donner Party ascended the Sierra Nevadas on the last day of October, 1846, it comprised eighty-one souls; namely, Charles Berger,[[19]] Patrick Breen, Margaret Breen (his wife), John Breen, Edward Breen, Patrick Breen, Jr., Simon Breen, James Breen, Peter Breen, Isabella Breen, Jacob Donner,[a/][[19]] Elizabeth Donner[a/][[19]] (his wife), William Hook,[[20]] Solomon Hook, George Donner, Jr., Mary Donner, Isaac Donner,[a/][[20]] Lewis Donner,[a/][[19]] Samuel Donner,[a/][[19]] George Donner, Sr.,[a/][[19]] Tamsen Donner[a/][[19]] (his wife), Elitha Donner, Leanna C. Donner, Frances Eustis Donner, Georgia Anna Donner, Eliza Poor Donner, Patrick Dolan,[a/][[20]] John Denton,[a/][[20]] Milton Elliot,[a/][[19]] William Eddy, Eleanor Eddy (his wife), Margaret Eddy,[a/][[19]] and James Eddy,[a/][[19]] Jay Fosdick[a/][[20]] and Sarah Fosdick (his wife), William Foster, Sarah Foster (his wife) and George Foster,[a/][[19]] Franklin W. Graves, Sr.,[a/][[20]] Elisabeth Graves[a/][[20]] (his wife), Mary Graves, William C. Graves, Eleanor Graves, Lovina Graves, Nancy Graves, Jonathan B. Graves, Franklin W. Graves, Jr.,[a/][[20]] and Elizabeth Graves, Jr., Noah James, Lewis S. Keseberg, Philippine Keseberg (his wife), Ada Keseberg[a/][[20]] and Lewis S. Keseberg, Jr.,[a/][[19]] Mrs. Lovina Murphy[a/][[19]] (a widow), John Landrum Murphy,[a/][[19]] Lemuel Murphy,[a/][[20]] Mary Murphy, William G. Murphy and Simon Murphy, Mrs. Amanda McCutchen and Harriet McCutchen,[a/][[19]] Mrs. Harriet Pike (widow), Nioma Pike and Catherine Pike,[a/][[19]] Mrs. Margaret Reed, Virginia Reed, Martha J. Reed, James F. Reed, Jr., and Thomas K. Reed, Joseph Rhinehart,[a/][[19]] Charles Stanton,[a/][[20]] John Baptiste Trubode, August Spitzer,[a/][[19]] James Smith,[a/][[19]] Samuel Shoemaker, Bailis Williams[a/][[19]] and Eliza Williams (his sister), Mrs. Woolfinger (widow), Antonio (a Mexican) and Lewis and Salvador (the two Indians sent with Stanton by General Sutter).
Stated in brief, the result of the disaster to the party in the mountains was as follows:
The total number of deaths was thirty-six, as follows: fourteen in the mountains while en route to the settlement; fourteen at camp near Donner Lake; and eight at Donner's Camp.