And now that we were fairly on the way the whole atmosphere, so to speak, seemed changed. Instead of the discordant violin and more discordant voices, with the fantastic night open-air dances with mother earth as a floor, there soon prevailed a more sober mein, even among the young people, as they began to encounter the fatigue of a day's drive and the cares of a night watch. With so many, the watchword was to push ahead and make as big a day's drive as possible; hence it is not to be wondered at that nearly the whole of the thousand wagons that crossed the river after we did soon passed us.
"Now, fellers, jist let 'em rush on, and keep cool, we'll overcatch them afore long," said McAuley. And we did, and passed many a broken-down team, the result of that first few days of rush. It was this class that unloaded such piles of provisions, noted elsewhere, in the first two hundred mile stretch, and that fell such easy prey to the ravages of the epidemic of cholera that struck the moving column where the throng from the south side of the Platte began crossing. As I recollect this, it must have been near where the city of Kearney now stands, which is about two hundred miles west of the Missouri River. We had been in the buffalo country several days, and some of our young men had had the keen edge of the hunting zeal worn off by a day's ride in the heat. A number of them were sick from the effects of overheating and indiscreet drinking of impure water. Such an experience came vividly home to me in the case of my brother Oliver, who had outfitted with our Hoosier friends near Indianapolis, but had crossed the Missouri River in company with us. Being of an adventurous spirit, he could not restrain his ardor, and gave chase to the buffaloes, and fell sick almost unto death. This occurred just at the time when we had encountered the cholera panic, and of course it must be the cholera that had seized him with such an iron grip, argued some of his companions. His old-time comrades and neighbors, all but two, and they could not delay. I said, "It's certain death to take him along in that condition," which they admitted was true. "Divide the outfit, then." The Davenport boys said they would not leave my brother, and so their portion of the outfit was put out also, which gave the three a wagon and team. Turning to Buck, I said, "I can't ask you to stay with me." The answer came back quick as a flash, "I am going to stay with you without asking," and he did, too, though my brother was almost a total stranger. We nursed the sick man for four days amidst scenes of excitement and death I hope never to witness again, with the result that on the fifth day we were able to go on and take the convalescent with us and thus saved his life. It was at this point the sixteen hundred wagons passed us as noted elsewhere in the four days' detention, and loose stock so numerous, we made no attempt to count them.
Of course, this incident is of no particular importance, except to illustrate what life meant in those strenuous days. The experience of that camp was the experience, I may say, of hundreds of others; of friends parting; of desertion; of noble sacrifice; of the revelation of the best and worst of the inner man. Like the shifting clouds of a brightening summer day, the trains seemed to dissolve and disappear, while no one, apparently, knew what had become of their component parts, or whither they had gone.
There did seem instances that would convert the most skeptical to the Presbyterian doctrine of total depravity, so brutal and selfish were the actions of some men; brutal to men and women alike; to dumb brutes, and in fact to themselves. And, yet, it is a pleasure to record that there were numerous instances of noble self-sacrifice, of helpfulness, of unselfishness, to the point of imperiling their own lives. It became a common saying to know one's neighbors, they must be seen on the Plains.
The army of loose stock that accompanied this huge caravan, a column, we may almost say, of five hundred miles long without break, added greatly to the discomfort of all. Of course, the number of cattle and horses will never be known, but their number was legion compared to those that labored under the yoke, or in the harness. A conservative estimate would be not less than six animals to the wagon, and surely there were three loose animals to each one in the teams. By this it would appear that as sixteen hundred wagons passed while we tarried four days, nearly ten thousand beasts of burden and thirty thousand loose stock accompanied them. As to the number of persons, certainly there were five to the wagon, perhaps more, but calling it five, eight thousand people, men, women and children, passed on during those four days—many to their graves not afar off.
We know by the inscribed dates found on Independence Rock and elsewhere that there were wagons full three hundred miles ahead of us. The throng had continued to pass the river more than a month after we had crossed, so that it does not require a stretch of the imagination to say the column was five hundred miles long, and like Sherman's march through Georgia, fifty thousand strong.
Of the casualties in that mighty army I scarcely dare guess. It is certain that history gives no record of such great numbers migrating so long a distance as that of the Pioneers of the Plains, where, as we have seen, the dead lay in rows of fifties and groups of seventies. Shall we say ten per cent fell by the wayside? Many will exclaim that estimate is too low. Ten per cent would give us five thousand sacrifices of lives laid down even in one year to aid in the peopling of the Pacific Coast states. The roll call was never made, and we know not how many there were. The list of mortalities is unknown, and so we are lost in conjecture, and now we only know that the unknown and unmarked graves have gone into oblivion.
Volumes could be written of life on the Plains and yet leave the story not half told. In some matter before me I read, "found a family, consisting of husband, wife and four small children, whose cattle we supposed had given out and died. They were here all alone, and no wagon or cattle in sight"—had been thrown out by the owner of a wagon and left on the road to die. In a nearby page I read, "Here we met Mr. Lot Whitcom, direct from Oregon—. Told me a great deal about Oregon. He has provisions, but none to sell, but gives to all he finds in want, and who are unable to buy." These stories of the good Samaritan, and the fiendish actions of others could be multiplied indefinitely, but I quote only extracts from these two, written on the spot, that well illustrate the whole.
Mrs. Cecelia Emily McMillen Adams, late of Hillsboro, Oregon, crossed the Plains in 1852, and kept a painstaking diary, and noted the graves passed, and counted them. Her diary is published in full by the Oregon Pioneer Association, 1904. I note the following: "June fourteenth. Passed seven new made graves. June 15th. Sick headache, not able to sit up. June 16th. Passed 11 new graves. June 17th. Passed six new graves. June 18th. We have passed twenty-one new made graves today. June 19th. Passed thirteen graves today. June 20th. Passed ten graves. June 21st. No report. June 22nd. Passed seven graves. If we should go by all the camping grounds, we should see five times as many graves as we do."
This report of seventy-five dead in 106 miles, and that "if we should go by all the camping grounds we should see five times as many graves as we do," coupled with the fact that a parallel column from which we have no report was traveling up the Platte on the south side of the river, and that the outbreak of the cholera had taken place originally in this column coming from the southeast, fully confirms the estimate of 5,000 deaths on the Plains in 1852. It is in fact rather under than over the actual number who laid down their lives that year. I have mislaid the authority, but at the time I read it, believed the account to be true, of a scout that passed over the ground late that year (1852) from the Loop Fork of the Platte to the Laramie, a distance approximating 400 miles, that by actual count in great part and conservative estimate of the remainder, there were six fresh graves to the mile for the whole distance—this, it is to be remembered, on the one side of the river in a stretch where for half the distance of a parallel column traveling on the opposite bank, where like conditions prevailed.