CHAPTER XXVII.
MOVE TO WYOMING—FALSE FRIENDS—THE MANUSCRIPT OF MY NARRATIVE TAKEN BY ANOTHER PARTY AND PUBLISHED—I GO TO WASHINGTON.
Mr. Kelly’s sudden death, my own sickness, and the scourge of cholera, all coming at one time, proved disastrous to me in a pecuniary way. I was defrauded in every way, even to the robbing of my husband’s body of the sum of five hundred dollars the day of his death. However, I finally disposed of the remnant of property left, and started for Wyoming, where lived the only persons beside myself who survived the attack on our train. They had prospered, and in a spirit of kindness, as I then thought, invited and prevailed on me to share their home.
It proved a most disastrous move for me. My leisure hours, since my release from captivity, had been devoted to preparing for publication, in book form, a narrative of my experience and adventures among the Indians, and it was completed. The manuscript was surreptitiously taken, and a garbled, imperfect account of my captivity issued as the experience of my false friend, who, by the aid of an Indian, escaped after a durance of only one day and night.
Red Cloud, the Orator Sioux Chief.
I remained in Wyoming one year, then started for Washington, resolved to present a claim to the Government for losses sustained at the hands of the Indians. I knew what difficulties beset my path, but duty to my child urged me on, and I was not without some hope of success.
After learning of my captivity through Captain Fisk, President Lincoln had issued orders to the different military commanders that my freedom from the Indians must be purchased at any price; and my sad story was well known to the then existing authorities when I arrived in Washington.
President Grant, learning through a friend from Colorado of my presence, sent for me, and assured me of his warmest sympathy. He was cognizant of what had already transpired relative to me, and told me the papers were on file in the War Department, in charge of General Sherman.
In presenting my claim, many difficulties had to be encountered; but members of Congress, realizing that some compensation was due me, and understanding the delay that would result from a direct application to the Indian Bureau, introduced a bill appropriating to me five thousand dollars for valuable services rendered the Government in saving Captain Fisk’s train from destruction, and by timely warning saving Fort Sully from pillage, and its garrison from being massacred. This was done without my having any knowledge of it until after the bill had passed both houses of Congress and become a law.