The term “garden” is appropriately applied to the spring of the year 1832 and its successor, 1833. The summer of 1831 had been dry, and crops and vegetation had failed; the prairies had been left parched and brown, and but for the open-handed manner of the pioneer in helping his distressed brother, there had indeed been great suffering. But in 1832, barring the scare of the Indian campaign then carried on, the people were permitted to revel in a luxury of vegetation. Rains descended and the foliage of the trees was beautiful beyond description. The wild grape and cherry and plum, and the bee tree, laden with honey, were all free to him who cared to gather. Wild deer, turkeys, ducks, geese, grouse and squirrels were everywhere present in abundance for the huntsman, while the streams were plentifully stocked with fish. The wild rose spread out its blossoms over the prairies, and if man, though never so weary, could not revel in his surroundings he was sordid enough. The pathway of the pioneer was hard and coarse, but a thoughtful God seasoned his toil with many a blessing denied to us of the crowded city.
General Harney, in the latter years of his life, was very fond of speaking of those same beautiful days of springtime and the famous men he soldiered with at Dixon’s Ferry and on through the campaign, and in all those reminiscences failed never to allude to Lieut. Jefferson Davis, beginning with him at the mouth of Rock River, when they began their march up to Dixon’s Ferry. Reavis, in his biography, makes frequent quotations from those days and events in which both Harney and Davis took such active and conspicuous parts. In a recent correspondence with Mrs. John M. Harney of St. Louis I am told that full reliance can be placed upon the statements made by Mr. Reavis in that biography, and, furthermore, all statements contained in the same as emanating from General Harney were made in the presence of herself and Mr. Harney, and, independently of the book, Mrs. Harney confirms the presence of Lieutenant Davis in that campaign from General Harney himself, who in his lifetime so asserted many times.
Gen. John A. McClernand, the last living member of that famous band which gathered at Dixon’s Ferry, wrote me, a very short time before his death, which but recently occurred, that he well knew it to be true that Lieutenant Davis was present and participated in the campaign to its close.
Later on, when Lieutenant Davis became Secretary of War, Colonel Strode, who had then removed to Woodstock, Illinois, and traveled the circuit from that point, was exceedingly fond of alluding to Jefferson Davis as his companion in arms during the Black Hawk War, and upon that point I have the correspondence, confirming the making of those claims at all times and upon all occasions, from so eminent an authority as Hon. H.W. Blodgett, for so many years United States Judge of this District.
Gen. George W. Jones, the first Senator in Congress from the State of Iowa, was a classmate of Jefferson Davis in their days of young manhood at Transylvania, and at his death was one of Mr. Davis’ pallbearers. The college days, so dear to every man who has a soul, brought them together as only college days can bring men together, and if subsequent events should ever bring them together again, after separating to start out in life, it can scarcely be said that either could be mistaken in any material point concerning the history of the occasion. Certainly General Jones could not, and here is what he has written above his signature about the presence of Lieut. Jefferson Davis, his classmate, in the Black Hawk campaign:
Dubuque, Jan. 16th, 1896.
Mr. F.R. Dixon.
My Dear Sir: Your letter of the 14th was received yesterday and I answer with pleasure.
My acquaintance with Mr. Jefferson Davis was formed at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, from 1821 to 1824; renewed in 1828 after he was graduated at West Point and commissioned Second Lieutenant of Infantry, U.S.A, when he served under Col. Zachary Taylor, at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin.
I, as Gen. Henry Dodge’s aid-de-camp, served with Lieutenant Davis throughout the Black Hawk war, from its inception to its close. Later, we were brother United States Senators, and an intimate friendship existed between us throughout his life.