In the spring of 1860, on a lecturing tour, he visited some of the Southern States, and while there closely observed the sentiment of the people on the subject of slavery, with the result that he expressed the conviction that nothing short of war could settle the matter. In the summer of 1860 he became principal of the public schools of Hennepin, Illinois. These he organised, graded, and taught with a vigour which was characteristic, yet never forgetting his geological investigations in the neighbouring country, where, on Saturdays and at other times when the schools were not in session, he made botanical and zoological collections.
Convinced that war was inevitable, the winter of 1860-61 found him studying military tactics and engineering. When the call came for troops, he was the first man to enroll, and largely through his efforts Company H of the 20th Regiment, Illinois Infantry, was raised in Putnam County. When the regiment was organised at Joliet, Illinois, he was appointed sergeant-major, and in this capacity went to the front. When the force was sent to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, his prescience in studying military engineering made him invaluable. He was practically given charge of planning and laying out and constructing the fortifications at that place, a work he executed so well that it received the unqualified commendation of General Frémont. The second lieutenant of Company H resigning, Powell was elected to fill the vacancy. After a service of a few weeks with his company he was put in charge of the fortifications he had constructed, being retained in this post after the departure of his regiment. In the early winter of 1861-62 he recruited a company of artillery, largely from loyal Missourians. This company was mustered into service as Battery F, 2d Illinois Artillery, John Wesley Powell, Captain. After drilling a few weeks he was ordered to proceed with his battery to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, where he arrived the latter part of March, 1862. The battery took part in the battle of Shiloh, April 6th of that year, and during the engagement, as Powell raised his arm, a signal to fire, a rifle ball struck his hand at the wrist glancing toward the elbow. The necessary surgery was done so hastily that later a second operation was imperative, which left him with a mere stump below the elbow-joint. Never for long at a time afterward was he free from pain and only a few years ago a third operation was performed which brought relief.
As soon as the original wound was healed he went back to his command, assisting as Division Chief of Artillery in the siege of Vicksburg. After the fall of this place he took part in the Meridian Raid. Then he served on detached operations at Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans until the summer of 1864, when he was re-assigned to the former command in the Army of the Tennessee. In all the operations after the fall of Atlanta he bore an active part, and when Sherman commenced the march to the sea, Powell was sent back to General Thomas at Nashville, in command of twenty batteries of artillery. At the battle of Nashville he served on the staff of Thomas and continued with this command till mustered out in the early summer of 1865. As a soldier his career was marked by a thorough study and mastery not only of the details of military life, but of military science. Especially was he apt in utilising material at hand to accomplish his ends—a trait that was also prominent in his civil life. Bridges he built from cotton-gin houses, mantelets for his guns from gunny bags and old rope, and shields for his sharpshooters from the mould-boards of old ploughs found on the abandoned plantations. All this time wherever possible he continued his studies in natural science. He made a collection of fossils unearthed in the trenches around Vicksburg, land and river shells from the Mississippi swamps, and a large collection of mosses while on detached duty in Illinois. He also familiarised himself with the geology of regions through which the armies passed to which he was attached. Time and again he was commended for his services and declined promotion to higher rank in other arms of the service. “He loved the scarlet facings of the artillery, and there was something in the ranking of batteries and the power of cannon,” writes Thompson, “that was akin to the workings of his own mind.”
In 1862 he was married to his cousin, Miss Emma Dean, of Detroit, who still lives in Washington with their daughter, an only child. Mrs. Powell was often his companion in the army and early Western journeys. Upon the return of Powell to civil life in 1865 he was tendered a nomination to a lucrative political office in Du Page County, Illinois, and at the same time he was offered the chair of geology in the Wesleyan University, a struggling Methodist College at Bloomington, Illinois. There was no hesitation on his part. He declined the political honour and its emoluments and accepted the professorship, which he retained two years. At the session of the Illinois Legislature in 1867 a bill was passed, largely through his effort, creating a professorship of geology and natural history in the State Normal University at Normal, Illinois, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars and an appropriation of one thousand dollars annually to increase the geological and zoological collections. He was elected to this chair and at about the same time was also chosen curator of the Illinois State Natural History Society, whose collections were domiciled in the museum of the Normal University. Attracted by the Far West as a field for profitable scientific research, the summer of 1867 found him using his salary and the other available funds to defray the expense of an expedition to the then Territory of Colorado for the purpose of securing collections. He organised and outfitted at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. All his assistants were volunteers except the cook. A. H. Thompson, afterwards so closely associated with him in the detailed exploration of the Colorado and in subsequent survey work, was the entomologist of the party. They crossed the plains with mule teams to Denver, worked along the east slope of the Front Range, climbed Pike’s Peak, and went westerly as far as South Park. Without realising it, apparently, Powell was all these years steadily approaching the great exploit of his life, as if led on and prepared by some unseen power. Now the project of exploring the mysterious gorges of which he heard such wonderful tales dawned upon him. It was as near an inspiration as can be imagined. Henceforth his mind and energy were directed irresistibly toward the accomplishment of this conception. Again in 1868 he was in the field with the same financial backing, to which was added a small allotment from the Illinois Industrial University at Champaign, Illinois, a State school. All but Mrs. Powell and his brother Walter, of this 1868 party, returned East on the approach of autumn, while with these and several trappers and hunters, among whom were the two Rowlands, William Dunn, and William Rhodes Hawkins, afterwards of his party to explore the canyons, he crossed the range to White River and wintered there near the camp of Chief Douglass and his band of Utes. When spring came in 1869 he went out to Granger, on the Union Pacific Railway, and there disposed of his mules and outfit, proceeding immediately to Washington, where he induced Congress to pass a joint resolution endorsed by General Grant authorising him to draw rations from Western army posts for a party of twelve men while engaged in making collections for public institutions. Never was assistance better deserved. Then he returned to Illinois and obtained from the trustees of the Normal University permission to again divert his salary and the other funds to Western work. The trustees of the Illinois Industrial University allotted him five hundred dollars, and the Chicago Academy of Sciences, through the influence of Dr. Andrews, the curator, also contributed two hundred and fifty or five hundred dollars. In addition some personal friends contributed small sums.
Green River from the U.P. Railway to White River, showing gorges through the Uinta Mountains.
The object proposed was to make collections in natural history to be shared accordingly with the contributing institutions. While these collections were one of Powell’s objects, others were the examination of the geology, and particularly the solution of the greatest remaining geographical problem of the United States, the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers. The Green, as has been explained in preceding pages, was known as far as the Uinta Mountains, and here and there at widely separated points on down to about Gunnison Valley. But there were long gaps, and below Gunnison Crossing as far as the Grand Wash the knowledge of the canyons as already pointed out was vague in the extreme. The altitude of Green River Station, Wyoming, was known to be about six thousand feet above sea level, and that of the mouth of the Virgen less than one thousand. How the river made up this difference was not understood and this problem was what Powell now confronted. His fortitude, nerve, courage, and war experience served him well in this endeavour upon which he started, as previously described, in the spring of 1869. The War Department and perhaps the Smithsonian Institution, furnished some instruments. This expedition met with so many disasters that Powell deemed a second descent in the interest of science desirable, and for a continuation of his explorations, Congress voted in 1870 an appropriation of ten thousand dollars. This second expedition was successful, performing its work in the years 1871-72-73. At the Session of 1871-72 another appropriation was made by Congress for proceeding with the topographical and geological survey of the country adjacent to the river. These appropriations were expended under the supervision of the Smithsonian Institution and were continued annually for work under the titles, Exploration of the Colorado River and its Tributaries, and Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, up to 1879, when the work was consolidated largely through Powell’s endeavour, with two other surveys, Hayden’s and Wheeler’s. The latter thought all this work ought to be done by the War Department, but Powell believed otherwise and his view prevailed. Out of these grew by the consolidation the Geological Survey, of which Clarence King was made director, Powell, because of the earnest efforts he had made to bring about the consolidation, refusing to allow his name to be presented. The new Geological Survey was under the Interior Department, and in 1881, when King resigned the directorship, Powell was immediately appointed in his place. The results of Powell’s original field-work were topographic maps of a large part of Utah, and considerable portions of Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada, constructed under the direction of Powell’s colleague, Prof. A. H. Thompson. There were also many volumes of reports and monographs, among them the account of the expedition of 1869, entitled The Exploration of the Colorado River of the West, 1869 to 1872; The Geology of the Uinta Mountains, by Powell; Lands of the Arid Region by Powell; Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah, by C. E. Dutton of the Ordnance Department, U.S.A.; Geology of the Henry Mountains, by G. K. Gilbert; and four volumes of Contributions to North American Ethnology, one of which contained Lewis H. Morgan’s famous monograph on “Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines.” Early in his Western work Powell became interested in the native tribes. In the winter of 1868, while on White River, he studied language, tribal organisation, customs, and mythology of the Utes and from 1870 to 1873 he carried on studies among the Pai Utes, the Moki, etc., being adopted into one of the Moki clans. On his journeys during these periods he often took with him several of the natives for the purpose of investigating their myths and language. Eventually he became the highest authority on the Shoshonean tribes. In 1874 he was one of the commissioners to select and locate the Southern Pai Utes on a reservation in south-eastern Nevada.
