AN INDIAN ATTACK ON A WAGON TRAIN
THE spring of 1846 was a busy season on the western frontier. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to California and Oregon, but a great number were making ready for Santa Fé. These adventurous people fitted out their wagon trains at St. Louis, and from there traveled up the Missouri River by boat to a place called Independence. This was the usual starting place, although occasionally trains went out from Fort Leavenworth.
THE LEADER OF
A WAGON TRAIN
These trains were usually made up of two or more large wagons, several emigrants combining forces and, considering that hostile Indians were always on the trail, this was a wise precaution. Some trains, however, sent out by companies formed for the express purpose of carrying goods to the Pacific Coast, consisted of as many as twenty-five wagons.
These wagons each could carry as much as six thousand pounds of freight and were drawn by several yoke of oxen in charge of one driver. Looking like large, flat-bottomed scows, the wagons were covered with canvas stretched over hoops bent round in shape. In this way the goods carried were protected from dampness and rain.
The trail to the Pacific Coast ran through what is now the State of Kansas to the Big Blue River, then over the Big and the Little Sandy River, coming into Nebraska close by the Big Sandy. Next, striking the Little Blue, the trail followed it for some sixty miles until it came to the Platte River near Fort Kearney. From here it wound in and out of the rolling hills like a great serpent, and on across the prairies to Fort Laramie, one of the most westerly frontier posts.
The country lying between this fort and the Salt Lake Valley, on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, was inhabited only by hostile Indians, and it was here that many brave men lost their lives.