Red Wing, Minnesota. Showing Barn Bluff in the background, with a glimpse of the river on the left.
[Chapter XXVI]
In War Time
In the early spring of 1861 the "Fanny Harris" was chartered by the United States government to go to Fort Ridgeley, up the Minnesota River, and bring down the battery of light artillery stationed at that post, known as the Sherman Battery, Major T. W. Sherman having been in command long enough to have conferred his name upon the organization, and by that it was known at the time of which I write. It is three hundred miles from St. Paul to Fort Ridgeley by the river; as a crow flies, the distance is about half of that. A little more than one year after our visit there was business at and near the fort for many crows—the gruesome occupation of picking the bones of a thousand white people (men, women, and children) murdered by the crafty Sioux, who saw in the withdrawal of the troops an opportunity to avenge all their wrongs, real or imaginary, and to regain the lands which had been sold under treaty, or which had been stolen from them by the fast encroaching white population of the state.
The Minnesota River is the worst twisted water course in the West. No other affluent of the Mississippi can show as many bends to the mile throughout its course. It is a series of curves from start to finish, the river squirming its way through an alluvial prairie from Beaver Falls, the head of navigation, to Mendota at its mouth. Up this crooked stream it was the problem to force the largest boat that had ever navigated it, and a stern-wheeler at that. At the time the trip was made, there was a nineteen-foot rise in the river, resulting from the melting of the snow after an exceptionally hard winter. This precluded any danger of touching bottom anywhere, but it added ten fold to the difficulties of navigating a two hundred-foot steamboat around the short bends for the reason that the water did not follow the regular channel, but cut right across bends and points, so that most of the time the current was setting squarely across the river, catching the steamer broadside on, and driving her into the woods, and when there holding her as in a vise. Being a stern-wheeler it was impossible, by going ahead on one wheel and backing on the other, as would have been done by a side-wheeler, to keep her head clear of the bank. All this work had to be done by the men at the wheel, and they very soon found their work cut out for them, in handling the boat by the steering wheel and rudders alone. We had a Minnesota River pilot on board to assist our men in steering; it was an impossibility to lose one's self, so that his services were confined almost exclusively to steering, and not to piloting, in its true sense. We also had an army officer from Fort Snelling on board, to see that all possible speed was made. His orders were to "push her through" at whatever cost, regardless of damage.
The boat was coaled at St. Paul for the round trip, for the woodyards were all under water, and the cord wood was adrift on its way to St. Louis, derelict. From the time we entered the river at Fort Snelling, two men were at the wheel all the time. I was sent to the engine-room, my experience as a "cub" engineer rendering my services there of more importance for the time being than in the pilot house. I stood at one engine all day, while one of the firemen detailed for the purpose stood at the other, to "ship up", to back, or come ahead. There were no unnecessary bells rung. If we were going ahead and the stopping bell rang, followed by the backing bell we threw the rods on to their "hooks", and the engineer gave her full steam astern. This was usually followed by a crash forward, as the boat was thrown broadside, with almost full speed ahead, into the woods, after having struck one of the cross currents either unguardedly, or else one which was too strong in any case for the wheelsmen to meet and overcome by the rudder alone. If it chanced that the bank was overhung by trees, the forward cabin lost an additional portion of its ornamentation.
In nearly every such instance it was necessary to get the yawl overboard, and with four men at the oars and a steersman sculling astern, pull to the opposite side of the river and get a line fast to a tree. The line was then taken to the steam capstan and the boat would be hauled out of a position from which it would have been impossible to release her by the engines and wheel alone. This work was kept up from daylight until dark, and when the four men came down from the pilot house they were apt to be so exhausted that they could scarcely stand.
The boat tied up where night overtook her. In the engine-room, as soon as the day's run was ended, all hands set to work—engineers, "strikers" and firemen—to replace the lost and broken wheel-arms and buckets. This was a hard and dangerous job, for the water ran a raging torrent, six or eight miles an hour, and the nights were dark and rainy. It was precarious business, this getting out on the fantails, with only the dim light of half a dozen lanterns, unscrewing refractory nuts and bolts with a big monkey-wrench, and in the meantime holding on by one's legs only, over such a mill tail. Everybody engaged in this work understood fully that if he ever fell into the water it was the end of all things to him, for he would have been swept away in the darkness and drowned in a minute. There was no dry land for him to reach in any direction, the river sweeping across the country five or ten feet deep in every direction. It was usually far past midnight when the temporary and necessary repairs were completed, and then the engine-room force "turned in" to get three or four hours sleep before beginning another day as full of work and danger as the preceding.
All this time the army man either stood on the roof with the captain, dodging falling spars, chimneys, or limbs of trees, or at the wheel with the pilots, or paced the engine-room, and urged speed, speed, speed. "The United States will put a new cabin on your boat. Never mind that. Keep your wheel turning and your machinery in working order. We must have troops in Washington at once, or there will be no United States." It is fair to say that every man on the boat worked as though his life depended upon his exertions. Whatever may have been their political sympathies, there was nothing on the surface to indicate other than the determination to get that battery to La Crosse in the shortest possible time.