That army officer was the epitome of concentrated energy. He was a captain and quartermaster, and representing the United States, was practically supreme on board. He had his limitations as a steamboatman, but thanks to the splendid equipment which his government had given him at West Point, coupled with the experience he had gained during many years' service in the West in moving troops, Indians, and supplies by steamboat, he had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done, and could judge very clearly whether the men in charge were competent, and were doing things in the right way and to the best advantage.
Under ordinary circumstances such a close censorship of the officers and crew would not have been maintained, nor would it have been tolerated if suggested. But at this time everything was at white heat. Fort Sumter had fallen. Men were stirred as never before in this country, and officers of the regular army particularly, who knew better than any others the gravity of the impending conflict, were keyed up to the highest tension by the responsibility placed upon them. On the other hand the officers of our boat were likewise burdened with the responsibility of safely taking a big vessel hundreds of miles up a narrow and crooked river, just now covered with floating drift of every description, with undermined trees falling at every mile. They were spurred on by the thought that the difference of a day, or even of a few hours, might determine the loss of the nation's capital. Under these circumstances the insistence of the army man was passed by as a matter of course.
Near Belle Plaine a council was called to decide whether an attempt should be made to force a passage through the thin strip of timber that fringed the river bank. If successful, this would permit of sailing the boat a straight course for ten miles across a submerged prairie, thus cutting off twenty miles of crooked and arduous navigation. The Minnesota River pilot was sure that we would meet with no obstacles after passing the fringe of timber—not a house, barn, or haystack, as all that somewhat unusual class of obstructions to a steamboat had been carried away by the great flood. After discussing the plan in all its bearings, it was decided to try it as soon as a narrow and weak place could be found in the timber belt.
Such a place, where the willows and cottonwoods were the thinnest and smallest in diameter, was chosen for the attempt. The boat, by reason of its length, could not be pointed straight at the "hurdle", as the pilots facetiously dubbed it, but a quartering cut was decided upon. The jack staff had long ago been carried away; the spars and derricks were housed below, and a large portion of the forward roof was already missing. It was decided, therefore, that a little more banging would count for nothing. Everybody was cautioned to stand clear of the guards, and look out for himself. A big head of steam was accumulated, and then with two men at the wheel and everybody hanging on, the "Fanny Harris" was pointed at the opposite shore, with its lining of woods, and the throttle thrown wide open. She jumped across the river in a minute and dove into the young timber, crushing trees six inches in diameter flat on either side; the water-soaked, friable soil affording no secure holding ground for the roots, which added greatly to our chances of success. The boat plunged through all right, with little damage, until the wheel came in over the bank. Then there was music. Many of the trees were only bent out of perpendicular, and when the hull passed clear these trees rebounded to more or less perpendicular positions—enough so as to get into the wheel and very nearly strip it of its buckets, together with a dozen of the wheel-arms. The pilots heard the crash and rang to stop. The engineers knew more about the damage than the pilots, but would not have stopped the engine of their own accord had the whole stern of the boat gone with it. It wasn't their business to stop without orders, and they knew their business.
When the wheel stopped turning, the boat stopped. The problem then was, to get the boat through the remaining hundred feet or more. This was done by carrying the big anchor ahead, and taking the cable to the steam capstan. The boat was dragged "out of the woods", and all hands turned to replace the smashed buckets. As soon as they were in place we steamed gaily up the current, over the prairie, clean-swept of fences, stacks, and barns, only a few isolated houses, built on the higher knolls, having escaped the flood. At the upper end of the prairie a weak place was found, and with a clear start in the open water the boat was driven through the fringe of timber, clear into the open channel, without stopping, and this time with but little injury to the wheel.
Couriers had been sent ahead from Fort Snelling, by pony express, to the commanding officer of the fort, to have his battery ready to embark as soon as the boat should arrive. It had taken us four days to run the three hundred miles, and it was a dilapidated steamboat that at last made fast at the landing place at the foot of the bluff, under the shadow of Fort Ridgeley.
The fort was ideally situated for defense against Indian attacks, for which, of course, it was alone built. It would appear, however, that its builders had little idea that it would ever be put to the test—such a test as it was subjected to a little more than a year after our visit. It was located on a sort of promontory formed by the bluff on the side next the river, and a deep ravine on the other. On the third side of the triangle lay the open prairie, stretching away for miles, with only a slight sprinkling of scrub oaks to obstruct the view. The barracks, stables, and storehouse (frame structures) were built up solidly on two sides of this triangle, next the ravines, the windowless backs of the buildings forming the walls of the fort. Toward the prairie, the most vulnerable face, the buildings did not fully cover the front, there being two or three wide openings between those that formed that side of the defenses. These openings were covered by cannon of the battery which garrisoned the fort.
When the battery embarked for the East there were left only two or three small howitzers in charge of a sergeant of artillery, and it was these little pieces that saved the garrison from massacre in August, 1862, when the fort was for many days beleaguered by eight hundred Sioux Indians under the chief, Little Crow, leader of the uprising in Minnesota in that year. Undoubtedly the respect that Indians have for any sort of cannon had as much to do with their repulse as did the actual punishment inflicted by the howitzers, however well-served they may have been. I have a letter somewhere, written by a distant cousin who was a colonel in the Confederate army, relating that they had several thousand Indians in the Confederate army upon going into the battle of Prairie Grove, and from them they expected great things. When the "Yanks" opened with their artillery the sound alone brought the Indian contingent to a stand. When the gunners got the range and began to drop shells among them, the red men remembered that they had pressing business in the Indian Territory, and it is Colonel Merrick's opinion that they did not stop running until they reached their tepees. It is his opinion also that as soldiers, for use in war where Anglo-Saxons are debating grave questions of state with twelve pounders, they are not worth a red copper.