History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 1 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

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“The levee on the morning after the day of the disaster presented a dreary and desolate spectacle, looking more like a scene in the polar regions than in the fertile and beautiful Mississippi Valley. The Mississippi, awakened from her long sleep, was pitching along at a wild and rapid rate of speed, as if to make up for lost time. The ice coat of mail was torn into shreds, which lay strewn along the levee, and was in some places heaped up to a height of twenty feet above the level of the water. Where the boats had lain in dense crowds only a few hours before, nothing was to be seen save this high bulwark of ice, which seemed as if it had been left there purposely to complete the picture of bleak desolation. The whole business portion of the levee was clear of boats, except the two wrecked Alton wharf-boats, which were almost shattered to pieces, and cast like toys upon the shore in the midst of the ridge of ice. There was not a single boat at the levee which entirely escaped injury by the memorable breaking up of the ice on February 27, 1856.”

LA BARGE RESCUES HIS BOAT.

Captain La Barge retained a vivid recollection of this great catastrophe, for he was the only steamboat man who succeeded in extricating his boat from the wreck. The sight was something terrible to him, and a marvelous exhibition of power. The ice piled up in enormous masses as easily as a child would heap up sand, and then it collapsed and gave way. There were three of these pilings-up, or gorges. The noise of the crushing ice was terrific. Some of the boats were smashed to splinters; some were sunk, and others were pushed far up onto the bank.

The St. Mary was lying at the wharf when the movement began. La Barge at once got up steam and prepared to do what he could to save her. Sarpy came down to see him, and said to him, “Do just what you think best with the boat. If anyone can save her you can. Draw on me for anything you want.” It was a very risky thing to trust one’s life in a chaos of wreckage like that. Hooper, the mate, came and said that he should go too if the Captain was going to risk the river. He thought he could get five or six men to venture. The final give-way came about dark, and La Barge backed the boat away from the shore, let her drift in the ice, and thus escaped the crush which came along the shore. He drifted some twenty miles downstream before he could extricate himself from the ice.

GOUVENEUR K. WARREN.

La Barge went to Fort Union for the Company again in 1856. On this trip Lieutenant Gouveneur K. Warren, afterward general and corps commander in the Civil War, took passage on the boat nearly all the way from St. Louis. He had with him a corps of scientific assistants, among them the eminent geologist Dr. F. V. Hayden, who was then just beginning his explorations of the West. Lieutenant Warren sketched the course of the river from the pilot-house as the boat proceeded, taking compass bearings and estimating the distances. He speaks in his report of the uniform courtesy extended him by Captain La Barge in facilitating his operations. The Captain remembered him well, as he was in the pilot-house nearly all the time. He was very active, and kept his men vigorously employed gathering information. At night he went on shore and took observations. La Barge became very much interested in his work, and assisted him in every possible way, often stopping the boat to allow him to do some particular work. He seemed so interested and pleased with everything, and so intelligent and well posted, that he quite won the Captain’s admiration. He was, as Captain La Barge remembered him, a handsome man, with a fine head and clear eye, at that time rather slender, but well built and erect. He was always pleasant, and was liked by his men, but was nevertheless a strict disciplinarian. We can easily discover in the Captain’s recollections the youthful portrait of the future hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, and the accomplished leader of the Fifth Corps.

DR. F. V. HAYDEN.

DANGEROUS BUSINESS.

The Captain also distinctly remembered Dr. Hayden, and related a certain incident which came very near proving disastrous to that enthusiastic explorer. Hayden was a man of rather small stature, talkative and companionable, well informed, and very energetic and eager in his work. On one occasion his devotion to his scientific pursuits came very near getting him into danger. The incident in question occurred at the site of old Fort Clark, which stood upon a high cut bank. “We laid up here for an entire day,” said the Captain in narrating this event. “The bank was full of fossils, some of them very rare. I had told Hayden of this on a former trip, and he was anxious to investigate the place. He went down under the bank, pick in hand and his rifle over his shoulder. An Aricara village was on the top, and while he was absorbed in his investigations some young bucks took it into their heads to have a little fun at his expense. They commenced pelting him with small pebbles, corncobs, etc., from the top of the bank, at the same time keeping themselves concealed from his view. For some time Hayden could not see where the missiles came from, but at length caught sight of the Indians, and instantly leveled his rifle at them. I had been a quiet spectator from the boiler deck of the boat, and quick as thought called to him to desist or he was a dead man. He lowered his gun and came on board and hunted no more fossils under that bank. If he had fired he would certainly have been killed, and as it was, the Indians were greatly incensed that he should have leveled his gun at them.”