Feb. 8th, 1849. A day of hurry began, and three o'clock found us on board the steamer "Transport," surrounded by the company and a crowd of their friends and ours to see us off. Fathers took my hands in both theirs, and in scarcely audible voices begged me to take care of only sons, brothers asked me to give counsel and advice to younger brothers, men I had never seen gave hearty hand clasps that told of sound hearts, and said: "My brother's with you, treat him right and if he is my brother he'll die for you, or with you." The final words of clergymen as they gave us their parting advice and blessing, were drowned by the tolling of the last bell. Its knell went to my heart like a funeral note, and I was too much overcome to answer the cheer of the hundreds who came down to see us off, and in silence waved my cap to my brother and friends, and in deep mental sorrow prayed God for courage and ability to do all I had promised to try to do.
My men looked back to New York's beautiful battery, and I paced the boiler deck almost alone, watching the red sunset and cooling my burning face and aching head with the north-west wind, cold and frosty from the snow covered palisades, turning often to look up "our North River" to see if I could get one glimpse of that home so long to be unseen.
The tide was low so we had to take the outside, and I went to the bow to look over Sandy Hook towards the broad Atlantic, and to try to realize that the Pacific had to be seen before I could again return to my own beautiful coast. It was a most curious sight as I entered the cabin of the boat to see the different feelings exhibited; some were in deep thought; some in sorrowful anxiety; some gay, and again others with evidently forced merriment; but in the main, cheerfulness was certainly on every side, and when I had to announce that we had been promised what was not on board, a good supper, not a murmur was heard, and merriment was created by the imitations of the orders of the New York eating-houses such as: "roast beef rare," "plum pudding both kinds of sauce," etc.
Our cabins were not the most comfortable, nor was the floor of the dining saloon too soft for some of our city men, but we slept soundly from one until four; took breakfast at five, and at eight were driving in the quiet, dignified streets of Philadelphia towards the Schuylkill. Very cold weather had followed us, and the heavy northwester of the day previous retarded our progress across the Chesapeake from Frenchtown.[3] At Baltimore we took our luggage at once to the railroad station, and went to the United States and Union Hotels, where for a dollar and a quarter each we had supper, bed and breakfast, and went off, all in better spirits, for Cumberland, where, after a miserable dinner and supper combined, we packed into fourteen stages, having paid nearly an average of two dollars each for extra luggage, fifty pounds being the regular allowance for each man.
Feb. 10th. Fortunately we had a full moon, and as the mountains were all ice and snow it was "as light as day." Overloaded, and with top-heavy coaches, as our hind wheels would keep slipping first on one side, then on the other, to see what the front ones were doing, it was most extraordinary we did not capsize, all of us; but no accident occurred, and at eight next morning we had descended Laurel Hill on a run, and were slowly winding the lanes of a more civilized country.
As it was Sunday, many cheerful groups, gaily dressed, ornamented the stoops and sunny sides of the houses and barns of the contented farmers of western Pennsylvania, as we passed on to Brownsville, where we arrived at noon, glad enough to be safely landed on the banks of the Monongahela. We reached Pittsburgh at nine the same evening, went to the Monongahela House and had a comfortable supper, but as most of our luggage was on the steamer for Cincinnati, I went on board and took my berth.
Morning came, and after a few kind words from my relations at Pittsburgh, we left, and had one of the hundreds of monotonous voyages down the Ohio that are yearly performed by the steamers. At Cincinnati I was met by two additional volunteers, engaged by Col. Webb, and was much pleased by their appearance, though I should have preferred seeing backwoodsmen and men who knew more of the life we were going to lead, but we must hope on, and trust to Providence.
Passages and fares at hotels, etc., included, were now calculated to see how we had estimated the cost of each person to Cairo, and we found that for each one it was one dollar and forty-five cents over the twenty-five dollars allowed, and I took passages to the latter place direct, remaining only four hours at Louisville, where I had the good fortune to find my uncle W. G. Bakewell waiting for me, and dined with him while our boat was putting out some freight at Albany, below the falls. When I joined my party I was told that some of the men had stolen a valuable pointer dog, and that a telegraphic notice had been sent after them; but on inquiring I found it had been purchased, no doubt from a thief, so we sent it back from Cairo.
Large flocks of geese and ducks were seen by us as we made the mouth of the Ohio, and the numbers increased about Cairo. The ice in the Mississippi was running so thick that the "J. Q. Adams" returned after a fruitless effort to ascend the river. All Cairo was under water, the wharf boat we were put on, an old steamer, could only accommodate thirty-five of our party, so that the other thirty had to be sent to another boat of the same class; the weather was extremely cold, with squalls of snow from the north with a keen wind, there was no plank from our boat to the levee of Cairo, the only part of the city out of water. Will it be wondered at that a slight depression of spirits should for an instant assail me? But when a man has said he will do a thing it must be done if life permits, and in an hour we found ourselves by a red hot stove, the men provided with good berths for the place, cheerfulness restored, and after an hour's chat, while listening to the ever increasing gale outside, we parted for the night to wake cold, but with good appetites even for the horrible fare we had, and as young Kearney Rodgers said, as we looked at the continents of coffee-stains, and islands of grease here and there, with lumps of tallow and peaks of frozen butter on our once white table cloth, "Is it not wonderful what hunger will bring us to?"
Here we found Col. Webb with his wife and son; I was much pleased with the dignified and ladylike appearance of Mrs. Webb; once she had been very beautiful, now she was greatly worn, and had a melancholy expression, under the circumstances more appropriate than any other, for her husband and only son were about to leave her for certainly eighteen months, and perhaps she was parting with them for the last time. We chatted together in rather a forced conversation, until the "General Scott" for New Orleans came by, and then went on board paying eight dollars for each man and five dollars each for Col. Webb's three horses; so much for Cairo, I don't care ever to see it again.