Overland Tales

by Josephine Clifford

I wanted to kill Toby on the spot; for the Newbolds were the best of neighbors, sharing with us, through the whole of that journey, the milk their cow (the only one with the whole train) was pleased to give. Not a word of complaint was heard from the captain or his little wife; but I did hope honestly that the miserable white horse might die of his extra feed of butter and oats.

In the evening Colonel Lane gathered the ladies together, led us to the top of a hill, and pointed out where Fort Riley lay, like a grand fortress, with long, white walls, rising on a green eminence. We reached it next day by night-fall, and though camped several miles outside of it, there were so many things which we found we actually needed, and which could only be had at this, the last post of any importance, that the greater number of officers were constantly to be seen between the sutler-store and the saddler-shop, the quartermaster's office and the corrals.

After a rest of three days, we took up the line of march again through prairie-land, dotted with farms and broken by forests and streams, through which (after having crossed the Kansas river at Manhattan, on a pontoon-bridge, before reaching Fort Riley) the soldiers seemed to think it rare sport to wade, barefooted, carrying shoes and stockings in their hands.

The country grew wilder and more desolate; and passing a farm-house one day, near which there were buffaloes grazing in the pasture with oxen and cows, it seemed nothing extraordinary, though, of course, we did not see the buffalo in his native freedom till some time after. At Ellsworth (now Fort Harker) we halted again for a day, and then gradually entered the wilderness. Fort Zarah seems to have grown where it is, only to help make the country look sadder and more desolate; but the well they have is splendid. I think so at least, for I was so thirsty when we turned in there at noon, though we continued the march and did not make camp. The general seemed to consider the feet of his men fully seasoned by this time; and they certainly made some hard days' marches before they reached Fort Union. The days' marches were harder for them than they were for us, on the whole; though many a time, creeping slowly over the tediously level ground, did I wish that I could march with them, or help drive mules, or lead horses—anything rather than sit in the carriage for hours, the sun beating down in just the same direction, the men in front moving along in just the same measure. But there was something grand about it at the same time—a forest of bayonets in front of us, an endless train of wagons behind us, moving silently through the solemn wilds; hosts of red-winged black-birds fluttering along with us, the rarer blue-jay flying haughtily over their heads.

There was always something to see; the prairie-flowers were so dazzlingly colored some days, or the rock lay in such odd strata; and in one place we saw the remains of some rough fortifications built of the rocks—thrown up hastily, perhaps, one day when the party of brave emigrants spied "ye noble savage" bearing down on them. In camp everything looked pleasant and cheerful. The general had traversed the country more than once, knew every spring on the road, and had the camping-ground kept so neat that we could have stopped in one place a good many days without any discomfort. Beyond that, he was courteous and thoughtful of our comfort, as only a soldier can be; and there was not a lady "marching with the command" who would not have voted him a major-general of the United States army, or into the Presidential chair, if he had preferred it.

At Fort Dodge, where officers and men burrowed half under ground (at that time), I had not the least desire to remain. However, a few miles back, where the river makes the bend, there is a singular grandeur about the country, with nothing to break the utter loneliness, save the sad, heavy murmur of the water. And now we are out on the plains again; day after day we travel over land that lies so level and so still that not a being but the lark seems living here beside us. How hot and fierce the sun glares down on the slowly-winding column—a serpent it seems, with its length outstretched, as it moves over the bare, brown prairie. The spirit grew oppressed, and the heart fainted in the noon-day sun; the command to halt was always received with joy; and more than once we had to make forced marches to reach water. Yet we lost but one man out of the eight hundred, and he died the day we struck the Arkansas again—died in the road almost—and we carried him with us to camp; and at night, when the stars had come out and tear-drops hung in the eyes of the flowers by the river-bank, they carried him to his lonely grave. I went to the tent-door when I heard the muffled drums, and stood outside, in the dark, where I could see the short procession passing. Lanterns were carried in the train that moved ghostly away from the camp-fires and the white-looming tents. The grave was not far, and when they had lowered the coffin I saw the form of a man bowing over it, as though in prayer, and then the earth was shovelled back. The soldiers returned with measured tread, and left their comrade on the wide, lone prairie, with only the Arkansas to sing his dirge.

I went to sleep with tears in my eyes; but we were to make an early start in the morning, and before daybreak we were all awake and astir. Sadness could not live in the heart those early mornings, and I thought sometimes the general had reveille sounded so early purposely, to show us how beautiful Nature was at sunrise.

Sunrise on the plains! Is there anything in music, in painting, in poetry, that can bring before eyes that have never beheld it, the passing beauty of such a scene? There are strains in music which bring a faint shadow of the picture back to me; no art can ever reproduce it. How balmy the faint breath of wind that seems to lift upward the light, gray clouds, to make way for the rosy tints creeping athwart the horizon! Watch the clouds as they rise higher in the heavens; see how the sun-god has kissed them into blushes as bright as the damask-rose, sending a flood of yellow light to cover them with greater confusion. Now they float gently upward till they reach the clear, blue sky, from where the yellow light has faded; and, watching bevies of other clouds, still dancing in the light above the first rays of the rising sun, the color fades from them, and they waft hither and thither—white clouds on deep blue ground—till the morning breeze bears them away from our sight. But words are weak and tame; and the yellow-breasted prairie-lark alone, rising high in the sun-bright air as the day begins, gives fit expression to her thanks for the glories of creation, in the wordless song she sings forever.