Lo the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind,
does not apply to the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians; many of them are well educated. I became acquainted with John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, in Washington, and lately sent to Mr. Clyde, of New York, a letter from John Ross to frame and place in the saloon of his steamship Cherokee.
Indian blood is being rapidly diffused with the blood of the white man—a half-breed, quarter, and eighth. Fred Douglass is dead—a mulatto. Shall we credit his intelligence to the white blood or the negro? Suppose he had been an octoroon? What then!
Sometime during the year 1855 Col. Henry Wilson made Fort Smith his headquarters, and with him came Lieut. J. H. Potter, adjutant of the Seventh Infantry, who was a classmate of mine. He was a jovial, good fellow, and a wound in his leg made it an excellent indicator of rain, and was used to guide us on hunting expeditions. Partridges were numerous, and during the hunting season nearly every afternoon Mrs. French and I in a carriage, and Lieut. Potter on his pony, would ride over the prairie and have rare sport. We had well-trained dogs and open shooting, and time passed pleasantly on. From this dream life I was awakened to make a visit to Natchez, Miss., on business connected with the estate of Mr. J. L. Roberts. In company with a French planter on the Teche, in Louisiana, whom I invited to go with me, I started in an ambulance for Little Rock. The weather was bitterly cold, the thermometer being ten degrees below zero. The close of the second day brought us to the usual "stopping place," but all accommodations were occupied by the sheriff, guards, and prisoners. The owner of the house told me I would have to go on to Little Rock, unless Capt. ——, who lived seven miles farther on, could be induced to let us stay overnight with him; but that he was a misanthrope, and would see no one. The gray, leaden sky, the biting wind, the snow that was falling in dry pellets, and the bitter cold made our situation desperate, and induced me to try the Captain with a little adulation.
How lonely and dreary everything was! I knocked at the door, I heard the bolts slide, and the door was slowly opened by the Captain. I introduced myself to him, and told him that I was informed he lived here; that, regarding him as a Mexican veteran, I had called to pay my respects to him; that I was present and witnessed the gallant fight his command made with the Mexican lancers at the hacienda of Buena Vista; that I never was so cold before in my life, except the night of the battle of Buena Vista. He was silent till I finished. He took my hand, and said: "Come in." He ordered the horses taken out, introduced me to his wife, and we passed a pleasant evening before a great blazing fire. Doubt not my word, but no one in Arkansas then believed that we entered the portals of that door.
Learning that no steamers could reach Little Rock, we went to Duval's Bluff, on the White river, for a boat; got on the first one that arrived. The Captain said he was bound for Memphis, but would land us at the mouth of the White river to get a down boat.
When near the mouth of the White river, the captain of the boat informed me that the wharfboat at the mouth of the river had been removed, and that he would carry us up the Mississippi until we met a down boat, and put us on that. The wind was blowing violently, and the river full of floating cakes of ice; and when we met a boat, so violent was the wind, it would not answer our hail to stop, and we went on up. In the midst of all this snow, ice, and gale the boat caught fire in the hold, and the flames burst up the hatchways very high. The hatches were soon covered with wet mattresses, steam driven into the hold, cotton on deck thrown overboard, and the boat landed where the bank was high and the water deep. Baggage and furniture were put on shore, and fires built. Holes were bored in the hull of the boat, but the cotton on fire could not be extinguished. About dusk the captain announced that he would put the baggage on the boat again and run up the river three miles to a place where he could scuttle her in shoal water and put out the fire. All the passengers walked through the deep snow to the landing above, except one man and his wife, the Frenchman, and myself. It was not pleasant to be on the river in such a gale, and with the boat deck hot from the fires beneath; and when we did land and made fast to a wood barge, the owner, seeing we were on fire, ran out and cut our line with his ax to send us adrift. What a punishment the crew of the steamer gave him for cutting our line!
In time a steamer going up took us on board and carried us to Helena. After trials innumerable, and too long to write, I reached Natchez safely. Nothing during the late war equaled this journey in the suffering I leave untold. I rode out to the residence of Gen. John A. Quitman, and asked him to go on my bond. He said: "Certainly I will. Take dinner with us, and I will then go down with you." When we reached the clerk's office, he asked Mr. Inge, the clerk, what the amount would be, and I think he replied about one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Asking for a blank bond, he signed it, and said: "Fill this out when necessary with any sum required." It was a kind act, and all he said was: "If you should have any trouble, let me know it, and I will aid you."
Mrs. Mary S. Roberts died April 5, 1854, and it devolved on me to take out letters of administration on the estate. I then returned to Fort Smith and continued on duty there until March 29, when I tendered my resignation. A reply to this letter was as follows: