July 1 (Thursday). We went but three miles to Elk Creek, moving in order to secure a good camp ground. It is proposed to stay here for a few days, in order to recuperate the mules and get them shod, to cut timber for building bridges, and to burn a pit of charcoal—all preparatory to leaving the command, to commence our duties as road engineers. We are to go in advance, with a working party of Infantry accompanying us, provisioned for twenty-eight days. Parties are detailed to-day to cut and bring in timber, which is obtained about a mile and a half up the mountain, where timber grows in abundance: pine, juniper, and tamarack.
July 2 (Friday). The timber party is still at work to-day, notwithstanding that it is cloudy and rainy. Our pontons were taken out and overhauled, and two or three of them were condemned. We received six more wagons from the Quartermaster, to carry timber. Clothing was issued to all who were in need of it.
This evening our hunters, who were after game, returned with a young antelope and some long-eared hares—we had, consequently, quite an excellent stew for supper.
July 3 (Saturday). We were off betimes upon our new road, and marched as far as Pass Creek, thirteen miles. At the very outset we had three wagons obstinately stuck in mud holes, requiring two hours, at least, to get in motion again. We cut brush and boughs, to make a footing for the mules, and tied ropes to the wheels, and ourselves joined in the pulling. In this way we dragged out two of the wagons, but the other had to be entirely unloaded, the contents being carried about twenty yards, through mud knee-deep.
Our course ran through a deep ravine all the way, and we crossed four creeks, one of them a very difficult one. The banks were about five feet above the water, and densely covered by thorny bushes. The creek was too wide to jump, so we were compelled, nolens volens, to scratch our way down through the briers and then wade to the opposite side, where the scratching ensued again in climbing out. This nauseous smelling shrub, the sage, grows in great quantities. It makes our marching very disagreeable, being so stiff, gnarled and thorny, growing sometimes to the height of five feet and the largest trunks measuring from eighteen to twenty-two inches in circumference. Split and twisted, with a strong appearance of dead, dry wood, the bark resembles that of the cedar, being dry and shelly.
The day was exceedingly sultry and oppressive; the atmosphere was perfectly calm, not a leaf trembling, and the air seemed heated like that of a furnace, causing an unpleasant feeling of lassitude and a difficulty in respiration. The heat of the day was the more strange from the fact that ice was found this morning three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness.
July 4 (Sunday). We made one of the most fatiguing marches of the entire trip, and employed our minds in contrasting our celebration of the American Independence of to-day with that of last year. In no very pleasant mood, we made a march of fourteen and a half miles, and encamped on the North Fork of the Platte River. When we arrived at the river we found all the bluffs of sandstone, of curious shapes and colors, looking like stupendous churches or other buildings in various styles of architecture, surmounted by lofty minarets, turrets, spires and domes. At night, the scene might easily be taken for a city standing near us.
The road all through the march was about six inches deep with dust, and not a green thing was visible to cheer the aching eyes, half blinded by the glaring light which was reflected by the heated sand—not a blade of grass, nothing but sage, from one end of the march to the other.
One of our men shot a sage hen near the close of the march, and when we came into camp we set about to ascertain whether these fowls can be made into good food; a stew was made, but the word good would be, I fear, a superfluity.
This afternoon First Sergeant Gerber took a party of men, the writer being one, and went some few miles up the river, to get a flat-boat which one of the guides informed us was hidden there. We found the boat, and as it grew dark launched it, commencing a passage down the rapid current of the Platte. We had not gone far, however, before the vessel upset, and the whole cargo of rifles and men was subjected to a cold bath. After some trouble in righting the boat the passage was resumed, two or three rifles and several hats making up all the losses that were sustained. But the members of the party also suffered considerable loss of blood during the trip, drawn by mosquitoes—they were so very troublesome that we had to wear handkerchiefs over our faces and gloves on our hands, and these were but a partial protection against their assaults.