Fort Riley, as above mentioned, was begun by Major Edmund Augustus Ogden, who had selected the site and was occupied with the work when he died there Aug. 3d, 1855, in the epidemic of cholera then raging. He was born at Catskill, N. Y., Feb. 20th, 1810; removed to Unadilla, N. Y., and from there entered West Point July 1st, 1827; he became second lieutenant of the 1st Inf., July 1st, 1831; first lieutenant, Dec. 17th, 1836; was transferred to the 8th Inf., July 7th, 1838; promoted to be captain, Dec. 1st, 1839; and was breveted major for meritorious conduct. His first duty was at Prairie du Chien; his marriage with Captain Gustavus Loomis' daughter Eliza, at Fort Snelling, is said to have been the first ceremony of the kind between white persons in Minnesota; he served faithfully and with distinction in the Black Hawk, Florida, and Mexican wars, and for many years discharged arduous and responsible duties in the quartermaster department. For several years immediately preceding his death he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.
[I-66] Saline r., distinctively called Great or Grand Saline, has been already noted. Pike crosses this, and proceeds to "a small dry branch" of the next river, to camp for three days. This river is the one he calls Little Saline, and is now known as Covert or Salt cr., a branch of Solomon r. which falls into the Solomon 4 m. below Minneapolis, Ottawa Co. Pike's map connects it correctly, but magnifies its size; for the stream which he passed on returning from the Pawnee village, and which he lays down as a head of his Little Saline, is a branch of the Great Saline. Pike probably crossed Saline r. in the vicinity of Culver, where the railroad now does, then soon passing from Saline into Ottawa. The small branch of Salt cr. on which he camped was one of several such in the vicinity of Ada.
[I-67] An error is here evident, and I suspect some confusion of the diary of the 21st and 22d. 1. "Distance 11 miles," for the whole 22d, is necessarily wrong, if m. were made in the afternoon, and this, too, after marching from eight to eleven in the forenoon. 2. Aside from the fact that there is no branch of the Republican fork in this vicinity, the map shows that Pike did not reach Solomon r. till the 23d, and the text of that day confirms this. Camps of the 21st and 22d were both in the space traversed between Salt cr. and Solomon r., less than 20 m. at the furthest. 3. The difficulty disappears if for "12 miles," etc., of the above questionable clause, we read "2 miles to the first branch of Solomon river on our route." This would set Pike on one of the small creeks that fall into the right bank of Solomon r. in the vicinity of Glasco, Simpson, and Asherville. A former name of Solomon r. was Nepeholla, used, e. g., by Gunnison, P. R. R. Rep. II. 1855, p. 17. Capt. J. W. Gunnison came to the mouth of Solomon's fork July 6th, 1853, from Westport, Mo., by the Wakarusa River route, striking the Kansas r. at Fort Riley, crossing there, and continuing through Abilene; he was en route to the great bend of the Arkansaw by the usual Smoky Hill route.
[I-68] Taking Pike northward across Buffalo cr. I suppose this was crossed somewhere in the vicinity of Jamestown, Republic Co. In this position the Republican r. itself is only 5 or 6 m. to his right, and the rest of the journey is simply following up this river obliquely on about a N. W. course, at a somewhat increasing distance from it, until he nears it to approach the village.
[I-69] To White Rock cr., west of White Rock, a town on the creek and on the boundary between Republic and Jewell cos. This stream runs east through these, and falls into the Republican r. opposite Republic City. In getting here, Pike seems by his map to have crossed several small streams running to his left, and into a stream he runs into Solomon r. I suppose these to be some branches of Marsh cr., a sluggish tributary of Buffalo cr. from the N. W.
[I-70] Finishing the journey to the Pawnee Republic village, whence the great river on which it was situated took its name. Its ultimate sources are in Colorado, like those of the Smoky Hill r. Its main course then cuts off the extreme N. W. corner of Kansas, by running through Cheyenne Co.; whereupon the stream enters Nebraska, and skirts the southern border of this until it dips into Kansas across the N. border of Jewell Co., whence it continues E. into Republic Co., turns S. in this to Cloud Co., E. through this to Clay Co., and S. E. through this to Geary Co., where it is joined by the Smoky Hill, as already noted. The whole journey thus made from the Osages to the Pawnees foots up, by Pike's distances, about 350 m. In a letter to the Secretary of War he calls it "375"; but this is simply offhand. He also claims that his Osages led him roundabout 100 m. through their fear of the "Kans." Pike's land mileages seem to me more correct than those excessive ones he assigns to his navigation. I suppose this journey to have been between 300 and 325 m.
I must emphasize here the fact that I have failed in every attempt to locate the precise site of the Pawnee village. One would suppose it well known; I find that it is not, and have yet to discover the ethnographer or geographer who can point it out. Correspondence addressed to persons now living in the vicinity was as fruitless as my exploration of the sources of official knowledge in Washington, where several friends interested themselves in my behalf to no purpose. I know of no closer indication than that afforded by Gregg's map of 1844. This letters "Old Pawnee Village" on the S. bank of the Republican, halfway between long. 98° and 99° W., and thus, as I judge, about opposite the present town of Red Cloud, Webster Co., Neb. Gregg runs the Republican entirely S. of lat. 40° N., i. e., in Kansas; but the place where Pike struck it was certainly in that portion of its course which runs in Nebraska, just over the Kansas line. Gregg in fact gives his river a recognizable northward convexity along here, and if it does not overreach 40°, that is a fault of absolute, not relative, position. We are here much less concerned with latitude than with longitude. The river is running approximately from W. to E., in Webster Co., and the main point is how far W. the village was, as that would affect details of the route from the last point at which I have been able to locate Pike. It will be necessary to discover the exact situation of the Pawnee village before the cloud over the end of this journey can be dispelled, and the beginning of the journey from the village to Great Bend on the Arkansaw can be set in a clear light. For the present I can only tentatively assume longitude 98° 30´ W. (See [Scandia], in the Index.)
[I-71] Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, commonly called Abbé Raynal, b. Aveyron, France, Apr. 12th, 1713, d. Paris, Mar. 6th, 1796—a philosophical free-thinker and historian, who wrote too much sense and truth to suit his official superiors, and was consequently unfrocked. It is a curious fact in the history of the most Tammany-like machine for the propagation of painful superstitions ever known in the Western world—excepting perhaps Brigham Young's similarly organized scheme—that whenever one of its members begins to think for himself they make him take off his gown and wear trousers openly. The irony in the case seems to escape the professional nurserymen in that hot-house. The abbé wrote various works; his most celebrated one, to which Pike refers, is: Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Établissements et du Commerce des Européens dans les Deux Indes, 1770, repub. 1780-85—a book whose strength and other merits may be inferred from the fact that it had the honor of being burned by Parliamentary order; though its author was simply exiled, the times being already a little out of joint for roasting heretics along with their heresies.
[I-72] Richard Sparks of Pennsylvania had been a captain in the levies of 1791, when he was appointed a captain of infantry, March 7th, 1792; he was arranged to the 3d Sub-legion, Sept. 4th, 1792, to the 3d Infantry, Nov. 1st, 1796, and transferred to the 2d Infantry Apr. 1st, 1802; he became major July 29th, 1806, lieutenant-colonel Dec. 9th, 1807, and colonel July 6th, 1812; he was honorably discharged June 15th, 1815, and died July 1st, 1815.
[I-73] 1. As already indicated, "Tetaus" and "Tetans" are Pike's names for Comanches, also variously known as Ietans, Jetans, Hietans, Aiatans, etc., and also by the Sioux name Padoucas, adopted by the French; they called themselves Num, meaning simply "people." Some of their other names are Kaumains, Choumans and Comandes; we now write Comanches or Camanches indifferently, thus adopting a form of the Spanish name, whose meaning is unknown. These Indians are of the Shoshonean family; they number about 150, on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation in Oklahoma; there were some 2,500 when they were placed in a reservation in 1868; they had been noted, time out of mind, as wide-ranging, lawless, and warlike freebooters. 2. Pike above mentions three of the four principal tribes of the Pawnee confederation, i. e., of the middle group of Caddoan stock, who are: (1) Pawnee proper, Grand Pawnee, or Tcawi; (2) Pawnee Republicans or Republican Pawnees (giving name to the great branch of the Kansas r.); (3) Pawnee Loups, Pawnee Mahas, Pawnee Wolves, or Skidis; (4) Tapage or Pitahauerat: see further, L. and C., ed. 1893, pp. 55-57. (3) Pike's Kans are entirely different Indians, of Siouan stock, Dhegiha group: for these see l. c., pp. 33, 34.