and neighbors, all but two, and they could not delay. I said, "It's certain death to take him along in that condition," which they admitted was true. "Divide the outfit, then." The Davenport boys said they would not leave my brother, and so their portion of the outfit was put out also, which gave the three a wagon and team. Turning to Buck, I said, "I can't ask you to stay with me." The answer came back quick as a flash, "I am going to stay with you without asking," and he did, too, though my brother was almost a total stranger. We nursed the sick man for four days amidst scenes of excitement and death I hope never to witness again, with the result that on the fifth day we were able to go on and take the convalescent with us and thus saved his life. It was at this point the sixteen hundred wagons passed us as noted elsewhere in the four days' detention, and loose stock so numerous, we made no attempt to count them.
Of course, this incident is of no particular importance, except to illustrate what life meant in those strenuous days. The experience of that camp was the experience, I may say, of hundreds of others; of friends parting; of desertion; of noble sacrifice; of the revelation of the best and worst of the inner man. Like the shifting clouds of a brightening summer day, the trains seemed to dissolve and disappear, while no one, apparently, knew what had become of their component parts, or whither they had gone.
There did seem instances that would convert the most skeptical to the Presbyterian doctrine of total depravity, so brutal and selfish were the actions of some men; brutal to men and women alike; to dumb brutes, and in fact to themselves. And, yet, it is a pleasure to record that there were numerous instances of noble self-sacrifice, of helpfulness, of unselfishness, to the point of imperiling their own lives. It became a common saying to know one's neighbors, they must be seen on the Plains.
The army of loose stock that accompanied this huge caravan, a column, we may almost say, of five hundred miles long without break, added greatly to the discomfort of all. Of course, the number of cattle and horses will never be known, but their number was legion compared to those that labored under the yoke, or in the harness. A conservative estimate would be not less than six animals to the wagon, and surely there were three loose animals to each one in the teams. By this it would appear that as sixteen hundred wagons passed while we tarried four days, nearly ten thousand beasts of burden and thirty thousand loose stock accompanied them. As to the number of persons, certainly there were five to the wagon, perhaps more, but calling it five, eight thousand people, men, women and children, passed on during those four days—many to their graves not afar off.
We know by the inscribed dates found on Independence Rock and elsewhere that there were wagons full three hundred miles ahead of us. The throng had continued to pass the river more than a month after we had crossed, so that it does not require a stretch of the imagination to say the column was five hundred miles long, and like Sherman's march through Georgia, fifty thousand strong.
Of the casualties in that mighty army I scarcely dare guess. It is certain that history gives no record of such great numbers migrating so long a distance as that of the Pioneers of the Plains, where, as we have seen, the dead lay in rows of fifties and groups of seventies. Shall we say ten per cent fell by the wayside? Many will exclaim that estimate is too low. Ten per cent would give us five thousand sacrifices of lives laid down even in one year to aid in the peopling of the Pacific Coast states. The roll call was never made, and we know not how many there were. The list of mortalities is unknown, and so we are lost in conjecture, and now we only know that the unknown and unmarked graves have gone into oblivion.
Volumes could be written of life on the Plains and yet leave the story not half told. In some matter before me I read, "found a family, consisting of husband, wife and four small children, whose cattle we supposed had given out and died. They were here all alone, and no wagon or cattle in sight"—had been thrown out by the owner of a wagon and left on the road to die. In a nearby page I read, "Here we met Mr. Lot Whitcom, direct from Oregon—. Told me a great deal about Oregon. He has provisions, but none to sell, but gives to all he finds in want, and who are unable to buy." These stories of the good Samaritan, and the fiendish actions of others could be multiplied indefinitely, but I quote only extracts from these two, written on the spot, that well illustrate the whole.
Mrs. Cecelia Emily McMillen Adams, late of Hillsboro, Oregon, crossed the Plains in 1852, and kept a painstaking diary, and noted the graves passed, and counted them. Her diary is published in full by the Oregon Pioneer Association, 1904. I note the following: "June fourteenth. Passed seven new made graves. June 15th. Sick headache, not able to sit up. June 16th. Passed 11 new graves. June 17th. Passed six new graves. June 18th. We have passed twenty-one new made graves today. June 19th. Passed thirteen graves today. June 20th. Passed ten graves. June 21st. No report. June 22nd. Passed seven graves. If we should go by all the camping grounds, we should see five times as many graves as we do."
This report of seventy-five dead in 106 miles, and that "if we should go by all the camping grounds we should see five times as many graves as we do," coupled with the fact that a parallel column from which we have no report was traveling up the Platte on the south side of the river, and that the outbreak of the cholera had taken place originally in this column coming from the southeast, fully confirms the estimate of 5,000 deaths on the Plains in 1852. It is in fact rather under than over the actual number who laid down their lives that year. I have mislaid the authority, but at the time I read it, believed the account to be true, of a scout that passed over the ground late that year (1852) from the Loop Fork of the Platte to the Laramie, a distance approximating 400 miles, that by actual count in great part and conservative estimate of the remainder, there were six fresh graves to the mile for the whole distance—this, it is to be remembered, on the one side of the river in a stretch where for half the distance of a parallel column traveling on the opposite bank, where like conditions prevailed.
A few more instances must suffice to complete this chapter of horrors.
L. B. Rowland, now of Eugene, Oregon, recently told me the experience of his train of twenty-three persons, between the two crossings of the Snake River, of which we have just written. Of the twenty-three that crossed, eleven died before they reached the lower crossing.
Mrs. M. E. Jones, now of North Yakima, states that forty people of their train died in one day and two nights, before reaching the crossing of the Platte. Martin Cook, of Newberg, Oregon, is my authority for the following: A family of seven persons, the father known as "Dad Friels," from Hartford, Warren County, Iowa, all died of cholera, and were buried in one grave. He could not tell me the locality nor the exact date, but it would be useless to search for the graves, as all have long ago been leveled by the passing hoofs of the buffalo or domestic stock, or met the fate of hundreds of shallow graves, having been desecrated by hungry wolves.
A pathetic thought came uppermost in the minds of the emigrants as the fact dawned upon them that all the graves were fresh made, and that those of previous years had disappeared—either leveled by the storms of wind or rain; by the hoofs of the passing throng of stock; or possibly by ravages of the hungry wolf. Many believed the Indians had robbed the graves for the clothing on the bodies. Whatever the cause, the fact was realized that the graves of previous years were all, or nearly all gone, and that the same fate awaited the last resting place of those loved ones laid away in such great numbers.
One of the incidents that made a profound impression upon the minds of all; the meeting of eleven wagons returning and not a man left in the entire train;—all had died, and had been buried on the way, and the women were returning alone from a point well up on the Platte below Fort Laramie. The difficulties of a return trip were multiplied on account of the passing throng moving westward. How they succeeded, or what became of them I never knew, but we did know a terrible task lay before them.
As the column passed up the Platte, there came some relief for awhile from the dust and a visible thinning out of the throng; some had pushed on and gotten out of the way of the congested district, while others had lagged behind; and then it was patent that the missing dead left not only a void in the hearts of their comrades, but also a visible space upon the road, while their absence cast a gloom over many an aching heart.
As we gradually ascended the Sweetwater, the nights became cooler, and finally, the summit reached, life became more tolerable and suffering less acute. The summit of the Rocky Mountains,