forward were brought into use. The butt end of one of the spars was lowered over the side into the water well forward. It sunk firmly into the sandy bottom by its own weight. A double set of strong pulley blocks, attached to the top of the spar, were connected by a cable which wound around the drum of a powerful capstan on the forward deck. The capstan bars were manned by as many of the deck hands as could find room. Then they began turning, very slowly after the strain was on, going around in a circle and keeping up a kind of a chant, such as sailors often sing on ships when raising the anchor by hand. It was exhausting labor, but the soldiers often volunteered to help.
By this operation a part of the boat was practically lifted, and by placing the spar at the proper inclination, it was also sheered away from the bar at the same time. Progress seemed to be made by inches. Many times the spar had to be lifted and reset in a new position, and often a portion of the deck freight had to be shifted before the boat could be freed. During all this time the sand in the river kept on drifting against the boat and added to the difficulty. If the boat ran into a bar near the shore, where a cable could be fastened to trees, we could get off again with much less trouble, and without the use of the spars.
We proceeded in this laborious way, until we were fifty miles or more north of where Sioux City is now located. There a series of very bad turns in the river made Captain Throckmorton decide that the Genoa was too heavily laden to pass, and that at least one-half of her freight must be put on shore. A place deemed suitable was selected on the east bank of the river, and the unloading was commenced. The freight consisting of all manner of commissary, quartermaster and sutler's stores. It was put ashore on skids by the deck hands and piled up under tarpaulins.
The company went on shore, including the citizen doctor, and put up so-called "A" tents, which we found among the quartermaster's stores. Thus we established a camp, where extra ammunition and other necessaries were provided. A guard of a half a dozen men under a corporal remained on board, and the Genoa resumed her journey towards Fort Pierre, a few hundred miles away. But, when something more than half way there, and just below the upper "Big Bend," the captain unloaded another part of his freight and left it on shore without any guards.
Along the entire distance from St. Joseph to "Camp Gardner," our destination, which the soldiers named after our captain, we saw no indications of white settlements, except at the mouth of the Big Sioux River, a few miles north of the site where Sioux City was founded the following year. There, as we passed, we noticed some white men erecting a saw-mill. They ran down to the river bank and motioned to us to stop, but we kept on our course. We saw no Indians, for, according to their custom, they had departed in the spring to hunt buffalo and other game on the plains and would not return to the river until late in the fall.
We saw a few herds of buffalo grazing on the prairies some miles away from the river. But when they became aware of the steamer, they rushed away, and soon disappeared from sight.
We were greatly annoyed by mosquitoes at night. So persistent were these pests on a few occasions that men from the company were detailed to remain on shore all night and tend small fires whose smoke enveloped the boat.
One night there was an alarm of Indians. The sentinel on shore reported to the corporal of the guard that he had seen moving lights some distance away, that appeared to be signals. The company was quietly called under arms, and the lights on the boat extinguished. We remained on the alert until daylight, but nothing happened. It seemed to have been a false alarm.
While at Leavenworth, a married soldier had joined our company, and he and his wife went up the river with us. She was the only woman on board. A girl baby was born to her before we reached Camp Gardner, and it was named Genoa Harrison, after the steamer.
We had not been more than a week on the river, when I became very ill and had to take to my berth. I had not felt well for some days, and now had a throbbing headache and a high fever, being part of the time delirious. I was furnished with a mattress to lie on, and a man was detailed to wait on me. The doctor was very attentive, and managed to pull me through. When I got so that I began to eat a little, the doctor got Captain Throckmorton's permission to have my meals served from the cabin table. They were brought to me by the captain's colored boy, who served me cheerfully. He was a happy, grinning young darky, about my own age, and so black that the soldiers said charcoal would make a white mark on him. I had no money to reward him, but when we got to the end of our journey, I gave him one of my jackets and a soldier's cap, which made him very proud and happy. As for the doctor, I remember him most gratefully; but I never saw him nor heard of him again, after he left us. I was able to be up about a week before we got to Camp Gardner, and was convalescent, but still weak. I suppose now that I had typhoid fever, although the doctor did not tell me so at the time.
It was about a month after we had left Leavenworth that we encamped, and in all that time we had accomplished less than five hundred miles. The camp was on a knoll close to a ravine, in which were some trees and bushes. The country round about was hilly, and without any woods. I think the captain chose the position as one of good defense against Indians, in case our rich booty of freight should tempt them to attack us. We never saw an Indian while there, but sentinels were posted in the day time, where they could overlook much of the country, and were withdrawn nearer to the camp at night.
It was August and the weather was intensely hot. To escape the sun we spent much time in the shady ravine. We also went swimming often, and fished for cat-fish in the Missouri. Rattlesnakes, which were numerous, were a cause for anxiety, but we escaped being stung by them and killed many.
It was at Camp Gardner that we first made use of some of the mechanical talent of my company. A couple of masons built a bake-oven, near the river bank, out of stones found there. It had a stone bed and was regularly arched on a wooden center made of barrel staves, and was provided with a smoke flue. The builders had no lime or cement, so they covered it all over, about a foot thick, with earth and sods. It worked well, and in a few days a practical baker of the company made such good use of it that we all had bread which tasted delicious after eating "hardtack" for a month. We had plenty of flour, but I do not know how he made yeast. Perhaps that was found in the shape of powders among the sutler's stores.
Tobacco had become very scarce among the men. Some of them smoked tea, coffee or dried leaves, until the captain, who, I think wanted some himself, authorized the first sergeant to search the sutler's stores in the freight pile. Boxes of plug tobacco were found, and a plentiful supply was distributed, for which the sutler was reimbursed. Later on we learned to make use of the Indian's substitute for tobacco, when in want of it.
We had been without any fresh meat or vegetables, since we left Leavenworth, but at Camp Gardner we caught plenty of large catfish, of which our cooks made a very palatable chowder. It was an agreeable change of diet. In some of the ravines we found quantities of wild plums, smaller than the domestic fruit, and yellow, but fairly sweet and deliciously flavored. There were also plenty of wild grapes, but not yet ripe enough to eat. We had an easy time in camp, performing no duties except guard. A stone cutter among the soldiers wiled away part of his spare time carving deeply into the soft rock face of a cliff on the river's edge: "Camp Gardner, August, 1855. Here was caught a fifty-pound catfish by John O'Meara, Company D, Second U.S. Infantry." The man who caught this great fish was henceforth called "Catfish O'Meara."
After nearly three weeks, the Genoa returned from Fort Pierre. The freight was reloaded and Camp Gardner abandoned. The company's baker baked an extra supply of "soft bread," which we took with us when we resumed our slow, monotonous journey up the river.
Evenings, when the mosquitoes were not too numerous, we gathered at the bow of the boat and sang songs to the music of a mouth harmonica, which one of the soldiers played, or told stories and tried to be cheerful. But we were again overtaken by a calamity, about the third day after leaving camp.
The boat was tied up to get fuel one afternoon, and some of the soldiers took a swim in the river.
A sergeant named Schott, a strong, athletic young man and a good swimmer, took a dive from the shore into the river, at a point about two hundred feet ahead of the boat, and in plain view of many on deck. We saw one of his hands appear above the water twice, near the place he went in. But, as the minutes passed,