Sergeant, Fred Server, Company “G” 2d Cavalry Private, F. R. Applegate, Company “G” 2d Cavalry Private, Daniel Starr, Company “F” 2d Cavalry Private, William White, Company “F” 2d Cavalry Private, John B. Warren, Company “H” 2d Cavalry Private C. R. Davis, Company “L” 2d Cavalry They will be furnished with sixty (60) days rations. IV. The Post Quartermaster is hereby directed to furnish 1st. Lieut. G. C. Doane, 2d Cavalry with pack animals, camp equipage and boat, necessary, to enable him to carry out the telegraphic instructions from Headquarters, Department of Dakota, Saint Paul, Minn., dated October 4, 1876. By order of Captain Ball (Signed) Chas. B. Schofield 2nd Lieut. 2nd Cavalry Post Adjutant The foregoing orders initiated one of the most unusual and bizarre expeditions in the history of the west. Unusual because of the lack of judgment shown in selecting late fall and winter for the journey; bizzarre in the impracticability, in fact the impossibility, of execution of the orders. Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane, selected to lead the party, was without question as capable a leader as could have been chosen. Lieutenant Doane had been detailed, with 5 cavalrymen, to accompany General Henry D. Washburn, Nathaniel Pitt Langford, and their party of 1870 on the memorable exploration of the area destined to become Yellowstone National Park 2 years later. His record of service with that expedition was exemplary; he had a firsthand knowledge of much of the country to be traversed, at least over the early stages of the route; he lacked neither courage nor aptitude; and he possessed the ability to observe, describe, and record in detail the experiences and observations of the expedition. Hiram Martin Chittenden, in the biographical notes appended to his book, _The Yellowstone National Park_, has given us, very briefly, an impression of the man and his background. Lieutenant Doane was born in Illinois, May 29, 1840, and died in Bozeman, Montana, May 5, 1892. At the age of five he went with his parents, in wake of an ox team, to Oregon. In 1849 his family went to California at the outbreak of the gold excitement. He remained there ten years, in the meanwhile working his way through school. In 1862 he entered the Union service, went East with the California Hundred, and then joined a Massachusetts cavalry regiment. He was mustered out in 1865 as a First Lieutenant. He joined the Carpetbaggers and is said to have become the Mayor of Yazoo City, Mississippi. He was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Regular Army in 1868, and continued in the service until his death, attaining the rank of Captain.