Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865Herndon, Sarah Raymond
History
Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865
Herndon, Sarah Raymond
Overland journeys to the Pacific; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
There had been no depredations committed on this road all Summer, and
emigrants had become careless and traveled in small parties. They did
not suspect that an Indian was near until they were surrounded, and the
slaughter had commenced. All the men were killed and scalped, and the
women taken prisoners. They took what they wanted of the provisions,
burned the wagons and ran off with the horses.
The one man that escaped went with all haste to the nearest station
for help. The soldiers pursued the Indians, had a fight with them and
rescued the women. One of them had seen her husband killed and scalped
and was insane when rescued, and died at the station. The other woman
was the wife of the man that escaped. They were from St. Joe, Missouri.
Ezra met with quite an accident to-day; he went to sleep while driving
the family wagon--he was on guard last night--the horses brought the
wheel against a telegraph pole with a sudden jerk that threw him out
of his seat and down at the horses’ heels--a sudden awakening--with a
badly-bruised ankle.
We are in the worst place for Indians on all this road. The bluffs come
within half a mile on our left, and hundreds of savages could hide
in the hollows; the underbrush and willows are dense along the river
banks. There is an island, about a mile in length, that comes so near
this side in many places that a man could leap from bank to bank. The
island is a thick wood, a place where any number of the dreaded savages
could hide, and shoot down the unwary traveler with the guns and
ammunition furnished them by the United States Government.
How I would like to climb to the top of those bluffs, and see what is
on the other side, but the captain says, “Stay within sight of camp.”
And I must obey.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
Tuesday, June 13.
Cash, Neelie and I created quite a sensation this morning. We waited,
after the train had started, to mount our ponies as we usually do. Cash
and I had mounted, but Neelie led her pony, and we went down to the
river to water them, Neelie found some beautiful wild flowers, and she
insisted upon gathering them. Of course we waited for her. The train
was winding round a bend in the road, and the last wagons would soon be
out of sight. We insisted that she must come. “The train will be out of
sight in five minutes, and we may be cut off by savages in ambush.”
She did not scare worth a cent. She led her pony into a little hollow
to mount when we saw two men coming toward us as fast as they could
ride. Cash rode at an easy canter to meet them, while I waited for
Neelie, who was deliberately arranging her flowers so that she would
not crush them.
“Those men are coming after us, perhaps there are Indians around.” She
took her time, just the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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