'Three Score Years and Ten': Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other; Parts of the WestVan Cleve, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark
History
'Three Score Years and Ten': Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other; Parts of the West
Van Cleve, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark
Fort Snelling (Minn.); Frontier and pioneer life -- Minnesota
We visited the graveyard and I showed him the grave of his brother
John, which having no headboard or name, could only be identified by
its being next to the little stone inscribed "E. S.," which I knew
marked the grave of Mrs. Snelling's little daughter. We searched the
records at the quartermaster's office in vain for a description of his
brother's grave, that we might make sure of the spot, as the Tully
family wish to erect a monument to his memory.
We walked about the fort, went to the brow of the bluff where the old
bastion formerly stood, and while strolling around the home of our
childhood were met by General Gibbon, then in command, who, learning
who we were and what was our errand, took us to his quarters and
showed us much kindness. I told him many things of the old fort which
were never recorded, pointed out to him where the stones in the front
wall of headquarters had been riven by lightning when I was a little
girl, and our pleasant visit rounded up with a ride in his carriage to
call on General Terry and other officers, who all seemed interested to
see us; relics, as it were, of the times before their day.
Our courteous escort drove with us to the site of the old Camp
Coldwater, and we drank from a tin cup of the clear spring which now
supplies the garrison with water, as we had done more than half a
century before. Driving back to the fort just as the bugle sounded for
"orderly call," the General, in tender consideration of my deafness,
called the bugler, and bade him sound it again by the side of the
carriage. To hear is to obey, and the musician, ignorant of the reason
for the command, repeated the clear, ringing call, where my dull ears
could take it all in. No words can describe my sensations, as, with
Andrew Tully beside me, I listened with bated breath to the familiar
notes unheard for years, and, with eyes brimming with tears, I could
only say, "Oh, General, I thank you; this makes me feel that I must
hear my mother's voice calling me home to the dear old quarters over
there, 'to get ready for dinner.'" And then, as our carriage drove up,
and we thanked our noble host for his kind and considerate attentions
to us, he said, "I have to thank you for more information about Fort
Snelling than ever I had before." And so, past the old sutler's store,
the guard house and the vine-clad tower, we drove away very silently
from our early home, and after an hour's resting at Minnehaha,
returned to Minneapolis, talking by the way of the strange experiences
of our lives, and the wonderful way in which God had brought us
together again in our old age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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