OCR Text |
Show 85 in Philadelphia, then cut down into sections and shipped via Panama to San Francisco and thence to Robinson's landing. Apparently, the Buchanan administration considered Johnson's services too expensive and decided to go around him with the Ives expedition. Captain Johnson was insulted by the government action and vowed to beat Ives up the river on his own. Johnson immediately began outfitting the "General Jesup" for i t s long voyage up the Colorado and was ready to challenge the river by l a t e December. Application was made for a military escort from the commander at Fort Yuma. Accordingly, Lt. James L. White and fifteen men were ordered to accompany Captain Johnson up the river. In addition to the troops, Johnson assembled an impressive group of trappers, interpreters, and scouts- sixteen civilians in all-who were t o accompany him on the voyage. The most notable of the bunch was the famous mountain man Powell "Pauline" Weaver.1' He had trapped up and down the Colorado for years and was well known throughout the southwest. This was undoubtedly the "old mountaineer" Jesse N. Smith had written to George A. Smith about, who was said t o be leading a party of 300 troops up the Colorado into the Mormon country. Ironically, Weaver had been one of the guides for the Mormon Battalion in 1846.^ The 105 foot side-wheeler began i t s ascent of the river on December 20, three weeks ahead of Ives. Theteneral Jesup" reached i t s northern terminus at Cottonwood Valley about two hundred miles north of Fort Yuma. It was on the return t r i p that the Johnson expedition encountered a portion of Beale's camel corps which resulted in Blake's exaggerated report to Lyman eight days l a t e r. Lt. Ives finally completed the assembly of "Explorer" and steamed upstream on January 11 with a contingent of f i f ty soldiers under Lt. Tipton. The Ives expedition proceeded much slower and with more difficuly than Johnson's expedition. What i t lacked In speed, i t made up for in success, however. By early |