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Show TO FORT MACPHERSOIST. n They deserve to be prominent in my memory whenever writing about the command. I was about to say that three additions were made to the little circle of lady associates, and among them Mrs. Carrington, the wife of the Colonel, and the good Mts. Dr. Horton, whose acquaintance I made in New Orleans nearly two years ago. How delightful to meet friends under such circumstances ! After a halt of a week we cheerfully resumed our jour ney, every one being weary of the inactive camp- life, and anxious to lessen the distance between us and our destina tion daily. At Fort Kearney the three principal routes from the East from Leavenworth, Nebraska City, and Omaha unite to form the great overland highway for emi grants along the Platte. Here we saw more pilgrims on their westward journey than at any previous time. Emi grants here are universally called " pilgrims," and camping as they do only for a night, and then off again on their journey, makes the term not inappropriate, but to me sug gesting loneliness and solitude. Notwithstanding a recent order of Gen. Pope, requiring at least twenty wagons to travel together, and thirty armed men, for defence against the Indians, it was no uncommon thing for two or three wagons only to compose a " train," and in them helpless women and children, Within the last two or three years many such trains have been attacked and destroyed by the Indians, the men killed and scalped, and the women made to suffer worse than death, and held as hostages for which large ransoms have been required. To prevent such massacres and outrages, the order forbidding small trains to go into the Indian country was issued. How astonishing it is that emigrants with all the facts before them, should seek to evade an order which contemplates only their own protection ; and how especially astonishing, that an emigrant should incur all this risk with a helpless family. But they do it con stantly. Trains are organized at the various military posts, but before they have been out two days they divide up into small parties, until they are stopped at the next post, to re organize. |
