Back to my home place.
Story of the Crow Emigrant Train of 1865 - Section 3
I got the scare of my life the morning we crossed the South Platte River. We camped there the night before and in the morning started moving across. It took us all day. While we were still in camp waiting our turn to be ferried over I was playing around our wagons. The orders were for us kids not to go outside of camp at all. I got outside like a kid would, running and playing, and I guess I was a hundred yards from camp. I looked up in terror. There, coming right towards me at a jog trot on their little ponies were six or seven Indians- all decked out in their feathers and war paint. My only thought was: If you don't get back to camp before they can catch you your scalp won't be worth the taking off! I ran as fast as my little legs would go. God knows how fast a kid can run when he is scared. It seems like I got clear off the ground and just flew. I gained on the Indians and reached camp first. When they rode into camp they were fairly laughing their sides off. They knew what I was afraid of. It tickled them immensely to see me run.
Father bought two quarters of antelope meat from them. Antelope on the Platte River were as thick as sheep. I have seen five hundred of them in one bunch. The Indians had come to sell us fresh meat. Father traded them sugar and coffee. It was hard for the Indians to get these things and they were crazy for them. A pint of sugar would go farther than a dollar would in trading with the Indians. They were also anxious to get tobacco.
It took our train all day to get across the river. We partly forded and partly ferried across. The wagons were hauled out into the river one at a time. The water was only about knee deep until we got out into the middle of the river. There the water was deep. It took four horses to pull each wagon through the sand and water. Out in the middle of the stream where the water began to get deep there was a landing place or platform to drive the wagons up on. Only one team could be taken on the ferry along with the wagon. The other team would be unhitched and made to swim the rest of the way across the river. The ferry boat came up to the platform and the wagon and team were driven on board the boat. It was about three hundred yards across this stretch of the river and it cost five dollars to ferry each wagon over. Two men on the ferry pulled the boat across the stream. There was a long rope attached to the opposite bank. One man in the head of the boat would take hold of the rope and start pulling and walking towards the back end of the boat. As soon as he reached the stern of the boat the other man up in front would begin pulling on the rope and walk with it to the back end of the boat. In this way they kept the boat moving and soon reached the opposite shore.
When we left the Platte River and got up in the mountains we began to get into the territory where the Sioux Indians were. They were the most vicious- the worst Indians of all. We knew there was a very large emigrant train traveling just a few days ahead of us. We were very anxious to catch up with this big train for the bigger the train the less likelihood there was of being attacked by the Indians. This other train also knew that our train of fifty wagons was following close behind them. The Overland Stages traveled faster than the emigrant trains did and the drivers kept people informed where the other emigrant trains were. We traveled each day a little longer and finally overtook them at Fort Laramie. They were as anxious to have us join them as we were and had been waiting for us for two days. It was the Crow train. It was a very large outfit under the command of Brad Crow. There were the five Crow brothers and their families in the train. A great many other emigrants were also traveling with them. The Crows were bringing out forty jackasses from Missouri- big Maltese jacks to raise mules on the San Joaquin River in California. They said they were going to a place called Crows Landing in Stanislaus County.
We joined up with the Crows. All told there were two hundred fourteen wagons in the new train. Everything was organized under military rules. All men over twenty-one and under forty-five were enrolled for military duty. There were four hundred fighting men. I don't know how many more there were older and younger, but probably in case of attack there would have been at least six hundred fighting men. It was said that we were the largest and strongest train that ever crossed the plains.
All wagons were divided up into companies of twenty each. Every wagon had the letter of the company to which it belonged painted on both sides of the canvas cover. Each company was under the command of a wagon master who was responsible for the twenty wagons in his company.
The leadership of the train centered on Brad Crow. Each company elected its own wagon master. Father was elected wagon master of Company A. There was a lame man by the name of Bassett and he was given charge of enrolling all the men in the train and of posting the guards each night.
While we were getting organized a band of Indians made a raid on the fort and stage station. We were camped about three miles from the fort. The forty jackasses belonging to the Crow Brothers had to be herded separate from the rest of the stock in the train. While the main bunch of Indians were busy at the fort a small bunch made a little side attack on us and tried to stampede these jackasses. The stubborn things never budged. They simply braced their feet and hee hawed at the Indians in derision. The Indians did not know what to make of them. They wouldn't scare at all. The men in charge began shooting at the Indians and they rode away. The next day we got word that the rest of the Indians had made way with forty of the cavalry and stage horses.
The Crow train traveled strictly according to military rule. In starting out in the morning each wagon had to be all hitched up at eight o'clock and ready to start. It was the wagon master's duty to see that all his twenty wagons were in line. If any of the drivers were slow it was up to him to punch them up. There always will be some people slow. The train started off each morning with Captain Crow on horseback in the lead. The wagon masters rode all day beside their companies. If it became necessary for any wagon to stop- lame horse or broken wheel- the wagon master rode ahead and had the entire train stopped. There was no leaving any wagon behind. The Indians wanted nothing better than to get a train scattered. Each company was in the lead one day in succession. The next day it traveled in the rear. If Company A led today, Company B led tomorrow and Company A brought up the rear of the train. It was much easier on teams to travel in the lead as the roads were not cut up so bad. It was also pleasanter for the people as there was not so much dust.
The great trouble in crossing the plains was with people who had poor stock. Lots of wagons in the train had only two horses to pull them and were too heavily loaded besides. The women and children would have to get out and go trudging through the sand to lighten the loads. Some of the people would have to throw part of their loads away in order to ease their old pelters. Day after day father had half of his stock hitched up in other people's teams helping them along. The Crows did the same thing. Nobody could be left behind. If there is any place in the world where people will stick together it is when traveling through a hostile country. Sometimes people would even run out of grub. Many is the time mother would give flour and coffee to those that had none left.
The camping time was four o'clock in the afternoon. Captain Crow would put his horse in a stiff gallop and ride in a large circle. The drivers of the two hundred and fourteen wagons had to whip up their horses and keep up. As soon as the entire train was traveling in a circle the teams were brought to a stop. Each wagon was drawn up with the front wheels beside the hind wheels of the wagon in front. This running in a circle each day was done also as a drill in case of an Indian attack so that everybody would know just what to do.
As soon as the stock was unhitched the herders took them out to graze until sundown. Then all were driven back inside the corral of wagons for the night. Ropes were tied from each wagon to the adjoining one so that the stock could not get out. The back ends of each wagon faced out of the circle. Between each company a space was left about the length of a wagon to serve as a gate.
Each evening after supper Bassett would come around to all the companies and notify the men who were to go on guard duty for the night. Two men were on duty from each company until midnight when they were relieved by two more who stood guard until daylight. The guards walked back and forth outside the corral. One guard faced one way and the other the opposite for the length of each company. Their orders were to call anything they saw outside the corral. If the answer came "Friend of the Guard" they didn't shoot. Otherwise they plugged everything they saw.
After we had been traveling several days a bunch of aristocratic Southerners tried to follow along with us. They were not strong enough to take care of themselves alone in case of an Indian attack and had been stopped by the soldiers. When our train came along the soldiers turned them loose and they started following us. At night they would camp just outside our corral. They traveled in buses. There were four or five loads of them. They had two extra wagons to haul their supplies. A couple of darkey women did their cooking. In the evening the women in their party would come out in their silk dresses and stroll around their camp.
Captain Crow sent these Southerners word that they were welcome to join our train if they wanted to do so but that the men would have to do guard duty at night the same as our men. They only laughed at us. They said they hadn't seen any Indians that they were afraid of and that it was all foolishness to keep guards out all night.
Captain Crow called a meeting in the center of our corral. Every man in our train was ordered to be present. Captain Crow put the proposition up to our men whether they wanted to keep on giving this party protection from the Indians. The answer was decidedly NO!
Captain Crow gave these aristocrats their choice of two things: Either join our train and be enrolled with the rest of the men to stand guard when it was their turn, or else keep away from our train altogether. If they did not wish to join us they were to stay in camp until we were one day ahead of them, or we would stay in camp one day and they should go on.
The newcomers flatly refused to do either one. They would neither join us nor leave us. "Then," said Captain Crow, "we will make you do it." He went on to tell them that out in the Indian country there was no law except what the emigrants themselves made. And he added: "We've got plenty of wagon tongues and we make the law. It's a case of your doing what we tell you or getting your backs slashed!" That brought them to time. No doubt they had seen plenty of niggers in the South stretched up and whipped and they didn't want any of it themselves. They joined up with our train and did their duty. They were awfully mad about it, but nobody cared.
We traveled with the Crow train for a matter of six weeks or two months. My father and Brad Crow became quite attached to one another and often rode ahead together to pick out the camp ground for the night. Feed for the stock had been plentiful at first but when we came within a few hundred miles of Salt Lake City the feed began to get scarce. The Crow train was so large and there was so much stock to be fed that it became necessary to break up the train. We were now coming into the country of the Snake Indians. A few years before their power had been completely broken by Colonel Connor and it was now safe for emigrant trains of even a few wagons to go through by themselves. The train was broken up in this way. All the wagons going, say to Oregon, would get together some night and stop over in camp the next day, letting the main train get ahead. A few days later another bunch of wagons going to some particular part of the West would pull out and wait in camp a day or so. In that way the Crow train was soon greatly diminished in size.
We stayed with the Crow train until we were within about a hundred miles of Salt Lake City. Here we stayed in camp three or four days to let the Crow train get well along. We were the same three families that had started out together from Alba, Iowa. We still had our ten wagons. We felt strong enough to defend ourselves the rest of the way to California and the fewer the wagons in a train the better the chances were of getting feed for the stock.
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