Today in History:

988 Series I Volume XLVIII-II Serial 102 - Powder River Expedition Part II

Page 988 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LX.

incessantly every day from the time we left Fort Leavenworth up to the time of our arrival be worth the mentioning. The roads were very bad all the way. I have been stopping here until I could ride over the country and ascertain the best point to locate to enable me to carry out my orders with the greatest possible convenience and facility to all concerned, and during my sojourn here my men have been employed in shoeing our stock, some of which had become unable to go forward on account of having been barefooted ever since we left the Fort. Inclosed please find a map* of the two principal roads on which freight is being transported to Denver. I send one company to-morrow to Rock Creek, and this is the point I design to have the trains concentrate for organization. I shall get seventy-five wagons together and put them under charge of a commissioned officer with twenty-five cavalrymen as guard, &c., and forward them. My escort will have to go to Fort Kearny before they can be relieved, there being no force nearer for the purpose of train escorts. I shall not be able to furnish all the trains with even this number of cavalrymen, for trains will be continually arriving, and of course I shall be compelled to forward them as soon as possible, and before my first squad will return my force will have been entirely exhausted; but I will do the best I can. My present judgment tells me that to do this business as it ought to be done I need 200 more men. The distance from Rock Creek to Fort Kearny is 120 miles. I shall be compelled to keep that transportation I obtained of Colonel Potter, for I must have rations for my men, and these teams cannot keep up on grass and make a trip more than once a month from Rock Creek to Fort Leavenworth, a distance of 150 miles; and these teams cannot transport thirty hundredweight per team over these roads all kinds of going and weather. Rumor says that the Indians have made a big strike on the Smoky Hill route recently. I have heard no particulars. A gentleman by the name of Allen, right from Denver, tells me Colonel Moonlight has had a fight with the Indians recently, and when he (Allen) left Denver the report there was that Colonel Moonlight was killed. I do not say this is all true; but this was the report. I understood that General Heath recommended that the solicitation of the stage company) that my command should be divided into squads of from fifteen to twenty men and stationed along at the stage stations to protect the mail company's property. I hope this will not be done, for I do not think there is the least possible call for this. Their property is in no more danger than any other citizen's property, and if all would put their civil law in a little more force all would be right. I am confident I have given You all the news I know. Please look at my map, and I know You will say I am right about my locality. lly, Your most obedient servant,

R. CARPENTER,

Captain, Third Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, Commanding Regiment.

JULESBURG, COLO., June 24, 1865.

Major General G. M. DODGE,

Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

I start this morning for Fort Laramie. Stages have resumed their trips west of Denver. There is an immense emigration passing west. Over 4,000 wagons have passed Fort Kearny, going west, in the month of May.

P. EDW. CONNOR,

Brigadier-General.

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*Not found.

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Page 988 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LX.