A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume III, Part 53

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 860

USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume III > Part 53

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It was against such depredations as those described above the rangers were most ac- tive in preventing, a systematic line of scouts being, at all times, on the move, involving a great deal of hard riding, many hardships and at times plenty of fighting. The supplies for this company were hauled about five hundred miles from Fort Smith on the Arkansas River. The rations were scant; flour, mess pork ("sour-belly"), coffee and sugar. There, how- ever, was an abundance of white-tail deer and in the fall in the river bottoms an abundance of wild turkeys and the prairies near water courses were alive with wild geese and ducks,

on the annual migration from the north. An abundance of wild honey was to be found in the river bottoms and those "messes" that had expert "bee-hunters" did not suffer for the sweets of life. The buffalo had been driven back from the white frontier, but the prairies were strewn with their bones. In addition to all the game on which the rangers partly sub- sisted "mustangs" or wild horses were very abundant on the almost illimitable prairies to the west of the range line established. A band of from one hundred to two hundred were to be seen in riding ten miles in any direction under control of a few stallions, which were always on the lookout, so that it was almost impossible to approach near them, in the open. They were small in stature, clean limbed and of great endurance. The rangers soon found out that in order to lasso one it was almost necessary to kill a good horse for the mustang, that were never of any service, as it was impossible to tame them. Even a young colt reared in captivity was of no use for the same reason. The hides made first- class lariats when properly prepared. Their origin is a mere matter of speculation and they have long since disappeared from the south- western plains.

The composition of this company of one hundred men is worthy of more than a passing notice. Coming mostly from the southern states, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, they drifted generally, first into southern Indiana, from there to the Illinois frontier, thence to the Missouri frontier. There they branched off and graduated in all the mysteries of the Santa Fe trail, which they followed either as employees or as es- corts to the "bull trains," which were then the only means of transporting the considerable trade going on, between Independence, Mis- souri, and New Mexico, and thence into Old Mexico. Then another change brought them to the frontier of Texas.

Clad in buckskin or, for want of it, in ordi- nary dress, with the trousers decorated with buckskin patches on the seat, knees or other parts exposed to the wear and tear of the dense chapparal thickets, then everywhere in evidence, and with coonskin head-gear, these rangers presented a most extraordinary spec- tacle to a boy just from the "States," and when put through military evolutions, as they were a few times during the year, they rivaled if they did not surpass in grotesqueness the spectacular exhibition as given on the modern stage of "Falstaff's famous men in buckram."

But beneath that rough exterior there beat brave, manly and kindly hearts that were

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exhibited whenever tested; whilst their fear- less courage in dealing with savages and out- laws made the name of "Texas Ranger" a terror to the wild Indians of the plains as well as to the no less savage Mexican outlaws of the Rio Grande. They were in fact and par excellence the "rough riders" of that day. What is more extraordinary is the fact that during their twelve months' service young Pickett did not see or hear of a single bottle of whiskey among those one hundred men.

After his discharge from the army, Feb- ruary 2, 1848, young Pickett returned to the home of his mother in Lexington, Kentucky, spending the next winter in a telegraph office and becoming a competent operator. In the spring of 1849 he commenced the profession of civil engineer as rodman and then as as- sistant engineer to Mr. Sylvester Welch, chief engineer in the reconstruction of the road from Lexington to Frankfort, about twenty- nine miles. This road was the first railroad built west of the Alleghany Mountains, hav- ing been in operation since about 1835. The work consisted in re-laying the track with a fifty-six pound T-rail and building a new grade of five and one-quarter miles into Frankfort, Kentucky. On the completion of this work he went with Mr. Welch to assist in the surveys and construction of the railroad from Covington to Lexington via Falmouth, of which road he had been appointed chief engineer. After the surveys and location of the first twenty miles, he superintended its construction for nearly two years, when he was appointed principal assistant engineer of the Lexington & Danville Railroad, under Julius W. Adams, chief engineer. On the partial collapse of the finances of the company, about January 1, 1854, Mr. Pickett's services were transferred to the Cairo & Fulton Rail- road of Arkansas, and he spent the year 1854 under Captain J. S. Williams, chief engineer, in making the surveys and approximate loca- tion of that road between Little Rock, Arkan- sas, and a point on the Texas lines, now the site of the present city of Texarkana, a dis- tance of about one hundred and fifty miles.

In the winter of 1854-5 he studied analytical chemistry in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Peter, then chemist of the Geological Survey of Kentucky. Early in 1855 he was appointed principal assistant engineer by Julius W. Adams, chief engineer of the Memphis & Ohio Railroad, and made the surveys and location of that line from Brownsville, Tennessee, through Paris, Tennessee, to a point on the Tennessee river near the mouth of Sandy river, a distance of about ninety-five miles.

In 1856, on the resignation of Mr. Adams, he was appointed chief engineer to succeed him. He remained in charge of the construction of that road until its completion to Paris, Ten- nessee, in 1859, and afterward until the clouds of war gradually overspread the country in 1860.

In 1861, at his home in Memphis, Tennes- see, Mr. Pickett raised a company of engineer troops which were mustered into the service of the state of Tennessee. Soon afterward he was commissioned by Governor I. G. Har- ris a senior captain of engineers of the state army and was transferred to the staff of Ma- jor General Pillow. In this capacity it fell to his lot to design and supervise the construc- tion of all water batteries at Fort Harris (six miles above Memphis), Randolph and Colum- bus, Kentucky, which fully commanded the channel of the Mississippi at those points. After finishing the defenses at Columbus, Ken- tucky, he accepted a transfer to the staff of Major General Hardee, then in command of "the Army of Central Kentucky" at Bowling Green, Kentucky, reporting for duty on the 4th of January, 1862. He remained on the staff of this distinguished officer from that date to the surrender of the army of General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina on April 26, 1865, passing through all the grades of rank and was paroled as colonel and in- spector-general of Hardee's corps. His inti- mate association with Lieutenant General Hardee for nearly four years led the Tennes- see Historical Society to ask Colonel Pickett to write a sketch of the military career and personal record of this distinguished soldier for publication and preservation in the ar- chives of that society. His reply of date of May 20, 1910, has proved one of the most concise and interesting accounts given of the many important engagements in which that General took part. This sketch gives many details and incidents of those engagements not heretofore published.

During the time of Colonel Pickett's service with General Hardee he was an active partici- pant in all the battles of that corps-Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro and Missionary Ridge; took part in all the movements and engagements with Sherman's army on the At- lanta campaign and all the battles around At- lanta resulting in its evacuation by General Hood on September 1, 1864. He was then transferred with Lieutenant General Hardee to his new department, with headquarters at Charleston, South Carolina. He was also an active participant in the siege of Savannah,

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and its subsequent evacuation without the loss of a single light battery. He was then a par- ticipant of the movements leading up to the final evacuation of Charleston and Fort Sum- ter, on February 13, 1865, and the subsequent march of Hardee's small army to a junction with General Johnston's army in North Caro- iina, the surrender of that army taking place on the 26th of April, 1865.

As soon as the railroads were partially re- paired, Colonel Pickett made his way to his old home in Memphis, Tennessee. After spending a few weeks with friends in that vicinity, he made his way to Lexington, Ken- tucky, and visited his mother and sisters and old friends whom he had not met since the advent of General Bragg's army into central Kentucky in 1862. Tempted by the high price of cotton about that date (30 cents per pound) during the season of 1866 he engaged in cot- ton planting, renting with a partner a planta- tion in the famous Yazoo Delta. It was not a lucky venture. A periodic flood came down the Mississippi River, poured through the noted "Yazoo Pass" that had been "cut through" during the Civil war, flooded the entire Delta, which, with the cotton caterpillar soon destroyed all the profits of the venture at planting cotton. He was compelled to return to his profession as a civil engineer.

At this time the Memphis & Ohio Railroad that he had mostly constructed, previous to 1860 (heretofore alluded to) not being in the direction of military operations had laid idle during those four years of strife, so that at the end it was not much more than a mass of ruins ; bridges destroyed, cross-ties rotted, cuts filled and embankments washed, so that there was not much left except the iron rails. It so happened that under the operation of the State Aid Law of Tennessee, this road had fallen into the hands of the state and an at- tempt made to operate it. It was then that the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company stepped in and on certain terms leased this road for a term of years and proceeded at once to re-build it. For this work Colonel Pickett, in 1867, was appointed chief engineer of its re-construction and was engaged on this work continuously until the fall of 1873, with headquarters at Memphis, Tennessee, at which date he resigned. From the year 1846 to this date he had led a very strenuous and eventful life, taking no rest or recreation.

On April 27, 1870, Colonel William D. Pickett was united in marriage with Miss Theodosia Curd. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky, a daughter of Richard and Eleanor Hunt Curd and a niece of Charlton Hunt, whose sketch may be found elsewhere in this

volume. Mrs. Pickett lived but one short year, leaving a child, William Douglas, Jr., who sur- vived his mother only about four years. Fam- ily and other reasons determined Colonel Pickett to cease from work for awhile and take a rest. For several years he spent his winters in St. Louis and his summers in Min- nesota.

In 1876 a voice from the wilds was heard beckoning him to follow to the solitudes and grandeur of the plains and mountains of the northwest, where practically everything was in the state of nature, unchanged by the con- taminating touch of civilization. He was un- able to resist the call and in consequence, on July 22, 1876, he embarked on the steamer "Western" at Bismarck, the then western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, for a voyage up to the head of the Great Mis- souri, the only means of transportation at that date into those comparatively unknown re- gions.

At this point Colonel Pickett desires in his own language to give a brief sketch of the con- ditions existing at this date in that vast terri- tory. The boundary of this region may be considered on the south by a line passing east and west through the town of Lander in Fre- mont county ; on the north by the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, the Canadian boundary; on the east by the western boundary of the Dakotas and Iowa; on the west by the crest of the Rocky Mountains. This vast territory was practically controlled and dominated by the Red man. A few military posts were scattered throughout this vast territory ; to-wit, at Fort Lincoln a Twelve Company post, on the Mis- souri near Bismarck; Fort Buford, an Eight Company post on the Missouri, 250 or 300 miles above Bismarck. The next post was at Fort Benton on the same stream, about 600 miles to the west; on the north end of the Big Horn Range, Fort Phil Kearney, noted for the massacre of two companies of cavalry by the Sioux a few years before ; Fort Shaw, a Twelve Company post on Sun River near the Missouri, 70 miles above Benton; Fort Lo- gan in Smith River Valley; Fort Ellis in the Gallatin Valley; and last, Fort Washakie near Lander, Wyoming, on the waters of Wind River.

The population of Wyomingin 1876 was about 16,000 as per census, nine-tenths of which was south of Lander. The population of Mon- tana was about 30,000, nine-tenths of which was contiguous to and protected by the mining camps near the foot of the Rockies, especially the two camps near Helena, or "Lost Chance" and Virigina City. Otherwise the settlements were in a scattered fashion near the small

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forts, as before enumerated; Benton, Shaw, Logan, Phil Kearney, Ellis and Washakie. All the supplies for this region were trans- ported up the Missouri River by steamboats, except for a few localities more accessible to the Union Pacific Railroad. So with the sup- plies for the Canadian country as far north as Fort McLeod, then the centre of population of that district. These supplies consisted of sugar, coffee and canned goods and flour. The articles of export were the skins of deer, ante- lope, elk and buffalo. To this must be added the millions of dollars of gold and silver in the form of bullion, generally carried to the Union Pacific Railroad. These supplies were transported to the head of navigation, in high water, to Fort Benton; at low water to Cov- Island, 150 miles below. They were then dis- tributed to all parts of Montana and to British Northwest by "outfits" of "bull" teams, and to indicate what hardships had to be encoun- tered and overcome by the early pioneers of the northwest in wrestling this empire from the control of the savage it may be of interest to give some details.

These freight outfits consisted of seven teams, each team consisting of seven yoke of oxen (or bulls as they were called). Each team of bulls pulled three wagons linked to- gether (all broad-tread), the leading wagon loaded with about 5,500 pounds, the intermedi- ate wagon with a lesser load and the third or trail wagon still less. For each outfit there was a foreman, one driver to each team and a night herder (to herd the bulls at night), nine men, all armed with the sixteen-shot re- peating rifles of that day. These outfits moved ten or twelve miles a day on the average, mak- ing camp early enough to allow the bulls plenty of time to graze under the control of the night herder. These outfits could work their way over almost any route over the plains and up the valleys of the foot hills of the mountains. In the case of impassible washouts they had the labor and the tools to rectify them. In case of a tight pull the trail wagons were dropped and each wagon of the team pulled up separately and again assembled on the top of the hill. In case of danger from hostile Indians, the wagons were assembled to form a fortification, bulls inside, and nine expert shots, with a repeater always contrived to give a good account of themselves.

At this time this immense territory was in a state of nature as far as wild animal life was concerned. Every species suitable to that latitude were represented, and almost numberless. The habitat of the buffalo and antelope were the plains east of the foot hill of the mountain ranges. The former animal

followed the advent of the green grass north- ward until in the fall the mass of them occu- pied the vast plains between the Missouri River and the British boundary, where, by this time, they had taken on enough fat to do them for the winter. On the advent of snow and the storms of winter they gradually drifted before the cold winds southward, crossed the Missouri River at certain . cross- ings already selected and distributed them- selves among the plains of the Yellowstone Valley and its tributaries, and farther south for the winter.

The mountains of the area described above were full of large bands of elk and an abun- dance of white and black tail deer, besides a fair abundance of grizzly and black bear and other predatory animals. On the advent of the deep snows of the fall, the deer and elk would gradually drift to the foot hills and adjoining plains where they wintered. On the advent of the green grass in spring they gradually returned to their natural habitat. in the timber of the mountains and in June had their young. In those days bands numbering from 200 to 300 were not uncommon. The buffalo were the civil engineers of the plains, the elk the civil engineers of the mountains- wherever their trails led were the best fords of the streams and the lowest passes in the mountains.

A few words as to the Indian tribes occu- pying this territory. The Shoshone Indians occupied a reservation on the head of Wind River with an Indian agency near Fort Wash- akie. The Crow tribe occupied a reservation on the south side of the Yellowstone River ex- tending from the lower canyon of that stream to a point some distance below the present site of Fort Keogh. The Blackfeet and Piegans had a small reservation near the western boundary of Montana on the head of the Ma- rias River. The Assinaboine band of the Great Sioux nation had for their reservation all the remainder of the territory north of the Missouri River and west of Fort Buford, with an agency at Fort Peck. These tribes, under treaty provisions, were entitled annually to a certain amount of beef and flour and clothing. The several other bands of the Sioux nation under "Sitting Bull" as chief, claimed and occupied all the remainder of this territory south of the Yellowstone and west of the Missouri. At that time they had not been sufficiently tamed to be assigned to a reserva- tion, but assumed a right to go as far south as the Union Pacific Railroad, or to depredate on the reservation of Indians for years friendly to the whites, whenever they dared.

Since the expedition of a government party

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of expert miners the previous year into the Black Hills country under the escort of the Seventh Cavalry, the bands of Sioux, under "Sitting Bull," had been hostile and menacing. Matters were brought to a crisis, however, when in June, 1876, General Terry, with a strong force of infantry and the Seventh Cav- alry, under Custer, moved into the valley of the Yellowstone. The first collision occurred when General Custer, with seven companies of cavalry, made an attack on the entire force of Sitting Bull on the Little Horn River, seven companies in front and three companies under Major Reno, detached to make an attack by a detour, in flank. The result being that Sit- ting Bull with his entire force attacked and massacred, to a man, the seven companies tin- der Custer, before the three companies under Reno got into action. They were saved from a similar fate by the timely arrival of the main force under General Terry.

At the time noted in the above narrative Colonel Pickett started up the Missouri on the steamer "Western," the war with Sitting Bull's bands of the Sioux was in full blast. The Assinaboine band of Fort Peck's agency claimed to be peaceful, but whilst the govern- ment were feeding and taking care of the old men and squaws the most of the young bucks were with Sitting Bull fighting the "soldiers." Major Mitchell, the agent, was powerless to act, as he had at the agency only seventeen employes in an undefensible stockade, with four or five hundred old men and squaws and probably fifty of Sitting Bull's warriors within a mile of his office, and considered himself fortunate that he and his outfit were not mas- sacred. Colonel Pickett passed up the Mis- souri as far as Fort Peck Indian agency with- out a mishap, where he was detained by illness for several weeks; he then passed up by the next steamer as far as Cow Island, the then head of navigation in this stream, where there was a temporary garrison of two companies of the Seventh Infantry. He then took ad- vantage on the arrival on the next steamboat of a detachment of seventy-five recruits under Lieutenant Slocum, en route to Fort Shaw, to pass on to Fort Benton under their protec- tion, arriving on the 3rd of October, 1876.

His advent into such a region as just de- scribed was truly a revelation. Although he had a taste of a "wild" life when in Texas in 1846-7, he had never been free to return to it on account of the necessity of following closely his profession. Now that his circumstances in life justified it, he determined to enjoy his present opportunities to the fullest extent. In carrying out this determination he spent the remained of the year 1876, six or eight months

of the years 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1883 in exploring and incidentally hunting in the mountains immediately south of the Upper Missouri; in the mountains and foot hills, at the head of the Gallatin River, the Madison River, the Stinking River and the Grey Bull River on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the head of Snake River on the western slope. During those years he rarely saw a white man's cabin from the time of leaving the settlement until his return to his winter quarters in Bozeman, Montana, in December. His means of locomotion, after the first year, was from three to five pack animals (and one and afterward two good mountain men, "old timers"), packed with the necessary bedding and the necessary supplies of sugar, coffee, tea and cereals. With such a pack out- fit he could move along any trail in the inoun- tains an elk would travel. In this mode of life he soon learned the indispensible necessity of having the services of reliable, expert, re- sourceful companions, men experienced in managing packs on the mountain trails.

During those years Colonel Pickett took ad- vantage of his opportunities and spent a good portions of the seasons of 1877, 1879 and 1880 in investigating, in their primitive, native garb, . that "Wonderland" of the world, the Yellow- stone National Park; its spouting geysers, its numerous and beautiful waterfalls and lakes.

He was on the outskirts (and passed through more or less danger) of two Indian outbreaks, that of the Nez Perce Indians in 1877 and that of a band of the Bannocks dur- ing 1878. Each of these tribes had reserva- tions on the Pacific Slope, but in their efforts to reach the Canadian boundary passed through the Yellowstone Park.

Life in those mountains frequently brought him in contact with that king of the beasts of the North American Continent, the grizzly bear. In several instances Colonel Pickett was probably saved from the bear's claws by a faithful and courageous dog. After he had become familiar with the habits and actions of this beast, in the season of 1881, he killed twenty-three of them, packing into winter quarters at Bozeman, Montana, twenty-one of their hides, two not being worth saving.

Of course there were a great many hard- ships in such a life. As these bears did not "hole up" until the deep snows of November, it was generally the middle or last of Decem- ber before reaching his winter quarters at Bozeman. During the trip in 1880 the tem- perature dropped to 32 degrees below zero on November 15th, the cold snap culminating on the route in of 40 degrees below zero on De- cember Ist at the Crow Agency. In 1879 the

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temperature depressed to 30 degrees below zero with a blizzard. When not within 200 miles of a surgeon two accidents befell Col- onel Pickett, each of which compelled him to resort to a crutch for locomotion for from two to three weeks.

After about two years spent in a similar life on a ranch near the head of Grey Bull in the Big Horn Basin, he secured the lease of about three thousand acres of land from the state of Wyoming, which, with the land he had taken up under the land laws, enabled him to commence the raising of high grade Short Horn and Hereford cattle. His residence on this ranch commenced on May 30, 1883. He lived on this place for twenty-one years, wit- nessing the growth in population and wealth of the Big Horn Basin until it became one of the most populous and wealthy counties in the state.

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A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume III, Part 53

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 860

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 860