United States or Gabon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The old ford may still be seen just below the station of Green River on the Union Pacific Railroad. During the preparation for the Mormon war the supply-trains of the government were constantly harassed by that people. The genius of campaigning by destroying trains was Major Lot Smith.
Thousands of cattle and immense supply-trains were started across the plains in advance. The price for the transportation was twenty-two cents a pound. These exorbitant contracts made the lucky individuals who had secured them very wealthy. By a little political wire-pulling he who had secured the flour contract obtained permission to provide the troops with Utah flour.
On the 3d of November they reached the place of rendezvous, where Johnston arrived the following day, with a re-enforcement of cavalry and the supply-trains in charge of Smith. Albert Sidney Johnston was a favourite officer, and had already given earnest of the qualities that he displayed a few years later in the campaigns of the Civil War, on the Confederate side.
All unused, as we have seen, to the fatigues and other hardships of the march, the raw levies, of which it almost wholly consists, which started bright and fresh, strong and hopeful, full of the buoyant ardor of enthusiastic patriotism, on that hot July afternoon, only some thirty hours back, are now dust-begrimed, footsore, broken down, exhausted by the scorching sun, hungry, and without food, for they have wasted the rations with which they started, and the supply-trains have not yet arrived.
On the same day, Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann advanced from Fort Laramie with several companies of infantry and cavalry, escorting the supply-trains which were parked there through the winter, and on the speedy arrival of which at Camp Scott the subsistence of General Johnston's command depended, unless it should force its way into the Valley.
So little did the colonel know about the disposition of the command, that at the time and place when he expected to be joined by Colonel Smith, in charge of supply-trains, that officer was still at the South Pass, with an escort of two hundred men. On the 11th of October the troops commenced their march.
"Say, pardner," said the man who ran the establishment, "I'd much rather board you for a day than a week. Rebels must've cut off the supply-trains where you've bin. You're not comin' this way agin soon, air you? I'm afraid I won't make 'nough this month to pay my rent." Lieut. Bowersox came in with a telegram in his hand. "We won't go on to Indianapolis," he said.
Over the hills to the south, toward Maidos and the Dardanelles, rolled the distant thunder the cannon the hapless fifty, looking out of their house on the beach, had been sent down to stop and all about us, in the dazzling Turkish sunshine, were soldiers and supply-trains, landing, disembarking, pushing toward the front.
He made officers and men throw off all useless incumbrances, cut their hair close, wear leggings to protect them from briers, brown the barrels of their muskets, and carry in their knapsacks thirty pounds of meal, which they cooked for themselves; so that, according to an admiring Frenchman, they could live a month without their supply-trains.
On the 30th of November, 1864, General Schofield, in command of the 4th and 23rd Corps of Thomas's Army, decided to make a stand against Hood's Army, at Franklin, in the angle of the Harpeth river, in order to give time for the Union supply-trains to cross the river.
Word Of The Day