Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
General Slocum's wing faced one of these lines and General Howard's the other; and, in the uncertainty of General Johnston's strength, I did not feel disposed to invite a general battle, for we had been out from Savannah since the latter part of January, and our wagon-trains contained but little food.
Past us, as we sweated there, the slow but surer wagon-trains ploughed forward. One, a German train, stopped beside us to bait their horses officers of the Landwehr or Landsturm type, who looked as if they might be, as doubtless they were, lawyers, professors, or successful business men at home.
They used to hide on top of this pass an' shoot down on the wagon-trains." Later in the day he drew my attention to a mountain standing all by itself. It was shaped like a cone, green with trees almost to the summit, and ending in a bare stone peak that had a flat top. "Starvation Peak," he said. "That name's three hundred years old, dates back to the time the Spaniards owned this land.
By shifting to the left, Merritt gained the Rice's Station road west of the creek, making havoc of the wagon-trains, while Crook struck them further on and planted himself square across the road.
While the events just narrated were taking place, General Grant had made a visit to Knoxville about the last of December and arranged to open the railroad between there and Chattanooga, with a view to supplying the troops in East Tennessee by rail in the future, instead of through Cumberland Gap by a tedious line of wagon-trains.
So, of course, Caldwell senior had, sooner or later, to take her across the plains on his annual trip. This was at the time when wagon-trains went by way of Pierre on the north, and the South Fork on the south. Incidental Indians, of homicidal tendencies and undeveloped ideas as to the propriety of doing what they were told, made things interesting occasionally, but not often.
Fortunately we were not molested by Indians. From passing wagon-trains we got a few rifles, all they could spare, and with these we were able to kill game for fresh meat. I wore out three pairs of moccasins on that journey, and learned then that the thicker are the soles of your shoes, the easier are your feet on a long walk over rough ground. After a month of hard travel we reached Leavenworth.
A by-road enabled me to recover the proper route, and from the top of a hill overlooking Culpepper, I had a view of the hamlet, nestling in its hollow; the roads entering it, black with troops, and all the slopes covered with wagon-trains, whose white canopies seemed infinite.
Some of them escaped to the West and became sovereigns of service there. And Jondo had need for an intrepid spirit to rule that group of men, as that journey across the plains proved. On the day before we left Council Grove he was sitting with the heads of the other wagon-trains under a big oak-tree, perfecting final plans for the journey. "Gail, I want you to sign some papers here," he said.
It is no wonder that wagon-trains mobilized here, waiting for an increase in numbers before they dared to start on westward. And now there were no trains waiting for our coming. Only a gripping necessity could have led a man like Esmond Clarenden to take the trail alone in the certain perils of the plains during the middle '40's.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking