Coming of the Argonauts by Zoeth Skinner Eldredge

Coming of the Argonauts - Page 6

In 1849 the rains began much earlier than usual and the fall was heavy. In the mountains the snow was of prodigious depth. The northern relief station on the Feather River sent out men on all the trails with food and riding mules, to meet the emigrants coming through by the Lassen Route. The amount of suffering was dreadful. Many of the emigrants had been two or three days without food when the government trains reached them. There were three feet of snow on the ground through which many were making their way on foot. Three men made desperate efforts to get through. For some days they had been on an allowance of one meal per day. When still seventy miles distant from the nearest settlement they took stock and found they had bread for two days only.

Emigrants on the trail, by Henry Bryan Hall.

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Pushing on through the snow they came in a few miles to a wagon containing two women and two or three children who had eaten nothing for two days. With a generosity which was rare under the circumstances, they gave all they had to these helpless ones and went on without. They got through. The relief corps met women wading through the deep snow carrying their children, and strong men who had fallen through utter exhaustion. The officer in charge of the camp writes: "A more pitiable sight I never beheld as they were brought into camp; there were cripples from scurvy and other diseases, women prostrated by weakness, and children who could not move a limb, and men mounted on mules who had to be lifted off the animals, so entirely disabled had they become from the effects of the scurvy." On December 20th, Major Rucker reported that he had brought in all who had crossed the mountains and had closed the relief camps.

In 1850, the suffering was even more severe than in 1849. Throughout the States the reports of the overloaded wagons had been received and many went to the opposite extreme. By the time Fort Laramie was reached provisions had begun to give out, but the emigrants went forward recklessly, trusting to chance to get through. The Mormons at Salt Lake were able to afford some relief but they were short of provisions themselves. The supplies of many of the trains held out until the Humboldt river was reached when their stores became exhausted.

Emigrants arriving at Sacramento in July, 1850, reported the desperate condition of those in the desert; that Mary's River (Humboldt) was six or seven feet higher than it was ever known to be before, and that the bottoms, where the only feed grew, were almost entirely under water. One traveler hired some Indians for fifteen dollars to swim the river and float some grass across to him, thus saving the lives of his oxen. Another said that what little grass they procured on the way down the Humboldt they had to swim for, sometimes cutting it and sometimes being compelled to pull it while standing in the water up to their waists. "I have seen hundreds, more than one hundred and fifty miles on the other side of the Sink of Mary's River," writes W. Crum to the Sacramento Transcript, "that were out of provisions, or had but a few pounds to sustain a miserable and wretched existence, with animals that could never reach the Desert, by reason of the scarcity of forage. From this circumstance alone it may be possible that three-fourths of the animals now on the plains must perish from hunger, and the emigrant, with his scanty fare, must foot until life itself becomes a burden.

Those who started late will fare still worse; as the season becomes warmer, feed less, and provisions shorter. I saw one man with two small boys 120 miles beyond the Sink, who had left his wagon and lost all his animals but one, and all the provisions he had was three or four pounds of rice; another, with his wife and children, I overtook seventy miles beyond the Sink, with four horses that were just able to move with the empty wagon, the wife walking ahead in the burning sand and scorching sun, to relieve the poor laden animals that were destined never to see the Sink."

J. M. Sheppards, who arrived about August 1st, reported that only about one wagon out of five would get through. His company started with twelve wagons of which two would get in; many that start with three or four horses get in with one; many emigrants on arriving in Carson Valley sell their finest horses for ten or fifteen pounds of flour. After arriving at the Truckee river or the Carson Valley, the emigrants still had the difficult passage of the Sierra Nevada to make and most of them were destitute of animals or food and many of both.

Tales of distress were brought by each arrival. The cholera had again broken out and its ravages were appalling. Nine-tenths of those in the desert were on foot and starving. "Mothers may be seen wading through deep dust or heavy sand of the desert, or climbing mountain steeps, leading the poor children by the hand; or the once strong man, pale, emaciated by hunger and fatigue, carrying upon his back his feeble infant, crying for water and nourishment, and appeasing a ravenous appetite from the carcass of a dead horse or mule; and when they sunk exhausted on the ground at night overcome with weariness and want of food, it was with the certainty that the morning sun would only be the prelude to another day of suffering and torture.”

The miners contributed liberally to succor the unfortunate emigrants. From lack of organization and direction much of the effort was wasted and supplies were slow in reaching the desert. Captain William Waldo left Johnson's ranch August 27th with a drove of beef cattle, after waiting three days for the trains promised from Marysville and Yuba City. Seventeen hundred pounds of flour were deposited on the western side of the sierra, the committee being unable to get it across for lack of mules. At the Truckee lower crossing beef was deposited with the relief committee and Waldo left with them ten good horses and mules to help the sick and destitute to cross the desert. He entered the desert September 7th and pushed on as far as the Great meadows of the Humboldt, about the locality of the present town of Palisade. About midway of the desert he came upon two men who had laid themselves down to die. They had been living on the putrefied flesh of the dead animals on the road which had made them sick and for three days had eaten nothing. He relieved their needs and they reached the station. Two other men had died of starvation. From Boiling springs to the Great meadows he met few who had any provisions at all. One-fourth of the entire number on the road were reduced to the necessity of subsisting on the putrefied flesh of dead animals. This had produced the most fatal consequences and disease and death were mowing them down by hundreds. "The cholera has carried off eight in one small train in three hours, and seven others are attacked and, it is thought, will die ere three hours more have elapsed."

From the sink westward the havoc was fearful. "Sir," he writes, "by the time this reaches you I presume that you will need no evidence from me to satisfy you of the alarming and wretched condition of these people. It appears that the judgment of God has pursued them from the time they set out up to the present. First cholera -- then starvation -- next war, starvation, and cholera. The day has now passed when anyone will have the hardihood to say that there is no suffering amongst the Overland Emigrants; at least no one who is within 200 miles of this place will make such a declaration. When I tell them (the emigrants) that they are 400 miles from Sacramento, they are astonished and horrified; many disbelieve me. They were induced to believe when at Salt Lake, that they were then within 450 miles of Sacramento City." Indians have stolen a great number of the emigrants' stock, he says, and scarcely a day passes when there is not a skirmish with them. Many women are on the road with families of children, who have lost their husbands by cholera, and who will never cross the mountains without aid. There are yet twenty thousand back of the desert, and fifteen thousand of this number are now destitute of all kinds of provisions, yet the period of the greatest suffering has not arrived. It will be impossible for ten thousand of this number to reach the mountains before the commencement of winter.

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