His Mind Now Opened To Perceive That All These Sciences
Were Related To The Greater Science Of Geology, And Thenceforward He
Declared That This Should Become His Lifework.
Experiences in Civil War.
During the Civil War, he fought with bravery and
honor, losing an arm at the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. When Sherman
began his march to the sea, Powell was given command of twenty batteries of
artillery. He served on the staff of General Thomas at the battle of
Nashville, and was mustered out in the early summer of 1865. Even during
these exciting years, his beloved science not only never lost its
attraction for him, but he utilized every possible opportunity to add to
his knowledge. He made a collection of fossils unearthed in the digging of
the Vicksburg trenches, and from the Mississippi swamps gathered land and
river shells. In Illinois, while on detached service, mosses engaged his
attention, and he was indefatigable in studying the geology of the region
through which his section of the army passed.
Begins Geological Explorations in Colorado. After the war he declined a
lucrative political office to take the chair of geology in the struggling
Wesleyan University, of Bloomington, Illinois. He had married his cousin,
Emma Dean, in 1862, and, after a glimpse of the country in 1867, he took
her and a party that he had organized, to make geological explorations in
Colorado. This was the beginning of his work that ultimately wrested the
secrets from the mysterious canyons of the Colorado River. This preliminary
work led him on, as it were, to the greater work, and in 1869, on May 24,
with four boats, the Emma Dean, Kitty Clyde's Sister, Maid of the Canyon,
and No-Name, and nine companions, John C. Sumner, William H. Dunn, Walter
H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley, O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman,
William R. Hawkins, and Andres Hall, he set forth from Green River City.
The simple records of that trip, and a later one made in 1871-1873 (in
which Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, the author of "The Romance of the Colorado
River", was engaged, read like a romance. A condensation of them is but an
aggravation. No one interested in the Canyon should neglect to read them,
and I am now arranging to republish Powell's original monograph, together
with his monumental work on "The Canyons of the Colorado", the plates of
which I purchased at his death for this purpose.
Powell's First Expedition. In the first expedition, the party was from May
24 to August 30 passing through the Canyon system, from Green River City to
the mouth of the Rio Virgen. On the first of September, four of the men,
with a small supply of provisions, resumed their journey on the river to
Fort Mohave, while Powell and his brother returned to civilization by way
of Salt Lake City.
Second Expedition. Though chapter nine of Powell's report as published by
the Government, speaks of the "continuation of the explorations" of the
Canyon, and gives an account of the studies made in and around the region
of the Virgen River, and chapter ten contains Professor A. H. Thompson's
"Report on a Trip to the Mouth of the Dirty Devil River," there is nothing
in the volume that suggests the magnitude of the second trip through the
Canyon.
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