Jack's official diary says: "One
soldier died to-day."
Finally, on the fourth day, the wind abated, and the transfer was
begun. We boarded the river steamboat "Cocopah," towing a barge
loaded with soldiers, and steamed away for the slue. I must say
that we welcomed the change with delight. Towards the end of the
afternoon the "Cocopah" put her nose to the shore and tied up. It
seemed strange not to see pier sand docks, nor even piles to tie
to. Anchors were taken ashore and the boat secured in that
manner: there being no trees of sufficient size to make fast to.
The soldiers went into camp on shore. The heat down in that low,
flat place was intense. Another man died that night.
What was our chagrin, the next morning, to learn that we must go
back to the "Newbern," to carry some freight from up-river. There
was nothing to do but stay on board and tow that dreary barge,
filled with hot, red, baked-looking ore, out to the ship, unload,
and go back up the slue. Jack's diary records: "Aug. 23rd. Heat
awful. Pringle died to-day." He was the third soldier to succumb.
It seemed to me their fate was a hard one. To die, down in that
wretched place, to be rolled in a blanket and buried on those
desert shores, with nothing but a heap of stones to mark their
graves.
The adjutant of the battalion read the burial service, and the
trumpeters stepped to the edge of the graves and sounded "Taps,"
which echoed sad and melancholy far over those parched and arid
lands. My eyes filled with tears, for one of the soldiers was
from our own company, and had been kind to me.
Jack said: "You mustn't cry, Mattie; it's a soldier's life, and
when a man enlists he must take his chances."
"Yes, but," I said, "somewhere there must be a mother or sister,
or some one who cares for these poor men, and it's all so sad to
think of."
"Well, I know it is sad," he replied, soothingly, "but listen! It
is all over, and the burial party is returning."
I listened and heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind
me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You
see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when
one of them dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So
they play these gay things to cheer them up."
And I began to feel that tears must be out of place at a
soldier's funeral. I attended many a one after that, but I had
too much imagination, and in spite of all my brave efforts,
visions of the poor boy's mother on some little farm in Missouri
or Kansas perhaps, or in some New England town, or possibly in
the old country, would come before me, and my heart was filled
with sadness.
The Post Hospital seemed to me a lonesome place to die in,
although the surgeon and soldier attendants were kind to the
sick men. There were no women nurses in the army in those days.
The next day, the "Cocopah" started again and towed a barge out
to the ship. But the hot wind sprang up and blew fiercely, and we
lay off and on all day, until it was calm enough to tow her back
to the slue. By that time I had about given up all hope of
getting any farther, and if the weather had only been cooler I
could have endured with equanimity the idle life and knocking
about from the ship to the slue, and from the slue to the ship.
But the heat was unbearable. We had to unpack our trunks again
and get out heavy-soled shoes, for the zinc which covered the
decks of these river-steamers burned through the thin slippers we
had worn on the ship.
That day we had a little diversion, for we saw the "Gila" come
down the river and up the slue, and tie up directly alongside of
us. She had on board and in barges four companies of the
Twenty-third Infantry, who were going into the States. We
exchanged greetings and visits, and from the great joy manifested
by them all, I drew my conclusions as to what lay before us, in
the dry and desolate country we were about to enter.
The women's clothes looked ridiculously old-fashioned, and I
wondered if I should look that way when my time came to leave
Arizona.
Little cared they, those women of the Twenty-third, for, joy upon
joys! They saw the "Newbern" out there in the offing, waiting to
take them back to green hills, and to cool days and nights, and
to those they had left behind, three years before.
On account of the wind, which blew again with great violence, the
"Cocopah" could not leave the slue that day. The officers and
soldiers were desperate for something to do. So they tried
fishing, and caught some "croakers," which tasted very fresh and
good, after all the curried and doctored-up messes we had been
obliged to eat on board ship.
We spent seven days in and out of that slue. Finally, on August
the 26th, the wind subsided and we started up river. Towards
sunset we arrived at a place called "Old Soldier's Camp." There
the "Gila" joined us, and the command was divided between the two
river-boats. We were assigned to the "Gila," and I settled myself
down with my belongings, for the remainder of the journey up
river.
We resigned ourselves to the dreadful heat, and at the end of two
more days the river had begun to narrow, and we arrived at Fort
Yuma, which was at that time the post best known to, and most
talked about by army officers of any in Arizona.
