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16. Bannock and Shoshone Customs
- University of North Texas Press
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313 Chapter 16 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Bannock and Shoshone Customs M arch 20th 1881. Received the following telegram from Lieutenant-General Sheridan. Chicago, Ills., March 19th 1881. Lieut. John G. Bourke, A.D.C., Omaha, Neb., I have just read your letter. If Genl. Crook will make no objection to your absence, I will furnish you with all the reasonable means necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose you have in view, but shall want to see you before you start. (signed.) P. H. Sheridan, Lieutenant General. Thereupon, General Crook telegraphed as follows; Fort Omaha, Neb., March 20th 1881. Lieutenant-General P. H. Sheridan, Chicago, Illinois Bourke read his letter to me before sending it to you. It had my fullest approval and I consider the work he proposes very important . If you have no objection, I’ll send him to Chicago to-morrow. (signed.) George Crook, 314 The Bureau of Ethnology Brigadier General. March 22nd 1881. Left Omaha, Neb., in obedience to the above telegram from Lieut. General P. H. Sheridan....The road between the Fort and city was in an extremely muddy condition from rapidly melting snow. The present winter has been phenomenal in severity, lasting, almost continuously, from October 10th , until the present date and during nearly all that time only one night when snow melted. There has been more than twice as much snow this winter as during the whole six years just past. Not only does it cover the fields to a depth varying from 12 to 20 inches, but it fills the roads in drifts varying from 5 to 20 ft. in height and has blocked all lines of rail in the West and North-East. In three different ways will this Arctic severity of the present winter damage our R.R. interest: 1st . In actual injury to tracks, bridges and culverts, either as snow direct or as water from the freshets and floods occasioned by thaws; 2nd In the stoppage of winter freights; and 3rd In the Impoverishment of the farmers, miners and stockmen, who have been retarded so much in their labor or deprived of such a percentage of their accumulations . When the next “round-up” of cattle is made, I am sure that many ranges in Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado will show losses of not less than 60 @ 70 per cent; farmers will not be able to commence planting much earlier than April 15th and miners have been impeded in the work of development of their “prospects” by the failure to obtain necessary machinery as well as by the flooding of their shafts and drifts.1 The city of Omaha is looking forward to a grand “boom”. The coming spring and summer 30.000.000 Brick have been ordered from the kilns, the extreme limit of their capacity. New brick buildings, of different kinds, nearly all of them good, solid structures—are to be erected by blocks and several new R.R.’s will connect with the city before the end of the year. I note here the suicide of General E. Upton, Colonel of the 4th Art., at San Francisco Cali., during a fit of mental derangement, influenced by overwork and anxiety regarding his revised “System of Tactics.”2 Upton was regarded as one of the ornaments of the service; brave bright and accomplished. A gentleman of extended travel in all parts 1. The floods of 1881 are discussed in Phil E. Chappell, “Floods in the Missouri River.” 2. In fact, Upton suffered for some years from crippling migraines. Some modern authorities believe he probably had a brain tumor. Warner, Generals in Blue, 519–20. [54.147.110.47] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:40 GMT) Bannock and Shoshone Customs 315 of the world, great intellectual polish and stainless reputation. March 24th 1881. Thursday. While passing through Eastern Iowa and Illinois, noticed a still greater amount of snow than in E. Nebraska. This is owing to the heavy storm of last week from which Omaha and vicinity escaped. The Mississipi and Missouri are still solid with ice and along the banks of both mighty streams the gravest apprehensions prevail as to the consequences of a sudden ice-gorge. Representatives of the important industrial interests clustering about Rock-Island, Davenport and Moline on the Mississipi, are debating the feasability of employing dynamite cartridges to blow open a channel in the center of the stream, to afford breaking ice an exit. Sidney Dillon, President of the Great Union Pacific R[ail].W[ay...