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1 He may be the same as the Sam Wilson who was traveling on the St. Johns, where William Gallaher met him: Gallaher's diary, ed. Moss, p.181.
2 In an application for membership in the D.A.R. (II.M.i), Mary gave her birth date and place as "March 19 1865, 'Val de Moulin'--near Gravois Mills, Morgan Co., Mo."; but in a later application to the United Daughters of the Confederacy which she filled out on behalf of her cousin Anna Isabelle Humes she made some notes about her uncle James Edwin Humes that imply that she was born at Sidneyvale in Virginia: "…He [sc. James Edwin] recuperated from these [wounds] at his old home at Sydney Vale-Plantation on the James river--Rockbridge Co. Va. I (Mary E. Wheatley McBride) was born in the same room where he rested from these wounds After death of my Grandmother My mother was at this Plantation during the settlement of estate while my father and James E. Humes' brother Joe was on the trip to Montana. I never saw My father until I was 6 mo. old." Missouri must be the place: apart from the unlikelihood that Mildred could have crossed the lines into Virginia in the closing days of the Civil War, there is evidence that William thought it possible that Mildred might meet a Missouri acquaintance, Ross, while he was away on the Montana trip: VII.B.b.10 p.4 (see below, p.8). Mildred and the children were in Missouri in Feb. 1866, when William wrote to his father (I.A.e.1. p.1 top margin; see below, p.14).
3 VII.B.b.14 p.2 (below, p.12).
4 Lass, Steamboating, p.44.
5 Way's Packet Directory no.1482, and Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.117: sternwheeler, 493 tons, built in 1865. Leonard Gilchrist commented on the Deer Lodge in 1866: "She is built expressly for this upper Missouri trade and is considered one of the best boats in the trade." (Potter, ed., "Missouri River Journal", p.283). A photograph of the Deer Lodge survives: see Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.89, fig.87; Gallaher's diary, ed. Moss, p.264. It is not explicitly stated that Jose was on the Deer Lodge, but William reports on 20 June that the boats that Jose and Wilson were on have reached Fort Benton (VII.B.b.13 p.1; below, p.11); he also indicates on 26 June that the Sam Gaty's freight will be carried by the two boats it had met yesterday and the "boat Jos was on", when it returns downriver (VII.B.b.14 p.1; below, p.12); in his letter to his father these three boats are identified as the Benton, the General Grant, and the Deer Lodge respectively (I.A.d p.11; below, p.19). Abel J. Vanmeter was also on the Deer Lodge, and his diary of the trip has been published. On 10 May, below Fort Rice, he noted: "Missouri killed a deer today on the left hand shore in the bottom." The editor of the diary, Jean Tyree Hamilton, inserted a note identifying "Missouri" as "Mr. Hume", but did not explain how she knew this; neither Missouri nor Mr. Hume are mentioned elsewhere in Vanmeter's journal. Perhaps the answer lies in the unpublished journal of R.M. Frazer (who was also on the Deer Lodge), from which Hamilton frequently quotes.
6 Hamilton, "Abel J. Vanmeter", p.31; from Montana Vanmeter wrote in a letter: "I had quite a pleasant trip of it for such a long one. I was 72 days on the Boat. I was very much pleased with Officers and passengers on the Boat, I can say they were the most agreeable set of Gentlemen I ever was with, I did not hear a harsh word during the whole time which is something for such a long trip." (ibid., p.32).
7 Way's Packet Directory no.0593: sternwheeler, 251 tons, built in 1864.
8 Lass, Steamboating, p.43.
9 The Bertrand is not mentioned in William's surviving letters, but we know that a boat sank under him (VII.B.b.10 p.3; below, p.8), and that he had to salvage his mill from the wreck of a boat owned by John Copelin near DeSoto in mid-April (VII.B.b.15; below, p.7). It can only be the Bertrand. The departure date of the Bertrand (Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.9) fits with William's remark to his father that he had been "on that river from the 18th of March to the 19th of July" (I.A.d p.5; below, p.16).
10 Gallaher's diary, ed. Moss, p.163; Petsche, pp.10, 125.
12 Way's Packet Directory no.5003: sidewheeler, 294 tons, built in 1853. It was one of the eight steamers that carried Gen. Sully's expedition against the Sioux in 1864, along with the Gen. Grant (Hanson, Conquest, p.53). In March 1863 it was apparently attacked by Confederate guerillas near Sibley, Mo., while carrying passengers and freight to Montana (Chittenden, History, pp.251-3).
13 Way's Packet Directory no.4939: sidewheeler, 309 tons, built in 1864.
14 VII.B.b.10 p.1; below, p.7; Gallaher's diary, ed. Moss, pp. 163 and 182, for the movements of the St. Johns, which reached Fort Union on 1 June.
16 Lass, Steamboating¸ includes a plate of the saloon of the Far West, with the cabin doors along the side walls.
18 See Brown, Galvanized Yankees, pp.71-103.
19 I.A.d p.2; below, p.15; Gallaher had the same experience on the St. Johns on 24 May: "Were all ordered back to the boat to take the oath of allegiance. Capt Sousley having letters from Genl [Alfred] Sully & vouching for the loyalty of his passengers we were allowed to pass. The other boats [sc. Effie Deans and General Grant] were sworn." (Gallaher's diary, ed Moss, p.178). Joseph La Barge reported that the passengers of the Yellowstone were detained "on the charge of jubilating over the assassination of the President" (Chittenden, History, p.261; Sunder, Fur Trade, pp.263-4).
20 As General Sully was returning to the fort from a peace conference, Dimon fired a salute which was interpreted by the Indians as an ambush. Brown, Galvanized Yankees, p.101 ff.
21 Lass, Steamboating, p.43; Way's Packet Directory, no.1482.
23 Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Berton", p.301.
25 VII.B.b.10 p.3; below, p.8.
26 I.K.k.15 (below, p.30), which is probably a first draft of the text in I.K.m (below, p.30), concerning the Indian attack described at length in I.A.d pp.12-14 (below, p.20). The memoir is inaccurate in many details (notably placing William among the landing party that was attacked, whereas he was an observer on the boat, and putting the loss of the boat at the end of the journey instead of the beginning), but adds the detail that the captured Irishman's name was Mularky.
27 A Capt. N.J. Eaton superintended construction of the sidewheeler Kit Carson, intended for the Missouri River, at Elizabethtown, Pa., in 1848. Way's Packet Directory 3294.
28 Captain Nicholas Wall was captain of the Monona on the Missouri in 1845 (Way's Packet Directory no.4009); he was a Confederate sympathizer and was paroled thanks to the intervention of Joseph La Barge, whom he subsequently cheated (or so La Barge remembered) in a case involving compensation for damages in a shipment to Fort Benton (Chittenden, History, p.326). In 1862 he was one of the founders of the American Exploring and Mining Company, the first St. Louis company to enter the Montana gold fields; Wall was in charge of the first expedition (Lass, Steamboating, p.32). In 1868 he was managing J.J. Roe's freight wagons between Fort Benton and Helena, carrying freight for the Montana and Idaho Transportation Line, Copelin and Roe's company and owners of the Bertrand (ibid. pp.44-45). The steamboat Nick Wall, built in 1869, was named after him (Way's Packet Directory no.4206).
29 William seems to have used his initials only to sign his poems. A typed copy of this poem is at I.A.k.3.
30 The Benton met the Sam Gaty on the 18th below Fort Berthold, and took 140 tons of its freight; the two then traveled upriver together and met the General Grant above Fort Berthold on the 21st, and transfered more of the Sam Gaty's freight to the General Grant (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", pp.302-3). William seems to have got the names of the General Grant and the Benton mixed up, and to have perpetuated the confusion in his letter to his father, where he says they met the Benton and the General Grant, in that order, both above Fort Berthold (see below, p.19).
31 Presumably Neal McCay, son of Robert McCay (b.1788) and therefore William's first cousin once removed (the son of his great-uncle). He lived in Fredericksburg (I.E.d.1), and with his wife Hetty occasionally visited William's father (undated letter, John Wright Wheatley I to William, in ledger 4). William must have known about Lee's surrender and Lincoln's assassination by now, for news of both had reached Fort Sully by the end of April (Hamilton, "Abel J. Vanmeter", pp.17, 21).
32 I haven't checked this reference yet. Atkins on the Benton, accompanying the Sam Gaty, does not mention where they spent the night of the 20th, but on the 21st he notes: "…ran up to the old Indian village and laid up for the night." (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.303).
33 The same incident is described in I.A.d p.6 (below, p.16), where William says he ran out onto the guard (section of deck built outward from the hull to extend the area of the main deck) rather than the hurricane deck (the roof the cabins, the highest level of the boat).
34 A neighbour of the Humes family in Morgan county, Missouri. William and Mildred did some of their courting at his house. See VII.B.b.6, etc.
35 The same incident is described in I.A.d p.9 (below, p.18), and by Atkins on the Benton: "Monday, June 19, 1865. … Landed Jeff Smith and a roustabout on opposite side of river, and Gaty's yawl landed another man at 8 p.m. to go to Berthold. Tuesday, June 20, 1865. … Gaty picked up her man, and we Smith and roustabout. Sioux fired upon them last night, and they barely saved themselves by flight." (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", pp.302-3).
36 Fort Union, N.D., was 3 miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone, on the left bank of the Missouri (Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts, p.634).
37 I.e. letters 5, 6 and 7 (VII.B.b.12, 13, and 14), presumably.
38 Atkins and Larpenteur confirm that the Sam Gaty, the General Grant and the Benton arrived at Fort Union on the 26th (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.303; Larpenteur (ed. Coues), vol.2, pp.433-434).
39 I.e. he did not wish to carry cash or gold on the trip from Montana, even if the men who bought the mill had been willing to pay it.
40 George M. Pinney was Marshal from February 1865 until March 1867. Johnson, "List of Officers…" p.327.
41 Fort Rice, N.D., was 10 miles south of the mouth of Cannonball River, and was established in July 1864 (Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts, pp. 632-3).
42 My father (Robert W. Binkley) remembers that when he was young, the chest of Wheatley/Williams memorabilia contained the broken shaft of an Indian arrow which was said by his grandmother Harriet Wheatley Williams to have been shot through the smokestack of a steamboat. It is not there now, and may have been donated to some museum by Harlan T. Williams in the 1960s, when he had possession of the chest and apparently placed some items in museums.
43 This must be a slip, either by William or in John Wright Wheatley's transcription, for the commander of the fort.
44 Presumably William stopped at Fort Halleck, Carbon Co., Wyoming, near Medicine Bow, on his return from Salt Lake City to Missouri. The fort was established in 1862 to protect the Overland Trail, and abandoned in July, 1866 (Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts, p.859).
45 Presumably this was during William's return trip from Montana to Missouri, unless he traveled from DeSoto while waiting for the salvage of his mill from the Bertrand.
46 Only three can be identified: the Bertrand, the Sam Gaty, and the General Grant.
47 William refers to the procedures of double-tripping (normally done by leaving part of the cargo ashore and carrying the rest up on the steamer, then returning for the first load) and warping (hauling the steamer up on a line attached to a "deadman", a log fixed in the sand). Lass, Steamboating, pp.12-13.
48 The same incident is described in a letter to Mildred, above, p.11.
49 Perhaps the gold camp near Diamond City (Cushman, Montana, p.178).
50 The same incident is described in a letter to Mildred, above, p.12.
51 Leonard Gilchrist saw a chief at Fort Union in June 1866 with a similar medal: "Has on his neck suspended by a double brass-linked chain, a large silver-worked medal with the likeness of James Buchanan on one side. A white man who lives at the fort told me he [the chief] was about 72 yrs. of age." (Potter, ed., "Missouri River Journal", p.291).
52 Vanmeter reports that the Deer Lodge stopped on 15 May just below Fort Berthold and "got some coal, the strat was 4 feet thick and extended along the Bank 30 yds that it showed." (Hamilton, "Abel J. Vanmeter, p.26).
53 The registered tonnage of the Sam Gaty was 295 tons, but the actual cargo capacity of most steamers in this period was normally almost double the registered tonnage (Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.120). William seems not to have kept precise notes of the tonnages, anyway: in his letter to Mildred he said 150 tons was transferred to the Benton, whereas Atkins, the Benton's pilot, noted 140 tons (see above, p.10).
54 Atkins on the Benton does not mention the Deer Lodge joining their fleet, although he frequently refers to the Sam Gaty and the General Grant during the period in which they were traveling together. Larpenteur does not record the Deer Lodge returning to Fort Union until 22 July, when it pickup up freight for Fort Copelin (Larpenteur, ed. Coues, vol. 2 p.435). Writing to Mildred on 20 June, William expected the Deer Lodge to come down and take some of the Sam Gaty's freight; perhaps when writing to his father several months later he forgot that the Deer Lodge had done so only a few weeks after the Sam Gaty reached Fort Union.
55 The Yellowstone also reached Fort Benton; other boats made it no further than the mouth of Maria's River or Dauphine's Rapids ("Steamboat Arrivals", p.318).
56 Way's Packet Directory no.3232: sternwheeler, 445 tons, built in 1864.
57 Way's Packet Directory no.1731: sternwheeler, 157 tons, built in 1863; commanded by Capt. Joseph La Barge.
58 Joseph La Barge remembered that his brother John, commanding the Kate Kearney, had given up trying to reach Fort Benton because of the hostility of the Indians above Fort Union, leaving his employer open to lawsuits for failure to deliver. The Effie Deans, under the command of Capt. Ray after Joseph La Barge left it at Fort Benton, met the Kate Kearney while returning downriver and took its load (Chittenden, History, p.337). Larpenteur reports that the Kate Kearney arrived on 6 June and left headed upriver on the 19th, returning on the 26th and unloading 623 sacks of flour before leaving the next day headed down (Larpenteur, ed. Coues, vol.2 pp.433-4). When the Benton came down past Fort Union on the 13th, Atkins noted: "found Kate Kearney there, she is waiting for the Effie Deans to relieve her of her freight." (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton, p.302). He also noted the Kate Kearney's arrival at Fort Union on 26 June (ibid. p.303).
59 I.e. the Sam Gaty, the Benton, the General Grant and the Kate Kearney. Atkins noted on 27 June: "Got under way at daylight and sparred over to the fort. Grant got the last of the Gaty's freight over about noon, and Gaty went down in bend below fort to wood. Put our freight out and assorted it, took it on board, and in company of the Grant, took our departure up the river."
60 This must be a transcription error, unless William meant the yawl which had been set adrift. Probably it should read "under the bank": Atkins says of the pilot that "the steep cut bank with overhanging roots helped him to escape them while it compelled the Indians to seek a landing lower down." Another man, apparently the one William says was shot while resting of a bar, is said by Atkins to have "run under the bank where there was a considerable cavity. The Indians apparently did not dare approach him from the lower bank, possibly because they feared his gun (which he did not have) but they began digging away the bank from above." Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.301 n.1.
61 Leonard Gilchrist heard about the General Grant's skirmish the following year, noting in his diary on 23 June 1866: "At Dry Fork, the Grant lost three men last year, killed by the Sioux, also had one wounded." (Potter, ed., "Missouri River Journal", p.294). Joseph La Barge also remembered the attack: "In the same year [sc. 1865] the General Grant lost three men. They had been sent ashore at a wooding place to make fast a line, when they were pounced upon by the Indians and killed." (Chittenden, History, p.279).
62 Pierre Chouteau had had a monopoly on steamboat trade to Fort Benton until 1862; in 1865 his company's licenses to trade with Indian agencies or military posts were not renewed because of his Confederate sympathies, and he withdrew from the Missouri River trade. His company, now managed by his son, sold its posts to James Hubbell and Alpheus Hawley, who reorganized it as the Northwest Fur Company in March 1865. The Yellowstone's trip to Fort Benton in 1865 to collect the Chouteau company's furs was its last on the Missouri. Lass, Steamboating, p.42; Larpenteur, who had charge of Fort Union for Chouteau's company, was kept on by the new firm: Larpenteur, Forty Years, p.309.
63 It is not clear what John Wright Wheatley meant by this in his transcription: perhaps a passage was illegible, or a page was lost.
64 Atkins reports that the Benton arrived at "Fort Copilin" just above Milk River on 1 July, and found the Fannie Ogden, Hattie May, and Effie Deans there; the Benton and Fannie Ogden then returned to Fort Union for more freight, followed by the Hattie May, while the General Grant and Effie Deans tried to move up river. The Benton returned to Fort Copelin with more of the Sam Gaty's freight on 9 July, and found the Hattie May, Effie Deans and David Watts there, and that evening the Deer Lodge, General Grant and Roanoke arrived from upriver. William may have confused the number of boats present at the two arrivals.
65 Way's Packet Directory, no.4766: Sternwheeler, 266 tons, built in 1864. Probably, the "Oronacke" mentioned by Larpenteur was really the Roanoke (Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.118).
66 It would probably be possible to identify the 14 boats that congregated at Milk River from Larpenteur's journal, from which Petsche compiled a list (apparently chronological) of the 18 boats that reached Fort Union that summer. Only five made it to Fort Benton or the mouth of Maria's River. The Sam Gaty is 15th on the list. Of the 13 boats that reached Fort Union but not Fort Benton, two (the Sam Gaty and the Kate Kearney) turned back at Fort Union; two of those that reached Fort Benton stayed in the upper Missouri to help the others (the Deer Lodge and the Effie Deans); the fourteenth boat may have been one of the other Fort Benton boats that did not head downstream immediately, as the Yellowstone and the St. Johns did.
67 Jean Tyree Hamilton, using a report in the Montana Post of 29 July 1865, gives a description of the fort: "By mid-July, 1865, [Milk River] was the head of navigation on the Upper Missouri, the steamboats being able to go no farther. To meet the problem the steamboat companies erected a stockade fort with a log bastion mounting three guns to sweep the exposed faces. The fort was divided into three compartments which were owned by the proprietors of different lines of boats and were called Fort Jacobs, For Copeland [sic] and Fort Keiser. They were, in fact corrals, built of twleve foot posts and measuring 50 by 100 yards. The goods were covered with tarpaulins while awaiting the wagon trains. Some 800 to 1000 tons of freight could be stored in the area." (Hamilton, "Abel J. Vanmeter", p.29). The editor of Atkins' log also calls it "Fort Copeland", although Atkins spelled the name "Copilin" (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.304 n.1); it is clear that it was named after John G. Copelin, the part owner of the Bertrand and the Deer Lodge. The stockade was already there at the beginning of July, for the Hattie May had unloaded at Fort Keiser before returning to Fort Union on 5 July (Larpenteur, ed. Coues, vol. 2 pp.366-7 n.11).
68 Perhaps the same incident as noted by Atkins on the Benton on 30 June: "Under way about 3 o'clock, Grant behind. Killed four elk at 5:30, we gave one to the Grant. Had lots of fun." (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.304).
69 This was presumably on 19 July, William's last day "on the river" (above, p.16). After the General Grant returned to Fort Copelin on 9 July (Atkins, "Log of the Steamer Benton", p.306), we have no information about its movements until it returned to Fort Union on 24 July to pick up freight left by the Benton; it had to return on the 26th and unload its freight and head upriver to help other boats (between Fort Copelin and Cow Island?). It picked up another load at Fort Union on 3 August, and returned for still another on 12 August, when it was commandeered by the army (Larpenteur, ed. Coues, vol.2 p.435).
70 Joseph La Barge remembered that the Effie Deans, carrying the freight of the Kate Kearney, could get no further upriver than Fort Galpin at the mouth of the Milk River. Capt. Ray then "sent an express" to Fort Benton, where Joseph La Barge "procured 30 ox teams of five yoke each, with the necessary wagons", brought them to Fort Galpin, and took all the freight to Fort Benton, saving his employer from expensive litigation (Chittenden, History, p.338). Fort Galpin was a trading post established by Larpenteur in 1862 close to the site of Fort Copelin, and it may be that La Barge confused the two (Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts, p.471; Larpenteur, ed. Coues, vol.2 pp.366-7 n.11). A similar operation had been performed in 1863 (ibid. p.326). E.W. Carpenter, who also traveled to Fort Benton in 1865, was stopped at Dauphin's Rapids, 250 miles below the fort, and had to travel the rest of the way overland (Lass, Steamboating, p.45). The following year Gilchrist noted on 26 June: "Yesterday we made Cow Island about 8 am. This is as far as boats got up last year with two or three exceptions. Goods were waggoned to Benton, distance by Land, 90 miles." (Potter, ed., "Missouri River Journal", p.295). It seems, then, that separate wagon trains brought goods from Fort Copelin (including La Barge's freight) and from Cow Island (including William) to Fort Benton. Petsche's estimate of the total tonnage of freight that reached Fort Benton in 1865 is therefore very low, since it assumes that only freight carried by the five boats that actually reached Fort Benton or vicinity got through (Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.118).
71 This incident is mentioned by Atkins on 3 June: "Learned from the Yellowstone that the Blackfeet killed eleven men at the mouth of Maria's river." (Atkins, "Log of the Steamboat Benton", p.299).
72 Presumably this means that Clark's son and daughter were on the Bertrand. They are not among the known passengers (Petsche, Steamboat Bertrand, p.124). Malcolm Clark was well known on the Missouri River, and William describes his career accurately. See Larpenteur (1933 ed.), p.195 n.56; Sunder, Fur Trade, pp.132-3; Chittenden, History, pp.233-4.
73 This must be an error for the "twelfth" day. The chronology of the period between William's leaving the river on 19 July and leaving Confederate Gulch on 26 Sept. cannot be reconciled with a 20-day journey, and just above William said that on the sixth day it was expected to take four more days to reach Helena.
74 Confederate Gulch was first worked in the autumn of 1864 by Confederate veterans from Missouri; their camp that winter, consisting of four cabins joined by paths forming a lozenge shape, was jokingly known as Diamond City. Confederate Gulch itself was not particularly rich, but the gulches leading off it, such as Cement Gulch and Montana Gulch, were opened in the summer of 1865 and proved extraordinarily abundant. (Cushman, Montana, pp.175-7).
75 See Wolle, Montana Pay Dirt, p.123. A party of Germans found pay dirt in Montana and Cement Gulches in 1865.
76 Gen. Thomas Frances Meagher was appointed secretary of the Territory of Montana on 4 Aug. 1865, and reached Bannack in late September. Wolle, Montana Pay Dirt, p.12.
77 Camp Douglas, established in October 1862, was three miles east of Salt Lake City (Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts, pp.787-8).
78 No such steamer appears in Way's Packet Directory.