Fort Benton

“ A pale-faced youth looked with dilated eyes on the nearing town of Fort Benton. It was Philip Danvers, late second lieutenant of the North West Mounted Police of Canada. He had lived through the shock which the three letters had brought on his fever-weakened frame, and during his convalescence determined to leave the service and seek employment at Fort Benton. To his colonel alone he gave his reasons. His sister Kate was a delicate girl, unused to adversity. His pay was insufficient to support her, even if she could have lived at Fort Macleod. She must be safe-guarded. ”

“ If they have started home, they will be coming again as fast as they can get here with a big war party. We do need a lot more men, but I doubt whether even ten more can be engaged in Fort Benton."
"Far Thunder! Almost-brother! Listen to me!" Pitamakan exclaimed. "Not uselessly are we members of the Pikuni; we have but to let our people know what danger we are in, and a hundred of them will come to help us as fast as their horses can carry them. They are just two days' ride from Fort Benton at their camp on Bear River. ”

“ The President desires you to proceed at your earliest convenience to Fort Benton, and thence to a point on our northern frontier from which the present encampment of the Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, on British territory, is most easily accessible. At the frontier you will be met by a detachment of mounted Canadian police, detailed by the Government of the Dominion of Canada for your protection. ”

“ Every man braced himself for the leap—ready, in fact, anxious, to have the dreadful suspense at an end, though each well knew that the opening of the door would be a signal for five hundred rifles to sweep the space between the house and the fort with a perfect hail of lead. Quickly the door swung open, and Benton leaped out. His eyes swept the surrounding hills; then he turned and tried to leap back into the protection of the log walls again. ”

“ In the latter part of September news came to Fort Benton that the Nez Perces were heading to cross the Missouri river and on to Canada. Knowing that there were but few people at the several trading posts further down the river, Major Elges, who was in command at Fort Benton, sent what men he could spare down the river in a Mackinaw boat, while he and Colonel J. J. Donnelly, with thirty-five mounted citizens, with rifles and belts full of cartridges, crossed the country. Many of them were picked marksmen, “old prairie men,” who would just as soon go into a fight as eat a Christmas dinner. ”

“ Under our present instructions, we were to proceed slowly to the Blackfoot Agency, and immediately on the arrival of Lovell at Benton, he and the commandant would follow by ambulance and overtake us. The distance from Fort Benton to the agency was variously reported to be from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty miles, six or seven days’ travel for the herd at the farthest, and then good-by, Circle Dots! ”

“ On the evening before we left Fort Benton George Steell had begged my uncle to leave Is-spai-u in his care. "You know how flies swarm about a molasses keg. Well, so will the hostiles swarm about you down there when they learn that the runner is with you. Be sensible for once, Wesley, and let me have him until your fort is completed." ”

“ I write this, in haste, to ask you to meet me at Fort Benton by the middle of June, as I shall come to America in time to take the first boat leaving Bismarck. I shall have about a hundred pounds when I start. I am determined to come to you."
With some expression of grief at their bereave [97] ment, and anticipation of seeing her brother, the letter closed.
Come up to the Whoop Up Country! His young, unsophisticated sister? She must not! He started up, thinking to send a rider to Fort Benton with a message to cable to London. But she would already have started. ”

“ Mr. Benton then showed from a report of Major Pilcher, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and who had visited the Columbia River, that actual colonization was going on there, attended by every circumstance that indicated ownership and the design of a permanent settlement. Fort Vancouver, the principal of these British establishments, for there are many of them within our boundaries, is thus described by Major Pilcher:
"This fort is on the north side of the Columbia, nearly opposite the mouth of the Multnomah, in the region of tide-water, and near the head of ship navigation. ”

“ They are establishing themselves as in a permanent possession—making the fort Vancouver, at the confluence of the Multnomah and Columbia, in tide-water, the seat of their power and operations. The notice required never will be given while the present administration is in power; nor obeyed when given, unless men are in power who will protect the rights and the honor of their country. ”

“ They didn't linger long at Benton, but got under way and marched overland to the Cypress Hills. On Battle Creek they built the first post, Fort Walsh, and though in time they located others, Walsh remained headquarters for the Northwest so long as buffalo-hunting and the Indian trade endured. And Benton and Walsh were linked together by great freight-trails thereafter, for the Mounted Police supplies came up the Missouri and traveled by way of long bull-trains to their destination; there was no other way then; Canada was a wilderness, and Benton with its boats from St. ”

“ Marks will be retained till Spain shall be ready to garrison it with a sufficient force, and Fort Gadsden, and any other position in East or West Florida within the Indian country, which may be deemed eligible, will be retained so long as there is any [177] danger, which, it is hoped, will afford the desired security,' make a proposition which went to stamp his character with treachery, by the punishment of General Jackson for those very acts, it was impossible that Mr. Monroe should not be excited. He must have been more than human, or less, to have beheld Mr. ”

“ We must first build a stockade yonder in the valley. They had food enough to last many days. In good time I will send back a detachment to the Arkansas for the pack train. The injured lads can be brought through on horseback."
"I will go now!"
"You will go with us," he commanded. "If, as is possible, we have come within measurable distance of the Spanish settlements, we must establish a fort without delay. It is imperative. I need every man of you." ”

“ The French population, being the majority of the people, were chiefly its promoters, with some emigrants from the United States; and when defeated they took refuge on an island in the Niagara River on the British side, near the Canadian coast, and were collecting men and supplies from the United States to renew the contest. From the beginning an intense feeling in behalf of the insurgents manifested itself all along the United States border, upon a line of a thousand miles—from Vermont to Michigan. ”

“ No public man was more confirmed in his friendship for the frontier trade than Senator Benton. The fur companies found him always on hand to get them favors or to "turn aside the whip of calamity." Because of his influence his son-in-law, Frémont, twenty years later, explored the wilderness. Now, in 1824, he was prompt to demand encouragement. A large policy in the building of public roads had been accepted by Congress in this year. In the following winter Senator Benton's bill provided $30,000 to mark and build a wagon road from Missouri to the United States border on the Arkansas. ”

“ Frémont had come into California, not to pursue science, but to excite the American settlers to revolt against the Mexican government. Upon this pretext troops were raised, and marched to attack him. Having notice of their approach, he took a position on the mountain, hoisted the flag of the United States, and determined, with his sixty brave men, to defend himself to the last extremity—never surrendering; and dying, if need be, to the last man. ”

“ In vain did Benton and his regiment try to close with any of these bunches; their horses were fresh, and they would run as long as chased by the White Caps; but once let the chase cease and they were back again, waiting for a chance to sneak up under cover of a hill or ravine to pour in a volley of bullets and again take to their heels if pursued. By three o’clock there were fully fifty men harassing the White Caps, and Benton decided to make for the shelter of the A—T ranch on Crazy Woman Creek, some fifty miles to the north-west. ”

“ Who shall own bright California, the bond or the free? While these great knights of our country's round table fight in the tourney of the Senate over this golden prize, Benton sends back the "pathfinder" Fremont. He is now freed from the army by an indignant resignation. He bears a letter to Benton's friends in the West to organize the civil community and prepare a constitution.
While Valois watches for news, the buds and blossoms of early spring call him back to the American River. The bay whitens with the sails of arriving thousands. Political combinations begin everywhere. ”

“ Analogous to the case of Commander Mackenzie was that of Lieutenant Colonel Wall, of the British service, Governor of Goree on the coast of Africa—the circumstances quite parallel, and where they differ, the difference in favor of Wall—but the conclusion widely different. Governor Wall fancied there was a mutiny in the garrison, the one half (of 150) engaged in it, and one Armstrong and two others, leaders in it. He ordered the "long roll" to be beat—which brings the men, without arms, into line on the parade. ”

“ At that time dueling prevailed more or less throughout the United States, and in the South and West to an extent never before or since attained. On the frontier, not only did every man of spirit expect now and then to be called on to engage in a duel, but he also had to make up his mind to take occasional part in bloody street-fights. Tennessee, the state where Benton then had his home, was famous for the affrays that took place within its borders ”

“ Carson, made to Senator Benton; and who, although rejected for a lieutenancy in the United States army because he did not enter it through the gate of the military academy, is a man whose word will stand wherever he is known, and who is at the head, as a guide, of the principal military successes in New Mexico. But why back his word? The very despatches he was carrying conveyed to the government the same information that he gave to General Kearney, to wit, that California was conquered and Frémont to be governor. ”

“ Like every other hot spirit of the West—and the West was full of little but hot spirits—Benton heartily favored the War of 1812. He served as a colonel of volunteers under Jackson, but never saw actual fighting, and his short term of soldiership was of no further account than to furnish an excuse to Polk, thirty-five years later, for nominating him commanding general in the time of the Mexican War,—an incident which, as the nomination was rejected, may be regarded as merely ludicrous, the gross impropriety of the act safely defying criticism. ”

“ At night a strict watch was kept, and twice old Benson went out to reconnoiter.
"The Indians and desperadoes have surrounded us on all sides," he announced. "But it don't look as if they meant to attack us just yet."
With the coming of morning it began to rain, but this cleared away by noon, and then the sun boiled down as fiercely as ever. The sunny spots within the stockade were suffocating, and the boys were glad enough to stay within the cool walls of the stone fort. ”

“ William Bent appears to have been the first of the brothers to go into the Southwestern country to trade for fur, but Charles is said to have gone to Santa Fé as early as 1819, and a little later must have joined William. The two, with Ceran St. Vrain and one of the Chouteaus, established the early trading post near the Arkansas. After occupying this stockade for two years or more, they moved down below Pueblo and built another stockade on the Arkansas. Two years later they began to build the more ambitious post afterward known as Bent’s, or Fort William, or Bent’s Old Fort. ”

“ Why, we have an untrusty, worthless cur-dog in the fort here, that has been named Simon Girty, in compliment to you—he is so like you in every thing that is ugly, wicked and mean. You say you expect reinforcements of artillery. Well, if you stay in this quarter long, I know of no one that will be more likely to need them than yourself and the cowardly cut-throats who call you chief. We too expect reinforcements; for the country is roused in every direction; and if you remain here twenty-four hours longer, the scalps of yourself and companions will be drying on our cabins. ”

“ The great good fortune was, that such a catastrophe did not occur a thousand miles back. It is barely possible it might have defeated the enterprise.
"When within about four days' journey of Bent's Fort," says Gen. Lovejoy, "we met George Bent, a brother of Gen. Bent, with a caravan on his way to Taos. He told us that a party of mountain men would leave Bent's Fort in a few days 119 for St. Louis, but said we could not reach the fort with our pack animals in time to join the party. ”

“ They attack each other. They give and take fierce licks. The great peacemaker himself fares badly—stuck all over with arrows, like the man on the first leaf of the almanac. Here, in our presence, in the very act of consummating the marriage of California with Utah, New Mexico, Texas, the fugacious slaves of the States, and the marketable slaves of this District—in this very act of consummation, as in a certain wedding feast of old, the feast becomes a fight—the festival a combat—and the amiable guests pummel each other. ”