Читать книгу 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve - Страница 7

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In 1821 the regiment moved into the beautiful new fort, although it was by no means completed. The outside wall was up on three sides only, and a heavy guard was stationed on the fourth, not only to prevent desertions, but to keep the Indians, our only neighbors, at a respectful distance. The occupation of the new and comfortable quarters was made an occasion of great rejoicing, an event never forgotten by those who took part in it. Then began our regular fort life, the flag-staff was raised in front of headquarters, the stars and stripes were run up at the roll of the drum at "guard mounting" and lowered with the same accompaniment at retreat day after day, and we children learned to love its graceful folds as it floated on the breeze and to feel no harm could come to us under the "Star Spangled Banner."

The only white people within three hundred miles were shut within that hollow square, a community, dependent largely on each other for all the little every-day kindnesses and amenities which make life enjoyable, having no regular intercourse with the civilized world, except by mail, which at first was received semi-annually, after a while quarterly, and for many years not more frequently than bi-monthly. For a long while it was brought from Prairie du Chien by an Indian on a pony, and there is no record of any unfaithfulness on the part of our dusky carrier. But those who enjoy daily mails know little of the excitement and tearful gratitude of those pioneers at Fort Snelling when the announcement was made, "The mail has arrived." Isolated as we were from the privileges and recreations and distractions of town or city, we were drawn very closely together, were, in fact, like one large family, and news for one was news for all. We really "shared each other's pleasures and wept each other's tears," and there was great rejoicing in the fort over news from "home." I have in my possession a collection of letters from General Gibson, Commissary General of Subsistence, received by my father, which are interesting relics of those eventful years of privation and hardship, of which the soldier of the present day can have but a faint conception.

The first few letters are directed to St. Louis, to be forwarded to the Fifth Regiment, wherever it might be; one or two are in regard to furnishing rations to Indians who may visit the agencies of the United States on business or otherwise, and authorizing the Commissary to issue rations to them on the requisition of the Indian agents. I find here a letter of instruction from the War Department to General Gibson, and insert it, as indicating the policy of the Government in regard to the Indians: