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CHAPTER IV.

SECOND

EXPLORING EXPEDITION-KIT CARSON-MRS. FREMONT WITHHOLDS ORDERS FROM THE WAR DEPARTMENT -COLONEL BENTON'S ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION-DISCOVERS THE INLAND SEA-PERILOUS VOYAGE ISLANDS IN A LINEN BOAT-ARRIVES AT FORT VANCOUVER AND FULFILLS THE INSTRUCTIONS OF HIS GOVERNMENT.

ΤΟ ITS

THE results of Col. Fremont's first expedition were so unexpected, and his success altogether so extraordinary, that his government took no time to deliberate upon the propriety of sending him again into a field of duty, where he made the department of the public service, with which he was connected, appear to so much advantage. He had scarcely seen his maps and report through the press, before he embarked on a second expedition, from the same point on the frontier, but with purposes even more comprehensive than those with which he set out in 1842.

He was instructed to connect the exploration with the surveys of the Pacific coast, by Captain Wilkes, who had commanded the South Sea Exploring Expedition, so as to give a connected survey of the interior of our continent. His party consisted principally of Creole and Canadian French and Americans, amounting in all

to 39 men; among whom were several who accompanied him in his first expedition. Mr. Thomas Fitzpatrick, whom many years of hardship and exposure in the western territories, had rendered familiar with a portion of the country it was designed to explore, had been selected as his guide, and Mr. Charles Preuss, who had been his assistant in the previous journey, was again associated with him in the same capacity.

In compliance with directions from the War Department, Mr. Theodore Talbot, of Washington city, was attached to the party, with a view to advancement in his profession; and at St. Louis he was joined by Mr. Frederick Dwight, a gentleman of Springfield, Massachusetts, who availed himself of this escort, to visit the Sandwich Islands and China, by way of Fort Vancouver.

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The men engaged for the service were: Alexis Ayot, François Badeau, Oliver Beaulieu, Baptiste Bernier, John A. Campbell, John G. Campbell, Manuel Chapman, Ransom Clark, Philibert Courteau, Michel Crélis, William Creuss, Clinton Deforest, Baptiste Derosier, Basil Lajeunesse, François Lajeunesse, Henry Lee, Louis Ménard, Louis Montreuil, Samuel Neal, Alexis Pera, François Pera, James Power, Raphael Proue, Oscar Sarpy, Baptiste Tabeau, Charles Taplin, Baptiste Tesson, Auguste Vasquez, Joseph Verrot, Patrick White, Tiery Wright, Louis Zindel, and Jacob Dodson, a free young colored man of Washington city, who volunteered to accompany the expedition. Two Delaware Indians were engaged to accompany the expedition as hunters. L. Maxwell, who had accompanied the expedition as one of the hunters in 1842, being on his way to Taos, in New Mexico, also joined him. He was subsequently joined by his invaluable friend, Kit Carson, whom he

was so fortunate as to fall in with on the confines of New Mexico.*

The party was armed generally with Hall's carbines, which, with a brass 12-lb. howitzer, had been furnished to

* As Kit Carson figures somewhat extensively in the reports of Col. Fremont, to whom he proved of incalculable service in each of his several exploring expeditions, we submit the following sketch of his life gathered mainly from his own lips.

Christopher Carson was born in Kentucky in the year 1810 or 1811; his father having been one of the early settlers, and also a noted hunter ɩnd Indian fighter. In the year following Kit's birth the family moved to the territory of Missouri. On this frontier, bred to border life, he remained to the age of fifteen, when he joined a trading party to Santa Fe. Instead of returning, Kit found his way by various adventures south, through New Mexico to the Copper mines of Chihuahua, where he passed nine months as a teamster.

When about seventeen he made his first expedition as a trapper on the Rio Colorado of California. The enterprise was successful, though attended with considerable dangers, the Mexicans being even at that early day very jealous of American enterprise. He made good his return to Tao in New Mexico, and soon after joined a trapping party to the head waters of the Arkansas River, whence he went northward to the region of the Rocky Mountains which gives rise to the Mississippi and Columbia rivers, where he remained engaged in the trapping business eight years. He became noted throughout that region and on both sides of the Rocky Mountains, as a successful trapper, an unfailing shot, an unerring guide, and for bravery, sagacity, and steadiness in all circumstances. He was chosen to lead in almost all enterprises of unusual danger, and in all attacks on the Indians. At one time with a party of twelve, he tracked a band of near sixty Crows who had stolen some of the horses belonging to the trappers; cut loose the animals which were tied within ten feet of the strong fort of logs in which the Indians had taken shelter; attacked them and made good his retreat with the recovered horses, an Indian of another party who was with the trappers bringing away a Crow scalp as a trophy. In one combat with the Blackfeet Indians, Carson received a rifle ball which broke his left shoulder. Save this, he escaped the manifold dangers to which he was exposed without serious bodily injury.

Of course in so turbulent and unrestrained a life, where there were no

him from the United States Arsenal at St. Louis, agreeably to the orders of Col. S. W. Kearney, commanding the third military division. We are thus particular in mentioning this piece of ordnance for reasons which

laws and no prisons, there were not unfrequent personal rencontres amongst the trappers, nor could the most peaceably disposed always avoid them. On one occasion a Frenchman who ranked as a bully, and had whipped a good many Canadians, insulted the Americans by saying they were only fit to be whipped with switches. Carson resented this instantly by saying that he was the most trifling one among the Americans, and that the braggart had better begin with him. After exchanging a few more words, each went away and armed himself, Carson with a pistol, the Frenchman with a rifle, and both mounted for the fight. Riding up until the horses' heads nearly touched-both fired almost at the same instant. Carson was a little the quickest, however, and his ball passing through the Frenchman's head, made him jerk up his gun, and sent the ball, which was intended for Carson's heart, grazing by his left eye and singeing his hair. This is, he says, the only serious personal quarrel he ever had.

Col. Fremont owed his good fortune in procuring Carson's services to an accidental meeting on board the steamboat above St. Louis, neither having ever heard of the other before, as he was setting out on his first expedition. Carson remained with him until he recrossed the mountains. His courage, fidelity, and excellent character, so completely won the heart of his commander that in his second expedition he was glad to avail himself of Kit's services, on falling in with him as he chanced to do on the confines of New Mexico. Kit again left the party on its arrival this side of the mountains-not however, until Fremont had obtained a promise from him to join the third expedition in case one should be organized, a promise which he faithfully kept under circumstances calculated to test his devotion to his late commander. In the interim between the second and third expeditions, Carson had settled himself near Taos and had begun to farm, preparing to lead a quiet life, when he received a note from Fremont, written at Bent's Fort reminding him of his promise and telling him that he waited there for him. In four days from the receipt of this note, Carson joined the party, having sold house and farm for less than half the sum he had first expended on it, and put his family under the protection of a friend, the late Gov. Bent, until he should return from a certainly long and dangerous journey. This pro

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