THE STORY OF THE PONY
EXPRESS
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION ACROSS THE PLAINS
THE TELEGRAPH, THE OVERLAND STAGE, THE EMIGRANT TRAIN, AND THE PONY
EXPRESS RIDER
THE STORY OF
THE PONY EXPRESS
An account of the most remarkable mail service
ever in existence, and its place
in history
BY
GLENN D. BRADLEY
Author of Winning the Southwest
ILLUSTRATED
FOURTH EDITION
CHICAGO
A, C. McCLURG & CO
1023
A. C, McCLURG & COo
1913
)¥. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, OHIOAGi
TO MY PARENTS
PREFACE
This little volume has but one purpose
— to give an authentic, useful, and read¬
able account of the Pony Express. This
wonderful enterprise played an important
part in history, and demonstrated what
American spirit can accomplish. It showed
that the " heroes of sixty-one " were not
all south of Mason and Dixon's line fight¬
ing each other. And, strange to say, little
of a formal nature has been written con¬
cerning it.
I have sought to bring to light and make
accessible to all readers the more important
facts of the Pony Express — its inception,
organization and development, its im¬
portance to history, its historical back-
PREFACE
ground, and some of the anecdotes inci¬
dental to its operation.
The subject leads one into a wide range
of fascinating material, all interesting
though much of it is irrelevant. In it¬
self this material is fragmentary and in¬
coherent. It would be quite easy to fill
many pages with western adventure having
no special bearing upon the central topic.
While I have diverged occasionally from
the thread of the narrative, my purpose
has been merely to give where possible
more background to the story, that the
account as a whole might be more under¬
standable in its relation to the general facts
of history.
Special acknowledgment is due Frank
A. Root of Topeka, Kansas, joint author
with William E. Connelley of 'The Over¬
land Stage To California^ an excellent
compendium of data on many phases of
PEEFACE
the subject. In preparing this work, va¬
rious Senate Documents have been of great
value. Some interesting material is found
in Inman and Cody's Salt Lake 'trail.
The files of the Century Magazine, old
newspaper files, Bancroft's colossal history
of the West and the works of Samuel L.
Clemens have also been of value in com¬
piling the present book.
G. D. B.
CONTENTS
chapter page
I At a Nation's Crisis. . » i
II Inception and Organiza¬
tion of the Pony Express 9
III The First Trip and Triumph 28
IV Operation, Equipment, and
Business 52
V California and the Seces¬
sion Menace 74
VI Riders and Famous Rides. . . 100
VII Anecdotes of the Trail and
Honor Roll i2i
VIII Early O v e r l and Mail
Routes 138
IX Passing of the Pony Ex¬
press 165
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Transportation and communication across
the plains Frontispiece
whiz and a hail, and the swift phan¬
tom of the desert was gone." , . , y2
THE STORY OF THE
PONY EXPRESS
CHAPTER I
AT A nation'S CRISIS
The Pony Express was the first rapid
transit and the first fast mail line
across the continent from the Missouri
River to the Pacific Coast. It was a sys¬
tem by means of which messages were car¬
ried swiftly on horseback across the plains
and deserts, and over the mountains of the
far West. It brought the Atlantic coast
and the Pacific slope ten days nearer to
each other.
It had a brief existence of only sixteen
months and was supplanted by the trans¬
continental telegraph. Yet it was of the
2 THE PONY EXPRESS
greatest importance in binding the East
and West together at a time when over¬
land travel was slow and cumbersome, and
when a great national crisis made the
rapid communication of news between
these sections an imperative necessity.
The Pony Express marked the highest
development in overland travel prior to
the coming of the Pacific railroad, which
it preceded nine years. It, in fact, proved
the feasibility of a transcontinental road
and demonstrated that such a line could
be built and operated continuously the
year around — a feat that had always
been regarded as impossible.
The operation of the Pony Express
was a supreme achievement of physical
endurance on the part of man and his
ever faithful companion, the horse. The
history of this organization should be a
lasting monument to the physical sacri-
A.T A NATION'S CRISIS 3
fice of man and beast in an effort to ac¬
complish something worth while. Its
history should be an enduring tribute to
American courage and American organ¬
izing genius.
The fall of Fort Sumter in April, 1861,
did not produce the Civil War crisis. For
many months, the gigantic struggle then
imminent, had been painfully discernible
to far-seeing men. In 1858, Lincoln had
forewarned the country in his " House
Divided " speech. As early as the begin¬
ning of the year i860 the Union had
been plainly in jeopardy. Early in Feb¬
ruary of that momentous year, Jefferson
Davis, on behalf of the South, had intro¬
duced his famous resolutions in the Sen¬
ate of the United States. This document
was the ultimatum of the dissatisfied slave-
holding commonwealths. It demanded
that Congress should protect slavery
4 THE PONY EXPRESS
throughout the domain of the United
States. The territories, it declared, were
the common property of the states of the
Union and hence open to the citizens of
all states with all their personal posses¬
sions. The Northern states, furthermore,
were no longer to interfere with the work¬
ing of the Fugitive Slave Act. They must
repeal their Personal Liberty laws and
respect the Dred Scott Decision of the
Federal Supreme Court. Neither in
their own legislatures nor in Congress
should they trespass upon the right of the
South to regulate slavery as it best saw fit.
These resolutions, demanding in effect
that slavery be thus safeguarded — al¬
most to the extent of introducing it into
the free states — really foreshadowed the
Democratic platform of i860 which led
to the great split in that party, the victory
of the Republicans under Lincoln, the sub-
AT A NATION'S CRISIS 5
sequent secession of the more radical
southern states, and finally the Civil War,
for it was inevitable that the North, when
once aroused, would bitterly resent such
pro-slavery demands.
And this great crisis was only the burst¬
ing into flame of many smaller fires that
had long been smoldering. For genera¬
tions the two sections had been drifting
apart. Since the middle of the seven¬
teenth century. Mason and Dixon's line
had been a line of real division separating
two inherently distinct portions of the
country.
By i860, then, war was inevitable.
Naturally, the conflict would at once
present intricate military problems, and
among them the retention of the Pacific
Coast was of the deepest concern to the
Union. Situated at a distance of nearly
two thousand miles from the Missouri
6 THE PONY EXPRESS
river which was then the nation's western
frontier, this intervening space comprised
trackless plains, almost impenetrable
ranges of snow-capped mountains, and
parched alkali deserts. And besides these
barriers of nature which lay between the
West coast and the settled eastern half of
the country, there were many fierce tribes
of savages who were usually on the alert
to oppose the movements of the white race
through their dominions.
California, even then, was the jewel of
the Pacific. Having a considerable popu¬
lation, great natural wealth, and unsur¬
passed climate and fertility, she was
jealously desired by both the North and
the South.
To the South, the acquisition of Cali¬
fornia meant enhanced prestige — involv¬
ing, as it would, the occupation of a
large area whose soils and climate might
AT A NATION'S CRISIS 7
encourage the perpetuation of slavery; it
meant a rich possession which would afford
her a strategic base for waging war against
her northern foe; it meant a romantic field
in which opportunity might be given to
organize an allied republic of the Pacific,
a power which would, perchance, forcibly
absorb the entire Southwest and a large
section of Northern Mexico. By thus
creating counter forces the South would
effectively block the Federal Government
on the western half of the continent.
The North also desired the prestige that
would come from holding California as
well as the material strength inherent in
the state's valuable resources. Moreover
to hold this region would give the North a
base of operations to check her opponent
in any campaign of aggression in the far
West, should the South presume such an
attempt. And the possession of California
8 THE PONY EXPRESS
would also offer to the North the very best
means of protecting the Western frontier,
one of the Union's most vulnerable points
of attack.
It was with such vital conditions that
the Pony Express was identified ; it was in
retaining California for the Union, and in
helping incidentally to preserve the Union,
that the Express became an important
factor in American history.
Not to mention the romance, the unsur¬
passed courage, the unflinching endurance,
and the wonderful exploits which the
routine operations of the Pony Express
involved, its identity with problems of
nation-wide and world-wide importance
make its story seem worth telling. And
with its romantic existence and its place in
history the succeeding pages of this book
will briefly deal.
CHAPTER II
INCEPTION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE
PONY EXPRESS
Following the discovery of gold in
California in January 1848, that re¬
gion sprang into immediate prominence.
From all parts of the country and the re¬
mote corners of the earth came the famous
Forty-niners. Amid the chaos of a great
mining camp the Anglo-Saxon love of law
and order soon asserted itself. Civil and
religious institutions quickly arose, and, in
the summer of 1850, a little more than a
year after the big rush had started, Cali¬
fornia entered the Union as a free state.
The boom went on and the census of
i860 revealed a population of 380,000 in
the new commonwealth. And when to
9
10 THE PONY EXPRESS
these figures were added those of Oregon
and Washington Territory, an aggregate
of 444,000 citizens of the United States
were found to be living on the Pacific
Slope. Crossing the Sierras eastward and
into the Great Basin, 47,000 more were
located in the Territories of Nevada and
Utah,— thus making a grand total of
nearly a half million people beyond the
Rocky Mountains in i860. And these
figures did not include Indians nor Chinese.
Without reference to any military phase
of the problem, this detached population
obviously demanded and deserved adequate
mail and transportation facilities. How
to secure the quickest and most depend¬
able communication with the populous
sections of the East had long been a serious
proposition. Private corporations and
Congress had not been wholly insensible
to the needs of the West. Subsidized stage
ORGANIZATION 11
routes had for some years been in opera¬
tion, and by the close of 1858 several lines
were well-equipped and doing much
business over the so-called Southern and
Central routes. Perhaps the most com¬
mon route for sending mail from the East
to the Pacific Coast was by steamship from
New York to Panama where it was un¬
loaded, hurried across the Isthmus, and
again shipped by water to San Francisco.
All these lines of traffic were slow and
tedious, a letter in any case requiring from
three to four weeks to reach its destination.
The need of a more rapid system of com¬
munication between the East and West at
once became apparent and it was to supply
this need that the Pony Express really
came into existence.
The story goes that in the autumn of
1854, United States Senator William
Gwin of California was making an over-
12 THE PONY EXPRESS
land trip on horseback from San Francisco
to Washington, D. C. He was following
the Central route via Salt Lake and South
Pass, and during a portion of his journey
he had for a traveling companion, Mr. B.
F. Ficklin, then General Superintendent
for the big freighting and stage firm of
Russell, Majors, and Waddell of Leaven¬
worth. Ficklin, it seems, was a resource¬
ful and progressive man, and had long
been engaged in the overland transporta¬
tion business. He had already conceived
an idea for establishing a much closer
transit service between the Missouri river
and the Coast, but, as is the case with
many innovators, had never gained a
serious hearing. He had the traffic agent's
natural desire to better the existing service
in the territory which his line served ; and
he had the ambition of a loyal employee
to put into effect a plan that would bring
ORGANIZATION IS
added honor and preferment to his firm.
In addition to possessing these worthy
ideals, it is perhaps not unfair to state
that Ficklin was personally ambitious.
Nevertheless, Ficklin confided his
scheme enthusiastically to Senator Gwin,
at the same time pointing out the benefits
that would accrue to California should it
ever be put into execution. The Senator
at once saw the merits of the plan and
quickly caught the contagion. Not only
was he enough of a statesman to appreciate
the worth of a fast mail line across the
continent, but he was also a good enough
politician to realize that his position with
his constituents and the country at large
might be greatly strengthened were he to
champion the enactment of a popular
measure that would encourage the build¬
ing of such a line through the aid of a
Federal subsidy.
14 THE PONY EXPRESS
So in January, 1855, Gwin introduced
in the Senate a bill which proposed to
establish a weekly letter express service
between St. Louis and San Francisco. The
express was to operate on a ten-day sched¬
ule, follow the Central Route, and was to
receive a compensation not exceeding
$500.00 for each round trip. This bill
was referred to the Committee on Military
Affairs where it was quietly tabled and
" killed."
For the next five years the attention of
Congress was largely taken up with the
anti-slavery troubles that led to secession
and war. Although the people of the
West, and the Pacific Coast in particular,
continued to agitate the need of a new and
quick through mail service, for a long time
little was done. It has been claimed that
southern representatives in Congress during
the decade before the war managed to pre-
ORGANIZATION 15
vent any legislation favorable to overland
mail routes running North of the slave-
holding states ; and that they concentrated
their strength to render government aid to
the southern routes whenever possible.
At that time there were three generally
recognized lines of mail trafRc, of which
the Panama line was by far the most im¬
portant. Next came the so-called southern
or " Butterfield " route which started from
St. Louis and ran far to the southward,
entering California from the extreme
southeast corner of the state; a goodly
amount of mail being sent in this direction.
The Central route followed the Platte
River into Wyoming and reached Sacra¬
mento via Salt Lake City, almost from a
due easterly direction. On account of its
location this route or trail could be easily
controlled by the North in case of war.
It had received very meagre support from
16 THE PONY EXPRESS
the Government, and carried as a rule, only
local mail. While the most direct route
to San Francisco, it had been rendered the
least important. This was not due solely
to Congressional manipulation. Because
of its northern latitude and the numerous
high mountain ranges it traversed, this
course was often blockaded with deep
snows and was generally regarded as ex¬
tremely difficult of access during the winter
months.
While a majority of the people of Cali¬
fornia were loyal to the Union, there was
a vigorous minority intensely in sympathy
with the southern cause and ready to con¬
spire for, or bring about by force of arms
if necessary, the secession of their state. As
the Civil War became more and more im¬
minent, it became obvious to Union men
in both East and West that the existing
lines of communication were untrust-
ORGANIZATION 17
worthy. Just as soon as trouble should
start, the Confederacy could, and most
certainly would, gain control of the south¬
ern mail routes. Once in control, she could
isolate the Pacific coast for many months
and thus enable her sympathizers there
the more effectually to perfect their plans
of secession. Or she might take advantage
of these lines of travel, and, by striking
swiftly and suddenly, organize and rein¬
force her followers in California, in¬
timidate the Unionists, many of whom
were apathetic, and by a single bold stroke
snatch the prize away from her antagonist
before the latter should have had time to
act.
To avert this crisis some daring and
original plan of communication had to be
organized to keep the East and West in
close contact with each other; and the
Pony Express was the fulfillment of such a
18 THE PONY EXPRESS
plan, for it made a ciose cooperation be¬
tween the California loyalists and the
Federal Government possible until after
the crisis did pass. Yet, strange as it may
seem, this providential enterprise was not
brought into existence nor even materially
aided by the Government. It was organ¬
ized and operated by a private corporation
after having been encouraged in its incep¬
tion by a United States Senator who later
turned traitor to his country.
It finally happened that in the winter
of 1859-60, Mr. William Russell, senior
partner of the firm of Russell, Majors, and
Waddell, was called to Washington in con¬
nection with some Government freight
contracts. While there he chanced to be¬
come acquainted with Senator Gwin who,
having been aroused, as we have seen,
several years before, by one of the firm's
subordinates, at once brought before Mr»
ORGANIZATION 19
Russell the need of better mail connections
over the Central route, and of the especial
need of better communication should war
occur.
Russell at once awoke to the situation.
While a loyal citizen and fully alive to the
strategic importance which the matter in¬
volved, he also believed that he saw a good
business opening. Could his firm but
grasp the opportunity, and demonstrate
the possibility of keeping the Central route
open during the winter months, and could
they but lower the schedule of the Panama
line, a Government contract giving them
a virtual monopoly in carrying the trans¬
continental mail might eventually be
theirs.
He at once hurried West, and at Fort
Leavenworth met his partners, Messrs.
Majors and Waddell, to whom he con¬
fidently submitted the new proposition.
20 THE PONY EXPRESS
Much to Russell's chagrin, these gentle¬
men were not elated over the plan. While
passively interested, they keenly foresaw
the great cost which a year around over¬
land fast mail service wotild involve.
They were unable to see any chance of the
enterprise paying expenses, to say nothing
of profits. But Russell, with cheerful
optimism, contended that while the project
might temporarily be a losing venture, it
would pay out in time. He asserted that
the opportunity of making good with a
hard undertaking — one that had been
held impossible of realization — would be
a strong asset to the firm's reputation. He
also declared that in his conversation with
Gwin he had already committed their com¬
pany to the undertaking, and he did not
see how they could, with honor and propri¬
ety, evade the responsibility of attempting
it. Knowledge of the last mentioned fact
ORGANIZATION 21
at once enlisted the support or his partners.
Probably no firm has ever surpassed in
integrity that of Russell, Majors, and
Waddell, famous throughout the West in
the freighting and mail business before the
advent of railroads in that section of the
country. With these men, the verbal
promise of one of their number was a bind¬
ing guarantee and as sacredly respected as
a bonded obligation. Finding themselves
thus committed, they at once began
preparations with tremendous activity.
All this happened early in the year i860.
The first step was to form a corporation,
the more adequately to conduct the enter¬
prise; and to that end the Central Over¬
land California and Pike's Peak Express
Company was organized under a charter
granted b}^ the Territory of Kansas. Be¬
sides the three original members of the
firm, the incorporators included General
22 THE PONY EXPRESS
Superintendent B. F. Ficklin, together
with F. A. Bee, W. W. Finney, and John
S. Jones, all tried and trustworthy stage
employees who were retained on account
of their wide experience in the overland
traffic business. The new concern then
took over the old stage line from Atchison
to Salt Lake City and purchased the mail
route and outfit then operating between
Salt Lake City and Sacramento. The
latter, which had been running a monthly
round trip stage between these terminals,
was known as the West End Division of
the Central Route, and was called the
Chorpenning line.
Besides conducting the Pony Express,
the corporation aimed to continue a large
passenger and freighting business, so it
next absorbed the Leavenworth and Pike's
Peak Express Co., which had been organ¬
ized a year previously and had maintained
ORGANIZATION 23
a daily stage between Leavenworth and
Denver, on the Smoky Hill River
Route.
By mutual agreement, Mr. Russell
assumed managerial charge of the Eastern
Division of the Pony Express line which
lay between St. Joseph and Salt Lake City.
Ficklin was stationed at Salt Lake City,
the middle point, in a similar capacity.
Finney was made Western manager with
headquarters at San Francisco. These
men now had to revise the route to be
traversed, equip it with relay or relief sta¬
tions which must be provisioned for men
and horses, hire dependable men as station-
keepers and riders, and buy high grade
horses* or ponies for the entire course,
♦While always called the Pony Express, there
were many blooded horses as well as ponies in the
service. The distinction between these types of ani¬
mals is of course well known to the average reader.
Probably "Pony^' Express "sounded better" than
THE PONY EXPRESS
nearly two thousand miles in extent. Be¬
tween St. Joseph and Salt Lake City, the
company had its old stage route which was
already well supplied with stations. West
of Salt Lake the old Chorpenning route
had been poorly equipped, which made it
necessary to erect new stations over much
of this course of more than seven hundred
miles. The entire line of travel had to be
altered in many places, in some instances
to shorten the distance, and in others, to
avoid as much as possible, wild places
where Indians might easily ambush the
riders.
The management was fortunate in
having the assistance of expert subor¬
dinates. A. B. Miller of Leavenworth, a
noteworthy employe of the original firm,
any other name for the service, hence the adoption
of this name by the firm and the public at large. This
book will use the words horse and pony indiscrimi¬
nately.
ORGANIZATION 25
was invaluable in helping to formulate the
general plans of organization. At Salt
Lake City, Ficklin secured the services of
J. C. Brumley, resident agent of the com¬
pany, whose vast knowledge of the route
and the country that it covered enabled
him quickly to work out a schedule, and to
ascertain with remarkable accuracy the
number of relay and supply stations, their
best location, and also the number of
horses and men needed. At Carson City,
Nevada, Bolivar Roberts, local superin¬
tendent of the Western Division, hired
upwards of sixty riders, cool-headed nervy
men, hardened by years of life in the open.
Horses were purchased throughout the
West. They were the best that money
could buy and ranged from tough Cali¬
fornia cayuses or mustangs to thorough¬
bred stock from Iowa. They were bought
at an average figure of $200.00 each, a
26 THE PONY EXPRESS
high price in those days. The men were
the pick of the frontier; no more expressive
description of their qualities can be given.
They were hired at salaries varying from
$50.00 to $150.00 per month, the riders
receiving the highest pay of any below
executive rank. When fully equipped,
the line comprised 190 stations, about
420 horses, 400 station men and assistants
and eighty riders. These are approximate
figures, as they varied slightly from time
to time..
Perfecting these plans and assembling
this array of splendid equipment had been
no easy task, yet so well had the organizers
understood their business, and so persist¬
ently, yet quietly, had they worked, that
they accomplished their purpose and made
ready within two months after the project
had been launched. The public was
scarcelv aware of what was going on until
ORGANIZATION 27
conspicuous advertisements announced
the Pony Express. It was planned to
open the line early in April.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH
ON MARCH 265 i860, there appeared
simultaneously in the St. Louis Re¬
public and the New Tork Herald the fol¬
lowing notice :
To San Francisco in 8 days by the Central
Overland California and Pike's Peak Express
Company. The first courier of the Pony Ex¬
press will leave the Missouri River on Tues¬
day April 3rd at 5 o'clock P. M. and will run
regularly weekly hereafter, carrying a letter
mail only. The point of departure on the
Missouri River will be in telegraphic connec¬
tion with the East and will be announced in
due time.
Telegraphic messages from all parts of the
United States and Canada in connection with
the point of departure will be received up to 5
o'clock P. M. of the day of leaving and trans¬
mitted over the Placerville and St. Joseph
28
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 29
telegraph wire to San Francisco and inter¬
mediate points by the connecting express, in
8 days.
The letter mail will be delivered in San
Francisco in ten days from the departure of the
Express. The Express passes through Forts
Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, Great Salt Lake
City, Camp Floyd, Carson City, The Washoe
Silver Mines, Placerville, and Sacramento.
Letters for Oregon, Washington Territory,
British Columbia, the Pacific Mexican ports,
Russian Possessions, Sandwich Islands, China,
Japan and India will be mailed in San
Francisco.
Special messengers, bearers of letters to con¬
nect with the express the 3rd of April, will
receive communications for the courier of that
day at No. 481 Tenth St., Washington City,
up to 2 .*45 P. M. on Friday, March 30, and in
New York at the office of J. B. Simpson, Room
No. 8, Continental Bank Building, Nassau
Street, up to 6:30 A. M. of March 31.
Full particulars can be obtained on applica¬
tion at the àbove places and from the agents
of the Company.
This sudden announcement of the long
desired fast mail route aroused great
30 THE PONY EXPRESS
enthusiasm in the West and especially in
St. Joseph, Missouri, Salt Lake City, and
the cities of California, where preparations
to celebrate the opening of the line were
at once begun. Slowly the time passed,
until the afternoon of the eventful day,
April 3rd, that was to mark the first step
in annihilating distance between the East
and West. A great crowd had assembled
on the streets of St. Joseph, Missouri.
Flags were flying and a brass band added
to the jubilation. The Hannibal and St.
Joseph Railroad had arranged to run a
special train into the city, bringing the
through mail from connecting points in
the East. Everybody was anxious and
excited. At last the shrill whistle of a
locomotive was heard, and the train
rumbled in — on time. The pouches were
rushed to the post office where the express
mail was made ready.
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 31
The people now surge about the old
" Pike's Peak Livery Stables," just South
of Pattee Park. All are hushed with sub¬
dued expectancy. As the moment of de¬
parture approaches, the doors swing open
and a spirited horse is led out. Nearby,
closely inspecting the animal's equipment
is a wiry little man scarcely twenty years
old.
Time to go ! Everybody back ! A pause
of seconds, and a cannon booms in the
distance — the starting signal. The rider
leaps to his saddle and starts. In less than
a minute he is at the post office where the
letter pouch, square in shape with four
padlocked pockets, is awaiting him. Dis¬
mounting only long enough for this pouch
to be thrown over his saddle, he again
springs to his place and is gone. A short
sprint and he has reached the Missouri
River wharf. A ferry boat under a full
32 THE PONY EXPRESS
head of steam is waiting. With scarcely
checked speed, the horse thunders onto
the deck of the craft. A rumbling of
machinery, the jangle of a bell, the sharp
toot of a whistle and the boat has
swung clear and is headed straight for
the opposite shore. The crowd behind
breaks into tumultuous applause. Some
scream themselves hoarse; others are
strangely silent; and some — strong men
— are moved to tears.
The noise of the cheering multitude
grows faint as the Kansas shore draws near.
The engines are reversed; a swish of water,
and the craft grates against the dock.
Scarcely has the gang plank been lowered
than horse and rider dash over it and are off
at a furious gallop. Away on the jet black
steed goes Johnnie Frey, -the first rider,
with the mail that must be hurled by flesh
and blood over i,g66 miles of desolate
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 33
space — across the plains, through North¬
eastern Kansas and into Nebraska, up the
valley of the Platte, across the Great
Plateau, into the foothills and over the
summit of the Rockies, into the arid Great
Basin, over the Wahsatch range, into the
valley of Great Salt Lake, through the
terrible alkali deserts of Nevada, through
the parched Sink of the Carson River, over
the snowy Sierras, and into the Sacra¬
mento Valley — the mail must go without
delay. Neither storms, fatigue, darkness,
rugged mountains, burning deserts, nor
savage Indians were to hinder this pouch
of letters. The mail must go; and its
schedule, incredible as it seemed, must be
made. It was a sublime undertaking, than
which few have ever put the fibre of Amer¬
icans to a severer test.
The managers of the Central Overland,
California and Pike's Peak Express Com-
Sé THE PONY EXPRESS
pany had laid their plans well. Horses
and riders for fresh relays, together with
station agents and helpers, were ready and
waiting at the appointed places, ten or fif¬
teen miles apart over the entire course.
There was no guess-work or delay.
After crossing the Missouri River, out
of St. Joseph, the official route^ of the
west-bound Pony Express ran at first west
and south through Kansas to Kennekuk;
then northwest, across the Kickapoo Indian
reservation, to Granada, Log Chain, Sen¬
eca, Ash Point, Guittards, Marysville, and
Hollenberg. Here the valley of the Little
Blue River was followed, still in a north¬
west direction. The trail crossed into
Nebraska near Rock Creek and pushed on
through Big Sandy and Liberty Farm, to
Thirty-two-mile Creek. From thence it
*Root and Connelley's Overland Stage to Cali¬
fornia.
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 35
passed over the prairie divide to the Platte
River, the valley of which was followed
to Fort Kearney. This route had already
been made famous by the Mormons when
they journeyed to Utah in 1847. It had
also been followed by many of the Cali¬
fornia gold-seekers in 1848-49 and by
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and his army
when they marched west from Fort
Leavenworth to suppress the " Mormon
War " of 1857-58.
For about three hundred miles out of
Fort Kearney, the trail followed the prai¬
ries; for two thirds of this distance, it
clung to the south bank of the Platte, pass¬
ing through Plum Creek and Midway.*
At Cottonwood Springs the junction of the
North and South branches of the Platte
was reached. From here the course moved
* So called because it was about half way between
the Missouri River and Denver.
36 THE PONY EXPRESS
steadily westward, through Fremont's
Springs, O'Fallon's Bluffs, Alkali, Beau-
vais Ranch, and Diamond Springs to
Julesburg, on the South fork of the Platte.
Here the stream was forded and the rider
then followed the course of Lodge Pole
Creek in a northwesterly direction to
Thirty Mile Ridge. Thence he journeyed
to Mud Springs, Court-House Rock,
Chimney Rock, and Scott's Bluffs to Fort
Laramie. From this point he passed
through the foot-hills to the base of the
Rockies, then over the mountains through
South Pass and to Fort Bridger. Then to
Salt Lake City, Camp Floyd, Ruby Val¬
ley, Mountain Wells, across the Humboldt
River in Nevada to Bisbys', Carson City,
and to Placerville, California; thence to
Folsom and Sacramento. Here the mail
was taken by a fast steamer down the
Sacramento River to San Francisco.
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 37
A large part of this route traversed the
wildest regions of the Continent. Along
the entire course there were but four mili¬
tary posts and they were strung along at
intervals of from two hundred and fifty
to three hundred and fifty miles from each
other. Over most of the journey there
were only small way stations to break the
awful monotony. Topographically, the
trail covered nearly six hundred miles of
rolling prairie, intersected here and there
by streams fringed with timber. The na¬
ture of the mountainous regions, the des¬
erts, and alkali plains as avenues of
horseback travel is well understood.
Throughout these areas the men and
horses had to endure such risks as rocky
chasms, snow slides, and treacherous
streams, as well as storms of sand and
snow. The worst part of the journey lay
between Salt Lake City and Sacramento,
38 THE PONY EXPRESS
where for several hundred miles the route
ran through a desert, much of it a bed of
alkali dust where no living creature could
long survive. It was not merely these dan¬
gers of dire exposure and privation that
threatened, for wherever the country per¬
mitted of human life, Indians abounded.
From the Platte River valley westward,
the old route sped over by the Pony Ex¬
press is today substantially that of the
Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Rail¬
roads.
In California, the region most benefited
by the express, the opening of the line was
likewise awaited with the keenest anticipa¬
tion. Of course there had been at the
outset a few dissenting opinions, the gist
of the opposing sentiment being that the
Indians would make the operation of the
route impossible. One newspaper went so
far as to say that it was " Simply inviting
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 39
slaughter upon all the foolhardy young
men who had been engaged as riders
But the California spirit would not down.
A vast majority of the people favored the
enterprise and clamored for it; and before
the express had been long in operation, all
classes were united in the conviction that
they could not do without it.
At San Francisco and Sacramento, then
the two most important towns in the far
West, great preparations were made to
celebrate the first outgoing and incoming
mails. On April 3rd, at the same hour the
express started from St. Joseph,* the east-
bound mail was placed on board a
steamer at San Francisco and sent up the
river, accompanied by an enthusiastic
delegation of business men. On the arrival
of the pouch and its escort at Sacramento,
* Reports as to the precise hour of starting do not
all agree. It was probably late in the afternoon or
early in the evening, no later than 6:3o.
40 THE PONY EXPRESS
the capital city, they were greeted with
the blare of bands, the firing of guns, and
the clanging of gongs. Flags were
unfurled and floral decorations lined the
streets. That night the first rider for the
East, Harry Roff, left the city on a white
broncho. He rode the first twenty miles
in fifty-nine minutes, changing mounts
once. He next took a fresh horse at Fol-
som and pushed on fifty-five miles farther
to Placerville. Here he was relieved by
Boston," who carried the mail to Friday
Station, crossing the Sierras en route.
Next came Sam Hamilton who rode
through. Geneva, Carson City, Dayton,
and Reed's Station to Fort Churchill, sev¬
enty-five miles in all. This point, one
hundred and eighty-five miles out of Sac¬
ramento had been reached in fifteen hours
and twenty minutes, in spite of the Sierra
Divide where the snow drifts were thirty
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 41
feet deep and where the Company had to
keep a drove of pack mules moving in
order to keep the passageway clear. From
Fort Churchill into Ruby Valley went
H. J. Faust; from Ruby Valley to Shell
Creek the courier was "Josh" Perkins;
then came Jim Gentry who carried the mail
to Deep Creek, and he was followed by
" Let " Huntington who pushed on to
Simpson's Springs. From Simpson's to
Camp Floyd rode John Fisher, and from
the latter place Major Egan carried the
mail into Salt Lake City, arriving April 7,
at 11145 P. The obstacles to fast
travel had been numerous because of
snow in the mountains, and stormy spring
weather with its attendant discomfort
and bad going. Yet the schedule had
been maintained, and the last seventy-five
* Authorities differ somewhat as to the personnel
of the first trip; also as to the number of letters
carried.
42 THE PONY EXPRESS
miles into Salt Lake City had been ridden
in five hours and fifteen minutes.
At that time Placerville and Carson
City were the terminals of a local telegraph
line. News had been flashed back from
Carson on April 4 that the rider had passed
that point safely. After that came an
anxious wait until April 12 when the
arrival of the west-bound express an¬
nounced that all was well.
The first trip of the Pony Express west¬
bound from St. Joseph to Sacramento was
made in nine days and twenty-three hours.
East-bound, the run was covered in eleven
days and twelve hours. The average time
of these two performances was barely half
that required by the Butterfield stage over
the Southern route. The pony had
clipped ten full days from the schedule of
its predecessor, and shown that it could
keep its schedule — which was as follows :
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 43
From St. Joseph to Salt Lake City —
124 hours.
From Salt Lake City to Carson City
'—218 hours, from starting point.
From Carson City to Sacramento — 232
hours, from starting point.
From Sacramento to San Francisco —
240 hours, from starting point.
From the very first trip, expressions of
genuine appreciation of the new service
were shown all along the line. The first
express which reached Salt Lake City east-
bound on the night of April 7, led the
Deseret News, the leading paper of that
town to say that: " Although a telegraph
is very desirable, we feel well-satisfied
with this achievement for the present".
Two days later, the first west-bound ex¬
press bound from St. Joseph reached the
Mormon capital. Oddly enough this
rider carried news of an act to amend a
44 THE PONY EXPRESS
bill just proposed in the United States
Senate, providing that Utah be organized
into Nevada Territory under the name
and leadership of the latter."^ Many of
the Mormons, like numerous persons in
California, had at first believed the Pony
Express an impossibility, but now that it
had been demonstrated wholly feasible,
they were delighted with its success,
whether it brought them good news or bad ;
for it had brought Utah within six days of
the Missouri River and within seven days
of Washington City. Prior to this, under
the old stage coach régime, the people of
that territory had been accustomed to
receive their news of the world from six
weeks to three months old.
* On account of the Mormon outbreak and the
troubles of 1857-58, there was at this time much ill-
feeling in Congress against Utah. Matters were
finally smoothed out and the bill in question was of
course dropped. Utah was loyal to the Union
throughout the Civil War.
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 45
Probably no greater demonstrations
were ever held in California cities than
when the first incoming express arrived.
Its schedule having been announced in the
daily papers a week ahead, the people
were ready with their welcome. At Sacra¬
mento, as when the pony mail had first
come up from San Francisco, practically
the whole town turned out. Stores were
closed and business everywhere suspended.
State officials and other citizens of promi-
nence addressed great crowds in com¬
memoration of the wonderful achieve¬
ment. Patriotic airs were played and sung
and no attempt was made to check the
merry-making of the populace. After a
hurried stop to deliver local mail, the
pouch was rushed aboard the fast sailing
steamer Antelope^ and the trip down the
stream begun. Although San Francisco
was not reached until the dead of night,
46 THE PONY EXPRESS
the arrival of the express mail was the sig¬
nal for a hilarious reception. Whistles
were blown, bells jangled, and the Cali¬
fornia Band turned out. The city fire de¬
partment, suddenly aroused by the uproar,
rushed into the street, expecting to find a
conflagration, but on recalling the true
state of affairs, the firemen joined in with
spirit. The express courier was then
formally escorted by a huge procession
from the steamship dock to the office of
the Alta 'íelegraph, the official Western
terminal, and the momentous trip had
ended.
The first Pony Express from St. Joseph
brought a message of congratulation from
President Buchanan to Governor Downey
of California, which was first telegraphed
to the Missouri River town. It also
brought one or two official government
communications, some New York, Chi-
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 47
cago, and St. Louis newspapers, a few
bank drafts, and some business letters ad¬
dressed to banks and commercial houses in
San Francisco — about eighty-five pieces
of mail in all.* And it had brought news
from the East only nine days on the road.
At the outset, the Express reduced the
time for letters from New York to the
Coast from twenty-three days to about ten
days. Before the line had been placed in
operation, a telegraph wire, allusion to
which has been made, had been strung
two hundred and fifty miles Eastward
from San Francisco through Sacramento to
Carson City, Nevada. Important official
business from Washington was therefore
wired to St. Joseph, then forwarded by
pony rider to Carson City where it was
again telegraphed to Sacramento or San
* Eastbound the first rider carried about seventy
letters.
48 THE PONY EXPRESS
Francisco as the case required, thus saving
twelve or fifteen hours in transmission on
the last lap of the journey. The usual
schedule for getting dispatches from the
Missouri River to the * Coast was eight
days, and for letters, ten days.
After the triumphant first trip, when it
was fully evident that the Pony Express"^
was a really established enterprise, the SL
* The idea of a Pony Express was not a new one
in 1859. Marco Polo relates that Genghis Khan,
ruler of Chinese Tartary had such a courier service
about one thousand years ago. This ambitious mon¬
arch, it is said, had relay stations twenty-five miles
apart, and his riders sometimes covered three hun¬
dred miles in twenty-four hours.
About a hundred years back, such a system was
in vogue in various countries of Europe.
Early in the nineteenth century before the tele¬
graph was invented, a New York newspaper man
named David Hale used a Pony Express system to
collect state news. A little later, in 1830, a rival
publisher, Richard Haughton, political editor of the
New York Journal of Commerce borrowed the same
idea. He afterward founded the Boston Atlas, and
by making relays of fast horses and taking advan¬
tage of the services offered by a few short lines of
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 49
Joseph Free Democrat broke into the fol¬
lowing panegyric:
Take down your map and trace the foot¬
prints of our quadrupedantic animal: From
St. Joseph on the Missouri to San Francisco,
on the Golden Horn — two thousand miles —
more than half the distance across our bound¬
less continent; through Kansas, through Neb¬
raska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by
Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Rocky
railroad then operating in Massachusetts, he was
enabled to print election returns by nine o'clock on
the morning after election.
This idea was improved by James W. Webb,
Editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer, a
big daily of that time. In 1832, Webb organized an
express rider line between New York and Washing¬
ton. This undertaking gave his paper much valuable
prestige.
In 1833, Hale and Hallock of the Journal of Com¬
merce started a rival line that enabled them to pub¬
lish Washington news within forty-eight hours, thus
giving their paper a big " scoop " over all competitors.
Papers in Norfolk, Va., two hundred and twenty-
nine miles south-east of Washington actually got the
news from the capitol out of the New York Journal
of Commerce received by the ocean route, sooner
than news printed in Washington could be sent to
Norfolk by boat directly down the Potomac River.
50 THE PONY EXPRESS
Mountains, through the narrow passes and
along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger,
Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his
swift ponyship — through the valleys, along
the grassy slopes, into the snow, into sand,
faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider
and horse — did you see them? They are in
California, leaping over its golden sands, tread¬
ing its busy streets. The courser has unrolled
to us the great American panorama, allowed us
to glance at the homes of one million people,
and has put a girdle around the earth in forty
minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding
of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furi-
The California Pony Express of historic fame
was imitated on a small scale in 1861 by the Rocky
Mountain News of Denver, then, as now, one of the
great newspapers of the West. At that time, this
enterprising daily owned and published a paper called
the Miner's Record at Tarryall, a mining community
some distance out of Denver. The News also had
a branch office at Central City, forty-five miles up in
the mountains. As soon as information from the
War arrived over the California Pony Express and
by stage out of old Julesburg from the Missouri
River—Denver was not on the Pony Express route—
it was hurried to these outlying points by fast horse¬
men. Thanks to this enterprise, the miners in the
heart of the Rockies could get their War news only
four days late.—Root and Connelley.
FIRST TRIP AND TRIUMPH 51
ously. Take out your watch. We are eight
days from New York, eighteen from London.
The race is to the swift.
The Pony Express had been tried at the
tribunal of popular opinion and given a
hearty endorsement. It had yet to win the
approval of shrewd statesmanship.
CHAPTER IV
OPERATION, EQUIPMENT, AND BUSINESS
ON ENTERING the service of the
Central Overland California and
Pike's Peak Express Company, employees
of the Pony Express were compelled to take
an oath of fidelity which ran as follows :
I, , do hereby swear, before
the Great and Living God, that during my en¬
gagement, and while I am an employe of
Russell, Majors & Waddell, I will, under no
circumstances, use profane language; that I
will drink no intoxicating liquors; that I will
not quarrel or fight with any other employe of
the firm, and that in every respect I will con¬
duct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties,
and so direct all my àcts as to win the con¬
fidence of my employers. So help me God." *
* This was the same pledge which the original firm
had required of its men. Both Russell, Majors, and
52
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 53
It is not to be supposed that all, nor any
considerable number of the Pony Express
men were saintly, nor that they all took
their pledge too seriously. Judged by
present-day standards, most of these fel¬
lows were rough and unconventional ;
some of them were bad. Yet one thing is
certain: in loyalty and blind devotion to
duty, no group of employees will ever sur¬
pass the men who conducted the Pony Ex¬
press. During the sixteen months of its
existence, the riders of this wonderful
enterprise, nobly assisted by the faithful
station-keepers, travelled six hundred and
fifty thousand miles, contending against
Waddell, and the C. O. C. and P. P. Exp, Co., which
they incorporated, adhered to a rigid observance of
the Sabbath. They insisted on their men doing as
little work as possible on that day, and had them
desist from work whenever possible. And they stuck
faithfully to these policies. Probably no concern ever
won a higher and more deserved reputation for in¬
tegrity in the fulfilment of its contracts and for bus¬
iness reliability than Russell, Majors, and Waddell.
54 THE PONY EXPRESS
the most desperate odds that a lonely wil¬
derness and savage nature could offer,
with the loss of only a single mail. And
that mail happened to be of relatively
small importance. Only one rider was
ever killed outright while on duty. A few
were mortally wounded, and occasionally
their horses were disabled. Yet with the
one exception, they stuck grimly to the
saddle or trudged manfully ahead without
a horse until the next station was reached.
With these men, keeping the schedule
came to be a sort of religion, a perform¬
ance that must be accomplished — even
though it forced them to play a desperate
game the stakes of which were life and
death. Many station men and numbers
of riders while off duty were murdered by
Indians. They were martyrs to the cause
of patriotism and a newer and better civil¬
ization. Yet they were hirelings, working
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 55
for good wages and performing their du¬
ties in a simple, matter-of-fact way. Their
heroism was never a self-conscious trait.
The riders were young men, seldom
exceeding one hundred and twenty-five
pounds in weight. Youthfulness, nerve,
a wide experience on the frontier and gen¬
eral adaptability were the chief requisites
for the Pony Express business. Some of
the greatest frontiersmen of the latter
'sixties and the 'seventies were trained in
this service, either as pony riders or station
men. The latter had even a more dan¬
gerous task, since in their isolated shacks
they were often completely at the mercy
of Indians.
That only one rider was ever taken by
the savages was due to the fact that the
pony men rode magnificent horses which
invariably outclassed the Indian ponies in
speed and endurance. The lone man cap-
56 THE PONY EXPRESS
tured while on duty was completely sur¬
rounded by a large number of savages on
the Platte River in Nebraska. He was
shot dead and though his body was not
found for several days, his pony, bridled
and saddled, escaped safely with the mail
which was duly forwarded to its destina¬
tion. That far more riders were killed or
injured while off duty than when in the
saddle was due solely to the wise precau¬
tion of the Company in selecting such
high-grade riding stock. And it took the
best of horseflesh to make the schedule.
The riders dressed as they saw fit. The
average costume consisted of a buckskin
shirt, ordinary trousers tucked into high
leather boots, and a slouch hat or cap.
They always went armed. At first a Spen¬
cer carbine was carried strapped to the
rider's back, besides a sheath knife at his
side. In the saddle holsters he carried a
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 57
pair of Colt's revolvers. After a time the
carbines were left off and only side arms
taken along. The carrying of larger guns
meant extra weight, and it was made a
*
rule of the Company that a rider should
never fight unless compelled to do so. He
was to depend wholly upon speed for
safety. The record of the service fully
justified this policy.
While the horses were of the highest
grade, they were of mixed breed and were
purchased over a wide range of territory.
Good results were obtained from blooded
animals from the Missouri Valley, but
considerable preference was shown for the
western-bred mustangs. These animals
were about fourteen hands high and aver¬
aged less than nine hundred pounds in
weight. A former blacksmith for the
Company who was at one time located at
Seneca, Kansas, recalls that one of these
58 THE PONY EXPRESS
native ponies often had to be thrown and
staked down with a rope tied to each foot
before it could be shod. Then, before the
smith could pare the hoofs and nail on the
shoes, it was necessary for one man to sit
astride the animal's head, and another on
its body, while the beast continued to
struggle and squeal. To shoe one of these
animals often required a half day of
strenuous work.
As might be expected, the horse as well
as rider traveled very light. The com¬
bined weight of the saddle, bridle and sad¬
dle bags did not exceed thirteen pounds.
The saddle-bag used by the pony rider for
carrying mail was called a mochila; it had
openings in the center so it would fit
snugly over the horn and tree of the saddle
and yet be removable without delay. The
mochila had four pockets called cantinas
in each of its corners — one in front and
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 69
one behind each of the rider's legs. These
cantinas held the mail. All were kept
carefully locked and three were opened
en route only at military posts — Forts
Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, Churchill —
and at Salt Lake City. The fourth pocket
was for the local or way mail-stations.
Each local station-keeper had a key and
could open it when necessary. It held a
time-card on which a record of the arrival
and departure at the various stations
where it was opened, was kept. Only one
mochila was used on a trip; it was trans¬
ferred by the rider from one horse to an¬
other until the destination was reached.
Letters were wrapped in oil silk to pro¬
tect them from moisture, either from
stormy weather, fording streams, or per¬
spiring animals. While a mail of twenty
pounds might be carried, the average
weight did not exceed fifteen pounds. The
60 THE PONY EXPRESS
postal charges were at first, five dollars
for each half-ounce letter, but this rate
was afterward reduced by the Post Office
Department to one dollar for each half
ounce. At this figure it remained as long
as the line was in business. In addition to
this rate, a regulation government envel¬
ope costing ten cents, had to be purchased.
Patrons generally made use of a specially
light tissue paper for their correspondence.
The large newspapers of New York, Bos¬
ton, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco
were among the best customers of the serv¬
ice. Some of the Eastern dailies even kept
special correspondents at St. Joseph to
receive and telegraph to the home office
news from the West as soon as it arrived.
On account of the enormous postage rates
these newspapers would print special edi¬
tions of Civil War news on the thinnest
of paper to avoid all possible mailing bulk.
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 61
Mr. Frank A. Root of Topeka, Kansas,
who was Assistant Postmaster and Chief
Clerk in the post office at Atchison during
the last two months of the line's existence,
in 1861, says that during that period the
Express, which was running semi-weekly,
brought about three hundred and fifty let¬
ters each trip from California."^ Many of
these communications were from govern¬
ment and state officials in California and
Oregon, and addressed to the Federal au¬
thorities at Washington, particularly to
Senators and Representatives from these
states and to authorities of the War De¬
partment. A few were addressed to Abra¬
ham Lincoln, President of the LTnited
* Exact figures are not obtainable for the west
bound mail but it was probably not so heavy.
At this time—Sept., 1861—the telegraph had been
extended from the Missouri to Fort Kearney, Ne¬
braska, and letter pouches from the Pony Express
were sent by overland stage from Kearney to Atchi¬
son. Messages of grave concern were wired as soon
as this station was reached.
62 THE PONY EXPRESS
States. A large number of these letters
were from business and professional men
in Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, and
Sacramento, and mailed to firms in the
large cities of the East and Middle West.
Not to mention the rendering of invalu¬
able help to the Government in retaining
California at the beginning of the War,
the Pony Express was of the greatest im¬
portance to the commercial interests of
the West.
The line was frequently used by the
British Government in forwarding its
Asiatic correspondence to London. In
i860, a report of the activities of the Eng¬
lish fleet off the coast of China was sent
through from San Francisco eastward
over this route. For the transmission of
these dispatches that Government paid
one hundred and thirty-five dollars Pony
Express charges.
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 63
Nor did the commercial houses of the
Pacific Coast cities appear to mind a little
expense in forwarding their business let¬
ters. Mr. Root says there would often be
twenty-five one dollar " Pony " stamps
and the same number of Government
stamps — a total in postage of twenty-
seven dollars and fifty cents — on a single
envelope. Not much frivolity passed
through these mails.
Pony Express riders received an average
salary of from one hundred dollars to one
hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.
A few whose rides were particularly dan¬
gerous or who had braved unusual dangers
received one hundred and fifty dollars.
Station men and their assistants were paid
from fifty to one hundred dollars monthly.
Of the eighty riders usually in the serv¬
ice, half were always riding in either direc¬
tion, East and West. The average
64 THE PONY EXPRESS
" run " was seventy-five miles, the men
going and coming over their respective
divisions on each succeeding day. Yet
there were many exceptions to this rule, as
will be shown later. At the outset, al¬
though facilities for shorter relays had
been provided, it was planned to run each
horse twenty-five miles with an average of
three horses to the rider; but it was soon
found that a horse could rarely continue at
a maximum speed for so great a distance.
Consequently, it soon became the practice
to change mounts every ten or twelve miles
or as nearly that as possible. The exact
distance was governed largely by the na¬
ture of the country. While this shorten¬
ing of the relay necessitated transferring
the mochila many more times on each trip,
it greatly facilitated the schedule; for it
was at once seen that the average horse or
pony in the Express service could be
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 65
crowded to the limit of its speed over the
reduced distance.
One of the station-keeper's most impor¬
tant duties was to have a fresh horse sad¬
dled and bridled a half hour before the
Express was due. Only two minutes time
was allowed for changing mounts. The
rider's approach was watched for with
keen anxiety. By daylight he could gen¬
erally be seen in a cloud of dust, if in the
desert or prairie regions. If in the moun¬
tains, the clear air made it possible for the
station men to detect his approach a long
way off, provided there were no obstruc¬
tions to hide the view. At night the rider
would make his presence known by a few
lusty whoops. Dashing up to the station,
no time was wasted. The courier would
already have loosed his mochila^ which he
tossed ahead for the keeper to adjust on
the fresh horse, before dismounting. A
66 THE PONY EXPRESS
sudden reining up of his foam-covered
steed, and " All's well along the road,
Hank ! " to the station boss, and he was
again mounted and gone, usually fifteen
seconds after his arrival. Nor was there
any longer delay when a fresh rider took
up the " run."
Situated at intervals of about two hun¬
dred miles were division points * in charge
of, locally important agents or superinten¬
dents. Here were kept extra men, animals,
and supplies as a precaution against the
raids of Indians, desperadoes, or any
emergency likely to arise. Division agents
had considerable authority; their pay was
as good as that received by the best riders.
They were men of a heroic and even in
some instances, desperate character, in
spite of their oath of service. In certain
* These were executive divisions and not to be
confused with the riders' divisions. The latter were
merely the stations separating each man's " run."
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 67
localities much infested with horse thiev¬
ery and violence it was necessary to have
in charge men of the fight-the-devil-with-
fire type in order to keep the business in
operation. Noted among this class of
Division agents, with headquarters at the
Platte Crossing near Fort Kearney, was
Jack Slade,"'' who, though a good servant
of the Company, turned out to be one of
the worst " bad " men in the history of the
West. He had a record of twenty-six
" killings " to his credit, but he kept his
Division thoroughly purged of horse
thieves and savage marauders, for he knew
how to " get " his man whenever there was
trouble.
The schedule was at first fixed at ten
days for eight months of the year and
* Slade was afterward hanged by vigilantes in Vin
ginia City^ Montana. The authentic story of his life
surpasses in romance and tragedy most of the pirate
tales of fiction.
68 THE PONY EXPRESS
twelve days during the winter season, but
this was soon lowered to eight and ten
days respectively. An average speed of
ten miles an hour including stops had to
be maintained on the summer schedule. In
the winter the run was sustained at eight
miles an hour; deep snows made the latter
performance the more difEcult of the two.
The best record made by the Pony Ex¬
press was in getting President Lincoln's
inaugural speech across the continent in
March, 1861. This address, outlining as
it did the attitude of the new Chief Execu-
V
tive toward the pending conflict, was an¬
ticipated with the deepest anxiety by the
people on the Pacific Coast. Evidently
inspired by the urgency of the situation,
the Company determined to surpass all
performances. Horses were led out, in
many cases, two or three miles from the
stations, in order to meet the incoming rid-
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 69
ers and to secure the supreme limit of speed
and endurance on this momentous trip.
The document was carried through from
St. Joseph to Sacramento—1966 miles
— in just seven days and seventeen hours,
an average speed of ten and six-tenths
miles an hour. And this by flesh and
blood, pounding the dirt over the plains,
mountains, and deserts! The best indi¬
vidual performance on this great run was
by " Pony Bob " Haslam who galloped
the one hundred and twenty miles from
Smith's Creek to Fort Churchill in eight
hours and ten minutes, an average of four¬
teen and seven-tenths miles per hour. On
this record-breaking trip the message was
carried the six hundred and seventy-five
miles between St. Joseph and Denver in
sixty-nine hours; the last ten miles of this
*The dispatch was taken from the main line to
the Colorado capital by special service. Denver, it
will be remembered, was not on the regular " Pony
70 THE PONY EXPRESS
leg of the journey being ridden in thirty-
one minutes. Today, but few overland
express trains, hauled by giant locomotives
over heavy steel rails on a rock-ballasted
roadbed average more than thirty miles
per hour between the Missouri and the Pa¬
cific Coast.
The news of the election of Lincoln in
November i860, and President Buch¬
anan's last message a month later were
carried through in eight days.
Late in the winter and early in the
spring of 1861, just prior to the beginning
of the war, many good records were
made with urgent Government dispatches.
News of the firing upon Fort Sumter was
taken through in eight days and fourteen
hours. From then on, while the Pony Ex¬
press service continued, the business men
route," which ran north of that city. There was
then no telegraph in operation west of the Missouri
River in Kansas or Nebraska.
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 71
and public officials of California began
giving prize money to the Company, to be
awarded those riders who made the best
time carrying war news. On one occasion
they raised a purse of three hundred dol¬
lars for the star rider when a pouch con¬
taining a number of Chicago papers full
of information from the South arrived at
Sacramento a day ahead of schedule.
That these splendid achievements could
never have been attained without a won¬
derful degree of enthusiasm and loyalty
on the part of the men, scarcely needs as¬
serting. The pony riders were highly re¬
spected by the stage and freight employees
— in fact by all respectable men through¬
out the West. Nor were they honored
merely for what they did; they were the
sort of men who command respect. To
assist a rider in any way was deemed a
high honor ; to do aught to retard him was
72 THE PONY EXPRESS
the limit of wrong-doing, a woeful offense.
On the first trip west-bound, the rider be¬
tween Folsom and Sacramento was
thrown, receiving a broken leg. Shortly
after the accident, a Wells Fargo stage
happened along, and a special agent of
that Company, who chanced to be a pas¬
senger, seeing the predicament, volun¬
teered to finish the run. This he did suc¬
cessfully, reaching Sacramento only ninety
minutes late. Such instances are typical
of the manly cooperation that made the
Pony Express the true success that it was.
Mark Twain, who made a trip across
the continent in i860 has left this glowing
account of a pony and rider that he saw
while traveling overland in a stage coach :
We had a consuming desire from the begin¬
ning, to see a pony rider; but somehow or
other all that passed us, and all that met us
managed to streak by in the night and so we
* Roughing It.
"A wliiz and a liail, and the swift phantom
of the desert was gone before we could get our
heads out of the windows."
— " Roughing It."
OPERATION AND BUSINESS 78
heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift
phantom of the desert was gone before we
could get our heads out of the windows. But
now we were expecting one along every mo¬
ment, and would see him in broad daylight.
Presently the driver exclaims:
" Here he comes ! "
Every neck is stretched further and every
eye strained wider away across the endless
dead level of the prairie, a black speck appears
against the sky, and it is plain that it moves.
Well I should think so! In a second it be¬
comes a horse and rider, rising and falling, ris¬
ing and falling — sweeping toward us nearer
and nearer growing more and more distinct,
more and more sharply defined — nearer and
still nearer, and the flutter of hoofs comes
faintly to the ear — another instant a whoop
and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of
the rider's hands but no reply and man and
horse burst past our excited faces and go wing¬
ing away like the belated fragment of a storm !
So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of
unreal fancy, that but for a flake of white foam
left quivering and perishing on a mail sack
after the vision had flashed by and disappeared,
we might have doubted whether we had seen
any actual horse and man at all, maybe.
CHAPTER V
CALIFORNIA AND THE SECESSION MENACE
WHEN the Southern states with¬
drew, a conspiracy was on foot to
force California out of the Union, and or¬
ganize a new Republic of the Pacific with
the Sierra Madre and the Rocky Moun¬
tains for its Eastern boundary. This pro¬
posed commonwealth, when once erected,
and when it had subjugated all Union
men in the West who dared oppose it,
would eventually unite with the Confed¬
eracy; and in event of the latter's success
— which at the opening of the war to
many seemed certain — the territory of
the Confederate States of America would
embrace the entire Southwest, and stretch
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Aside
74
THE SECESSION MENACE 75
from its general plans, the exact details of
this plot are of course impossible to secure.
But that the conspiracy existed has never
been disproved.
That the rebel sympathizers in Cali¬
fornia were plotting, as soon as the War
began, to take the Presidio at the entrance
to the Golden Gate, together with the forts
on Alcatraz Island, the Custom House, the
Mint, the Post Office, and all United
States property, and then having made the
formation of their Republic certain, invade
the Mexican State of Sonora and annex it
to the new commonwealth, has never been
gainsaid. That these conspiracies existed
and were held in grave seriousness is re¬
vealed by the official correspondence of
that time. That they had been foment¬
ing for many months is apparently re¬
vealed by this additional fact: during
Buchanan's administration, John B.
76 THE PONY EXPRESS
Floyd, a southern man who gave up his
position to fight for the Confederacy, was
Secretary of War. When the Rebellion
started, it was found that Floyd, while
in office, had removed 135,430 firearms,
together with much ammunition and
heavy ordnance, from the big Govern¬
ment arsenal at Springfield, Massachu¬
setts, and distributed them at various
points in the South and Southwest. Of
this number, fifty thousand f were sent
to California where twenty-five thousand
muskets had already been stored. And all
this was done underhandedly, without the
knowledge of Congress.
California was unfortunate in having
as a representative in the United States
Senate at this time, William Gwin, also
a man of southern birth who had cast his
* Bancroft.
t Ibid.
THE SECESSION MENACE 77
fortunes in the Golden State at the outset,
when the gold boom was on. Until seces¬
sion was imminent, Gwin served his
adopted state well enough. His encour¬
agement of the Pony Express enterprise
has already been pointed out. It is doubt¬
ful if he were statesman enough to have
foreseen the significant part this organiza¬
tion was to play in the early stages of the
War. Otherwise his efforts in its behalf
must have been lacking — though the ca¬
reers of political adventurers like Gwin
are full of strange inconsistencies."^
Speaking in the Senate, on December
12, 1859, Gwin declared, that he believed
* After the War had started, Gwin deserted Cali¬
fornia and the Union and joined the Confederacy.
When this power was broken up, he fled to Mexico
and entered the service of Maximilian, then puppet
emperor of that unfortunate country. Maximilian
bestowed an abundance of hollow honors upon the
renegade senator, and made him Duke of the
Province of Sonora, which region Gwin and his
clique had doubtless coveted as an integral part of
78 THE PONY EXPRESS
that all slave holding states of this con¬
federacy can establish a separate and inde¬
pendent government that will be impreg¬
nable to the assaults of all foreign ene¬
mies." He further went on to show that
they had the power to do it, and asserted
that if the southern states went out of the
Union, California would be with the
South." Then, as a convincing proof of
his duplicity, he had these pro-rebel state¬
ments stricken from the official report of
his speech, that his constituents might not
take fright, and perhaps spoil some of the
designs which he and his scheming col¬
leagues had upon California. Of course
these remarks reached the ears of his con¬
stituents anyhow, and though prefaced by
their projected " Republic of the Pacific. " Because of
this empty title, the nickname, " Duke, " was ever
afterward given him. When Maximilian's soap bub¬
ble monarchy had disappeared, Gwin finally returned
to California where he passed his old age in retire¬
ment.
THE SECESSION MENACE 79
a studied evasiveness on his part, they con¬
tributed much to the feeling of unrest and
insecurity that then prevailed along the
Coast.
It is of course a well-known fact that
California never did secede, and that soon
after the war began, she swung definitely
and conclusively into the Union column.
The danger of secession was wholly poten¬
tial. Yet potential dangers are none the
less real. Had it not been for the deter¬
mined energies of a few loyalists in Cali¬
fornia, led by General E. V. Sumner and
cooperating with the Federal Government
by means of the swiftest communication
then possible — the Pony Express —
history today, might read differently.
Now to turn once more to the potential
dangers * that made the California crisis
a reality. About three-eighths of the pop-
* Senate documents.
80 THE PONY EXPRESS
ulation were of southern descent and sol¬
idly united in sympathy for the Confeder¬
ate states. This vigorous minority in¬
cluded upwards of sixteen thousand
Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Cor-
federate secret organization that was ac¬
tive and dangerous in all the doubtful
states in winning over to the southern
cause those who feebly protested loyalty
to the Union but who opposed war. Many
of these ^'knights" were prosperous and
substantial citizens who, working under
the guise of their local respectability, ex¬
erted a profound influence. Here then, at
the outset, was a vigorous and not a small
minority, whose influence was greatly out
of proportion to their numbers because of
their zeal ; and who would have seized the
balance of power unless held in check by an
aroused Union sentiment and military in¬
timidation.
THE SECESSION MENACE 81
Anotner class of men to be feared was a
small but powerful group representing
much wealth, a financial class which pro¬
verbially shuns war because of the expense
which war involves ; a class that always in¬
sists upon peace, even at the cost of com¬
promised honor. These men, with the
influence which their money commanded,
would inevitably espouse the side that
seemed the most likely of speedy success;
and in view of the early successes of the
Confederate armies and the zealous prose¬
lyting of rebel sympathizers in their midst
they were a potential risk to loyal Cali¬
fornia.
The native Spanish or Mexican classes
then numerically strong in that state, were
appealed to by the anti-Unionists from
various cunning approaches, chief of which
was the theory that the many real estate
troubles and complicated land titles by
82 THE PONY EXPRESS
which they had been annoyed since the
separation from Old Mexico in 1847,
would be promptly adjusted under Con¬
federate authority. While nearly all these
natives were ignorant, many held consider¬
able property and they in turn influenced
their poorer brethren. Chimerical as this
argument may sound, it had much weight.
Another group of persons also large po¬
tentially and a serious menace when prose¬
lyted by the apostles of rebellion, were the
squatters and trespassers who were occupy¬
ing land to which they had no lawful right.
Many of these men were reckless ;
some had already been entangled in the
courts because of their false land claims.
Hence their attitude toward the existing
Government was ugly and defiant. Yet
they were now assured that they might re¬
main on their lands forever undisturbed,
under a rebel regime.
THE SECESSION MENACE 83
Added to all these sources of danger
was the attitude of the thousands of well-
meaning people — who, regardless of
rebel solicitation, were at first indifferent.
They thought that the great distance which
separated them from the seat of war made
it a matter of but little importance whether
California aroused herself or not. They
were of course counselling neutrality as the
easiest way of avoiding trouble.
Turning now to the forces, moral, mili¬
tary, and political, that were working to
save California — first there was a loyal
newspaper press, which saw and followed
its duty with unflinching devotion. It
firmly held before the people the loyal re¬
sponsibility of the state and declared that
the ties of union were too sacred to be bro¬
ken. It was the moral duty of the people
to remain loyal. It truthfully asserted
that California's influence in the Federal
84 THE PONY EXPRESS
Union should be an example for other
states to follow. If the idea of a Pacific
Republic were repudiated by their own citi¬
zens, such action would discourage seces¬
sion elsewhere and be a great moral handi¬
cap to that movement. And the press
further pointed out with convincing clear¬
ness, that should the Union be dissolved,
the project for a Pacific Railroad with
which the future of the Commonwealth
was inevitably committed, would likely
fail.
Aroused by the moral importance of its
position, the state legislature, early in the
winter of 1860-1861, had passed a resolu¬
tion of fidelity to the Union, in which it
declared That California is ready to
maintain the rights and honor of the Na-
* All parties in California were unanimous in their
desire for a transcontinental railroad. No political
faction there could receive any support unless it
strongly endorsed this project.
THE SECESSION MENACE 85
tional Government at home and abroad,
and at all times to respond to any requisi¬
tions that may be made upon her to defend
the Republic against foreign or domestic
foes." Succeeding events proved the
genuineness of this resolve.
In the early spring of 1861, the War
Department sent General Edwin A. Sum¬
ner to take command of the Military De¬
partment of the Pacific with headquarters
at San Francisco, supplanting General Al¬
bert Sidney Johnston who resigned to
fight for the South. This was a most for¬
tunate appointment, as Sumner proved a
resourceful and capable official, ideally
suited to meet the crisis before him. Nor
does this reflect in any way upon the superb
soldierly qualities of his predecessor. John¬
ston was no doubt too manly an officer to
take part in the romantic conspiracies about
him. He was every inch a brave soldier
86 THE PONY EXPRESS
who did his fighting in the open. Like
Robert E. Lee, he joined the Confederacy
in conscientious good faith, and he met
death bravely at Shiloh in April, 1862.
Sumner was a man of action and he
faced the situation squarely. To him,
California and the nation will always be
indebted. One of his first decisive acts was
to check the secession movement in South¬
ern California by placing a strong detach¬
ment of soldiers at Los Angeles. This
force proved enough to stop any incip¬
ient uprisings in that part of the state.
Some of the disturbing element in this dis¬
trict then moved over into Nevada where
cooperation was made with the pro-Con¬
federate men there. The Nevada rebel
faction had made considerable headway by
assuring unsuspecting persons that it
was acting on the authority of the Con¬
federate Government. On June 5, 1861,
THE SECESSION MENACE 87
the rebel flag was unfurled at Virginia City.
Again Sumner acted. He immediately
sent a Federal force to garrison Fort
Churchill, and a body of men under Major
Blake and Captain Moore seized all arms
found in the possession of suspected per¬
sons. A rebel militia company with four
hundred men enrolled and one hundred un¬
der arms was found and dispersed by the
Federals. This decisive action completely
stopped any uprisings across the state line,
uprisings which might easily have spread
into California.
In the meantime, under General Sum¬
ner's direction, soldiers had been enlisted
and were being rapidly drilled for any
emergency. The War Department, on being
advised of this available force, at once sent
the following dispatch, which, with those
that follow are typical of the correspon¬
dence which the Pony Express couriers
88 THE PONY EXPRESS
were now rushing across the Continent
toward and from Washington.
Telegraph and Pony Express.
Adjutant-General's Office.
Washington, July 24, 1861.
Brigadier General Sumrier,
Commanding Department of the Pacific.
One regiment of infantry and five companies
of cavalry have been accepted from California
to aid in protecting the overland mail route via
Salt Lake.
Please detail officers to muster these troops
into service. Blanks will be sent by steamer.
By order : George D. Rugóles.
Assistant Adjutant General.
While recognizing the great need of ex¬
tending proper military protection to the
mail route, it must have been dishearten¬
ing to Sumner and the loyalists to see this
force ordered into service outside the state.
For now, late in the summer of 1861, —•
the time of national crisis — the Califor-
nian trouble was approaching its climax.
THE SECESSION MENACE 89
On July 20, the Union army had been
beaten at Bull Run and driven back, a
rabble of fugitives, into the panic stricken
capital. Then came weeks and months of
delay and uncertainty while the over¬
cautious McClellan sought to build up a
new military machine. The entire North
was overspread with gloom; the Con¬
federates were jubilant and full of
self-confidence. In California the psychol¬
ogical situation was similar but even more
acute, for encouraged by Confederate suc¬
cess, the rebel faction became bolder than
ever, and openly planned to win the state
election to be held on September 4. If
successful at the polls, the reins of organ¬
ized political power would pass into its
hands and a secession convention would be
a direct possibility. And to intensify the
danger was the confirmed indifference or
stubbornness of many citizens who seemed
90 THE PONY EXPRESS
to place petty personal differences before
the interests of the state and nation at large.
As is well known, Lincoln and the Fed¬
eral Government accepted the defeat at
Bull Run calmly, and set about with grim
determination to whip the South at any
cost. The President asked Congress for
four hundred thousand men and was voted
five hundred thousand. In pursuance of
such policies, these urgent dispatches were
hurried across the country:
War Department.
Washington, August 14, 1861.
Hon. John G. Downey,
Governor of California, Sacramento City,
Cal.
Please organize, equip, and have mustered
into service, at the earliest date possible, four
regiments of infantry and one regiment of
cavalry, to be placed at the disposal of General
Sumner. Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War.
By telegraph to Fort Kearney and thence
by Pony Express and telegraph.
THE SECESSION MENACE 91
War Department, August 15, 1861.
Hon. John G. Downey,
Governor of California, Sacramento City,
Gal.
In filling the requisition given you August
14th, for five regiments, please make General
J. H. Carleton of San Francisco, colonel of a
cavalry regiment, and give him proper author¬
ity to organize as promptly as possible.
Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War.
Telegraph and Pony Express and telegraph.
The work of enlisting the five thousand
men thus requisitioned was carried forward
with great rapidity. Within two weeks,
on the 28th, the Pony Express brought
word that the War Department was about
to order this force overland into Texas,
to act, no doubt, as a barrier to the advanc¬
ing Confederate armies who were then
planning an invasion of New Mexico as the
first decisive step in carrying the conflict
into the heart of the Southwest. It was
9£ THE PONY EXPRESS
understood, further, that General Sumner
would be ordered to vacate his position as
Commander of the Department of the
Pacific and lead his recruits into the service.
To the authorities at Washington, a
campaign of aggression with western troops
had no doubt seemed the best means of de¬
fending California and adjacent territory
from Confederate attack. To the Union¬
ists of California, the report that their
troops and Sumner were to leave the state
spelt extreme discouragement. They had
felt some degree of hope and security so
long as organized forces were in their
midst, and the presence of Sumner every¬
where inspired confidence among discour¬
aged patriots. To be deprived of their sol¬
diers was bad enough ; to lose Sumner was
intolerable. Accordingly, a formal peti¬
tion protesting against this action, was
drawn up, addressed to the War Depart-
THE SECESSION MENACE 93
ment, and signed by important firms and
prominent business men of San Francisco."^
* The signers of this petition were : Robert C.
Rogers, Macondray & Co., Jno. Sime & Co., J. B,
Thomas, W. W. Stow, Horace P. James, Geo. F.
Bragg & Co., Flint, Peabody & Co., Wm. B. John¬
ston, D. O. Mills, H. M. Newhall & Co., Henry
Schmildell, Murphy Grant & Co., Wm. T. Coleman
& Co., DeWitt Kittle & Co., Richard M. Jessup,
Graves Williams & Buckley, Donohoe, Ralston & Co.,
H. M. Nuzlee, Geo. C. Shreve & Co., Peter
Danahue, Kellogg, Hewston & Co., Moses Ellis &
Co., R. D. W. Davis & Co., L. B. Beuchley & Co.,
Wm. A. Dana, Jones, Dixon & Co., J. Y. Halleck &
Co., Forbes & Babcock, A. T. Lawton, Geo. J.
Brooks & Co., Jno. B. Newton & Co., Chas. W.
Brooks & Co., James Patrick & Co., Locke & Mon¬
tague, Janson, Bond & Co., Jennings & Brewster,
Treadwell & Co., William Alvord & Co., Shattuck
& Hendley, Randall & Jones, J. B. Weir & Co., B. C.
Hand & Co., O. H. Giffin & Bro., Dodge & Shaw,
Tubbs & Co., J. Whitney, Jr., C. Adolphe Low &
Co., Haynes & Lawton, J. D. Farnell, C. E. Hitch¬
cock, Geo. Howes & Co., Sam Merritt, Jacob Under¬
bill & Co., Morgan Stone & Co., J. W. Brittan, T. H.
& J. S. Bacon, R. B. Swain & Co., Fargo & Co.,
Nathaniel Page, Stevens Baker & Co., A. E. Brew¬
ster & Co., Fay, Brooks & Backus, Wm. Norris, and
E. H. Parker.
(Above data taken from Government Secret
Correspondence. Ordered printed by the second
session of the 50th Congress in i88ç. Senate Docu¬
ment No. '¡0.)
94 THE PONY EXPRESS
In this petition they said among other
things, that the War Department prob¬
ably was not aware of the real state of af¬
fairs in California, and they openly re¬
quested that the order be rescinded. They
declared that a majority of the California
State officers were out-and-out secession¬
ists and that the others were at least hostile
to the administration and would accept a
peace policy at any sacrifice. They were
suspicious of the Governor's loyalty and
declared that, " Every appointment made
by our Governor within the last three
months, unmistakably indicates his entire
sympathy and cooperation with those
plotting to sever California from her al¬
legiance to the Union, and that, too, at the
hazard of Civil War." ^
Continuing at detailed length, the peti-
* In the writer's judgment, these charges against
Governor Downey were prejudicial and unjust
THE SECESSION MENACE 95
tioners spoke of the great effort being put
forth by the secession element to win the
forthcoming election. Whereas their op¬
ponents were united, the Union party was
divided into a Douglas and a Repub¬
lican faction. Should the anti-Unionists
triumph, they declared there were reasons
to expect not merely the loss of California
to the Union ranks but internecine strife
and fratricidal murders such as were then
ravaging the Missouri and Kansas border.
The petition then pointed out the truly
great importance of California to the
Union, and asserted that no precaution
leading to the preservation of her loyalty
should be overlooked. It was a thousand
times easier to retain a state in allegiance
than to overcome disloyalty disguised as
state authority. The best way to check
treasonable activities was to convince trait¬
ors of their helplessness. The petitioners
96 THE PONY EXPRESS
further declared that to deprive California
of needed United States military support
just then, would be a direct encouragement
to traitors. An ounce of precaution was
worth a pound of cure.
The loyalists triumphed in the state elec¬
tion on September 4, 1861, and on that
date the California crisis was safely passed.
The contest, to be sure, had revealed about
twenty thousand anti-Union voters in the
state, but the success of the Union faction
restored their feeling of self-confidence.
The pendulum had at last swung safely in
the right direction, and henceforth Cali¬
fornia could be and was reckoned as a loyal
asset to the Union. Such expressions of
disloyalty as her secessionists continued to
disclose, were of a sporadic and flimsy na¬
ture, never materializing into a formidable
sentiment; and, adding to their discourage¬
ment, the failure of the Confederate in va-
THE SECESSION MENACE 97
sion of New Mexico in 1862, was no doubt
an important factor in suppressing any
further open desires for secession.
Sumner was not called East until the
October following the election. His re¬
moval of course caused keen regret along
the coast; but Colonel George Wright, his
successor in charge of the Department of
the Pacific, proved a masterful man and in
every way equal to the situation. In the
long run. Colonel Wright probably was as
satisfactory to the loyal people of Califor¬
nia as General Sumner had been. The five
thousand troops were not detailed for duty
in the South. Like the first detachment of
fifteen hundred, their efforts were directed
mainly to protecting the overland mails
and guarding the frontier."^
* During the War of the Rebellion, California
raised 16,231 troops, more than the whole United
States army had been at the commencement of hos¬
tilities. Practically all these soldiers were assigned
98 THE PONY EXPRESS
Throughout this crisis, news was re¬
ceived twice a week by the Pony Express,
and, be it remembered, in less than half the
time required by the old stage coach. Of
its services then, no better words can be
used than those of Hubert Howe Bancroft.
It was the pony to which every one looked
for deliverance ; men prayed for the safety of
the little beast, and trembled lest the service
should be discontinued. Telegraphic dispatches
from Washington and New York were sent
to St. Louis and thence to Fort Kearney,
whence the pony brought them to Sacramento
where they were telegraphed to San Francisco.
Great was the relief of the people when
Hole's bill for a daily mail service was passed
and the service changed from the Southern
to the Central route, as it was early in the
to routine and patrol duty in the far West, such as
keeping down Indian revolts, and garrisoning forts,
as a defense against any uprising of Indians, or pro¬
tection against Confederate invasion. The excep¬
tions were the California Hundred, and the Cal¬
ifornia Four Hundred, volunteer detachments who
went East of their own accord and won undying
honors in the thick of the struggle.
THE SECESSION MENACE 99
summer. * * * Yet after all, it was to the
flying pony that all eyes and hearts were turned.
The Pony Express was a real factor in
the preservation of California to the
Union.
CHAPTER VI
RIDERS AND FAMOUS RIDES
Bart Riles, the pony rider, died this morn¬
ing from wounds received at Cold Springs,
May i6.
The men at Dry Creek Station have all been
killed and it is thought those at Robert's Creek
have met with the same fate.
Six Pike's Peakers found the body of the
station keeper horribly mutilated, the station
burned, and all the stock missing from
Simpson's.
Eight horses were stolen from Smith's Creek
on last Monday, supposedly by road agents.
The above are random extracts from
frontier newspapers, printed while
* ____
the Pony Express was running. The Ex¬
press could never have existed on its high
plane of efficiency, without an abundance
of coolheaded, hardened men; men who
knew not fear and who were expert —
100
FAMOUS RIDES
101
though sometimes in vain — in all the won¬
derful arts of self-preservation practiced on
the old frontier. That these employes could
have performed even the simplest of their
duties, without stirring and almost incred¬
ible adventures, it is needless to assert.
The faithful relation of even a consid¬
erable number of the thrilling experiences
to which the Pony " men were subjected
would discount fiction. Yet few of these
adventures have been recorded. Today,
after a lapse of over fifty years, nearly all
of the heroes who achieved them have gone
out on that last long journey from which
no man returns. While history can pay
the tribute of preserving some anecdotes
of them and their collective achievements,
it must be forever silent as to many of their
personal acts of heroism.
While lasting praise is due the faithful
station men who, in their isolation, so often
102 THE PONY EXPRESS
bore the murderous attacks of Indians and
bandits, it is, perhaps, to the riders that
the seeker of romance is most likely to turn.
It was the riders' skill and fortitude that
made the operation of the line possible.
Both riders and hostlers shared the same
privations, often being reduced to the nec¬
essity of eating wolf meat and drinking
foul or brackish water.
While each rider was supposed to av¬
erage seventy-five miles a trip, riding from
three to seven horses, accidents were likely
to occur, and it was not uncommon for a
man to lose his way. Such delays meant
serious trouble in keeping the schedule,
keyed up, as it was, to the highest possible
speed. It was confronting such emer¬
gencies, and in performing the duties of
comrades who had been killed or disabled
while awaiting their turns to ride, that the
most exciting episodes took place.
FAMOUS RIDES 103
Among the more famous riders * was
Jim Moore who later became a ranchman
in the South Platte Valley, Nebraska.
Moore made his greatest ride on June 8,
i860. He happened to be at Midway Sta¬
tion, half way between the Missouri River
and Denver, when the west-bound messen¬
ger arrived with important Government
dispatches to California. Moore " took up
the run," riding continuously one hun¬
dred and forty miles to old Julesburg, the
end of his division. Here he met the east-
bound messenger, also with important mis¬
sives, from the Coast to Washington. By
all the rules of the game Moore should have
rested a few hours at this point, but his
successor, who would have picked up the
pouch and started eastward, had been killed
the day before. The mail must go, and
the schedule must be sustained. Without
* Root and Connelley.
104 THE PONY EXPRESS
asking any favors of the man who had just
arrived from the West, Moore resumed
the saddle, after a delay of only ten min¬
utes, without even stopping to eat, and was
soon pounding eastward on his return trip.
He made it, too, in spite of lurking In¬
dians, hunger and fatigue, covering the
round trip of two hundred and eighty miles
in fourteen hours and forty-six minutes —
an average speed of over eighteen miles
an hour. Furthermore, his west-bound
mail had gone through from St. Joseph to
Sacramento on a record-making run of
eight days and nine hours.
William James, always called " Bill "
James, was a native of Virginia. He had
crossed the plains with his parents in a
wagon train when only five years old. At
eighteen, he was one of the best Pony Ex¬
press riders in the service. James's route
lay between Simpson's Park and Cole
FAMOUS RIDES
105
Springs, Nevada, in the Smoky Valley
range of mountains. He rode only sixty
miles each way but covered his round trip
of one hundred and twenty miles in twelve
hours, including all stops. He always rode
California mustangs, using five of these
animals each way. His route crossed the
summits of two mountain ridges, lay
through the Shoshone Indian country, and
was one of the loneliest and most dangerous
divisions on the line. Yet "Bill" never
took time to think about danger, nor did
he ever have any serious trouble.
Theodore Rand rode the Pony Express
during the entire period of its organiza¬
tion. His run was from Box Elder to
Julesburg, one hundred and ten miles and
he made the entire distance both ways by
night. His schedule, night run though it
was, required a gait of ten miles an hour,
but Rand often made it at an average of
106 THE PONY EXPRESS
twelve, thus saving time on the through
schedule for some unfortunate rider who
might have trouble and delay. Originally,
Rand used only four or five horses each
way, but this number, in keeping with the
revised policy of the Company, was after¬
ward doubled, an extra mount being fur¬
nished him every twelve or fifteen miles.
Johnnie Frey who has already been men¬
tioned as the first rider out of St. Joseph,
was little more than a boy when he en¬
tered the pony service. He was a native
Missourian, weighing less than one hun¬
dred and twenty-five pounds. Though
small in stature, he was every inch a man.
Frey's division ran from St. Joseph to Se¬
neca, Kansas, eighty miles, which he cov¬
ered at an average of twelve and one half
miles an hour, including all stops. When
the war started, Frey enlisted in the Union
army under General Blunt. His short but
FAMOUS RIDES 107
worthy career was cut short in 1863 when
he fell in a hand-to-hand fight with rebel
bushwhackers in Arkansas. In this, his
last fight, Frey is said to have killed five
of his assailants before being struck down.
Jim Beatley, whose real name was
Foote, was another Virginian, about
twenty-five years of age. He rode on an
eastern division, usually west out of Se¬
neca. On one occasion, he traveled from
Seneca to Big Sandy, fifty miles and back,
doubling his route twice in one week.
Beatley was killed by a stage hand in a per¬
sonal quarrel, the affair taking place on a
ranch in Southern Nebraska in 1862.
William Boulton was one of the older
riders in the service ; his age at that time is
given at about thirty-five. Boulton rode
for about three months with Beatley.* On
* Pony riders often alternated " runs " with each
other over their respective divisions in the same man¬
ner as do railroad train crews at the present time.
108 THE PONY EXPRESS
one occasion, while running between Se¬
neca and Guittards', Boulton's horse gave
out when five miles from the latter station.
Without a moment's delay, he removed his
letter pouch and hurried the mail in on
foot, where a fresh horse was at once pro¬
vided and the schedule resumed.
Melville Baughn, usually known as
Mel," had a pony run between Fort
Kearney and Thirty-two-mile Creek. Once
while laying off " between trips, a thief
made off with his favorite horse. Scarcely
had the miscreant gotten away when
Baughn discovered the loss. Hastily sad¬
dling another steed, " Mel " gave pursuit,
and though handicapped, because the out¬
law had the pick of the stable, Baughn's
superior horsemanship, even on an inferior
mount, soon told. After a chase of sev¬
eral miles, he forced the fellow so hard
that he abandoned the stolen animal at a
FAMOUS RIDES
109
place called Loup Fork, and sneaked away.
Recovering the horse, Baughn then re¬
turned to his station, found a mail awaiting
him, and was off on his run without further
delay. With him and his fellow employes,
running down a horse thief was but a
trifling incident and an annoyance merely
because of the bother and delay which it
necessitated. Baughn was afterward
hanged for murder at Seneca, but his serv¬
ices to the Pony Express were above re¬
proach.
Another Eastern Division man was Jack
Keetly, who also rode from St. Joseph to
Seneca, alternating at times with Frey and
Baughn. Keetley's greatest performance,
and one of the most remarkable ever
achieved in the service, was riding from
Rock Creek to St. Joseph; then back to his
starting point and on to Seneca, and from
Seneca once more to Rock Creek — three
110 THE PONY EXPRESS
hundred and forty miles without rest. He
traveled continuously for thirty-one hours,
his entire run being at the rate of eleven
miles an hour. During the last five miles
of his journey, he fell asleep in the saddle
and in this manner concluded his long trip.
Don C. Rising, who afterwards settled
in Northern Kansas, was born in Painted
Post, Steuben County, New York, in 1844,
and came West when thirteen years of age.
He rode in the pony service nearly a year,
from November, i860, until the line was
abandoned the following October, most of
his service being rendered before he was
seventeen. Much of his time was spent
running eastward out of Fort Kearney un¬
til the telegraph had reached that point and
made the operation of the Express between
the fort and St. Joseph no longer neces¬
sary. On two occasions. Rising is said to
have maintained a continuous speed of
FAMOUS RIDES 111
twenty miles an hour while carrying im¬
portant dispatches between Big Sandy and
Rock Creek.
One rider who was well known as " Lit¬
tle Yank " was a boy scarcely out of his
teens and weighing barely one hundred
pounds. He rode along the Platte River
between Cottonwood Springs and old
Julesburg and frequently made one hun¬
dred miles on a single trip.
Another man named Hogan, of whom
little is known, rode northwesterly out of
Julesburg across the Platte and to Mud
Springs, eighty miles.
Jimmy Clark rode between various sta¬
tions east of Fort Kearney, usually between
Big Sandy and Hollenburg. Sometimes
his run took him as far West as Liberty
Farm on the Little Blue River.
James W. Brink, or " Dock " Brink as
he was known to his associates, was one of
llâ THE PONY EXPRESS
the early riders, entering the employ of the
Pony Express Company in April, i860.
While " Dock " made a good record as a
courier, his chief fame was gained in a
fight at Rock Creek station, in which Brink
and Wild Bill cleaned out " the Mc-
Candless gang of outlaws, killing five of
their number.
Charles Cliff had an eighty-mile pony
run when only seventeen years of age, but,
like Brink, young Cliff gained his greatest
reputation as a fighter, — in his case fight¬
ing Indians. It seems that while Cliff was
once freighting with a small train of nine
wagons, it was attacked by a party of one
* " Wild Bill " Hickock was one of the most noted
gun fighters that the West ever produced. As mar¬
shal of Abilene, Kansas, and other wild frontier
towns he became a terror to bad men and compelled
them to respect law and order when under his juris¬
diction. Probably no man has ever equalled him in
the use of the six shooter. Numerous magazine
articles describing his career can be found.
FAMOUS RIDES
113
hundred Sioux Indians and besieged for
three days until a larger train approached
and drove the redskins away. During the
conflict, Cliff received three bullets in his
body and twenty-seven in his clothing, but
he soon recovered from his injuries, and
was afterward none the less valuable to
the Pony Express service.
J. G. Kelley, later a citizen of Denver,
was a veteran pony man. He entered the
employ of the company at the outset, and
helped Superintendent Roberts to lay out
the route across Nevada. Along the Car¬
son River, tiresome stretches of corduroy
road had to be built. Kelley relates that
in constructing this highway willow trees
were cut near the stream and the trunks cut
into the desired lengths before being laid
in place. The men often had to carry these
timbers in their arms for three hundred
yards, while the mosquitoes swarmed so
114 THE PONY EXPRESS
thickly upon their faces and hands as to
make their real color and identity hard to
determine.
At the Sink of the Carson,* a great de¬
pression of the river on its course through
the desert, Kelley assisted in building a
fort for protecting the line against In¬
dians. Here there were no rocks nor tim¬
ber, and so the structure had to be built
of adobe mud. To get this mud to a proper
consistency, the men tramped it all day
with their bare feet. The soil was soaked
with alkali, and as a result, according to
Kelley's story, their feet were swollen so
as to resemble " hams."
They next erected a fort at Sand Springs,
twenty miles from Carson Lake, and an¬
other at Cold Springs, thirty-two miles
east of Sand Springs. At Cold Springs,
Kelley was appointed assistant station-
♦Inman & Cody, Salt Lake Trail.
FAMOUS RIDES 115
keeper under Jim McNaughton. An out¬
break of the Pah-Ute Indians was now in
progress, and as the little station was in
the midst of the disturbed area, there was
plenty of excitement.
One night while Kelley was on guard
his attention was attracted by the uneasi¬
ness of the horses. Gazing carefully
through the dim light, he saw an Indian
peering over the outer wall or stockade.
The orders of the post were to shoot every
Indian that came within range, so Kelley
blazed away, but missed his man. In the
morning, many tracks were found about the
place. This wild shot had probably
frightened the prowlers away, saving the
station from attack, and certain destruc¬
tion.
During this same morning, a Mexican
pony rider came in, mortally wounded,
having been shot by the savages from am-
116 THE PONY EXPRESS
bush while passing through a dense thicket
in the vicinity known as Quaking Asp Bot¬
tom. Although given tender care, the poor
fellow died within a few hours after his
arrival. The mail was waiting and it must
go. Kelley, who was the lightest man in
in the place — he weighed but one hun¬
dred pounds — was now ordered by the
boss to take the dead man's place, and go
on with the dispatches. This he did, fin¬
ishing the run without further incident. On
his return trip he had to pass once more
through the aspen thicket where his pred¬
ecessor had received his death wound.
This was one of the most dangerous points
on the entire trail, for the road zigzagged
through a jungle, following a passage-way
that was only large enough to admit a
horse and rider; for two miles a man could
not see more than thirty or forty feet
ahead. Kelley was expecting trouble, and
FAMOUS RIDES 117
went tlirough like a whirlwind, at the same
time holding a repeating rifle in readiness
should trouble occur. On having cleared
the thicket, he drew rein on the top of a
hill, and, looking back over his course, saw
the bushes moving in a suspicious manner.
Knowing there was no live stock in that
locality and that wild game rarely
abounded there, he sent several shots in the
direction of the moving underbrush. The
motion soon ceased, and he galloped on¬
ward, unharmed.
A few days later, two United States
soldiers, while traveling to join their com¬
mand, were ambushed and murdered in the
same thicket.
This was about the time when Major
Ormsby's command was massacred by the
Utes in the disaster at Pyramid Lake,*
and the Indians everywhere in Nevada
* Bancroft.
118 THE PONY EXPRESS
were unusually aggressive and dangerous.
There were seldom more than three or
four men in the little station and it is re¬
markable that Kelley and his companions
were not all killed.
One of Kelley's worst rides, in addition
to the episode just related, was the stretch
between Cold Springs and Sand Springs —
for thirty-seven miles without a drop of
water along the way.
Once, while dashing past a wagon train
of immigrants, a whole fusillade of bul¬
lets was fired at Kelley who narrowly es¬
caped with his life. Of course he could
not stop the mail to see why he had been
shot at, but on his return trip he met the
same crowd, and in unprintable language
told them what he thought of their lawless
and irresponsible conduct. The only sat¬
isfaction he could get from them in reply
was the repeated assertion, "'We thought
FAMOUS RIDES 119
you was an Indian ! " Nor was Kelley
the only pony rider who took narrow
chances from the guns of excited immi¬
grants. Traveling rapidly and un¬
encumbered, the rider, sunburned and
blackened by exposure, must have borne
on first glance no little resemblance to an
Indian; and especially would the mistake
be natural to excited wagon-men who were
always in fear of dashing attacks from
mounted Indians — attacks in which a
single rider would often be deployed to
ride past the white men at utmost speed
in order to draw their fire. Then when
* Indians would sometimes gaze in open-mouthed
wonder at the on-rushing ponies. To some of them,
the " pony outfit " was " bad medicine " and not to be
molested. There was a certain air of mystery about
the wonderful system and untiring energy with which
the riders followed their course. Unfortunately, a
majority of the red men were not always content to
watch the Express in simple wonder. They were
too frequently bent upon committing deviltry to
refrain from doing harm whenever they had a chance.
120 THE PONY EXPRESS
their guns were empty a hidden band of
savages would make a furious onslaught.
It was the established rule of the West in
those days, in case of suspected danger, to
shoot first, and make explanations after¬
ward ; to do to the other fellow as he would
do to you, and do it first !
Added to the perils of the wilderness —
deserts, blizzards, and wild Indians — the
pony riders, then, had at times to beware
of their white friends under such circum¬
stances as have been narrated. And that
added to the tragical romance of their daily
lives. Yet they courted danger and were
seldom disappointed, for danger was al¬
ways near them.
CHAPTER VII
ANECDOTES OF THE TRAIL AND HONOR
ROLL
NO DETAILED account of the Pony
Express would be complete without
mentioning the adventures of Robert
Haslam, in those days called " Pony Bob,"
and William F. Cody, who is known to
fame and posterity as " Buffalo Bill."
Haslam's banner performance came
about in a matter-of-fact way, as is gen¬
erally the case with deeds of heroism. On
a certain trip during the Ute raids men¬
tioned in the last chapter, he stopped at
Reed's Station on the Carson River in
Nevada, and found no change of horses,
since all the animals had been appropriated
by the white men of the vicinity for a cam¬
paign against the Indians. Haslam there-
121
122 THE PONY EXPRESS
fore fed the horse he was riding, and after
a short rest started for Bucklands,* the
next station which was fifteen miles down
the river. He had already ridden seventy-
five miles and was due to lay off at the lat¬
ter place. But on arriving, his successor,
a man named Johnson Richardson, was
unable or indisposed to go on with the
mail.f It happened that Division Super¬
intendent W. C. Marley was at Bucklands
when Haslam arrived, and, since Richard¬
son would not go on duty, Marley offered
" Pony Bob " fifty dollars bonus if he
would take up the route. Haslam
promptly accepted the proposal, and within
* Afterwards named Fort Churchill. This ride
took place in the summer of i860.
t Some reports say that Richardson was stricken
with fear. That he was probably suffering from
overwrought nerves, resulting from excessive risks
which his run had involved, is a more correct in¬
ference. This is the only case on record of a pony
messenger failing to respond to duty, unless killed
or disabled.
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 1^3
ten minutes was off, armed with a revolver
and carbine, on his new journey. He at
first had a lonesome ride of thirty-five miles
to the Sink of the Carson. Reaching the
place without mishap, he changed mounts
and hurried on for thirty-seven miles over
the alkali wastes and through the sand
until he came to Cold Springs. Here he
again changed horses and once more dashed
on, this time for thirty miles without stop¬
ping, till Smith's Creek was reached where
he was relieved by J. G. Kelley. " Bob "
had thus ridden one hundred and eighty-
five miles without stopping except to
change mounts. At Smith's Creek he slept
nine hours and then started back with the
return mail. On reaching Cold Springs
once more, he found himself in the midst
of tragedy. The Indians had been there.
The horses had been stolen. All was in
ruins. Nearby lay the corpse of the faith-
124 THE PONY EXPRESS
ful station-keeper. Small cheer for a tired
horse and rider ! Haslam watered his
steed and pounded ahead without rest or
refreshment. Before he had covered half
the distance to the next station, darkness
was falling. The journey was enshrouded
with danger. On every side were huge
clumps of sage-bush which would offer ex¬
cellent chances for savages to lie in ambush.
The howling of wolves added to the dole-
fulness of the trip. And haunting him
continuously was the thought of the ruined
little station and the stiffened corpse
behind him. But pony riders were men of
courage and nerve, and Bob was no excep¬
tion. He arrived at Sand Springs safely;
but here there was to be no rest nor delay.
After reporting the outrage he had just
seen, he advised the station man of his
danger, and, after changing horses, in¬
duced the latter to accompany him on
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 125
to the Sink of the Carson, which
move doubtless saved the latter's life.
Reaching the Carson, they found a badly
frightened lot of men who had been at¬
tacked by the Indians only a few hours
previously. A party of fifteen with plenty
of arms and ammunition had gathered in
the adobe station, which was large enough
also to accommodate as many horses.
Nearby was a cool spring of water, and,
thus fortified, they were to remain, in a
state of siege, if necessary, until* the ma¬
rauders withdrew from that vicinity. Of
course they implored Haslam to remain
with them and not risk his life venturing
away with the mail. But the mail must
go; and the schedule, hard as it was, must
be maintained. " Bob " had no concep¬
tion of fear, and so he galloped away, after
an hour's rest. And back into Bucklands
he came unharmed, after having suffered
126 THE PONY EXPRESS
only three and a half hours of delay.
Superintendent Marley, who was still pres¬
ent when the daring rider returned, at
once raised his bonus from fifty to one
hundred dollars.
Nor was this all of Haslam's great
achievement. The west-bound mail would
soon arrive, and there was nobody to take
his regular run. So after resting an hour
and a half, he resumed the saddle and hur¬
ried back along his old trail, over the Sier¬
ras to Friday's Station. Then " Bob "
rested after having ridden three hundred
and eighty miles with scarcely eleven hours
of lay-off, and within a very few hours of
regular schedule time all the way. In
speaking of this performance afterwards,
Haslam * modestly admitted that he was
* After the California Pony Express was aban¬
doned, Bob rode for Wells Fargo & Co., between
Friday's Station and Virginia City, Nevada, a dis¬
tance of one hundred miles. He seems to have
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 127
rather tired," but that the excitement
of the trip had braced him up to stand the
journey."
The most widely known of all the pony
riders is William F. Cody — usually called
Bill," who in early life resided in Kansas
and was raised amid the exciting scenes of
frontier life. Cody had an unusually dan¬
gerous route between Red Buttes and
Three Crossings. The latter place was
on the Sweetwater River, and derived its
name from the fact that the stream which
followed the bed of a rocky canon, had to
be crossed three times within a space of
enjoyed horseback riding, for he made this round-
trip journey in twenty-four hours. When the Central
Pacific R. R. was built, and this pony line abandoned,
Haslam rode for six months a twenty-three mile
division between Virginia City and Reno, traveling
the distance in less than one hour. To accomplish
this feat, he used a relay of fifteen horses. He was
afterwards transferrel to Idaho where he continued
in a similar capacity on a one hundred mile run
before quitting the service for a less exciting voca¬
tion.
128 THE PONY EXPRESS
sixty yards. The water coming down
from the mountains, was always icy cold
and the current swift, deep, and treacher¬
ous. The whole bottom of the canon was
often submerged, and in attempting to
follow its course along the channel of the
stream, both horse and rider were liable to
plunge at any time into some abysmal
whirlpool. Besides the excitement which
the Three Crossings and an Indian country
furnished, Cody's trail ran through a re¬
gion that was often frequented by despera¬
does. Furthermore, he had to ford the
North Platte at a point where the stream
was half a mile in width and in places
twelve feet deep. Though the current was
at times slow, dangers from quicksand
were always to be feared on these prairie
rivers. Cody, then but a youth, had to sur¬
mount these obstacles and cover his trip at
an average of fifteen miles an hour»
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 129
Cody entered the Pony Express service
just after the line had been organized. At
Julesburg he met George Chrisman, an old
friend who was head wagon-master for
Russell, Majors, and WaddelPs freight¬
ing department. Chrisman was at the time
acting as an agent for the express line, and,
out of deference to the youth, he hired
him temporarily to ride the division then
held by a pony man named Trotter. It
was a short route, one of the shortest on
the system, aggregating only forty-five
miles, and with three relays of horses each
way. Cody, who had been accustomed to
the saddle all his young life, had no trouble
in following the schedule, but after keep¬
ing the run several weeks, the lad was re¬
lieved by the regular incumbent, and then
went east, to Leavenworth, where he fell
in with another old friend, Lewis Simp¬
son, then acting as wagon boss and fitting
130 THE PONY EXPRESS
up at Atchison a wagon train of supplies
for the old stage line at Fort Laramie and
points beyond. Acting through Simpson,
Cody obtained a letter of recommendation
from Mr. Russell, the head of the firm, ad¬
dressed to Jack Slade, Superintendent of
the division between Julesburg and Rocky
Ridge, with headquarters at Horseshoe
Station, thirty-six miles west of Fort La¬
ramie, in what is now Wyoming. Armed
with this letter, young Cody accompanied
Simpson's wagon-train to Laramie, and
soon found Superintendent Slade. The
superintendent, observing the lad's tender
years and frail stature, was skeptical of
his ability to serve as a pony rider ; but on
learning that Cody was the boy who had
already given satisfactory service as a sub¬
stitute some months before, at once en¬
gaged him and assigned him to the perilous
run of seventy-six miles between Re¿
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL ISl
Buttes and Three Crossings. For some
weeks all went well. Then, one day when
he reached his terminal at Three Crossings,
Cody found that his successor who was to
have taken the mail out, had been killed
the night before. As there was no extra
rider available, it fell to young Cody to
fill the dead courier's place until a succes¬
sor could be procured. The lad was un¬
daunted and anxious for the added re¬
sponsibility. Within a moment he was
off on a fresh horse for Rocky Ridge,
eighty-five miles away. Notwithstanding
the dangers and great fatigue of the trip,
Cody rode safely from Three Crossings to
his terminal and returned with the east-
bound mail, going back over his own divi¬
sion and into Red Buttes without delay or
mishap — an aggregate run of three hun¬
dred and twenty-two miles. This was
probably the longest continuous perform-
1S2 THE PONY EXPRESS
anee without a formal rest period in the
history of this or any other courier service.
Not long afterward, Cody was chased
by a band of Sioux Indians while making
one of his regular trips. The savages were
armed with revolvers, and for a few min¬
utes made it lively for the young messen¬
ger. But the superior speed and endurance
of his steed soon told ; lying flat on the ani¬
mal's neck, he quickly distanced his as¬
sailants and thundered into Sweetwater,
the next station, ahead of schedule. Here
he found — as so often happened in the
history of the express service — that the
place had been raided, the keeper slain, and
the horses driven off. There was nothing
to do but drive his tired pony twelve miles
further to Ploutz Station, where he got a
fresh horse, briefly reported what he had
observed, and completed his run without
mishap.
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 133
On another occasion it became mys¬
teriously rumored that a certain Pony Ex¬
press pouch would carry a large sum of
currency. Knowing that there was great
likelihood of some bandits — or " road
agents " as they were commonly called —
getting wind of the consignment and at¬
tempting a holdup, Cody hit upon a little
emergency ruse. He»provided himself with
an extra mochila which he stuffed with
waste papers and placed over the saddle in
the regular* position. The pouch contain¬
ing the currency was hidden under a special
saddle blanket. With his customary re¬
volver loaded and ready, Cody then started.
His suspicions were soon confirmed, for on
reaching a particularly secluded spot, two
highwaymen stepped from concealment,
and with levelled rifles compelled the boy
to stop, at the same time demanding the let-
*Inman & Cody, Salt Lake Trail.
134 THE PONY EXPRESS
ter pouch. Holding up his hands as or¬
dered, Cody began to remonstrate with
the thugs for robbing the express, at the
same time declaring to them that they
would hang for their meanness if they car¬
ried out their plans. In reply to this they
told Cody that they would take their own
chances. They knew what he carried and
they wanted it. They had no particular
desire to harm him, but unless he handed
over the pouch without delay they would
shoot him full of holes, and take it anyhow.
Knowing that to resist meant certain
death Cody began slowly to unfasten the
dummy pouch, still protesting with much
indignation. Finally, after having loosed
it, he raised the pouch and hurled it at the
head off the nearest outlaw, who dodged,
half amused at the young fellow's spirit.
Both men were thus taken slightly off their
guard, and that instant the rider acted like
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 135
a flash. Whipping out his revolver, he dis¬
abled the farther villain; and before the
other, who had stooped to recover the sup¬
posed mail sack, could straighten up or use
a weapon, Cody dug the spurs into his
horse, knocked him down, rode over him
and was gone. Before the half-stunned
robber could recover himself to shoot,
horse and rider were out of range and run¬
ning like mad for the next station, where
they arrived ahead of schedule.
The following is a partial list, so far as
is known,of the men who rode the Pony
Express and contributed to the lasting
fame of the enterprise:
Baughn, Melville Bucklin, Jimmy
Beatley, Jim Carr, William
Boston " Carrigan, William
Boulton, William Gates, Bill
Brink, James W. Clark, Jimmy
Burnett, John Cliff, Charles
* Root and Conn alley's Overland Stcuge to Califor¬
nia.
136 THE PONY EXPRESS
Cody, William F.
Egan, Major
Ellis, J. K.
Faust, H. J.
Fisher, John
Frey, Johnnie
Gentry, Jim
Gilson, Jim
Hamilton, Sam
Haslam, Robert
Hogan (first name
missing)
Huntington, Let
" Irish Tom "
James, William
Jenkins, Will D.
Kelley, Jay G.
Keetley, Jack
" Little Yank"
Martin, Bob
McCall, J. G.
McDonald, James
McNaughton, Jim
Moore, Jim
Perkins, Josh
Rand, Theodore
Richardson, Johnson
Riles, Bart
Rising, Don C.
Roff, Harry
Spurr, George
Thacher, George
Towne, George
Wallace, Henry
Westcott, Dan
Zowgaltz, Jose.
Many of these men were rough and un¬
lettered. Many died deaths of violence.
The bones of many lie in unknown graves.
Some doubtless lie unburied somewhere in
the great West, in the winning of which
their lives were lost. Y et be it always re¬
membered, that in the history of the Amer-
TRAIL AND HONOR ROLL 137
ican nation they played an important part.
They were bold-hearted citizen knights to
whom is due the honors of uncrowned
kings.
CHAPTER VIII
EARLY OVERLAND MAIL ROUTES
IN THE history of overland transporta¬
tion in America, the Pony Express is
but one in a series of many enterprises. As
emphasized at the beginning of this book,
its importance lay in its opportuneness; in
the fact that it appeared at the psychol¬
ogical moment, and fitted into the course
of events at a critical period, prior to the
completion of the telegraph; and when
some form of rapid transit between the
Missouri River and the Pacific Coast was
absolutely needed. To give adequate set¬
ting to this story, a brief account of the
leading overland routes, of which the Pony
Express was but one, seems proper.
Before the middle of the nineteenth cen¬
tury, three great thoroughfares had been
138
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 139
established from the Missouri, westward
across the continent. These were the Santa
Fe, the Salt Lake, and the Oregon trails.
All had important branches and lesser
stems, and all are today followed by im¬
portant railroads — a splendid testimo¬
nial to the ability of the pioneer pathfind¬
ers in selecting the best routes.
Of these trails, that leading to Santa
Fe was the oldest, having been fully estab¬
lished before 1824. The Salt Lake and
Oregon routes date some twenty years
later, coming into existence in the decade
between 1840 and 1850. It is incidentally
with the Salt Lake trail that the story of
the Pony Express mainly deals.
The Mormon settlement of Utah in
1847-48, followed almost immediately by
the discovery of gold in California, led
to the first mail route ^ across the country,
* Authority for Early Mail Routes is Root and
Connelley's Overland Stage to California.
140 THE PONY EXPRESS
west of the Missouri. This was known as
the " Great Salt Lake Mail," and the first
contract for transporting it was let July
1, 1850, to Samuel H. Woodson of Inde¬
pendence, Missouri. By terms of this
agreement, Woodson was to haul the mail
monthly from Independence on the Mis¬
souri River to Salt Lake City, twelve hun¬
dred miles, and return. Woodson later ar¬
ranged with some Utah citizens to carry a
mail between Salt Lake City and Fort La¬
ramie, the service connecting with the Inde¬
pendence mail at the former place. This
supplementary line was put into operation
August 1, 1851.
In the early fifties, while the California
gold craze was still on, a monthly route
was laid out between Sacramento and Salt
Lake City.* This service was irregular
* The reader will keep in mind that during the
early days of California history, practically all com-
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 141
and unreliable; and since the growing
population of California demanded a di¬
rect overland route, a four year monthly
contract was granted to W. F. McGraw,
a resident of Maryland. His subsidy from
Congress was $13,500.00 a year. In those
days it often took a month to get mail from
Independence to Salt Lake City, and about
six weeks for the entire trip. Although
McGraw charged $180.00 fare for each
passenger to Salt Lake City, and $300.00
to California, he failed, in 1856. The un¬
expired contract was then let to the Mor¬
mon firm of Kimball & Co., and they kept
the route in operation until the Mormon
troubles of 1857 when the Government
abrogated the agreement.
In the summer of 1857, General Albert
Sidney Johnston, later of Civil War fame,
munication between that locality and the East was
carried on by steamship from New York via Panama.
142 THE PONY EXPRESS
was sent out with a Federal army of five
thousand men to invade Utah. After a
rather fruitless campaign, Johnston win¬
tered at Fort Bridger, in what is south¬
western Wyoming, not far from the Utah
line. During this interval, army supplies
were hauled from Fort Leavenworth with
only a few way stations for changing
teams. This improvised line, carrying
mail occasionally, which went over the old
Mormon trail via South Pass, and Forts
Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, was for
many months the only service available for
this entire region.
The next contract for getting mail into
Utah was let in 1858 to John M. Hock-
aday of Missouri. Johnston's army was
then advancing from winter quarters at
Bridger toward the valley of Great Salt
Lake, and the Government wanted mail
oftener then once a month. In considera-
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 14.3
tion of $190,000.00 annually which was
to be paid in monthly installments, Hock-
aday agreed to put on a weekly mail. This
route, which ran from St. Joseph to Salt
Lake City, was later combined with a line
that had been running from Salt Lake to
Sacramento, thus making a continuous
weekly route to and from California. For
the combined route the Government paid
$320,000.00 annually. Its actual yearly
receipts were $5,142.03.
The discovery of gold in the vicinity of
Denver in the summer of 1858 caused an¬
other wild excitement and a great rush
which led to the establishment in the sum¬
mer of 1859 of the Leavenworth and
Pike's Peak Express, from the Missouri to
Denver. As then traveled, this route was
six hundred and eighty-seven miles in
length. The line was operated by Russell,
Maj ors, and Waddell, and that same year
144 THE PONY EXPRESS
they took over Hockaday's business. As
has already been stated, the new firm of
Pony Express fame — called the Central
Overland California and Pike's Peak Ex¬
press Co.— consolidated the old California
line, which had been run in two sections.
East and West, with the Denver line. In
addition to the Pony Express it carried on
a big passenger and freighting business to
and from Denver and California.
Turning now to .the lines that were
placed in commission farther South. The
first overland stage between Santa Fe and
Independence was started in May, 1849.
This was also a monthly service, and by
1850 it was fully equipped with the famous
Concord coaches, which vehicles were soon
to be used on every overland route in the
West. Within five years, this route, which
was eight hundred fifty miles in length and
followed the Santa Fe trail, now the route
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 145
of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
railroad, had attained great importance.
The Government finally awarded it a
yearly subsidy of $10,990.00, but as the
trail had little or ño military protection
except at Fort Union, New Mexico, and
for hundreds of miles was exposed to the
attacks of prairie Indians, the contractors
complained because of heavy losses and
sought relief of the Post Office and War
Departments. Finally they were released
from their old contract and granted a new
one paying $25,000.00 annually, but even
then they fell behind $5,000.00 per year.
By special act passed August 3, 1854,
Congress laid out a monthly mail route
from Neosho, Missouri, to Albuquerque,
New Mexico, with an annual subsidy of
$17,000.00. Since the Mexican War this
region had come to be of great commercial
and military importance. A little later.
146 THE PONY EXPRESS
in March 1855, the route was changed by
the Government to run monthly from
Independence and Kansas City, Missouri,
to Stockton, California, via Albuquerque,
and the contractors were awarded a yearly
bonus of $80,000.00. This line was also
a financial failure.
The early overlana routes were granted
large subsidies and the privilege of charg¬
ing high rates for passengers and freight.
To the casual observer it may seem strange
that practically all these lines operated
at a disastrous loss. It should be noted
however, that they covered an immense
territory, many portions of which were
occupied by hostile Indians. It is no easy
task to move military forces and supplies
thousands of miles through a wilderness.
Furthermore, the Indians were elusive and
hard to find when sought by a considerable
force. They usually managed to attack
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 147
when and where they were least expected.
Consequently, if protection were secured
at all, it usually fell to the lot of the stage
companies to police their own lines, which
was expensive business. Often they
waged, single-handed, Indian campaigns
of considerable importance, and the fron¬
tiersmen whom they could assemble for
such duty were sometimes more effective
than the soldiers who were unfamiliar with
the problems of Indian warfare.
Added to these difficulties were those
incident to severe weather, deep snow, and
dangerous streams, since regular highways
and bridges were almost unknown in the
regions traversed. Not to mention the
handicap and expense which all these
natural obstacles entailed, business on
many lines was light, and revenues low.
News from Washington about the crea¬
tion of the new territory of Utah — in
148 THE PONY EXPRESS
September 1850 — was not received in
Salt Lake City until January 1851. The
report reached Utah by messenger from
California, having come around the conti¬
nent by way of the Isthmus of Panama.
The winters of 1851-52, and 1852-53 were
frightfully severe and such expensive de¬
lays were not uncommon. The November
mail of 1856 was compelled to winter in
the mountains.
In the winter of 1856-57 no steady serv¬
ice could be maintained between Salt Lake
City and Missouri on account of bad
weather. Finally, after a long delay, the
postmaster at Salt Lake City contracted
with the local firm of Little, Hanks, and
Co., to get a special mail to and from
Independence. This was accomplished,
but the ordeal required seventy-eight days,
during which men and animals suffered
terribly from cold and hunger. The firm
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 149
received $1,500.00 for its trouble. The
Salt Lake route returned to the Govern¬
ment a yearly income of only $5,000.00.
The route from Independence to Stock¬
ton, which cost Uncle Sam $80,000.00 a
year, collected in nine months only $1,-
255.00 in postal revenues, whereupon it
was abolished July ist, 1859.
By the close of 1859 there were at least
six different mail routes across the conti¬
nent from the Missouri to the Pacific Coast.
They were costing the Government a total
of $2,184,696.00 and returning $339,-
747.34. The most expensive of these lines
was the New York and New Orleans
Steamship Company route, which ran semi¬
monthly from New York to San Francisco
via Panama. This service cost $738,-
250.00 annually and brought in $229,-
979.69. While the steamship people did
not have the frontier dangers to confront
150 THE PONY EXPRESS
them, they were operating over a round¬
about course, several thousand miles in ex¬
tent, and the volume of their postal busi¬
ness was simply inadequate to meet the
expense of maintaining their business.*
The steamer schedule was about four
weeks in either direction, and the rapidly
increasing population of California soon
* In June, i860, Congress got into trouble with
this company over postal compensations. The steam¬
ship company, it appears, thought its remuner¬
ation too low and it further protested that the di¬
version of mail traffic, due to the daily Overland
Stage Line and the Pony Express would reduce its
revenues still further. Congress finally adjourned
without effecting a settlement, and the mail, which
was far too heavy for the overland facilities to handle
at that time, was piling up by the ton awaiting ship¬
ment. Matters were getting serious when Cornelius
Vanderbilt came to the Government's relief and
agreed to furnish steamer service until Congress
assembled in March, 1861, provided the Federal
authorities would assure him "a fair and adequate
compensation." This agreement was effected and
the affair settled as agreed. At the expiration of the
period, the war and the growing importance of the
overland route made steamship service by way of the
Isthmus quite obsolete.
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 151
demanded, in the early fifties, a faster and
more frequent service. Agitation to that
end was thus started, and during the last
days of Pierce's administration, in March
1857, the ''Overland Mail" bill was
passed by Congress and signed by the
President. This act provided that the Post¬
master-General should advertise for bids
until June 30 following: "for the con¬
veyance of the entire letter mail from such
point on the Mississippi River as the con¬
tractors may select to San Francisco, Cal.,
for six years, at a cost not exceeding $300,-
000 per annum for semi-monthly, $450,-
000 for weekly, or $600,000 for semi-
weekly service to be performed semi¬
monthly, weekly, or semi-weekly at the
option of the Postmaster-General." The
specifications also stipulated a twenty-five
day schedule, good coaches, and four-horse
teams.
15^ THE PONY EXPRESS
Bids were opened July i, 1857. Nine
were submitted, and most of them proposed
starting from St. Louis, thence going over¬
land in a southwesterly direction usually-
via Albuquerque. Only one bid proposed
the more northerly Central route via Inde¬
pendence, Fort Laramie, and Salt Lake.
The FostofBce Department was opposed to
this trail, and its attitude had been con¬
firmed by the troubles of winter travel in
the past. In fact this route had been a fail¬
ure for six consecutive winters, due to the
deep snows of the high mountains which it
crossed.
On July 2, 1857, the Postmaster Gen¬
eral announced the acceptance of bid No.
" 12,587 " which stipulated a forked route
from St. Louis, Missouri and from
Memphis, Tennessee, the lines converging
at Little Rock, Arkansas. Thence the
course was by way of Preston, Texas; or
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 153
as nearly as might be found advisable, to
the best point in crossing the Rio Grande
above El Paso, and not far from Fort Fil-
more ; thence along the new road then being
opened and constructed by the Secretary
of the Interior to Fort Yuma, California;
thence through the best passes and along
the best valleys for safe and expeditious
staging to San Francisco. On September
15 following, a six year contract was let
for this route. The successful firm at once
became known as the Butterfield Over¬
land Mail Company." Among the firm
members were John Butterfield, Wm. B.
Dinsmore, D. N. Barney, Wm. G. Fargo
and Hamilton Spencer. The extreme
length of the route agreed upon from St.
Louis to San Francisco was two thousand
seven hundred and twenty-nine miles; the
most southern point was six hundred miles
south of South Pass on the old Salt Lake
154 THE PONY EXPRESS
route. Because of the out-of-the-way
southern course followed, two and one
half days more than necessary were nomi-
nally»required in making the j ourney. Y et
the postal authorities believed that this
would be more than offset by the southerly
course being to a great extent free from
winter snows.
On September 15, 1858, after elaborate
preparations, the overland mails started
from San Francisco and St. Louis on the
twenty-five day schedule — which was
three daysiless than that of the water route.
The postage rate was ten cents for each
half ounce; the passenger fare was one
hundred dollars in gold. The first trip
was made in twenty-four days, and in each
of the terminal cities big celebrations were
held in honor of the event. And yet today,
four splendid lines of railway cover this
distance in about three days !
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 155
These stages — to use the west-bound
route as an illustration — traveled in an
elliptical course through Springfield, Mis¬
souri, and Fayette ville, Arkansas, to Van
Buren, Arkansas, where the Memphis mail
was received. Continuing in a southwest¬
erly course, they passed through Indian
Territory and the Choctaw Indian reserve
— now Oklahoma — crossed the Red
River at Calvert's Ferry, then on through
Sherman, Fort Chadbourne and Fort Bel¬
knap, Texas, through Guadaloupe Pass to
El Paso ; thence up the Rio Grande River
through the Mesilla Valley, and into
western New Mexico — now Arizona —
to Tucson. Then the journey led up the
Gila River to Arizona City, across the
Mojave desert in Southern California and
finally through the San Joaquin Valley to
San Francisco.
Today a traveler could cover nearly the
156 THE PONY EXPRESS
same route, leaving St. Louis over the
Frisco Railroad, transferring to the Texas
Pacific at Fort Worth, and taking the
Southern Pacific at El Paso for the re¬
mainder of the trip.
As has been shown, the outbreak of the
Civil War in the spring of 1861 made it
necessary for the Federal Government to
transfer this big and important route
further north to get it beyond the latitude
of the Confederacy. Hence the Southern
route was formally abandoned on March
12, 1861, and the equipment removed to
the Central or Salt Lake trail where a daily
service was inaugurated. About three
months was necessary to move all the out¬
fits and in July 1861, the first daily over¬
land mail— running six times a week —
* The contractors are said to have been awarded
$50,000 by the Government for their trouble in hav¬
ing the agreement broken.
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 157
was started between St. Joseph and Placer-
ville, California, 1,920 miles by the way
of Forts Kearney, Bridger, and Salt Lake
City.
The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
had been built into St. Joseph and was
doing business by February 1859. For
some time that city enjoyed the honor of
being the eastern stage terminal ; but with¬
in a year the railroad was extended to
Atchison, about twenty miles down the
stream. The latter place is situated on a
bend of the river fourteen miles west of St.
Joseph, and so the terminal honors soon
passed to Atchison since its westerly loca¬
tion shortened the haul.
In transferring the Butterfield line from
the Southern to the Central route, it was
merged with the Central Overland Cali¬
fornia and Pike's Peak Express Company
which already included the Leavenworth
158 THE PONY EXPRESS
and Pike's Peak Express Company, under
the leadership of General Bela M. Hughes.
This line was known to the Government
as the Central Overland California Route.
As soon as the transfer was completed,
through California stages were started on
an eighteen day schedule — a full week
less time than had been required by the
Butterfield route, and ten days less than
that of the Panama steamers. This was
the most famous of all the stage routes,
and except for three interruptions, due to
Indian outbreaks in 1862, 1864, and 1865,
it did business continuously for several
years.
Within a few months came another
change of proprietorship, the route passing
on a mortgage foreclosure into the hands
of Benjamin Holladay, a famous stage
line promoter, late in 1861. Early the
following year Holladay reorganized the
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 159
management under the name of the Over¬
land Stage Line. This seems to have been
what today is technically known as a hold¬
ing company; for until the expiration of
the old Butterfield contract in 1863,"^ he
allowed the business east of Salt Lake City
to be carried on by the old C. O. C. & P.
P. Co. ; west of Salt Lake, the new Over¬
land Line allowed, or sublet the through
traffic to a vigorous subsidiary, the Pioneer
»
Stage Line.f
Holladay was fortunate in securing a
new mail contract for the Central route
which he now controlled. For supplying
a six day letter mail service from the Mis-
* See page 153. Holladay secured possession of
the outfits of the C. O. C. & P. P. Exp. Co., between
the Missouri and Salt Lake City.
t The Pioneer Line which had recently come into
power and prominence had gained possession of the
equipment west of Salt Lake. This line was owned
by Louis and Charles McLane. Louis McLane after¬
ward became President of the Wells Fargo Express
Co.
160 THE PONY EXPRESS
souri to Placerville together with a way
mail to and from Denver and Salt Lake
City, he was paid $1,000,000 a year for
the three years beginning July i, 1861.
At the expiration of this period he was to
get $840,000.
In the meantime gold was discovered in
Idaho and Montana, and Holladay, en¬
couraged by his big subsidy from the Gov¬
ernment, put stage lines into Virginia City,
Montana, and Boise City, Idaho.
In 1866 the Butterfield Overland Des¬
patch, an express and fast freight line, was
started above the Smoky Hill route from
Topeka and Leavenworth across Kansas to
Denver. Within a short time this organ¬
ization failed, mainlv because of the heaw
expense caused by Indian depredations,
and was consolidated with the Holladay
Company. Just prior to this transfer, Mr.
Holladay received from the Colorado Ter-
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 161
ritorial legislature a charter for the Hol-
laday Overland Mail and Express Com¬
pany," which was the full and formal
name of the new concern. This corpora¬
tion now owned and controlled stage lines
aggregating thirty-three hundred miles.
It brought the service up to the highest
point of efficiency and used only the best
animals and vehicles it was possible to
obtain.
In addition to his federal mail bonus,
Holladay had the following rates for pas¬
senger traffic in force:
In 1863, from Atchison to Denver $ 75.00
In 1863, from Atchison to Salt
Lake City 150.00
In 1863, from Atchison to Placer-
ville 225.00
In 1865, on account of the rise of gold
and the depreciation of currency, these
rates were increased; the fare from the
16^ THE PONY EXPRESS
Missouri River to Denver was changed to
$175.000; to Salt Lake $350.00. The
California rate varied from $400.00 to
$500.00. A year later the fare to Virginia
City, Montana, was fixed at $350.00 and
the rate to Salt Lake City reduced to
$225.00.
These high rates and Indian dangers
did not seem to check the desire on the
part of the public to make the overland
trip. Stages were almost always crowded,
and it was usually necessary for one to
apply for reservations several days in ad¬
vance.
Late in the year 1866, Holladay's entire
properties ^ were purchased by Wells
Fargo and Co. This was a new concern,
*Holladayis said to have received one million
five hundred thousand dollars cash, and three hun¬
dred thousand dollars in express company stock for
his interests. Besides these amounts which covered
only the animals, rolling stock, stations, and inci-
EARLY MAIL ROUTES 163
recently chartered by Colorado, which had
been quietly gaining power. Within a
short time it had exclusive control of prac¬
tically all the stage, express, and freight¬
ing business in the West and this business it
held.
Meanwhile the overland stage and
freight lines were rapidly shortening on
account of the building of the Pacific rail¬
roads, and the terminals of the through
routes became merely the temporary ends
of the fast growing railway lines. By the
early autumn of 1866, the Kansas Pacific
had reached Junction City, Kansas, and
the Union Pacific was at Fort Kearney,
Nebraska. The golden era of the overland
stage business was from 1858 to 1866.
After that, the old through routes were but
dental equipment, Wells Fargo and Co. had to pay
full market value for all grain, hay and provisions
along the line, amounting to nearly six hundred
thousand dollars more.
164 THE PONY EXPRESS
fragments " between the tracks " of the
Central Pacific and Union Pacific roads
which were building East and West
toward each other.
Wells Fargo & Co., however, clung to
these fragments until the lines met on
May loth, 1869, and a continuous trans¬
continental railroad was completed. Then
they turned their attention to organizing
mountain stage and express lines in the
railroadless regions of the West,— some
of which still exist. And they also turned
their energies to the railway express busi¬
ness, in which capacity this great firm, the
last of the old stage companies, is now
known the world over.
CHAPTER IX
PASSING OF THE PONY EXPRESS
WHEN Edward Creighton completed
the Pacific telegraph, and, on
October 24, 1861, began sending messages
by wire from coast to coast, the California
Pony Express formally went out of exist¬
ence. For over three months since July 1,
it had been paralleled by the daily over¬
land stage; yet the great efficiency of the
semi-weekly pony line in offering quick
letter service won and retained its popu¬
larity to the very end of its career.
And this was in spite of the fact that for
several weeks before its discontinuance the
pony men had ridden only between the ends
of the fast building telegraph which was
constructed in two divisions — from the
165
166 THE PONY EXPRESS
Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Missouri
River — at the same time, the lines meet¬
ing near the Great Salt Lake.
The people of the far West strongly
protested against the elimination of the
pony line service. Early in the winter
of 1862 it became rumored — perhaps
wildly — that the Committee on Finance
in the House of Representatives had, for
reasons of economy, stricken out the appro¬
priation for the continuance of the daily
stage. Whereupon the California legis¬
lature * addressed a set of joint resolutions
to the state's delegation in Congress, im¬
ploring not only that the Daily Stage be
retained, but that the Pony Express be re¬
established. The stage was continued but
the pony line was never restored.
As a financial venture the Pony Express
failed completely. To be sure, its receipts
* Senate Documents.
PASSING OF THE EXPRESS 167
were sometimes heavy, often aggregating
one thousand dollars in a single day. But
the expenses, on the other hand, were
enormous. Although the line was so great
a factor in the California crisis, and in
assisting the Federal Government to retain
the Pacific Coast, it was the irony of fate
that Congress should never give any direct
relief or financial assistance to the pony
service. So completely was this organiza¬
tion neglected by the government, in so
far as extending financial aid was con¬
cerned, that its financial failure, as fore¬
seen by Messrs. Waddell and Majors, was
certain from the beginning. The War De¬
partment did issue army revolvers and cart¬
ridges to the riders; and the Federal troops
when available, could always be relied
upon to protect the line. Yet it was gen¬
erally left to the initiative and resource¬
fulness of the company to defend itself as
168 THE PONY EXPRESS
best it could when most seriously menaced
by Indians. The apparent apathy regard¬
ing this valuable branch of the postal
service can of course be partially excused
from the fact that the Civil War was in
1861 absorbing all the energies which the
Government could summon to its com¬
mand. And the war, furthermore, was
playing havoc with our national finances
and piling up a tremendous national debt,
which made the extension of pecuniary re¬
lief to quasi-private operations of this
kind, no matter how useful they were, a
remote possibility.
That the stage lines received the assist¬
ance they did, under such circumstances,
is to be wondered at. Yet it must be borne
in mind that at the outset much of the
political support necessary to secure appro¬
priations for overland mail routes was de¬
rived from southern congressmen who were
PASSING OF THE EXPRESS 169
anxious for routes of communication with
the West coast, especially if such routes
ran through the Southwest and linked the
cotton-growing states with California.
At the very beginning, it cost about one
hundred thousand dollars to equip the
Pony Express line — in those days a very
considerable outlay of capital for a private
corporation. Besides the purchase of more
than four hundred high grade horses, it
cost large sums of money to build and
equip stations at intervals of every ten or
twelve miles throughout the long route.
The wages of eighty riders and about four
hundred station men, not to mention a
score of Division Superintendents was a
large item.
Most of the grain used along the line
between St. Joseph and Salt Lake City
was purchased in Iowa and Missouri and
shipped in wagons at a freight rate of from
170 THE PONY EXPRESS
ten cents to twenty cents a pound. Grain
and food stuffs for use between Salt Lake
City and the Sierras were usually bought
in Utah and hauled from two hundred to
seven hundred miles to the respective sta¬
tions. Hay, gathered wherever wild grasses
could be found and cured, often had to be
freighted hundreds of miles.
The operating expenses of the line
aggregated about thirty thousand dollars
a month, which would alone have insured
a deficit as the monthly income never
equalled that amount.
A conspicuous bill of expense which
helped to bankrupt the enterprise was for
protection against the savages. While this
should have been furnished by the Govern¬
ment or the local state or territorial militia,
it was the fate of the Company to bear the
brunt of one of the worst Indian outbreaks
of that decade.
PASSING OF THE EXPRESS 171
Early in i860, shortly after the Pony
Express was started, the Pah-Utes, men¬
tion of whom has already been made, be¬
gan hostilities under their renowned chief¬
tain Old Winnemucca. The uprising
spread; soon the Bannocks and Shoshones
espoused the cause of the Utes, and the
entire territory of Nevada, Eastern Cali¬
fornia and Oregon was aflame with Indian
revolt. Besides devastating many white
settlements wherever they found them, the
Indians destroyed nearly every pony sta¬
tion between California and Salt Lake,
murdered numbers of employes, and ran
off scores of horses. For several weeks the
service was paralyzed, and had it been in
the hands of faint-hearted men it would
have been ended then and there.
The climax came with the defeat and
massacre of Major Ormsby's force of about
fifty men by the Utes at the battle of
172 THE PONY EXPRESS
Pyramid Lake in western Nevada. Help
was finally sent in from a distance, and
before the first of June, eight hundred
men, including three hundred regulars and
a large number of California and Nevada
volunteers, had taken the field. This
formidable campaign finally served the
double purpose of protecting the Pony
Express and stage line and in subduing the
Indians in a primitive and effective manner.
Order was restored and the express service
resumed on June 19. Desultory outbreaks,
of course, continued to menace the line and
all forms of transportation for months
afterwards.
During this campaign, the local officers
and employes of the express gave valiant
service. It was remarkable that they could
restore the line so quickly as they did. The
total expense of this war to the Company
was $75,000, caused by ruined and stolen
PASSING OF THE EXPRESS 173
property and outlays for military supplies
incidental to the equipment of volunteers.
This onslaught, coming so soon after the
enterprise had begun, and when there was
already so little encouragement that the
line would ever pay out financially, must
have disheartened less courageous men
than Russell, Majors and Waddell and
their associates. It is to their everlasting
credit that this group of men possessed the
perseverance and patriotic determination
to continue the enterprise, even at a cer¬
tain loss, and in spite of Federal neglect,
until the telegraph made it possible to dis¬
pense with the fleet pony rider. Not only
did they stick bravely to their task of sup¬
plying a wonderful mail service to the
country, but they even improved their
service, increasing it from a weekly to a
semi-weekly route, immediately after the
disastrous raids of June, i860. Nor did
174 THE PONY EXPRESS
they hesitate at the instigation of the Gov¬
ernment a little later to reduce their postal
rates from five dollars to one dollar a half
ounce.
This condensed statement shows the
approximate deficit which the business
incurred :
To equip the line $ioo,oco
Maintenance at $30,000 per
month (for sixteen months) . 480,000
War with the Utes and allied
tribes 75,000
Sundry items 45,000
Total .$700,000
The receipts are said to have been about
$500,000 leaving a debit balance of $200,-
000. That the Company changed hands
in 1861 is not surprising.
While the Pony Express failed in a
financial way, it had served the country
PASSING OF THE EXPRESS 175
faithfully and well. It had aided an im¬
perilled Government, helped to tranquil¬
lize and retain to the Union a giant com¬
monwealth, and it had shown the practica¬
bility of building a transcontinental rail¬
road, and keeping it open for traffic regard¬
less of winter snows. All this Pony Ex¬
press did and more. It marked the supreme
triumph of American spirit, of God-fear¬
ing, man-defying American pluck and de¬
termination — qualities which have always
characterized the winning of the West.
The End
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