rking was one which had originally
been made for Johnson, after a visit of his to Washington, but from
several causes it had been switched over to the War Department. Captain
Johnson, therefore, was determined to rob Ives of the glory of being the
first to take a steamboat to the head of navigation, and he did it with
a steamboat much larger than that of Ives which failed to pass Black
Canyon. The General Jesup, named after the quarter-master general of
the Army, was 108 feet long, 28 feet beam, and drew 2 feet, 6 inches
of water. She had exploded in August, 1854, but had been thoroughly
repaired. On this down trip from the head of steamboat navigation she
met with another accident, running on "a large rolling stone and sinking
just above Chimney Peak" some eighteen miles from Yuma. She was raised
by the Colorado and towed down to the Fort.*

* See Wagon Road from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River--Edward F.
Beale, 35th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Document,
124, Washington, 1858. Also Handbook to Arizona, pp. 247-48, R. J.
Hinton, 1878. The information as to Johnson's application for an
appropriation to explore the Colorado was given me by Mr. Robert
Brewster Stanton. Johnson also related the story of his "getting ahead"
of Ives, to Mr. Stanton, who now has the written statement as well. I
communicated with Johnson in 1904, requesting some data, but he declined
to give it on the ground that he intended himself to publish the story
of his exploits. Since then unfortunately he has died.

CHAPTER VII

Lieutenant Ives Explores to Fortification Rock--By Trail to Diamond
Creek, Havasupai Canyon, and the Moki Towns--Macomb Fails in an Attempt
to Reach the Mouth of Grand River--James White's Masterful Fabrication.

Steam navigation on the Colorado was now successfully established, and
when Lieutenant Ives was planning the exploration of the river there
were already upon it two powerful steamers exactly adapted, through
experience of previous disasters, to the peculiar dangers of these
waters, while Johnson, the chief owner and pilot, had become an expert
in handling a steamboat amid the unusual conditions. He had succeeded in
making a truce with the dragon. And he had secured the friendship of the
tribes of Amerinds living along the banks; his men and his property were
safe anywhere; his steamers often carried jolly bands of Cocopas or
of Yumas from place to place. In arranging a government ex