ousand strong, in dignified military array, while from
door and window, side-walk and side-street, the citizens watched our
movements and cheered us as we passed. Six months later the remnants of
that well-appointed regiment straggled into Topeka like stray dogs, and
no demonstration was given over their return. But they had done their
work, and in God's good time will come the day "to glean up their
scattered ashes into History's golden urn."

A few miles out from Topeka we were overtaken by Governor Crawford. He
had resigned the office of Chief Executive of Kansas to take command of
our regiment. The lustre of the military pageantry began to fade by the
time we had crossed the Wakarusa divide, and the capital city, nestling
in its hill-girt valley by the side of the Kaw, was lost to our view.
Ours was to be a campaign of endurance, of dogged patience, of slow,
grinding inactivity, the kind of campaign that calls for every resource
of courage and persistence from the soldier, giving him in return little
of the inspiration that stimulates to conquest on battle fields. The
years have come and gone, and what the Nineteenth Kansas men were called
to do and to endure is only now coming into historical recognition.

Our introduction to what should befall us later came in the rainy
weather, bitter winds, insufficient clothing, and limited rations of our
journey before we reached Fort Beecher, on the Arkansas River. To-day,
the beautiful city of Wichita marks the spot where the miserable little
group of tents and low huts, called Fort Beecher, stood then. Fifty
miles east of this fort we had passed the last house we were to see for
half a year.

The Arkansas runs bottomside up across the Plains. Its waters are mainly
under its bed, and it seems to wander aimlessly among the flat, lonely
sand-bars, trying helplessly to get right again. Beyond this river we
looked off into the Unknown. Somewhere back of the horizon in that
shadowy illimitable Southwest General Sheridan had established a
garrison on the Canadian River, and here General Custer and his Seventh
United States Cavalry were waiting for us. They had forage for our
horses and food and clothing for ourselves. We had left Topeka with
limited supplies expecting sufficient reinforcement of food and grain at
Fort Beecher to carry us safely forward until we should reach Camp
Supply, Sheridan's stopping-place, wherever in the Southwest that might
be. Then the two regiments, C