the ground about fifteen inches. At the outset of the
expedition many laughable scenes took place. Our horses were generally
wild, fiery, and unused to military trappings and equipments. Amidst
the fluttering of banners, the sounding of bugles, the rattling of
artillery, the clattering of sabres and also of cooking utensils, some
of them took fright and scampered pell-mell over the wide prairie.
Rider, arms and accoutrements, saddles, saddle-bags, tin cups, and
coffee-pots, were frequently left far behind in the chase. No very
serious or fatal accident, however, occurred from this cause, and all
was right as soon as the affrighted animals were recovered.

The Army of the West was, perhaps, composed of as fine material as any
other body of troops then in the field. The volunteer corps consisted
almost entirely of young men of the country.

On the 9th of July, a separate detachment of the troops arrived at the
Little Arkansas, where the Santa Fe Trail crosses that stream--now in
McPherson County, Kansas. The mosquitoes, gnats, and black flies swarmed
in that locality and nearly drove the men and animals frantic. While
resting there, a courier came from the commands of General Kearney and
Colonel Doniphan, stating that their men were in a starving condition,
and asking for such provisions as could be spared. Lieutenant-Colonel
Ruff of Doniphan's regiment, in command of the troops now camped on
the Little Arkansas, was almost destitute himself. He had sent couriers
forward to Pawnee Fork to stop a train of provisions at that point and
have it wait there until he came up with his force, and he now directed
the courier from Kearney to proceed to the same place and halt as many
wagons loaded with supplies, as would suffice to furnish the three
detachments with rations. One of the couriers, in attempting to ford the
fork of the Pawnee, which was bank-full, was drowned. His body was
found and given a military funeral; he was the first man lost on the
expedition after it had reached the great plains, one having been
drowned in the Missouri, at Fort Leavenworth, before the troops left.

The author of _Doniphan's Expedition_ says:

In approaching the Arkansas, a landscape of the most
imposing and picturesque nature makes its appearance.
While the green, glossy undulations of the prairie to
the right seem to spread out in infinite succession,
like waves subsiding after a storm, a