Even during the height of the Indian Wars, emigrants along the South Platte River Road sometimes traveled hundreds of miles without having problems with the natives. The western artist Charles Stewart Stobie traveled along the South Platte River trail in the summer of 1865, though he must have passed the burnt out remnants of stage stations, he wrote instead about leisurely pursuits than the destruction along the trail. The following excerpt from Stobie’s journal begins just as his party left Julesburg:"…Army and navy revolvers were in general use at this time and the Colt's pistols were the favorites, although many carried Remingtons and the old Manhattan five-shooter. They were of the old pattern for loose ammunition or oiled paper cartridges, and the cylinders had to be capped. As we could procure ammunition for them at all of the ranches, we used a great deal of powder and lead in practicing - bottles, tin fruit cans, etc., afforded us a choice of targets when we did not use the prairie dogs as such.
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| Stobie in Denver 1866 www.finepaintings.com/stobie_main.htm |
Every wagon-train had its champion shot who often carried a card, the ace of spades, stuck in his hat band. He was open for challenge from those of other trains that we met or camped near and some very fine pistol practice was shown. The stakes generally were canned goods, Red Jacket Bitters, etc. - very seldom money. Sometimes the targets were tossed up and fired at in the air. But six bottles or cans in a row was the more usual way of arranging the objects to be fired at. However, our shooting from horseback at telegraph poles was of most service to us and trained our horses to stand fire a well. A man would ride on a keen lope along the line of poles at any distance he liked from them and fire at the knots or other marks on the poles that would catch his eye. One of our best shots was the cause of the wagon boss putting a stop to the too full use of revolvers.
We were corralled near a ranch and one of the drivers had imbibed a little, just enough to make him somewhat reckless. As he came into camp he noticed Martin, the Irishman, seated on a water keg smoking a long-stemmed new clay pipe. The pipe was cocked up in a most inviting way for a mark, and all being clear around him Jim pulled his six-shooter and whanged away at Martin's pipe. The pipe was knocked into smithereens and poor Martin fell backward off the water keg worse scared than when he had sighted the Indian.... the wagon boss put a stop to all pistol shooting for practice in close proximity to the camp from that day on.
We had been particularly lucky in escaping attacks by Indians for trains had been attacked and much stock run off as well as some people killed both to the east and west of us during our journey....
The alkali water had affected us all more or less and we frequently used citric acid to counteract its effects. At old Fort Morgan we left the Platte and struck off on the cut-off road to Denver. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred on this part of our journey....
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| Stobie self portrait with Ute in 1860s www.finepaintings.com/stobie_main.htm
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Photo Sources:Stobie in Denver 1866 www.finepaintings.com/stobie_main.htm
Photo Sources:Stobie self portrait with Ute in 1860s www.finepaintings.com/stobie_main.htm
Stobie, Charles Stewart, “Crossing the Plains to Colorado in 1865,” Colorado Magazine 10, No. 6 (1934), pp. 201-212.
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