headquarters at Fort Phil Kearny, that they were surrounded by attacking Sioux. There had been more than one fight of this character before; and Carrington sent an expedition to relieve and bring in the train. Before these started, under Fetterman, a new officer of his command, he repeated his admonitions against taking an aggressive. The troops dashed out of the fort, passed over a low range of hills and disappeared forever. When they failed to come back, further relief was sent, which found the dead and mutilated bodies of every man in Fetterman's command. The evidence showed that upon leaving the post they had seen Indians and had pursued them instead of continuing upon their mission; and the Indians had led them into a successful ambush.

The Civil War was over before the Fetterman massacre occurred, and the conditions that were so often ascribed to Confederate intrigue continued although the Confederacy had become a thing of the past. The army of the United States was commanded by men who had seen long service in real war, and in the War Department there were resources that overshadowed the scanty numbers of Indians and their limited equipment. Yet there was no peace on the plains. There was instead, as the confusion of the war passed away, and the United States could see it better, a crisis in Indian affairs caused by pressure from all sides, and increasing penetration of their ranges. There was as well the question whether the Bureau of Indian Affairs was adequate for its task, and whether the ideals of an army were the proper ones to dominate the men who were charged with the policing of the plains. It was a crisis that could end only in the extinction of the tribes, should events continue as they were. And the administrative system could not be altered for the better unless the United States should rise to new levels of organization and better standards of government.

CHAPTER LII

THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD

If there had been no other reason why the Indian policy must proceed upon a new course after the Civil War there would still have been cause enough for the change in the fact that the Pacific railroad was becoming a reality, and that from either side of the Continental Divide a railroad track was piercing the plains and mountains. It had been long in starting. As late as 1848, the New York Herald, that knew enough to know better, avowed in seriousness that "This whole project is ridiculous and absurd. Centuries hence it will be time enough to talk of such a railroad." During the delay, the plains had become an open book, traversed in every direction and mapped and described from every angle. The emigrants had continued to march across the continent in unbroken procession and with them the stage lines and the freighters had served to establish the routes and emphasize their length. The delay was long enough for the builders to learn how to construct so great a work, and for Congress to devise the means of aid. The 'centuries hence" were reduced to decades, when the passage of the Union Pacific Act of 1862 opened the period of actual construction.

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The national assistance offered the road in the original act seemed to be generous. The ten sections of public lands and the loan of sixteen thousand dollars of United States bonds per mile, would begin to accrue as soon as the first brief division of forty miles was completed and accepted by the federal inspectors. These could then be marketed, in order to provide funds for constructing additional divisions. The promoters of the company were required to raise only a small initial capital, to build the opening divisions and cover the necessary overhead. But even this small amount proved to be beyond their capacity, for the Civil War was calling for great loans to the Government, and was providing abundant outlets for the investment of free capital. Persons with money to invest found better opportunities at home in every section of the Union than were afforded by the stocks of a railroad on the plains. Even the warmest advocates of the Pacific railroad had not convinced themselves that the road would pay. It was to be a na

tional enterprise justified by the intangibles of national pride and protection. There might be a profit for the actual builders, but little was expected from operation. Hence the stock found no market, and there could be no more bonds except as a second mortgage. The United States loan was to be a first mortgage upon the property. Only an over-hopeful speculator could believe that the railroad would earn enough to satisfy the interest charges of this mortgage, to meet the charges on a second mortgage, and leave a surplus for dividends upon its stock.

The Central Pacific of California accepted the terms of the act of 1862 and proceeded with its surveys, while the new Union Pacific corporation was organized as provided in the act. But neither company showed vitality for five years, and the road that was urged so strongly as a war measure was hardly begun until the war was over. Ground was broken at Sacramento for the Central Pacific, in February, 1863, and a few miles were running before the end of the year. By the end of 1865 there seem to have been about sixty miles in operation, thirty more in 1866, and fortysix more the following year, making a total of 136 miles at the beginning of the building season of 1868. The construction was hindered by lack of capital, and the extreme difficulty of the engineering problem in the Sierra; but the Union Pacific that had only the gentle rolling plains to cross built even fewer miles, forty in fact, by the end of 1865.

Congress revised the enabling act in 1864, taking into account the lack of confidence in the future of the road, and the way in which its first mortgage obstructed further loans. The most important changes in the law were the doubling of the land grant, which now became twenty sections per mile of track, and the shifting of the Government loan to the status of a second mortgage. The railroads were permitted to borrow on first mortgage bonds to the amount of the Government loan. Investors who had no interest in second mortgage bonds or stock felt differently about a first mortgage, substantially guaranteed by the Government's holding of a second mortgage of the same amount. It was already required that the roads should have a standard gauge of four feet, eight and one half inches, so as to permit the exchange of rolling stock with the larger railroad systems of the East.

Under the law of 1864 both companies found financial support and gained momentum. Their speed was further increased by a law of 1866 concerning the junction point at which they should

meet. The original act provided that the Central Pacific should build within the State of California and meet the Union Pacific on the eastern border of that State. In the law of 1864, the Central Pacific was given permission to build 150 miles into the State of Nevada; and about this time President Lincoln made an executive ruling that gave a new aspect to construction in Nevada and Utah. The original law provided that the loan of bonds by the United States should be at the rate of sixteen thousand dollars per mile; with the proviso that this should be doubled in the rough foothills, and trebled to forty-eight thousand dollars in the heavy mountains. It was left to the President to determine the points at which the double and treble subsidies should begin to accumulate. His ruling threw the relatively flat country of the high Nevada plateau into the mountainous class, and both of the companies made a rush for the privilege of constructing here. The Central Pacific watched every move of Congress, with a careful lobby, and saw that no law was passed unless it received some favor. In 1866, it induced Congress to repeal the junction point and permit each road to build what it could, and to make a junction where the tracks should happen to meet.

Then began the race of construction, with the bond loan as the prize for performance. At the moment when the Arapahoe and Cheyenne and the Sioux were beginning their forlorn struggle against compression and extinction, the railroads increased the size of their gangs upon the plains, and in 1867, 1868, and 1869 built as never before. For a period of sixteen months in 1868 and 1869 every working day saw an average of two and a half miles of new track laid down. And in the spring of 1869 the work was done, 638 miles by the Central Pacific, and 1038 by the Union Pacific to the junction point.

The incidents of construction were so picturesque as to receive more general attention than was usually accorded railroad building now that the novelty of it had worn off. The material difficulties of the builders were great. From both ends they were building into an unoccupied waste, where they must carry with them their gangs, their habitations, and everything their men might need except fresh meat. With every mile laid down, the work became more complex, for over the increasing length of track must move from the first day not only the building materials but the equipment for daily life of large communities, and the communities themselves.

The terminal towns early caught the attention of the visitors upon the roads. During the busy seasons the railroad camp might easily run to ten thousand men, for all of whom shelter must be provided. The mining camps had taught them how to do this. The men slept in tents or wood frames covered with canvas or rough wood shacks. Along the disreputable street deep with dust or mud in the center and flanked by the hitching rails for horses, were the stores and houses. Their wooden fronts ascending to a parapet above the roof made an ambitious showing that was often belied by their canvas backs. Saloons, dance halls, and gambling dens were innumerable. After work there was nothing to do but wait for to-morrow, and while away the time with the parasites who swarmed along the line. "Hell on Wheels" was the appropriate name that Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican bestowed upon the town he visited in 1868. "Hell would appear to have been raked to furnish them," he said, "and to it they must have naturally returned after graduating here."

The towns were temporary, yet none was so forlorn that some speculators did not appear to hope that it would be permane..t. As soon as the site was selected, a town would be platted, streets named for the heroes of the Civil War, and lots put on sale. Among the forms of gambling that flourished was the speculation in real estate; and after each town moved on, leaving its empty shell behind it, it left also a harvest of blasted hopes.

Out of these railroad towns the construction trains proceeded every morning, carrying the whole working population to the job. It was not always a safe task. On the Union Pacific there was continuous friction with the Indians whose range was invaded. The meat hunters had constant trouble and sometimes gangs of workmen were attacked, so they were sent to their tasks armed to resist. From the chief engineer, General Grenville M. Dodge, down to the section hands, many of the builders were men of military experience. Soldiers discharged from the army in 1865 and 1866 sought work with the railroad. They "stacked their arms on the dump and were ready at a moment's warning to fall in and fight," said Dodge. They could arm a thousand men from the track train, experienced soldiers commanded by seasoned officers. And after the day's construction work, thus guarded, the trains carried them back to the shacks at night.

Every so often, when the track head was forty or fifty miles in advance of the terminal town, they knocked off work for a day