We had now been reduced to utter destitution. Our only food was what
rabbits and birds I could trap and catch with the help of our faithful
old dog Turk, and the sod corn which we grated into flour. Father could
be of no service to us. His presence, in fact, was merely a menace. So,
with the help of Brown, Jim Lane and other Free-soilers, he made his
way back to Ohio and began recruiting for his Grasshopper Falls colony.
He returned to us in the spring of '57 mortally ill. The wound
inflicted by Dunn had at last fulfilled the murderer's purpose. Father
died in the little log-house, the first man to shed his blood in the
fight against the extension of slavery into the Northern Territories.
I was eleven years old, and the only man of the family. I made up my
mind to be a breadwinner.
At that time the Fort was full of warlike preparations. A great number
of troops were being assembled to send against the Mormons. Trouble had
been long expected. United States Judges and Federal officers sent to
the Territory of Utah had been flouted. Some of them never dared take
their seats. Those who did asked assistance. Congress at last decided
to give it to them. General Harney was to command the expedition. Col.
Albert Sidney Johnston, afterward killed at Shiloh, where he fought on
the Confederate side, was in charge of the expedition to which the
earliest trains were to be sent.
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