486 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



calf; and it Avas a very lucky thing, Catliu, that you painted the portrait of me 

 before we started, for it is all that my dear wife will ever see of me." 



"We shall he on the move again in a few days; and I plainly see that I shall he 

 upon a litter, unless my horrid fever leaves me, which is daily taking away my 

 strength, and almost, at times, my senses. Adieu ! 



FORT GIBSON, AEKANSAS, FALL OF 1834. 



The last letter was written from my tent, and out upon the wild prairies, when 

 I was shaken and terrified by a burning fever, with home and my dear wife and lit- 

 tle one 2,000 miles ahead of me, whom I was despairing of ever emhracing again. I 

 am now scarcely better off, except that I am in comfortable quarters, with kind at- 

 tendance and friends about me. I am yet sick and very feeble, having been for 

 several weeks upon my back since I was brought in from the prairies. I am slowly 

 recovering, and for the first time since I wrote from the Cana dian able to use my pen 

 or my brush. 



ILLNESS OF THE SOLDIERS. 



"VVe drew off from that slaughtering ground a few days after my last letter was 

 written, with a great number sick, carried upon litters ; with ^horses giving out and 

 dying by the way, which much impeded our progress over the long and tedious route 

 that laid between us and Fort Gibson. Fifteen days, however, of constant toil and 

 fatigue brought us here, hut in a most crippled condition. Many of the sick were left 

 hy the way with attendants to take care of them, others were buried fro m their lit- 

 ters on which they breathed their last while traveling, and many others w ere brought 

 in to this place merely to die and get the privilege of a decent burial. 



Since the very day of our start into that country, the men have been continually 

 falling sick, and on their return, of those who are alive, there are not well ones 

 enough to take care of the sick. Many are yet left out upon the prairies, and of those 

 that have been brought in and quartered in the hospital, with the soldiers of the 

 infantry regiment stationed here, four or five are buried daily ; and as an equal 

 number from the Ninth Regiment are falling by the same disease, I have the mourn- 

 ful sound of " Roslin Castle," with muffled drums, passing six or eight times a day 

 under my window to the burying ground, which is but a little distance in front of 

 my room, where I can lay in my bed and see every poor fellow lowered down into his 

 silent and peaceful habitation. During the day before yesterday no less than eight 

 solemn processions visited that insatiable ground, and amongst them was carried the 

 corpse of my intimate and much-loved friend, Lieutenant West, who was aid-de-camp 

 to General Leavenworth on this disastrous campaign, and who has left in this place a 

 worthy and distracted widow, with her little ones, to m ourn for his untimely end. 



DEATH OF ME. BEYEICU^ A PRUSSIAN BOTANIST. 



On the same day was buried also the Prussian botanist, a most excellent and scientific 

 gentleman, who had obtained an order from the Secretary of W ar to accompany the ex- 

 ■ pedition for scientific purposes. He had at Saint Louis pur chased a very comfortable 

 dearborn wagon and a snug span of little horses to convey himself and his servants 

 with his collection of plants over the prairies. In this he traveled in company with the 

 regiment from Saint Louis to Fort Gibson some five or six hundred miles, and from that 

 to False Washita and the Cross Timbers, and back again. In this tour he had made an 

 immense, andno doubt very valuable, collection of plants, and at thispiace had been for 

 some weeks indefatigably engaged in changing and dr ying them, and at last fell a victim 

 to the disease of the country, which seemed to have made an easy conquest of him, from 

 the very feeble and enervated state he was evidently in, that of pulmonary consumption. 

 This fine, gentlemanly, and urbane, excellent man, to whom I became very much at- 

 tached, was lodged in a room adjoining to mine, where he died, as he had lived, peace- 



