Captain Marcy would long remember that spring day of 29 April 1858. His supply train enjoyed a warm pleasant afternoon, graced with that mild April weather that signaled springtime in the Rockies:
"The day was bright, cheerful, and pleasant, the atmosphere soft, balmy, and delightful, the fresh grass was about six inches high, the trees had put forth their new leaves, and all nature conspired in giving evidence that the sombre garb of winter had been cast aside for the more verdant and smiling attire of spring. Our large herds of animals were turned out to graze upon the tender anmd nutritious grass that every where abounded. Our men were enjoying their social jokes and pastimes after the fatigues of the day's march, and every thing indicated contentment and happiness.
"This pleasant state of things lasted until near sunset, when the wind suddenly changed into the north; it turned cold, and soon commenced snowing violently, and continued to increase until it became a frightful winter tempest, filling the atmosphere with a dense cloud of driving snow, against which it was utterly impossible to ride or walk."(1)
Late that same afternoon Second Lieutenant Dubois had ridden ahead to Colonel Loring's camp at Point of Rocks to visit some of his friends from Fort Union. At sunset he attempted to return to Captain Marcy's camp on Black Squirrel Creek, but by then he could no longer find his way in the wind-driven snow. He turned back to Point of Rocks, there to write of the effects of the storm:
"Returning I sat down by McNally's fire but this soon became worse than nothing. We went to bed early. Morning came & still the storm raged with redoubled fury. Our beds were covered with snow to the depth of two feet. It was almost impossible to stand before the fury of the wind. A fire could not be lighted & cold, raw bacon was all we could find to eat. Half the tents were down & the men under them covered with drifts of snow....
"Not a soldier was visible. All our stock had stampeded. Nothing was left in camp but McRae's horses. All day it snowed. At night, I slept in McRae's tent. We could not sleep it was so cold. We drank four quarts of liquor during the day when we were in the snow without feeling any effect. During the night we heard cries & opening our tent two Mexicans stumbled in almost dead. Their limbs & faces were completely frozen. One had carried the other for half a mile & being lost in the drifting snow, our light had saved their lives. We rubbed their limbs & gave them blankets & in two hours they were almost comfortable. In the morning a dead man was found within one hundred yards of our tent, frozen to death.
"It still snowed on, but by night there seemed to be some prospect of change. The men were turned out from their nests under the snow & some attempts made to cook...This morning it has ceased snowing. We buried the man who had frozen to death."(2)
The man who had frozen to death was named Michael Fagan. After the storm passed a burial detail scraped away the snow alongside West Kiowa Creek, and dug a shallow grave to hold the remains of the frozen teamster. To keep the wolves away they placed several rocks over the grave, with a larger rock at either end. They also erected a wooden cross with the probable inscription, "Michael Fagan - May 2,1858." The only eulogy given was a simple statement in the report of Colonel Loring to the Secretary of War: "a citizen teamster in the quartermaster's employ was frozen to death."(3)
After Fagan's burial Dubois returned to his own camp on Black Squirrel Creek. The snow on the trail was in places four feet deep; around the brush corral it had drifted to a depth of twenty feet. The carcasss of frozen sheep, oxen and horses lay scattered in every direction. Even antelope mixing with the flock of sheep had frozen to death.
Captain Marcy's herd of 300 mules had broken away at the first approach of the storm and had run with the wind for up to forty miles, some of them ending up as far south as Autobees' settlement on the Huerfano River. The three Mexican herdsmen who had followed them had become exhausted and lost on the prairie. One herder had managed to find his way back to camp; another - when found - was delirious, crawling about on his hands and knees in the snow; the third had frozen to death and, according to Dubois, was brought back to camp and buried on Black Squirrel Creek.
The losses from the storm - besides the two frozen men - amounted to 350 dead sheep, forty mules, twelve cattle, and ten horses. Of the stampeded livestock, 260 mules and sixty-three cattle were later found and returned by the herders.
The expedition remained in camp for two days to recuperate the remaining 1,200 animals, then took the muddy trail north to Cherry Creek. At the crossing of the South Platte a merchant train caught up with the troops; one of the bullwhackers told of how he had found near Fagan's grave the remains of a man burned to death. The man had apparently fallen asleep too near a large fire of logs, and had fallen in.
After constructing a flatboat on which to cross the high waters of the South Platte, the combined Marcy-Loring expedition followed the Cherokee Trail and Bryon's Road through what is now southern Wyoming. At no place along this route did the threat of Mormon attack ever materialize. Delivery of the supplies and animals was made to Colonel Johnston at Fort Bridger on 9 June 1858. Soon after, the army marched to Salt Lake City. The city was found abandoned; only a few of the 30,000 inhabitants remained behind to set fire to the buildings should anything be disturbed. Colonel Johnston spared the city, moving instead to Cedar Valley, where he established Camp Floyd. By then the unpopular war was already nearly over. In a few weeks the Mormon began to return to their homes in the deserted city. By early fall most of the troops had started east, leaving only a token force to serve a reminder of the military's presence.
With this uneventful conclusion of the Mormon War, it might have been expected that the tragedies of the supply train - the great blizzard on the divide, the losses in equipment and livestock, the death and burial of both the Mexican herdsman and of the teamster named Fagan - would have soon been forgotten. The animal carcasses would have eventually rotted away or been consumed by scavengers. Even the marker over Fagan's grave would have slowly weathered and fallen, leaving only the rock-covered mound to blend unnoticed into the landscape. The tragedies of that terrible blizzard of late April and early May, 1858, would have eventually found expression only in the musty reports on file at army headquarters or in the scarred memories of those expedition members who survived the cold and the snow.
Such it might have been were it not for the fortuitous arrival of the Pikes Peak gold seekers.
FOOTNOTES -
(1)- Marcy, Randolph B. Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866).
(2)- Dubois, Col. John Van Deusen. Campaigns in the West 1856-1861, ed. by George P. Hammond. (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers West Society, 1949).
(3)- Loring, Col. W.W. "Colonel Loring's Itinerary," Secretary of War Report, 1858, pp.183-84. Senate Doc. 2 sess., 35th Congress, Vol.2, 1858-59, Serial No. 975 U.S. (Washington: William A. Harris, 1859).