CHAPTER XXIX.

CAPTAIN LA BARGE IN WASHINGTON.

In connection with his work for the government it became necessary for Captain La Barge to make several visits to Washington. Considering the interesting period through which the national Capital was then passing, it was to be expected that these visits should present some features of note. The Captain went to Washington in all three times, once in each of the winters of 1862–65.

[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN.]

On the occasion of his first visit he was a member of a party who called upon the President to present him with a fine robe of fur. Three years before this Captain La Barge had promised Lincoln to procure for him a good buffalo robe; but the rapid march of events and the great matters that weighed upon the public mind had so far kept him from fulfilling his promise. On the present occasion it was proposed to give the President an elegant robe composed of ten beaver skins, the whole richly lined and embroidered.

The members of the party were Dr. Walter A. Burleigh of Yankton, Dak.; Captain La Barge, Charles E. Galpin,[63] and several others. Dr. Burleigh acted as spokesman. The delegation were shown to a room apart from the general reception room, and Lincoln, after a little while, came in, saying that he had sent them in there so that he might have some uninterrupted talk with them about the West. He remembered at once the old steamboat Captain with whom he had ridden on the Missouri, and he greeted La Barge with great cordiality. After some general conversation Dr. Burleigh arose, took the robe, asked the President to stand up, and then threw it over his shoulders. Lincoln folded it around him like a blanket and danced about for an instant in Indian fashion. He seemed greatly delighted with the gift. He then asked the party many questions about the West, for the Indian troubles were at that time causing the administration a great deal of annoyance.

[Sidenote: LINCOLN AND THE INDIAN.]

In the winter of 1863–64 La Barge saw the President again. The only subject of importance which was touched upon on that occasion was the Indian, in whose welfare he always displayed the deepest interest. As it was a subject which had often aroused the Captain’s indignation and pity, he made the most of his opportunity to acquaint the President with the facts. He told him of the gross frauds practiced on the Indians, and how their annuities, under present conditions, had to pass through the hands of some of the worst rascals on the face of the earth, who deliberately cheated the Indians right and left. Lincoln replied that he knew it; that, under the stress of war, he was not able to send just the men he would like to into that country as Indian agents, and that too many of them were importunate place-seekers of worthless character whom members of Congress were anxious to get rid of somewhere. “But wait,” said he, “until I get this Rebellion off my hands, and I will take up this question and see that justice is done the Indian.”

The Captain made his third visit to Washington in the winter of 1864–65. His particular business was to secure payment on his government contracts, which had been approved by the Department of War and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but disallowed by the Treasury. He went to Secretary Chase, but was told by that gentleman that all Missourians were _prima facie_ Rebels, and that that was why his account was being held up. La Barge did not relish this very much, as he had been doing business for the government all through the war, and had even gone so far as to take the oath of allegiance. He went to Lincoln and laid the matter before him. The President smiled at Chase’s remark, gave La Barge a card with his autograph on it to hand to Chase, and said he presumed that would fix matters all right. La Barge went back, and the account was paid without further delay. La Barge, with his usual distrust of the American Fur Company, suspected that some of its members had been giving him a bad character in Washington in order further to cripple his opposition.

[Sidenote: THE BLACKFOOT’S ANNUITIES.]

[Sidenote: FINAL EVIDENCE.]

On the occasion of his interview with the President he brought up the matter of the Blackfoot annuities, explicitly charging that these goods had been wrongfully disposed of and had not reached their proper destination. Lincoln sent for the proper officer of the Indian Department to hear La Barge’s accusation. This officer stated that he had receipts signed by the Indian chiefs saying that they had received their annuities. The signatures of the Indians were witnessed by agents of the American Fur Company. La Barge declared that the receipts were false; that he had himself carried these goods and knew that the Indians had not received them, but that they had been appropriated by the American Fur Company and sold. “Well,” said the official, “there are the receipts; we cannot go back of them; they have been considered final evidence in such cases since the foundation of the government.” And there the matter rested.

While in Washington on this visit La Barge was summoned before the Senate Committee on Pacific railroads and questioned by B. Gratz Brown upon his knowledge of the Western country and his opinion upon the availability of certain routes for a transcontinental line.

[Sidenote: LOOK AT YOUR MAP.]

Before he left Washington the Captain was the central figure in an amusing little incident that occurred at Ford’s Theater. _Harper’s Weekly_ had published a story of La Barge’s steamboating experiences which ran something like this: On one of his trips up the river in the earlier part of his career there were several Englishmen aboard. They had a map and applied themselves industriously for the first day or two in trying to identify the various places upon it with those along their route. They were in the pilot-house a good deal, and one of them questioned La Barge rather officiously about the geography of the country.

“What place is this that we are approaching, Mr. Pilot?” he asked.

“St. Charles, sir,” La Barge replied.

“You are mistaken, sir; according to the map it is ----”

La Barge made no reply. He stopped as usual at St. Charles and then went on his way. Presently they came to another village.

“What place, Captain?” inquired the Englishman.

“Washington, Mo., sir.”

“Wrong again. The map gives this place as ----.”

This experience was gone through several times, the Captain’s temper becoming more ruffled with each repetition, though no one would have suspected it from his unruffled exterior. Presently a flock of wild geese passed over the river and drew the attention of the passengers and crew. The Englishmen were standing on the hurricane roof immediately in front of the pilot-house.

“What kind of birds are those, Captain?” asked one of them in eager haste.

The Captain, whose language still smacked somewhat of the French idiom, replied:

“Look at your map; he tell you.”

The printed programme of the evening at the theater happened to have this story under the heading of “Old Joe La Barge.” The Captain and some friends occupied a box, and as there were several persons in the audience who knew him, the fact that the hero of the story was in the box soon spread itself about. At one of the pauses in the performance someone called out for La Barge to stand up, and cries of “La Barge” soon came from all parts of the house. The modest steamboat pilot was panic-stricken at the occurrence and clung desperately to his seat, whereupon the audience called for him the more; but nothing would induce him to stir.

[Sidenote: AN EXTENSIVE ACQUAINTANCE.]

We may here properly refer to Captain La Barge’s extensive acquaintance with public men of the West. His prominence in the carrying trade of Western rivers, when travel was largely done by boat, brought him into contact with distinguished characters from all parts of the country. There were few public men in the West whom he did not know, and his personal estimate of their character as they appeared to him is not without interest and value. We have already noted his acquaintance with Audubon, General Warren, Dr. Hayden, Brigham Young, and others.

The Captain knew General Lee when the latter was stationed in St. Louis as an officer of engineers in charge of river and harbor works on the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers.

He knew both of the Johnstons,--Albert Sidney and Joseph E.,--and at the time of the Mormon War transported much of the supplies and munitions of war used by Albert Sidney Johnston on his arduous and perilous campaign.

[Sidenote: GENERAL GRANT.]

He saw Grant for the first time during the Mexican War, and frequently in later years when he lived near St. Louis. In Grant’s visits to town La Barge became well acquainted with him. He saw him in the early part of the war, while Fremont was in command at St. Louis. He was trying to get an interview with the General, but that officer was harder to reach than a king or the Pope. He would keep people waiting for hours, and then as like as not refuse them an audience. In the winter of 1864–65 La Barge saw Grant in Washington. The head of the armies of the Union spoke to the steamboat pilot in as equal and friendly a way as when he was unloading wood in St. Louis. He asked the Captain if there was anything that he could do for him, and expressed his desire to serve him if he could.

[Sidenote: GENERAL FREMONT.]

La Barge saw a great deal at one time and another of General Fremont. He first met him when he went up the river as the assistant to the distinguished geographer and scientist, Jean I. Nicollet. Nicollet’s party traveled on the boat which La Barge was piloting. At Leavenworth there was an extremely rapid current, and La Barge expressed a curiosity to know what its velocity was. Nicollet at once sent Fremont to measure it. It was found to be eleven miles per hour in the swiftest place. La Barge’s opinion of Fremont was that which seems to have universally prevailed in St. Louis--that he was a greatly overrated man, and that his success was due more to his fortunate marriage than to his own merit. We must dissent, in a measure, from this view. In his proper niche, Fremont was a great man. He found that niche in the work of exploring the unknown West. In the faculty of making the unknown known, of doing work in such a way as to make its results popular with the public, in spreading a knowledge of the Great West throughout his country and throughout the world, he stood without a peer among the explorers of that region. In the broader field of national politics or great military responsibility, he was wading beyond his depth.

[Sidenote: THOMAS H. BENTON.]

Thomas H. Benton, Fremont’s father-in-law, and Missouri’s greatest statesman, was an intimate acquaintance of Captain La Barge, the two men having known each other from La Barge’s childhood until Benton’s death. Captain La Barge had a great admiration for the bluff old Senator, although he did not like the way in which he used his powerful influence in shielding the American Fur Company on so many occasions from the just consequences of their illegal acts. Benton was a frequent passenger on the Missouri River boats, and La Barge saw a great deal of him there. He recalled particularly a trip which the Senator made as far up as Kansas City, where he went to meet Fremont, who was returning from the West. It was a very interesting voyage. The people all along the river wanted to see him, and calls for “Old Bullion” compelled him to appear at every landing place. He made numerous addresses, and the boat was frequently delayed to permit this interchange of greetings between the people and their distinguished servant. Benton was in the pilot-house a great deal,--as every traveler in those days liked to be,--and La Barge never forgot his expression of deep faith in the future of the West, so unlike that of most of his Congressional associates from east of the Mississippi. He said once to Captain La Barge: “You will live to see railroads across to the Pacific, and up the Missouri beyond the Great Falls.” La Barge, a much younger man, replied that he scarcely expected to see that in his lifetime. “But I have,” said the Captain, in telling of this conversation, “and I have seen far more than even Senator Benton dared to hope for.” In the same line of thought the Senator once said, as he pointed to the west, which was overspread with the marvelous glow of evening: “That is the East”--for he felt that we should yet go in that direction to reach the treasures of the Orient.

[Sidenote: NOTED MEN OF THE WEST.]

The interesting notes of Captain La Barge’s observations of public men with whom he was thrown in contact would fill a volume. His acquaintance with the army was very extensive, owing to the Indian wars along the Missouri, and he personally knew nearly all the principal officers from General Sherman down. The same was true of the Indian agents, Territorial officers, and leading business men of the West. In a time when so much public travel went by steamboat he enjoyed exceptional opportunities of seeing and knowing the men who made the history of the Western country.