EDITOR'S PREFACE
If the author's other book,Army Life on the Pacific, which we reprinted as ourExtraNo. 30, is a scarce item of Americana, this is even more so, for it was not even published; a few copies only having been printed for distribution among Lieutenant Kip's friends. Hence it is exceedingly rare; a copy being priced in a recently issued catalogue, at $25.00.
Of the various persons mentioned in its pages, none survives.
CAPTAIN B. L. E. BONNEVILLE,Seventh Infantry, was absent so long on the explorations which made him famous, that his name was dropped from the rolls of the Army as probably dead. On his reappearance he was restored (1836), served through the Mexican War with the Fourth Infantry, and was retired in 1861. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier general, and died in 1878, the oldest officer on the retired list.
LIEUTENANT ARCHIBALD GRACIE,Fifth Infantry, resigned May 3, 1856. In 1861 he joined the Confederate army, and was killed as a brigadier general, Dec. 2, 1864, at Petersburg.
CAPTAIN AND BREVET MAJOR GRANVILLE O. HALLER,Fourth Infantry, a veteran of the Mexican War. Was dismissed from the Army in 1863, but reinstated in 1879, and died in 1897.
LIEUTENANT HENRY C. HODGES,Fourth Infantry, retired as Colonel and Asst. Q.M. Genl. in 1895.
MAJOR GABRIEL J. RAINS,Fourth Infantry, resigned from the Army in 1861, and joined the Confederate army. He died in 1881.
CAPTAIN DAVID A. RUSSELL,Fourth Infantry, a veteran of the Mexican War, became Colonel of the 7th Massachusetts in 1862, and was killed, as Major General U.S.A. in the battle of Opequan, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
GOVERNOR ISAAC I. STEVENS,a veteran of the Mexican War, had resigned as brevet major of Engineers, in 1853. He re-entered the Army in 1861, as Colonel of the Seventy-ninth N. Y. and was killed as Major General, at Chantilly, Va., Sept, 1, 1862.
CAPTAIN HENRY D. WALLEN,Fourth Infantry, was retired in 1874 as Colonel Second Infantry. He was brevetted brigadier general in 1865 for services during the War of the Rebellion and died in 1886.
REV. MARCUS WHITMAN,the distinguished missionary-explorer, who saved Oregon to the United States, and was killed by the Indians at his missionary settlement of Waülatpu, Oregon, Nov. 29, 1847.
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL,a veteran of the War of 1812, and the Mexican War, became Major General in 1862, and was retired in 1863. He died in 1869.
These pages are the expansion of a Journal kept while with the Escort from the 4th Infantry, at the Indian Council. A few copies are now printed for some personal friends. While it may show them the nature of Army life on the frontiers, it will preserve for the writer a record of some pleasant scenes on the plains, among tribes which in a few years will cease to exist.
Lawrence Kip
San Francisco, Sept. 1855.