Benjamin Edwin Roswell shifted his weight as Blue, his roan gelding, started up the slope to the crest of the hill. The hill wasn't high, really, but the slope was long and Benjamin felt Blue put in a little more effort than he did on flat ground. He wondered how the wagons had managed, then remembered hearing that most of the people heading to Oregon had used oxen to pull their wagons. Oxen were slow, but they could pull Hell off the hinges, or at least that's what his Uncle Amos had written in a letter once he got to Oregon.
Benjamin topped the hill and after working his way down the other side, was on relatively flat ground again. He hadn't gone far before he saw something that, even after seeing many along the trail, still sent a shiver down his spine. It was the partially exposed skull of a person that seemed to stare up at him with its empty eye sockets.
Benjamin knew the reason why a skull would be there in the ground between the two deep wagon ruts that marked the trail, because his Uncle Amos had written about that. Many people who started for Oregon with everything they owned didn't make it. Diseases like cholera, measles, diphtheria, and typhoid fever took their toll on the migrating people as did accidents. There was a timeline that had to be held lest the wagons be stranded in the mountains because of snowstorms. Graves were dug shallow to save time, and to keep wild animals from digging up the bodies the dead were sometimes buried in the trail itself.
There, the hooves of the oxen and horses would tamp the soil into a hard crust that most animals couldn't dig through. Over time, rain and the freezing and thawing of winter snows partially eroded the trail and exposed the skeletons of those whose families moved on without them. In the years the trail was used a lot, those traveling might stop to put some fresh soil over such a burial out of respect. Now, people were in the process of putting their lives back together after the end of what the North called "The War of the Rebellion" and the South called "The War for Southern Independence". A few wagons still traveled the trail, but most people were trying to repair what the war had broken.
Benjamin reflected that whoever this person had been, at least he or she had someone to care for them in their last hours. Such hadn't been the case at Andersonville, at least not for most of the prisoners of war held there. Benjamin had survived what he figured had to be worse than the Hell the preacher back home had promised to the unfaithful.
He had survived Andersonville by meeting and joining a group of Union infantrymen as soon as his unit had been captured. Together, they looked out for each other and shared what food and clothing they could find. They also constructed a rough shelter that kept them mostly out of the rain, and by huddling together in that shelter on winter nights, kept warmer than most.
When a man fell ill for some reason, there was little his group could do other than try to make the man as comfortable as possible. The Confederates didn't have enough medical supplies for their own troops, let alone for the Union prisoners in Andersonville. Usually, that man would die, and when he did, he'd be stripped of clothes, shoes, and anything else he had that would help the others. They all understood that as cold and cruel as it was, this was the only way the others could hope to survive.
Many in his group did die. Almost one in four did, mostly from disease. It was the camp that caused that disease. Benjamin smiled at the stupidity of whoever laid out the camp. There was a large stream running through the center that came from outside the stockade. The plan was for the prisoners to use the water upstream for drinking, the water in the center for washing, and the water just before it exited the stockade as a toilet.
That would have worked except for two things. There were more men in the camp than the stream could support, but the biggest reason was the Andersonville guards used the water outside the stockade in the same way. That meant the water the guards used for washing and as a toilet was the water the prisoners were expected to drink. As a result, cholera was a widespread illness that took many lives. Starvation took many as well. Benjamin himself was little more than bones covered with skin when the Union Army freed the Andersonville prisoners.
He'd spent almost a year with his mother and father recuperating, a year of seeing the horrors of Andersonville almost every night in his dreams. Once he'd regained most of his strength, he began helping his father in his father's general store in Hoyleton, Illinois.
It was work, and fatigue took the dreams away on some nights, but Benjamin was never really happy. He wasn't sure why, but working in the store was boring because he did basically the same thing every day. It was also uncomfortable. Benjamin didn't know why except that he was uncomfortable being around other people.
If he was in the store, he had to listen to the constant talk of people who seemed to talk just to hear themselves speak. Alone, he could think about what had been, what was now, and what might be. He'd been with so many men in such a cramped space for so long, he was happiest when he was alone.
Those same talkative people were also nosey. Benjamin had known most of them all his life, and they began asking him when he was going to take a wife and settle down.
"A fine, strapping young man like you shouldn't have trouble finding a woman. Just look around you, young man, and pick the one that suits your fancy", said the woman who taught school.
Benjamin thought maybe she was hinting that she wanted to be that woman. Most people in the town thought she'd end up an old maid. Martha Spires wasn't very pretty and she was at least ten years older than his twenty.
There were several girls his age or a little younger in Hoyleton, and they often stroked their hair or touched his arm when they talked with him. Benjamin smiled to be polite, but he wasn't looking for a wife, not until he got his life figured out.
Over the next seven years, Benjamin became more and more against the idea of being a storekeeper for the rest of his life. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but the boredom and the constant flow of people around him made him want to just walk out of town and keep going.
It was the day he unloaded a shipment of the new Winchester 1873 rifles that he made his decision. The teamster who drove the freight wagon told Benjamin about his brother.
"Yep, after the war, Nathan up and went to Colorado Territory. Said they's mining silver there. Well, he got there and tried mining, but it didn't work out too good so he started working on a cattle ranch. Says it's hard work but he makes good money and his room and board are free. I'd go myself if'n my wife would go, but she won't, so I guess I'll keep driving this here wagon 'til they put me in a hearse."
Benjamin hadn't thought about leaving Hoyleton for somewhere else, but the teamster's tale had sparked an idea in his head. When he was recuperating he'd read the letters from his Uncle Amos about his journey to Oregon. The stories about open prairies with grass tall enough to hide an ox, plentiful water, mountains that touched the sky, and more game and fish than he'd ever seen were too fanciful to believe then. Now, maybe there was something in the West he'd like better than keeping store. There was only one way to find out.
When Blue stumbled, Benjamin was shaken out of his daydream and he smiled. Leaving the store and Hoyleton was a damned stupid idea. That's what his father had said -- that it was a damned stupid idea - and Benjamin knew his father was very upset at the idea. His father was a devout Baptist and Benjamin had never heard him use the word "damned" before.
His mother looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"But Benjamin, if you go to Oregon, we'll never see you again. We'll never see your wife or our grandchildren."
Benjamin knew they wouldn't approve, but he was twenty-seven and couldn't stay at the store much longer. He was ready to start his life, whatever that life might be. His father had been paying him a little each week for his help in the store, but Benjamin hadn't spent much of the money. He used his savings to buy Blue and a saddle and bridle. Once his father was convinced he couldn't change Benjamin's mind, he gave him one of the new Winchester rifles and two hundred of the 44 Winchester Center Fire cartridges for the rifle along with a bullet mold, reloading tool, lead, primers, and powder to reload those cartridges. His mother gave him a small cast iron skillet, a small pot for coffee, a coffee cup and a bowl, five pounds of coffee, a side of bacon, and twenty pounds of dried beans to feed himself until he could get to another town.
On the 21st of April, Benjamin shook his father's hand, hugged his mother, and then rode Blue out of Hoyleton heading west. Three days later, he rode through the streets of St. Louis, Missouri after crossing the Mississippi, then on to Independence where he found the wagon ruts of the Oregon Trail and began following them.
Benjamin didn't expect to meet many people, and he was happy when he hadn't. He'd ride at a walk for about ten hours with a stop when the sun was overhead for a couple thin slices of bacon as a noon meal while Blue grazed and rested. Then, he'd ride until the sun was on the horizon.
He'd spent enough time in bivouac while in the Union Army to make camping at night second nature to him. He'd build a small fire with whatever he could find that would burn and cook his supper, then unroll his bedroll. As the sun went down, he'd drift off to sleep.
Along the way, he came across several wagons along the side of the trail. Most were disabled in some way -- a broken axle or broken wheel -- but a couple were mostly intact. He stopped and searched through them all to see if the former owners had left anything of use. He seldom found anything small enough to tie onto his saddle and still worth the effort to do so.
He understood the reason. Just as had been the case when the Union Army was marching through the South, supplies were crucial. Anything the Army could use and carry was confiscated. He figured the other travelers would have done the same with any wagon that couldn't continue the journey for some reason. Too often, that reason was the bones he'd find sticking up through the surface of the trail or the rotting wood markers that stood guard on the final resting-place of a person.
