Chapter 18: Winter Lull

Oct 26, 1861

With winter approaching, I left for home with my original troops. We’d been away from home for far too long. Scott stayed in St. Louis where Fort Savage was still under construction. There, we housed and trained the new troops. While the originally planned fort was complete, it constantly needed more barracks for the relentless influx of new recruits. Additional barracks meant that the walls needed extending yet again. We were now on our fourth expansion and the fort was already eight times the size of the abandoned and burned-out Fort Atkinson that had impressed me.

The huge fort sat on ten square miles of land west of the city. Twelve farms used to be there. I traded for three of the farms, offering larger, more fertile plots outside of Libertyville. I bought four farms from the owners, and Libertyville Bank already owned five abandoned farms. One of the farmhouses served as our headquarters, complete with our own telegraph office. If something major was to happen this winter, Scott would have plenty of trained troops. If needed, we could return quickly via rail.

Word spread like wildfire along the river that we were on our way home. People stood along the banks and lined the docks of the towns we passed waving and cheering. One of the Harper’s Weekly sketch artists had been with me since leaving the White House and sketched nearly everything we did except use the latrines.

I had been surprised when Annabelle Jackson and her husband arrived in St. Louis. She began publishing weekly articles about us for Harper’s Weekly. After three weeks, she asked if I would allow her to visit Libertyville and write about life there. The next day, she and her husband were aboard one of our trains headed for Libertyville. Evidently, she was making far more money selling her accounts than they had ever earned publishing a newspaper in Vicksburg.

I did correct one thing, though. I showed her how I wove the leather thong into my hair to keep the feather from falling out. “I was sure it was attached somehow,” she chuckled, “but I wanted to paint a word picture of a true savage and then contrast it with your actions,” she explained.

By now, precious little of my private life was private anymore. While nothing was said outright, it was broadly hinted that all of my wives slept in the same bed with me. Obviously, the fact that I had so many wives was now widely known. Stories of each of my “exploits as I bravely led” our group from Virginia to Nebraska had all been published. I think that the shootout at the gold mine in Missouri, and the gold mine in Paha Sapa were the only things the whole country didn’t know about.

Since the locations of our mines in Colorado weren’t secret, stories about those were published, too. That added to the gold rush fever in Colorado. Knowing that Annabelle would be releasing the information, my wives stockpiled everything a miner could want or need in the way of supplies, including sluices and rockers that were pre-cut and ready to be hammered together. Some of the miners followed the Pioneer Road much of the way, and then followed the road we originally improved for our wagons to traverse with the gold, silver, and copper that we’d located in the area. Most, however, took the train. We had livestock cars for their mules and horses. The train took two days compared to three weeks riding a horse or six weeks in a wagon.

Nov 4

For several miles before reaching Libertyville, people lined the banks on both sides of the river, waving and cheering. Two steamboats met us two hours from Libertyville. They steamed alongside so their full loads of passengers could watch us and wave. My arm was exhausted by the time we could see the Libertyville docks. My heart soared when I saw my wives and children right in front.

People gave my family nearly ten minutes to finish mauling me before others came up to greet me. Penny hugged me so tight I felt like I was wearing the confining suit again. It took two hours to wade through all the well-wishers on the way to our home. The other men aboard each boat were greeted in a similar fashion as families looked for their returning husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons.

Nov 6

I didn’t venture back outside for two days, mostly because my wives wouldn’t let me. I was well-fed and well-loved and spent a lot of time each day playing with and getting reacquainted with the children. My wives spent a lot of time each night playing with me.

When I did manage to go back outside, I barely recognized the city that had erupted. We were back to having dozens of the dormitories to house the tens of thousands of freed slaves and thousands of white people who were still eagerly immigrating to Libertyville. Far outside of town, mainly along the Pioneer Road, ten new communities had sprung up, each already having a population of a thousand or more.

I froze in my tracks when I saw the steam machines working in the fields. Dad explained that they had purchased a dozen plowing engine pairs from England after one of our earlier Irish emigrants commented that it was a shame we didn’t have them to use. That man and Mr. Wilkes were sent to buy them, along with a pair of five-furrow balance ploughs for each one, and three threshing machines.

The plowing engines operated in pairs, one on each side of a field, pulling the plow back and forth across the field using a cable. It was far faster than even the six-bladed mule-drawn plows we had used earlier this year.

Since the ground hadn’t frozen yet, they were plowing as many new fields as they could in anticipation of planting next year’s crops. Once we harvested the grain, the engines would run a thresher, saving thousands of hours of labor.

I finally remembered talking about ordering the engines last year, but thought they were talking about engines for the railroad. I guess I should pay closer attention to what people were telling me. The engines had been brought up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, arriving here barely a week after I first left.

Downtown had grown, filled now with more shops and stores of all sorts. I watched freight cars leaving the back dock of the large warehouse behind my wives’ Libertyville Miner’s Outfitting and Mercantile. Emma explained that we had weekly supply runs going to Colorado. These freight cars were part of the next train to Colorado. Aside from passengers, they carried food and other supplies for the miners to buy, as well as coins and supplies for our interests there, returning with loads of gold and silver. Aside from food and mining supplies, the best seller was still our moonshine and beer. Emma laughed when she explained that we refused to carry freight for competitors. Mercantile stores other than ours still had to get their supplies via wagon trains.

Mr. Berg swore that it was a sacrilege to drink our whiskey before it could age. He laughed that a shot of our cheap corn whiskey was selling in Colorado for double what we would pay here for a bottle of imported ten-year-old whiskey. Our good whiskey was selling well in Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa. It even sold in Colorado, but for twice as much as elsewhere. It seemed to be the drink of choice to celebrate new gold strikes, and most saloons carried at least one bottle.

Our supply trains to Colorado were guarded by Indian troops. We learned that the white settlers in Colorado were more comfortable when there was a white person in nominal control, even if the control was only in appearance, so one white man was purportedly in charge of the Indian guards aboard each train. There had only been the single attack on our wagons, and none on our trains. When people discovered the bodies of the attackers after the first attack, eviscerated, and stacked like cordwood alongside the road, word spread.

Much of the gold being returned came from our mines or from independent miners panning the rivers or working mines on our claims. Evidently, we had some form of lease agreement with independent miners where we received monthly lease payments, as well as a percentage of what they mined. Considering that they also paid us to buy their gold, I wondered if they made anything. We had the same deal with every non-employee who was panning the rivers and streams in our territory.

The agreements also stipulated that the Indians in the area had a right to be there.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho would check every miner they found and ask to see a copy of their agreement. Those that didn’t have one had their gold confiscated and were escorted off our property. The Indians liked that job because they got to keep the confiscated gold.

Some of the gold coming to Libertyville was from the supplies we sold, still making an exorbitant profit on liquor, tobacco, and the brothel. Many of the girls retired after a year, having made more than they figured they would spend for several years. News of their wealth brought even more girls looking for work and we now had a brothel in each of our four cities in Colorado.

More gold was from Libertyville Bank in Fort Crius, and from the recently opened branches of Libertyville Bank in Denver City, Breckenridge, Fort Pueblo, Clear Creek Hot Springs, Mountain Mesa, and Cañon City. Within two months of our Denver City branch opening, the other banks in the area closed. Word of the stability of our bank spread quickly in Colorado. Other towns were now requesting branches and we were considering two more.

Each new branch in Colorado included a mercantile selling food and supplies, an assay office, and the bank itself. Gold dust, nuggets, and ingots could be exchanged for up to one thousand dollars in gold and silver coins. The rest had to be deposited on account or taken in our paper money. The paper money we began circulating could be used to buy things in any town with a Libertyville Bank, or even to buy more land since even the territorial government used our bank. Our paper currency was even being accepted in towns where there was no Libertyville Bank.

We had lots of the paper money available, but only gave it out in exchange for gold or silver beyond a thousand dollars. If we handed out paper money, we made sure we had the gold to cover it. The paper money was available in ten, twenty, and one-hundred-dollar denominations. For durability, we used cotton paper. For security, the paper was blue instead of the common white like most cotton paper.

The center oval of each note was free of any printing and contained watermarks. The watermark across the top of the oval was the words “Libertyville Bank.” Across the bottom was either “$10 gold note”, “$20 gold note”, or “$100 gold note.” The center held a detailed watermark of a J inside a horseshoe, the widely recognized symbol for Lucky J.

The front of the $10 note had a picture of a covered wagon on the left side and the right side said “$10 gold note” and “good at Libertyville Bank any branch”. The back had a picture of a man behind a horse-drawn plow. The $20 note had a picture of a telegraph key on the left side. The right side said “$20 gold note” and “good at Libertyville Bank any branch.” The back right said the same as the front and the left side had a picture of a buffalo grazing.

The $100 note was similar. The front picture was a steamboat, and the back picture was a miner wielding a pick.

Once a week, the gold, along with any silver or copper, was sent to Libertyville, and then forwarded to Philadelphia. We continued to receive gold and silver coins as payment for much of what we took to the mint. The mint was quite used to our weekly deliveries by now and kept four million dollars in gold coins on hand for us. We distributed those gold coins to our bank branches each time, sending more than half of the coins to our branches in Colorado to buy the next round of raw gold.

The trains ran weekly unless snow prevented them. Even though deliveries rarely stopped for snow for more than two weeks at a time, we had stockpiled six months’ worth of food staples in Denver City, Fort Crius, Clear Creek Hot Springs, and Cañon City.

Even the big mining companies deposited their gold with us. We gave bank drafts payable from the Libertyville Bank of Philadelphia, where we deposited all the Federal Bank notes and any extra coins. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be more than twenty million dollars in gold ingots and coins in the vault, and fifty million in federal bank drafts, although we didn’t advertise that fact.

Three miles west of Libertyville, Libertyville Fort was under construction. The layout was similar to Fort Atkinson. It was there that I found Gus, not that I’d been specifically looking for him. He managed a quick wave in my direction before returning his attention to his new recruits and the two sergeants helping to train them.

Everywhere I looked, I was proud of everything our people had accomplished.

The four founding families had dinner with us that night and included the usual business discussion. Extending the railroad came up again, this time to California. We’d discussed it before but kept putting off the decision.

“You should send Mr. Franklin to Washington to see what Lincoln might offer us to build the railroad to the Pacific Ocean. Branch off from the line to Colorado on the far side of the Platte River and follow the trails used by wagon trains to Oregon and California,” I suggested. “Maybe they’ll give us land to build on like they did in Missouri and Iowa,” I suggested as an afterthought. I could tell that the idea of finally building the railroad to California and Oregon excited them. We’d been dancing around the idea since agreeing to the St. Louis to Kansas City railroad.

Dec 11

Mr. Franklin returned from Washington today with a huge grin plastered on his face. Lincoln and Congress both loved the idea, having wanted a railroad to the west coast for several years. Before this, disagreement with the southern states over the route had kept it from being approved. With the southern states now unable to block the railroad bill, as I had suggested, they approved the railroad and gave us land in lieu of paying us to build the railroad.

The bill that hadn’t passed previously offered Government bonds for $16,000 for each mile built on a level grade, $32,000 for each mile built in the foothills, and $48,000 for each mile built in the mountains. Instead, we would be granted a two-mile wide right-of-way on each side along the route, and an additional twenty square miles of land adjacent to the tracks for every mile of track we put down on a level grade, forty square miles for each mile built in the foothills, and sixty for each mile built in the mountains. We could re-sell some of that land to raise more money for building the railroad.

“But, who owns the railroad when it’s done?” I asked.