Original:
"October 5th. I marched Eastward. We began now to be exposed to black frosts and the grass rather suddenly failed us. In order to encamp every night in a river bottom where it was best, and where some drift wood could be obtained, I left the road near Jackson Grove, and guided my command three days and a half, and finally struck the road again at the point I wished, and within a mile of the distance I expected; although in places ten or twelve miles from the road, I had not lost a mile in the distance."
William E. Connelley, ed., A Journal of the Santa Fe Trail. Quoted passage above is from Cooke's account of the return trip. His account of the march home (a copy, not in Cooke's handwriting) in fall 1843 is in the National Archives and available now at Fold3, Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1843 C307. Cooke's longer chronicle of the summer escort is also in the 1843 Letters Received by the Adjutant General, C252.1851-2 rewrite:
Oct. 7.—Mark this day with a white stone! After travelling 60 or 70 miles off the road—encamping each night on the river in comparatively good grass, and with drift-wood fuel too, I this morning, as guide, took a course for the crossing of the Pawnee Fork, and struck it to a degree!
Scenes Beyond the Western Border, January 1852 and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army
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