Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 43 D E PA R T M E N T PRELUDE: Two or three weeks after the setting forth of two groups of gold seekers, with their belongings on pack horses, a smaller party, only three persons, rode off in the same general direction, toward the Yellowstone River, but for another purpose. ey were going to mark the way that became known as the Bozeman Trail. ey were John M. Boze- man, age 26, John M. Jacobs, a squaw man who had been in the mountains for many years, and Jacobs' half-Indian daughter, age seven or eight. John Bozeman's idea that people bound for the gold fields needed a new, shorter route was sounder than he could have guessed. While he and his partner, John Jacobs, were finding and marking their road to get wagons to Bannack, Alder Gulch opened its riches—and Alder Gulch was 70 miles closer for emigrants along the Bozeman Trail. e next year, 1864, Last Chance Gulch was discovered, and Helena sprang up there. In 1865 there were probably 18,000 white persons in Montana, as contrasted with the 500 during the first winter after discovery at Bannack. ere was all that gold to be had, and Bozeman' s road went to it, and there were thousands of men anxious to get the gold or to raise crops or freight merchandise to serve the miners. ere was also, at long last, the end of the Civil War. e United States Army was all through fighting Rebels. Now it could get busy with the Indians who defended the Powder River country and blocked the Bozeman Trail. e Indians had done more than that. ey had stopped all movement across the plains on the great Emigrant Road for a while in 1864. e Army, what there was left of it after a lot of weary veterans went home, was now free to fight the redskins. Citizens in- tent on bettering their condition by going to Montana demanded that the Army do so. What's a government for if it doesn't help the people get what they want? Marching around in the Pow- der River country in the sum- mer of 1865 were two ill-fated expeditions. One was com- manded by Brigadier General Patrick E. Connor, whose as- signment was to punish the hostiles so they would have to keep the peace and leave the Bozeman Trail open. e other, authorized by the Department of the Interior, was a civilian road-building crew with a military escort. Boss of this expedition was James A. Sawyers, a Sioux City man who had been a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa militia. His job was to find and build a wagon road from Sioux City to Virginia City. Bozeman's road cut off some hundreds of miles from the old route, along the Oregon Trail and up through Idaho; Sawyers' road would be even shorter and did not involve the old Oregon Trail at all. Emigrant wagons and freighters would move west from Sioux City, whose merchants hankered for the profitable outfitting busi- ness that was enriching Omaha. General Connor had distinguished himself in the war with Mexico, emerging as a captain of dragoons. He went back to civil life but left it again when the Civil War broke L I T E R A R Y L O D E T H E BA D L U C K B OY S O N P OW D E R R I V E R An excerpt from DOROTHY M. JOHNSON'S e Bloody Bozeman: e Perilous Trail to Montana's Gold STEVE AKRE The Bloody Bozeman The Perilous Trail to Montana's Gold doroThy m. Johnson "The Bozeman Trail was for a kind of man who was new in wilder- ness Montana, the man who came hopefully out from the states to better his condition . . . This new man was not a born adventurer, but in his stubborn, sometimes cautious way he was a gambler. He knew or soon learned that hostile Indians barred the trail through the Powder River country of present Wyoming. He gambled his life to better his condition. . . ." P.O. Box 2399 • Missoula, MT 59806 • 406-728-1900 800-234-5308 • info@mtnpress.com www.mountain-press.com Mountain Press PUBLISHING COMPANY P.O. Box 2399 • Missoula, MT 59806 • 406-728-1900 800-234-5308 • info@mtnpress.com www.mountain-press.com Mountain Press PUBLISHING COMPANY The Bloody Bozeman Johnson $20.00 The Bloody Bozeman is available from Mountain Press for $20.00. (406) 728-1900, www.mountain-press.com. Old mine in Niehart

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