Manuscripts
Journal kept by William L. Jackson during his voyage up the Missouri River on board the Steamer Gallatin from April to June 1866. Jackson, who was traveling with his friend and fellow Civil War veteran John P. Eddy, kept nearly daily journal entries from the time he boarded the Gallatin at Fort Leavenworth on April 22 until June 14, three days before the accident that would cause his death. These entries describe life on board the steamer and its progress as well as Jackson's observations on various stops along the way, including St. Joseph, Nebraska City, Sioux City, Omaha, Fort Thompson, Fort Sully, Fort Rice, and Fort Berthold. Jackson, who was able to utilize his medical training when a passenger accidentally shot himself in the leg with his shot gun, was particularly observant of the conditions of local drug stores ("I never saw three dirtier drug stores," he remarked of Omaha). He also noted that Nebraska City was "full of men waiting to cross the plains, many of them...dead broke;" that Omaha was the starting point of the "great" Union Pacific Railroad and that he saw Teamsters, "Yahooes and Muleskiners," "swarthy" Mexicans, Indians "dressed in buckskin and blankets," boatmen, farmers, soldiers, and clerks in the streets together; and that Sioux City was "quite dull" but the people there had "high hopes" for a "big city" when the railroad came through. Jackson also records notes on Indians he saw or encountered, including "300 Indians...engaged in the massacre in Minnesota" who had been pardoned and were to be "turned adrift up the river;" members of the Winnebago tribe near the Little Sioux River, who were "very fair looking;" a "large encampment of Sioux" at Fort Thompson waiting to be moved to Yankton; and "3000 Siouxs" near Fort Rice who were "waiting to make a treaty with the government." Although not much interested in hunting, he reports that members of the crew shot at buffalo, antelope, and a gray wolf, as well as killing rattlesnakes. Despite his occasional bouts of homesickness, Jackson seems to have enjoyed the trip, which was however not without its technical difficulties, as the crew dealt with damaged pumps, a broken rudder, and a leaking boiler "apt to blow," and were "frightened out of our wits" by a ruptured steam pipe. A note at the end of the journal copied from the family Bible records Jackson's death after an accident caused by a burst flue on June 17 (he died from his injuries on June 19).
