of reminiscences--vividness of pictures--inaccuracy in regard to
specific facts.

[74] Ellet's _Pioneer Women of the West_, p. 351; _Minnesota Historical
Collections_, Vol. VI, p. 48.

[75] Mrs. Van Cleve, who received her information from her father, gives
the number as forty.--Van Cleve's _"Three Score Years and Ten,"
Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota_, p. 19. James Doty, who
kept the official journal of the Cass Expedition of 1820, and who
received his information from the officers at Camp Cold Water, gives the
number as forty.--_Wisconsin Historical Collections_, Vol. XIII, p. 214.
Philander Prescott in his reminiscences states that "Some fifty or sixty
had died, and some ten men died after I arrived".--_Minnesota Historical
Collections_, Vol. VI, p. 478. L. Grignon wrote on April 3, 1820, that
"They tell me that fifty Soldiers of the river St. Pierre have
died of Scurvy".--_Wisconsin Historical Collections_, Vol. XX, p. 161.

In writing of the attack of scurvy Mr. H. H. Sibley remarks: "It was
doubtless caused by the bad quality of the provisions, especially of the
pork, which was spoiled by the villany of the contractors, or their
agents, in drawing the brine from the barrels that contained it, after
leaving St. Louis, in order to lighten the load, and causing the barrels
to be refilled with river water, before their delivery at the post,
to avoid detection. The troops were compelled to live on this
unwholesome fare for two successive seasons, before the fraud was
discovered."--_Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. I, pp. 473, 474.
Nowhere else is this explanation given. Sickness could easily come at a
frontier post without such villainy. During the same winter at Camp
Missouri over half of the garrison of seven hundred men were sick, and
nearly one hundred of them died. At Council Bluff there was also a great
deal of sickness.--_Detroit Gazette_, July 21, September 1, 1820.

[76] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. I, p. 473.

[77] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. II, p. 103.

[78] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. VI, pp. 478, 479.

[79] _Reports of Committees_, 1st Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II,
Report No. 351, p. 136.

[80] These facts are from the reminiscences of Philander Prescott in the
_Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. VI, pp. 478, 479.

[81] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. II, p. 105.

[82] Snelling to Taliaferro, November 7, 1821.--_Taliaf