town. I,
with one company of troops and all the soldiers with families, all the
tents, mess chests and camp kettles, was sent to Cruces, a town a few
miles higher up the Chagres River than Gorgona. There I found an
impecunious American who had taken the contract to furnish
transportation for the regiment at a stipulated price per hundred pounds
for the freight and so much for each saddle animal. But when we reached
Cruces there was not a mule, either for pack or saddle, in the place.
The contractor promised that the animals should be on hand in the
morning. In the morning he said that they were on the way from some
imaginary place, and would arrive in the course of the day. This went
on until I saw that he could not procure the animals at all at the price
he had promised to furnish them for. The unusual number of passengers
that had come over on the steamer, and the large amount of freight to
pack, had created an unprecedented demand for mules. Some of the
passengers paid as high as forty dollars for the use of a mule to ride
twenty-five miles, when the mule would not have sold for ten dollars in
that market at other times. Meanwhile the cholera had broken out, and
men were dying every hour. To diminish the food for the disease, I
permitted the company detailed with me to proceed to Panama. The
captain and the doctors accompanied the men, and I was left alone with
the sick and the soldiers who had families. The regiment at Panama was
also affected with the disease; but there were better accommodations for
the well on the steamer, and a hospital, for those taken with the
disease, on an old hulk anchored a mile off. There were also hospital
tents on shore on the island of Flamingo, which stands in the bay.

I was about a week at Cruces before transportation began to come in.
About one-third of the people with me died, either at Cruces or on the
way to Panama. There was no agent of the transportation company at
Cruces to consult, or to take the responsibility of procuring
transportation at a price which would secure it. I therefore myself
dismissed the contractor and made a new contract with a native, at more
than double the original price. Thus we finally reached Panama. The
steamer, however, could not proceed until the cholera abated, and the
regiment was detained still longer. Altogether, on the Isthmus and on
the Pacific side, we were delayed six weeks. About one-seventh of those
who left New York harb