tah. The Governor and most of the other civil officers
delayed until they started, and travelled in their company. The march
was attended with the severest hardships. When they reached the Rocky
Mountains, the snow lay from one to three feet deep on the loftier
ridges which they were obliged to cross. The struggle with the elements,
during the last two hundred miles before gaining Fort Bridger, was
desperate. Nearly a third of the horses died from cold, hunger, and
fatigue; everything that could be spared was thrown out to lighten the
wagons, and the road was strewn with military accoutrements from the
Rocky Ridge to Green River. On the 20th of November, Colonel Cooke
reached the camp with a command entirely incapacitated for active
service.

The place selected by Colonel Johnston for the winter-quarters of
the army was on the bank of Black's Fork, about two miles above Fort
Bridger, on a spot sheltered by high bluffs which rise abruptly from the
bottom at a distance of five or six hundred yards from the channel of
the stream. The banks of the Fork were fringed with willow brush and
cottonwood trees, blasted in some places where the Mormons had attempted
to deprive the troops of fuel. The trees were fortunately too green to
burn, and the fire swept through acres, doing no more damage than to
consume the dry leaves and char the bark. The water of the Fork, clear
and pure, rippled noisily over a stony bed between two unbroken walls
of ice. The civil officers of the Territory fixed their quarters in
a little nook in the wood above the military camp. The Colonel,
anticipating a change of encampment, determined not to construct
quarters of logs or sod for the army. A new species of tent, which had
just been introduced, was served out for its winter dwellings. An iron
tripod supported a pole from the top of which depended a slender but
strong hoop. Attached to this, the canvas sloped to the ground, forming
a tent in the shape of a regular cone. The opening at the top caused a
draught, by means of which a fire could be kept up beneath the tripod
without choking the inmates with smoke. An Indian lodge had evidently
been the model of the inventor. Most of the civil officers, however, dug
square holes in the ground, over which they built log huts, plastering
the cracks with mud. Their little town they named Eckelsville, after the
Chief Justice. A _depot_ for all the military stores was established at
Fort Bridger, where a strong