ime shown that degree of subordination which a
soldier ought always to feel. But to the honor of both be it said
that their difference was ere long removed, and General Hancock
was assigned to command the Division of the Atlantic, according to
his rank. In the meantime, it fell my lot to take the Division of
the Pacific, which I had a year before gladly relinquished in favor
of General Thomas.

Soon after my arrival in San Francisco, General Sherman met me
there, and we went together, by sea, to Oregon, where we met General
Canby, then commanding the Department of the Columbia. We ascended
the Columbia River to Umatilla, and rode by stage from that place
to Kelton, on the Central Pacific Railroad, seven hundred and fifty
miles. After a visit to Salt Lake City, we returned to St. Louis,
where I had some work to complete as president of a board on tactics
and small arms, upon the completion of which I returned to San
Francisco.

In the summer of 1871, after the great earthquake of that year, I
made a trip across the Sierra to Camp Independence, which had been
destroyed, to consider the question of rebuilding that post. Of
the buildings, brick or adobe, not one remained in condition to be
occupied. Very fortunately, all in the garrison had received timely
warning from the first shock, so that none were injured by the
second and third shocks, which tumbled everything to the ground.
Some thirty people living in small adobe houses in Owens River
valley were killed. Sounds like heavy artillery in the distance
were still heard at intervals after our arrival. For many miles
along the length of the valley a great crevasse had been formed by
the upheaval, which must have been many feet in height. In the
subsidence one side had fallen several feet lower than the other,
and at a place where the crack crossed the wagon-tracks a horizontal
motion of several feet had taken place, the road marking its
permanent effect.

ASSIGNED TO THE DIVISION OF THE PACIFIC

We ascended Owens River valley to the source of that stream,
recrossed the mountains by the "bloody" canon, and descended through
the great Yosemite valley, which from the higher altitude looked
like a little "hole in the ground." That was the least interesting
of all my four visits to that wonderful work of nature. Our round
trip occupied about seven weeks.

At our last camp, in Tuolumne meadows, some time in August, after
the