The work of unloading the trains commenced, and after careful computation the Chief Commissary determined, that, by an abridgment of the ration, diminishing the daily issue of flour, and issuing bacon only once a week, his supplies would last until the first of June.  All the beef cattle intended for the use of the army having been intercepted by the Cheyennes, it became necessary to kill those draught oxen for beef, which had survived the march.  Shambles were erected, to which the poor half-starved animals were driven by hundreds to be butchered.  The flesh was jerked and stored carefully in cabins built for the purpose.

The business of loading the trains had been carelessly performed at Fort Leavenworth.  In this respect the quartermaster who superintended the work might have learned a lesson from the experience of the British in the Crimea.  But, unwilling to take the trouble to assign to each train a proportionate quantity of all the articles to be transported, he had packed one after another with just such things as lay most conveniently at hand.  The consequence was, that in the wagons which were burned were contained all the mechanics’ implements, stationery, and horse-medicines, although the loss of the latter was not to be regretted.  The rest of their contents was mostly flour and bacon.  Had the Mormons burned the next three trains upon the road, they would have destroyed all the clothing intended for the expedition.  As it was, upon searching those trains, only one hundred and fifty pairs of boots and shoes and six hundred pairs of stockings were found provided for an army of two thousand men, and some of the soldiers already had nothing but moccasins to cover their feet, with the thermometer at 16 degrees below zero,—­while there were found one thousand leather neck-stocks and three thousand bed-sacks, articles totally useless.  “How not to do it” had evidently been the motto of the Quarter-master’s Department.  The ample supplies of some articles were rendered unavailable by deficiencies in other articles equally necessary.  In some of its arrangements it seemed to have proceeded on the presumption that there would be an armed collision, while in others the probability of such an event was entirely disregarded.  One wagon was loaded wholly with boiling-kettles, but there was no brine to boil, and at the close of November not a pound of salt remained in the camp.

One of the first and most important of Colonel Johnston’s duties was to provide for the keeping, during the winter, of the mules and horses which survived.  On Black’s Fork there was no grass for their support.  It had either been burned by the Mormons or consumed by their cavalry.  He decided to send them all to Henry’s Fork, thirty-five miles south of Fort Bridger, where he had at one time designed to encamp with the whole army.  The regiment of dragoons was detailed to guard them.  A supply of fresh animals for transportation in the spring was his next care.  The settlements in New Mexico