Before I left Chicago the newspapers were filled with rumors of impending war between Germany and France.  I was anxious to observe the conflict, if it was to occur, but reports made one day concerning the beginning of hostilities would be contradicted the next, and it was not till I reached Helena that the despatches lost their doubtful character, and later became of so positive a nature as to make it certain that the two nations would fight.  I therefore decided to cut short my tour of inspection, so that I could go abroad to witness the war, if the President would approve.  This resolution limited my stay in Helena to a couple of days, which were devoted to arranging for an exploration of what are now known as the Upper and the Lower Geyser Basins of the Yellowstone Park.  While journeying between Corinne and Helena I had gained some vague knowledge of these geysers from an old mountaineer named Atkinson, but his information was very indefinite, mostly second-hand; and there was such general uncertainty as to the character of this wonderland that I authorized an escort of soldiers to go that season from Fort Ellis with a small party, to make such superficial explorations as to justify my sending an engineer officer with a well-equipped expedition there next summer to scientifically examine and report upon the strange country.  When the arrangements for this preliminary expedition were completed I started for Fort Benton, the head of navigation on the Missouri River, on the way passing through Fort Shaw, on Sun River.  I expected to take at Benton a steamboat to Fort Stevenson, a military post which had been established about eighty miles south of Fort Buford, near a settlement of friendly Mandan and Arickaree Indians, to protect them from the hostile Sioux.  From there I was to make my way overland, first to Fort Totten near Devil’s lake in Dakota, and thence by way of Fort Abercrombie to Saint Cloud, Minnesota, the terminus of the railroad.

Luckily I met with no delay in getting a boat at Benton, and though the water was extremely low, we steamed down the channel of the Missouri with but slight detention till we got within fifty miles of Fort Buford.  Here we struck on a sandbar with such force of steam and current as to land us almost out of the water from stem to midships.  This bad luck was tantalizing, for to land on a bar when your boat is under full headway down-stream in the Missouri River is no trifling matter, especially if you want to make time, for the rapid and turbid stream quickly depositing sand under the hull, makes it commonly a task of several days to get your boat off again.  As from our mishap the loss of much time was inevitable, I sent a messenger to Fort Buford for a small escort, and for horses to take my party in to the post.  Colonel Morrow, the commandant, came himself to meet us, bringing a strong party of soldiers and some friendly Indian scouts, because, he said, there were then in the region around Buford so many treacherous band of Sioux as to make things exceedingly unsafe.