days later, on June 22, with two hundred and twenty men and four keel boats laden with subsistence, ammunition, and two six-pound cannons, he started on the long journey.
The river was high, the winds unfavorable, and the only means of propelling the boats was by towing them with the cordelle. Under the circumstances they made very good time. When near Yankton on the 3d of July, one of the boats struck a submerged
General Henry Leavenworth
log and was capsized and broken in two, and Sergeant Samuel Stackpole and six privates were drowned. At Fort Recovery, on American Island at Chamberlain, Joshua Pilcher joined Leavenworth with a company of forty men, and at the Cheyenne, Ashley joined them with eighty additional men, making a total of three hundred and forty white men, soldiers, and volunteers all told. Seven hundred and fifty Sioux Indians—Yankton, Yanktonais, and Tetons—also volunteered to go along, but they proved to be a hindrance rather than an assistance. They reached the Ree towns on the 9th of August.
There were two of these villages, separated only by a
