Early on the nineteenth of May we reached Colonel Russel's camp on
Soldiers' Creek, a tributary of the Kansas River. The following account
of the meeting held by the company after our arrival is from the
journal of Mr. Edwin Bryant, author of "What I Saw in California":

May 19, 1846. A new census of our party was taken this morning; and
it was found to consist of 98 fighting men, 50 women, 46 wagons, and
350 cattle. Two divisions were made for convenience in travelling.
We were joined to-day by nine wagons from Illinois belonging to Mr.
Reed and Messrs. Donner, highly respectable and intelligent
gentlemen with interesting families. They were received into the
company by a unanimous vote.

Our cattle were allowed to rest that day; and while the men were
hunting and fishing, the women spread the family washings on the boughs
and bushes of that well-wooded stream. We children, who had been
confined to the wagon so many hours each day, stretched our limbs, and
scampered off on Mayday frolics. We waded the creek, made mud pies, and
gathered posies in the narrow glades between the cottonwood, beech, and
alder trees. Colonel Russell was courteous to all; visited the new
members, and secured their cheerful indorsement of his carefully
prepared plan of travel. He was at the head of a representative body of
pioneers, including lawyers, journalists, teachers, students, farmers,
and day-laborers, also a minister of the gospel, a carriage-maker, a
cabinet-maker, a stonemason, a jeweller, a blacksmith, and women versed
in all branches of woman's work.

The government of these emigrant trains was essentially democratic and
characteristically American. A captain was chosen, and all plans of
action and rules and regulations were proposed at a general assembly,