It was about this time that Capt. Ringgold, of the United States navy, asked me urgently to go with him as the artist on an expedition to make a coast survey of Kamchatka, and thence on south. He consulted the Secretary of War, and obtained permission for me to go if he made the application. He spoke of the climate in summer, and said in the fall we would sail for the Sandwich Islands and pass the winter there. The expedition was a tempting one, but other considerations induced me to decline going. Capt. Ringgold was a brother of Maj. Ringgold, who was killed at the battle of Palo Alto.
I think it was during this autumn that I was sent to Louisville, Ky., to purchase horses for the cavalry.
About the middle of December Col. Joseph Taylor, Maj. Gaines, his two daughters, and I took passage on a steamer for Cincinnati. There was much floating ice in the river, and snow began to fall, and it turned very cold. The captain ran into the mouth of the Kentucky river to avoid the heavy drift ice. In the morning we found the steamer fast in frozen ice, and wagons and sleighs came alongside. Gen. W. O. Butler came on board to see Col. Taylor, and, as there was no prospect of the steamer leaving for weeks, arrangements were made for Gen. Butler to send us on to Florence in his common two-horse farm wagon. The next morning the trunks were put in for seats and we started on our journey. The country was covered deep with snow, and the thermometer was fourteen degrees below zero. I walked behind the wagon nearly all the way to keep warm. The driver's hands were nearly frozen, and in crossing an awful ravine the horses were not checked and the wheels on one side would have missed the bridge and all in the wagon been killed had not my trunk fallen out in front and stopped the wagon. Fortunately no damage was done. The driver was to blame for not telling us his hands were half frozen.
It was dark when we reached Florence, and for once fire could not warm me for hours. Next day Col. Taylor bargained for a jumper (sled) to take him and me to Cincinnati. We crossed the river on the ice, and were driven up to the door of the hotel in the jumper. Next day Hon. Salmon P. Chase joined Col. Taylor, and we went on to Washington together.