I managed to get passage on this boat to Louisville, and thence to the city of St.Louis.Thus, finally, we pushed in at the vast busy levee of this western military capital.
At that time Jefferson Barracks made the central depot of Army operations in the West.

Here recruits and supplies were received and readjusted to the needs of the scattered outposts in the Indian lands.
Still I was not in the West, for St.Louis also was old, almost as old as our pleasant valley back in Virginia.

I heard of lands still more remote, a thousand miles still to the West, heard of great rivers leading to the mountains, and of the vast, mysterious plains, of which even yet men spoke in awe.

Shall I admit it--in spite of grief and trouble, my heart leaped at these thoughts.

I wished nothing so much as that I might properly and fitly join this eager, hurrying, keen-faced throng of the west-bound Americans.