Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/17

 priation, naturally felt disgruntled when he was entirely disregarded by Ives. Consequently, he explained, "I determined to take the steamer I first built and go up the river. So, while he was putting his craft together, I fitted up the steamer Ge?ieral Jesup, and applied to the commanding officer of Fort Yuma for an escort."** Captain William A. Winder granted his request and detailed a certain Lieutenant White to take command of fifteen men and a mountain howitzer to accompany the expedition. On December 20, 1857, eleven days before Ives started from the mouth of the river, Johnson and his party left Yuma for the stated purpose of determining whether a route could be opened by way of the Colorado to Utah, by which troops could be sent to the aid of General Albert Sidney Johnston in putting down the Utah rebellion. The ulterior motive of the expedition was to win for Johnson the credit expected by the Ives party.

Contrary to the popular belief that he reached Las Vegas Wash and probably the Virgin River, Johnson states that he got only as far as El Dorado, seventy-four miles above Fort Mohave.*^ He determined this to be the head of navigation and returned.

Meanwhile Lieutenant Ives had taken aboard the remainder of his personnel at Fort Yuma and started on. To his embarrassment the Explorer floundered on a sand bar a short distance above and in plain sight of the fort. Here he was forced to remain for an entire afternoon and night, much to the amusement of the garrison. It must have been with heightened feeling of chagrin that, as his crew struggled upstream somewhat later in the small Explorer J he met Johnson steaming along homeward with a much larger boat, already having explored most of the territory that he, at great expense, had been sent to examine.*^ The expedition continued up the river until March 8, when the Explorer ran onto a sunken rock in the vicinity of Black Canyon, ripping her bow apart. She was repaired near the scene of the accident three days later. Ives had now reached a point on the river higher than that attained by Johnson, but because of the accident he decided to go no farther with the boat. Launching a skiff, a small party proceeded on to what later proved to be Las Vegas Wash. Mistaking it for the long looked for Virgin River, the party turned back confident that they had fully accomplished what they had set out to do.

As a result of these two expeditions, not only was much learned about the character of the river and the surrounding region above Yuma, but both Johnson and Ives expressed the belief that the Colorado was navigable for river steamers as far as the Rio Virgin, although neither of them had reached that point.*^

After returning to Yuma the Explorer was sold at auction to the George A. Johnson Company. She proved very unmanageable and consequently saw little active service on the river.*^ She is said to have got out of control at the mouth of the Gila and was finally hauled in at Pilot Knob. During