Famed Riders of the Plains Who Speeded the Mails Across the West Despite Indians or Perils Of the Wilderness
Were Headed by Powhatan County Man and V.M.I. Cadet

By Jack Burgess

The Pony Express goes through! The mail must go on!

'Tis a far cry, even in these days, from Ol' Virginny to the muddy Missouri, the snow-capped peaks and passes of the Rockies and the deserts and valleys of California. But it was a much farther cry in the days between the time when the Forty-niners heeded the Western call and Fort Sumter's fall when those fleeting phantoms of the desert--the Pony Express riders--carried Uncle Sam's mail over thousands of miles and through hourly dangers of Indians, storms or perils of travel.

With the Eastern terminal of the Pony Express in Missouri and the Western terminal in San Francisco, it seems a still farther cry today to link Virginia with that romantic episode in the history of the United States mails. Yet, though few people perhaps are aware of the fact, Virginians played a great part in both the organization and the operation of that enterprise which marked the supreme triumph of American spirit, of God-fearing, man-defying American pluck and determination.

The role of "plainsmen" is not one in which popular conception clothes a Virginian; however, it could have been no difficult step for the sons of the Old Dominion in view of the fact that two of the crack riders of that group, than which there were no peers in knowledge of the plains, called the region of the James River "home."

And Powhatan County saw born and raised, the man who headed the Western terminal of the Pony Express and who was a power in its efficient organization--Colonel William W. Finney.

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Colonel Finney was a graduate of Virginia Military Institute in the class of 1848. He was the son of Captain William Finney and Elizabeth Crichton Wood and was born at "Prospect Hill," in Powhatan County, on May 16, 1829. His grandparents were the Rev. John Finney and Sarah Mann of Glenmore, Amelia County.

His maternal grandparents were William Wood Esq., of Liverpool, England, a ship owner and West Indies trader, and Catherine Gordon of the "Admiral Crichton" Gordon line of Cluny Castle, Scotland. The colonel's mother died in Richmond at the ripe old age of 97.

The future Pony Express official was educated in private schools in Powhatan, Goochland, Cumberland and Hanover Counties, and in Richmond until his sixteenth year when he entered the V. M. I. already fairly advanced in Greek, Latin, French and mathematics, according to his own account. 'But said he, "that counted for nothing, sir, in the end. I came out an alumnus after three years, standing next to the foot in a class of 24, and smothered in demerits, instead of wearing a laurel wreath as I should have done."

Low in class and low in purse, but not low in principle or purpose, the graduate now looked about for his forte in life. And found it. "Medicine." A skillful physician in Warrenton, N. C. offered him private instruction and the position of assistant principal in the "Warrenton Male Academy." To this work he gave himself with becoming zeal until one day the echo of the miner's pick in the gold fields of California, with its alluring, speedy riches bade him hie away.

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And so 1850 found our ex-cadet, after hairbreadth escapes on land and sea, digging gold on the Pacific Coast in our Western Eldorado.

A mental glance over his diploma assuring him he was a graduate in "mining and civil engineering" he threw aside his miner's pick and became assistant to that distinguished star graduate in engineering of the United States Military Academy, Colonel Andrew Talcott in the preliminary surveys of the railroad between the City of Mexico and Vera Cruz.

In the fall of 1858 Colonel Finney returned to the United States and joined with that other daring V. M. I. man, the late Major B. F. Ficklin, in a trip from Washington City to Salt Lake City and "Camp Floyd," where was encamped the American Army of Occupation under command of Colonel, afterwards General, Albert Sidney Johnston. From this trip was developed the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company which became popularly known as the Pony Express.

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According to the personal memoirs of Colonel Finney and to the research of Glenn D. Bradley author of "Winning the Southwest," the story goes that in the autumn of 1854 United States Senator William Gwin of California was making an overland trip on horseback from San Francisco to Washington D. C. He was following the Central route through Salt Lake and South Pass and during a portion of his journey had for a companion B. F. Ficklin of V. M. I. fame and then general superintendent for the big freighting and stage firm of Russell Majors & Waddel of Leavenworth. Ficklin had already conceived the idea of a much closer transit service between the Missouri River and the coast, and confided his scheme enthusiastically to Senator Gwin at the same time pointing out the benefits that would accrue to California should it ever be put into execution. The senator at once saw the merits of the plan and quickly caught the contagion.

So, in January, 1855, Gwin introduced in the Senate a bill which proposed to establish a weekly letter express service between St. Louis and San Francisco. The express was to operate on a 10-day schedule, follow the central route and was to received a compensation not exceeding $500 for each round trip. This bill was referred to the Committee of Military Affairs, where it was quietly tabled and "killed."

For the next five years the attention of the Congress was largely taken up with the anti-slavery troubles, records Bradley, and though the people of the West continued to agitate for a fast mail service, for a long time nothing was done.

Then it chanced that in the winter of 1859-60 William Russell, senior partner of the famous stage firm was called to Washington in connection with some Government freight contacts. While there he became acquainted with Senator Gwin, who at once brought before Mr. Russell the need of better mail connections over the central route, and of the especial need of better communication should war occur.

Russell at once awoke to the situation and hurried West, and at Fort Leavenworth met his partners Majors and Waddell, to whom he submitted his new proposition. They opposed the idea, but upon learning that their partner had practically verbally committed the firm to try the project, they joined in the preparations. The first step was to form a corporation and the Territory of Kansas granted a charter to the C.O.C. and P.P.E. Company.

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Besides the three original members of the famous firm the incorporators included Gicklin, Colonel Finney, F. A. Bee and John S. Jones. And so Virginia had two native sons among the seven who "made" the Pony Express possible. Finney was made Western manager with offices at San Francisco.

These men then had to revise the routes to be traversed, equip it with relay or relief stations which had to be provisioned for men and horses, hire dependable men as station keepers and riders and buy high-grade horses for the entire course, nearly 2,000 mile in extent.

Horses were purchased throughout the West. They were the best that money could buy and ranged from the tough California cayuses or mustangs to thoroughbred stock from Iowa. The men were hired at salaries varying from $50 to $150 a month, the riders receiving the highest pay of any below executive rank.

When fully equipped the line comprised 190 stations, about 420 horses, 400 station men and assistants and 80 riders.

The routes over which the riders carried the mail varied in length from 45 miles to nearly 100 miles, and were ridden at a breakneck gallop. Fresh horses were stationed at intervals of about 12 miles, and when a rider thundered into a relay station only a very few minutes were lost in switching to a fresh mount and the mail went on.

William James, always called "Bill" James, was a native of Virginia. He had crossed the plains with his parents in a wagon train when only 5 years old. At 18 he was one of the best Pony Express riders in the service. James's route lay between Simpson's Park and Cole Springs, Nev., in the Smoky Valley range of mountains. He rode only 60 miles each way, but covered the round trip of 120 miles in 12 hours, including all stops. He always rode California mustangs, using five of these animals each way. His route crossed the summits of two mountain ridges, lay through the shoshone Indian country, and was one of the lonliest and most dangerous divisions on the line. Yet "Bill" never took time to think of danger, nor did he ever have serious trouble.

Jim Beatley, whose real name was Foote, was another Virginian, about 25 years of age. He rode on an Eastern division, usually out of Seneca. On one occasion he traveled from Seneca to Big Sandy, 50 miles and back, doubling his route twice in one week. Beatley was killed by a stage hand in a personal quarrel on a ranch in southern Nevada in 1862.

The Pony Express had a brief existence of only 16 months and was supplanted by the transcontinental telegraph, yet it was of the greatest importance in binding East and West together at a time when overland travel was slow and when a great national crisis made the rapid communication of news between these sections an imperative necessity.

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But Colonel Finney did not wait to see the end of this great adventure of which he says in his memoirs:

"The part I played in this then wonderful enterprise, in my own opinion, entitles me to more credit than all else I ever did in my whole life."

Little credit has ever accrued to Colonel Finney's name, however, in this regard, others usurping the honors with which history has endowed the founders of this patriotic project. Senator Thomas H. Benton, however in speaking of Colonel Finney, once said: "He solitary and alone, put in motion throughout its Western division, from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, an enterprise that was one of the marvels of the age."

But all that was written of those exploits is the terse sentence: "Mr. Finney went to California."

It was over this same Pony Express that Lincoln's election to be President of the United States first reached California, and over it went Ficklin's letter to his old partner in which he suggested to Finney "to put some one else in charge of the business and return at once to the States by way of Panama."

Colonel Finney responded at once to the suggestion and Finney and Ficklin were reunited, bound by the bonds of common brotherhood, and an unshakable faith and loyalty in their beloved Virginia they both gave to her defense the next four years of manhood's middle life.

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The Powhatan colonel first saw service as captain and quartermaster of the Provisional Army of Virginia under Colonel Thomas J. Jackson at Harper's Ferry, and later under his successor, General Joseph E. Johnston. Because he was a V. M. I. graduate, they advised his entering "the line" and promised their aid in obtaining a commission. Soon thereafter he was commissioned by President Davis a lieutenant-colonel and was assigned to the Fiftieth Regiment of Virginia Infantry then in camp at Wytheville, Va. He at once began drilling the raw soldiers, but hardly was the work fairly organized before orders were received to move to a point beyond the Greenbrier and Gauley Rivers where skirmishes were not infrequent. Following this, and probably incident to the exposure, fatigue and sleeplessness endured, Colonel Finney was stricken with typhoid fever which lasted for six months.

Before his recovery the Fiftieth Regiment was transferred to the south and was besieged in Fort Donnellson. General Harry Heth requested Colonel Finney's services at Lewisburg, W. Va. when he was at last able to report for duty. There, five miles from the town, he was directed to throw up a line of breastworks and to mobilize and drill the conscript soldiers assembled at Greenbrier and White Sulphur Springs.

In the battle of Lewisburg, according to an officer of General Heth's staff who witnessed the incident, Colonel Finney's conduct was most conspicuous. Deserted by his "squirrel rifle and bird gun" equipped recruits who ignominiously fled before the Yankee attack, the son of Powhatan County, after appealing to his men with all the force of his soul, denounced the whole crowd as cowards and declared he would not turn his back upon the enemy. Then he marched straight into the Union lines, fired his pistols in their faces and was taken prisoner. He next found himself on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie. Three months later he was exchanged at Vicksburg and returned to Richmond to find himself bereft of rank and command because of a report of his death at Johnson's Island.

And so this gallant officer saw no further service on the battlefield other than as an onlooker at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, where his old V. M. I. friend, General R. E. Rhodes said to him:

"No command and here by sufferance? No glory if you are killed. You are a fool, Finney. Take my advice, old chum, and get away from here as fast as your horse can carry you.'

And so Finney went. But before going he made an effort to pull a gun out of a ditch into which it had been knocked by the enemy, and even had the immortal kind-hearted General Robert E. Lee dismount from his horse and help him do it.

General Heth, had recommended Colonel Finney for promotion to the rank of brigadier-general because of his gallant stand at Lewisburg, but the commission was not issued and one tires in long waiting for promised honors. And so it came to pass that when Captain John Wilkinson, then in command of the famous Confederate blockade ship, the "Robert E. Lee," at Silmington, N. C. offered him the position of disbursing officer of that ship he promptly accepted the appointment and made nearly a score of trips carrying Southern cotton to Bermuda and bringing back cargoes for the Confederate armies.