The Oregon Trail’s worst menu
The people who stayed back at the camp were starving to death. The livestock was long gone, and pets had already been eaten. Between October 13th and October 21st, four children had died. Like the Donners, they made the difficult choice to eat the dead to save their lives. On October 24, an Army relief expedition from Fort Walla Walla found the camp and rescued the survivors.
Army captain Frederick T. Dent wrote a shocking report, “…found on the Owyhee (River) 12 emigrants alive and five dead; those still alive were keeping life in them by eating those who had died.” He described survivors as “skeletons with life in them; their frantic cries for food rang in out ears incessantly.”
