“As soon as the contract [to supply the Army] was signed, the company sent out cattle buyers to comb the country for oxen. When they were through, the firm owned 7,500. The company began loading in early May, and when the last wagon rolled out upon the prairie, they had five hundred, a total of twenty trains, on the road.
Each train of twenty-six wagons represented an investment of from $18,000 to $20,000. The five hundred vehicles used in 1855 represented an investment of from $360,000 to $400,000. It is not possible that the partners [Russell, Majors, and Waddell] had anything like that amount of capital at their disposal. . . They went heavily into debt to promote the business in 1855. Owing to a series of unforeseeable misfortunes, they were never able to get out again.”