The Journey So Far

Okay, where to start, where to start...
Well.
Over the past week or so, I've been crawling through a timeline of 1865 through 1867 and listing down the events. It's turned out to be pretty detailed though that's a good thing as I hate missing things out. So far, 1865 is done and January through to mid July is also done but we've just had to take my Laptop down to a computer fix up place because it's being stupid and crashing all the time so everything's been left on it. Hopefully it'll be alright!
However, I did save some things to memory stick that I wanted to edit so I'm going to try and carry on with the July timeline which I had to separate out into its own part because that month has a heck of a lot going on in it!
Going through though, I've come across a problem as I really don't know where to start the story. On one hand, I could describe the whole journey to the fort site, with the ups and downs and mistakes and successes, with the fictional Willow being our eyes and ears for a lot of it but then this would probably take quite long and drone on a bit. I personally love the journey but to be honest, it's not too much of a kapow! starting, so to speak.
So, on the other hand, I could start with Lieutenant Templeton's part. This is a lot more sudden, with some Officers travelling to the fort and being swarmed upon by Indians along the way. It also has a good part with one of the enlisted men, SS Peters, listening to Lieutenant Daniels' talking about 'something bad' he thinks is going to happen to him. It does the next day, along with Templeton as they run into Indians out of sight of the waiting party. And when Templeton returns after Daniel's riderless horse scurrying out of the timber, he simply says: ''Daniels! My God, Indians!'' before collapsing. I imagine this might be a better starting.
However, if I was going to go along with the journey part too, I'd have to maybe put in another fictional character who Willow would later meet and relate with. If I will, his name will be Captain Lewis Burton but that's not definite yet.
Also, I've decided on a fictional Indian to tell us their side of the story and his name would be something along the lines of Smoky because I've always wanted to call somebody that. Smoky River, as a full name.
In other news, somebody suggested a programme to help with planning called YWriter that helps plan individual scenes, characters, locations, view points and so on...This will be very handy when it finally comes to writing the story!