By Colonel Henry Inman
Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army
With a Preface by W. F. "BUFFALO BILL" CODY
Original publication date unknown
As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the fact that the present is a constant romance, and that the happenings of to-day which we count of little importance are sure to startle somebody in the future, and engage the pen of the historian, philosopher, and poet.
Accustomed as we are to think of the vast steppes of Russia and Siberia as alike strange and boundless, and to deal with the unknown interior of Africa as an impenetrable mystery, we lose sight of a locality in our own country that once surpassed all these in virgin grandeur, in majestic solitude, and in all the attributes of a tremendous wilderness.
The story of the Old Santa Fe Trail, so truthfully recalled by Colonel Henry Inman, ex-officer of the old Regular Army, in these pages, is a most thrilling one. The vast area through which the famous highway ran is still imperfectly known to most people as "The West"; a designation once appropriate, but hardly applicable now; for in these days of easy communication the real trail region is not so far removed from New York as Buffalo was seventy years ago.
At the commencement of the "commerce of the prairies," in the early portion of the century, the Old Trail was the arena of almost constant sanguinary struggles between the wily nomads of the desert and the hardy white pioneers, whose eventful lives made the civilization of the vast interior region of our continent possible. Their daring compelled its development, which has resulted in the genesis of great states and large cities. Their hardships gave birth to the American homestead; their determined will was the factor of possible achievements, the most remarkable and important of modern times.
When the famous highway was established across the great plains as a line of communication to the shores of the blue Pacific, the only method of travel was by the slow freight caravan drawn by patient oxen, or the lumbering stage coach with its complement of four or six mules. There was ever to be feared an attack by those devils of the desert, the Cheyennes, Comanches, and Kiowas. Along its whole route the remains of men, animals, and the wrecks of camps and wagons, told a story of suffering, robbery, and outrage more impressive than any language. Now the tourist or business man makes the journey in palace cars, and there is nothing to remind him of the danger or desolation of Border days; on every hand are the evidences of a powerful and advanced civilization.
It is fortunate that one is left to tell some of its story who was a living actor and had personal knowledge of many of the thrilling scenes that were enacted along the line of the great route. He was familiar with all the famous men, both white and savage, whose lives have made the story of the Trail, his own sojourn on the plains and in the Rocky Mountains extending over a period of nearly forty years. The Old Trail has more than common interest for me, and I gladly record here my endorsement of the faithful record, compiled by a brave soldier, old comrade, and friend. W. F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill."
For more than three centuries, a period extending from 1541 to 1851,
historians believed, and so announced to the literary world,
that Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the celebrated Spanish explorer,
in his search for the Seven Cities of Cibola and the Kingdom of Quivira,
was the first European to travel over the intra-continent region
of North America. In the last year above referred to, however,
Buckingham Smith, of Florida, an eminent Spanish scholar, and secretary
of the American Legation at Madrid, discovered among the archives
of State the _Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca_, where for
nearly three hundred years it had lain, musty and begrimed with the
dust of ages, an unread and forgotten story of suffering that has no
parallel in fiction. The distinguished antiquarian unearthed the
valuable manuscript from its grave of oblivion, translated it into
English, and gave it to the world of letters; conferring honour upon
whom honour was due, and tearing the laurels from such grand voyageurs
and discoverers as De Soto, La Salle, and Coronado, upon whose heads
history had erroneously placed them, through no fault, or arrogance,
however, of their own.
Cabeca, beyond any question, travelled the Old Santa Fe Trail for
many miles, crossed it where it intersects the Arkansas River,
a little east of Fort William or Bent's Fort, and went thence on
into New Mexico, following the famous highway as far, at least,
as Las Vegas. Cabeca's march antedated that of Coronado by five years.
To this intrepid Spanish voyageur we are indebted for the first
description of the American bison, or buffalo as the animal is
erroneously called. While not so quaint in its language as that
of Coronado's historian, a lustrum later, the statement cannot be
perverted into any other reference than to the great shaggy monsters
of the plains:--
Cattle come as far as this. I have seen them three times
and eaten of their meat. I think they are about the size
of those of Spain. They have small horns like the cows
of Morocco, and the hair very long and flocky, like that
of the merino; some are light brown, others black. To my
judgment the flesh is finer and fatter than that of this
country. The Indians make blankets of the hides of those
not full grown. They range over a district of more than
four hundred leagues, and in the whole extent of plain over
which they run the people that inhabit near there descend
and live on them and scatter a vast many skins throughout
the country.
It will be remembered by the student of the early history of
our country, that when Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca, a follower of the
unfortunate Panphilo de Narvaez, and who had been long thought dead,
landed in Spain, he gave such glowing accounts of Florida[1] and the
neighbouring regions that the whole kingdom was in a ferment,
and many a heart panted to emigrate to a land where the fruits
were perennial, and where it was thought flowed the fabled
fountain of youth.
Three expeditions to that country had already been tried:
one undertaken in 1512, by Juan Ponce de Leon, formerly a companion
of Columbus; another in 1520, by Vasquez de Allyon; and another by
Panphilo de Narvaez. All of these had signally failed, the bones
of most of the leaders and their followers having been left to bleach
upon the soil they had come to conquer.
The unfortunate issue of the former expeditions did not operate as
a check upon the aspiring mind of De Soto, but made him the more
anxious to spring as an actor into the arena which had been the scene
of the discomfiture and death of the hardy chivalry of the kingdom.
He sought an audience of the emperor, and the latter, after hearing
De Soto's proposition that, "he could conquer the country known as
Florida at his own expense," conferred upon him the title of
"Governor of Cuba and Florida."
On the 6th of April, 1538, De Soto sailed from Spain with an armament
of ten vessels and a splendidly equipped army of nine hundred chosen men,
amidst the roar of cannons and the inspiring strains of martial music.
It is not within the province of this work to follow De Soto through
all his terrible trials on the North American continent; the wonderful
story may be found in every well-organized library. It is recorded,
however, that some time during the year 1542, his decimated army,
then under the command of Luis de Moscoso, De Soto having died
the previous May, was camped on the Arkansas River, far upward towards
what is now Kansas. It was this command, too, of the unfortunate
but cruel De Soto, that saw the Rocky Mountains from the east.
The chronicler of the disastrous journey towards the mountains says:
"The entire route became a trail of fire and blood," as they
had many a desperate struggle with the savages of the plains,
who "were of gigantic stucture, and fought with heavy strong clubs,
with the desperation of demons. Such was their tremendous strength,
that one of these warriors was a match for a Spanish soldier,
though mounted on a horse, armed with a sword and cased in armour!"
Moscoso was searching for Coronado, and he was one of the most humane
of all the officers of De Soto's command, for he evidently bent
every energy to extricate his men from the dreadful environments
of their situation; despairing of reaching the Gulf by the Mississippi,
he struck westward, hoping, as Cabeca de Vaca had done, to arrive
in Mexico overland.
A period of six months was consumed in Moscoso's march towards the
Rocky Mountains, but he failed to find Coronado, who at that time
was camped near where Wichita, Kansas, is located; according to his
historian, "at the junction of the St. Peter and St. Paul" (the Big
and Little Arkansas?). That point was the place of separation
between Coronado and a number of his followers; many returning
to Mexico, while the undaunted commander, with as many as he could
induce to accompany him, continued easterly, still in search of
the mythical Quivira.
How far westward Moscoso travelled cannot be determined accurately,
but that his route extended up the valley of the Arkansas for more than
three hundred miles, into what is now Kansas, is proved by the statement
of his historian, who says: "They saw great chains of mountains and
forests to the west, which they understood were uninhabited."
Another strong confirmatory fact is, that, in 1884, a group of mounds
was discovered in McPherson County, Kansas, which were thoroughly
explored by the professors of Bethany College, Lindsborg, who found,
among other interesting relics, a piece of chain-mail armour,
of hard steel; undoubtedly part of the equipment of a Spanish soldier
either of the command of Cabeca de Vaca, De Soto, or of Coronado.
The probability is, that it was worn by one of De Soto's unfortunate men,
as neither Panphilo de Narvaez, De Vaca, or Coronado experienced any
difficulty with the savages of the great plains, because those leaders
were humane and treated the Indians kindly, in contradistinction to
De Soto, who was the most inhuman of all the early Spanish explorers.
He was of the same school as Pizarro and Cortez; possessing their
daring valour, their contempt of danger, and their tenacity of purpose,
as well as their cruelty and avarice. De Soto made treaties with
the Indians which he constantly violated, and murdered the misguided
creatures without mercy. During the retreat of Moscoso's weakened
command down the Arkansas River, the Hot Springs of Arkansas
were discovered. His historian writes:
And when they saw the foaming fountain, they thought
it was the long-searched-for "Fountain of Youth," reported
by fame to exist somewhere in the country, but ten of the
soldiers dying from excessive drinking, they were soon
convinced of their error.
After these intrepid explorers the restless Coronado appears on
the Old Trail. In the third volume of Hakluyt's _Voyages_, published
in London, 1600, Coronado's historian thus describes the great plains
of Kansas and Colorado, the bison, and a tornado:--
From Cicuye they went to Quivira, which after their account
is almost three hundred leagues distant, through mighty
plains, and sandy heaths so smooth and wearisome, and bare
of wood that they made heaps of ox-dung, for want of stones
and trees, that they might not lose themselves at their
return: for three horses were lost on that plain, and one
Spaniard which went from his company on hunting. . . .
All that way of plains are as full of crooked-back oxen as
the mountain Serrena in Spain is of sheep, but there is
no such people as keep those cattle. . . . They were a
great succour for the hunger and the want of bread, which
our party stood in need of. . . .
One day it rained in that plain a great shower of hail,
as big as oranges, which caused many tears, weakness
and bowes.
These oxen are of the bigness and colour of our bulls,
but their bones are not so great. They have a great bunch
upon their fore-shoulder, and more hair on their fore part
than on their hinder part, and it is like wool. They have
as it were an horse-mane upon their backbone, and much hair
and very long from their knees downward. They have great
tufts of hair hanging down on their foreheads, and it
seemeth they have beards because of the great store of hair
hanging down at their chins and throats. The males have
very long tails, and a great knob or flock at the end,
so that in some respects they resemble the lion, and in some
other the camel. They push with their horns, they run,
they overtake and kill an horse when they are in their
rage and anger. Finally it is a foul and fierce beast of
countenance and form of body. The horses fled from them,
either because of their deformed shape, or else because
they had never before seen them.
"The number," continues the historian, "was incredible." When the
soldiers, in their excitement for the chase, began to kill them,
they rushed together in such masses that hundreds were literally
crushed to death. At one place there was a great ravine; they jumped
into it in their efforts to escape from the hunters, and so terrible
was the slaughter as they tumbled over the precipice that the
depression was completely filled up, their carcasses forming a bridge,
over which the remainder passed with ease.
The next recorded expedition across the plains via the Old Trail
was also by the Spaniards from Santa Fe, eastwardly, in the year 1716,
"for the purpose of establishing a Military Post in the Upper
Mississippi Valley as a barrier to the further encroachments of
the French in that direction." An account of this expedition is found
in _Memoires Historiques sur La Louisiane_, published in Paris in 1858,
but never translated in its entirety. The author, Lieutenant Dumont
of the French army, was one of a party ascending the Arkansas River
in search of a supposed mass of emeralds. The narrative relates:
There was more than half a league to traverse to gain the
other bank of the river, and our people were no sooner
arrived than they found there a party of Missouris, sent to
M. de la Harpe by M. de Bienville, then commandant general
at Louisiana, to deliver orders to the former. Consequently
they gave the signal order, and our other two canoes having
crossed the river, the savages gave to our commandant the
letters of M. de Bienville, in which he informed him that
the Spaniards had sent out a detachment from New Mexico
to go to the Missouris and to establish a post in that
country. . . . The success of this expedition was very
calamitous to the Spaniards. Their caravan was composed of
fifteen hundred people, men, women and soldiers, having
with them a Jacobin for a chaplain, and bringing also a
great number of horses and cattle, according to the custom
of that nation to forget nothing that might be necessary for
a settlement. Their design was to destroy the Missouris,
and to seize upon their country, and with this intention
they had resolved to go first to the Osages, a neighbouring
nation, enemies of the Missouris, to form an alliance with
them, and to engage them in their behalf for the execution
of their plan. Perhaps the map which guided them was not
correct, or they had not exactly followed it, for it chanced
that instead of going to the Osages whom they sought, they
fell, without knowing it, into a village of the Missouris,
where the Spanish commander, presenting himself to the great
chief and offering him the calumet, made him understand
through an interpreter, believing himself to be speaking
to the Osage chief, that they were enemies of the Missouris,
that they had come to destroy them, to make their women
and children slaves and to take possession of their country.
He begged the chief to be willing to form an alliance
with them, against a nation whom the Osages regarded as
their enemy, and to second them in this enterprise, promising
to recompense them liberally for the service rendered,
and always to be their friend in the future. Upon this
discourse the Missouri chief understood perfectly well
the mistake. He dissimulated and thanked the Spaniard for
the confidence he had in his nation; he consented to form
an alliance with them against the Missouris, and to join
them with all his forces to destroy them; but he represented
that his people were not armed, and that they dared not
expose themselves without arms in such an enterprise.
Deceived by so favourable a reception, the Spaniards fell
into the trap laid for them. They received with due
ceremony, in the little camp they had formed on their
arrival, the calumet which the great chief of the Missouris
presented to the Spanish commander. The alliance for war
was sworn to by both parties; they agreed upon a day for
the execution of the plan which they meditated, and the
Spaniards furnished the savages with all the munitions which
they thought were needed. After the ceremony both parties
gave themselves up equally to joy and good cheer. At the
end of three days two thousand savages were armed and in
the midst of dances and amusements; each party thought
nothing but the execution of its design. It was the evening
before their departure upon their concerted expedition,
and the Spaniards had retired to their camps as usual,
when the great chief of the Missouris, having assembled
his warriors, declared to them his intentions and exhorted
them to deal treacherously with these strangers who were come
to their home only with the design of destroying them.
At daybreak the savages divided into several bands, fell on
the Spaniards, who expected nothing of the kind, and in
less than a quarter of an hour all the caravan were murdered.
No one escaped from the massacre except the chaplain, whom
the barbarians saved because of his dress; at the same time
they took possession of all the merchandise and other
effects which they found in their camp. The Spaniards had
brought with them, as I have said, a certain number of horses,
and as the savages were ignorant of the use of these animals,
they took pleasure in making the Jacobin whom they had saved,
and who had become their slave, mount them. The priest gave
them this amusement almost every day for the five or six
months that he remained with them in their village, without
any of them daring to imitate him. Tired at last of his
slavery, and regarding the lack of daring in these barbarians
as a means of Providence to regain his liberty, he made
secretly all the provisions possible for him to make,
and which he believed necessary to his plan. At last,
having chosen the best horse and having mounted him,
after performing several of his exploits before the savages,
and while they were all occupied with his manoeuvres,
he spurred up and disappeared from their sight, taking the
road to Mexico, where doubtless he arrived.
Charlevoix,[2] who travelled from Quebec to New Orleans in the
year 1721, says in one of his letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguieres,
dated at Kaskaskia, July 21, 1721:
About two years ago some Spaniards, coming, as they say,
from New Mexico, and intending to get into the country of
the Illinois and drive the French from thence, whom they
saw with extreme jealousy approach so near the Missouri,
came down the river and attacked two villages of the
Octoyas,[3] who are the allies of the Ayouez,[4] and from
whom it is said also that they are derived. As the savages
had no firearms and were surprised, the Spaniards made an
easy conquest and killed a great many of them. A third
village, which was not far off from the other two, being
informed of what had passed, and not doubting but these
conquerors would attack them, laid an ambush into which
the Spaniards heedlessly fell. Others say that the savages,
having heard that the enemy were almost all drunk and
fast asleep, fell upon them in the night. However it was,
it is certain the greater part of them were killed.
There were in the party two almoners; one of them was
killed directly and the other got away to the Missouris,
who took him prisoner, but he escaped them very dexterously.
He had a very fine horse and the Missouris took pleasure
in seeing him ride it, which he did very skilfully. He took
advantage of their curiosity to get out of their hands.
One day as he was prancing and exercising his horse before
them, he got a little distance from them insensibly; then
suddenly clapping spurs to his horse he was soon out of sight.
The Missouri Indians once occupied all the territory near the junction
of the Kaw and Missouri rivers, but they were constantly decimated
by the continual depredations of their warlike and feudal enemies,
the Pawnees and Sioux, and at last fell a prey to that dreadful
scourge, the small-pox, which swept them off by thousands.
The remnant of the once powerful tribe then found shelter and a home
with the Otoes, finally becoming merged in that tribe.
The Santa Fe of the purely Mexican occupation, long before the days
of New Mexico's acquisition by the United States, and the Santa Fe of
to-day are so widely in contrast that it is difficult to find language
in which to convey to the reader the story of the phenomenal change.
To those who are acquainted with the charming place as it is now,
with its refined and cultured society, I cannot do better, perhaps,
in attempting to show what it was under the old regime, than to quote
what some traveller in the early 30's wrote for a New York leading
newspaper, in regard to it. As far as my own observation of the
place is concerned, when I first visited it a great many years ago,
the writer of the communication whose views I now present was not
incorrect in his judgment. He said:--
To dignify such a collection of mud hovels with the name
of "City," would be a keen irony; not greater, however,
than is the name with which its Padres have baptized it.
To call a place with its moral character, a very Sodom
in iniquity, "Holy Faith," is scarcely a venial sin;
it deserves Purgatory at least. Its health is the best
in the country, which is the first, second and third
recommendation of New Mexico by its greatest admirers.
It is a small town of about two thousand inhabitants,
crowded up against the mountains, at the end of a little
valley through which runs a mountain stream of the same
name tributary to the Rio Grande. It has a public square
in the centre, a Palace and an Alameda; as all Spanish
Roman Catholic towns have. It is true its Plaza, or
Public Square, is unfenced and uncared for, without trees
or grass. The Palace is nothing more than the biggest
mud-house in the town, and the churches, too, are unsightly
piles of the same material, and the Alameda[5] is on top of
a sand hill. Yet they have in Santa Fe all the parts and
parcels of a regal city and a Bishopric. The Bishop has a
palace also; the only two-storied shingle-roofed house in
the place. There is one public house set apart for eating,
drinking and gambling; for be it known that gambling is here
authorized by law. Hence it is as respectable to keep a
gambling house, as it is to sell rum in New Jersey; it is
a lawful business, and being lawful, and consequently
respectable and a man's right, why should not men gamble?
And gamble they do. The Generals and the Colonels and
the Majors and the Captains gamble. The judges and the
lawyers and the doctors and the priests gamble; and there
are gentlemen gamblers by profession! You will see squads
of poor peons daily, men, women and boys, sitting on the
ground around a deck of cards in the Public Square, gambling
for the smallest stakes.
The stores of the town generally front on the Public Square.
Of these there are a dozen, more or less, of respectable
size, and most of them are kept by others than Mexicans.
The business of the place is considerable, many of the
merchants here being wholesale dealers for the vast
territory tributary. It is supposed that about $750,000
worth of goods will be brought to this place this year, and
there may be $250,000 worth imported directly from the
United States.
In the money market there is nothing less than a five-cent
piece. You cannot purchase anything for less than five cents.
In trade they reckon ten cents the eighth of a dollar.
If you purchase nominally a dollar's worth of an article,
you can pay for it in eight ten-cent pieces; and if you
give a dollar, you receive no change. In changing a dollar
for you, you would get but eight ten-cent pieces for it.
Yet, although dirty and unkempt, and swarming with hungry
dogs, it has the charm of foreign flavour, and like
San Antonio retains some portion of the grace which long
lingered about it, if indeed it ever forsakes the spot
where Spain held rule for centuries, and the soft syllables
of the Spanish language are yet heard.
Such was a description of the "drowsy old town" of Santa Fe,
sixty-five years ago. Fifteen years later Major W. H. Emory, of
the United States army, writes of it as follows:[6]
The population of Santa Fe is from two to four thousand,
and the inhabitants are, it is said, the poorest people
of any town in the Province. The houses are mud bricks,
in the Spanish style, generally of one story, and built
on a square. The interior of the square is an open court,
and the principal rooms open into it. They are forbidding
in appearance from the outside, but nothing can exceed
the comfort and convenience of the interior. The thick
walls make them cool in summer and warm in winter.
The better class of people are provided with excellent beds,
but the poorer class sleep on untanned skins. The women
here, as in many other parts of the world, appear to be
much before the men in refinements, intelligence, and
knowledge of the useful arts. The higher class dress like
the American women, except, instead of a bonnet, they wear
a scarf over their head, called a reboso. This they wear
asleep or awake, in the house or abroad. The dress of the
lower classes of women is a simple petticoat, with arms and
shoulders bare, except what may chance to be covered by
the reboso.
The men who have means to do so dress after our fashion;
but by far the greater number, when they dress at all,
wear leather breeches, tight around the hips and open from
the knee down; shirt and blanket take the place of our
coat and vest.
The city is dependent on the distant hills for wood, and
at all hours of the day may be seen jackasses passing laden
with wood, which is sold at two bits, twenty-five cents,
the load. These are the most diminutive animals, and
usually mounted from behind, after the fashion of leap-frog.
The jackass is the only animal that can be subsisted in
this barren neighbourhood without great expense; our horses
are all sent to a distance of twelve, fifteen, and thirty
miles for grass.
I have interpolated these two somewhat similar descriptions of
Santa Fe written in that long ago when New Mexico was almost as
little known as the topography of the planet Mars, so that the
intelligent visitor of to-day may appreciate the wonderful changes
which American thrift, and that powerful civilizer, the locomotive,
have wrought in a very few years, yet it still, as one of the
foregoing writers has well said, "has the charm of foreign flavour,
and the soft syllables of the Spanish language are still heard."
The most positive exception must be taken to the statement of the
first-quoted writer in relation to the Palace, of which he says
"It is nothing more than the biggest mud-house in the town."
Now this "Palacio del Gobernador," as the old building was called
by the Spanish, was erected at a very early day. It was the
long-established seat of power when Penalosa confined the chief
inquisitor within its walls in 1663, and when the Pueblo authorities
took possession of it as the citadel of their central authority,
in 1681.
The old building cannot well be overlooked by the most careless
visitor to the quaint town; it is a long, low structure, taking up
the greater part of one side of the Plaza, round which runs a
colonnade supported by pillars of rough pine. In this once leaky
old Palace were kept, or rather neglected, the archives of the
Territory until the American residents, appreciating the importance
of preserving precious documents containing so much of interest
to the student of history and the antiquarian, enlisted themselves
enthusiastically in the good cause, and have rescued from oblivion
the annals of a relatively remote civilization, which, but for their
forethought, would have perished from the face of the earth as
completely as have the written records of that wonderful region in
Central America, whose gigantic ruins alone remain to tell us of
what was a highly cultured order of architecture in past ages,
and of a people whose intelligence was comparable to the style
of the dwellings in which they lived.
The old adobe Palace is in itself a volume whose pages are filled
with pathos and stirring events. It has been the scene and witness
of incidents the recital of which would to us to-day seem incredible.
An old friend, once governor of New Mexico and now dead, thus
graphically spoke of the venerable building:[7]
In it lived and ruled the Spanish captain general, so remote
and inaccessible from the viceroyalty at Mexico that he was
in effect a king, nominally accountable to the viceroy,
but practically beyond his reach and control and wholly
irresponsible to the people. Equally independent for the
same reason were the Mexican governors. Here met all the
provincial, territorial, departmental, and other legislative
bodies that have ever assembled at the capital of New Mexico.
Here have been planned all the Indian wars and measures
for defence against foreign invasion, including, as the
most noteworthy, the Navajo war of 1823, the Texan invasion
of 1842, the American of 1846, and the Confederate of 1862.
Within its walls was imprisoned, in 1809, the American
explorer Zebulon M. Pike, and innumerable state prisoners
before and since; and many a sentence of death has been
pronounced therein and the accused forthwith led away and
shot at the dictum of the man at the Palace. It has been
from time immemorial the government house with all its
branches annexed. It was such on the Fourth of July, 1776,
when the American Congress at Independence Hall in
Philadelphia proclaimed liberty throughout all the land,
not then, but now embracing it. Indeed, this old edifice
has a history. And as the history of Santa Fe is the
history of New Mexico, so is the history of the Palace
the history of Santa Fe.
The Palace was the only building having glazed windows. At one end
was the government printing office, and at the other, the guard-house
and prison. Fearful stories were connected with the prison.
Edwards[8] says that he found, on examining the walls of the
small rooms, locks of human hair stuffed into holes, with rude
crosses drawn over them.
Fronting the Palace, on the south side of the Plaza, stood the
remains of the Capilla de los Soldados, or Military Chapel.
The real name of the church was "Our Lady of Light." It was said
to be the richest church in the Province, but had not been in use
for a number of years, and the roof had fallen in, allowing the
elements to complete the work of destruction. On each side of the
altar was the remains of fine carving, and a weather-beaten picture
above gave evidence of having been a beautiful painting. Over the
door was a large oblong slab of freestone, elaborately carved,
representing "Our Lady of Light" rescuing a human being from the
jaws of Satan. A large tablet, beautifully executed in relief,
stood behind the altar, representing various saints, with an
inscription stating that it was erected by Governor Francisco Antonio
del Valle and his wife in 1761.
Church services were held in the Parroquia, or Parish church,
now the Cathedral, which had two towers or steeples, in which hung
four bells. The music was furnished by a violin and a triangle.
The wall back of the altar was covered with innumerable mirrors,
paintings, and bright-coloured tapestry.
The exact date of the first settlement of Santa Fe is uncertain.
One authority says:
It was a primeval stronghold before the Spanish Conquest,
and a town of some importance to the white race when
Pennsylvania was a wilderness and the first Dutch governor
of New York was slowly drilling the Knickerbocker ancestry
in their difficult evolutions around the town-pump.
It is claimed, on what is deemed very authentic data by some, that
Santa Fe is really the oldest settled town in the United States.
St. Augustine, Florida, was established in 1565 and was unquestionably
conceded the honour of antiquity until the acquisition of New Mexico
by the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty. Then, of course, Santa Fe steps
into the arena and carries off the laurels. This claim of precedence
for Santa Fe is based upon the statement (whether historically correct
or not is a question) that when the Spaniards first entered the region
from the southern portion of Mexico, about 1542, they found a very
large Pueblo town on the present site of Santa Fe, and that its prior
existence extended far back into the vanished centuries. This is
contradicted by other historians, who contend that the claim of
Santa Fe to be the oldest town in the United States rests entirely
on imaginary annals of an Indian Pueblo before the Spanish Conquest,
and that there are but slight indications that the town was built
on the site of one.[9]
The reader may further satisfy himself on these mooted points by
consulting the mass of historical literature on New Mexico,
and the records of its primitive times are not surpassed in interest
by those of any other part of the continent. It was there the
Europeans first made great conquests, and some years prior to the
landing of the Pilgrims, a history of New Mexico, being the journal
of Geronimo de Zarate Salmaron, was published by the Church in the
City of Mexico, early in 1600. Salmaron was a Franciscan monk;
a most zealous and indefatigable worker. During his eight years'
residence at Jemez, near Santa Fe, he claims to have baptized over
eight thousand Indians, converts to the Catholic faith. His journal
gives a description of the country, its mines, etc., and was made
public in order that other monks reading it might emulate his
pious example.
Between 1605 and 1616 was founded the Villa of Santa Fe, or
San Francisco de la Santa Fe. "Villa," or village, was an honorary
title, always authorized and proclaimed by the king. Bancroft says
that it was first officially mentioned on the 3d of January, 1617.
The first immigration to New Mexico was under Don Juan de Onate
about 1597, and in a year afterward, according to some authorities,
Santa Fe was settled. The place, as claimed by some historians,
was then named El Teguayo, a Spanish adaptation of the word "Tegua,"
the name of the Pueblo nation, which was quite numerous, and occupied
Santa Fe and the contiguous country. It very soon, from its central
position and charming climate, became the leading Spanish town,
and the capital of the Province. The Spaniards, who came at first
into the country as friends, and were apparently eager to obtain
the good-will of the intelligent natives, shortly began to claim
superiority, and to insist on the performance of services which were
originally mere evidences of hospitality and kindness. Little by
little they assumed greater power and control over the Indians,
until in the course of years they had subjected a large portion of
them to servitude little differing from actual slavery.
The impolitic zeal of the monks gradually invoked the spirit of
hatred and resulted in a rebellion that drove the Spaniards, in 1680,
from the country. The large number of priests who were left in the
midst of the natives met with horrible fates:
Not one escaped martyrdom. At Zuni, three Franciscans
had been stationed, and when the news of the Spanish retreat
reached the town, the people dragged them from their cells,
stripped and stoned them, and afterwards compelled the
servant of one to finish the work by shooting them. Having
thus whetted their appetite for cruelty and vengeance,
the Indians started to carry the news of their independence
to Moqui, and signalized their arrival by the barbarous
murder of the two missionaries who were living there.
Their bodies were left unburied, as a prey for the wild
beasts. At Jemez they indulged in every refinement of
cruelty. The old priest, Jesus Morador, was seized in
his bed at night, stripped naked and mounted on a hog,
and thus paraded through the streets, while the crowd
shouted and yelled around. Not satisfied with this,
they then forced him to carry them as a beast would,
crawling on his hands and feet, until, from repeated beating
and the cruel tortures of sharp spurs, he fell dead in
their midst. A similar chapter of horrors was enacted
at Acoma, where three priests were stripped, tied together
with hair rope, and so driven through the streets, and
finally stoned to death. Not a Christian remained free
within the limits of New Mexico, and those who had been
dominant a few months before were now wretched and
half-starved fugitives, huddled together in the rude huts
of San Lorenzo.
As soon as the Spaniards had retreated from the country,
the Pueblo Indians gave themselves up for a time to
rejoicing, and to the destruction of everything which could
remind them of the Europeans, their religion, and their
domination. The army which had besieged Santa Fe quickly
entered that city, took possession of the Palace as the
seat of government, and commenced the work of demolition.
The churches and the monastery of the Franciscans were
burned with all their contents, amid the almost frantic
acclamations of the natives. The gorgeous vestments of
the priests had been dragged out before the conflagration,
and now were worn in derision by Indians, who rode through
the streets at full speed, shouting for joy. The official
documents and books in the Palace were brought forth,
and made fuel for a bonfire in the centre of the Plaza;
and here also they danced the cachina, with all the
accompanying religious ceremonies of the olden time.
Everything imaginable was done to show their detestation
of the Christian faith and their determination to utterly
eradicate even its memory. Those who had been baptized
were washed with amole in the Rio Chiquito, in order to be
cleansed from the infection of Christianity. All baptismal
names were discarded, marriages celebrated by Christian
priests were annulled, the very mention of the names Jesus
and Mary was made an offence, and estuffas were constructed
to take the place of ruined churches.[10]
For twelve years, although many abortive attempts were made to
recapture the country, the Pueblos were left in possession. On the
16th of October, 1693, the victorious Spaniards at last entered
Santa Fe, bearing the same banner which had been carried by Onate when
he entered the city just a century before. The conqueror this time
was Don Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan, whom the viceroy of New Spain
had appointed governor in the spring of 1692, with the avowed purpose
of having New Mexico reconquered as speedily as possible.
Thus it will be seen that the quaint old city has been the scene of
many important historical events, the mere outline of which I have
recorded here, as this book is not devoted to the historical view
of the subject.
In contradistinction to the quiet, sleepy old Santa Fe of half
a century ago, it now presents all the vigour, intelligence, and
bustling progressiveness of the average American city of to-day,
yet still smacks of that ancient Spanish regime, which gives it
a charm that only its blended European and Indian civilization
could make possible after its amalgamation with the United States.
The tourist will no longer find a drowsy old town, and the Plaza
is no longer unfenced and uncared for. A beautiful park of trees
is surrounded by low palings, and inside the shady enclosure,
under a group of large cottonwoods, is a cenotaph erected to the
memory of the Territory's gallant soldiers who fell in the shock of
battle to save New Mexico to the Union in 1862, and conspicuous among
the names carved on the enduring native rock is that of Kit Carson--
prince of frontiersmen, and one of Nature's noblemen.
Around the Plaza one sees the American style of architecture and
hears the hum of American civilization; but beyond, and outside
this pretty park, the streets are narrow, crooked, and have an
ancient appearance. There the old Santa Fe confronts the stranger;
odd, foreign-looking, and flavoured with all the peculiarities which
marked the era of Mexican rule. And now, where once was heard the
excited shouts of the idle crowd, of "Los Americanos!" "Los Carros!"
"La entrada de la Caravana!" as the great freight wagons rolled into
the streets of the old town from the Missouri, over the Santa Fe Trail,
the shrill whistle of the locomotive from its trail of steel awakens
the echoes of the mighty hills.
As may be imagined, great excitement always prevailed whenever a
caravan of goods arrived in Santa Fe. Particularly was this the case
among the feminine portion of the community. The quaint old town
turned out its mixed population en masse the moment the shouts went up
that the train was in sight. There is nothing there to-day comparable
to the anxious looks of the masses as they watched the heavily
freighted wagons rolling into the town, the teamsters dust-begrimed,
and the mules making the place hideous with their discordant braying
as they knew that their long journey was ended and rest awaited them.
The importing merchants were obliged to turn over to the custom house
officials five hundred dollars for every wagon-load, great or small;
and no matter what the intrinsic value of the goods might be,
salt or silk, velvets or sugar, it was all the same. The nefarious
duty had to be paid before a penny's worth could be transferred
to their counters. Of course, with the end of Mexican rule and
the acquisition of the Province by the United States, all opposition
to the traffic of the Old Santa Fe Trail ended, traders were assured
a profitable market and the people purchased at relatively low prices.
What a wonderful change has taken place in the traffic with New Mexico
in less than three-quarters of a century! In 1825 it was all carried
on with one single annual caravan of prairie-schooners, and now there
are four railroads running through the Rio Grande Valley, and one
daily freight train of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe into the
town unloads more freight than was taken there in a whole year when
the "commerce of the prairies" was at its height!
Upon the arrival of a caravan in the days of the sleepy regime under
Mexican control, the people did everything in their power to make
the time pass pleasantly for every one connected with it during
their sojourn. Bailes, or fandangoes, as the dancing parties were
called by the natives, were given nightly, and many amusing anecdotes
in regard to them are related by the old-timers.
The New Mexicans, both men and women, had a great fondness for
jewelry, dress, and amusements; of the latter, the fandango was the
principal, which was held in the most fashionable place of resort,
where every belle and beauty in the town presented herself,
attired in the most costly manner, and displaying her jewelled
ornaments to the best advantage. To this place of recreation
and pleasure, generally a large, capacious saloon or interior court,
all classes of persons were allowed to come, without charge and
without invitation. The festivities usually commenced about nine
o'clock in the evening, and the tolling of the church bells was
the signal for the ladies to make their entrance, which they did
almost simultaneously.
New Mexican ladies were famous for their gaudy dresses, but it must
be confessed they did not exercise good taste. Their robes were
made without bodies; a skirt only, and a long, loose, flowing scarf
or reboso dexterously thrown about the head and shoulders, so as to
supersede both the use of dress-bodies and bonnets.
There was very little order maintained at these fandangoes, and still
less attention paid to the rules of etiquette. A kind of swinging,
gallopade waltz was the favourite dance, the cotillion not being
much in vogue. Read Byron's graphic description of the waltz,
and then stretch your imagination to its utmost tension, and you
will perhaps have some faint conception of the Mexican fandango.
Such familiarity of position as was indulged in would be repugnant
to the refined rules of polite society in the eastern cities;
but with the New Mexicans, in those early times, nothing was
considered to be a greater accomplishment than that of being able
to go handsomely through all the mazes of their peculiar dance.
There was one republican feature about the New Mexican fandango;
it was that all classes, rich and poor alike, met and intermingled,
as did the Romans at their Saturnalia, upon terms of equality.
Sumptuous repasts or collations were rarely ever prepared for those
frolicsome gatherings, but there was always an abundance of
confectionery, sweetmeats, and native wine. It cost very little
for a man to attend one of the fandangoes in Santa Fe, but not to get
away decently and sober. In that it resembled the descent of Aeneas
to Pluto's realms; it was easy enough to get there, but when it came
to return, "revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, hic labor,
hoc opus est."
In the beginning of the trade with New Mexico, the route across
the great plains was directly west from the Missouri River to the
mountains, thence south to Santa Fe by the circuitous trail from Taos.
When the traffic assumed an importance demanding a more easy line
of way, the road was changed, running along the left bank of the
Arkansas until that stream turned northwest, at which point it
crossed the river, and continued southwest to the Raton Pass.
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad track substantially
follows the Trail through the mountains, which here afford the
wildest and most picturesquely beautiful scenery on the continent.
The Arkansas River at the fording of the Old Trail is not more than
knee-deep at an ordinary stage of water, and its bottom is well paved
with rounded pebbles of the primitive rock.
The overland trade between the United States and the northern
provinces of Mexico seems to have had no very definite origin;
having been rather the result of an accident than of any organized
plan of commercial establishment.
According to the best authorities, a French creole, named La Lande,
an agent of a merchant of Kaskaskia, Illinois, was the first American
adventurer to enter into the uncertain channels of trade with the
people of the ultramontane region of the centre of the continent.
He began his adventurous journey across the vast wilderness,
with no companions but the savages of the debatable land, in 1804;
and following him the next year, James Pursley undertook the same
pilgrimage. Neither of these pioneers in the "commerce of the
prairies" returned to relate what incidents marked the passage of
their marvellous expeditions. Pursley was so infatuated with the
strange country he had travelled so far to reach, that he took up
his abode in the quaint old town of Santa Fe where his subsequent
life is lost sight of. La Lande, of a different mould, forgot to
render an account of his mission to the merchant who had sent him
there, and became a prosperous and wealthy man by means of money
to which he had no right.
To Captain Zebulon Pike, who afterwards was made a general, is due
the impetus which the trade with Santa Fe received shortly after
his return to the United States. The student of American history
will remember that the expedition commanded by this soldier was
inaugurated in 1806; his report of the route he had taken was the
incentive for commercial speculation in the direction of trade with
New Mexico, but it was so handicapped by restrictions imposed by the
Mexican government, that the adventurers into the precarious traffic
were not only subject to a complete confiscation of their wares,
but frequently imprisoned for months as spies. Under such a condition
of affairs, many of the earlier expeditions, prior to 1822, resulted
in disaster, and only a limited number met with an indifferent success.
It will not be inconsistent with my text if I herewith interpolate
an incident connected with Pursley, the second American to cross
the desert, for the purpose of trade with New Mexico, which I find in
the _Magazine of American History_:
When Zebulon M. Pike was in Mexico, in 1807, he met,
at Santa Fe, a carpenter, Pursley by name, from Bardstown,
Kentucky, who was working at his trade. He had in a
previous year, while out hunting on the Plains, met with
a series of misfortunes, and found himself near the
mountains. The hostile Sioux drove the party into the
high ground in the rear of Pike's Peak. Near the headwaters
of the Platte River, Pursley found some gold, which he
carried in his shot-pouch for months. He was finally sent
by his companions to Santa Fe, to see if they could trade
with the Mexicans, but he chose to remain in Santa Fe
in preference to returning to his comrades. He told the
Mexicans about the gold he had found, and they tried hard
to persuade him to show them the place. They even offered
to take along a strong force of cavalry. But Pursley
refused, and his patriotic reason was that he thought the
land belonged to the United States. He told Captain Pike
that he feared they would not allow him to leave Santa Fe,
as they still hoped to learn from him where the gold was
to be found. These facts were published by Captain Pike
soon after his return east; but no one took the hint,
or the risk was too great, and thus more than a half
a century passed before those same rich fields of gold
were found and opened to the world. If Pursley had been
somewhat less patriotic, and had guided the Mexicans to
the treasures, the whole history and condition of the
western part of our continent might have been entirely
different from what it now is. That region would still
have been a part of Mexico, or Spain might have been
in possession of it, owning California; and, with the gold
that would have been poured into her coffers, would have
been the leading nation of European affairs to-day.
We can easily see how American and European history in
the nineteenth century might have been changed, if that
adventurer from Kentucky had not been a true lover of his
native country.
The adventures of Captain Ezekiel Williams along the Old Trail,
in the early days of the century, tell a story of wonderful courage,
endurance, and persistency. Williams was a man of great perseverance,
patience, and determination of character. He set out from St. Louis
in the late spring of 1807, to trap on the Upper Missouri and the
waters of the Yellowstone, with a party of twenty men who had chosen
him as their leader. After various exciting incidents and thrilling
adventures, all of the original party, except Williams and two others,
were killed by the Indians somewhere in the vicinity of the Upper
Arkansas. The three survivors, not knowing where they were, separated,
and Captain Williams determined to take to the stream by canoe, and
trap on his way toward the settlements, while his last two companions
started for the Spanish country--that is, for the region of Santa Fe.
The journal of Williams, from which I shall quote freely, is to be
found in _The Lost Trappers_, a work long out of print.[11] As the
country was an unexplored region, he might be on a river that flowed
into the Pacific, or he might be drifting down a stream that was
an affluent to the Gulf of Mexico. He was inclined to believe
that he was on the sources of the Red River. He therefore resolved
to launch his canoe, and go wherever the stream might convey him,
trapping on his descent, when beaver might be plenty.
The first canoe he used he made of buffalo-skins. As this kind
of water conveyance soon begins to leak and rot, he made another
of cottonwood, as soon as he came to timber sufficiently large,
in which he embarked for a port, he knew not where.
Most of his journeyings Captain Williams performed during the hours
of night, excepting when he felt it perfectly safe to travel in
daylight. His usual plan was to glide along down the stream, until
he came to a place where beaver signs were abundant. There he would
push his little bark among the willows, where he remained concealed,
excepting when he was setting his traps or visiting them in the
morning. When he had taken all the beaver in one neighbourhood,
he would untie his little conveyance, and glide onward and downward
to try his luck in another place.
Thus for hundreds of miles did this solitary trapper float down this
unknown river, through an unknown country, here and there lashing
his canoe to the willows and planting his traps in the little
tributaries around. The upper part of the Arkansas, for this
proved to be the river he was on,[12] is very destitute of timber,
and the prairie frequently begins at the bank of the river and
expands on either side as far as the eye can reach. He saw vast
herds of buffalo, and as it was the rutting season, the bulls were
making a wonderful ado; the prairie resounded with their low, deep
grunting or bellowing, as they tore up the earth with their feet
and horns, whisking their tails, and defying their rivals to battle.
Large gangs of wild horses could be seen grazing on the plains and
hillsides, and the neighing and squealing of stallions might be heard
at all times of the night.
Captain Williams never used his rifle to procure meat, except when
it was absolutely necessary, or could be done with perfect safety.
On occasions when he had no beaver, upon which he generally subsisted,
he ventured to kill a deer, and after refreshing his empty stomach
with a portion of the flesh, he placed the carcass in one end of the
canoe. It was his invariable custom to sleep in his canoe at night,
moored to the shore, and once when he had laid in a supply of venison
he was startled in his sleep by the tramping of something in the
bushes on the bank. Tramp! tramp! tramp! went the footsteps,
as they approached the canoe. He thought at first it might be an
Indian that had found out his locality, but he knew that it could
not be; a savage would not approach him in that careless manner.
Although there was beautiful starlight, yet the trees and the dense
undergrowth made it very dark on the bank of the river, close to which
he lay. He always adopted the precaution of tying his canoe with
a piece of rawhide about twenty feet long, which allowed it to swing
from the bank at that distance; he did this so that in case of an
emergency he might cut the string, and glide off without making
any noise. As the sound of the footsteps grew more distinct,
he presently observed a huge grizzly bear coming down to the water
and swimming for the canoe. The great animal held his head up as if
scenting the venison. The captain snatched his axe as the most
available means to defend himself in such a scrape, and stood with
it uplifted, ready to drive it into the brains of the monster.
The bear reached the canoe, and immediately put his fore paws upon
the hind end of it, nearly turning it over. The captain struck one
of the brute's feet with the edge of the axe, which made him let go
with that foot, but he held on with the other, and he received
this time a terrific blow on the head, that caused him to drop away
from the canoe entirely. Nothing more was seen of the bear,
and the captain thought he must have sunk in the stream and drowned.
He was evidently after the fresh meat, which he scented from a great
distance. In the canoe the next morning there were two of the bear's
claws, which had been cut off by the well-directed blow of the axe.
These were carefully preserved by Williams for many years as a trophy
which he was fond of exhibiting, and the history of which he always
delighted to tell.
As he was descending the river with his peltries, which consisted of
one hundred and twenty-five beaver-skins, besides some of the otter
and other smaller animals, he overtook three Kansas Indians, who were
also in a canoe going down the river, as he learned from them,
to some post to trade with the whites. They manifested a very
friendly disposition towards the old trapper, and expressed a wish
to accompany him. He also learned from them, to his great delight,
that he was on the Big Arkansas, and not more than five hundred miles
from the white settlements. He was well enough versed in the
treachery of the Indian character to know just how much he could
repose in their confidence. He was aware that they would not allow
a solitary trapper to pass through their country with a valuable
collection of furs, without, at least, making an effort to rob him.
He knew that their plan would be to get him into a friendly
intercourse, and then, at the first opportunity, strip him of
everything he possessed; consequently he was determined to get rid
of them as soon as possible, and to effect this, he plied his oars
with all diligence. The Indians, like most North American savages,
were lazy, and had no disposition to labour in that way, but took it
quite leisurely, satisfied with being carried down by the current.
Williams soon left them in the rear, and, as he supposed, far
behind him. When night came on, however, as he had worked all day,
and slept none the night before, he resolved to turn aside into a
bunch of willows to take a few hours' rest. But he had not stopped
more than forty minutes when he heard some Indians pull to the shore
just above him on the same side of the river. He immediately
loosened his canoe from its moorings, and glided silently away.
He rowed hard for two or three hours, when he again pulled to the
bank and tied up.
Only a short time after he had landed, he heard Indians again going
on shore on the same side of the stream as himself. A second time
he repeated his tactics, slipped out of his place of concealment,
and stole softly away. He pulled on vigorously until some time after
midnight, when he supposed he could with safety stop and snatch a
little sleep. He felt apprehensive that he was in a dangerous region,
and his anxiety kept him wide awake. It was very lucky that he
did not close his eyes; for as he was lying in the bottom of his canoe
he heard for the third time a canoe land as before. He was now
perfectly satisfied that he was dogged by the Kansans whom he had
passed the preceding day, and in no very good humour, therefore,
he picked up his rifle, and walked up to the bank where he had heard
the Indians land. As he suspected, there were the three savages.
When they saw the captain, they immediately renewed their expressions
of friendship, and invited him to partake of their hospitality.
He stood aloof from them, and shook his head in a rage, charging
them with their villanous purposes. In the short, sententious manner
of the Indians, he said to them: "You now follow me three times;
if you follow me again, I kill you!" and wheeling around abruptly,
returned to his canoe. A third time the solitary trapper pushed
his little craft from the shore and set off down stream, to get away
from a region where to sleep would be hazardous. He plied his oars
the remainder of the night, and solaced himself with the thought
that no evil had befallen him, except the loss of a few hours' sleep.
While he was escaping from his villanous pursuers, he was running
into new dangers and difficulties. The following day he overtook
a large band of the same tribe, under the leadership of a chief,
who were also descending the river. Into the hands of these savages
he fell a prisoner, and was conducted to one of their villages.
The principal chief there took all of his furs, traps, and other
belongings. A very short time after his capture, the Kansans went
to war with the Pawnees, and carried Captain Williams with them.
In a terrible battle in which the Kansans gained a most decided
victory, the old trapper bore a conspicuous part, killing a great
number of the enemy, and by his excellent strategy brought about
the success of his captors. When they returned to the village,
Williams, who had ever been treated with kindness by the inhabitants,
was now thought to be a wonderful warrior, and could have been
advanced to all the savage honours; he might even have been made
one of their principal chiefs. The tribe gave him his liberty for
the great service he had rendered it in its difficulty with an
inveterate foe, but declining all proffered promotions, he decided
to return to the white settlements on the Missouri, at the mouth
of the Kaw, the covetous old chief retaining all his furs, and indeed
everything he possessed excepting his rifle, with as many rounds
of ammunition as would be necessary to secure him provisions in the
shape of game on his route. The veteran trapper had learned from
the Indians while with them that they expected to go to Fort Osage
on the Missouri River to receive some annuities from the government,
and he felt certain that his furs would be there at the same time.
After leaving the Kansans he travelled on toward the Missouri,
and soon struck the beginning of the sparse settlements. Just as
evening was coming on, he arrived at a cluster of three little
log-cabins, and was received with genuine backwoods hospitality by
the proprietor, who had married an Osage squaw. Williams was not only
very hungry, but very tired; and, after enjoying an abundant supper,
he became stupid and sleepy, and expressed a wish to lie down.
The generous trapper accordingly conducted him to one of the cabins,
in which there were two beds, standing in opposite corners of
the room. He immediately threw himself upon one, and was soon in
a very deep sleep. About midnight his slumbers were disturbed by
a singular and very frightful kind of noise, accompanied by struggling
on the other bed. What it was, Williams was entirely at a loss to
understand. There were no windows in the cabin, the door was shut,
and it was as dark as Egypt. A fierce contest seemed to be going on.
There were deep groanings and hard breathings; and the snapping of
teeth appeared almost constant. For a moment the noise would subside,
then again the struggles woud be renewed accompanied as before
with groaning, deep sighing, and grinding of teeth.
The captain's bed-clothes consisted of a couple of blankets and a
buffalo-robe, and as the terrible struggles continued he raised
himself up in the bed, and threw the robe around him for protection,
his rifle having been left in the cabin where his host slept, while
his knife was attached to his coat, which he had hung on the corner
post of the other bedstead from which the horrid struggles emanated.
In an instant the robe was pulled off, and he was left uncovered and
unprotected; in another moment a violent snatch carried away the
blanket upon which he was sitting, and he was nearly tumbled off the
bed with it. As the next thing might be a blow in the dark, he felt
that it was high time to shift his quarters; so he made a desperate
leap from the bed, and alighted on the opposite side of the room,
calling for his host, who immediately came to his relief by opening
the door. Williams then told him that the devil--or something
as bad, he believed--was in the room, and he wanted a light.
The accommodating trapper hurried away, and in a moment was back
with a candle, the light of which soon revealed the awful mystery.
It was an Indian, who at the time was struggling in convulsions,
which he was subject to. He was a superannuated chief, a relative of
the wife of the hospitable trapper, and generally made his home there.
Absent when Captain Williams arrived, he came into the room at a
very late hour, and went to the bed he usually occupied. No one
on the claim knew of his being there until he was discovered,
in a dreadfully mangled condition. He was removed to other quarters,
and Williams, who was not to be frightened out of a night's rest,
soon sunk into sound repose.
Williams reached the agency by the time the Kansas Indians arrived
there, and, as he suspected, found that the wily old chief had brought
all his belongings, which he claimed, and the agent made the savages
give up the stolen property before he would pay them a cent of their
annuities. He took his furs down to St. Louis, sold them there
at a good price, and then started back to the Rocky Mountains on
another trapping tour.
EARLY TRADERS.
In 1812 a Captain Becknell, who had been on a trading expedition
to the country of the Comanches in the summer of 1811, and had done
remarkably well, determined the next season to change his objective
point to Santa Fe, and instead of the tedious process of bartering
with the Indians, to sell out his stock to the New Mexicans.
Successful in this, his first venture, he returned to the Missouri
River with a well-filled purse, and intensely enthusiastic over the
result of his excursion to the newly found market.
Excited listeners to his tales of enormous profits were not lacking,
who, inspired by the inducement he held out to them, cheerfully
invested five thousand dollars in merchandise suited to the demands
of the trade, and were eager to attempt with him the passage of
the great plains. In this expedition there were thirty men, and
the amount of money in the undertaking was the largest that had yet
been ventured. The progress of the little caravan was without
extraordinary incident, until it arrived at "The Caches" on the
Upper Arkansas. There Becknell, who was in reality a man of the
then "Frontier," bold, plucky, and endowed with excellent sense,
conceived the ridiculous idea of striking directly across the country
for Santa Fe through a region absolutely unexplored; his excuse
for this rash movement being that he desired to avoid the rough and
circuitous mountain route he had travelled on his first trip to Taos.
His temerity in abandoning the known for the unknown was severely
punished, and his brave men suffered untold misery, barely escaping
with their lives from the terrible straits to which they were reduced.
Not having the remotest conception of the region through which their
new trail was to lead them, and naturally supposing that water would
be found in streams or springs, when they left the Arkansas they
neglected to supply themselves with more than enough of the precious
fluid to last a couple of days. At the end of that time they learned,
too late, that they were in the midst of a desert, with all the
tortures of thirst threatening them.
Without a tree or a path to guide them, they took an irregular course
by observations of the North Star, and the unreliable needle of an
azimuth pocket-compass. There was a total absence of water, and when
what they had brought with them in their canteens from the river was
exhausted, thirst began its horrible office. In a short time both men
and animals were in a mental condition bordering on distraction.
To alleviate their acute torment, the dogs of the train were killed,
and their blood, hot and sickening, eagerly swallowed; then the ears
of the mules were cut off for the same purpose, but such a substitute
for water only added to their sufferings. They would have perished
had not a superannuated buffalo bull that had just come from the
Cimarron River, where he had gone to quench his thirst, suddenly
appeared, to be immediately killed and the contents of his stomach
swallowed with avidity. It is recorded that one of those who partook
of the nauseous liquid said afterward, "nothing had ever passed
his lips which gave him such exquisite delight as his first draught
of that filthy beverage."
Although they were near the Cimarron, where there was plenty of water,
which but for the affair of the buffalo they never would have suspected,
they decided to retrace their steps to the Arkansas.
Before they started on their retreat, however, some of the strongest
of the party followed the trail of the animal that had saved their
lives to the river, where, filling all the canteens with pure water,
they returned to their comrades, who were, after drinking, able to
march slowly toward the Arkansas.
Following that stream, they at last arrived at Taos, having experienced
no further trouble, but missed the trail to Santa Fe, and had their
journey greatly prolonged by the foolish endeavour of the leader
to make a short cut thither.
As early as 1815, Auguste P. Chouteau and his partner, with a large
number of trappers and hunters, went out to the valley of the
Upper Arkansas for the purpose of trading with Indians, and trapping
on the numerous streams of the contiguous region.
The island on which Chouteau established his trading-post, and which
bears his name even to this day, is in the Arkansas River on the
boundary line of the United States and Mexico. It was a beautiful
spot, with a rich carpet of grass and delightful groves, and on
the American side was a heavily timbered bottom.
While occupying the island, Chouteau and his old hunters and trappers
were attacked by about three hundred Pawnees, whom they repulsed
with the loss of thirty killed and wounded. These Indians afterward
declared that it was the most fatal affair in which they were ever
engaged. It was their first acquaintance with American guns.
The general character of the early trade with New Mexico was founded
on the system of the caravan. She depended upon the remote ports
of old Mexico, whence was transported, on the backs of the patient
burro and mule, all that was required by the primitive tastes of the
primitive people; a very tedious and slow process, as may be inferred,
and the limited traffic westwardly across the great plains was
confined to this fashion. At the date of the legitimate and
substantial commerce with New Mexico, in 1824, wheeled vehicles were
introduced, and traffic assumed an importance it could never have
otherwise attained, and which now, under the vast system of railroads,
has increased to dimensions little dreamed of by its originators
nearly three-quarters of a century ago.
It was eight years after Pursley's pilgrimage before the trade with
New Mexico attracted the attention of speculators and adventurers.
Messrs. McKnight,[13] Beard, and Chambers, with about a dozen comrades,
started with a supply of goods across the unknown plains, and by
good luck arrived safely at Santa Fe. Once under the jurisdiction
of the Mexicans, however, their trouble began. All the party were
arrested as spies, their wares confiscated, and themselves
incarcerated at Chihuahua, where the majority of them were kept for
almost a decade. Beard and Chambers, having by some means escaped,
returned to St. Louis in 1822, and, notwithstanding their dreadful
experience, told of the prospects of the trade with the Mexicans
in such glowing colours that they induced some individuals of small
capital to fit out another expedition, with which they again set out
for Santa Fe.
It was really too late in the season; they succeeded, however,
in reaching the crossing of the Arkansas without any difficulty,
but there a violent snowstorm overtook them and they were compelled
to halt, as it was impossible to proceed in the face of the blinding
blizzard. On an island[14] not far from where the town of Cimarron,
on the Santa Fe Railroad, is now situated, they were obliged to
remain for more than three months, during which time most of their
animals died for want of food and from the severe cold. When the
weather had moderated sufficiently to allow them to proceed on
their journey, they had no transportation for their goods and were
compelled to hide them in pits dug in the earth, after the manner
of the old French voyageurs in the early settlement of the continent.
This method of secreting furs and valuables of every character
is called caching, from the French word "to hide." Gregg thus
describes it:
The cache is made by digging a hole in the ground, somewhat
in the shape of a jug, which is lined with dry sticks,
grass, or anything else that will protect its contents
from the dampness of the earth. In this place the goods
to be concealed are carefully stowed away; and the aperture
is then so effectually closed as to protect them from
the rains. In caching, a great deal of skill is often
required to leave no sign whereby the cunning savage may
discover the place of deposit. To this end, the excavated
earth is carried some distance and carefully concealed,
or thrown into a stream, if one be at hand. The place
selected for a cache is usually some rolling point,
sufficiently elevated to be secure from inundations.
If it be well set with grass, a solid piece of turf is
cut out large enough for the entrance. The turf is
afterward laid back, and, taking root, in a short time
no signs remain of its ever having been molested.
However, as every locality does not afford a turfy site,
the camp-fire is sometimes built upon the place, or the
animals are penned over it, which effectually destroys
all traces.
Father Hennepin[15] thus describes, in his quaint style, how he built
a cache on the bank of the Mississippi, in 1680:
We took up the green sodd, and laid it by, and digg'd a hole
in the Earth where we put our Goods, and cover'd them with
pieces of Timber and Earth, and then put in again the green
Turf; so that 'twas impossible to suspect that any Hole had
been digg'd under it, for we flung the Earth into the River.
After caching their goods, Beard and the party went on to Taos,
where they bought mules, and returning to their caches transported
their contents to their market.
The word "cache" still lingers among the "old-timers" of the mountains
and plains, and has become a provincialism with their descendants;
one of these will tell you that he cached his vegetables in the side
of the hill; or if he is out hunting and desires to secrete himself
from approaching game, he will say, "I am going to cache behind
that rock," etc.
The place where Beard's little expedition wintered was called
"The Caches" for years, and the name has only fallen into disuse
within the last two decades. I remember the great holes in the
ground when I first crossed the plains, a third of a century ago.
The immense profit upon merchandise transported across the dangerous
Trail of the mid-continent to the capital of New Mexico soon excited
the cupidity of other merchants east of the Missouri. When the
commonest domestic cloth, manufactured wholly from cotton, brought
from two to three dollars a yard at Santa Fe, and other articles at
the same ratio to cost, no wonder the commerce with the far-off market
appeared to those who desired to send goods there a veritable Golconda.
The importance of internal trade with New Mexico, and the possibilities
of its growth, were first recognized by the United States in 1824,
the originator of the movement being Mr. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri,
who frequently, from his place in the Senate, prophesied the coming
greatness of the West. He introduced a bill which authorized the
President to appoint a commission to survey a road from the Missouri
River to the boundary line of New Mexico, and from thence on Mexican
territory with the consent of the Mexican government. The signing of
this bill was one of the last acts of Mr. Monroe's official life,
and it was carried into effect by his successor, Mr. John Quincy Adams,
but unfortunately a mistake was made in supposing that the Osage
Indians alone controlled the course of the proposed route. It was
partially marked out as far as the Arkansas, by raised mounds;
but travellers continued to use the old wagon trail, and as no
negotiations had been entered into with the Comanches, Cheyennes,
Pawnees, or Kiowas, these warlike tribes continued to harass the
caravans when these arrived in the broad valley of the Arkansas.
The American fur trade was at its height at the time when the Santa Fe
trade was just beginning to assume proportions worthy of notice;
the difference between the two enterprises being very marked. The fur
trade was in the hands of immensely wealthy companies, while that to
Santa Fe was carried on by individuals with limited capital, who,
purchasing goods in the Eastern markets, had them transported to
the Missouri River, where, until the trade to New Mexico became a
fixed business, everything was packed on mules. As soon, however,
as leading merchants invested their capital, about 1824, the trade
grew into vast proportions, and wagons took the place of the patient
mule. Later, oxen were substituted for mules, it having been
discovered that they possessed many advantages over the former,
particularly in being able to draw heavier loads than an equal number
of mules, especially through sandy or muddy places.
For a long time, the traders were in the habit of purchasing their
mules in Santa Fe and driving them to the Missouri; but as soon as
that useful animal was raised in sufficient numbers in the Southern
States to supply the demand, the importation from New Mexico ceased,
for the reason that the American mule was in all respects an immensely
superior animal.
Once mules were an important object of the trade, and those who dealt
in them and drove them across to the river on the Trail met with
many mishaps; frequently whole droves, containing from three to
five hundred, were stolen by the savages en route. The latter soon
learned that it was a very easy thing to stampede a caravan of mules,
for, once panic-stricken, it is impossible to restrain them, and
the Indians having started them kept them in a state of rampant
excitement by their blood-curdling yells, until they had driven them
miles beyond the Trail.
A story is told of a small band of twelve men, who, while encamped
on the Cimarron River, in 1826, with but four serviceable guns among
them, were visited by a party of Indians, believed to be Arapahoes,
who made at first strong demonstrations of friendship and good-will.
Observing the defenceless condition of the traders, they went away,
but soon returned about thirty strong, each provided with a lasso,
and all on foot. The chief then began by informing the Americans
that his men were tired of walking, and must have horses. Thinking
it folly to offer any resistance, the terrified traders told them
if one animal apiece would satisfy them, to go and catch them.
This they soon did; but finding their request so easily complied with,
the Indians held a little parley together, which resulted in a new
demand for more--they must have two apiece! "Well, catch them!"
was the acquiescent reply of the unfortunate band; upon which the
savages mounted those they had already secured, and, swinging their
lassos over their heads, plunged among the stock with a furious yell,
and drove off the entire caballada of nearly five hundred head of
horses, mules, and asses.
In 1829 the Indians of the plains became such a terror to the caravans
crossing to Santa Fe, that the United States government, upon petition
of the traders, ordered three companies of infantry and one of riflemen,
under command of Major Bennet Riley, to escort the annual caravan,
which that year started from the town of Franklin, Missouri, then the
eastern terminus of the Santa Fe trade, as far as Chouteau's Island,
on the Arkansas, which marked the boundary between the United States
and Mexico.[16] The caravan started from the island across the dreary
route unaccompanied by any troops, but had progressed only a few miles
when it was attacked by a band of Kiowas, then one of the most cruel
and bloodthirsty tribes on the plains.[17]
This escort, commanded by Major Riley, and another under Captain
Wharton, composed of only sixty dragoons, five years later, were the
sole protection ever given by the government until 1843, when Captain
Philip St. George Cooke again accompanied two large caravans to the
same point on the Arkansas as did Major Riley fourteen years before.
As the trade increased, the Comanches, Pawnees, and Arapahoes
continued to commit their depredations, and it was firmly believed
by many of the freighters that these Indians were incited to their
devilish acts by the Mexicans, who were always jealous of
"Los Americanos."
It was very rarely that a caravan, great or small, or even a detachment
of troops, no matter how large, escaped the raids of these bandits of
the Trail. If the list of those who were killed outright and scalped,
and those more unfortunate who were taken captive only to be tortured
and their bodies horribly mutilated, could be collected from the
opening of the traffic with New Mexico until the years 1868-69, when
General Sheridan inaugurated his memorable "winter campaign" against
the allied plains tribes, and completely demoralized, cowed, and
forced them on their reservations, about the time of the advent of the
railroad, it would present an appalling picture; and the number of
horses, mules, and oxen stampeded and stolen during the same period
would amount to thousands.
As the excellent narrative of Captain Pike is not read as it should be
by the average American, a brief reference to it may not be considered
supererogatory. The celebrated officer, who was afterward promoted
to the rank of major-general, and died in the achievement of the
victory of York, Upper Canada, in 1813, was sent in 1806 on an
exploring expedition up the Arkansas River, with instructions to pass
the sources of Red River, for which those of the Canadian were then
mistaken; he, however, even went around the head of the latter,
and crossing the mountains with an almost incredible degree of peril
and suffering, descended upon the Rio del Norte with his little party,
then but fifteen in number.
Believing himself now on Red River, within the then assumed limits
of the United States, he built a small fortification for his company,
until the opening of the spring of 1807 should enable him to continue
his descent to Natchitoches. As he was really within Mexican
territory, and only about eighty miles from the northern settlements,
his position was soon discovered, and a force sent to take him to
Santa Fe, which by treachery was effected without opposition.
The Spanish officer assured him that the governor, learning that
he had mistaken his way, had sent animals and an escort to convey
his men and baggage to a navigable point on Red River (Rio Colorado),
and that His Excellency desired very much to see him at Santa Fe,
which might be taken on their way.
As soon, however, as the governor had the too confiding captain
in his power, he sent him with his men to the commandant general
at Chihuahua, where most of his papers were seized, and he and
his party were sent under an escort, via San Antonio de Bexar,
to the United States.
Many citizens of the remote Eastern States, who were contemporary
with Pike, declared that his expedition was in some way connected
with the treasonable attempt of Aaron Burr. The idea is simply
preposterous; Pike's whole line of conduct shows him to have been
of the most patriotic character; never would he for a moment have
countenanced a proposition from Aaron Burr!
After Captain Pike's report had been published to the world,
the adventurers who were inspired by its glowing description of
the country he had been so far to explore were destined to experience
trials and disappointments of which they had formed no conception.
Among them was a certain Captain Sublette, a famous old trapper
in the era of the great fur companies, and with him a Captain Smith,
who, although veteran pioneers of the Rocky Mountains, were mere
novices in the many complications of the Trail; but having been in
the fastnesses of the great divide of the continent, they thought
that when they got down on the plains they could go anywhere.
They started with twenty wagons, and left the Missouri without
a single one of the party being competent to guide the little caravan
on the dangerous route.
From the Missouri the Trail was broad and plain enough for a child
to follow, but when they arrived at the Cimarron crossing of
the Arkansas, not a trace of former caravans was visible; nothing but
the innumerable buffalo-trails leading from everywhere to the river.
When the party entered the desert, or Dry Route, as it was years
afterward always, and very properly, called in certain seasons
of drought, the brave but too confident men discovered that the
whole region was burnt up. They wandered on for several days,
the horrors of death by thirst constantly confronting them.
Water must be had or they would all perish! At last Smith, in his
desperation, determined to follow one of the numerous buffalo-trails,
believing that it would conduct him to water of some character--
a lake or pool or even wallow. He left the train alone; asked for
no one to accompany him; for he was the very impersonation of courage,
one of the most fearless men that ever trapped in the mountains.
He walked on and on for miles, when, on ascending a little divide,
he saw a stream in the valley beneath him. It was the Cimarron,
and he hurried toward it to quench his intolerable thirst. When he
arrived at its bank, to his disappointment it was nothing but a bed
of sand; the sometime clear running river was perfectly dry.
Only for a moment was he staggered; he knew the character of many
streams in the West; that often their waters run under the ground
at a short distance from the surface, and in a moment he was on
his knees digging vigorously in the soft sand. Soon the coveted
fluid began to filter upwards into the little excavation he had made.
He stooped to drink, and in the next second a dozen arrows from an
ambushed band of Comanches entered his body. He did not die at once,
however; it is related by the Indians themselves that he killed two
of their number before death laid him low.
Captain Sublette and Smith's other comrades did not know what had
become of him until some Mexican traders told them, having got the
report from the very savages who committed the cold-blooded murder.
Gregg, in his report of this little expedition, says:
Every kind of fatality seems to have attended this small
caravan. Among other casualties, a clerk in their company,
named Minter, was killed by a band of Pawnees, before they
crossed the Arkansas. This, I believe, is the only instance
of loss of life among the traders while engaged in hunting,
although the scarcity of accidents can hardly be said to be
the result of prudence. There is not a day that hunters
do not commit some indescretion; such as straying at
a distance of five and even ten miles from the caravan,
frequently alone, and seldom in bands of more than two or
three together. In this state, they must frequently be
spied by prowling savages; so that frequency of escape,
under such circumstances, must be partly attributed to
the cowardice of the Indians; indeed, generally speaking,
the latter are very loth to charge upon even a single
armed man, unless they can take him at a decided advantage.
Not long after, this band of Captain Sublette's very
narrowly escaped total destruction. They had fallen in
with an immense horde of Blackfeet and Gros Ventres, and,
as the traders were literally but a handful among thousands
of savages, they fancied themselves for a while in imminent
peril of being virtually "eated up." But as Captain
Sublette possessed considerable experience, he was at
no loss how to deal with these treacherous savages; so that
although the latter assumed a threatening attitude,
he passed them without any serious molestation, and finally
arrived at Santa Fe in safety.
The virtual commencement of the Santa Fe trade dates from 1822,
and one of the most remarkable events in its history was the first
attempt to introduce wagons in the expeditions. This was made in 1824
by a company of traders, about eighty in number, among whom were
several gentlemen of intelligence from Missouri, who contributed
by their superior skill and undaunted energy to render the enterprise
completely successful. A portion of this company employed pack-mules;
among the rest were owned twenty-five wheeled vehicles, of which
one or two were stout road-wagons, two were carts, and the rest
Dearborn carriages, the whole conveying some twenty-five or thirty
thousand dollars' worth of merchandise. Colonel Marmaduke,
of Missouri, was one of the party. This caravan arrived at Santa Fe
safely, experiencing much less difficulty than they anticipated
from a first attempt with wheeled vehicles.
Gregg continues:
The early voyageurs, having but seldom experienced any
molestation from the Indians, generally crossed the plains
in detached bands, each individual rarely carrying more than
two or three hundred dollars' worth of stock. This peaceful
season, however, did not last very long; and it is greatly
to be feared that the traders were not always innocent of
having instigated the savage hostilities that ensued in
after years. Many seemed to forget the wholesome precept,
that they should not be savages themselves because they
dealt with savages. Instead of cultivating friendly
feelings with those few who remained peaceful and honest,
there was an occasional one always disposed to kill,
even in cold blood, every Indian that fell into their power,
merely because some of the tribe had committed an outrage
either against themselves or friends.
As an instance of this, he relates the following:
In 1826 two young men named McNess and Monroe, having
carelessly lain down to sleep on the bank of a certain
stream, since known as McNess Creek,[18] were barbarously
shot, with their own guns, as it was supposed, in the very
sight of the caravan. When their comrades came up,
they found McNess lifeless, and the other almost expiring.
In this state the latter was carried nearly forty miles to
the Cimarron River, where he died, and was buried according
to the custom of the prairies, a very summary proceeding,
necessarily. The corpse, wrapped in a blanket, its shroud
the clothes it wore, is interred in a hole varying in depth
according to the nature of the soil, and upon the grave is
piled stones, if any are convenient, to prevent the wolves
from digging it up. Just as McNess's funeral ceremonies
were about to be concluded, six or seven Indians appeared
on the opposite side of the Cimarron. Some of the party
proposed inviting them to a parley, while the rest, burning
for revenge, evinced a desire to fire upon them at once.
It is more than probable, however, that the Indians were not
only innocent but ignorant of the outrage that had been
committed, or they would hardly have ventured to approach
the caravan. Being quick of perception, they very soon saw
the belligerent attitude assumed by the company, and
therefore wheeled round and attempted to escape. One shot
was fired, which brought an Indian to the ground, when he
was instantly riddled with balls. Almost simultaneously
another discharge of several guns followed, by which all
the rest were either killed or mortally wounded, except one,
who escaped to bear the news to his tribe.
These wanton cruelties had a most disastrous effect upon the
prospects of the trade; for the exasperated children of
the desert became more and more hostile to the "pale-faces,"
against whom they continued to wage a cruel war for many
successive years. In fact this party suffered very severely
a few days afterward. They were pursued by the enraged
comrades of the slain savages to the Arkansas River, where
they were robbed of nearly a thousand horses and mules.
The author of this book, although having but little compassion for
the Indians, must admit that, during more than a third of a century
passed on the plains and in the mountains, he has never known of
a war with the hostile tribes that was not caused by broken faith
on the part of the United States or its agents. I will refer to
two prominent instances: that of the outbreak of the Nez Perces, and
that of the allied plains tribes. With the former a solemn treaty
was made in 1856, guaranteeing to them occupancy of the Wallola valley
forever. I. I. Stevens, who was governor of Washington Territory
at the time, and ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs in
the region, met the Nez Perces, whose chief, "Wish-la-no-she,"
an octogenarian, when grasping the hand of the governor at the council
said: "I put out my hand to the white man when Lewis and Clark
crossed the continent, in 1805, and have never taken it back since."
The tribe kept its word until the white men took forcible possession
of the valley promised to the Indians, when the latter broke out,
and a prolonged war was the consequence. In 1867 Congress appointed
a commission to treat with the Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Arapahoes,
appropriating four hundred thousand dollars for the expenses of
the commission. It met at Medicine Lodge in August of the year
mentioned, and made a solemn treaty, which the members of the
commission, on the part of the United States, and the principal
chiefs of the three tribes signed. Congress failed to make any
appropriation to carry out the provisions of the treaty, and the
Indians, after waiting a reasonable time, broke out, devastated
the settlements from the Platte to the Rio Grande, destroying
millions of dollars' worth of property, and sacrificing hundreds
of men, women, and children. Another war was the result, which
cost more millions, and under General Sheridan the hostile savages
were whipped into a peace, which they have been compelled to keep.
TRAINS AND PACKERS.
As has been stated, until the year 1824 transportation across the
plains was done by means of pack-mules, the art of properly loading
which seems to be an intuitive attribute of the native Mexican.
The American, of course, soon became as expert, for nothing that
the genus homo is capable of doing is impossible to him; but his
teacher was the dark-visaged, superstitious, and profanity-expending
Mexican arriero.
A description of the equipment of a mule-train and the method of
packing, together with some of the curious facts connected with
its movements, may not be uninteresting, particularly as the
whole thing, with rare exceptions in the regular army at remote
frontier posts, has been relegated to the past, along with the caravan
of the prairie and the overland coach. To this generation, barring
a few officers who have served against the Indians on the plains
and in the mountains, a pack-mule train would be as great a curiosity
as the hairy mammoth. In the following particulars I have taken
as a model the genuine Mexican pack-train or atajo, as it was called
in their Spanish dialect, always used in the early days of the
Santa Fe trade. The Americans made many modifications, but the basis
was purely Mexican in its origin. A pack-mule was termed a mula
de carga, and his equipment consisted of several parts; first,
the saddle, or aparejo, a nearly square pad of leather stuffed
with hay, which covered the animal's back on both sides equally.
The best idea of its shape will be formed by opening a book in
the middle and placing it saddle-fashion on the back of a chair.
Each half then forms a flap of the contrivance. Before the aparejo
was adjusted to the mule, a salea, or raw sheep-skin, made soft
by rubbing, was put on the animal's back, to prevent chafing,
and over it the saddle-cloth, or xerga. On top of both was placed
the aparejo, which was cinched by a wide grass-bandage. This band
was drawn as tightly as possible, to such an extent that the poor
brute grunted and groaned under the apparently painful operation,
and when fastened he seemed to be cut in two. This always appeared
to be the very acme of cruelty to the uninitiated, but it is the
secret of successful packing; the firmer the saddle, the more
comfortably the mule can travel, with less risk of being chafed
and bruised. The aparejo is furnished with a huge crupper, and
this appendage is really the most cruel of all, for it is almost
sure to lacerate the tail. Hardly a Mexican mule in the old days
of the trade could be found which did not bear the scar of this
rude supplement to the immense saddle.
The load, which is termed a carga, was generally three hundred pounds.
Two arrieros, or packers, place the goods on the mule's back,
one, the cargador, standing on the near side, his assistant on
the other. The carga is then hoisted on top of the saddle if it
is a single package; or if there are two of equal size and weight,
one on each side, coupled by a rope, which balances them on the
animal. Another stout rope is then thrown over all, drawn as tightly
as possible under the belly, and laced round the packs, securing
them firmly in their place. Over the load, to protect it from rain,
is thrown a square piece of matting called a petate. Sometimes,
when a mule is a little refractory, he is blindfolded by a thin
piece of leather, generally embroidered, termed the tapojos, and
he remains perfectly quiet while the process of packing is going on.
When the load is securely fastened in its place, the blinder is
removed. The man on the near side, with his knee against the mule
for a purchase, as soon as the rope is hauled taut, cries out "Adios,"
and his assistant answers "Vaya!" Then the first says again, "Anda!"
upon which the mule trots off to its companions, all of which feed
around until the animals of the whole train are packed. It seldom
requires more than five minutes for the two men to complete the
packing of the animal, and in that time is included the fastening
of the aperejo. It is surprising to note the degree of skill
exercised by an experienced packer, and his apparently abnormal
strength in handling the immense bundles that are sometimes
transported. By the aid of his knees used as a fulcrum, he lifts
a package and tosses it on the mule's back without any apparent
effort, the dead weight of which he could not move from the ground.
An old-time atajo or caravan of pack-mules generally numbered from
fifty to two hundred, and it travelled a jornado, or day's march of
about twelve or fifteen miles. This day's journey was made without
any stopping at noon, because if a pack-mule is allowed to rest,
he generally tries to lie down, and with his heavy load it is
difficult for him to get on his feet again. Sometimes he is badly
strained in so doing, perhaps ruined forever. When the train starts
out on the trail, the mules are so tightly bound with the ropes
which confine the load that they move with great difficulty;
but the saddle soon settles itself and the ropes become loosened
so that they have frequently to be tightened. On the march the
arriero is kept busy nearly all the time; the packs are constantly
changing their position, frequently losing their balance and
falling off; sometimes saddle, pack, and all swing under the
animal's belly, and he must be unloaded and repacked again.
On arriving at the camping-ground the pack-saddles with their loads
are ranged in regular order, their freight being between the saddles,
covered with the petates to protect it from the rain, and generally
a ditch is dug around to carry off the water, if the weather is stormy.
After two or three days' travel each mule knows its own pack and
saddle, and comes up to it at the proper moment with an intelligence
that is astonishing. If an animal should come whose pack is
somewhere else, he is soundly kicked in the ribs by the rightful mule,
and sent bruised and battered to his place. He rarely makes a mistake
in relation to the position of his own pack the second time.
This method of transportation was so cheap, because of the low rate
of wages, that wagon-freighting, even in the most level region,
could not compete with it. Five dollars a month was the amount paid
to the muleteers, but it was oftener five with rations, costing
almost nothing, of corn and beans. Meat, if used at all, was found
by the arrieros themselves.
On the trail the mule-train is under a system of discipline almost
as severe as that on board of a man-of-war. Every individual
employed is assigned to his place and has certain duties to perform.
There is a night-herder, called the savanero, whose duty it is
to keep the animals from straying too far away, as they are all
turned loose to shift for themselves, depending upon the grass alone
for their subsistence. Each herd has a mulera, or bell-mare,
which wears a bell hanging to a strap around her neck, and is kept
in view of the other animals, who will never leave her. If the mare
is taken away from the herd, every mule becomes really melancholy
and is at a loss what to do or where to go. The cook of the party,
or madre (mother) as he is called, besides his duty in preparing
the food, must lead the bell-mule ahead of the train while travelling,
the pack-animals following her with a devotion that is remarkable.
Sometimes in traversing the narrow ledges cut around the sides of
a precipitous trail, or crossing a narrow natural bridge spanning
the frightful gorges found everywhere in the mountains, a mule
will be incontinently thrown off the slippery path, and fall hundreds
of feet into the yawning canyon below. Generally instant death
is their portion, though I recall an instance, while on an expedition
against the hostile Indians thirty years ago, where a number of mules
of our pack-train, loaded with ammunition, tumbled nearly five hundred
feet down an almost perpendicular chasm, and yet some of them got
on their feet again, and soon rejoined their companions, without
having suffered any serious injury.
The wagons so long employed in this trade, after their first
introduction in 1824, were manufactured in Pittsburgh, their capacity
being about a ton and a half, and they were drawn by eight mules
or the same number of oxen. Later much larger wagons were employed
with nearly double the capacity of the first, hauled by ten and
twelve mules or oxen. These latter were soon called prairie-schooners,
which name continued to linger until transportation across the plains
by wagons was completely extinguished by the railroads.
Under Mexican rule excessive tariff imposts were instituted,
amounting to about a hundred per cent upon goods brought from the
United States, and for some years, during the administration of
Governor Manuel Armijo, a purely arbitrary duty was demanded of
five hundred dollars for every wagon-load of merchandise brought
into the Province, whether great or small, and regardless of its
intrinsic value. As gold and silver were paid for the articles
brought by the traders, they were also required to pay a heavy duty
on the precious metals they took out of the country. Yankee ingenuity,
however, evaded much of these unjust taxes. When the caravan
approached Santa Fe, the freight of three wagons was transferred
to one, and the empty vehicles destroyed by fire; while to avoid
paying the export duty on gold and silver, they had large false
axletrees to some of the wagons, in which the money was concealed,
and the examining officer of the customs, perfectly unconscious of
the artifice, passed them.
The army, in its expeditions against the hostile Indian tribes,
always employed wagons in transporting its provisions and munitions
of war, except in the mountains, where the faithful pack-mule was
substituted. The American freighters, since the occupation of
New Mexico by the United States, until the transcontinental railroad
usurped their vocation, used wagons only; the Mexican nomenclature
was soon dropped and simple English terms adopted: caravan became
train, and majordomo, the person in charge, wagon-master. The latter
was supreme. Upon him rested all the responsibility, and to him
the teamsters rendered absolute obedience. He was necessarily a man
of quick perception, always fertile in expedients in times of
emergency, and something of an engineer; for to know how properly
to cross a raging stream or a marshy slough with an outfit of fifty
or sixty wagons required more than ordinary intelligence. Then in
the case of a stampede, great clear-headedness and coolness were
needed to prevent loss of life.
Stampedes were frequently very serious affairs, particularly with
a large mule-train. Notwithstanding the willingness and patient
qualities of that animal, he can act as absurdly as a Texas steer,
and is as easily frightened at nothing. Sometimes as insignificant
a circumstance as a prairie-dog barking at the entrance to his burrow,
a figure in the distance, or even the shadow of a passing cloud
will start every animal in the train, and away they go, rushing into
each other, and becoming entangled in such a manner that both drivers
and mules have often been crushed to death. It not infrequently
happened that five or six of the teams would dash off and never
could be found. I remember one instance that occurred on the trail
between Fort Hays and Fort Dodge, during General Sheridan's
winter campaign against the allied plains tribes in 1868. Three of
the wagons were dragged away by the mules, in a few moments were
out of sight, and were never recovered, although diligent search
was made for them for some days. Ten years afterward a farmer,
who had taken up a claim in what is now Rush County, Kansas,
discovered in a ravine on his place the bones of some animals,
decayed parts of harness, and the remains of three army-wagons,
which with other evidence proved them to be the identical ones
lost from the train so many years before.
The largest six-mule wagon-train that was ever strung out on the
plains transported the supplies for General Custer's command during
the winter above referred to. It comprised over eight hundred
army-wagons, and was four miles in length in one column, or one mile
when in four lines--the usual formation when in the field.
The animals of the train were either hobbled or herded at night,
according to the locality; if in an Indian country, always hobbled
or, preferably, tied up to the tongue of the wagon to which they
belonged. The hobble is simply a strip of rawhide, with two slides
of the same material. Placed on the front legs of the mule just
at the fetlock, the slides pushed close to the limb, the animal
could move around freely enough to graze, but was not able to travel
very fast in the event of a stampede. In the Indian country, it was
usual at night, or in the daytime when halting to feed, to form
a corral of the wagons, by placing them in a circle, the wheels
interlocked and the tongues run under the axles, into which circle
the mules, on the appearance of the savages, were driven, and which
also made a sort of fortress behind which the teamsters could more
effectually repel an attack.
In the earlier trading expeditions to Santa Fe, the formation and
march of the caravan differed materially from that of the army-train
in later years. I here quote Gregg, whose authority on the subject
has never been questioned. When all was ready to move out on the
broad sea of prairie, he said:
We held a council, at which the respective claims of the
different aspirants for office were considered, leaders
selected, and a system of government agreed upon--as is
the standing custom of these promiscuous caravans.
A captain was proclaimed elected, but his powers were not
defined by any constitutional provision; consequently,
they were very vague and uncertain. Orders being only
viewed as mere requests, they are often obeyed or neglected
at the caprice of the subordinates. It is necessary to
observe, however, that the captain is expected to direct
the order of travel during the day and to designate the
camping-ground at night, with many other functions of
general character, in the exercise of which the company
find it convenient to acquiesce.
After this comes the task of organizing. The proprietors
are first notified by proclamation to furnish a list of
their men and wagons. The latter are generally apportioned
into four divisions, particularly when the company is large.
To each of these divisions, a lieutenant is appointed,
whose duty it is to inspect every ravine and creek on the
route, select the best crossings, and superintend what is
called in prairie parlance the forming of each encampment.
There is nothing so much dreaded by inexperienced travellers
as the ordeal of guard duty. But no matter what the
condition or employment of the individual may be, no one
has the slightest chance of evading the common law of
the prairies. The amateur tourist and the listless loafer
are precisely in the same wholesome predicament--they must
all take their regular turn at the watch. There is usually
a set of genteel idlers attached to every caravan, whose
wits are forever at work in devising schemes for whiling
away their irksome hours at the expense of others.
By embarking in these trips of pleasure, they are enabled
to live without expense; for the hospitable traders seldom
refuse to accommodate even a loafing companion with a berth
at their mess without charge. But these lounging attaches
are expected at least to do good service by way of guard
duty. None are ever permitted to furnish a substitute,
as is frequently done in military expeditions; for he that
would undertake to stand the tour of another besides
his own would scarcely be watchful enough for dangers
of the prairies. Even the invalid must be able to produce
unequivocal proofs of his inability, or it is a chance
if the plea is admitted.
The usual number of watchers is eight, each standing a
fourth of every alternate night. When the party is small,
the number is generally reduced, while in the case of
very small bands, they are sometimes compelled for safety's
sake to keep watch on duty half the night. With large
caravans the captain usually appoints eight sergeants
of the guard, each of whom takes an equal portion of men
under his command.
The wild and motley aspect of the caravan can be but
imperfectly conceived without an idea of the costumes of
its various members. The most fashionable prairie dress
is the fustian frock of the city-bred merchant, furnished
with a multitude of pockets capable of accommodating a
variety of extra tackling. Then there is the backwoodsman
with his linsey or leather hunting-shirt--the farmer with
his blue jean coat--the wagoner with his flannel sleeve
vest--besides an assortment of other costumes which go
to fill up the picture.
In the article of firearms there is also an equally
interesting medley. The frontier hunter sticks to his
rifle, as nothing could induce him to carry what he terms
in derision "the scatter-gun." The sportsman from the
interior flourishes his double-barrelled fowling-piece
with equal confidence in its superiority. A great many
were furnished beside with a bountiful supply of pistols
and knives of every description, so that the party made
altogether a very brigand-like appearance.
"Catch up! Catch up!" is now sounded from the captain's
camp and echoed from every division and scattered group
along the valley. The woods and dales resound with the
gleeful yells of the light-hearted wagoners who, weary of
inaction and filled with joy at the prospect of getting
under way, become clamorous in the extreme. Each teamster
vies with his fellow who shall be soonest ready; and it
is a matter of boastful pride to be the first to cry out,
"All's set."
The uproarious bustle which follows, the hallooing of those
in pursuit of animals, the exclamations which the unruly
brutes call forth from their wrathful drivers, together
with the clatter of bells, the rattle of yokes and harness,
the jingle of chains, all conspire to produce an uproarious
confusion. It is sometimes amusing to observe the athletic
wagoner hurrying an animal to its post--to see him heave
upon the halter of a stubborn mule, while the brute as
obstinately sets back, determined not to move a peg till
his own good pleasure thinks it proper to do so--his whole
manner seeming to say, "Wait till your hurry's over."
I have more than once seen a driver hitch a harnessed animal
to the halter, and by that process haul his mulishness
forward, while each of his four projected feet would leave
a furrow behind.
"All's set!" is finally heard from some teamster--
"All's set," is directly responded from every quarter.
"Stretch out!" immediately vociferates the captain.
Then the "heps!" to the drivers, the cracking of whips,
the trampling of feet, the occasional creak of wheels,
the rumbling of the wagons, while "Fall in" is heard from
head-quarters, and the train is strung out and in a few
moments has started on its long journey.
With an army-train the discipline was as perfect as that of a garrison.
The wagon-master was under the orders of the commander of the troops
which escorted the caravan, the camps were formed with regard to
strategic principles, sentries walked their beats and were visited
by an officer of the day, as if stationed at a military post.
Unquestionably the most expert packer I have known is Chris. Gilson,
of Kansas. In nearly all the expeditions on the great plains and
in the mountains he has been the master-spirit of the pack-trains.
General Sheridan, who knew Gilson long before the war, in Oregon
and Washington, regarded the celebrated packer with more than
ordinary friendship. For many years he was employed by the government
at the suggestion of General Sheridan, to teach the art of packing
to the officers and enlisted men at several military posts in the West.
He received a large salary, and for a long period was stationed at
the immense cavalry depot of Fort Riley, in Kansas. Gilson was also
employed by the British army during the Zulu war in Africa,
as chief packer, at a salary of twenty dollars a day. Now, however,
since the railroads have penetrated the once considered impenetrable
fastnesses of the mountains, packing will be relegated to the lost arts.
FIGHT WITH COMANCHE'S.
Early in the spring of 1828, a company of young men residing in the
vicinity of Franklin, Missouri, having heard related by a neighbour
who had recently returned the wonderful story of a passage across
the great plains, and the strange things to be seen in the land of
the Greasers, determined to explore the region for themselves;
making the trip in wagons, an innovation of a startling character,
as heretofore only pack-animals had been employed in the limited trade
with far-off Santa Fe. The story of their journey can best be told
in the words of one of the party:[19]--
We had about one thousand miles to travel, and as there was
no wagon-road in those early days across the plains to the
mountains, we were compelled to take our chances through
the vast wilderness, seeking the best route we could.
No signs of life were visible except the innumerable buffalo
and antelope that were constantly crossing our trail.
We moved on slowly from day to day without any incident
worth recording and arrived at the Arkansas; made the
passage and entered the Great American Desert lying beyond,
as listless, lonesome, and noiseless as a sleeping sea.
Having neglected to carry any water with us, we were obliged
to go withot a drop for two days and nights after leaving
the river. At last we reached the Cimarron, a cool,
sparkling stream, ourselves and our animals on the point
of perishing. Our joy at discovering it, however, was
short-lived. We had scarcely quenched our thirst when
we saw, to our dismay, a large band of Indians camped on
its banks. Their furtive glances at us, and significant
looks at each other, aroused our worst suspicions, and
we instinctively felt we were not to get away without
serious trouble. Contrary to our expectations, however,
they did not offer to molest us, and we at once made up
our minds they preferred to wait for our return, as we
believed they had somehow learned of our intention to bring
back from New Mexico a large herd of mules and ponies.
We arrived in Santa Fe on the 20th of July, without further
adventure, and after having our stock of goods passed
through the custom house, were granted the privilege of
selling them. The majority of the party sold out in a
very short time and started on their road to the States,
leaving twenty-one of us behind to return later.
On the first day of September, those of us who had remained
in Santa Fe commenced our homeward journey. We started
with one hundred and fifty mules and horses, four wagons,
and a large amount of silver coin. Nothing of an eventful
character occurred until we arrived at the Upper Cimarron
Springs, where we intended to encamp for the night.
But our anticipations of peaceable repose were rudely
dispelled; for when we rode up on the summit of the hill,
the sight that met our eyes was appalling enough to excite
the gravest apprehensions. It was a large camp of
Comanches, evidently there for the purpose of robbery
and murder. We could neither turn back nor go on either
side of them on account of the mountainous character of
the country, and we realized, when too late, that we were
in a trap.
There was only one road open to us; that right through
the camp. Assuming the bravest look possible, and keeping
our rifles in position for immediate action, we started
on the perilous venture. The chief met us with a smile
of welcome, and said, in Spanish: "You must stay with us
to-night. Our young men will guard your stock, and we have
plenty of buffalo meat."
Realizing the danger of our situation, we took advantage
of every moment of time to hurry through their camp.
Captain Means, Ellison, and myself were a little distance
behind the wagons, on horseback; observing that the balance
of our men were evading them, the blood-thirsty savages
at once threw off their masks of dissimulation and in an
instant we knew the time for a struggle had arrived.
The Indians, as we rode on, seized our bridle-reins and
began to fire upon us. Ellison and I put spurs to our
horses and got away, but Captain Means, a brave man,
was ruthlessly shot and cruelly scalped while the life-blood
was pouring from his ghastly wounds.
We succeeded in fighting them off until we had left their
camp half a mile behind, and as darkness had settled down
on us, we decided to go into camp ourselves. We tied our
gray bell-mare to a stake, and went out and jingled the
bell, whenever any of us could do so, thus keeping the
animals from stampeding. We corralled our wagons for
better protection, and the Indians kept us busy all night
resisting their furious charges. We all knew that death
at our posts would be infinitely preferable to falling
into their hands; so we resolved to sell our lives as
dearly as possible.
The next day we made but five miles; it was a continuous
fight, and a very difficult matter to prevent their
capturing us. This annoyance was kept up for four days;
they would surround us, then let up as if taking time to
renew their strength, to suddenly charge upon us again,
and they continued thus to harass us until we were almost
exhausted from loss of sleep.
After leaving the Cimarron, we once more emerged on the
open plains and flattered ourselves we were well rid of
the savages; but about twelve o'clock they came down on us
again, uttering their demoniacal yells, which frightened
our horses and mules so terribly, that we lost every hoof.
A member of our party, named Hitt, in endeavouring to
recapture some of the stolen stock, was taken by the
savages, but luckily escaped from their clutches, after
having been wounded in sixteen parts of his body;
he was shot, tomahawked, and speared. When the painted
demons saw that one of their number had been killed by us,
they left the field for a time, while we, taking advantage
of the temporary lull, went back to our wagons and built
breastworks of them, the harness, and saddles. From noon
until two hours in the night, when the moon went down,
the savages were apparently confident we would soon fall
a prey to them, and they made charge after charge upon
our rude fortifications.
Darkness was now upon us. There were two alternatives
before us: should we resolve to die where we were, or
attempt to escape in the black hours of the night?
It was a desperate situation. Our little band looked
the matter squarely in the face, and, after a council
of war had been held, we determined to escape, if possible.
In order to carry out our resolve, it was necessary to
abandon the wagons, together with a large amount of silver
coin, as it would be impossible to take all of the precious
stuff with us in our flight; so we packed up as much of it
as we could carry, and, bidding our hard-earned wealth
a reluctant farewell, stepped out in the darkness like
spectres and hurried away from the scene of death.
Our proper course was easterly, but we went in a northerly
direction in order to avoid the Indians. We travelled
all that night, the next day, and a portion of its night
until we reached the Arkansas River, and, having eaten
nothing during that whole time excepting a few prickly-pears,
were beginning to feel weak from the weight of our burdens
and exhaustion. At this point we decided to lighten
our loads by burying all of the money we had carried
thus far, keeping only a small sum for each man.
Proceeding to a small island in the river, our treasure,
amounting to over ten thousand silver dollars, was cached
in the ground between two cottonwood trees.
Believing now that we were out of the usual range of
the predatory Indians, we shot a buffalo and an antelope
which we cooked and ate without salt or bread; but no meal
has ever tasted better to me than that one.
We continued our journey northward for three or four days
more, when, reaching Pawnee Fork, we travelled down it for
more than a week, arriving again on the Old Santa Fe Trail.
Following the Trail three days, we arrived at Walnut Creek,
then left the river again and went eastwardly to Cow Creek.
When we reached that point, we had become so completely
exhausted and worn out from subsisting on buffalo meat
alone, that it seemed as if there was nothing left for
us to do but lie down and die. Finally it was determined
to send five of the best-preserved men on ahead to
Independence, two hundred miles, for the purpose of
procuring assistance; the other fifteen to get along
as well as they could until succour reached them.
I was one of the five selected to go on in advance, and
I shall never forget the terrible suffering we endured.
We had no blankets, and it was getting late in the fall.
Some of us were entirely barefooted, and our feet so sore
that we left stains of blood at every step. Deafness, too,
seized upon us so intensely, occasioned by our weak
condition, that we coud not hear the report of a gun fired
at a distance of only a few feet.
At one place two of our men laid down their arms, declaring
they could carry them no farther, and would die if they
did not get water. We left them and went in search of some.
After following a dry branch several miles, we found
a muddy puddle from which we succeeded in getting half
a bucket full, and, although black and thick, it was life
for us and we guarded it with jealous eyes. We returned
to our comrades about daylight, and the water so refreshed
them they were able to resume the weary march. We travelled
on until we arrived at the Big Blue River, in Missouri,
on the bank of which we discovered a cabin about fifteen
miles from Independence. The occupants of the rude shanty
were women, seemingly very poor, but they freely offered us
a pot of pumpkin they were stewing. When they first saw us,
they were terribly frightened, because we looked more like
skeletons than living beings. They jumped on the bed while
we were greedily devouring the pumpkin, but we had to
refuse some salt meat which they had also proffered,
as our teeth were too sore to eat it. In a short time
two men came to the cabin and took three of our men
home with them. We had subsisted for eleven days on
one turkey, a coon, a crow, and some elm bark, with an
occasional bunch of wild grapes, and the pictures we
presented to these good people they will never, probably,
forget; we had not tasted bread or salt for thirty-two days.
The next day our newly found friends secured horses and
guided us to Independence, all riding without saddles.
One of the party had gone on to notify the citizens of
our safety, and when we arrived general muster was going on,
the town was crowded, and when the people looked upon us
the most intense excitement prevailed. All business was
suspended; the entire population flocked around us to hear
the remarkable story of our adventures, and to render us
the assistance we so much needed. We were half-naked,
foot-sore, and haggard, presenting such a pitiable picture
that the greatest sympathy was immediately aroused in
our behalf.
We then said that behind us on the Trail somewhere, fifteen
comrades were struggling toward Independence, or were
already dead from their sufferings. In a very few minutes
seven men with fifteen horses started out to rescue them.
They were gone from Independence several days, but had the
good fortune to find all the men just in time to save them
from starvation and exhaustion. Two were discovered
a hundred miles from Independence, and the remainder
scattered along the Trail fifty miles further in their rear.
Not more than two of the unfortunate party were together.
The humane rescuers seemingly brought back nothing but
living skeletons wrapped in rags; but the good people of
the place vied with each other in their attentions, and
under their watchful care the sufferers rapidly recuperated.
One would suppose that we had had enough of the great plains
after our first trip; not so, however, for in the spring
we started again on the same journey. Major Riley, with
four companies of regular soldiers, was detailed to escort
the Santa Fe traders' caravans to the boundary line between
the United States and Mexico, and we went along to recover
the money we had buried, the command having been ordered to
remain in camp to await our return until the 20th of October.
We left Fort Leavenworth about the 10th of May, and were
soon again on the plains. Many of the troops had never
seen any buffalo before, and found great sport in wantonly
slaughtering them. At Walnut Creek we halted to secure
a cannon which had been thrown into that stream two seasons
previously, and succeeded in dragging it out. With a seine
made of brush and grape vine, we caught more fine fish than
we could possibly dispose of. One morning the camp was
thrown into the greatest state of excitement by a band of
Indians running an enormous herd of buffalo right into us.
The troops fired at them by platoons, killing hundreds
of them.
We marched in two columns, and formed a hollow square
at night when we camped, in which all slept excepting
those on guard duty. Frequently some one would discover
a rattlesnake or a horned toad in bed with him, and it
did not take him a very long time to crawl out of his
blankets!
On the 10th of July, we arrived at the dividing line
separating the two countries, and went into camp. The next
day Major Riley sent a squad of soldiers to escort myself
and another of our old party, who had helped bury the
ten thousand dollars, to find it. It was a few miles
further up the Arkansas than our camp, in the Mexican
limits, and when we reached the memorable spot on the
island,[20] we found the coin safe, but the water had
washed the earth away, and the silver was exposed to view
to excite the cupidity of any one passing that way;
there were not many travellers on that lonely route in
those days, however, and it would have been just as secure,
probably, had we simply poured it on the ground.
We put the money in sacks and deposited it with Major Riley,
and, leaving the camp, started for Santa Fe with Captain
Bent as leader of the traders. We had not proceeded far
when our advanced guard met Indians. They turned, and when
within two hundred yards of us, one man named Samuel Lamme
was killed, his body being completely riddled with arrows.
His head was cut off, and all his clothes stripped from
his body. We had a cannon, but the Mexicans who hauled it
had tied it up in such a way that it could not be utilized
in time to effect anything in the first assault; but when
at last it was turned loose upon the Indians, they fled
in dismay at the terrible noise.
The troops at the crossing of the Arkansas, hearing the
firing, came to our assistance. The next morning the
hills were covered by fully two thousand Indians, who had
evidently congregated there for the purpose of annihilating
us, and the coming of the soldiers was indeed fortunate;
for as soon as the cowardly savages discovered them
they fled. Major Riley accompanied us on our march for
a few days, and, seeing no more Indians, he returned to
his camp.
We travelled on for a week, then met a hundred Mexicans
who were out on the plains hunting buffalo. They had
killed a great many and were drying the meat. We waited
until they were ready to return and then all started for
Santa Fe together.
At Rabbit-Ear Mountain the Indians had constructed
breastworks in the brush, intending to fight it out there.
The Mexicans were in the advance and had one of their
number killed before discovering the enemy. We passed
Point of Rocks and camped on the river. One of the
Mexicans went out hunting and shot a huge panther;
next morning he asked a companion to go with him and help
skin the animal. They saw the Indians in the brush, and
the one who had killed the panther said to the other,
"Now for the mountains"; but his comrade retreated,
and was despatched by the savages almost within reach
of the column.
We now decided to change our destination, intending to go
to Taos instead of Santa Fe, but the governor of the
Province sent out troops to stop us, as Taos was not a
place of entry. The soldiers remained with us a whole week,
until we arrived at Santa Fe, where we disposed of our goods
and soon began to make preparations for our return trip.
When we were ready to start back, seven priests and a
number of wealthy families, comfortably fixed in carriages,
accompanied us. The Mexican government ordered Colonel
Viscarra of the army, with five troops of cavalry,
to guard us to the camp of Major Riley.
We experienced no trouble until we arrived at the
Cimarron River. About sunset, just as we were preparing
to camp for the night, the sentinels saw a body of a
hundred Indians approaching; they fired at them and ran
to camp. Knowing they had been discovered, the Indians
came on and made friendly overtures; but the Pueblos who
who were with the command of Colonel Viscarra wanted to
fight them at once, saying the fellows meant mischief.
We declined to camp with them unless they would agree to
give up their arms; they pretended they were willing to
do so, when one of them put his gun at the breast of our
interpreter and pulled the trigger. In an instant a bloody
scene ensued; several of Viscarra's men were killed,
together with a number of mules. Finally the Indians
were whipped and tried to get away, but we chased them
some distance and killed thirty-five. Our friendly Pueblos
were delighted, and proceeded to scalp the savages,
hanging the bloody trophies on the points of their spears.
That night they indulged in a war-dance which lasted
until nearly morning.
We were delighted to see a beautiful sunshiny day after
the horrors of the preceding night, and continued our march
without farther interruption, safely arriving at the camp
on the boundary line, where Major Riley was waiting for us,
as we supposed; but his time having expired the day before,
he had left for Fort Leavenworth. A courier was despatched
to him, however, as Colonel Viscarra desired to meet the
American commander and see his troops. The courier overtook
Major Riley a short distance away, and he halted for us
to come up. Both commands then went into camp, and spent
several days comparing the discipline of the armies of
the two nations, and having a general good time.
Colonel Viscarra greatly admired our small arms, and
took his leave in a very courteous manner.
We arrived at Fort Leavenworth late in the season, and
from there we all scattered. I received my share of the
money we had cached on the island, and bade my comrades
farewell, only a few of whom I have ever seen since.
Mr. Hitt in his notes of this same perilous trip says:
When the grass had sufficiently started to insure the
subsistence of our teams, our wagons were loaded with
a miscellaneous assortment of merchandise and the first
trader's caravan of wagons that ever crossed the plains
left Independence. Before we had travelled three weeks
on our journey, we were one evening confronted with the
novel fact of camping in a country where not a stick of
wood could be found. The grass was too green to burn,
and we were wondering how our fire could be started
with which to boil our coffee, or cook our bread. One of
our number, however, while diligently searching for
something to utilize, suddenly discovered scattered all
around him a large quantity of buffalo-chips, and he soon
had an excellent fire under way, his coffee boiling and
his bacon sizzling over the glowing coals.
We arrived in Santa Fe without incident, and as ours
was the first train of wagons that ever traversed the
narrow streets of the quaint old town, it was, of course,
a great curiosity to the natives.
After a few days' rest, sight-seeing, and purchasing stock
to replace our own jaded animals, preparations were made
for the return trip. All the money we had received for
our goods was in gold and silver, principally the latter,
in consequence of which, each member of the company had
about as much as he could conveniently manage, and,
as events turned out, much more than he could take care of.
On the morning of the third day out, when we were not
looking for the least trouble, our entire herd was
stampeded, and we were left upon the prairie without
as much as a single mule to pursue the fast-fleeing
thieves. The Mexicans and Indians had come so suddenly
upon us, and had made such an effective dash, that we
stood like children who had broken their toys on a stone
at their feet. We were so unprepared for such a stampede
that the thieves did not approach within rifle-shot range
of the camp to accomplish their object; few of them
coming within sight, even.
After the excitement had somewhat subsided and we began
to realize what had been done, it was decided that while
some should remain to guard the camp, others must go to
Santa Fe to see if they could not recover the stock.
The party that went to Santa Fe had no difficulty in
recognizing the stolen animals; but when they claimed them,
they were laughed at by the officials of the place.
They experienced no difficulty, however, in purchasing
the same stock for a small sum, which they at once did,
and hurried back to camp. By this unpleasant episode
we learned of the stealth and treachery of the miserable
people in whose country we were. We, therefore, took every
precaution to prevent a repetition of the affair, and
kept up a vigilant guard night and day.
Matters progressed very well, and when we had travelled
some three hundred miles eastwardly, thinking we were
out of range of any predatory bands, as we had seen no
sign of any living thing, we relaxed our vigilance somewhat.
One morning, just before dawn, the whole earth seemed to
resound with the most horrible noises that ever greeted
human ears; every blade of grass appeared to re-echo
the horrid din. In a few moments every man was at his post,
rifle in hand, ready for any emergency, and almost
immediately a large band of Indians made their appearance,
riding within rifle-shot of the wagons. A continuous
battle raged for several hours, the savages discharging
a shot, then scampering off out of range as fast as
their ponies could carry them. Some, more brave than
others would venture closer to the corral, and one of these
got the contents of an old-fashioned flint-lock musket
in his bowels.
We were careful not all to fire at the same time, and
several of our party, who were watching the effects of
our shots declared they could see the dust fly out of
the robes of the Indians as the bullets struck them.
It was learned afterward that a number of the savages
were wounded, and that several had died. Many were armed
with bows and arrows only, and in order to do any execution
were obliged to come near the corral. The Indians soon
discovered they were getting the worst of the fight, and,
having run off all the stock, abandoned the conflict,
leaving us in possession of the camp, but it can hardly
be said masters of the situation.
There we were; thirty-five pioneers upon the wild prairie,
surrounded by a wily and terribly cruel foe, without
transportation of any character but our own legs, and with
five hundred miles of dangerous, trackless waste between
us and the settlements. We had an abundance of money,
but the stuff was absolutely worthless for the present,
as there was nothing we could buy with it.
After the last savage had ridden away into the sand hills
on the opposite side of the river, each one of us had a
thrilling story to relate of his individual narrow escapes.
Though none was killed, many received wounds, the scars
of which they carried through life. I was wounded six
times. Once was in the thigh by an arrow, and once while
loading my rifle I had my ramrod shot off close to the
muzzle of my piece, the ball just grazing my shoulder,
tearing away a small portion of the skin. Others had
equally curious experiences, but none were seriously injured.
After the excitement incident to the battle had subsided,
the realization of our condition fully dawned upon us.
When we were first robbed, we were only a short distance
from Santa Fe, where our money easily procured other stock;
now there were three hundred miles behind us to that place,
and the picture was anything but pleasant to contemplate.
To transport supplies for thirty-five men seemed impossible.
Our money was now a burden greater than we could bear;
what was to be done with it? We would have no use for it
on our way to the settlements, yet the idea of abandoning
it seemed hard to accept. A vigilant guard was kept up
that day and night, during which time we all remained
in camp, fearing a renewal of the attack.
The next morning, as there were no apparent signs of
the Indians, it was decided to reconnoitre the surrounding
country in the hope of recovering a portion, at least,
of our lost stock, which we thought might have become
separated from the main herd. Three men were detailed
to stay in the old camp to guard it while the remainder,
in squads, scoured the hills and ravines. Not a horse
or mule was visible anywhere; the stampede had been
complete--not even the direction the animals had taken
could be discovered.
It was late in the afternoon when I, having left my
companions to continue the search and returning to camp
alone, had gotten within a mile of it, that I thought I saw
a horse feeding upon an adjoining hill. I at once turned
my steps in that direction, and had proceeded but a short
distance when three Indians jumped from their ambush in
the grass between me and the wagons and ran after me.
The men in camp had been watching my every movement,
and as soon as they saw the savages were chasing me,
they started in pursuit, running at their greatest speed
to my rescue.
The savages soon overtook me, and the first one that
came up tackled me, but in an instant found himself flat
on the ground. Before he could get up, the second one
shared the same fate. By this time the third one arrived,
and the two I had thrown grabbed me by the legs so that
I could no longer handle myself, while the third one had
a comparatively easy task in pushing me over. Fortunately,
my head fell toward the camp and my fast-approaching
comrades. The two Indians held my legs to prevent my
rising, while the third one, who was standing over me,
drew from his belt a tomahawk, and shrugging his head
in his blanket, at the same time looking over his shoulder
at my friends, with a tremendous effort and that peculiar
grunt of all savages, plunged his hatchet, as he supposed,
into my head, but instead of scuffling to free myself
and rise to my feet, I merely turned my head to one side
and the wicked weapon was buried in the ground, just
grazing my ear.
The Indian, seeing that he had missed, raised his hatchet
and once more shrugging his head in his blanket, and
turning to look over his other shoulder, attempted to
strike again, but the blow was evaded by a sudden toss
of his intended victim's head. Not satisfied with two
abortive trials, the third attempt must be made to brain me,
and repeating the same motions, with a great "Ugh!" he
seemed to put all his strength into the blow, which, like
the others, missed, and spent its force in the earth.
By this time the rescuing party had come near enough to
prevent the savage from risking another effort, and he then
addressed the other Indians in Spanish, which I understood,
saying, "We must run or the Americans will kill us!"
and loosening his grasp, he scampered off with his
companions as fast as his legs could take him, hurried on
by several pieces of lead fired from the old flintlocks
of the traders.
By sundown every man had returned to the forlorn camp,
but not an animal had been recovered. Then, with tired
limbs and weary hearts, we took turns at guarding the
wagons through the long night. The next morning each man
shouldered his rifle, and having had his proportion of
the provisions and cooking utensils assigned him,
we broke camp, and again turned to take a last look at
the country behind us, in which we had experienced so much
misfortune, and started on foot for our long march through
the dangerous region ahead of us.
Scarcely had we gotten out of sight of our abandoned camp,
when one of the party, happening to turn his eyes in that
direction, saw a large volume of smoke rising in the
vicinity; then we knew that all of our wagons, and
everything we had been forced to leave, were burning up.
This proved that, although we had been unable to discover
any signs of Indians, they had been lurking around us
all the time, and this fact warned us to exercise the
utmost vigilance in guarding our persons.
Though our burdens were very heavy, the first few days
were passed without anything to relieve the dreadful
monotony of our wearisome march; but each succeeding
twenty-four hours our loads became visibly lighter,
as our supplies were rapidly diminishing. It had already
become apparent that even in the exercise of the greatest
frugality, our stock of provisions would not last until
we could reach the settlements, so some of the most expert
shots were selected to hunt for game; but even in this
they were not successful, the very birds seeming to have
abandoned the country in its extreme desolation.
After eight days' travel, despite our most rigid economy,
an inventory showed that there was less than one hundred
pounds of flour left. Day after day the hunters repeated
the same old story: "No game!" For two weeks the allowance
of flour to each individual was but a spoonful, stirred
in water and taken three times a day.
One afternoon, however, fortune smiled upon the weary party;
one of the hunters returned to camp with a turkey he had
killed. It was soon broiling over a fire which willing
hands had kindled, and our drooping spirits were revived
for a while. While the turkey was cooking, a crow flew
over the camp, and one of the company, seizing a gun,
despatched it, and in a few moments it, too, was sizzling
along with the other bird.
Now, in addition to the pangs of hunger, a scarcity of
water confronted us, and one day we were compelled to
resort to a buffalo-wallow and suck the moist clay where
the huge animals had been stamping in the mud. We were
much reduced in strength, yet each day added new
difficulties to our forlorn situation. Some became so weak
and exhausted that it was with the greatest effort they
could travel at all. To divide the company and leave
the more feeble behind to starve, or to be murdered by
the merciless savages, was not considered for a moment;
but one alternative remained, and that was speedily accepted.
As soon as a convenient camping-ground could be found,
a halt was made, shelter established, and things made as
comfortable as possible. Here the weakest remained to rest,
while some of the strongest scoured the surrounding country
in search of game. During this temporary halt the hunters
were more successful than before, having killed two
buffaloes, besides some smaller animals, in one morning.
Again the natural dry fuel of the prairies was called
into requisition, and juicy steak was once more broiling
over the fire.
With an abundance to eat and a few days' rest, the whole
company revived and were enabled to renew their march
homeward. We were now in the buffalo range, and every day
the hunters were fortunate enough to kill one or more of
the immense animals, thus keeping our larder in excellent
condition, and starvation averted.
Doubting whether our good fortune in relation to food
would continue for the remainder of our march, and our
money becoming very cumbersome, it was decided by a majority
that at the first good place we came to we would bury it
and risk its being stolen by our enemies. When not more
than half of our journey had been accomplished, we came
to an island in the river to which we waded, and there,
between two large trees, dug a hole and deposited our
treasure. We replaced the sod over the spot, taking the
utmost precaution to conceal every sign of having disturbed
the ground. Though no Indians had been seen for several
days, a sharp lookout was kept in all directions for fear
that some lurking savage might have been watching our
movements. This task finished, with much lighter burdens,
but more anxious than ever, we again took up our march
eastwardly, and, thus relieved, were able to carry a
greater quantity of provisions.
Having journeyed until we supposed we were within a few
miles of the settlements, some of our number, scarcely able
to travel, thought the best course to pursue would be to
divide the company; one portion to press on, the weaker
ones to proceed by easier stages, and when the advance
arrived at the settlements, they were to send back a relief
for those plodding on wearily behind them. Soon a few
who were stronger than the others reached Independence,
Missouri, and immediately sent a party with horses to
bring in their comrades; so, at last, all got safely to
their homes.
In the spring of 1829, Major Bennett Riley of the United States army
was ordered with four companies of the Sixth Regular Infantry to
march out on the Trail as the first military escort ever sent for
the protection of the caravans of traders going and returning between
Western Missouri and Santa Fe. Captain Philip St. George Cooke,
of the Dragoons, accompanied the command, and kept a faithful journal
of the trip, from which, and the official report of Major Riley to
the Secretary of War, I have interpolated here copious extracts.
The journal of Captain Cooke states that the battalion marched
from Fort Leavenworth, which was then called a cantonment, and,
strange to say, had been abandoned by the Third Infantry on account
of its unhealthiness. It was the 5th of June that Riley crossed
the Missouri at the cantonment, and recrossed the river again at
a point a little above Independence, in order to avoid the Kaw,
or Kansas, which had no ferry.
After five days' marching, the command arrived at Round Grove, where
the caravan had been ordered to rendezvous and wait for the escort.
The number of traders aggregated about seventy-nine men, and their
train consisted of thirty-eight wagons drawn by mules and horses,
the former preponderating. Five days' marching, at an average of
fifteen miles a day, brought them to Council Grove. Leaving the
Grove, in a short time Cow Creek was reached, which at that date
abounded in fish; many of which, says the journal, "weighed several
pounds, and were caught as fast as the line could be handled."
The captain does not describe the variety to which he refers;
probably they were the buffalo--a species of sucker, to be found
to-day in every considerable stream in Kansas.
Having reached the Upper Valley,[21] bordered by high sand hills,
the journal continues:
From the tops of the hills, we saw far away, in almost
every direction, mile after mile of prairie, blackened
with buffalo. One morning, when our march was along the
natural meadows by the river, we passed through them for
miles; they opened in front and closed continually in
the rear, preserving a distance scarcely over three hundred
paces. On one occasion, a bull had approached within
two hundred yards without seeing us, until he ascended
the river bank; he stood a moment shaking his head, and
then made a charge at the column. Several officers
stepped out and fired at him, two or three dogs also rushed
to meet him; but right onward he came, snorting blood
from mouth and nostril at every leap, and, with the speed
of a horse and the momentum of a locomotive, dashed
between two wagons, which the frightened oxen nearly upset;
the dogs were at his heels and soon he came to bay, and,
with tail erect, kicked violently for a moment, and then
sank in death--the muscles retaining the dying rigidity
of tension.
About the middle of July, the command arrived at its destination--
Chouteau's Island, then on the boundary line between the United States
and New Mexico.
Our orders were to march no further; and, as a protection
to the trade, it was like the establishment of a ferry
to the mid-channel of a river.
Up to this time, traders had always used mules or horses.
Our oxen were an experiment, and it succeeded admirably;
they even did better when water was very scarce, which is
an important consideration.
A few hours after the departure of the trading company,
as we enjoyed a quiet rest on a hot afternoon, we saw
beyond the river a number of horsemen riding furiously
toward our camp. We all flocked out of the tents to hear
the news, for they were soon recognized as traders.
They stated that the caravan had been attacked, about
six miles off in the sand hills, by an innumerable host
of Indians; that some of their companions had been killed;
and they had run, of course, for help. There was not a
moment's hesitation; the word was given, and the tents
vanished as if by magic. The oxen which were grazing
near by were speedily yoked to the wagons, and into the
river we marched. Then I deemed myself the most unlucky
of men; a day or two before, while eating my breakfast,
with my coffee in a tin cup--notorious among chemists and
campaigners for keeping it hot--it was upset into my shoe,
and on pulling off the stocking, it so happened that the
skin came with it. Being thus hors de combat, I sought to
enter the combat on a horse, which was allowed; but I was
put in command of the rear guard to bring up the baggage
train. It grew late, and the wagons crossed slowly;
for the river unluckily took that particular time to
rise fast, and, before all were over, we had to swim it,
and by moonlight. We reached the encampment at one o'clock
at night. All was quiet, and remained so until dawn,
when, at the sound of our bugles, the pickets reported
they saw a number of Indians moving off. On looking
around us, we perceived ourselves and the caravan in the
most unfavorable defenceless situation possible--in the
area of a natural amphitheatre of sand hills, about fifty
feet high, and within gun-shot all around. There was
the narrowest practicable entrance and outlet.
We ascertained that some mounted traders, in spite of all
remonstrance and command, had ridden on in advance, and
when in the narrow pass beyond this spot, had been suddenly
beset by about fifty Indians; all fled and escaped save one,
who, mounted on a mule, was abandoned by his companions,
overtaken, and slain. The Indians, perhaps, equalled the
traders in number, but notwithstanding their extraordinary
advantage of ground, dared not attack them when they
made a stand among their wagons; and the latter, all well
armed, were afraid to make a single charge, which would
have scattered their enemies like sheep.
Having buried the poor fellow's body, and killed an ox for
breakfast, we left this sand hollow, which would soon have
been roasting hot, and advancing through the defile--of
which we took care to occupy the commanding ground--
proceeded to escort the traders at least one day's march
further.
When the next morning broke clear and cloudless, the command
was confronted by one of those terrible hot winds, still
frequent on the plains. The oxen with lolling tongues
were incapable of going on; the train was halted, and the
suffering animals unyoked, but they stood motionless,
making no attempt to graze. Late that afternoon, the
caravan pushed on for about ten miles, where was the
sandy bed of a dry creek, and fortunately, not far from
the Trail, up the stream, a pool of water and an acre
or two of grass was discovered. On the surface of the
water floated thick the dead bodies of small fish, which
the intense heat of the sun that day had killed.
Arriving at this point, it was determined to march no
further into the Mexican territory. At the first light
next day we were in motion to return to the river and
the American line, and no further adventure befell us.
While permanently encamped at Chouteau's Island, which is situated
in the Arkansas River, the term of enlistment of four of the soldiers
of Captain Cooke's command expired, and they were discharged.
In his journal he says:
Contrary to all advice they determined to return to
Missouri. After having marched several hundred miles
over a prairie country, being often on high hills
commanding a vast prospect, without seeing a human being
or a sign of one, and, save the trail we followed, not
the slightest indication that the country had ever been
visited by man, it was exceedingly difficult to credit
that lurking foes were around us, and spying our motions.
It was so with these men; and being armed, they set out
on the first of August on foot for the settlements.
That same night three of the four returned. They reported
that, after walking about fifteen miles, they were
surrounded by thirty mounted Indians. A wary old soldier
of their number succeeded in extricating them before any
hostile act had been committed; but one of them, highly
elated and pleased at their forbearance, insisted on
returning among them to give them tobacco and shake hands.
In this friendly act he was shot down. The Indians
stripped him in an incredibly short time, and as quickly
dispersed to avoid a shot; and the old soldier, after
cautioning the others to reserve their fire, fired among
them, and probably with some effect. Had the others done
the same, the Indians would have rushed upon them before
they could have reloaded. They managed to make good
their retreat in safety to our camp.
We were instructed to wait here for the return of the
caravan, which was expected early in October.
Our provisions consisted of salt and half rations of flour,
besides a reserve of fifteen days' full rations--as to the
rest, we were dependent upon hunting. When the buffalo
became scarce, or the grass bad, we marched to other
ground, thus roving up and down the river for eighty
miles. The first thing we did after camping was to dig
and construct, with flour barrels, a well in front of
each company; water was always found at the depth of
from two to four feet varying with the corresponding
height of the river, but clear and cool. Next we would
build sod fire-places; these, with network platforms of
buffalo hide, used for smoking and drying meat, formed a
tolerable additional defence, at least against mounted men.
Hunting was a military duty, done by detail, parties of
fifteen or twenty going out with a wagon. Completely
isolated, and beyond support or even communication,
in the midst of many thousands of Indians, the utmost
vigilance was maintained. Officer of the guard every
fourth night; I was always awake and generally in motion
the whole time of duty. Night alarms were frequent; when,
as we all slept in our clothes, we were accustomed to
assemble instantly, and with scarcely a word spoken,
take our places in the grass in front of each face of
the camp, where, however wet, we sometimes lay for hours.
While encamped a few miles below Chouteau's Island, on the
eleventh of August, an alarm was given, and we were under
arms for an hour until daylight. During the morning,
Indians were seen a mile or two off, leading their horses
through the ravines. A captain, however, with eighteen
men was sent across the river after buffalo, which we saw
half a mile distant. In his absence, a large body of
Indians came galloping down the river, as if to charge
the camp, but the cattle were secured in good time.
A company, of which I was lieutenant, was ordered to
cross the river and support the first. We waded in some
disorder through the quicksands and current, and just
as we neared a dry sandbar in the middle, a volley was
fired at us by a band of Indians, who that moment rode
to the water's edge. The balls whistled very near,
but without damage; I felt an involuntary twitch of
the neck, and wishing to return the compliment instantly,
I stooped down, and the company fired over my head,
with what execution was not perceived, as the Indians
immediately retired out of our view. This had passed
in half a minute, and we were astonished to see, a little
above, among some bushes on the same bar, the party we had
been sent to support, and we heard that they had abandoned
one of the hunters, who had been killed. We then saw,
on the bank we had just left, a formidable body of the
enemy in close order, and hoping to surprise them,
we ascended the bed of the river. In crossing the channel
we were up to the arm-pits, but when we emerged on the
bank, we found that the Indians had detected the movement,
and retreated. Casting eyes beyond the river, I saw a
number of the Indians riding on both sides of a wagon
and team which had been deserted, urging the animals
rapidly toward the hills. At this juncture the adjutant
sent an order to cross and recover the body of the slain
hunter, who was an old soldier and a favourite. He was
brought in with an arrow still transfixing his breast,
but his scalp was gone.
On the fourteenth of October, we again marched on our
return. Soon after, we saw smokes arise over the distant
hills; evidently signals, indicating to different parties
of Indians our separation and march, but whether preparatory
to an attack upon the Mexicans or ourselves, or rather
our immense drove of animals, we could only guess.
Our march was constantly attended by great collections
of buffalo, which seemed to have a general muster, perhaps
for migration. Sometimes a hundred or two--a fragment
from the multitude--would approach within two or three
hundred yards of the column, and threaten a charge which
would have proved disastrous to the mules and their drivers.
Under the friendly cover of the shades of evening, on the
eighth of November, our tatterdemalion veterans marched
into Fort Leavenworth, and took quiet possession of the
miserable huts and sheds left by the Third Infantry in
the preceding May.
A ROMANTIC TRAGEDY.
As early as November, 1842, a rumour was current in Santa Fe, and
along the line of the Trail, that parties of Texans had left the
Republic for the purpose of attacking and robbing the caravans to
the United States which were owned wholly by Mexicans. In consequence
of this, several Americans were accused of being spies and acting
in collusion with the Texans; many were arrested and carried to
Santa Fe, but nothing could be proved against them, and the rumours
of the intended purposes of the Texans died out.
Very early in May, however, of the following year, 1843, a certain
Colonel Snively did organize a small force, comprising about two
hundred men, which he led from Northern Texas, his home, to the
line of the Trail, with the intention of attacking and robbing the
Mexican caravans which were expected to cross the plains that month
and in June.
When he arrived at the Arkansas River, he was there reinforced by
another Texan colonel, named Warfield with another small command.
Gregg says:
This officer, with about twenty men, had some time
previously attacked the village of Mora, on the Mexican
frontier, killing five men, and driving off a number
of horses. They were afterward followed by a party of
Mexicans, however, who stampeded and carried away, not only
their own horses, but those of the Texans. Being left
afoot, the latter burned their saddles, and walked to
Bent's Fort, where they were disbanded; whence Warfield
passed to Snively's camp, as before mentioned.
The Texans now advanced along the Santa Fe Trail, beyond
the sand hills south of the Arkansas, when they discovered
that a party of Mexicans had passed toward the river.
They soon came upon them, and a skirmish ensuing, eighteen
Mexicans were killed, and as many wounded, five of whom
afterward died. The Texans suffered no injury, though
the Mexicans were a hundred in number. The rest were all
taken prisoners except two, who escaped and bore the news
to General Armijo, who was encamped with a large force
at Cold Spring, one hundred and forty miles beyond.
Kit Carson figured conspicuously in this fight, or, rather, immediately
afterward. His recital differs somewhat from Gregg's account,
but the stories substantially agree. Kit said that in April,
previously to the assault upon Armijo's caravan, he had hired out
as hunter to Bent's and Colonel St. Vrain's train caravan, which was
then making its annual tour eastwardly. When he arrived at the
crossing of Walnut Creek,[22] he found the encampment of Captain
Philip St. George Cooke, of the United States army, who had been
detailed with his command to escort the caravans to the New Mexican
boundary. His force consisted of four troops of dragoons.
The captain informed Carson that coming on behind him from the States
was a caravan belonging to a very wealthy Mexican.
It was a richly loaded train, and in order to insure its better
protection while passing through that portion of the country infested
by the blood-thirsty Comanches and Apaches, the majordomo in charge
had hired one hundred Mexicans as a guard. The teamsters and others
belonging to the caravan had heard that a large body of Texans were
lying in wait for them, and intended to murder and plunder them in
retaliation for the way Armijo had treated some Texan prisoners
he had got in his power at Santa Fe some time before. Of course,
it was the duty of the United States troops to escort this caravan
to the New Mexico line, but there their duty would end, as they
had no authority to cross the border. The Mexicans belonging to
the caravan were afraid they would be at the mercy of the Texans
after they had parted company with the soldiers, and when Kit Carson
met them, they, knowing the famous trapper and mountaineer well,
asked him to take a letter to Armijo, who was then governor of
New Mexico, and resided in Santa Fe, for which service they would
give him three hundred dollars in advance. The letter contained
a statement of the fears they entertained, and requested the general
to send Mexican troops at once to meet them.
Carson, who was then not blessed with much money, eagerly accepted
the task, and immediately started on the trail for Bent's Fort,
in company with another old mountaineer and bosom friend named Owens.
In a short time they arrived at the Fort, where Owens decided not
to go any further, because they were informed by the men at Bent's
that the Utes had broken out, and were scattered along the Trail
at the most dangerous points, and he was fearful that his life
would be endangered if he attempted to make Santa Fe.
Kit, however, nothing daunted, and determined to do the duty for
which he had been rewarded so munificently, started out alone on
his perilous trip. Mr. Bent kindly furnished him with the best and
fastest horse he had in his stables, but Kit, realizing the dangers
to which he would be exposed, walked, leading his animal, ready to
mount him at a moment's notice; thus keeping him in a condition that
would enable Carson to fly and make his escape if the savages tried
to capture him. His knowledge of the Indian character, and wonderful
alertness in moments of peril, served him well; for he reached the
village of the hostile Indians without their discovering his proximity.
Hiding himself in a rocky, bush-covered canyon, he stayed there until
night came on, when he continued his journey in the darkness.
He took the trail to Taos, where he arrived in two or three days,
and presented his letter to the alcalde, to be sent on to Santa Fe
by special messenger.
He was to remain at Taos until an answer from the governor arrived,
and then return with it as rapidly as possible to the train.
While at Taos, he was informed that Armijo had already sent out
a company of one hundred soldiers to meet the caravan, and was to
follow in person, with a thousand more.
This first hundred were those attacked by Colonel Snively, as related
by Gregg, who says that two survived, who carried the news of the
disaster to Armijo at Cold Spring; but Carson told me that only one
got away, by successfully catching, during the heat of the fight,
a Texan pony already saddled, that was grazing around loose.
With him he made Armijo's camp and related to the Mexican general
the details of the terribly unequal battle. Armijo, upon receipt
of the news, "turned tail," and retreated to Santa Fe.
Before Armijo left Santa Fe with his command, he had received the
letter which Carson had brought from the caravan, and immediately
sent one in reply for Carson to carry back, thinking that the old
mountaineer might reach the wagons before he did. Carson, with his
usual promptness, started on the Trail for the caravan, and came up
with it while it was escorted by the dragoons, thus saving it from
the fate that the Texans intended for it, as they dared not attempt
any interference in the presence of the United States troops.
The rumour current in Santa Fe in relation to a probable raid of
parties of Texans along the line of the Trail, for the purpose of
attacking and robbing the caravans of the wealthy Mexican traders,
was received with so little credence by the prominent citizens of
the country, that several native trains left for the Missouri River
without their proprietors having the slightest apprehension that
they would not reach their destination, and make the return trip
in safety.
Among those who had no fear of marauders was Don Antonio Jose Chavez,
who, in February, 1843, left Santa Fe for Independence with an outfit
consisting of a number of wagons, his private coach, several servants
and other retainers. Don Antonio was a very wealthy Mexican engaged
in a general mercantile business on a large scale in Albuquerque,
who made all his purchases of goods in St. Louis, which was then
the depot of supplies for the whole mountain region. He necessarily
carried with him on these journeys a large amount of money, in silver,
which was the legal currency of the country, and made but one trip
yearly to replenish the stock of goods required in his extensive
trade in all parts of Mexico.
Upon his arrival at Westport Landing, as Kansas City was then called,
he would take the steamboat for St. Louis, leaving his coach, wagons,
servants, and other appointments of his caravan behind him in the
village of Westport, a few miles from the Landing.
Westport was at that time, like all steamboat towns in the era of
water navigation, the harbor of as great a lot of ruffians as ever
escaped the gallows. There was especially a noted gang of land pirates,
the members of which had long indulged in speculations regarding the
probable wealth of the Mexican Don, and how much coin he generally
carried with him. They knew that it must be considerable from the
quantity of goods that always came by boat with him from St. Louis.
At last a devilish plot was arranged to get hold of the rich trader's
money. Nine men were concerned in the robbery, nearly all of whom
were residents of the vicinity of Westport; their leader was one
John McDaniel, recently from Texas, from which government he claimed
to hold a captain's commission, and one of their number was a doctor.
It was evidently the intention of this band to join Warfield's party
on the Arkansas, and engage in a general robbery of the freight
caravans of the Santa Fe Trail belonging to the Mexicans; but they
had determined that Chavez should be their first victim, and in order
to learn when he intended to leave Santa Fe on his next trip east,
they sent their spies out on the great highway.
They did not dare attempt their contemplated robbery, and murder
if necessary, in the State of Missouri, for there were too many
citizens of the border who would never have permitted such a thing
to go unpunished; so they knew that their only chance was to effect it
in the Indian country of Kansas, where there was little or no law.
Cow Creek, which debouches into the Arkansas at Hutchinson, where
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad crosses the historic
little stream,[23] was, like Big and Little Coon creeks, a most
dangerous point in the transcontinental passage of freight caravans
and overland coaches, in the days of the commerce of the prairies.
It was on this purling little prairie brook that McDaniel's band
lay in wait for the arrival of the ill-fated Don Antonio, whose
imposing equipage came along, intending to encamp on the bank,
one of the usual stopping-places on the route.
The Don was taken a few miles south of the Trail, and his baggage
rifled. All of his party were immediately murdered, but the wealthy
owner of the caravan was spared for a few moments in order to make
a confession of where his money was concealed, after which he was
shot down in cold blood, and his body thrown into a ravine.
It appears, however, that the ruffians had not completed their
bloody work so effectually as they thought; for one of the Mexican's
teamsters escaped, and, making his way to Leavenworth, reported
the crime, and was soon on his way back to the Trail, guiding a
detachment of United States troops in pursuit of the murderers.
John Hobbs, scout, trapper, and veteran plainsman, happened to be
hunting buffalo on Pawnee Fork, on the ground where Larned is now
situated, with a party from Bent's Fort. They were just on the point
of crossing the Trail at the mouth of the Pawnee when the soldiers
from Fort Leavenworth came along, and from them Hobbs and his
companions first learned of the murder of Chavez on Cow Creek.
As the men who were out hunting were all familiar with every foot
of the region they were then in, the commanding officer of the troops
induced them to accompany him in his search for the murderers.
Hobbs and his men cheerfully accepted the invitation, and in about
four days met the band of cut-throats on the broad Trail, they little
dreaming that the government had taken a hand in the matter.
The band tried to escape by flight, but Hobbs shot the doctor's horse
from under him, and a soldier killed another member of the band,
when the remainder surrendered.
The money, about twelve or fifteen thousand dollars,[24] was all
recovered, and the murderers taken to St. Louis, where some were hung
and some imprisoned, the doctor escaping the death penalty by turning
state's evidence. His sentence was incarceration in the penitentiary,
from which he was pardoned after remaining there two years.
Hobbs met the doctor some years after in San Francisco. He was then
leading an honest life, publishing a newspaper, and begged his captor
not to expose him.
The money taken from the robbers was placed in charge of Colonel Owens,
a friend of the Chavez family and a leading Santa Fe trader.
He continued on to the river, purchased a stock of goods, and
sent back the caravan to Santa Fe in charge of Doctor Conley of
Boonville, Missouri.
Arriving at his destination, the widow of the deceased Chavez
employed the good doctor to sell the goods and take the sole
supervision of her immense business interests, and there is a touch
of romance attached to the terrible Kansas tragedy, which lies in
the fact that the doctor in about two years married the rich widow,
and lived very happily for about a decade, dying then on one of the
large estates in New Mexico, which he had acquired by his fortunate
union with the amiable Mexican lady.
MEXICO DECLARES WAR.
Mexico declared war against the United States in April, 1846. In the
following May, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to
call into the field fifty thousand volunteers, designed to operate
against Mexico at three distinct points, and consisting of the
Southern Wing, or the Army of Occupation, the Army of the Centre,
and the Army of the West, the latter to direct its march upon the
city of Santa Fe. The original plan was, however, somewhat changed,
and General Kearney, who commanded the Army of the West, divided his
forces into three separate commands. The first he led in person
to the Pacific coast. One thousand volunteers, under command of
Colonel A. W. Doniphan, were to make a descent upon the State of
Chihuahua, while the remainder and greater part of the forces, under
Colonel Sterling Price, were to garrison Santa Fe after its capture.
There is a pretty fiction told of the breaking out of the war
between Mexico and the United States. Early in the spring of 1846,
before it was known or even conjectured that a state of war would be
declared to exist between this government and Mexico, a caravan
of twenty-nine traders, on their way from Independence to Santa Fe,
beheld, just after a storm and a little before sunset, a perfectly
distinct image of the Bird of Liberty, the American eagle, on the
disc of the sun. When they saw it they simultaneously and almost
involuntarily exclaimed that in less than twelve months the Eagle
of Liberty would spread his broad plumes over the plains of the West,
and that the flag of our country would wave over the cities of
New Mexico and Chihuahua. The student of the classics will remember
that just before the assassination of Julius Caesar, both Brutus
and Cassius, while in their places in the Roman Senate, saw chariots
of fire in the sky. One story is as true, probably, as the other,
though separated by centuries of time.
The Army of the West, under General Stephen W. Kearney, consisted of
two batteries of artillery, commanded by Major Clark; three squadrons
of the First United States Dragoons, commanded by Major Sumner;
the First Regiment of Missouri Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Doniphan,
and two companies of infantry, commanded by Captain Aubrey.
This force marched in detached columns from Fort Leavenworth, and
on the 1st of August, 1846, concentrated in camp on the Santa Fe
Trail, nine miles below Bent's Fort.
Accompanying the expedition was a party of the United States
topographical engineers, under command of Lieutenant W. H. Emory.[25]
In writing of this expedition, so far as its march relates to the
Old Santa Fe Trail, I shall quote freely from Emory's report and
Doniphan's historian.[26]
The practicability of marching a large army over the waste,
uncultivated, uninhabited prairie regions of the West was universally
regarded as problematical, but the expedition proved completely
successful. Provisions were conveyed in wagons, and beef-cattle
driven along for the use of the men. These animals subsisted
entirely by grazing. To secure them from straying off at night,
they were driven into corrals formed of the wagons, or tethered to
an iron picket-pin driven into the ground about fifteen inches.
At the outset of the expedition many laughable scenes took place.
Our horses were generally wild, fiery, and unused to military
trappings and equipments. Amidst the fluttering of banners,
the sounding of bugles, the rattling of artillery, the clattering
of sabres and also of cooking utensils, some of them took fright
and scampered pell-mell over the wide prairie. Rider, arms and
accoutrements, saddles, saddle-bags, tin cups, and coffee-pots,
were frequently left far behind in the chase. No very serious or
fatal accident, however, occurred from this cause, and all was
right as soon as the affrighted animals were recovered.
The Army of the West was, perhaps, composed of as fine material as
any other body of troops then in the field. The volunteer corps
consisted almost entirely of young men of the country.
On the 9th of July, a separate detachment of the troops arrived at
the Little Arkansas, where the Santa Fe Trail crosses that stream--
now in McPherson County, Kansas. The mosquitoes, gnats, and black
flies swarmed in that locality and nearly drove the men and animals
frantic. While resting there, a courier came from the commands
of General Kearney and Colonel Doniphan, stating that their men
were in a starving condition, and asking for such provisions as
could be spared. Lieutenant-Colonel Ruff of Doniphan's regiment,
in command of the troops now camped on the Little Arkansas, was
almost destitute himself. He had sent couriers forward to Pawnee Fork
to stop a train of provisions at that point and have it wait there
until he came up with his force, and he now directed the courier from
Kearney to proceed to the same place and halt as many wagons loaded
with supplies, as would suffice to furnish the three detachments
with rations. One of the couriers, in attempting to ford the fork
of the Pawnee, which was bank-full, was drowned. His body was found
and given a military funeral; he was the first man lost on the
expedition after it had reached the great plains, one having been
drowned in the Missouri, at Fort Leavenworth, before the troops left.
The author of _Doniphan's Expedition_ says:
In approaching the Arkansas, a landscape of the most
imposing and picturesque nature makes its appearance.
While the green, glossy undulations of the prairie to
the right seem to spread out in infinite succession,
like waves subsiding after a storm, and covered with
herds of gambolling buffalo, on the left, towering to
the height of seventy-five to a hundred feet, rise the
sun-gilt summits of the sand hills, along the base of
which winds the broad, majestic river, bespeckled with
verdant islets, thickly beset with cottonwood timber,
the sand hills resembling heaps of driven snow.
I refer to this statement to show how wonderfully the settlement
of the region has changed the physical aspect of that portion
bordering the Arkansas River. Now those sand hills are covered
with verdure, and this metamorphosis has taken place within the
last thirty years; for the author of this work well remembers how
the great sand dunes used to shine in the sunlight, when he first
saw them a third of a century ago. In coming from Fort Leavenworth
up the Smoky Hill route to the Santa Fe Trail, where the former
joined the latter at Pawnee Rock, the contour of the Arkansas
could be easily traced by the white sand hills referred to,
long before it was reached.
On the 15th of July the combined forces formed a junction at
Pawnee Fork, now within the city limits of Larned, Kansas. The river
was impassable, but General Kearney, with the characteristic energy
of his family, determined not to be delayed, and to that end caused
great trees to be cut down and their trunks thrown across the stream,
over which the army passed, carrying in their arms the sick, the
baggage, tents, and other paraphernalia; the animals being forced
to swim. The empty bodies of the wagons, fastened to their running
gear, were floated across by means of ropes, and hauled up the
slippery bank by the troops. This required two whole days; and on
the morning of the 17th, not an accident having occurred, the entire
column was en route again, the infantry, as is declared in the
official reports, keeping pace with the cavalry right along.
Their feet, however, became terribly blistered, and, like the
Continentals at Valley Forge, their tracks were marked with blood.
In a day or two after the command had left Pawnee Fork, while camping
in a beautiful spot on the bank of the Arkansas, an officer, Major
Howard, who had been sent forward to Santa Fe some time previously
by the general to learn something of the feeling of the people
in relation to submitting to the government of the United States,
returned and reported
that the common people, or plebeians, were inclined to
favour the conditions of peace proposed by General Kearney;
viz. that if they would lay down their arms and take the
oath of allegiance to the government of the United States,
they should, to all intents and purposes, become citizens
of the same republic, receiving the protection and enjoying
the liberties guaranteed to other American citizens; but
that the patricians who held the offices and ruled the
country were hostile, and were making warlike preparations.
He added, further, that two thousand three hundred men
were already armed for the defence of the capital, and
that others were assembling at Taos.
This intelligence created quite a sensation in camp, and it was
believed, and earnestly hoped, that the entrance of the troops
into Santa Fe would be desperately opposed; such is the pugnacious
character of the average American the moment he dons the uniform
of a soldier.
The army arrived at the Cimarron crossing of the Arkansas on the 20th,
and during the march of nearly thirty miles from their last camp,
a herd of about four hundred buffalo suddenly emerged from the
Arkansas, and broke through the long column. In an instant the
troops charged upon the surprised animals with guns, pistols, and
even drawn sabres, and many of the huge beasts were slaughtered
as they went dashing and thundering among the excited troopers and
infantrymen.
On the 29th an express from Bent's Fort brought news to General
Kearney from Santa Fe that Governor Armijo had called the chief men
together to deliberate on the best means of defending the city;
that hostile preparations were rapidly going on in all parts of
New Mexico; and that the American advance would be vigorously opposed.
Some Mexican prisoners were taken near Bent's Fort, with blank letters
on their persons addressed to the general; it was supposed this piece
of ingenuity was resorted to to deceive the American residents at
the fort. These men were thought to be spies sent out from Santa Fe
to get an idea of the strength of the army; so they were shown
everything in and around camp, and then allowed to depart in peace
for Santa Fe, to report what they had seen.
On the same date, the Army of the West crossed the Arkansas and camped
on Mexican soil about eight miles below Bent's Fort, and now the
utmost vigilance was exercised; for the troops had not only to keep
a sharp lookout for the Mexicans, but for the wily Comanches, in whose
country their camp was located. Strong picket and camp guards were
posted, and the animals turned loose to graze, guarded by a large
force. Notwithstanding the care taken to confine them within certain
limits, a pack of wolves rushed through the herd, and in an instant
it was stampeded, and there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion.
More than a thousand horses were dashing madly over the prairie,
their rage and fright increased at every jump by the lariats and
picket-pins which they had pulled up, and which lashed them like
so many whips. After desperate exertions by the troops, the majority
were recovered from thirty to fifty miles distant; nearly a hundred,
however, were absolutely lost and never seen again.
At this camp the troops were visited by the war chief of the Arapahoes,
who manifested great surprise at the big guns, and declared that
the Mexicans would not stand a moment before such terrible instruments
of death, but would escape to the mountains with the utmost despatch.
On the 1st of August a new camp near Bent's Fort was established,
from whence twenty men under Lieutenant de Courcy, with orders to
proceed through the mountains to the valley of Taos, to learn
something of the disposition and intentions of the people, and to
rejoin General Kearney on the road to Santa Fe. Lieutenant de Courcy,
in his official itinerary, relates the following anecdote:
We took three pack-mules laden with provisions, and as
we did not expect to be long absent, the men took no extra
clothing. Three days after we left the column our mules
fell down, and neither gentle means nor the points of our
sabres had the least effect in inducing them to rise.
Their term of service with Uncle Sam was out. "What's to
be done?" said the sergeant. "Dismount!" said I.
"Off with your shirts and drawers, men! tie up the sleeves
and legs, and each man bag one-twentieth part of the flour!"
Having done this, the bacon was distributed to the men also,
and tied to the cruppers of their saddles. Thus loaded,
we pushed on, without the slightest fear of our provision
train being cut off.
The march upon Santa Fe was resumed on the 2d of August.
As we passed Bent's Fort the American flag was raised,
in compliment to our troops, and, like our own, streamed
most animatingly in the gale that swept from the desert,
while the tops of the houses were crowded with Mexican girls
and Indian squaws, intently beholding the American army.
On the 15th of the month, the army neared Las Vegas; when two spies
who had been sent on in advance to see how matters stood returned
and reported that two thousand Mexicans were camped at the pass
a few miles beyond the village, where they intended to offer battle.
Upon receipt of this news, the general immediately formed a line
of battle. The United States dragoons with the St. Louis mounted
volunteers were stationed in front, Major Clark with the battalion
of volunteer light artillery in the centre, and Colonel Doniphan's
regiment in the rear. The companies of volunteer infantry were
deployed on each side of the line of march as flankers. The supply
trains were next in order, with Captain Walton's mounted company
as rear guard. There was also a strong advance guard. The cartridges
were hastily distributed; the cannon swabbed and rigged; the
port-fires burning, and every rifle loaded.
In passing through the streets of the curious-looking village of
Las Vegas, the army was halted, and from the roof of a large house
General Kearney administered to the chief officers of the place
the oath of allegiance to the United States, using the sacred cross
instead of the Bible. This act completed, on marched the exultant
troops toward the canyon where it had been promised them that they
should meet the enemy.
On the night of the 16th, while encamped on the Pecos River, near
the village of San Jose, the pickets captured a son of the Mexican
General Salezar, who was acting the rôle of a spy, and two other
soldiers of the Mexican army. Salezar was kept a close prisoner;
but the two privates were by order of General Kearney escorted
through the camp and shown the cannon, after which they were allowed
to depart, so that they might tell what they had seen. It was
learned afterward that they represented the American army as composed
of five thousand troops, and possessing so many cannons that they
were not able to count them.
When Armijo was certain that the Army of the West was really
approaching Santa Fe, he assembled seven thousand troops, part of them
well armed, and the remainder indifferently so. The Mexican general
had written a note to General Kearney the day before the capture
of the spies, saying that he would meet him on the following day.
General Kearney, at this, hastened on, arriving at the mouth of
the Apache canyon at noon, with his whole force ready and anxious
to try the mettle of the Mexicans in battle. Emory in his
_Reconnoissance_ says:
The sun shone with dazzling brightness; the guidons and
colours of each squadron, regiment, and battalion were
for the first time unfurled. The drooping horses seemed
to take courage from the gay array. The trumpeters
sounded "to horse" with spirit, and the hills multiplied
and re-echoed the call. All wore the aspect of a gala day.
About the middle of the day's march the two Pueblo Indians,
previously sent to sound the chief men of that formidable
tribe, were seen in the distance, at full speed, with arms
and legs both thumping the sides of their mules at every
stride. Something was now surely in the wind. The smaller
and foremost of the two dashed up to the general, his face
radiant with joy, and exclaimed:
"They are in the canyon, my brave; pluck up your courage
and push them out." As soon as his extravagant delight at
the prospect of a fight, and the pleasure of communicating
the news, had subsided, he gave a pretty accurate idea
of Armijo's force and position.
Shortly afterwards a rumour reached the camp that the
two thousand Mexicans assembled in the canyon to oppose us,
have quarrelled among themselves; and that Armijo, taking
advantage of the dissensions, has fled with his dragoons
and artillery to the south. It is well known that he has
been averse to a battle, but some of his people threatened
his life if he refused to fight. He had been, for some
days, more in fear of his own people than of the American
army, having seen what they are blind to--the hopelessness
of resistance.
As we approached the ancient town of Pecos, a large fat
fellow, mounted on a mule, came toward us at full speed,
and, extending his hand to the general, congratulated him
on the arrival of himself and army. He said with a roar
of laughter, "Armijo and his troops have gone to h---ll,
and the canyon is all clear."
On reaching the canyon, it was found to be true that the Mexican
troops had dispersed and fled to the mountains, just as the old
Arapahoe chief had said they would. There, however, they commenced
to fortify, by chopping away the timber so that their artillery
could play to better advantage upon the American lines, and by
throwing up temporary breastworks. It was ascertained afterward,
on undoubted authority, that Armijo had an army of nearly seven
thousand Mexicans, with six pieces of artillery, and the advantage
of ground, yet he allowed General Kearney, with a force of less than
two thousand, to march through the almost impregnable gorge, and on
to the capital of the Province, without any attempt to oppose him.
Thus was New Mexico conquered with but little loss relatively.
For the further details of the movements of the Army of the West,
the reader is referred to general history, as this book, necessarily,
treats only of that portion of its march and the incidents connected
with it while travelling the Santa Fe Trail.
THE VALLEY OF TAOS.
The principal settlement in New Mexico, immediately after it was
reconquered from the Indians by the Spaniards, was, of course,
Santa Fe, and ranking second to it, that of the beautiful Valle de Taos,
which derived its name from the Taosa Indians, a few of whose direct
descendants are still occupying a portion of the region. As the
pioneers in the trade with Santa Fe made their first journeys to
the capital of the Province by the circuitous route of the Taos
valley, and the initial consignments of goods from the Missouri
were disposed of in the little villages scattered along the road,
the story of the Trail would be deficient in its integrity were the
thrilling historical facts connected with the romantic region omitted.
The reader will find on all maps, from the earliest published to the
latest issued by the local railroads, a town with the name of Taos,
which never had an existence. Fernandez de Taos is the chief city,
which has been known so long by the title of the valley that perhaps
the misnomer is excusable after many years' use.
Fernandez, or Taos as it is called, was once famous for its
distilleries of whiskey, made out of the native wheat, a raw, fiery
spirit, always known in the days of the Santa Fe trade as "Taos
lightning," which was the most profitable article of barter with
the Indians, who exchanged their buffalo robes and other valuable
furs for a supply of it, at a tremendous sacrifice.
According to the statement of Gregg, the first white settler of the
fertile and picturesque valley was a Spaniard named Pando, who
established himself there about 1745. This primitive pioneer of
the northern part of the Province was constantly exposed to the raids
of the powerful Comanches, but succeeded in creating a temporary
friendship with the tribe by promising his daughter, then a young
and beautiful infant, to the chief in marriage when she arrived
at a suitable age. At the time for the ratification of her father's
covenant with the Indians, however, the maiden stubbornly refused
to fulfil her part. The savages, enraged at the broken faith of
the Spaniard, immediately swept down upon the little settlement and
murdered everybody there except the betrothed girl, whom they
carried off into captivity. She was forced to live with the chief
as his wife, but he soon became tired of her and traded her for
another woman with the Pawnees, who, in turn, sold her to a Frenchman,
a resident of St. Louis. It is said that some of the most respectable
families of that city are descended from her, and fifty years ago
there were many people living who remembered the old lady, and her
pathetic story of trials and sufferings when with the Indians.
The most tragic event in the history of the valley was the massacre
of the provisional governor of the Territory of New Mexico, with
a number of other Americans, shortly after its occupation by the
United States.
Upon General Kearney's taking possession of Santa Fe, acting under
the authority of the President, he established a civil government
and put it into operation. Charles Bent was appointed governor,
and the other offices filled by Americans and Mexicans who were
rigidly loyal to the political change. At this time the command
of the troops devolved upon Colonel Sterling Price, Colonel Doniphan,
who ranked him, having departed from Santa Fe on an expedition
against the Navajoes. Notwithstanding the apparent submission of
the natives of New Mexico, there were many malcontents among them
and the Pueblo Indians, and early in December, some of the leaders,
dissatisfied with the change in the order of things, held secret
meetings and formulated plots to overthrow the existing government.
Midnight of the 24th of December was the time appointed for the
commencement of their revolutionary work, which was to be simultaneous
all over the country. The profoundest secrecy was to be preserved,
and the most influential men, whose ambition induced them to seek
preferment, were alone to be made acquainted with the plot. No woman
was to be privy to it, lest it should be divulged. The sound of
the church bell was to be the signal, and at midnight all were to
enter the Plaza at the same moment, seize the pieces of artillery,
and point them into the streets.
The time chosen for the assault was Christmas-eve, when the soldiers
and garrison would be indulging in wine and feasting, and scattered
about through the city at the fandangoes, not having their arms in
their hands. All the Americans, without distinction, throughout
the State, and such New Mexicans as had favoured the American
government and accepted office by appointment of General Kearney,
were to be massacred or driven from the country, and the conspirators
were to seize upon and occupy the government.
The conspiracy was detected in the following manner: a mulatto girl,
residing in Santa Fe, had married one of the conspirators, and had by
degrees obtained a knowledge of their movements and secret meetings.
To prevent the effusion of blood, which would inevitably be the result
of a revolution, she communicated to Colonel Price all the facts
of which she was in possession, and warned him to use the utmost
vigilance. The rebellion was immediately suppressed, but the
restless and unsatisfied ambition of the leaders of the conspiracy
did not long permit them to remain inactive. A second and still more
dangerous conspiracy was formed. The most powerful and influential
men in the State favoured the design, and even the officers of State
and the priests gave their aid and counsel. The people everywhere,
in the towns, villages, and settlements, were exhorted to arm and
equip themselves; to strike for their faith, their religion, and
their altars; and drive the "heretics," the "unjust invaders of
the country," from their soil, and with fire and sword pursue them
to annihilation. On the 18th of January this rebellion broke out
in every part of the State simultaneously.
On the 14th of January, Governor Bent, believing the conspiracy
completely crushed, with an escort of five persons--among whom were
the sheriff and circuit attorney--had left Santa Fe to visit his
family, who resided at Fernandez.
On the 19th, he was early roused from sleep by the populace, who,
with the aid of the Pueblos of Taos, were collected in front of his
dwelling striving to gain admittance. While they were effecting
an entrance, he, with an axe, cut through an adobe wall into another
house; and the Mexican wife of the occupant, a clever though shiftless
Canadian, hearing him, with all her strength rendered him assistance.
He retreated to a room, but, seeing no way of escaping from the
infuriated assailants, who fired upon him from a window, he spoke
to his weeping wife and trembling children, and, taking paper
from his pocket, endeavoured to write; but fast losing strength,
he commended them to God and his brothers and fell, pierced by a
ball from a Pueblo. Then rushing in and tearing off his gray-haired
scalp, the Indians bore it away in triumph.
The circuit attorney, T. W. Leal, was scalped alive and dragged
through the streets, his relentless persecutors pricking him with
lances. After hours of suffering, they threw him aside in the
inclement weather, he imploring them earnestly to kill him to end
his misery. A compassionate Mexican at last closed the tragic scene
by shooting him. Stephen Lee, brother to the general, was killed
on his own housetop. Narcisse Beaubien, son of the presiding judge
of the district, hid in an outhouse with his Indian slave, at the
commencement of the massacre, under a straw-covered trough.
The insurgents on the search, thinking that they had escaped,
were leaving, but a woman servant of the family, going to the
housetop, called to them, "Kill the young ones, and they will never
be men to trouble us." They swarmed back and, by cruelly putting
to death and scalping him and his slave, added two more to the list
of unfortunate victims.
The Pueblos and Mexicans, after their cruelties at Fernandez de Taos,
attacked and destroyed Turley's Ranch on the Arroyo Hondo[27] twelve
miles from Fernandez, or Taos. Arroyo Hondo runs along the base
of a ridge of a mountain of moderate elevation, which divides the
valley of Taos from that of the Rio Colorado, or Red River, both
flowing into the Del Norte. The trail from one place to the other
passes over the mountain, which is covered with pine, cedar, and
a species of dwarf oak; and numerous little streams run through
the many canyons.
On the bank of one of the creeks was a mill and distillery belonging
to an American named Turley, who did a thriving business. He possessed
herds of goats, and hogs innumerable; his barns were filled with
grain, his mill with flour, and his cellars with whiskey. He had
a Mexican wife and several children, and he bore the reputation of
being one of the most generous and kind-hearted of men. In times of
scarcity, no one ever sought his aid to be turned away empty-handed;
his granaries were always open to the hungry, and his purse to
the poor.
When on their road to Turley's, the Pueblos murdered two men, named
Harwood and Markhead. Markhead was one of the most successful
trappers and daring men among the old mountaineers. They were on
their way to Taos with their pack-animals laden with furs, when the
savages, meeting them, after stripping them of their goods, and
securing their arms by treachery, made them mount their mules under
pretence of conducting them to Taos, where they were to be given up
to the leaders of the insurrection. They had hardly proceeded
a mile when a Mexican rode up behind Harwood and discharged his gun
into his back; he called out to Markhead that he was murdered, and
fell to the ground dead.
Markhead, seeing that his own fate was sealed, made no struggle,
and was likewise shot in the back with several bullets. Both men
were then stripped naked, scalped, and horribly mutilated; their
bodies thrown into the brush to be devoured by the wolves.
These trappers were remarkable men; Markhead, particularly, was
celebrated in the mountains for his courage, reckless daring, and
many almost miraculous escapes when in the very hands of the Indians.
When some years previously he had accompanied Sir William Drummond
Stewart on one of his expeditions across the Rockies, it happened
that a half-breed Indian employed by Sir William absconded one night
with some animals, which circumstance annoyed the nobleman so much,
as it disturbed all his plans, that he hastily offered, never dreaming
that he would be taken up, to give five hundred dollars for the scalp
of the thief. The very next evening Markhead rode into camp with the
hair of the luckless horse-thief dangling at the muzzle of his rifle.
The wild crowd of rebels rode on to Turley's mill. Turley had been
warned of the impending uprising, but had treated the report with
indifference, until one morning a man in his employ, who had been
despatched to Santa Fe with several mule-loads of whiskey a few days
before, made his appearance at the gate on horseback, and hastily
informing the inmates of the mill that the New Mexicans had risen and
massacred Governor Bent and other Americans, galloped off. Even then
Turley felt assured that he would not be molested; but at the
solicitation of his men, he agreed to close the gate of the yard
around which were the buildings of the mill and distillery, and make
preparations for defence.
A few hours afterward a large crowd of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians
made their appearance, all armed with guns and bows and arrows, and,
advancing with a white flag, summoned Turley to surrender his house
and the Americans in it, guaranteeing that his own life should be
saved, but that every other American in the valley must be destroyed;
that the governor and all the Americans at Fernandez had been killed,
and that not one was to be left alive in all New Mexico.
To this summons Turley answered that he would never surrender his
house nor his men, and that if they wanted it or them, they must
take them.
The enemy then drew off, and, after a short consultation, commenced
the attack. The first day they numbered about five hundred, but were
hourly reinforced by the arrival of parties of Indians from the more
distant Pueblos, and New Mexicans from Fernandez, La Canada, and
other places.
The building lay at the foot of a gradual slope in the sierra, which
was covered with cedar bushes. In front ran the stream of the
Arroyo Hondo, about twenty yards from one side of the square, and
the other side was broken ground which rose abruptly and formed
the bank of the ravine. In the rear and behind the still-house was
some garden ground enclosed by a small fence, into which a small
wicket-gate opened from the corral.
As soon as the attack was determined upon, the assailants scattered
and concealed themselves under cover of the rocks and bushes which
surrounded the house. From these they kept up an incessant fire upon
every exposed portion of the building where they saw preparations
for defence.
The Americans, on their part, were not idle; not a man but was an old
mountaineer, and each had his trusty rifle, with a good store of
ammunition. Whenever one of the besiegers exposed a hand's-breadth
of his person, a ball from an unerring barrel whistled. The windows
had been blockaded, loopholes having been left, and through these
a lively fire was maintained. Already several of the enemy had
bitten the dust, and parties were seen bearing off the wounded up
the banks of the Canada. Darkness came on, and during the night
a continual fire was kept up on the mill, whilst its defenders,
reserving their ammunition, kept their posts with stern and silent
determination. The night was spent in casting balls, cutting patches,
and completing the defences of the building. In the morning the fight
was renewed, and it was found that the Mexicans had effected a
lodgment in a part of the stables, which were separated from the
other portions of the building by an open space of a few feet.
The assailants, during the night, had sought to break down the wall,
and thus enter the main building, but the strength of the adobe and
logs of which it was composed resisted effectually all their attempts.
Those in the stable seemed anxious to regain the outside, for their
position was unavailable as a means of annoyance to the besieged, and
several had darted across the narrow space which divided it from the
other part of the building, which slightly projected, and behind
which they were out of the line of fire. As soon, however, as the
attention of the defenders was called to this point, the first man
who attempted to cross, who happened to be a Pueblo chief, was dropped
on the instant, and fell dead in the centre of the intervening space.
It appeared to be an object to recover the body, for an Indian
immediately dashed out to the fallen chief, and attempted to drag him
within the shelter of the wall. The rifle which covered the spot
again poured forth its deadly contents, and the Indian, springing
into the air, fell over the body of his chief. Another and another
met with a similar fate, and at last three rushed to the spot, and,
seizing the body by the legs and head, had already lifted it from the
ground, when three puffs of smoke blew from the barricaded windows,
followed by the sharp cracks of as many rifles, and the three daring
Indians were added to the pile of corpses which now covered the body
of the dead chief.
As yet the besieged had met with no casualties; but after the fall
of the seven Indians, the whole body of the assailants, with a shout
of rage, poured in a rattling volley, and two of the defenders fell
mortally wounded. One, shot through the loins, suffered great agony,
and was removed to the still-house, where he was laid on a large
pile of grain, as being the softest bed that could be found.
In the middle of the day the attack was renewed more fiercely than
before. The little garrison bravely stood to the defence of the mill,
never throwing away a shot, but firing coolly, and only when a fair
mark was presented to their unerring aim. Their ammunition, however,
was fast failing, and to add to the danger of their situation,
the enemy set fire to the mill, which blazed fiercely, and threatened
destruction to the whole building. Twice they succeeded in overcoming
the flames, and, while they were thus occupied, the Mexicans and
Indians charged into the corral, which was full of hogs and sheep,
and vented their cowardly rage upon the animals, spearing and shooting
all that came in their way. No sooner were the flames extinguished
in one place than they broke out more fiercely in another; and
as a successful defence was perfectly hopeless, and the numbers of
the assailants increased every moment, a council of war was held by
the survivors of the little garrison, when it was determined,
as soon as night approached, that every one should attempt to escape
as best he could.
Just at dusk a man named John Albert and another ran to the
wicket-gate which opened into a kind of enclosed space, in which were
a number of armed Mexicans. They both rushed out at the same moment,
discharging their rifles full in the face of the crowd. Albert,
in the confusion, threw himself under the fence, whence he saw his
companion shot down immediately, and heard his cries for mercy as
the cowards pierced him with knives and lances. He lay without motion
under the fence, and as soon as it was quite dark he crept over
the logs and ran up the mountain, travelled by day and night, and,
scarcely stopping or resting, reached the Greenhorn, almost dead
with hunger and fatigue. Turley himself succeeded in escaping from
the mill and in reaching the mountain unseen. Here he met a Mexican
mounted on a horse, who had been a most intimate friend of his for
many years. To this man Turley offered his watch for the use of the
horse, which was ten times more than it was worth, but was refused.
The inhuman wretch, however, affected pity and consideration for the
fugitive, and advised him to go to a certain place, where he would
bring or send him assistance; but on reaching the mill, which was
a mass of fire, he immediately informed the Mexicans of Turley's
place of concealment, whither a large party instantly proceeded and
shot him to death.
Two others escaped and reached Santa Fe in safety. The mill and
Turley's house were sacked and gutted, and all his hard-earned savings,
which were concealed in gold about the house, were discovered, and,
of course, seized upon by the victorious Mexicans.
The following account is taken from Governor Prince's chapter on the
fight at Taos, in his excellent and authentic _History of New Mexico_:--
The startling news of the assassination of the governor was
swiftly carried to Santa Fe, and reached Colonel Price the
next day. Simultaneously, letters were discovered calling
on the people of the Rio Abajo to secure Albuquerque and
march northward to aid the other insurgents; and news
speedily followed that a united Mexican and Pueblo force of
large magnitude was marching down the Rio Grande valley
toward the capital, flushed with the success of the revolt
at Taos. Very few troops were in Santa Fe; in fact, the
number remaining in the whole territory was very small,
and these were scattered at Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and
other distant points. At the first-named town were Major
Edmonson and Captain Burgwin; the former in command of the
town, and the latter with a company of the First Dragoons.
Colonel Price lost no time in taking such measures as his
limited resources permitted. Edmonson was directed to come
immediately to Santa Fe to take command of the capital; and
Burgwin to follow Price as fast as possible to the scene
of hostilities. The colonel himself collected the few
troops at Santa Fe, which were all on foot, but fortunately
included the little battalion which under Captain Aubrey
had made such extraordinary marches on the journey across
the plains as to almost outwalk the cavalry. With these
was a volunteer company formed of nearly all of the American
inhabitants of the city, under the command of Colonel Ceran
St. Vrain, who happened to be in Santa Fe, together with
Judge Beaubien, at the time of the rising at Taos.
With this little force, amounting in all to three hundred
and ten men, Colonel Price started to march to Taos, or at
all events to meet the army which was coming toward the
capital from the north and which grew as it marched by
constant accessions from the surrounding country.
The city of Santa Fe was left in charge of a garrison under
Lieutenant-Colonel Willock. While the force was small
and the volunteers without experience in regular warfare,
yet all were nerved to desperation by the belief, since
the Taos murders, that the only alternative was victory
or annihilation.
The expedition set out on January 23d, and the next day
the Mexican army, under command of General Montoya as
commander-in-chief, aided by Generals Tafoya and Chavez,
was found occupying the heights commanding the road near
La Canada (Santa Cruz), with detachments in some strong
adobe houses near the river banks. The advance had been
seen shortly before at the rocky pass, on the road from
Pojuaque; and near there and before reaching the river, the
San Juan Pueblo Indians, who had joined the revolutionists
reluctantly and under a kind of compulsion, surrendered and
were disarmed by removing the locks from their guns.
On arriving at the Canada, Price ordered his howitzers to
the front and opened fire; and after a sharp cannonade,
directed an assault on the nearest houses by Aubrey's
battalion. Meanwhile an attempt by a Mexican detachment
to cut off the American baggage-wagons, which had not yet
come up, was frustrated by the activity of St. Vrain's
volunteers. A charge all along the line was then ordered
and handsomely executed; the houses, which, being of adobe,
had been practically so many ready-made forts, were
successively carried, and St. Vrain started in advance to
gain the Mexican rear. Seeing this manoeuvre, and fearing
its effects, the Mexicans retreated, leaving thirty-six
dead on the field. Among those killed was General Tafoya,
who bravely remained on the field after the remainder had
abandoned it, and was shot.
Colonel Price pressed on up the river as fast as possible,
passing San Juan, and at Los Luceros, on the 28th, his
little army was rejoiced at the arrival of reinforcements,
consisting of a mounted company of cavalry, Captain Burgwin's
company, which had been pushed up by forced marches on foot
from Albuquerque, and a six-pounder brought by Lieutenant
Wilson. Thus enlarged, the American force consisted of
four hundred and eighty men, and continued its advance up
the valley to La Joya, which was as far as the river road at
that time extended. Meanwhile the Mexicans had established
themselves in a narrow pass near Embudo, where the forest
was dense, and the road impracticable for wagons or cannon,
the troops occupying the sides of the mountains on both
sides of the canyon. Burgwin was sent with three companies
to dislodge them and open a passage--no easy task.
But St. Vrain's company took the west slope, and another
the right, while Burgwin himself marched through the gorge
between. The sharp-shooting of these troops did such
terrible execution that the pass was soon cleared, though
not without the display of great heroism, and some loss;
and the Americans entered Embudo without further opposition.
The difficulties of this campaign were greatly increased by
the severity of the weather, the mountains being thickly
covered with snow, and the cold so intense that a number
of men were frost-bitten and disabled. The next day Burgwin
reached Las Trampas, where Price arrived with the remainder
of the American army on the last day of January, and all
together they marched into Chamisal.
Notwithstanding the cold and snow they pressed on over the
mountain, and on the 3d of February reached the town of
Fernandez de Taos, only to find that the Mexican and Pueblo
force had fortified itself in the celebrated Pueblo of Taos,
about three miles distant. That force had diminished
considerably during the retreat from La Canada, many of the
Mexicans returning to their homes, and its greater part
now consisting of Pueblo Indians. The American troops were
worn out with fatigue and exposure, and in most urgent need
of rest; but their intrepid commander, desiring to give his
opponents no more time to strengthen their works, and full
of zeal and energy, if not of prudence, determined to
commence an immediate attack.
The two great buildings at this Pueblo, certainly the most
interesting and extraordinary inhabited structures in
America, are well known from descriptions and engravings.
They are five stories high and irregularly pyramidal in
shape, each story being smaller than the one below, in order
to allow ingress to the outer rooms of each tier from the
roofs. Before the advent of artillery these buildings were
practically impregnable, as, when the exterior ladders were
drawn up, there were no means of ingress, the side walls
being solid without openings, and of immense thickness.
Between these great buildings, each of which can accommodate
a multitude of men, runs the clear water of the Taos Creek;
and to the west of the northerly building stood the old
church, with walls of adobe from three to seven and a half
feet in thickness. Outside of all, and having its northwest
corner just beyond the church, ran an adobe wall, built for
protection against hostile Indians and which now answered
for an outer earthwork. The church was turned into a
fortification, and was the point where the insurgents
concentrated their strength; and against this Colonel Price
directed his principal attack. The six-pounder and the
howitzer were brought into position without delay, under
the command of Lieutenant Dyer, then a young graduate of
West Point, and since then chief of ordnance of the
United States army, and opened a fire on the thick adobe
walls. But cannon-balls made little impression on the
massive banks of earth, in which they embedded themselves
without doing damage; and after a fire of two hours,
the battery was withdrawn, and the troops allowed to return
to the town of Taos for their much-needed rest.
Early the next morning, the troops, now refreshed and ready
for the combat, advanced again to the Pueblo, but found
those within equally prepared. The story of the attack and
capture of this place is so interesting, both on account
of the meeting here of old and new systems of warfare--of
modern artillery with an aboriginal stronghold--and because
the precise localities can be distinguished by the modern
tourist from the description, that it seems best to insert
the official report as presented by Colonel Price.
Nothing could show more plainly how superior strong
earthworks are to many more ambitious structures of defence,
or more forcibly display the courage and heroism of those
who took part in the battle, or the signal bravery of the
accomplished Captain Burgwin which led to his untimely death.
Colonel Price writes:
"Posting the dragoons under Captain Burgwin about two
hundred and sixty yards from the western flank of the church,
I ordered the mounted men under Captains St. Vrain and Slack
to a position on the opposite side of the town, whence they
could discover and intercept any fugitives who might attempt
to escape toward the mountains, or in the direction of
San Fernando. The residue of the troops took ground about
three hundred yards from the north wall. Here, too,
Lieutenant Dyer established himself with the six-pounder
and two howitzers, while Lieutenant Hassendaubel, of Major
Clark's battalion, light artillery, remained with Captain
Burgwin, in command of two howitzers. By this arrangement
a cross-fire was obtained, sweeping the front and eastern
flank of the church. All these arrangements being made,
the batteries opened upon the town at nine o'clock A.M.
At eleven o'clock, finding it impossible to breach the
walls of the church with the six-pounder and howitzers,
I determined to storm the building. At a signal, Captain
Burgwin, at the head of his own company and that of Captain
McMillin, charged the western flank of the church, while
Captain Aubrey, infantry battalion, and Captain Barber and
Lieutenant Boon, Second Missouri Mounted Volunteers, charged
the northern wall. As soon as the troops above mentioned
had established themselves under the western wall of the
church, axes were used in the attempt to breach it, and a
temporary ladder having been made, the roof was fired.
About this time, Captain Burgwin, at the head of a small
party, left the cover afforded by the flank of the church,
and penetrating into the corral in front of that building,
endeavoured to force the door. In this exposed situation,
Captain Burgwin received a severe wound, which deprived me
of his valuable services, and of which he died on the
7th instant. Lieutenants McIlvaine, First United States
Dragoons, and Royall and Lackland, Second Regiment
Volunteers, accompanied Captain Burgwin into the corral,
but the attempt on the church door proved fruitless, and
they were compelled to retire behind the wall. In the
meantime, small holes had been cut in the western wall, and
shells were thrown in by hand, doing good execution.
The six-pounder was now brought around by Lieutenant Wilson,
who, at the distance of two hundred yards, poured a heavy
fire of grape into the town. The enemy, during all of
this time, kept up a destructive fire upon our troops.
About half-past three o'clock, the six-pounder was run up
within sixty yards of the church, and after ten rounds,
one of the holes which had been cut with the axes was
widened into a practicable breach. The storming party,
among whom were Lieutenant Dyer, of the ordnance, and
Lieutenant Wilson and Taylor, First Dragoons, entered and
took possession of the church without opposition.
The interior was filled with dense smoke, but for which
circumstance our storming party would have suffered great
loss. A few of the enemy were seen in the gallery,
where an open door admitted the air, but they retired
without firing a gun. The troops left to support the
battery on the north side were now ordered to charge on
that side.
"The enemy then abandoned the western part of the town.
Many took refuge in the large houses on the east, while
others endeavoured to escape toward the mountains.
These latter were pursued by the mounted men under Captains
Slack and St. Vrain, who killed fifty-one of them, only two
or three men escaping. It was now night, and our troops
were quietly quartered in the house which the enemy had
abandoned. On the next morning the enemy sued for peace,
and thinking the severe loss they had sustained would prove
a salutary lesson, I granted their supplication, on the
condition that they should deliver up to me Tomas, one of
their principal men, who had instigated and been actively
engaged in the murder of Governor Bent and others.
The number of the enemy at the battle of Pueblo de Taos
was between six and seven hundred, and of these one hundred
and fifty were killed, wounded not known. Our own loss was
seven killed and forty-five wounded; many of the wounded
have since died."
The capture of the Taos Pueblo practically ended the main
attempt to expel the Americans from the Territory.
Governor Montoya, who was a very influential man in the
conspiracy and styled himself the "Santa Ana of the North,"
was tried by court-martial, convicted, and executed on
February 7th, in the presence of the army. Fourteen others
were tried for participating in the murder of Governor Bent
and the others who were killed on the 19th of January, and
were convicted and executed. Thus, fifteen in all were
hung, being an equal number to those murdered at Taos, the
Arroyo Hondo, and Rio Colorado. Of these, eight were
Mexicans and seven were Pueblo Indians. Several more were
sentenced to be hung for treason, but the President very
properly pardoned them, on the ground that treason against
the United States was not a crime of which a Mexican
citizen could be found guilty, while his country was
actually at war with the United States.
There are several thrilling, as well as laughable, incidents connected
with the Taos massacre, and the succeeding trial of the insurrectionists;
in regard to which I shall quote freely from _Wah-to-yah_, whose
author, Mr. Lewis H. Garrard, accompanied Colonel St. Vrain across
the plains in 1846, and was present at the trial and execution of
the convicted participants.
One Fitzgerald, who was a private in Captain Burgwin's company of
Dragoons, in the fight at the Pueblo de Taos, killed three Mexicans
with his own hand, and performed heroic work with the bombs that were
thrown into that strong Indian fortress. He was a man of good feeling,
but his brother having been killed, or rather murdered by Salazar,
while a prisoner in the Texan expedition against Santa Fe, he swore
vengeance, and entered the service with the hope of accomplishing it.
The day following the fight at the Pueblo, he walked up to the
alcalde, and deliberately shot him down. For this act he was confined
to await a trial for murder.
One raw night, complaining of cold to his guard, wood was brought,
which he piled up in the middle of the room. Then mounting that,
and succeeding in breaking through the roof, he noiselessly crept
to the eaves, below which a sentinel, wrapped in a heavy cloak, paced
to and fro, to prevent his escape. He watched until the guard's back
was turned, then swung himself from the wall, and with as much ease
as possible, walked to a mess-fire, where his friends in waiting
supplied him with a pistol and clothing. When day broke, the town
of Fernandez lay far beneath him in the valley, and two days after
he was safe in our camp.
Many a hand-to-hand encounter ensued during the fight at Taos,
one of which was by Colonel Ceran St. Vrain, whom I knew intimately;
a grand old gentleman, now sleeping peacefully in the quaint little
graveyard at Mora, New Mexico, where he resided for many years.
The gallant colonel, while riding along, noticed an Indian with whom
he was well acquainted lying stretched out on the ground as if dead.
Confident that this particular red devil had been especially prominent
in the hellish acts of the massacre, the colonel dismounted from
his pony to satisfy himself whether the savage was really dead or
only shamming. He was far from being a corpse, for the colonel had
scarcely reached the spot, when the Indian jumped to his feet and
attempted to run a long, steel-pointed lance through the officer's
shoulder. Colonel St. Vrain was a large, powerfully built man;
so was the Indian, I have been told. As each of the struggling
combatants endeavoured to get the better of the other, with the
savage having a little the advantage, perhaps, it appears that
"Uncle Dick" Wooton, who was in the chase after the rebels, happened
to arrive on the scene, and hitting the Indian a terrific blow on
the head with his axe, settled the question as to his being a corpse.
Court for the trial of the insurrectionists assembled at nine o'clock.
On entering the room, Judges Beaubien and Houghton were occupying
their official positions. After many dry preliminaries, six prisoners
were brought in--ill-favoured, half-scared, sullen fellows; and the
jury of Mexicans and Americans having been empanelled, the trial
commenced. It certainly did appear to be a great assumption on the
part of the Americans to conquer a country, and then arraign the
revolting inhabitants for treason. American judges sat on the bench.
New Mexicans and Americans filled the jury-box, and American soldiery
guarded the halls. It was a strange mixture of violence and justice--
a middle ground between the martial and common law.
After an absence of a few minutes, the jury returned with a verdict
of "guilty in the first degree"--five for murder, one for treason.
Treason, indeed! What did the poor devil know about his new
allegiance? But so it was; and as the jail was overstocked with
others awaiting trial, it was deemed expedient to hasten the execution,
and the culprits were sentenced to be hung on the following Friday--
hangman's day.
Court was daily in session; five more Indians and four Mexicans
were sentenced to be hung on the 30th of April. In the court room,
on the occasion of the trial of these nine prisoners, were Senora Bent
the late governor's wife, and Senora Boggs, giving their evidence in
regard to the massacre, of which they were eye-witnesses. Mrs. Bent
was quite handsome; a few years previously she must have been a
beautiful woman. The wife of the renowned Kit Carson also was in
attendance. Her style of beauty was of the haughty, heart-breaking
kind--such as would lead a man, with a glance of the eye, to risk
his life for one smile.
The court room was a small, oblong apartment, dimly lighted by two
narrow windows; a thin railing keeping the bystanders from contact
with the functionaries. The prisoners faced the judges, and the
three witnesses--Senoras Bent, Boggs, and Carson--were close to them
on a bench by the wall. When Mrs. Bent gave her testimony, the eyes
of the culprits were fixed sternly upon her; when she pointed out
the Indian who had killed the governor, not a muscle of the chief's
face twitched or betrayed agitation, though he was aware her evidence
settled his death warrant; he sat with lips gently closed, eyes
earnestly fixed on her, without a show of malice or hatred--a spectacle
of Indian fortitude, and of the severe mastery to which the emotions
can be subjected.
Among the jurors was a trapper named Baptiste Brown, a Frenchman,
as were the majority of the trappers in the early days of the border.
He was an exceptionally kind-hearted man when he first came to the
mountains, and seriously inclined to regard the Indians with that
mistaken sentimentality characterizing the average New England
philanthropist, who has never seen the untutored savage on his native
heath. His ideas, however, underwent a marked change as the years
rolled on and he became more familiar with the attributes of the
noble red man. He was with Kit Carson in the Blackfeet country
many years before the Taos massacre, when his convictions were thus
modified, and it was from the famous frontiersman himself I learned
the story of Baptiste's conversion.
It was late one night in their camp on one of the many creeks in the
Blackfoot region, where they had been established for several weeks,
and Baptiste was on duty, guarding their meat and furs from the
incursions of a too inquisitive grizzly that had been prowling around,
and the impertinent investigations of the wolves. His attention was
attracted to something high up in a neighbouring tree, that seemed
restless, changing its position constantly like an animal of prey.
The Frenchman drew a bead upon it, and there came tumbling down at his
feet a dead savage, with his war-paint and other Indian paraphernalia
adorning his body. Baptiste was terribly hurt over the circumstance
of having killed an Indian, and it grieved him for a long time.
One day, a month after the incident, he was riding alone far away
from our party, and out of sound of their rifles as well, when a band
of Blackfeet discovered him and started for his scalp. He had no
possible chance for escape except by the endurance of his horse;
so a race for life began. He experienced no trouble in keeping out
of the way of their arrows--the Indians had no guns then--and hoped
to make camp before they could possibly wear out his horse. Just as
he was congratulating himself on his luck, right in front of him
there suddenly appeared a great gorge, and not daring to stop or to
turn to the right or left, the only thing to do was to make his animal
jump it. It was his only chance; it was death if he missed it, and
death by the most horrible torture if the Indians captured him.
So he drove his heels into his horse's sides, and essayed the
awful leap. His willing animal made a desperate effort to carry out
the desire of his daring rider, but the dizzy chasm was too wide,
and the pursuing savages saw both horse and the coveted white man
dash to the bottom of the frightful canyon together. Believing that
their hated enemy had eluded them forever, they rode back on their
trail, disgusted and chagrined, without even taking the trouble of
looking over the precipice to learn the fate of Baptiste.
The horse was instantly killed, and the Frenchman had both of his legs
badly broken. Far from camp, with the Indians in close proximity,
he did not dare discharge his rifle--the usual signal when a trapper
is lost or in danger--or to make any demonstration, so he was
compelled to lie there and suffer, hoping that his comrades,
missing him, would start out to search for him. They did so,
but more than twenty-four hours had elapsed before they found him,
as the bottom of the canyon was the last place they thought of.
Doctors, in the wild region where their camp was located, were as
impossible as angels; so his companions set his broken bones as well
as they could, while Baptiste suffered excruciating torture.
When they had completed their crude surgery, they improvised a litter
of poles, and rigged it on a couple of pack-mules, and thus carried
him around with them from camp to camp until he recovered--a period
extending over three months.
This affair completely cured Baptiste of his original sentimentality
in relation to the Indian, and he became one of their worst haters.
When acting as a juror in the trials of rebel Mexicans and Indians,
he was asleep half the time, and never heard much of the evidence,
and that portion which he did was so much Greek to him. In the last
nine cases, in which the Indian who had murdered Governor Bent
was tried, Baptiste, as soon as the jury room was closed, sang out:
"Hang 'em, hang 'em, sacre enfans des garces, dey dam gran rascale!"
"But wait," suggested one of the cooler members; "let's look at the
evidence and find out whether they are really guilty." Upon this
wise caution, Baptiste got greatly excited, paced the floor, and
cried out: "Hang de Indian anyhow; he may not be guilty now--mais he
vare soon will be. Hang 'em all, parceque dey kill Monsieur Charles;
dey take son topknot, vot you call im--scalp. Hang 'em, hang 'em--
sa-a-cre-e!"
On Friday the 9th, the day for the execution, the sky was unspotted,
save by hastily fleeting clouds; and as the rising sun loomed over
the Taos Mountain, the bright rays, shining on the yellow and white
mud-houses, reflected cheerful hues, while the shades of the toppling
peaks, receding from the plain beneath, drew within themselves.
The humble valley wore an air of calm repose. The Plaza was deserted;
woe-begone burros drawled forth sacrilegious brays, as the warm
sunbeams roused them from hard, grassless ground, to scent their
breakfast among straw and bones.
Poor Mexicans hurried to and fro, casting suspicious glances around;
los Yankees at El casa Americano drank their juleps, and puffed their
cigarettes in silence.
The sheriff, Metcalf, formerly a mountaineer, was in want of the
wherewithal to hang the condemned criminals, so he borrowed some
rawhide lariats and picket-ropes of a teamster.
"Hello, Met," said one of the party present, "these reatas are mighty
stiff--won't fit; eh, old feller?"
"I've got something to make 'em fit--good 'intment--don't emit very
sweet perfume; but good enough for Greasers," said the sheriff,
producing a dollar's worth of Mexican soft soap. "This'll make 'em
slip easy--a long ways too easy for them, I 'spect."
The prison apartment was a long chilly room, badly ventilated by
one small window and the open door, through which the sun lit up the
earth floor, and through which the poor prisoners wistfully gazed.
Two muscular Mexicans basked in its genial warmth, a tattered serape
interposing between them and the ground. The ends, once fringed but
now clear of pristine ornament, were partly drawn over their breasts,
disclosing in the openings of their fancifully colored shirts
--now glazed with filth and faded with perspiration--the bare skin,
covered with straight black hair. With hands under their heads,
in the mass of stringy locks rusty-brown from neglect, they returned
the looks of their executioners with an unmeaning stare, and
unheedingly received the salutation of--"Como le va!"
Along the sides of the room, leaning against the walls, were crowded
the poor wretches, miserable in dress, miserable in features,
miserable in feelings--a more disgusting collection of ragged, greasy,
unwashed prisoners were, probably, never before congregated within
so small a space as the jail of Taos.
About nine o'clock, active preparations were made for the execution,
and the soldiery mustered. Reverend padres in long black gowns,
with meek countenances, passed the sentinels, intent on spiritual
consolation, or the administration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Lieutenant-Colonel Willock, commanding the military, ordered every
American under arms. The prison was at the edge of the town;
no houses intervened between it and the fields to the north.
One hundred and fifty yards distant, a gallows was erected.
The word was passed, at last, that the criminals were coming.
Eighteen soldiers received them at the gate, with their muskets at
"port arms"; the six abreast, with the sheriff on the right--
nine soldiers on each side.
The poor prisoners marched slowly, with downcast eyes, arms tied
behind, and bare heads, with the exception of white cotton caps
stuck on the back, to be pulled over the face as the last ceremony.
The roofs of the houses in the vicinity were covered with women and
children, to witness the first execution by hanging in the valley
of Taos, save that of Montojo, the insurgent leader. No men were
near; a few stood afar off, moodily looking on.
On the flat jail roof was placed a mountain howitzer, loaded and
ranging the gallows. Near was the complement of men to serve it,
one holding in his hand a lighted match. The two hundred and thirty
soldiers, less the eighteen forming the guard, were paraded in front
of the jail, and in sight of the gibbet, so as to secure the prisoners
awaiting trial. Lieutenant-Colonel Willock, on a handsome charger,
commanded a view of the whole.
When within fifteen paces of the gallows, the side-guard, filing off
to the right, formed, at regular distances from each other, three
sides of a hollow square; the mountaineers composed the fourth and
front side, in full view of the trembling prisoners, who marched up to
the tree under which was a government wagon, with two mules attached.
The driver and sheriff assisted them in, ranging them on a board,
placed across the hinder end, which maintained its balance, as they
were six--an even number--two on each extremity, and two in the middle.
The gallows was so narrow that they touched. The ropes, by reason
of their size and stiffness, despite the soaping given them, were
adjusted with difficulty; but through the indefatigable efforts
of the sheriff and a lieutenant who had accompanied him, all
preliminaries were arranged, although the blue uniform looked sadly
out of place on a hangman.
With rifles at a "shoulder," the military awaited the consummation
of the tragedy. There was no crowd around to disturb; a death-like
stillness prevailed. The spectators on the roofs seemed scarcely
to move--their eyes were directed to the doomed wretches, with harsh
halters now encircling their necks.
The sheriff and his assistant sat down; after a few moments of
intense expectation, the heart-wrung victims said a few words to
their people. Only one of them admitted he had committed murder
and deserved death. In their brief but earnest appeals, the words
"mi padre, mi madre"--"my father, my mother"--were prominent.
The one sentenced for treason showed a spirit of patriotism worthy
of the cause for which he died--the liberty of his country; and
instead of the cringing recantation of the others, his speech was
a firm asseveration of his own innocence, the unjustness of his trial,
and the arbitrary conduct of his murderers. As the cap was pulled
over his face, the last words he uttered between his teeth with
a scowl were "Carajo, los Americanos!"
At a word from the sheriff, the mules were started, and the wagon
drawn from under the tree. No fall was given, and their feet remained
on the board till the ropes drew tight. The bodies swayed back and
forth, and while thus swinging, the hands of two came together with
a firm grasp till the muscles loosened in death.
After forty minutes' suspension, Colonel Willock ordered his command
to quarters, and the howitzer to be taken from its place on the roof
of the jail. The soldiers were called away; the women and population
in general collecting around the rear guard which the sheriff had
retained for protection while delivering the dead to their weeping
relatives.
While cutting a rope from one man's neck--for it was in a hard knot--
the owner, a government teamster standing by waiting, shouted angrily,
at the same time stepping forward:
"Hello there! don't cut that rope; I won't have anything to tie
my mules with."
"Oh! you darned fool," interposed a mountaineer, "the dead men's
ghosts will be after you if you use them lariats--wagh! They'll make
meat of you sartain."
"Well, I don't care if they do. I'm in government service; and if
them picket-halters was gone, slap down goes a dollar apiece.
Money's scarce in these diggin's, and I'm going to save all I kin
to take home to the old woman and boys."
FIRST OVERLAND MAIL.
On the summit of one of the highest plateaus bordering the Missouri
River, surrounded by a rich expanse of foliage, lies Independence,
the beautiful residence suburb of Kansas City, only ten miles distant.
Tradition tells that early in this century there were a few pioneers
camping at long distances from each other in the seemingly
interminable woods; in summer engaged in hunting the deer, elk, and
bear, and in winter in trapping. It is a well-known fact that
the Big Blue was once a favourite resort of the beaver, and that
even later their presence in great numbers attracted many a veteran
trapper to its waters.
Before that period the quaint old cities of far-off Mexico were
forbidden to foreign traders, excepting to the favoured few who were
successful in obtaining permits from the Spanish government. In 1821,
however, the rebellion of Iturbide crushed the power of the mother
country, and established the freedom of Mexico. The embargo upon
foreign trade was at once removed, and the Santa Fe Trail, for untold
ages only a simple trace across the continent, became the busy highway
of a relatively great commerce.
In 1817 the navigation of the Mississippi River was begun. On the 2d
of August of that year the steamer _General Pike_ arrived at St. Louis.
The first boat to ascend the Missouri River was the _Independence_;
she passed Franklin on the 28th of May, 1819, where a dinner was given
to her officers. In the same and the following month of that year,
the steamers _Western Engineer Expedition_ and _R. M. Johnson_ came
along, carrying Major Long's scientific exploring party, bound for
the Yellowstone.
The Santa Fe trade having been inaugurated shortly after these
important events, those engaged in it soon realized the benefits
of river navigation--for it enabled them to shorten the distance
which their wagons had to travel in going across the plains--and
they began to look out for a suitable place as a shipping and
outfitting point higher up the river than Franklin, which had been
the initial starting town.
By 1827 trading-posts had been established at Blue Mills, Fort Osage,
and Independence. The first-mentioned place, which is situated about
six miles below Independence, soon became the favourite landing,
and the exchange from wagons to boats settled and defied all efforts
to remove the headquarters of the trade from there for several years.
Independence, however, being the county seat and the larger place,
succeeded in its claims to be the more suitable locality, and as
early as 1832 it was recognized as the American headquarters and the
great outfitting point for the Santa Fe commerce, which it continued
to be until 1846, when the traffic was temporarily suspended by the
breaking out of the Mexican War.
Independence was not only the principal outfitting point for the
Santa Fe traders, but also that of the great fur companies. That
powerful association used to send out larger pack-trains than any
other parties engaged in the traffic to the Rocky Mountains;
they also employed wagons drawn by mules, and loaded with goods for
the Indians with whom their agents bartered, which also on their
return trip transported the skins and pelts of animals procured from
the savages. The articles intended for the Indian trade were
always purchased in St. Louis, and usually shipped to Independence,
consigned to the firm of Aull and Company, who outfitted the traders
with mules and provisions, and in fact anything else required by them.
Several individual traders would frequently form joint caravans,
and travel in company for mutual protection from the Indians. After
having reached a fifty-mile limit from the State line, each trader
had control of his own men; each took care of a certain number of
the pack-animals, loaded and unloaded them in camp, and had general
supervision of them.
Frequently there would be three hundred mules in a single caravan,
carrying three hundred pounds apiece, and very large animals more.
Thousands of wagons were also sent out from Independence annually,
each drawn by twelve mules or six yoke of oxen, and loaded with
general merchandise.
There were no packing houses in those days nearer than St. Louis,
and the bacon and beef used in the Santa Fe trade were furnished by
the farmers of the surrounding country, who killed their meat,
cured it, and transported it to the town where they sold it.
Their wheat was also ground at the local mills, and they brought
the flour to market, together with corn, dried fruit, beans, peas,
and kindred provisions used on the long route across the plains.
Independence very soon became the best market west of St. Louis for
cattle, mules, and wagons; the trade of which the place was the
acknowledged headquarters furnishing employment to several thousand
men, including the teamsters and packers on the Trail. The wages
paid varied from twenty-five to fifty dollars a month and rations.
The price charged for hauling freight to Santa Fe was ten dollars
a hundred pounds, each wagon earning from five to six hundred dollars
every trip, which was made in eighty or ninety days; some fast
caravans making quicker time.
The merchants and general traders of Independence in those days
reaped a grand harvest. Everything to eat was in constant demand;
mules and oxen were sold in great numbers every month at excellent
prices and always for cash; while any good stockman could readily
make from ten to fifty dollars a day.
One of the largest manufacturers and most enterprising young men in
Independence at that time was Hiram Young, a coloured man. Besides
making hundreds of wagons, he made all the ox-yokes used in the
entire traffic; fifty thousand annually during the '50's and until
the breaking out of the war. The forward yokes were sold at an
average of one dollar and a quarter, the wheel yokes a dollar higher.
The freight transported by the wagons was always very securely loaded;
each package had its contents plainly marked on the outside.
The wagons were heavily covered and tightly closed. Every man
belonging to the caravan was thoroughly armed, and ever on the alert
to repulse an attack by the Indians.
Sometimes at the crossing of the Arkansas the quicksands were so bad
that it was necessary to get the caravan over in a hurry; then forty
or fifty yoke of oxen were hitched to one wagon and it was quickly
yanked through the treacherous ford. This was not always the case,
however; it depended upon the stage of water and recent floods.
After the close of the war with Mexico, the freight business across
the plains increased to a wonderful degree. The possession of the
country by the United States gave a fresh impetus to the New Mexico
trade, and the traffic then began to be divided between Westport
and Kansas City. Independence lost control of the overland commerce
and Kansas City commenced its rapid growth. Then came the discovery
of gold in California, and this gave an increased business westward;
for thousands of men and their families crossed the plains and
the Rocky Mountains, seeking their fortunes in the new El Dorado.
The Old Trail was the highway of an enormous pilgrimage, and both
Independence and Kansas City became the initial point of a wonderful
emigration.
In Independence may still be seen a few of the old landmarks when
it was the headquarters of the Santa Fe trade.
An overland mail was started from the busy town as early as 1849.
In an old copy of the Missouri _Commonwealth_, published there under
the date of July, 1850, which I found on file in the Kansas State
Historical Society, there is the following account of the first mail
stage westward:--
We briefly alluded, some days since, to the Santa Fe line
of mail stages, which left this city on its first monthly
journey on the 1st instant. The stages are got up in
elegant style, and are each arranged to convey eight
passengers. The bodies are beautifully painted, and made
water-tight, with a view of using them as boats in ferrying
streams. The team consists of six mules to each coach.
The mail is guarded by eight men, armed as follows: Each man
has at his side, fastened in the stage, one of Colt's
revolving rifles; in a holster below, one of Colt's long
revolvers, and in his belt a small Colt's revolver, besides
a hunting-knife; so that these eight men are ready, in case
of attack, to discharge one hundred and thirty-six shots
without having to reload. This is equal to a small army,
armed as in the ancient times, and from the looks of this
escort, ready as they are, either for offensive or defensive
warfare with the savages, we have no fears for the safety
of the mails.
The accommodating contractors have established a sort of
base of refitting at Council Grove, a distance of one
hundred and fifty miles from this city, and have sent out
a blacksmith, and a number of men to cut and cure hay, with
a quantity of animals, grain, and provisions; and we
understand they intend to make a sort of traveling station
there, and to commence a farm. They also, we believe,
intend to make a similar settlement at Walnut Creek next
season. Two of their stages will start from here the
first of every month.
The old stage-coach days were times of Western romance and adventure,
and the stories told of that era of the border have a singular
fascination in this age of annihilation of distance.
Very few, if any, of the famous men who handled the "ribbons" in those
dangerous days of the slow journey across the great plains are among
the living; like the clumsy and forgotten coaches they drove,
they have themselves been mouldering into dust these many years.
In many places on the line of the Trail, where the hard hills have not
been subjected to the plough, the deep ruts cut by the lumbering
Concord coaches may yet be distinctly traced. Particularly are they
visible from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe track, as the cars
thunder rapidly toward the city of Great Bend, in Kansas, three miles
east of that town. Let the tourist as he crosses Walnut Creek look
out of his window toward the east at an angle of about thirty-five
degrees, and on the flint hills which slope gradually toward the
railroad, he will observe, very distinctly, the Old Trail, where it
once drew down from the divide to make the ford at the little stream.
The monthly stages started from each end of the route at the same time;
later the service was increased to once a week; after a while to
three times, until in the early '60's daily stages were run from both
ends of the route, and this was continued until the advent of the
railroad.
Each coach carried eleven passengers, nine closely stowed inside
--three on a seat--and two on the outside on the boot with the driver.
The fare to Santa Fe was two hundred and fifty dollars, the allowance
of baggage being limited to forty pounds; all in excess of that cost
half a dollar a pound. In this now seemingly large sum was included
the board of the travellers, but they were not catered to in any
extravagant manner; hardtack, bacon, and coffee usually exhausted
the menu, save that at times there was an abundance of antelope and
buffalo.
There was always something exciting in those journeys from the
Missouri to the mountains in the lumbering Concord coach. There was
the constant fear of meeting the wily red man, who persistently
hankered after the white man's hair. Then there was the playfulness
of the sometimes drunken driver, who loved to upset his tenderfoot
travellers in some arroya, long after the moon had sunk below
the horizon.
It required about two weeks to make the trip from the Missouri River
to Santa Fe, unless high water or a fight with the Indians made it
several days longer. The animals were changed every twenty miles
at first, but later, every ten, when faster time was made. What sleep
was taken could only be had while sitting bolt upright, because there
was no laying over; the stage continued on night and day until
Santa Fe was reached.
After a few years, the company built stations at intervals varying
from ten miles to fifty or more; and there the animals and drivers
were changed, and meals furnished to travellers, which were always
substantial, but never elegant in variety or cleanliness.
Who can ever forget those meals at the "stations," of which you were
obliged to partake or go hungry: biscuit hard enough to serve as
"round-shot," and a vile decoction called, through courtesy, coffee
--but God help the man who disputed it!
Some stations, however, were notable exceptions, particularly in the
mountains of New Mexico, where, aside from the bread--usually only
tortillas, made of the blue-flint corn of the country--and coffee
composed of the saints may know what, the meals were excellent.
The most delicious brook trout, alternating with venison of the
black-tailed deer, elk, bear, and all the other varieties of game
abounding in the region cost you one dollar, but the station-keeper
a mere trifle; no wonder the old residents and ranchmen on the line
of the Old Trail lament the good times of the overland stage!
Thirteen years ago I revisited the once well-known Kosloskie's Ranch,
a picturesque cabin at the foot of the Glorieta Mountains, about half
a mile from the ruins on the Rio Pecos. The old Pole was absent,
but his wife was there; and, although I had not seen her for fifteen
years, she remembered me well, and at once began to deplore the
changed condition of the country since the advent of the railroad,
declaring it had ruined their family with many others. I could not
disagree with her view of the matter, as I looked on the debris of
a former relative greatness all around me. I recalled the fact that
once Kosloskie's Ranch was the favourite eating station on the Trail;
where you were ever sure of a substantial meal--the main feature
of which was the delicious brook trout, which were caught out of
the stream which ran near the door while you were washing the dust
out of your eyes and ears.
The trout have vacated the Pecos; the ranch is a ruin, and stands
in grim contrast with the old temple and church on the hill; and both
are monuments of civilizations that will never come again.
Weeds and sunflowers mark the once broad trail to the quaint Aztec
city, and silence reigns in the beautiful valley, save when broken
by the passage of "The Flyer" of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
railway, as it struggles up the heavy grade of the Glorieta Mountains
a mile or more distant.
Besides the driver, there was another employee--the conductor or
messenger, as he was called. He had charge of the mail and express
matter, collected the fares, and attended generally to the requirements
of those committed to his care during the tedious journey; for he
was not changed like the driver, but stayed with the coach from its
starting to its destination. Sometimes fourteen individuals were
accommodated in case of emergency; but it was terribly crowded and
uncomfortable riding, with no chance to stretch your limbs, save for
a few moments at stations where you ate and changed animals.
In starting from Independence, powerful horses were attached to
the coach--generally four in number; but at the first station they
were exchanged for mules, and these animals hauled it the remainder
of the way. Drivers were changed about eight times in making the trip
to Santa Fe; and some of them were comical fellows, but full of nerve
and endurance, for it required a man of nerve to handle eight frisky
mules through the rugged passes of the mountains, when the snow was
drifted in immense masses, or when descending the curved, icy
declivities to the base of the range. A cool head was highly
necessary; but frequently accidents occurred and sometimes were
serious in their results.
A snowstorm in the mountains was a terrible thing to encounter by
the coach; all that could be done was to wait until it had abated,
as there was no going on in the face of the blinding sheets of
intensely cold vapour which the wind hurled against the sides of
the mountains. All inside of the coach had to sit still and shake
with the freezing branches of the tall trees around them. A summer
hailstorm was much more to be dreaded, however; for nowhere else on
the earth do the hailstones shoot from the clouds of greater size or
with greater velocity than in the Rocky Mountains. Such an event
invariably frightened the mules and caused them to stampede; and,
to escape death from the coach rolling down some frightful abyss,
one had to jump out, only to be beaten to a jelly by the masses of
ice unless shelter could be found under some friendly ledge of rock
or the thick limbs of a tree.
Nothing is more fatiguing than travelling for the first day and night
in a stage-coach; after that, however, one gets used to it and the
remainder of the journey is relatively comfortable.
The only way to alleviate the monotony of riding hour after hour
was to walk; occasionally this was rendered absolutely necessary
by some accident, such as breaking a wheel or axle, or when an animal
gave out before a station was reached. In such cases, however,
no deduction was made from the fare, that having been collected in
advance, so it cost you just as much whether you rode or walked.
You could exercise your will in the matter, but you must not lag
behind the coach; the savages were always watching for such derelicts,
and your hair was the forfeit!
In the worst years, when the Indians were most decidedly on the
war-trail, the government furnished an escort of soldiers from the
military posts; they generally rode in a six-mule army-wagon, and
were commanded by a sergeant or corporal; but in the early days,
before the army had concentrated at the various forts on the great
plains, the stage had to rely on the courage and fighting qualities
of its occupants, and the nerve and the good judgment of the driver.
If the latter understood his duty thoroughly and was familiar with
the methods of the savages, he always chose the cover of darkness
in which to travel in localities where the danger from Indians was
greater than elsewhere; for it is a rare thing in savage warfare
to attack at night. The early morning seemed to be their favourite
hour, when sleep oppresses most heavily; and then it was that the
utmost vigilance was demanded.
One of the most confusing things to the novice riding over the great
plains is the idea of distance; mile after mile is travelled on
the monotonous trail, with a range of hills or a low divide in
full sight, yet hours roll by and the objects seem no nearer than
when they were first observed. The reason for this seems to be that
every atom of vapour is eliminated from the air, leaving such an
absolute clearness of atmosphere, such an indescribable transparency
of space through which distant objects are seen, that they are
magnified and look nearer than they really are. Consequently,
the usual method of calculating distance and areas by the eye is ever
at fault until custom and familiarity force a new standard of measure.
Mirages, too, were of frequent occurrence on the great plains;
some of them wonderful examples of the refracting properties of light.
They assumed all manner of fantastic, curious shapes, sometimes
ludicrously distorting the landscape; objects, like a herd of buffalo
for instance, though forty miles away, would seem to be high in air,
often reversed, and immensely magnified in their proportions.
Violent storms were also frequent incidents of the long ride.
I well remember one night, about thirty years ago, when the coach
in which I and one of my clerks were riding to Fort Dodge was
suddenly brought to a standstill by a terrible gale of wind and hail.
The mules refused to face it, and quickly turning around nearly
overturned the stage, while we, with the driver and conductor,
were obliged to hold on to the wheels with all our combined strength
to prevent it from blowing down into a stony ravine, on the brink
of which we were brought to a halt. Fortunately, these fearful
blizzards did not last very long; the wind ceased blowing so violently
in a few moments, but the rain usually continued until morning.
It usually happened that you either at once took a great liking for
your driver and conductor, or the reverse. Once, on a trip from
Kansas City, nearly a third of a century ago, when I and another man
were the only occupants of the coach, we entertained quite a friendly
feeling for our driver; he was a good-natured, jolly fellow, full of
anecdote and stories of the Trail, over which he had made more than
a hundred sometimes adventurous journeys.
When we arrived at the station at Plum Creek, the coach was a little
ahead of time, and the driver who was there to relieve ours commenced
to grumble at the idea of having to start out before the regular hour.
He found fault because we had come into the station so soon, and
swore he could drive where our man could not "drag a halter-chain,"
as he claimed in his boasting. We at once took a dislike to him,
and secretly wished that he would come to grief, in order to cure him
of his boasting. Sure enough, before we had gone half a mile from the
station he incontinently tumbled the coach over into a sandy arroya,
and we were delighted at the accident. Finding ourselves free from
any injury, we went to work and assisted him to right the coach--
no small task; but we took great delight in reminding him several
times of his ability to drive where our old friend could not "drag
a halter-chain." It was very dark; neither moon or star visible,
the whole heavens covered with an inky blackness of ominous clouds;
so he was not so much to be blamed after all.
The very next coach was attacked at the crossing of Cow Creek by
a band of Kiowas. The savages had followed the stage all that
afternoon, but remained out of sight until just at dark, when they
rushed over the low divide, and mounted on their ponies commenced
to circle around the coach, making the sand dunes resound with echoes
of their infernal yelling, and shaking their buffalo-robes to stampede
the mules, at the same time firing their guns at the men who were
in the coach, all of whom made a bold stand, but were rapidly getting
the worst of it, when fortunately a company of United States cavalry
came over the Trail from the west, and drove the savages off.
Two of the men in the coach were seriously wounded, and one of the
soldiers killed; but the Indian loss was never determined, as they
succeeded in carrying off both their dead and wounded.
Mr. W. H. Ryus, a friend of mine now residing in Kansas City, who was
a driver and messenger thirty-five years, and had many adventures,
told me the following incidents:
I have crossed the plains sixty-five times by wagon and
coach. In July, 1861, I was employed by Barnum, Vickery,
and Neal to drive over what was known as the Long Route,
that is, from Fort Larned to Fort Lyon, two hundred and
forty miles, with no station between. We drove one set of
mules the whole distance, camped out, and made the journey,
in good weather, in four or five days. In winter we
generally encountered a great deal of snow, and very cold
air on the bleak and wind-swept desert of the Upper Arkansas,
but we employees got used to that; only the passengers did
any kicking. We had a way of managing them, however,
when they got very obstreperous; all we had to do was to
yell Indians! and that quieted them quicker than forty-rod
whiskey does a man.
We gathered buffalo-chips, to boil our coffee and cook our
buffalo and antelope steak, smoked for a while around the
smouldering fire until the animals were through grazing,
and then started on our lonely way again.
Sometimes the coach would travel for a hundred miles through
the buffalo herds, never for a moment getting out of sight
of them; often we saw fifty thousand to a hundred thousand
on a single journey out or in. The Indians used to call
them their cattle, and claimed to own them. They did not,
like the white man, take out only the tongue, or hump, and
leave all the rest to dry upon the prairie, but ate every
last morsel, even to the intestines. They said the whites
were welcome to all they could eat or haul away, but they
did not like to see so much meat wasted as was our custom.
The Indians on the plains were not at all hostile in 1861-62;
we could drive into their villages, where there were tens
of thousands of them, and they would always treat us to
music or a war-dance, and set before us the choicest of
their venison and buffalo. In July of the last-mentioned
year, Colonel Leavenworth, Jr., was crossing the Trail in
my coach. He desired to see Satanta, the great Kiowa chief.
The colonel's father[28] was among the Indians a great deal
while on duty as an army officer, while the young colonel
was a small boy. The colonel said he didn't believe that
old Satanta would know him.
Just before the arrival of the coach in the region of the
Indian village, the Comanches and the Pawnees had been
having a battle. The Comanches had taken some scalps,
and they were camping on the bank of the Arkansas River,
where Dodge City is now located. The Pawnees had killed
five of their warriors, and the Comanches were engaged in
an exciting war-dance; I think there were from twenty to
thirty thousand Indians gathered there, men, women, and
children of the several tribes--Comanches, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
Arapahoes, and others.
When we came in sight of their camp, the colonel knew, by
the terrible noise they were making, that a war-dance was
going on; but we did not know then whether it was on account
of troubles among themselves, or because of a fight with
the whites, but we were determined to find out. If he could
get to the old chief, all would be right. So he and I
started for the place whence the noise came. We met a savage
and the colonel asked him whether Satanta was there, and
what was going on. When he told us that they had had
a fight and it was a scalp-dance, our hair lowered; for we
knew that if it was in consequence of trouble with the
whites, we stood in some danger of losing our own scalps.
The Indian took us in, and the situation, too; and conducted
us into the presence of Satanta, who stood in the middle
of the great circle, facing the dancers. It was out on an
island in the stream; the chief stood very erect, and eyed
us closely for a few seconds, then the colonel told his
own name that the Indians had known him by when he was a boy.
Satanta gave one bound--he was at least ten feet from where
we were waiting--grasped the colonel's hand and excitedly
kissed him, then stood back for another instant, gave him
a second squeeze, offered his hand to me, which I,
of course, shook heartily, then he gazed at the man he had
known as a boy so many years ago, with a countenance
beaming with delight. I never saw any one, even among
the white race, manifest so much joy as the old chief did
over the visit of the colonel to his camp.
He immediately ordered some of his young men to go out and
herd our mules through the night, which they brought back
to us at daylight. He then had the coach hauled to the
front of his lodge, where we could see all that was going on
to the best advantage. We had six travellers with us on
this journey, and it was a great sight for the tenderfeet.
It was about ten o'clock at night when we arrived at
Satanta's lodge, and we saw thousands of squaws and bucks
dancing and mourning for their dead warriors. At midnight
the old chief said we must eat something at once. So he
ordered a fire built, cooked buffalo and venison, setting
before us the very best that he had, we furnishing canned
fruit, coffee, and sugar from our coach mess. There we sat,
and talked and ate until morning; then when we were ready
to start off, Satanta and the other chiefs of the various
tribes escorted us about eight miles on the Trail, where
we halted for breakfast, they remaining and eating with us.
Colonel Leavenworth was on his way to assume command of one of the
military posts in New Mexico; the Indians begged him to come back
and take his quarters at either Fort Larned or Fort Dodge. They told
him they were afraid their agent was stealing their goods and selling
them back to them; while if the Indians took anything from the whites,
a war was started.
Colonel A. G. Boone had made a treaty with these same Indians in 1860,
and it was agreed that he should be their agent. It was done, and
the entire savage nations were restful and kindly disposed toward
the whites during his administration; any one could then cross the
plains without fear of molestation. In 1861, however, Judge Wright,
of Indiana, who was a member of Congress at the time, charged Colonel
Boone with disloyalty.[29] He succeeded in having him removed.
Majors Russel and Waddell, the great government freight contractors
across the plains, gave Colonel Boone fourteen hundred acres of land,
well improved, with some fine buildings on it, about fifteen miles
east of Pueblo, Colorado. It was christened Booneville, and the
colonel moved there. In the fall of 1862, fifty influential Indians
of the various tribes visited Colonel Boone at his new home, and
begged that he would come back to them and be their agent. He told
the chiefs that the President of the United States would not let him.
Then they offered to sell their horses to raise money for him to go
to Washington to tell the Great Father what their agent was doing;
and to have him removed, or there was going to be trouble.
The Indians told Colonel Boone that many of their warriors would be
on the plains that fall, and they were declaring they had as much
right to take something to eat from the trains as their agent had
to steal goods from them.
Early in the winter of the next year, a small caravan of eight or ten
wagons travelling to the Missouri River was overhauled at Nine Mile
Ridge, about fifty miles west of Fort Dodge, by a band of Indians,
who asked for something to eat. The teamsters, thinking them to be
hostile, believed it would be a good thing to kill one of them anyhow;
so they shot an inoffensive warrior, after which the train moved on
to its camp and the trouble began. Every man in the whole outfit,
with the exception of one teamster, who luckily got to the Arkansas
River and hid, was murdered, the animals all carried away, and the
wagons and contents destroyed by fire.
This foolish act by the master of the caravan was the cause of a
long war, causing hundreds of atrocious murders and the destruction
of a great deal of property along the whole Western frontier.
That fall, 1863, Mr. Ryus was the messenger or conductor in charge
of the coach running from Kansas City to Santa Fe. He said:
It then required a month to make the round trip, about
eighteen hundred miles. On account of the Indian war
we had to have an escort of soldiers to go through the most
dangerous portions of the Trail; and the caravans all
joined forces for mutual safety, besides having an escort.
My coach was attacked several times during that season, and
we had many close calls for our scalps. Sometimes the
Indians would follow us for miles, and we had to halt and
fight them; but as for myself, I had no desire to kill one
of the miserable, outraged creatures, who had been swindled
out of their just rights.
I know of but one occasion when we were engaged in a fight
with them when our escort killed any of the attacking
savages; it was about two miles from Little Coon Creek
Station, where they surrounded the coach and commenced
hostilities. In the fight one officer and one enlisted man
were wounded. The escort chased the band for several miles,
killed nine of them, and got their horses.
CHARLES BENT.
Almost immediately after the ratification of the purchase of
New Mexico by the United States under the stipulations of the
"Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty," the Utes, one of the most powerful tribes
of mountain Indians, inaugurated a bloody and relentless war against
the civilized inhabitants of the Territory. It was accompanied by
all the horrible atrocities which mark the tactics of savage hatred
toward the white race. It continued for several years with more
or less severity; its record a chapter of history whose pages are
deluged with blood, until finally the Indians were subdued by the
power of the military.
Along the line of the Santa Fe Trail, they were frequently in
conjunction with the Apaches, and their depredations and atrocities
were very numerous; they attacked fearlessly freight caravans,
private expeditions, and overland stage-coaches, robbing and murdering
indiscriminately.
In January, 1847, the mail and passenger stage left Independence,
Missouri, for Santa Fe on one of its regular trips across the plains.
It had its full complement of passengers, among whom were a Mr. White
and family, consisting of his wife, one child, and a coloured nurse.
Day after day the lumbering Concord coach rolled on, with nothing to
disturb the monotony of the vast prairies, until it had left them
far behind and crossed the Range into New Mexico. Just about dawn,
as the unsuspecting travellers were entering the "canyon of the
Canadian,"[30] and probably waking up from their long night's sleep,
a band of Indians, with blood-curdling yells and their terrific
war-whoop, rode down upon them.
In that lonely and rock-sheltered gorge a party of the hostile savages,
led by "White Wolf," a chief of the Apaches, had been awaiting the
arrival of the coach from the East; the very hour it was due was
well known to them, and they had secreted themselves there the
night before so as to be on hand should it reach their chosen ambush
a little before the schedule time.
Out dashed the savages, gorgeous in their feathered war-bonnets,
but looking like fiends with their paint-bedaubed faces. Stopping the
frightened mules, they pulled open the doors of the coach and,
mercilessly dragging its helpless and surprised inmates to the ground,
immediately began their butchery. They scalped and mutilated the
dead bodies of their victims in their usual sickening manner, not a
single individual escaping, apparently, to tell of their fiendish acts.
If the Indians had been possessed of sufficient cunning to cover up
the tracks of their horrible atrocities, as probably white robbers
would have done, by dragging the coach from the road and destroying it
by fire or other means, the story of the murders committed in the
deep canyon might never have been known; but they left the tell-tale
remains of the dismantled vehicle just where they had attacked it,
and the naked corpses of its passengers where they had been ruthlessly
killed.
At the next stage station the employees were anxiously waiting for
the arrival of the coach, and wondering what could have caused
the delay; for it was due there at noon on the day of the massacre.
Hour after hour passed, and at last they began to suspect that
something serious had occurred; they sat up all through the night
listening for the familiar rumbling of wheels, but still no stage.
At daylight next morning, determined to wait no longer, as they felt
satisfied that something out of the usual course had happened,
a party hurriedly mounted their horses and rode down the broad trail
leading to the canyon.
Upon entering its gloomy mouth after a quick lope of an hour,
they discovered the ghastly remains of twelve mutilated bodies.
These were gathered up and buried in one grave, on the top of the
bluff overlooking the narrow gorge.
They could not be sure of the number of passengers the coach had
brought until the arrival of the next, as it would have a list of
those carried by its predecessor; but it would not be due for
several days. They naturally supposed, however, that the twelve dead
lying on the ground were its full complement.
Not waiting for the arrival of the next stage, they despatched a
messenger to the last station east that the one whose occupants
had been murdered had passed, and there learned the exact number
of passengers it had contained. Now they knew that Mrs. White,
her child, and the coloured nurse had been carried off into a
captivity worse than death; for no remains of a woman were found
with the others lying in the canyon.
The terrible news of the massacre was conveyed to Taos, where were
stationed several companies of the Second United States Dragoons,
commanded by Major William Greer; but as the weather had grown
intensely cold and stormy since the date of the massacre, it took
nearly a fortnight for the terrible story to reach there. The Major
acted promptly when appealed to to go after and punish the savages
concerned in the outrage, but several days more were lost in getting
an expedition ready for the field. It was still stormy while the
command was preparing for its work; but at last, one bright morning,
in a piercing cold wind, five troops of the dragoons, commanded by
Major Greer in person, left their comfortable quarters to attempt
the rescue of Mrs. White, her child, and nurse.
Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wooten, Joaquin Leroux, and Tom Tobin were
the principal scouts and guides accompanying the expedition, having
volunteered their services to Major Greer, which he had gladly accepted.
The massacre having occurred three weeks before the command had
arrived at the canyon of the Canadian, and snow having fallen almost
continuously ever since, the ground was deeply covered, making it
almost impossible to find the trail of the savages leading out of
the gorge. No one knew where they had established their winter camp
--probably hundreds of miles distant on some tributary of the Canadian
far to the south.
Carson, Wooton, and Leroux, after scanning the ground carefully at
every point, though the snow was ten inches deep, in a way of which
only men versed in savage lore are capable, were rewarded by
discovering certain signs, unintelligible to the ordinary individual[31]
--that the murderers had gone south out of the canyon immediately
after completing their bloody work, and that their camp was somewhere
on the river, but how far off none could tell.
The command followed up the trail discovered by the scouts for nearly
four hundred miles. Early one morning when that distance had been
rounded, and just as the men were about to break camp preparatory
to the day's march, Carson went out on a little reconnoissance on his
own account, as he had noticed a flock of ravens hovering in the air
when he first got out of his blankets at dawn, which was sufficient
indication to him that an Indian camp was located somewhere in the
vicinity; for that ominous bird is always to be found in the region
where the savages take up an abode, feeding upon the carcasses of
the many varieties of game killed for food. He had not proceeded
more than half a mile from the camp when he discovered two Indians
slowly riding over a low "divide," driving a herd of ponies before
them. The famous scout was then certain their village could not
be very far away. The savages did not observe him, as he took good
care they should not; so he returned quickly to where Major Greer
was standing by his camp-fire and reported the presence of a village
very close at hand.
The Major having sent for Tom Tobin and Uncle Dick Wooton, requested
them to go and find the exact location of the savages. These scouts
came back in less than half an hour, and reported a large number
of teepees in a thick grove of timber a mile away.
It was at once determined to surprise the savages in their winter
quarters by charging right among their lodges without allowing them
time to mount their ponies, as the gallant Custer rode, at the head
of his famous troopers of the Seventh Cavalry, into the camp of the
celebrated chief "Black Kettle" on the Washita, in the dawn of a
cold November morning twenty years afterward.
The command succeeded in getting within good charging distance of the
village without its occupants having any knowledge of its proximity;
but at this moment Major Greer was seized with an idea that he ought
to have a parley with the Indians before he commenced to fight them,
and for that purpose he ordered a halt, just as the soldiers were
eager for the sound of the "Charge!"
Never were a body of men more enraged. Carson gave vent to his wrath
in a series of elaborately carved English oaths, for which he was
noted when young; Leroux, whose naturally hot blood was roused,
swore at the Major in a curious mixture of bad French and worse
mountain dialect, and it appeared as if the battle would begin in the
ranks of the troops instead of those of the savages; for never was
a body of soldiers so disgusted at the act of any commanding officer.
This delay gave the Indians, who could be seen dodging about among
their lodges and preparing for a fight that was no longer a surprise,
time to hide their women and children, mount their ponies, and get
down into deep ravines, where the soldiers could not follow them.
While the Major was trying to convince his subordinates that his
course was the proper one, the Indians opened fire without any parley,
and it happened that at the first volley a bullet struck him in the
breast, but a suspender buckle deflected its course and he was not
seriously wounded.
The change in the countenance of their commanding officer caused by
the momentary pain was just the incentive the troopers wanted, and
without waiting for the sound of the trumpet, they spurred their
horses, dashed in, and charged the thunderstruck savages with the
shock of a tornado.
In two successful charges of the gallant and impatient troopers more
than a hundred of the Indians were killed and wounded, but the time
lost had permitted many to escape, and the pursuit of the stragglers
would have been unavailing under the circumstances; so the command
turned back and returned to Taos. In the village was found the body
of Mrs. White still warm, with three arrows in her breast. Had the
charge been made as originally expected by the troopers, her life
would have been saved. No trace of the child or of the coloured
nurse was ever discovered, and it is probable that they were both
killed while en route from the canyon to the village, as being
valueless to keep either as slaves or for other purposes.
The fate of the Apache chief, "White Wolf," who was the leader in
the outrages in the canyon of the Canadian, was fitting for his
devilish deeds. It was Lieutenant David Bell's fortune to avenge
the murder of Mrs. White and her family, and in an extraordinary
manner.[32] The action was really dramatic, or romantic; he was
on a scout with his company, which was stationed at Fort Union,
New Mexico, having about thirty men with him, and when near the canyon
of the Canadian they met about the same number of Indians. A parley
was in order at once, probably desired by the savages, who were
confronted with an equal number of troopers. Bell had assigned
the baggage-mules to the care of five or six of his command, and held
a mounted interview with the chief, who was no other than the infamous
White Wolf of the Jicarilla Apaches. As Bell approached, White Wolf
was standing in front of his Indians, who were on foot, all well armed
and in perfect line. Bell was in advance of his troopers, who were
about twenty paces from the Indians, exactly equal in number and
extent of line; both parties were prepared to use firearms.
The parley was almost tediously long and the impending duel was
arranged, White Wolf being very bold and defiant.
At last the leaders exchanged shots, the chief sinking on one knee
and aiming his gun, Bell throwing his body forward and making his
horse rear. Both lines, by command, fired, following the example
of their superiors, the troopers, however, spurring forward over
their enemies. The warriors, or nearly all of them, threw themselves
on the ground, and several vertical wounds were received by horse
and rider. The dragoons turned short about, and again charged through
and over their enemies, the fire being continuous. As they turned
for a third charge, the surviving Indians were seen escaping to a
deep ravine, which, although only one or two hundred paces off,
had not previously been noticed. A number of the savages thus
escaped, the troopers having to pull up at the brink, but sending
a volley after the descending fugitives.
In less than fifteen minutes twenty-one of the forty-six actors in
this strange combat were slain or disabled. Bell was not hit, but
four or five of his men were killed or wounded. He had shot
White Wolf several times, and so did others after him; but so
tenacious of life was the Apache that, to finish him, a trooper
got a great stone and mashed his head.
This was undoubtedly the greatest duel of modern times; certainly
nothing like it ever occurred on the Santa Fe Trail before or since.
The war chief of the Kiowa nation in the early '50's was Satank,
a most unmitigated villain; cruel and heartless as any savage that
ever robbed a stage-coach or wrenched off the hair of a helpless woman.
After serving a dozen or more years with a record for hellish
atrocities equalled by few of his compeers, he was deposed for alleged
cowardice, as his warriors claimed, under the following circumstances:--
The village of his tribe was established in the large bottoms,
eight miles from the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and about the same
distance from Fort Zarah.[33] All the bucks were absent on a hunting
expedition, excepting Satank and a few superannuated warriors.
The troops were out from Fort Larned on a grand scout after marauding
savages, when they suddenly came across the village and completely
took the Kiowas by surprise. Seeing the soldiers almost upon them,
Satank and other warriors jumped on their ponies and made good their
escape. Had they remained, all of them would have been killed or
at least captured; consequently Satank, thinking discretion better
than valour at that particular juncture, incontinently fled.
His warriors in council, however, did not agree with him; they thought
that it was his duty to have remained at the village in defence of
the women and children, as he had been urged to refrain from going on
the hunt for that very purpose.
Some time before Satank lost his office of chief, there was living
on Cow Creek, in a rude adobe building, a man who was ostensibly
an Indian trader, but whose traffic, in reality, consisted in selling
whiskey to the Indians, and consequently the United States troops
were always after him. He was obliged to cache his liquor in every
conceivable manner so that the soldiers should not discover it, and,
of course, he dreaded the incursions of the troops much more than
he did raids of the Indian marauders that were constantly on the Trail.
Satank and this illicit trader, whose name was Peacock, were great
chums. One day while they were indulging in a general good time
over sundry drinks of most villanous liquor, Satank said to Peacock:
"Peacock, I want you to write me a letter; a real nice one, that
I can show to the wagon-bosses on the Trail, and get all the 'chuck'
I want. Tell them I am Satank, the great chief of the Kiowas, and
for them to treat me the best they know how."
"All right, Satank," said Peacock; "I'll do so." Peacock then sat
down and wrote the following epistle:--
"The bearer of this is Satank. He is the biggest liar, beggar, and
thief on the plains. What he can't beg of you, he'll steal. Kick him
out of camp, for he is a lazy, good-for-nothing Indian."
Satank began at once to make use of the supposed precious document,
which he really believed would assure him the dignified treatment
and courtesy due to his exalted rank. He presented it to several
caravans during the ensuing week, and, of course, received a very
cool reception in every instance, or rather a very warm one.
One wagon-master, in fact, black-snaked him out of his camp.
After these repeated insults he sought another white friend, and
told of his grievances. "Look here," said Satank, "I asked Peacock
to write me a good letter, and he gave me this; but I don't
understand it! Every time I hand it to a wagon-boss, he gives me
the devil! Read it to me and tell me just what it does say."
His friend read it over, and then translated it literally to Satank.
The savage assumed a countenance of extreme disgust, and after musing
for a few moments, said: "Well, I understand it all now. All right!"
The next morning at daylight, Satank called for some of his braves
and with them rode out to Peacock's ranch. Arriving there, he called
out to Peacock, who had not yet risen: "Peacock, get up, the soldiers
are coming!" It was a warning which the illicit trader quickly
obeyed, and running out of the building with his field-glass in his
hand, he started for his lookout, but while he was ascending the
ladder with his back to Satank the latter shot him full of holes,
saying, as he did so: "There, Peacock, I guess you won't write any
more letters."
His warriors then entered the building and killed every man in it,
save one who had been gored by a buffalo bull the day before, and
who was lying in a room all by himself. He was saved by the fact
that the Indian has a holy dread of small-pox, and will never enter
an apartment where sick men lie, fearing they may have the awful
disease.
Satanta (White Bear) was the most efficient and dreaded chief of all
who have ever been at the head of the Kiowa nation. Ever restlessly
active in ordering or conducting merciless forays against an exposed
frontier, he was the very incarnation of deviltry in his determined
hatred of the whites, and his constant warfare against civilization.
He also possessed wonderful oratorical powers; he could hurl the most
violent invectives at those whom he argued with, or he could be
equally pathetic when necessary. He was justly called "The Orator of
the Plains," rivalling the historical renown of Tecumseh or Pontiac.
He was a short, bullet-headed Indian, full of courage and well versed
in strategy. Ordinarily, when on his visits to the various military
posts he wore a major-general's full uniform, a suit of that rank
having been given to him in the summer of 1866 by General Hancock.
He also owned an ambulance, a team of mules, and a set of harness,
the last stolen, maybe, from some caravan he had raided on the Trail.
In that ambulance, with a trained Indian driver, the wily chief
travelled, wrapped in a savage dignity that was truly laughable.
In his village, too, he assumed a great deal of style. He was very
courteous to his white guests, if at the time his tribe were at all
friendly with the government; nothing was too good for them.
He always laid down a carpet on the floor of his lodge in the post
of honour, on which they were to sit. He had large boards, twenty
inches wide and three feet long, ornamented with brass tacks driven
all around the edges, which he used for tables. He also had a
French horn, which he blew vigorously when meals were ready.
His friendship was only dissembling. During all the time that
General Sheridan was making his preparations for his intended winter
campaign against the allied plains tribes, Satanta made frequent
visits to the military posts, ostensibly to show the officers that
he was heartily for peace, but really to inform himself of what was
going on.
At that time I was stationed at Fort Harker, on the Smoky Hill.
One evening, General Sheridan, who was my guest, was sitting on the
verandah of my quarters, smoking and chatting with me and some other
officers who had come to pay him their respects, when one of my men
rode up and quietly informed me that Satanta had just driven his
ambulance into the fort, and was getting ready to camp near the mule
corral. On receiving this information, I turned to the general and
suggested the propriety of either killing or capturing the inveterate
demon. Personally I believed it would be right to get rid of such
a character, and I had men under my command who would have been
delighted to execute an order to that effect.
Sheridan smiled when I told him of Satanta's presence and the
excellent chance to get rid of him. But he said: "That would
never do; the sentimentalists in the Eastern States would raise
such a howl that the whole country would be horrified!"
Of course, in these "piping times of peace" the reader, in the quiet
of his own room, will think that my suggestion was brutal, and without
any palliation; my excuse, however, may be found in General
Washington's own motto: Exitus acta probat. If the suggestion had
been acted upon, many an innocent man and woman would have escaped
torture, and many a maiden a captivity worse than death.
As a specimen of Satanta's oratory, I offer the following, to show
the hypocrisy of the subtle old villain, and his power over the minds
of too sensitive auditors. Once Congress sent out to the central
plains a commission from Washington to inquire into the causes of
the continual warfare raging with the savages on the Kansas border;
to learn what the grievances of the Indians were; and to find some
remedy for the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children along
the line of the Old Trail.
Satanta was sent for by the commission as the leading spirit of the
formidable Kiowa nation. When he entered the building at Fort Dodge
in which daily sessions were held, he was told by the president to
speak his mind without any reservation; to withhold nothing, but to
truthfully relate what his tribe had to complain of on the part of
the whites. The old rascal grew very pathetic as he warmed up to
his subject. He declared that he had no desire to kill the white
settlers or emigrants crossing the plains, but that those who came
and lived on the land of his tribe ruthlessly slaughtered the buffalo,
allowing their carcasses to rot on the prairie; killing them merely
for the amusement it afforded them, while the Indian only killed
when necessity demanded. He also stated that the white hunters
set out fires, destroying the grass, and causing the tribe's horses
to starve to death as well as the buffalo; that they cut down and
otherwise destroyed the timber on the margins of the streams, making
large fires of it, while the Indian was satisfied to cook his food
with a few dry and dead limbs. "Only the other day," said he,
"I picked up a little switch on the Trail, and it made my heart bleed
to think that so small a green branch, ruthlessly torn out of the
ground and thoughtlessly destroyed by some white man, would in time
have grown into a stately tree for the use and benefit of my children
and grandchildren."
After the pow-wow had ended, and Satanta had got a few drinks of
red liquor into him, his real, savage nature asserted itself, and
he said to the interpreter at the settler's store: "Now didn't I
give it to those white men who came from the Great Father? Didn't I
do it in fine style? Why, I drew tears from their eyes! The switch
I saw on the Trail made my heart glad instead of sad; for I new there
was a tenderfoot ahead of me, because an old plainsman or hunter
would never have carried anything but a good quirt or a pair of spurs.
So I said to my warriors, 'Come on, boys; we've got him!' and when
we came in sight, after we had followed him closely on the dead run,
he threw away his rifle and held tightly on to his hat for fear
he should lose it!"
Another time when Satanta had remained at Fort Dodge for a very long
period and had worn out his welcome, so that no one would give him
anything to drink, he went to the quarters of his old friend,
Bill Bennett, the overland stage agent, and begged him to give him
some liquor. Bill was mixing a bottle of medicine to drench a
sick mule. The moment he set the bottle down to do something else,
Satanta seized it off the ground and drank most of the liquid before
quitting. Of course, it made the old savage dreadfully sick as well
as angry. He then started for a certain officer's quarters and again
begged for something to cure him of the effects of the former dose;
the officer refused, but Satanta persisted in his importunities;
he would not leave without it. After a while, the officer went to
a closet and took a swallow of the most nauseating medicine, placing
the bottle back on its shelf. Satanta watched his chance, and,
as soon as the officer left the room, he snatched the bottle out of
the closet and drank its contents without stopping to breathe.
It was, of course, a worse dose than the horse-medicine. The next
day, very early in the morning, he assembled a number of his warriors,
crossed the Arkansas, and went south to his village. Before leaving,
however, he burnt all of the government contractor's hay on the bank
of the river opposite the post. He then continued on to Crooked Creek,
where he murdered three wood-choppers, all of which, he said afterward,
he did in revenge for the attempt to poison him at Fort Dodge.
At the Comanche agency, where several of the government agents were
assembled to have a talk with chiefs of the various plains tribes,
Satanta said in his address: "I would willingly take hold of that part
of the white man's road which is represented by the breech-loading
rifles; but I don't like the corn rations--they make my teeth hurt!"
Big Tree was another Kiowa chief. He was the ally and close friend
of Satanta, and one of the most daring and active of his warriors.
The sagacity and bravery of these two savages would have been a credit
to that of the most famous warriors of the old French and Indian Wars.
Both were at last taken, tried, and sent to the Texas penitentiary
for life. Satanta was eventually pardoned; but before he was made
aware of the efforts that were being taken for his release,
he attempted to escape, and, in jumping from a window, fell and broke
his neck. His pardon arrived the next morning. Big Tree, through
the work of the sentimentalists of Washington, was set free and sent
to the Kiowa Reservation--near Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.
The next most audacious and terrible scourge of the plains was
"Ta-ne-on-koe" (Kicking Bird). He was a great warrior of the Kiowas,
and was the chief actor in some of the bloodiest raids on the Kansas
frontier in the history of its troublous times.
One of his captures was that of a Miss Morgan and Mrs. White.
They were finally rescued from the savages by General Custer, under
the following circumstances: Custer, who was advancing with his
column of invincible cavalrymen--the famous Seventh United States--
in search of the two unfortunate women, had arrived near the head
waters of one of the tributaries of the Washita, and, with only
his guide and interpreter, was far in advance of the column, when,
on reaching the summit of an isolated bluff, they suddenly saw a
village of the Kiowas, which turned out to be that of Kicking Bird,
whose handsome lodge was easily distinguishable from the rest.
Without waiting for his command, the general and his guide rode
boldly to the lodge of the great chief, and both dismounted, holding
cocked revolvers in their hands; Custer presented his at Kicking
Bird's head. In the meantime, Custer's column of troopers, whom
the Kiowas had good reason to remember for their bravery in many
a hard-fought battle, came in full view of the astonished village.
This threw the startled savages into the utmost consternation, but
the warriors were held in check by signs from Kicking Bird. As the
cavalry drew nearer, General Custer demanded the immediate release
of the white women. Their presence in the village was at first
denied by the lying chief, and not until he had been led to the limb
of a huge cottonwood tree near the lodge, with a rope around his neck,
did he acknowledge that he held the women and consent to give them up.
This well-known warrior, with a foreknowledge not usually found in the
savage mind, seeing the beginning of the end of Indian sovereignty
on the plains, voluntarily came in and surrendered himself to the
authorities, and stayed on the reservation near Fort Sill.
In June, 1867, a year before the breaking out of the great Indian war
on the central plains, the whole tribe of Kiowas, led by him,
assembled at Fort Larned. He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he
was without question one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen
on the plains. On that occasion he wore the full uniform of a
major-general of the United States army. He was as correctly moulded
as a statue when on horseback, and when mounted on his magnificent
charger the morning he rode out with General Hancock to visit the
immense Indian camp a few miles above the fort on Pawnee Fork,
it would have been a difficult task to have determined which was
the finer-looking man.
After Kicking Bird had abandoned his wicked career, he was regarded
by every army officer with whom he had a personal acquaintance as
a remarkably good Indian; for he really made the most strenuous
efforts to initiate his tribe into the idea that it was best for it
to follow the white man's road. He argued with them that the time
was very near when there would no longer be any region where the
Indians could live as they had been doing, depending on the buffalo
and other game for the sustenance of their families; they must adapt
themselves to the methods of their conquerors.
In July, 1869, he became greatly offended with the government for
its enforced removal of his tribe from its natural and hereditary
hunting-grounds into the reservation allotted to it. At that time
many of his warriors, together with the Comanches, made a raid on
the defenceless settlements of the northern border of Texas, in which
the savages were disastrously defeated, losing a large number of
their most beloved warriors. On the return of the unsuccessful
expedition, a great council was held, consisting of all the chiefs
and head men of the two tribes which had suffered so terribly in
the awful fight, to consider the best means of avenging the loss
of so many braves and friends. Kicking Bird was summoned before
that council and condemned as a coward; they called him a squaw,
because he had refused to go with the warriors of the combined tribes
on the raid into Texas.
He told a friend of mine some time afterward that he had intended
never again to go against the whites; but the emergency of the case,
and his severe condemnation by the council, demanded that he should
do something to re-establish himself in the good graces of his tribe.
He then made one of the most destructive raids into Texas that ever
occurred in the history of its border warfare, which successfully
restored him to the respect of his warriors.
In that raid Kicking Bird carried off vast herds of horses and a
large number of scalps. Although his tribe fairly worshipped him,
he was not at all satisfied with himself. He could look into the
future as well as any one, and from that time on to his tragic death
he laboured most zealously and earnestly in connection with the
Indian agents to bring his people to live on the reservation which
the government had established for them in the Territory.
At the inauguration of the so-called "Quaker Policy" by President
Grant, that sect was largely intrusted with the management of Indian
affairs, particularly in the selection of agents for the various
tribes. A Mr. Tatham was appointed agent for the Kiowas in 1869.
He at once gained the confidence of Kicking Bird, who became very
valuable to him as an assistant in controlling the savages. It was
through that chief's influence that Thomas Batty, another Quaker,
was allowed to take up his residence with the tribe, the first white
man ever accorded that privilege. Batty was permitted to erect
three tents, which were staked together, converting them into an
ample schoolhouse. In that crude, temporary structure he taught
the Kiowa youth the rudiments of an education. This very successful
innovation shows how earnest the former dreaded savage was in his
efforts to promote the welfare of his people, by trying to induce
them to "take the white man's road."
Batty succeeded admirably for a year in his office of teacher,
the chief all the time nobly withstanding the taunts and jeers of
his warriors and their threats of taking his life, for daring to
allow a white man within the sacred precincts of their village--
a thing unparalleled in the annals of the tribe.
At last trouble came; the dissatisfied members of the tribe, the
ambitious and restless young men, eager for renown, made another
unsuccessful raid into Texas. The result was that they lost nearly
the whole of the band, among which was the favourite son of Lone Wolf,
a noted chief.[34] After the death of his son, he declared that he
must and would have the scalp of a white man in revenge for the
untimely taking off of the young warrior. Of course, the most
available white man at this juncture was Batty, the Quaker teacher,
and he was chosen by Lone Wolf as the victim of savage revenge.
Here the noble instincts of Kicking Bird developed themselves.
He very plainly told Lone Wolf, who was constantly threatening and
thirsting for blood, that he could not kill Batty until he first
killed him and all his band. But Lone Wolf had fully determined
to have the hair of the innocent Quaker; so Kicking Bird, to avert
any collision between the two bands of Indians, kidnapped Batty
and ran him off to the agency, arriving at Fort Sill about an hour
before Lone Wolf's band of avengers overtook them, and thus the
Quaker teacher was saved.
One day, long after these occurrences, a friend of mine was in the
sutler's store at Fort Sill. In there was a stranger talking to
Mr. Fox, the agent of the Indians. Soon Kicking Bird entered the
establishment, and the stranger asked Mr. Fox who that fine-looking
Indian was. He was told, and then he begged the agent to say to him
that he would like to have a talk with him; for he it was who led
that famous raid into Texas. "I never saw better generalship in the
field in all my experience. He had three horses killed under him.
I was the surgeon of the rangers and was, of course, in the fight."[35]
When Kicking Bird was told that the Texas doctor desired to talk with
him, he replied with great dignity that he did not want to revive
those troublous times. "Tell him, though," said Kicking Bird, "that
was my last raid against the whites; that I am a changed man."
The President of the United States sent for Kicking Bird to come to
Washington, and to bring with him such other influential Indians as
he thought might aid in inducing the Kiowas to cease their continual
raiding on the border of Texas.
In due time Kicking Bird left for the capital, taking with him
Lone Wolf, Big Bow, and Sun Boy of the Kiowas, together with several
of the head men of the Comanches. When the deputation of savages
arrived in Washington, it was received at the presidential mansion
by the chief magistrate himself. So much more attention was given
to Kicking Bird than to the others, that they became very jealous,
particularly when the President announced to them the appointment
of Kicking Bird as the head chief of the tribe.[36] But Lone Wolf
would never recognize his authority, constantly urging the young men
to raid the settlements. Lone Wolf was a genuine savage, without one
redeeming trait, and his hatred of the white race was unparalleled
in its intensity. He was never known to smile. No other Indian can
show such a record of horrible massacres as he is responsible for.
His orders were rigidly obeyed, for he brooked no disobedience on
the part of his warriors.
In the summer of 1876, a party of English gentlemen left Fort Harker
for a buffalo hunt. They soon exhausted all their rations and started
a four-mule team back to the post for more. Some of Lone Wolf's band
of cut-throats came across the unfortunate teamster, killed him,
and ran off the team. After the occurrence, Kicking Bird came into
the agency at Fort Sill and told Mr. Haworth, the agent, that he had
given his word to the Great Father at Washington he would do all he
could to bring in those Indians who had been raiding by order of
Lone Wolf, particularly the two who had killed the Englishmen's driver.
He succeeded in bringing in twelve Indians in all, among them the
murderers of the driver. They, with Lone Wolf and Satank, were sent
to the Dry Tortugas for life. The morning they started on their
journey Satank talked very feelingly to Kicking Bird, with tears in
his eyes. He said that they might look for his bones along the road,
for he would never go to Florida. The savages were loaded into
government wagons. Satank was inside of one with a soldier on each
side of him, their legs hanging outside. Somehow the crafty villain
managed to slip the handcuffs off his wrists, at the same instant
seizing the rifle of one of his guards, and then shoved the two men
out with his feet. He tried to work the lever of the rifle, but
could not move it, and one of the soldiers, coming around the wagon
to where he was still trying to get the gun so as he could use it,
shot him down, and then threw his body on the Trail. Thus Satank
made good his vow that he would never be taken to Florida. He met
his death only a mile from the post.
After the departure of the condemned savages, the feeling in the tribe
against Kicking Bird increased to an alarming extent. Several times
the most incensed warriors tried to kill him by shooting at him from
an ambush. After he became fully aware that his life was in danger,
he never left his lodge without his carbine. He was as brave as a
lion, fearing none of the members of Lone Wolf's band; but he often
said it was only a question of a short time when he would be gotten
rid of; he did not allow the matter, however, to worry him in the
least, saying that he was conscious he had done his duty by his tribe
and the Great Father.
In a bend of Cash Creek, about half a mile below the mill, about half
a dozen of the Kiowas had their lodges, that of their chief being
among them. At ten o'clock one Monday in June, 1876, Mr. Haworth,
the agent, came in haste to the shops, called the master mechanic,
Mr. Wykes, out, told him to jump into the carriage quickly; that
Kicking Bird was dead.
When they arrived at the home of the great chief, sure enough he was
dead, and some of the women were engaged in folding his body in robes.
Other squaws were cutting themselves in a terrible manner, as is their
custom when a relative dies, and were also breaking everything
breakable about the lodge. Kicking Bird had always been scrupulously
clean and neat in the care of his home; it was adorned with the most
beautifully dressed buffalo robes and the finest furs, while the floor
was covered with matting.
It seems that Kicking Bird, after visiting Mr. Wykes that morning,
went immediately to his lodge, and sat down to eat something, but
just as he had finished a cup of coffee, he fell over, dead. He had
in his service a Mexican woman, and she had been bribed to poison him.
An expensive coffin was made at the agency for his remains, fashioned
out of the finest black walnut to be found in the country where that
timber grows to such a luxuriant extent. It was eight feet long
and four feet deep, but even then it did not hold one-half of his
effects, which were, according to the savage custom, interred with
his body.
The cries and lamentations of the warriors and women of his band
were heartrending; such a manifestation of grief was never before
witnessed at the agency. A handsome fence was erected around his
grave, in the cemetery at Fort Sill, and the government ordered
a beautiful marble monument to be raised over it; but I do not know
whether it was ever done.
Kicking Bird was only forty years old at the time of his sudden
taking off, and was very wealthy for an Indian. He knew the uses
of money and was a careful saver of it. A great roll of greenbacks
was placed in his coffin, and that fact having leaked out, it was
rumoured that his grave was robbed; but the story may not have been
true.
One of the greatest terrors of the Old Santa Fe Trail was the
half-breed Indian desperado Charles Bent. His mother was a Cheyenne
squaw, and his father the famous trader, Colonel Bent. He was born
at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and at a very early age placed
in one of the best schools that St. Louis afforded. His venerable
sire, with only a limited education himself, was determined that
his boy should profit by the culture and refinement of civilization,
so he was not allowed to return to his mountain home at Bent's Fort,
and the savage conditions under which he was born, until he had
attained his majority. He then spoke no language but English.
His mother died while he was absent at school, and his father
continued to live at the old fort, where Charles, after he had
reached the age of twenty-one, joined him.
Some Washington sentimentalist, philosophizing on the Indian character,
his knowledge being based on Cooper's novels probably, has said:
"Civilization has very marked effects upon an Indian. If he once
learns to speak English, he will soon forget all his native cunning
and pride of race." Let us see how this theory worked with Charley Bent.
As soon as the educated half-breed set his foot on his native heath
he readily found enough ambitious young bucks of his own age who
were willing to look on him as their leader. They loved him, too,
if such a thing were possible, as Fra Diavolo was loved by his wild
followers. His band was known as the "Dog-Soldiers"; a sort of a
semi-military organization, consisting of the most daring,
blood-thirsty young men of the tribe; and sometimes "squaw-men,"
that is, renegade white men married to squaws, attached themselves
to his command of cut-throats.
At the head of this collection of the worst savages, hardly ever
numbering over a hundred, Charles Bent robbed ranches, attacked
wagon-trains, overland coaches, and army caravans. He stole and
murdered indiscriminately. The history of his bloody work will
never be wholly revealed, for dead men have no tongues.
He would visit all alone, in the guise of plainsman, hunter, or
cattleman, the emigrant trains crossing the continent, always,
however, those which had only small escorts or none at all. Feigning
hunger, while his needs were being kindly furnished, he would glance
around him to learn what kind of an outfit it was; its value, its
destination, and how well guarded. Then he would take his leave with
many thanks, rejoin his band, and with it dash down on the train and
kill every human being unfortunate enough not to have escaped before
he arrived.
He was indefatigable in his efforts to kill off the whole corps of
army scouts. He would pass himself off as a fellow-scout, as a
deserter from some military post, or as an Indian trader, for he was
a wonderful actor, and would have achieved histrionic honours had
he chosen the stage as a profession.
He would always time his actions so as to be found apparently asleep
by a little camp-fire on the bank of Pawnee Fork, Crooked, Mulberry,
or Walnut creeks, all of which streams intercepted the trails running
north and south between the several military posts during the Indian
war, when he would seem delighted and astonished, or else simulate
suspicion. Then he would either murder the unsuspecting scout with
his own hands, or deliver him to the red fiends of his band to be
tormented.
The government offered a reward of five thousand dollars for Bent's
capture, dead or alive. It was reported currently that he was at last
killed in a battle with some deputy United States marshals, and that
they received the reward; but the whole thing was manufactured out of
whole cloth, and if the marshals received the money, Uncle Sam was
most outrageously swindled.
The facts are that he died of malarial fever superinduced by a wound
received in a fight with the Kaws, near the mouth of the Walnut and
not far from Fort Zarah. His "Dog-Soldiers" were whipped by the Kaws,
and his band driven off. Bent lingered for some time and died.
LA GLORIETA.
New Mexico, at the breaking out of the Civil War, was abandoned by
the government at Washington, or at least so overlooked that the
charge of neglect was merited. In the report of the committee on
the Conduct of the War, under date of July 15, 1862, Brevet
Lieutenant-Colonel B. S. Roberts of the regular army, major of the
Third Cavalry, who was stationed in the Territory in 1861, says:
It appears to me to be the determination of General Thomas[37]
not to acknowledge the service of the officers who saved
the Territory of New Mexico; and the utter neglect of the
adjutant-general's department for the last year to
communicate in any way with the commanding officer of the
department of New Mexico, or to answer his urgent appeals
for reinforcements, for money and other supplies, in
connection with his repudiation of the services of all the
army there, convinces me that he is not gratified at their
loyalty and their success in saving that Territory to
the Union.
If space could be given to the story of the carefully prepared plans
of the leaders of secession for the conquest of all the territory
south of a line drawn from Maryland directly west to the Pacific
coast, in which were California, Arizona, and New Mexico, it would
reveal some startling facts, and prove beyond question that it was
the intention of Jefferson Davis to precipitate the rebellion a
decade before it actually occurred. The basis of the scheme was to
inaugurate a war between Texas--which, when admitted into the Union,
claimed all that part of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande--and the
United States, in which conflict Mississippi and some of the other
Southern States were to become participants. The plan fell flat,
because, in 1851, Mr. Davis failed of a re-election to the governorship
of Mississippi.
So confident were many of Mr. Davis' allies in regard to the
contemplated rebellion, that they boasted to their friends of the
North, upon leaving Washington, that when they met again, it would
be upon a Southern battle-field.
I have alluded incidentally to what is known as the Texas Santa Fe
Expedition, inaugurated by the President of what was then the republic
of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar. It was given out to the world that
it was merely one of commercial interest--to increase the trade
between the two countries; but that it was intended for the conquest
of New Mexico, no one now, in the light of history, doubts.
It resulted in disaster, and is a story well worthy the examination
of the student of American politics.[38]
In 1861 General Twiggs commanded the military department of which
Texas was an important part. It will be remembered that he surrendered
to the Confederate government the troops, the munitions of war,
the forts, or posts as they were properly termed, and everything
pertaining to the United States army under his control. It was the
intention of the Confederacy to use this region as a military base
from which to continue its conquests westward, and capture the various
forts in New Mexico. Particularly they had their eyes upon Fort Union,
where there was an arsenal, which John B. Floyd, Secretary of War,
had taken especial care to have well stocked previously to the act
of secession.
But the conspirators had reckoned without their host; they imagined
the native Mexicans would eagerly accept their overtures, and readily
support the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Davis and his coadjutors had
evidently forgotten the effect of the Texas Santa Fe Expedition,
in 1841, upon the people of the Province of New Mexico; but the
natives themselves had not. Besides the loyalty of the Mexicans,
there was a factor which the Confederate leaders had failed to
consider, which was that the majority of the American pioneers had
come from loyal States.
Of course, there were many secessionists both in Colorado and
New Mexico who were watching the progress of rebellion in eager
anticipation; and it is claimed that in Denver a rebel flag was
raised--but how true that is I do not know.
John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, was one of the leading spirits of
the Confederacy. A year before the Civil War he placed in command
of the department of New Mexico a North Carolinian, Colonel Loring,
who was in perfect sympathy with his superior, and willing to carry
out his well-defined plans. In 1861 he ordered Colonel G. B. Crittenden
on an expedition against the Apaches. This officer at once tried to
induce his troops to attach themselves to the rebel army in Texas,
but he was met with an indignant refusal by Colonel Roberts and
the regular soldiers under him. The loyal colonel told Crittenden,
in the most forcible language, that he would resist any such attempt
on his part, and reported the action of Colonel Crittenden to the
commander of the department at Santa Fe. Of course, Colonel Loring
paid no attention to the complaint of disloyalty, and then Colonel
Roberts conveyed the tidings to the commanding officers of several
military posts in the Territory, whom he knew were true to the Union,
and only one man out of nearly two thousand regular soldiers
renounced his flag. Some of the officers stationed at New Mexico
were of a different mind, and one of them, Major Lynde, commanding
Fort Filmore, surrendered to a detachment of Texans, who paroled
the enlisted men, as they firmly refused to join the rebel forces.
Upon the desertion of Colonel Loring to the Southern Confederacy,
General Edward R. S. Canby was assigned to the command of the
department; next in rank was the loyal Roberts. At this perilous
juncture in New Mexico, there were but a thousand regulars all told,
but the Territory furnished two regiments of volunteers, commanded by
officers whose names had been famous on the border for years.
Among these was Colonel Ceran St. Vrain, who had been conspicuous
in the suppression of the Mexican insurrection of 1847, fifteen years
before. Kit Carson was lieutenant-colonel; J. F. Chaves, major; and
the most prominent of the line officers Captain Albert H. Pfeiffer,
with a record as an Indian fighter equal to that of Carson.
At the same time Colorado was girding on her armour for the impending
conflict. The governor of the prosperous Territory was William Gilpin,
an old army officer, who had spent a large part of his life on the
frontier, and had accompanied Colonel Doniphan, as major of his
regiment, across the plains, on the expedition to New Mexico in 1846.
Colonel Gilpin at once responded to the pleadings of New Mexico for
help, by organizing two companies at first, quickly following with
a full regiment. This Colorado regiment was composed of as fine
material as any portion of the United States could furnish.
John P. Slough, a war Democrat and a lawyer, was its colonel.
He afterwards became chief justice of New Mexico, and was brutally
murdered in that Territory.
John M. Chivington, a strict Methodist and a presiding elder of
that church, was offered the chaplaincy, but firmly declined, and,
like many others who wore the clerical garb, he quickly doffed it
and put on the attire of a soldier; so he was made major, and his
record as a fighter was equal to the best.
The commanding general knew well the plans of the rebels as to their
intended occupation of New Mexico, and, notwithstanding the weakness
of his force, determined to frustrate them if within the limits of
possibility. To that end he concentrated his little army, comprising
a thousand regular soldiers, the two regiments of New Mexico
volunteers, two companies of Colorado troops, and a portion of the
territorial militia, at Fort Craig, on the Rio Grande, to await
the approach of the Confederate troops, under the command of
General H. H. Sibley, an old regular army officer, a native of
Louisiana, and the inventor of the comfortable tent named after him.
Sibley's brigade comprised some three thousand men, the majority
of them Texans, and he expected that many more would flock to his
standard as he moved northward. On the 19th of February, 1862,
he crossed the Rio Grande below Fort Craig, not daring to attack
Canby in his intrenched position. The Union commander, in order
to keep the Texas troops from gaining the high points overlooking
the fort, placed portions of the Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Regulars,
together with Carson's and Pino's volunteers, on the other side of
the river. No collision occurred that day, but the next afternoon
Major Duncan, with his cavalry and Captain M'Rae's light battery,
having been sent across to reinforce the infantry, a heavy artillery
fire was immediately opened upon them by the Texans. The men under
Carson behaved splendidly, but the other volunteer regiments became
a little demoralized, and the general was compelled to call back
the force into the fort. Sibley's force, both men and animals,
suffered much from thirst, the latter stampeding, and many, wandering
into our lines, were caught by the scouts of the Union forces.
The next morning early Colonel Roberts was ordered to proceed about
seven miles up the river to keep the Texans away from the water at
a point where it was alone accessible, on account of the steepness
of the banks everywhere else.
The gallant Roberts, on arriving at the ford, planted a battery there,
and at once opened fire. This was the battle of Valverde, the details
of which, however, do not belong to this book, having been only
incidentally referred to in order to lead the reader intelligently
up to that of La Glorieta, Apache Canyon, or Pigeon's Ranch, as it
is indifferently called.
Valverde was lost to the Union troops, but never did men fight more
valiantly, with the exception of a few who did not act the part of
the true soldier. The brave M'Rae mounted one of the guns of his
battery, choosing to die rather than surrender.
General Sibley, after his doubtful victory at Valverde, continued
on to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The old city offered no resistance
to his occupation; in fact, some of the most influential Mexicans
were pleased, their leaning being strongly toward the Southern
Confederacy; but the common people were as loyal to the Union as
those of any of the Northern States, a feeling intensified by their
hatred for the Texans on account of the expedition of conquest in
1841, twenty-one years before. They contributed of their means to
aid the United States troops, but have never received proper credit
for their action in those days of trouble in the neglected Territory.
The Confederate general was disappointed at the way in which affairs
were going, for he had based great hopes upon the defection of the
native residents; but he determined to march forward to Fort Union,
where his friend Floyd had placed such stores as were likely to be
needed in the campaign which he had designed.
From Santa Fe to Fort Union, where the arsenal was located, the road
runs through the deep, rocky gorge known as Apache Canyon. It is
one of the wildest spots in the mountains, the walls on each side
rising from one to two thousand feet above the Trail, which is within
the range of ordinary cannon from every point, and in many places
of point-blank rifle-shot. Granite rocks and sands abound, and the
hills are covered with long-leafed pine. It is a gateway which,
in the hands of a skilful engineer and one hundred resolute men,
can be made perfectly impregnable.
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway passes directly through
this picturesque chasm, every foot of which is classic ground, and
in the season of the mountain freshets constant care is needed to
keep its bridges in place.
At its eastern entrance is a large residence, known as Pigeon's Ranch,
from which the battle to be described derives its name, though,
as stated, it is also known as that of Apache Canyon, and La Glorieta,[39]
the latter, perhaps, the most classical, from the range of mountains
enclosing the rent in the mighty hills.
The following detailed account of this battle I have taken from
the _History of Colorado_,[40] an admirable work:
The sympathizers with and abettors of the Southern
Confederacy inaugurated their plans by posting handbills
in all conspicuous places between Denver and the
mining-camps, designating certain localities where the
highest prices would be paid for arms of every description,
and for powder, lead, shot, and percussion caps.
Simultaneously, a small force was collected and put under
discipline to co-operate with parties expected from Arkansas
and Texas who were to take possession, first of Colorado,
and subsequently of New Mexico, anticipating the easy
capture of the Federal troops and stores located there.
Being apprised of the movement, the governor immediately
decided to enlist a full regiment of volunteers.
John P. Slough was appointed colonel, Samuel F. Tappan
lieutenant-colonel, and John J. M. Chivington major.
Without railroads or telegraphs nearer than the Missouri
River, and wholly dependent upon the overland mail coach
for communication with the States and the authorities at
Washington, news was at least a week old when received.
Thus the troops passed the time in a condition of doubt
and extreme anxiety, until the 6th of January, 1862, when
information arrived that an invading force under General
H. H. Sibley, from San Antonio, Texas, was approaching
the southern border of New Mexico, and had already captured
Forts Fillmore and Bliss, making prisoners of their
garrisons without firing a gun, and securing all their
stock and supplies.
Immediately upon receipt of this intelligence, efforts
were made to obtain the consent of, or orders from, General
Hunter, commanding the department at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas, for the regiment to go to the relief of General
Canby, then in command of the department of New Mexico.
On the 20th of February, orders came from General Hunter,
directing Colonel Slough and the First Regiment of Colorado
Volunteers to proceed with all possible despatch to
Fort Union, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, and report to General
Canby for service.
Two days thereafter, the command marched out of Camp Weld
two miles up the Platte River, and in due time encamped
at Pueblo, on the Arkansas River. At this point further
advices were received from Canby, stating that he had
encountered the enemy at Valverde, ten miles north of
Fort Craig, but, owing to the inefficiency of the newly
raised New Mexican volunteers, was compelled to retire.
The Texans under Sibley marched on up the Rio Grande,
levying tribute upon the inhabitants for their support.
The Colorado troops were urged to the greatest possible
haste in reaching Fort Union, where they were to unite
with such regular troops as could be concentrated at that
post, and thus aid in saving the fort and its supplies
from falling into Confederate hands. Early on the
following morning the order was given to proceed to Union
by forced marches, and it is doubtful if the same number of
men ever marched a like distance in the same length of time.
When the summit of Raton Pass was reached, another courier
from Canby met the command, who informed Colonel Slough
that the Texans had already captured Albuquerque and
Santa Fe with all the troops stationed at those places,
together with the supplies stored there, and that they
were then marching on Fort Union.
Arriving at Red River about sundown, the regiment was
drawn up in line and this information imparted to the men.
The request was then made for all who were willing to
undertake a forced march at night to step two paces to
the front, when every man advanced to the new alignment.
After a hasty supper the march was resumed, and at sunrise
the next morning they reached Maxwell's Ranch on the
Cimarron, having made sixty-four miles in less than
twenty-four hours. At ten o'clock on the second night
thereafter, the command entered Fort Union. It was there
discovered that Colonel Paul, in charge of the post, had
mined the fort, giving orders for the removal of the women
and children, and was preparing to blow up all the supplies
and march to Fort Garland or some other post to the
northward, on the first approach of the Confederates.
The troops remained at Union from the 13th to the 22d of
March, when by order of Colonel Slough they proceeded in
the direction of Santa Fe. The command consisted of
the First Colorado Volunteers; two Light Batteries,
one commanded by Captain Ritter and the other by Captain
Claflin; Ford's Company of Colorado Volunteers unattached;
two companies of the Fifth Regular Infantry; and two
companies of the Seventh United States Cavalry.
The force encamped at Bernal Springs, where Colonel Slough
determined to organize a detachment to enter Santa Fe by
night with the view of surprising the enemy, spiking his
guns, and after doing what other damage could be accomplished
without bringing on a general action, falling back on the
main body. The detachment chosen comprised sixty men each
from Companies A, D, and E of the Colorado regiment, with
Company F of the same mounted, and thirty-seven men each
from the companies of Captains Ford and Howland, and of
the Seventh Cavalry, the whole commanded by Major Chivington.
At sundown on the 25th of March it reached Kosloskie's Ranch,
where Major Chivington was informed that the enemy's pickets
were in the vicinity. He went into camp at once, and about
nine o'clock of the same evening sent out Lieutenant Nelson
of the First Colorado with thirty men of Company F, who
captured the Texan pickets while they were engaged in a game
of cards at Pigeon's Ranch, and before daylight on the
morning of the 26th, reported at camp with his prisoners.
After breakfast, the major, being apprised of the enemy's
whereabouts, proceeded cautiously, keeping his advance
guard well to the front. While passing near the summit
of the hill, the officer in command of the advance met
the Confederate advance, consisting of a first lieutenant
and thirty men, captured them without firing a gun, and
returning met the main body and turned them over to the
commanding officer. The Confederate lieutenant declared
that they had received no intimation of the advance from
Fort Union, but themselves expected to be there four days
later.
Descending Apache Canyon for the distance of half a mile,
Chivington's force observed the approaching Texans, about
six hundred strong, with three pieces of artillery, who,
on discovering the Federals, halted, formed line and battery,
and opened fire.
Chivington drew up his cavalry as a reserve under cover,
deployed Company D under Captain Downing to the right,
and Companies A and E under Captains Wynkoop and Anthony
to the left, directing them to ascend the mountain-side
until they were above the elevation of the enemy's artillery
and thus flank him, at the same time directing Captain
Howland, he being the ranking cavalry officer, to closely
observe the enemy, and when he retreated, without further
orders to charge with the cavalry. This disposition of
the troops proved wise and successful. The Texans soon
broke battery and retreated down the canyon a mile or more,
but from some cause Captain Howland failed to charge as
ordered, which enabled the Confederates to take up a new
and strong position, where they formed battery, threw their
supports well up the sides of the mountain, and again
opened fire.
Chivington dismounted Captains Howland and Lord with their
regulars, leaving their horses in charge of every fourth
man, and ordered them to join Captain Downing on the left,
taking orders from him. Our skirmishers advanced, and,
flanking the enemy's supports, drove them pell-mell down
the mountain-side, when Captain Samuel Cook, with Company F,
First Colorado, having been signalled by the major, made
as gallant and successful a charge through the canyon,
through the ranks of the Confederates and back, as was
ever performed. Meanwhile, our infantry advanced rapidly;
when the enemy commenced his retreat a second time, they
were well ahead of him on the mountain-sides and poured
a galling fire into him, which thoroughly demoralized and
broke him up, compelling the entire body to seek shelter
among the rocks down the canyon and in some cabins that
stood by the wayside.
After an hour spent in collecting the prisoners, and
caring for the wounded, both Federal and Confederate,
the latter having left in killed, wounded, and prisoners
a number equal to our whole force in the field, the first
baptism by fire of our volunteers terminated. The victory
was decided and complete. Night intervening, and there
being no water in the canyon, the little command fell back
to Pigeon's Ranch, whence a courier was despatched to
Colonel Slough, advising him of the engagement and its
result, and requesting him to bring forward the main
command as rapidly as possible, as the enemy with all his
forces had moved from Santa Fe toward Fort Union.
After interring the dead and making a comfortable hospital
for the wounded, on the afternoon of the 27th Chivington
fell back to the Pecos River at Kosloskie's Ranch and
encamped. On receiving the news from Apache Canyon,
Colonel Slough put his forces in motion, and at eleven
o'clock at night of the 27th joined Chivington at Kosloskie's.
At daybreak on the 28th, the assembly was sounded, and
the entire command resumed its march. Five miles out
from their encampment Major Chivington, in command of
a detachment composed of Companies A, B, H, and E of the
First Colorado, and Captain Ford's Company unattached,
with Captain Lewis' Company of the Fifth Regular Infantry,
was ordered to take the Galisteo road, and by a detour
through the mountains to gain the enemy's rear, if possible,
at the west end of Apache Canyon, while Slough advanced
slowly with the main body to gain his front about the
same time; thus devising an attack in front and rear.
About ten o'clock, while making his way through the scrub
pine and cedar brush in the mountains, Major Chivington
and his command heard cannonading to their right, and
were thereby apprised that Colonel Slough and his men
had met the enemy. About twelve o'clock he arrived with
his men on the summit of the mountain which overlooked
the enemy's supply wagons, which had been left in the
charge of a strong guard with one piece of artillery mounted
on an elevation commanding the camp and mouth of the canyon.
With great difficulty Chivington descended the precipitous
mountain, charged, took, and spiked the gun, ran together
the enemy's supply wagons of commissary, quartermaster,
and ordnance stores, set them on fire, blew and burnt
them up, bayoneted his mules in corral, took the guard
prisoners and reascended the mountain, where about dark
he was met by Lieutenant Cobb, aide-de-camp on Colonel
Slough's staff, with the information that Slough and his
men had been defeated and had fallen back to Kosloskie's.
Upon the supposition that this information was correct,
Chivington, under the guidance of a French Catholic priest,
in the intensest darkness, with great difficulty made
his way with his command through the mountains without
a road or trail, and joined Colonel Slough about midnight.
Meanwhile, after Chivington and his detachment had left
in the morning, Colonel Slough with the main body proceeded
up the canyon, and arriving at Pigeon's Ranch, gave orders
for the troops to stack arms in the road and supply their
canteens with water, as that would be the last opportunity
before reaching the further end of Apache Canyon.
While thus supplying themselves with water and visiting
the wounded in the hospital at Pigeon's Ranch, being
entirely off their guard, they were suddenly startled by
a courier from the advance column dashing down the road
at full speed and informing them that the enemy was close
at hand. Orders were immediately given to fall in and
take arms, but before the order could be obeyed the enemy
had formed battery and commenced shelling them.
They formed as quickly as possible, the colonel ordering
Captain Downing with Company D, First Colorado Volunteers,
to advance on the left, and Captain Kerber with Company I
First Colorado, to advance on the right. In the meantime
Ritter and Claflin opened a return fire on the enemy with
their batteries. Captain Downing advanced and fought
desperately, meeting a largely superior force in point
of numbers, until he was almost overpowered and surrounded;
when, happily, Captain Wilder of Company G of the First
Colorado, with a detachment of his command, came to his
relief, and extricated him and that portion of his Company
not already slaughtered. While on the opposite side,
the right, Company I had advanced into an open space,
feeling the enemy, and ambitious of capturing his battery,
when they were surprised by a detachment which was concealed
in an arroya, and which, when Kerber and his men were
within forty feet of it, opened a galling fire upon them.
Kerber lost heavily; Lieutenant Baker, being wounded,
fell back. In the meantime the enemy masked, and made
five successive charges on our batteries, determined to
capture them as they had captured Canby's at Valverde.
At one time they were within forty yards of Slough's
batteries, their slouch hats drawn down over their faces,
and rushing on with deafening yells. It seemed inevitable
that they would make the capture, when Captain Claflin
gave the order to cease firing, and Captain Samuel Robbins
with his company, K of the First Colorado, arose from the
ground like ghosts, delivering a galling fire, charged
bayonets, and on the double-quick put the rebels to flight.
During the whole of this time the cavalry, under Captain
Howland, were held in reserve, never moving except to
fall back and keep out of danger, with the exception of
Captain Cook's men, who dismounted and fought as infantry.
From the opening of the battle to its close the odds were
against Colonel Slough and his forces; the enemy being
greatly superior in numbers, with a better armament of
artillery and equally well armed otherwise. But every inch
of ground was stubbornly contested. In no instance did
Slough's forces fall back until they were in danger of
being flanked and surrounded, and for nine hours, without
rest or refreshment, the battle raged incessantly.
At one time Claflin gave orders to double-shot his guns,
they being nothing but little brass howitzers, and he
counted, "One, two, three, four," until one of his own
carriages capsized and fell down into the gulch; from which
place Captain Samuel Robbins and his company, K, extricated
it and saved it from falling into the enemy's hands.
Having been compelled to give ground all day, Colonel Slough,
between five and six o'clock in the afternoon, issued
orders to retreat. About the same time General Sibley
received information from the rear of the destruction of
his supply trains, and ordered a flag of truce to be sent
to Colonel Slough, which did not reach him, however, until
he arrived at Kosloskie's. A truce was entered into until
nine o'clock the next morning, which was afterward extended
to twenty-four hours, and under which Sibley with his
demoralized forces fell back to Santa Fe, laying that town
under tribute to supply his forces.
The 29th was spent in burying the dead, as well as those
of the Confederates which they left on the field, and
caring for the wounded. Orders were received from General
Canby directing Colonel Slough to fall back to Fort Union,
which so incensed him that while obeying the order he
forwarded his resignation, and soon after left the command.
Thus ended the battle of La Glorieta.
THE BUFFALO.
The ancient range of the buffalo, according to history and tradition,
once extended from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, embracing
all that magnificent portion of North America known as the Mississippi
valley; from the frozen lakes above to the "Tierras Calientes" of
Mexico, far to the south.
It seems impossible, especially to those who have seen them, as
numerous, apparently, as the sands of the seashore, feeding on the
illimitable natural pastures of the great plains, that the buffalo
should have become almost extinct.
When I look back only twenty-five years, and recall the fact that
they roamed in immense numbers even then, as far east as Fort Harker,
in Central Kansas, a little more than two hundred miles from the
Missouri River, I ask myself, "Have they all disappeared?"
An idea may be formed of how many buffalo were killed from 1868 to
1881, a period of only thirteen years, during which time they were
indiscriminately slaughtered for their hides. In Kansas alone
there was paid out, between the dates specified, two million five
hundred thousand dollars for their bones gathered on the prairies,
to be utilized by the various carbon works of the country, principally
in St. Louis. It required about one hundred carcasses to make one
ton of bones, the price paid averaging eight dollars a ton; so the
above-quoted enormous sum represented the skeletons of over thirty-one
millions of buffalo.[42] These figures may appear preposterous to
readers not familiar with the great plains a third of a century ago;
but to those who have seen the prairie black from horizon to horizon
with the shaggy monsters, they are not so. In the autumn of 1868
I rode with Generals Sheridan, Custer, Sully, and others, for three
consecutive days, through one continuous herd, which must have
contained millions. In the spring of 1869 the train on the Kansas
Pacific Railroad was delayed at a point between Forts Harker and
Hays, from nine o'clock in the morning until five in the afternoon,
in consequence of the passage of an immense herd of buffalo across
the track. On each side of us, and to the west as far as we could
see, our vision was only limited by the extended horizon of the flat
prairie, and the whole vast area was black with the surging mass
of affrighted buffaloes as they rushed onward to the south.
In 1868 the Union Pacific Railroad and its branch in Kansas was nearly
completed across the plains to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains,
the western limit of the buffalo range, and that year witnessed
the beginning of the wholesale and wanton slaughter of the great
ruminants, which ended only with their practical extinction seventeen
years afterward. The causes of this hecatomb of animals on the
great plains were the incursion of regular hunters into the region,
for the hides of the buffalo, and the crowds of tourists who crossed
the continent for the mere pleasure and novelty of the trip.
The latter class heartlessly killed for the excitement of the
new experience as they rode along in the cars at a low rate of speed,
often never touching a particle of the flesh of their victims,
or possessing themselves of a single robe. The former, numbering
hundreds of old frontiersmen, all expert shots, with thousands of
novices, the pioneer settlers on the public domain, just opened
under the various land laws, from beyond the Platte to far south
of the Arkansas, within transporting distance of two railroads,
day after day for years made it a lucrative business to kill for
the robes alone, a market for which had suddenly sprung up all over
the country.
On either side of the track of the two lines of railroads running
through Kansas and Nebraska, within a relatively short distance
and for nearly their whole length, the most conspicuous objects
in those days were the desiccated carcasses of the noble beasts
that had been ruthlessly slaughtered by the thoughtless and excited
passengers on their way across the continent. On the open prairie,
too, miles away from the course of legitimate travel, in some places
one could walk all day on the dead bodies of the buffaloes killed
by the hide-hunters, without stepping off them to the ground.
The best robes, in their relation to thickness of fur and lustre,
were those taken during the winter months, particularly February,
at which period the maximum of density and beauty had been reached.
Then, notwithstanding the sudden and fitful variations of temperature
incident to our mid-continent climate, the old hunters were especially
active, and accepted unusual risks to procure as many of the coveted
skins as possible. A temporary camp would be established under
the friendly shelter of some timbered stream, from which the hunters
would radiate every morning, and return at night after an arduous
day's work, to smoke their pipes and relate their varied adventures
around the fire of blazing logs.
Sometimes when far away from camp a blizzard would come down from
the north in all its fury without ten minutes' warning, and in a
few seconds the air, full of blinding snow, precluded the possibility
of finding their shelter, an attempt at which would only result
in an aimless circular march on the prairie. On such occasions,
to keep from perishing by the intense cold, they would kill a buffalo,
and, taking out its viscera, creep inside the huge cavity, enough
animal heat being retained until the storm had sufficiently abated
for them to proceed with safety to their camp.
Early in March, 1867, a party of my friends, all old buffalo hunters,
were camped in Paradise valley, then a famous rendezvous of the
animals they were after. One day when out on the range stalking,
and widely separated from each other, a terrible blizzard came up.
Three of the hunters reached their camp without much difficulty,
but he who was farthest away was fairly caught in it, and night
overtaking him, he was compelled to resort to the method described
in the preceding paragraph. Luckily, he soon came up with a
superannuated bull that had been abandoned by the herd; so he killed
him, took out his viscera and crawled inside the empty carcass, where
he lay comparatively comfortable until morning broke, when the storm
had passed over and the sun shone brightly. But when he attempted
to get out, he found himself a prisoner, the immense ribs of the
creature having frozen together, and locked him up as tightly as if
he were in a cell. Fortunately, his companions, who were searching
for him, and firing their rifles from time to time, heard him yell
in response to the discharge of their pieces, and thus discovered and
released him from the peculiar predicament into which he had fallen.
At another time, several years before the acquisition of New Mexico
by the United States, two old trappers were far up on the Arkansas
near the Trail, in the foot-hills hunting buffalo, and they, as is
generally the case, became separated. In an hour or two one of them
killed a fat young cow, and, leaving his rifle on the ground, went up
and commenced to skin her. While busily engaged in his work,
he suddenly heard right behind him a suppressed snort, and looking
around he saw to his dismay a monstrous grizzly ambling along in
that animal's characteristic gait, within a few feet of him.
In front, only a few rods away, there happened to be a clump of
scrubby pines, and he incontinently made a break for them, climbing
into the tallest in less time than it takes to tell of it. The bear
deliberately ate a hearty meal off the juicy hams of the cow,
so providentially fallen in his way, and when he had satiated himself,
instead of going away, he quietly stretched himself alongside of
the half-devoured carcass, and went to sleep, keeping one eye open,
however, on the movements of the unlucky hunter whom he had corralled
in the tree. In the early evening his partner came to the spot,
and killed the impudent bear, that, being full of tender buffalo meat,
was sluggish and unwary, and thus became an easy victim to the
unerring rifle; when the unwilling prisoner came down from his perch
in the pine, feeling sheepish enough. The last time I saw him he
told me he still had the bear's hide, which he religiously preserved
as a memento of his foolishness in separating himself from his rifle,
a thing he has never been guilty of before or since.
Kit Carson, when with Fremont on his first exploring expedition,
while hunting for the command, at some point on the Arkansas,
left a buffalo which he had just killed and partly cut up, to pursue
a large bull that came rushing by him alone. He chased his game
for nearly a quarter of a mile, not being able, however, to gain
on it rapidly, owing to the blown condition of his horse. Coming up
at length to the side of the fleeing beast, Carson fired, but at the
same instant his horse stepped into a prairie-dog hole, fell down
and threw Kit fully fifteen feet over his head. The bullet struck
the buffalo low under the shoulder, which only served to enrage him
so that the next moment the infuriated animal was pursuing Kit,
who, fortunately not much hurt, was able to run toward the river.
It was a race for life now, Carson using his nimble legs to the
utmost of their capacity, accelerated very much by the thundering,
bellowing bull bringing up the rear. For several minutes it was
nip and tuck which should reach the stream first, but Kit got there
by a scratch a little ahead. It was a big bend of the river, and
the water was deep under the bank, but it was paradise compared
with the hades plunging at his back; so Kit leaped into the water,
trusting to Providence that the bull would not follow. The trust
was well placed, for the bull did not continue the pursuit, but stood
on the bank and shook his head vehemently at the struggling hunter
who had preferred deep waves to the horns of a dilemma on shore.
Kit swam around for some time, carefully guarded by the bull, until
his position was observed by one of his companions, who attacked
the belligerent animal successfully with a forty-four slug, and then
Kit crawled out and--skinned the enemy!
He once killed five buffaloes during a single race, and used but
four balls, having dismounted and cut the bullet from the wound
of the fourth, and thus continued the chase. He it was, too, who
established his reputation as a famous hunter by shooting a buffalo
cow during an impetuous race down a steep hill, discharging his rifle
just as the animal was leaping on one of the low cedars peculiar
to the region. The ball struck a vital spot, and the dead cow
remained in the jagged branches. The Indians who were with him
on that hunt looked upon the circumstance as something beyond their
comprehension, and insisted that Kit should leave the carcass in
the tree as "Big Medicine." Katzatoa (Smoked Shield), a celebrated
chief of the Kiowas many years ago, who was over seven feet tall,
never mounted a horse when hunting the buffalo; he always ran after
them on foot and killed them with his lance.
Two Lance, another famous chief, could shoot an arrow entirely
through a buffalo while hunting on horseback. He accomplished this
remarkable feat in the presence of the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia,
who was under the care of Buffalo Bill, near Fort Hays, Kansas.
During one of Fremont's expeditions, two of his chasseurs, named
Archambeaux and La Jeunesse,[43] had a curious adventure on a
buffalo-hunt. One of them was mounted on a mule, the other on
a horse; they came in sight of a large band of buffalo feeding upon
the open prairie about a mile distant. The mule was not fleet enough,
and the horse was too much fatigued with the day's journey, to justify
a race, and they concluded to approach the herd on foot. Dismounting
and securing the ends of their lariats in the ground, they made
a slight detour, to take advantage of the wind, and crept stealthily
in the direction of the game, approaching unperceived until within
a few hundred yards. Some old bulls forming the outer picket guard
slowly raised their heads and gazed long and dubiously at the strange
objects, when, discovering that the intruders were not wolves, but two
hunters, they gave a significant grunt, turned about as though on
pivots, and in less than no time the whole herd--bulls, cows, and
calves--were making the gravel fly over the prairie in fine style,
leaving the hunters to their discomfiture. They had scarcely
recovered from their surprise, when, to their great consternation,
they beheld the whole company of the monsters, numbering several
thousand, suddenly shape their course to where the riding animals
were picketed. The charge of the stampeded buffalo was a magnificent
one; for the buffalo, mistaking the horse and the mule for two of
their own species, came down upon them like a tornado. A small cloud
of dust arose for a moment over the spot where the hunter's animals
had been left; the black mass moved on with accelerated speed, and
in a few seconds the horizon shut them all from view. The horse
and mule, with all their trappings, saddles, bridles, and holsters,
were never seen or heard of afterward.
Buffalo Bill, in less than eighteen months, while employed as hunter
of the construction company of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, in 1867-68,
killed nearly five thousand buffalo, which were consumed by the
twelve hundred men employed in track-laying. He tells in his
autobiography of the following remarkable experience he had at one
time with his favourite horse Brigham, on an impromptu buffalo hunt:--
One day we were pushed for horses to work on our scrapers,
so I hitched up Brigham, to see how he would work. He was
not much used to that kind of labour, and I was about giving
up the idea of making a work horse of him, when one of the
men called to me that there were some buffaloes coming over
the hill. As there had been no buffaloes seen anywhere
in the vicinity of the camp for several days, we had become
rather short of meat. I immediately told one of our men
to hitch his horses to a wagon and follow me, as I was going
out after the herd, and we would bring back some fresh meat
for supper. I had no saddle, as mine had been left at camp
a mile distant, so taking the harness from Brigham I mounted
him bareback, and started out after the game, being armed
with my celebrated buffalo killer Lucretia Borgia--a newly
improved breech-loading needle-gun, which I had obtained
from the government.
While I was riding toward the buffaloes, I observed five
horsemen coming out from the fort, who had evidently seen
the buffaloes from the post, and were going out for a chase.
They proved to be some newly arrived officers in that part
of the country, and when they came up closer I could see
by the shoulder-straps that the senior was a captain,
while the others were lieutenants.
"Hello! my friend," sang out the captain; "I see you are
after the same game we are."
"Yes, sir; I saw those buffaloes coming over the hill,
and as we were about out of fresh meat I thought I would
go and get some," said I.
They scanned my cheap-looking outfit pretty closely, and
as my horse was not very prepossessing in appearance, having
on only a blind bridle, and otherwise looking like a work
horse, they evidently considered me a green hand at hunting.
"Do you expect to catch those buffaloes on that Gothic
steed?" laughingly asked the captain.
"I hope so, by pushing on the reins hard enough," was
my reply.
"You'll never catch them in the world, my fine fellow,"
said the captain. "It requires a fast horse to overtake
the animals on the prairie."
"Does it?" asked I, as if I didn't know it.
"Yes; but come along with us, as we are going to kill them
more for pleasure than anything else. All we want are the
tongues and a piece of tenderloin, and you may have all
that is left," said the generous man.
"I am much obliged to you, captain, and will follow you,"
I replied.
There were eleven buffaloes in the herd, and they were not
more than a mile ahead of us. The officers dashed on as if
they had a sure thing on killing them all before I could
come up with them; but I had noticed that the herd was
making toward the creek for water, and as I knew buffalo
nature, I was perfectly aware that it would be difficult
to turn them from their direct course. Thereupon, I started
toward the creek to head them off, while the officers
came up in the rear and gave chase.
The buffaloes came rushing past me not a hundred yards
distant, with the officers about three hundred yards in
the rear. Now, thought I, is the time to "get my work in,"
as they say; and I pulled off the blind bridle from my
horse, who knew as well as I did that we were out after
buffaloes, as he was a trained hunter. The moment the
bridle was off he started at the top of his speed, running
in ahead of the officers, and with a few jumps he brought me
alongside the rear buffalo. Raising old Lucretia Borgia
to my shoulder, I fired, and killed the animal at the
first shot. My horse then carried me alongside the next
one, not ten feet away, and I dropped him at the next fire.
As soon as one of the buffalo would fall, Brigham would
take me so close to the next that I could almost touch it
with my gun. In this manner I killed the eleven buffaloes
with twelve shots; and as the last animal dropped, my horse
stopped. I jumped off to the ground, knowing that he would
not leave me--it must be remembered that I had been riding
him without bridle, reins, or saddle--and, turning around
as the party of astonished officers rode up, I said to them:--
"Now, gentlemen, allow me to present to you all the tongues
and tenderloins you wish from these buffaloes."
Captain Graham, for such I soon learned was his name,
replied: "Well, I never saw the like before. Who under
the sun are you, anyhow?"
"My name is Cody," said I.
Captain Graham, who was considerable of a horseman,
greatly admired Brigham, and said: "That horse of yours
has running points."
"Yes, sir; he has not only got the points, he is a runner
and knows how to use the points," said I.
"So I noticed," said the captain.
They all finally dismounted, and we continued chatting
for some little time upon the different subjects of horses,
buffaloes, hunting, and Indians. They felt a little sore
at not getting a single shot at the buffaloes; but the way
I had killed them, they said, amply repaid them for their
disappointment. They had read of such feats in books,
but this was the first time they had ever seen anything
of the kind with their own eyes. It was the first time,
also, that they had ever witnessed or heard of a white man
running buffaloes on horseback without a saddle or bridle.
I told them that Brigham knew nearly as much about the
business as I did, and if I had twenty bridles they would
have been of no use to me, as he understood everything,
and all that he expected of me was to do the shooting.
It is a fact that Brigham would stop if a buffalo did not
fall at the first fire, so as to give me a second chance;
but if I did not kill the animal then, he would go on, as
if to say, "You are no good, and I will not fool away my
time by giving you more than two shots." Brigham was the
best horse I ever saw or owned for buffalo chasing.
At one time an old, experienced buffalo hunter was following at the
heels of a small herd with that reckless rush to which in the
excitement of the chase men abandon themselves, when a great bull
just in front of him tumbled into a ravine. The rider's horse fell
also, throwing the old hunter over his head sprawling, but with
strange accuracy right between the bull's horns! The first to
recover from the terrible shock and to regain his legs was the horse,
which ran off with wonderful alacrity several miles before he stopped.
Next the bull rose, and shook himself with an astonished air, as if
he would like to know "how that was done?" The hunter was on the
great brute's back, who, perhaps, took the affair as a good practical
joke; but he was soon pitched to the ground, as the buffalo commenced
to jump "stiff-legged," and the latter, giving the hunter one
lingering look, which he long remembered, with remarkable good nature
ran off to join his companions. Had the bull been wounded, the rider
would have been killed, as the then enraged animal would have gored
and trampled him to death.
An officer of the old regular army told me many years ago that in
crossing the plains a herd of buffalo were fired at by a twelve-pound
howitzer, the ball of which wounded and stunned an immense bull.
Nevertheless, heedless of a hundred shots that had been fired at him,
and of a bulldog belonging to one of the officers, which had fastened
himself to his lips, the enraged beast charged upon the whole troop
of dragoons, and tossed one of the horses like a feather. Bull,
horse, and rider all fell in a heap. Before the dust cleared away,
the trooper, who had hung for a moment to one of the bull's horns
by his waistband, crawled out safe, while the horse got a ball from
a rifle through his neck while in the air and two great rips in his
flank from the bull.
In 1839 Kit Carson and Hobbs were trapping with a party on the
Arkansas River, not far from Bent's Fort. Among the trappers was
a green Irishman, named O'Neil, who was quite anxious to become
proficient in hunting, and it was not long before he received his
first lesson. Every man who went out of camp after game was expected
to bring in "meat" of some kind. O'Neil said that he would agree
to the terms, and was ready one evening to start out on his first
hunt alone. He picked up his rifle and stalked after a small herd
of buffalo in plain sight on the prairie not more than five or six
hundred yards from camp.
All the trappers who were not engaged in setting their traps or
cooking supper were watching O'Neil. Presently they heard the report
of his rifle, and shortly after he came running into camp, bareheaded,
without his gun, and with a buffalo bull close upon his heels;
both going at full speed, and the Irishman shouting like a madman,--
"Here we come, by jabers. Stop us! For the love of God, stop us!"
Just as they came in among the tents, with the bull not more than
six feet in the rear of O'Neil, who was frightened out of his wits
and puffing like a locomotive, his foot caught in a tent-rope, and
over he went into a puddle of water head foremost, and in his fall
capsized several camp-kettles, some of which contained the trappers'
supper. But the buffalo did not escape so easily; for Hobbs and
Kit Carson jumped for their rifles, and dropped the animal before
he had done any further damage.
The whole outfit laughed heartily at O'Neil when he got up out of
the water, for a party of old trappers would show no mercy to any
of their companions who met with a mishap of that character; but
as he stood there with dripping clothes and face covered with mud,
his mother-wit came to his relief and he declared he had accomplished
the hunter's task: "For sure," said he, "haven't I fetched the mate
into camp? and there was no bargain whether it should be dead or alive!"
Upon Kit's asking O'Neil where his gun was,--
"Sure," said he, "that's more than I can tell you."
Next morning Carson and Hobbs took up O'Neil's tracks and the
buffalo's, and after hunting an hour or so found the Irishman's rifle,
though he had little use for it afterward, as he preferred to cook
and help around camp rather than expose his precious life fighting
buffaloes.
A great herd of buffaloes on the plains in the early days, when one
could approach near enough without disturbing it to quietly watch
its organization and the apparent discipline which its leaders seemed
to exact, was a very curious sight. Among the striking features
of the spectacle was the apparently uniform manner in which the
immense mass of shaggy animals moved; there was constancy of action
indicating a degree of intelligence to be found only in the most
intelligent of the brute creation. Frequently the single herd was
broken up into many smaller ones, that travelled relatively close
together, each led by an independent master. Perhaps a few rods
only marked the dividing-line between them, but it was always
unmistakably plain, and each moved synchronously in the direction
in which all were going.
The leadership of a herd was attained only by hard struggles for the
place; once reached, however, the victor was immediately recognized,
and kept his authority until some new aspirant overcame him, or he
became superannuated and was driven out of the herd to meet his
inevitable fate, a prey to those ghouls of the desert, the gray wolves.
In the event of a stampede, every animal of the separate, yet
consolidated, herds rushed off together, as if they had all gone mad
at once; for the buffalo, like the Texas steer, mule, or domestic
horse, stampedes on the slightest provocation; frequently without
any assignable cause. The simplest affair, sometimes, will start
the whole herd; a prairie-dog barking at the entrance to his burrow,
a shadow of one of themselves or that of a passing cloud, is
sufficient to make them run for miles as if a real and dangerous
enemy were at their heels.
Like an army, a herd of buffaloes put out vedettes to give the alarm
in case anything beyond the ordinary occurred. These sentinels were
always to be seen in groups of four, five, or even six, at some
distance from the main body. When they perceived something approaching
that the herd should beware of or get away from, they started on
a run directly for the centre of the great mass of their peacefully
grazing congeners. Meanwhile, the young bulls were on duty as
sentinels on the edge of the main herd watching the vedettes;
the moment the latter made for the centre, the former raised their
heads, and in the peculiar manner of their species gazed all around
and sniffed the air as if they could smell both the direction and
source of the impending danger. Should there be something which their
instinct told them to guard against, the leader took his position
in front, the cows and calves crowded in the centre, while the rest
of the males gathered on the flanks and in the rear, indicating
a gallantry that might be emulated at times by the genus homo.
Generally buffalo went to their drinking-places but once a day, and
that late in the afternoon. Then they ambled along, following each
other in single file, which accounts for the many trails on the
plains, always ending at some stream or lake. They frequently
travelled twenty or thirty miles for water, so the trails leading
to it were often worn to the depth of a foot or more.
That curious depression so frequently seen on the great plains,
called a buffalo-wallow, is caused in this wise: The huge animals
paw and lick the salty, alkaline earth, and when once the sod is
broken the loose dirt drifts away under the constant action of
the wind. Then, year after year, through more pawing, licking,
rolling, and wallowing by the animals, the wind wafts more of the
soil away, and soon there is a considerable hole in the prairie.
Many an old trapper and hunter's life has been saved by following
a buffalo-trail when he was suffering from thirst. The buffalo-wallows
retain usually a great quantity of water, and they have often saved
the lives of whole companies of cavalry, both men and horses.
There was, however, a stranger and more wonderful spectacle to be seen
every recurring spring during the reign of the buffalo, soon after
the grass had started. There were circles trodden bare on the plains,
thousands, yes, millions of them, which the early travellers, who did
not divine their cause, called fairy-rings. From the first of April
until the middle of May was the wet season; you could depend upon its
recurrence almost as certainly as on the sun and moon rising at their
proper time. This was also the calving period of the buffalo, as
they, unlike our domestic cattle, only rutted during a single month;
consequently, the cows all calved during a certain time; this was the
wet month, and as there were a great many gray wolves that roamed
singly and in immense packs over the whole prairie region, the bulls,
in their regular beats, kept guard over the cows while in the act
of parturition, and drove the wolves away, walking in a ring around
the females at a short distance, and thus forming the curious circles.
In every herd at each recurring season there were always ambitious
young bulls that came to their majority, so to speak, and these were
ever ready to test their claims for the leadership, so that it may
be safely stated that a month rarely passed without a bloody battle
between them for the supremacy; though, strangely enough, the struggle
scarcely ever resulted in the death of either combatant.
Perhaps there is no animal in which maternal love is so wonderfully
developed as the buffalo cow; she is as dangerous with a calf by
her side as a she-grizzly with cubs, as all old mountaineers know.
The buffalo bull that has outlived his usefulness is one of the most
pitiable objects in the whole range of natural history. Old age
has probably been decided in the economy of buffalo life as the
unpardonable sin. Abandoned to his fate, he may be discovered,
in his dreary isolation, near some stream or lake, where it does not
tax him too severely to find good grass; for he is now feeble, and
exertion an impossibility. In this new stage of his existence he
seems to have completely lost his courage. Frightened at his own
shadow, or the rustling of a leaf, he is the very incarnation of
nervousness and suspicion. Gregarious in his habits from birth,
solitude, foreign to his whole nature, has changed him into a new
creature; and his inherent terror of the most trivial things is
intensified to such a degree that if a man were compelled to undergo
such constant alarm, it would probably drive him insane in less than
a week. Nobody ever saw one of these miserable and helplessly
forlorn creatures dying a natural death, or ever heard of such an
occurrence. The cowardly coyote and the gray wolf had already
marked him for their own; and they rarely missed their calculations.
Riding suddenly to the top of a divide once with a party of friends
in 1866, we saw standing below us in the valley an old buffalo bull,
the very picture of despair. Surrounding him were seven gray wolves
in the act of challenging him to mortal combat. The poor beast,
undoubtedly realizing the utter hopelessness of his situation,
had determined to die game. His great shaggy head, filled with burrs,
was lowered to the ground as he confronted his would-be executioners;
his tongue, black and parched, lolled out of his mouth, and he gave
utterance at intervals to a suppressed roar.
The wolves were sitting on their haunches in a semi-circle immediately
in front of the tortured beast, and every time that the fear-stricken
buffalo would give vent to his hoarsely modulated groan, the wolves
howled in concert in most mournful cadence.
After contemplating his antagonists for a few moments, the bull made
a dash at the nearest wolf, tumbling him howling over the silent
prairie; but while this diversion was going on in front, the remainder
of the pack started for his hind legs, to hamstring him. Upon this
the poor brute turned to the point of attack only to receive a
repetition of it in the same vulnerable place by the wolves, who had
as quickly turned also and fastened themselves on his heels again.
His hind quarters now streamed with blood and he began to show signs
of great physical weakness. He did not dare to lie down; that would
have been instantly fatal. By this time he had killed three of the
wolves or so maimed them that they were entirely out of the fight.
At this juncture the suffering animal was mercifully shot, and the
wolves allowed to batten on his thin and tough carcass.
Often there are serious results growing out of a stampede, either by
mules or a herd of buffalo. A portion of the Fifth United States
Infantry had a narrow escape from a buffalo stampede on the Old Trail,
in the early summer of 1866. General George A. Sykes, who commanded
the Division of Regulars in the Army of the Potomac during the
Civil War, was ordered to join his regiment, stationed in New Mexico,
and was conducting a body of recruits, with their complement of
officers, to fill up the decimated ranks of the army stationed at
the various military posts, in far-off Greaser Land.
The command numbered nearly eight hundred, including the subaltern
officers. These recruits, or the majority of them at least, were
recruits in name only; they had seen service in many a hard campaign
of the Rebellion. Some, of course, were beardless youths just out
of their teens, full of that martial ardour which induced so many
young men of the nation to follow the drum on the remote plains and
in the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, where the wily savages
still held almost undisputed sway, and were a constant menace to
the pioneer settlers.
One morning, when the command had just settled itself in careless
repose on the short grass of the apparently interminable prairie
at the first halt of the day's march, a short distance beyond
Fort Larned, a strange noise, like the low muttering of thunder
below the horizon, greeted the ears of the little army.
All were startled by the ominous sound, unlike anything they had
heard before on their dreary tour. The general ordered his scouts
out to learn the cause; could it be Indians? Every eye was strained
for something out of the ordinary. Even the horses of the officers
and the mules of the supply-train were infected by something that
seemed impending; they grew restless, stamped the earth, and vainly
essayed to stampede, but were prevented by their hobbles and
picket-pins.
Presently one of the scouts returned from over the divide, and
reported to the general that an immense herd of buffalo was tearing
down toward the Trail, and from the great clouds of dust they raised,
which obscured the horizon, there must have been ten thousand of them.
The roar wafted to the command, and which seemed so mysterious,
was made by their hoofs as they rattled over the dry prairie.
The sound increased in volume rapidly, and soon a black, surging mass
was discovered bearing right down on the Trail. Behind it could be
seen a cavalcade of about five hundred Cheyennes, Comanches, and
Kiowas, who had maddened the shaggy brutes, hoping to capture the
train without an attack by forcing the frightened animals to overrun
the command.
Luckily, something caused the herd to open before it reached the
foot of the divide, and it passed in two masses, leaving the command
between, not two hundred feet from either division of the infuriated
beasts.
The rage of the savages was evident when they saw that their attempt
to annihilate the troops had failed, and they rode off sullenly into
the sand hills, as the number of soldiers was too great for them
to think of charging.
Cody tells of a buffalo stampede which he witnessed in his youth
on the plains, when he was a wagon-master. The caravan was on its
way with government stores for the military posts in the mountains,
and the wagons were hauled by oxen.
He says:
The country was alive with buffalo, and besides killing
quite a number we had a rare day for sport. One morning
we pulled out of camp, and the train was strung out to a
considerable length along the Trail, which ran near the foot
of the sand hills, two miles from the river. Between the
road and the river we saw a large herd of buffalo grazing
quietly, they having been down to the stream to drink.
Just at this time we observed a party of returning
Californians coming from the west. They, too, noticed
the buffalo herd, and in another moment they were dashing
down upon them, urging their horses to their greatest speed.
The buffalo herd stampeded at once, and broke down the sides
of the hills; so hotly were they pursued by the hunters
that about five hundred of them rushed pell-mell through
our caravan, frightening both men and oxen. Some of the
wagons were turned clear around and many of the terrified
oxen attempted to run to the hills with the heavy wagons
attached to them. Others were turned around so short
that they broke the tongues off. Nearly all the teams
got entangled in their gearing and became wild and unruly,
so that the perplexed drivers were unable to manage them.
The buffalo, the cattle, and the men were soon running
in every direction, and the excitement upset everybody
and everything. Many of the oxen broke their yokes and
stampeded. One big buffalo bull became entangled in one
of the heavy wagon-chains, and it is a fact that in his
desperate efforts to free himself, he not only snapped
the strong chain in two, but broke the ox-yoke to which
it was attached, and the last seen of him he was running
toward the hills with it hanging from his horns.
Stampedes were a great source of profit to the Indians of the plains.
The Comanches were particularly expert and daring in this kind of
robbery. They even trained their horses to run from one point to
another in expectation of the coming of the trains. When a camp
was made that was nearly in range, they turned their trained animals
loose, which at once flew across the prairie, passing through the
herd and penetrating the very corrals of their victims. All of the
picketed horses and mules would endeavour to follow these decoys,
and were invariably led right into the haunts of the Indians,
who easily secured them. Young horses and mules were easily
frightened; and, in the confusion which generally ensued, great
injury was frequently done to the runaways themselves.
At times when the herd was very large, the horses scattered over
the prairie and were irrevocably lost; and such as did not become
wild fell a prey to the wolves. That fate was very frequently the
lot of stampeded horses bred in the States, they not having been
trained by a prairie life to take care of themselves. Instead of
stopping and bravely fighting off the blood-thirsty beasts, they
would run. Then the whole pack were sure to leave the bolder animals
and make for the runaways, which they seldom failed to overtake
and despatch.
On the Old Trail some years ago one of these stampedes occurred of
a band of government horses, in which were several valuable animals.
It was attended, however, with very little loss, through the courage
and great exertion of the men who had them in charge; many were
recovered, but none without having sustained injuries.
Hon. R. M. Wright, of Dodge City, Kansas, one of the pioneers in
the days of the Santa Fe trade, and in the settlement of the State,
has had many exciting experiences both with the savages of the great
plains, and the buffalo. In relation to the habits of the latter,
no man is better qualified to speak.
He was once owner of Fort Aubrey, a celebrated point on the Trail,
but was compelled to abandon it on account of constant persecution
by the Indians, or rather he was ordered to do so by the military
authorities. While occupying the once famous landmark, in connection
with others, had a contract to furnish hay to the government at
Fort Lyon, seventy-five miles further west. His journal, which he
kindly placed at my disposal, says:
While we were preparing to commence the work, a vast herd
of buffalo stampeded through our range one night, and
took off with them about half of our work cattle. The next
day a stage-driver and conductor on the Overland Route told
us they had seen a number of our oxen twenty-five miles east
of Aubrey, and this information gave me an idea in which
direction to hunt for the missing beasts. I immediately
started after them, while my partner took those that
remained and a few wagons and left with them for Fort Lyon.
Let me explain here that while the Indians were supposed to
be peaceable, small war-parties of young men, who could not
be controlled by their chiefs, were continually committing
depredations, and the main body of savages themselves were
very uneasy, and might be expected to break out any day.
In consequence of this unsettled state of affairs, there
had been a brisk movement among the United States troops
stationed at the various military posts, a large number of
whom were believed to be on the road from Denver to Fort Lyon.
I filled my saddle-bags with jerked buffalo, hardtack and
ground coffee, and took with me a belt of cartridges,
my rifle and six-shooter, a field-glass and my blankets,
prepared for any emergency. The first day out, I found a
few of the lost cattle, and placed them on the river-bottom,
which I continued to do as fast as I recovered them, for a
distance of about eighty-five miles down the Arkansas.
There I met a wagon-train, the drivers of which told me
that I would find several more of my oxen with a train
that had arrived at the Cimarron crossing the day before.
I came up with this train in eight or ten hours' travel
south of the river, got my cattle, and started next morning
for home.
I picked up those I had left on the Arkansas as I went
along, and after having made a very hard day's travel,
about sundown I concluded I would go into camp. I had
only fairly halted when the oxen began to drop down,
so completely tired out were they, as I believed. Just as
it was growing dark, I happened to look toward the west,
and I saw several fires on a big island, near what was
called "The Lone Tree," about a mile from where I had
determined to remain for the night.
Thinking the fires were those of the soldiers that I had
heard were on the road from Denver, and anticipating and
longing for a cup of good coffee, as I had had none for
five days, knowing, too, that the troops would be full of
news, I felt good and determined to go over to their camp.
The Arkansas was low, but the banks steep, with high,
rank grass growing to the very water's edge. I found
a buffalo-trail cut through the deep bank, narrow and
precipitous, and down this I went, arriving in a short time
within a little distance of my supposed soldiers' camp.
When I had reached the middle of another deep cut in the
bank, I looked across to the island, and, great Caesar!
saw a hundred little fires, around which an aggregation
of a thousand Indians were huddled!
I slid backwards off my horse, and by dint of great exertion,
worked him up the river-bank as quietly and quickly as
possible, then led him gently away out on the prairie.
My first impulse was not to go back to the cattle; but as
we needed them very badly, I concluded to return, put them
all on their feet, and light out mighty lively, without
making any noise. I started them, and, oh dear! I was
afraid to tread upon a weed, lest it would snap and bring
the Indians down on my trail. Until I had put several
miles between them and me, I could not rest easy for
a moment. Tired as I was, tired as were both my horse
and the cattle, I drove them twenty-five miles before
I halted. Then daylight was upon me. I was at what is
known as Chouteau's Island, a once famous place in the
days of the Old Santa Fe Trail.
Of course, I had to let the oxen and my horse rest and fill
themselves until the afternoon, and I lay down, and fell
asleep, but did not sleep long, as I thought it dangerous
to remain too near the cattle. I rose and walked up a big,
dry sand creek that opened into the river, and after I had
ascended it for a couple of miles, found the banks very
steep; in fact, they rose to a height of eighteen or twenty
feet, and were sharply cut up by narrow trails made by
the buffalo.
The whole face of the earth was covered by buffalo, and
they were slowly grazing toward the Arkansas. All at once
they became frightened at something, and stampeded pell-mell
toward the very spot on which I stood. I quickly ran into
one of the precipitous little paths and up on the prairie,
to see what had scared them. They were making the ground
fairly tremble as their mighty multitude came rushing on
at full speed, the sound of their hoofs resembling thunder,
but in a continuous peal. It appeared to me that they must
sweep everything in their path, and for my own preservation
I rushed under the creek-bank, but on they came like a
tornado, with one old bull in the lead. He held up a second
to descend the narrow trail, and when he had got about
halfway down I let him have it; I was only a few steps from
him and over he tumbled. I don't know why I killed him;
out of pure wantonness, I expect, or perhaps I thought
it would frighten the others back. Not so, however;
they only quickened their pace, and came dashing down in
great numbers. Dozens of them stumbled and fell over the
dead bull; others fell over them. The top of the bank
was fairly swarming with them; they leaped, pitched, and
rolled down. I crouched as close to the bank as possible,
but many of them just grazed my head, knocking the sand
and gravel in great streams down my neck; indeed I was
half buried before the herd had passed over. That old bull
was the last buffalo I ever shot wantonly, excepting once,
from an ambulance while riding on the Old Trail, to please
a distinguished Englishman, who had never seen one shot;
then I did it only after his most earnest persuasion.
One day a stage-driver named Frank Harris and myself started
out after buffalo; they were scarce, for a wonder, and
we were very hungry for fresh meat. The day was fine and
we rode a long way, expecting sooner or later a bunch would
jump up, but in the afternoon, having seen none, we gave
it up and started for the ranch. Of course, we didn't
care to save our ammunition, so shot it away at everything
in sight, skunks, rattlesnakes, prairie-dogs, and gophers,
until we had only a few loads left. Suddenly an old bull
jumped up that had been lying down in one of those
sugar-loaf-shaped sand hills, whose tops are hollowed out
by the action of the wind. Harris emptied his revolver
into him, and so did I; but the old fellow sullenly stood
still there on top of the sand hill, bleeding profusely
at the nose, and yet absolutely refusing to die, although
he would repeatedly stagger and nearly tumble over.
It was getting late and we couldn't wait on him, so Harris
said: "I will dismount, creep up behind him, and cut his
hamstrings with my butcher-knife." The bull having now
lain down, Harris commenced operations, but his movement
seemed to infuse new life into the old fellow; he jumped
to his feet, his head lowered in the attitude of fight,
and away he went around the outside of the top of the
sand hill! It was a perfect circus with one ring; Harris,
who was a tall, lanky fellow, took hold of the enraged
animal's tail as he rose to his feet, and in a moment his
legs were flying higher than his head, but he did not dare
let go of his hold on the bull's tail, and around and
around they went; it was his only show for life. I could
not assist him a particle, but had to sit and hold his horse,
and be judge of the fight. I really thought that old bull
would never weaken. Finally, however, the "ring" performance
began to show symptoms of fatigue; slower and slower the
actions of the bull grew, and at last Harris succeeded
in cutting his hamstrings and the poor beast went down.
Harris said afterward, when the danger was all over, that
the only thing he feared was that perhaps the bull's tail
would pull out, and if it did, he was well aware that he
was a goner. We brought his tongue, hump, and a hindquarter
to the ranch with us, and had a glorious feast and a big
laugh that night with the boys over the ridiculous adventure.
General Richard Irving Dodge, United States army, in his work on
the big game of America, says:
It is almost impossible for a civilized being to realize
the value to the plains Indian of the buffalo. It furnished
him with home, food, clothing, bedding, horse equipment--
almost everything.
From 1869 to 1873 I was stationed at various posts along
the Arkansas River. Early in spring, as soon as the dry
and apparently desert prairie had begun to change its coat
of dingy brown to one of palest green, the horizon would
begin to be dotted with buffalo, single or in groups of two
or three, forerunners of the coming herd. Thick and thicker,
and in large groups they come, until by the time the grass
is well up, the whole vast landscape appears a mass of
buffalo, some individuals feeding, others lying down, but
the herd slowly moving to the northward; of their number,
it was impossible to form a conjecture.
Determined as they are to pursue their journey northward,
yet they are exceedingly cautious and timid about it,
and on any alarm rush to the southward with all speed,
until that alarm is dissipated. Especially is this the case
when any unusual object appears in their rear, and so
utterly regardless of consequences are they, that an old
plainsman will not risk a wagon-train in such a herd,
where rising ground will permit those in front to get
a good view of their rear.
In May, 1871, I drove in a buggy from old Fort Zarah
to Fort Larned, on the Arkansas River. The distance is
thirty-four miles. At least twenty-five miles of that
distance was through an immense herd. The whole country
was one mass of buffalo, apparently, and it was only when
actually among them, that the seemingly solid body was
seen to be an agglomeration of countless herds of from
fifty to two hundred animals, separated from the surrounding
herds by a greater or less space, but still separated.
The road ran along the broad valley of the Arkansas.
Some miles from Zarah a low line of hills rises from the
plain on the right, gradually increasing in height and
approaching road and river, until they culminate in
Pawnee Rock.
So long as I was in the broad, level valley, the herds
sullenly got out of my way, and, turning, stared stupidly
at me, some within thirty or forty yards. When, however,
I had reached a point where the hills were no more than
a mile from the road, the buffalo on the crests, seeing an
unusual object in their rear, turned, stared an instant,
then started at full speed toward me, stampeding and
bringing with them the numberless herds through which
they passed, and pouring down on me, no longer separated
but compacted into one immense mass of plunging animals,
mad with fright, irresistible as an avalanche.
The situation was by no means pleasant. There was but
one hope of escape. My horse was, fortunately, a quiet
old beast, that had rushed with me into many a herd, and
been in at the death of many a buffalo. Reining him up,
I waited until the front of the mass was within fifty yards,
then, with a few well-directed shots, dropped some of
the leaders, split the herd and sent it off in two streams
to my right and left. When all had passed me, they stopped,
apparently satisfied, though thousands were yet within
reach of my rifle. After my servant had cut out the
tongues of the fallen, I proceeded on my journey, only to
have a similar experience within a mile or two, and this
occurred so often that I reached Fort Larned with twenty-six
tongues, representing the greatest number of buffalo that
I can blame myself with having murdered in one day.
Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo appeared to move
northward in one immense column, oftentimes from twenty
to fifty miles in width, and of unknown depth from front
to rear. Other years the northward journey was made
in several parallel columns moving at the same rate and
with their numerous flankers covering a width of a hundred
or more miles.
When the food in one locality fails, they go to another,
and toward fall, when the grass of the high prairies
becomes parched by the heat and drought, they gradually
work their way back to the south, concentrating on the
rich pastures of Texas and the Indian Territory, whence,
the same instinct acting on all, they are ready to start
together again on their northward march as soon as spring
starts the grass.
Old plainsmen and the Indians aver that the buffalo never
return south; that each year's herd was composed of animals
which had never made the journey before, and would never
make it again. All admit the northern migration, that
being too pronounced for any one to dispute, but refuse
to admit the southern migration. Thousands of young calves
were caught and killed every spring that were produced
during this migration, and accompanied the herd northward;
but because the buffalo did not return south in one vast
body as they went north, it was stoutly maintained that
they did not go south at all. The plainsman could give
no reasonable hypothesis of his "No-return theory" on which
to base the origin of the vast herds which yearly made
their march northward. The Indian was, however, equal
to the occasion. Every plains Indian firmly believed that
the buffalo were produced in countless numbers in a country
under ground; that every spring the surplus swarmed,
like bees from a hive, out of the immense cave-like opening
in the region of the great Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain
of Texas. In 1879 Stone Calf, a celebrated chief, assured
me that he knew exactly where the caves were, though he had
never seen them; that the good God had provided this
means for the constant supply of food for the Indian, and
however recklessly the white men might slaughter, they could
never exterminate them. When last I saw him, the old man
was beginning to waver in this belief, and feared that
the "Bad God" had shut the entrances, and that his tribe
must starve.
The old trappers and plainsmen themselves, even as early as the
beginning of the Santa Fe trade, noticed the gradual disappearance
of the buffalo, while they still existed in countless numbers.
One veteran French Canadian, an employee of the American Fur Company,
way back in the early '30's, used to mourn thus: "Mais, sacre!
les Amarican, dey go to de Missouri frontier, de buffalo he ron to
de montaigne; de trappaire wid his fusil, he follow to de Bayou
Salade, he ron again. Dans les Montaignes Espagnol, bang! bang!
toute la journee, toute la journee, go de sacre voleurs. De bison he
leave, parceque les fusils scare im vara moche, ici là de sem-sacré!"
