US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0032/00324.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 33KB | 545 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00324}
$Pretitle{35}
$Title{Fort Union National Monument
Part 1   History}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Utley, Robert M.}
$Affiliation{National Park Service}
$Subject{fort
new
fe
mexico
santa
union
trail
indians
war
river}
$Volume{Handbook 35}
$Date{1962}
$Log{Trail Map*0032401.scf
Long-Tom Rifles*0032402.scf
Fort Union Plan*0032403.scf
Los Pinos Ute*0032404.scf
Dawn Attack*0032405.scf
}
Book:        Fort Union National Monument
Author:      Utley, Robert M.
Affiliation: National Park Service
Volume:      Handbook 35
Date:        1962

                   Overview of Fort Union National Monument

Fort Union, located on the route of the Santa Fe Trail, was a base of
operations for both military and civilian ventures in New Mexico for 40 years.
This is the story of this fort - and the men and women who participated in the
winning of the West.

Part 1   History

     The ruins of Fort Union graphically commemorate the achievements of the
men who won the West.  Located on the route of the Santa Fe Trail where the
mountains meet the plains, the fort is centered in a region full of historic
events and brimming with the romance of the frontier.  As a base of operations
for both military and civilian ventures in New Mexico for 40 years, 1851 to
1891, Fort Union played a key role in shaping the destiny of the Southwest.

     The historic features to be seen at Fort Union in fact expose a cross
section of the entire sweep of 19th-century history in the Southwest.  The
site of the first fort, built in 1851, illustrates the formative years of New
Mexico Territory.  American newcomers at this time were imposing their
institutions on the patterns of life evolved by native New Mexicans during 250
years of Spanish and Mexican rule, and the first halting attempts began at
tearing down the Indian barrier that stretched north to Canada and barred the
paths of westward expansion.  The northern star fort, built in 1861,
illustrates the troublesome Civil War years, when loyalties of Americans and
native Spaniards alike were violently tested and the Confederacy made a
vigorous attempt to conquer New Mexico.  The ruins of the third fort, begun in
1863, illustrate the stirring drama of subjugating the Indians of the great
Plains and Southwestern deserts.  In 1890 the frontier passed out of
existence.  Appropriately, Fort Union was abandoned in February 1891.

[See Trail Map: Map of the Santa Fe Trail.]

     The grasslands around Fort Union are deeply marked with the wagon ruts of
the Santa Fe Trail.  Indeed, throughout much of the High Plains region, the
marks of the trail have remained undisturbed for more than a century.  This
wilderness highway provided a channel through which 19th century Americans
expressed the great motivating ideal of Manifest Destiny.  First, the trail
bore a commerce that within the short span of 25 years linked New Mexico so
firmly to the United States that annexation was but a question of time. Next,
in 1846, it bore an army of conquest that brought New Mexico under the
American flag.  Finally, it served until the coming of the railroad as the
lifeline of New Mexico.  The ruts of the Santa Fe Trail and the ruins of Fort
Union recall a procession of people and events that enormously influenced the
course of United States history.

The Santa Fe Trail

     Capt. Zebulon M. Pike went west in 1806 to explore the Rocky Mountains,
part of which the United States now owned as a result of the Louisiana
Purchase.  Wandering through the mountains in midwinter, Pike and his handful
of men camped in January 1807 on the headwaters of the Rio Grande, in
Colorado's San Luis Valley.  They built a stockade and hoisted the American
flag over soil belonging to His Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain.  Spanish
dragoons hauled the American officer before Jose Real Alencaster, Governor of
the Province of New Mexico, in the Royal Capital of Santa Fe.  Here and in
Chihuahua, to the south, Pike had several bad months.  The Spanish finally
freed him in June 1807, and he went home to write of his adventures.

     The Pike journals, published in 1810, gave Americans their first glimpse
of the people and way of life behind the wall of secrecy Spain had erected on
the frontiers of New Mexico.  Missourians were quick to detect commercial
opportunities in overland trade with Spanish settlers on the Rio Grande.  All
goods not produced locally in New Mexico had to be hauled from Vera Cruz,
Mexico, across 2,000 miles of Indian-infested desert.  Only 800 miles of level
prairie separated the Missouri River from Santa Fe.  But Spanish authorities
distrusted the aggressive Yankees and wanted none in New Mexico. A few who
tested the possibilities suggested by Pike's narrative wound up in the
calabozo adjacent to the ancient Palace of the Governors.  Then in 1821
revolution broke out in Mexico.  Spain lost her hold on the American colonies.
The infant Mexican nation tore down the frontier barriers and welcomed
American traders to Santa Fe.

     In this same year several enterprising Missourians inaugurated the Santa
Fe trade.  William Becknell lashed trade goods to some mules and headed west.
So did Hugh Glenn and Jacob Fowler.  Robert Baird and James McKnight, released
from prison in Santa Fe, hastened to Missouri and returned with pack trains.
In 1822 Becknell cast the mold of the Santa Fe trade by hitching mules to
three wagons loaded with merchandise and driving them across the plains to the
New Mexican capital.  Other merchants saw and took heed.  By the closing years
of the decade, caravans annually pushed west from the Missouri River destined
for a summer of "adventuring to Santa Fee."

     In 1825 the Federal Government lent a hand by sending a surveying party
under George C. Sibley to mark out a suitable road.  But in the end the
wagonmasters, following the most direct and easy path, showed the way.  The
wagon wheels cut deep ruts in the prairie sod.  The ruts broadened into a
trough, often several hundred feet wide, that still scars long stretches of
grassland in Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.  By 1830 the traveler had no
difficulty following the great wilderness highway called the Santa Fe Trail.

     It began on the west bank of the Missouri River, first at Franklin, later
at Independence, still later at Westport.  Striking southwest by way of
Council Grove, it met the Arkansas River and followed the north bank into
western Kansas.  At the Cimarron Crossing of the Arkansas River, the trail
forked.  The shorter and more popular route, the Cimarron Cutoff, turned
southwest and headed in a direct line for the New Mexican frontier at the
junction of the Mora and Sapello Rivers, near present Watrous.  It took the
traveler across a parched desert, dreaded because of infrequent waterholes and
constant danger of a Kiowa or Comanche war party lurking beyond the next hill.
The Mountain Branch offered more water and fewer Indians, but it was almost
zoo miles longer and included a rough passage through the Raton Mountains It
followed the Arkansas up to the trading post of Bent's Fort, then turned
southwest across the treacherous barrier of Raton Pass, and dropped into New
Mexico at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  The two branches
reunited in a single stem at the crossing of the Mora and Sapello Rivers, then
swung south to thread the mountains at Glorieta Pass, gateway to Santa Fe.

     Each spring at Franklin, Independence, or Westport the traders assembled
to make ready for the trek to New Mexico.  Wagons backed up to warehouses,
each to have 5,000 to 7,000 pounds of merchandise packed tightly into its bed.
Master products of Pittsburgh and St. Louis wagon builders, these vehicles
were especially adapted to plains travel.  Built of the lightest, toughest
wood obtainable, they were designed for rapid travel over a rough but level
terrain.  Unlike the famous Conestoga, the floor of its high-sided box had
only a slight curve, for on the Plains cargo did not often shift. The
iron-tired wheels were universally painted bright red, the bodies light blue.
Canvas stretched over arched hickory bows and fastened to the bodies protected
the cargo from driving rains.  Ten or twelve New Mexican mules or six Missouri
oxen drew the heavy wagons.  Usually the traders rendezvoused at Council
Grove, where they organized into caravans for mutual protection.  The drivers
mounted the box, cracked their "Missouri pistols" - long saplines with a
slightly shorter lash ending in a buckskin thong - and the trains crawled west
onto the rolling prairie.

[See Long-Tom Rifles: "Long-Tom Rifles on the Skirmish Line," by Frederick
Remington.]

     The 800-mile journey took about 2 months.  There was hard ship and
danger.  Rain and hail beat down the sodden road into a muddy quagmire.  Wagon
wheels churned Teamsters endured wet clothing and sleepless, fireless nights.
Scorching winds whipped across the prairie, and wagons bounced on a rutted
trace that damaged cargo and vehicle alike.  Clouds of dust hung heavy on the
caravans, burning eyes and caking throats.  The wheels dried and shrank, and
constant repairs were necessary.  On the Cimarron Desert the men suffered
anxiety over water and Indians.  Always thirst tortured them; sometimes, when
the springs ran dry, it killed them. Kiowa and Comanche warriors often swept
down on a train, exacting a toll in killed and wounded, occasionally capturing
a weakly defended train and slaughtering its attendants.  In one particularly
bad year, 1829, a battalion of United States infantry escorted the caravans to
the Cimarron Crossing and turned them over to Mexican troops for the rest of
the trip to Santa Fe. Relief came only at the fringes of New Mexican
settlement - in the early years San Miguel, later Las Vegas, and in the 1840's
the Mora and Sapello Crossings.

     On the benchland above Santa Fe the Missourians paused to make themselves
presentable for a gala entry.  As the caravan worked its way down the narrow
dirt streets, the populace stormed noisily from flat-roofed adobe houses to
greet los Americanos.  Wagons were parked on the plaza in front of the Palace
of the Governors, and for a full night the town rang with merriment as traders
and townspeople celebrated the occasion.  Fandangos, gambling, and liberal
quantities of "Taos lightning" and "Paso wine" made men forget the aches of
the trail.

     Next morning they got down to business.  Payment of import duties came
first.  This was always an exciting contest between merchants trying to reduce
the exorbitant Mexican duties and customs officers trying to extort the
maximum bribe the traffic would bear.  Ordinarily the dispute ended in a
friendly compromise, each side winning somewhat less than desired.  The
traders temporarily rented storerooms and laid out their goods - brightly
colored calico and other yard goods, leather goods, hardware of all kinds,
crockery, and fancy foods.  The customers paid in coin or, as money became
scarce, in mules, hides, and furs.  Traders tied up their silver coins in
green skins that, dried next to a fire, shrank as tightly "as if the metal had
been melted and poured into a mold."  As the Santa Fe market became
increasingly glutted in the 1820's, many of the merchants continued south to
towns in Chihuahua and Durango, but this was a long way and required much
time.  With their profits, the Santa Fe traders were back in Missouri by late
autumn.  They spent the winter buying another stock of goods, and the
following spring once more faced west.

     When war broke out in 1846 between the United States and Mexico, the
Santa Fe Trail became a military highway.  While American armies fought on the
lower Rio Grande and in Mexico, Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny led the Army of the
West from Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri River, over the Santa Fe Trail.
His objective was the conquest of New Mexico and California.  Kearny chose the
Mountain Branch, and on the night of August 12 his troops - regular dragoons
and Missouri volunteers - camped at the ponds of water just south of where
Fort Union later stood.  In bloodless triumph the Americans paraded into Santa
Fe on August 18 and raised the American flag over the historic plaza at the
end of the trail.  With part of his army, Kearny rode on to California.  In
October the occupation force received reinforcements when Col. Sterling Price
and another regiment of Missouri volunteers, having followed the Cimarron
Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail, arrived in the New Mexican capital.  Throughout
the war long strings of freight wagons crawled across the plains to supply the
Army in New Mexico.

     The Mexican War turned the international highway into a national highway,
linking the States with the new Territory of New Mexico.  The tariff vanished,
and at the same time the market expanded enormously as Americans settled on
the Rio Grande and the Army built scattered mud forts to protect the citizens
from hostile Indians.  Stagecoaches of the Independence-Santa Fe Mail made
their way back and forth across the plains, sharing the road with long files
of white-topped freight wagons.  The merchant-speculators of the 1820's and
1830's gave way to freighters specializing in hauling government and company
goods under contract.  "Kearny's baggage train started a new era in plains
freighting," wrote the historian Frederick Paxson.  "It became a matter of
business, running smoothly along familiar channels."  The volume of business
dwarfed the prewar trade.  The value of goods hauled over the trail rose from
$15,000 in 1822 to $45,000 in 1843 and to $5,000,000 in 1855.  In the single
year of 1858, 1,827 wagons crossed the plains to deposit in New Mexico
warehouses almost 10,000 tons of merchandise, much of it destined for the
Army.

     The trail also bore wagons of immigrants from the States.  In 1848 James
Marshall discovered gold in California.  Many gold seekers pointed their teams
west on the Santa Fe Trail.  Some tired of the journey or lost their
enthusiasm and settled in New Mexico.  Most went on to the Pacific by way of
the Gila Trail or the Cooke Wagon Road, which the Army of the West had opened
in 1846 and 1847.

     The Santa Fe Trail carried the heaviest traffic of its history during the
Civil War years, 1861-65, for New Mexico was the major far-western theater of
the war.  But these were also the last years of the trail's importance.  In
1866 the Kansas Pacific Railroad reached out from the Missouri River.  As the
rails advanced west, they pushed the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail
from railhead to railhead.  Part of the Mountain Branch continued in use even
after the railroad reached Denver.  Then in 1878 the Santa Fe Railroad
surmounted Raton Pass.  Two years later the first engine steamed into Lamy
station for the New Mexican capital, and the Santa Fe Trail passed out of
existence.

The Founding of Fort Union

     With the acquisition of New Mexico, the United States inherited an Indian
problem of frightening magnitude.  For two and a half centuries Apaches and
Navajos had terrorized the Rio Grande settlements, and travelers who ventured
beyond the eastern borders of the province courted death at the hands of
Kiowas and Comanches.  The promise so lightly given by General Kearny to
protect the people from marauding Indians took 40 years to fulfill.  By 1851
almost 1,300 soldiers served in the Territory of New Mexico, and during the
1850's the number rose steadily.  They were scattered among 11 tiny outposts
at settlements throughout the territory.  The headquarters was Fort Marcy in
Santa Fe.

     Secretary of War C. M. Conrad was unhappy with the performance of the
troops in New Mexico.  They cost an immense amount of money and made no
apparent progress toward solving the Indian problem.  On April 1, 1851, he
directed Lt. Col. Edwin V. Sumner, 1st Dragoons, to take command in New Mexico
and "revise the whole system of defense." "It is believed," wrote Conrad for
Sumner's guidance, "that material changes ought to be made both with a view to
a more efficient protection of that country and to a diminution of expense."
One material change seemed evident.  The Secretary believed that "both economy
and efficiency of the service would be promoted by removing the troops out of
the towns and stationing them more toward the frontier, nearer the Indians."

     Sumner followed these suggestions to the letter, breaking up the posts at
villages all over New Mexico and founding new ones closer to the Indian
country.  His first action after taking command in July 1851 was to order
department headquarters and the principal supply depot moved from Santa Fe,
"that sink of vice and extravagance," to a spot on the eastern frontier of New
Mexico.  He had already chosen the location, in the vicinity of the same
prairie ponds where as Kearny's dragoon commander he had camped on August 12,
1846.  The site was strategically situated near the junction of the Mountain
and Cimarron Branches of the Santa Fe Trail, 100 miles from the demoralizing
temptations of Santa Fe.  It had wood, grass, and water.  Next to a spring
beneath the brow of a pinyon-clad mesa on the west side of the valley, the
troops in August 1851 began building Fort Union.

     Ordinarily, civilian artisans employed by the Quartermaster Department
built the frontier posts.  But in the spirit of Conrad's economy drive, Sumner
discharged these men and put his soldiers to work on Fort Union.  The 30 or
more buildings that resulted were what might be expected of unskilled labor,
as Assistant Surgeon Jonathan Letterman made unmistakably clear in October
1856:


The entire garrison covers a space of about eighty or more acres, and the
buildings being of necessity, widely separated, causes the post to present
more the appearance of a village, whose houses have been built with little
regard to order, than a military post.  Unseasoned, unhewn, and unbarked pine
logs, placed upright in some and horizontally in other houses, have been used
in the erection of the buildings, and as a necessary consequence are rapidly
decaying.  In many of the logs of the house I occupy, an ordinary sized nail
will not hold, to such an extent has the timber decayed, although several feet
above the ground. One set of the so-called barracks have lately been torn down
to prevent any untoward accidents that were liable at any moment to happen
from the falling of the building; and yet this building was erected in 1852.

     The unbarked logs afford excellent hiding places for that annoying and
disgusting insect the Cimex lectularius [bed bug], so common in this country,
which it is by no means backward in taking advantage of, to the evident
discomfort of those who occupy the buildings - the men almost universally
sleeping in the open air when the weather will permit.  The building at
present used as a hospital, having a dirt roof has not a room which remained
dry during the rain in the latter part of September last, and I was obliged to
use tents and canvas to protect the property from damage.


     Despite the distressing picture of living conditions painted by Dr.
Letterman and others, not until late in 1862 did the Army get around to
authorizing construction of more habitable quarters.  By then the log
buildings were in such terrible disrepair that, for the health and safety of
the garrison, they had to be torn down.

[See Fort Union Plan: Sketch of Fort Union in 1853.]

     Even before completion of the fort, Colonel Sumner in January 1852 found
it "indispensably necessary" to move his headquarters to Albuquerque, for most
of the current Indian troubles were west of the Rio Grande.  The troops at
Fort Union were not left idle.  Besides construction of the fort, economy
required them to cultivate gardens and harvest as much of their subsistence as
possible.  They had also to take over the jobs formerly done by civilian
clerks, blacksmiths, teamsters, herders, and road builders.

     Throughout the 1850's only a handful of men garrisoned Fort Union,
usually one to three companies of infantry, dragoons, or mounted riflemen.
Since the fort at times served as the headquarters of a regiment, however, a
full colonel could often be found as post commander.  With all their
housekeeping duties, it is surprising that the soldiers found time for
soldiering.  But somehow they managed to participate in several Indian
campaigns and also to protect the Santa Fe Trail.

The Apache War of 1854

     The Jicarilla Apaches roamed over much of northern New Mexico. Nominally
at peace during the early 1850's, they grew increasingly restive. Small war
parties raided outlying settlements as well as caravans on the Santa Fe Trail
northeast of Fort Union.  By 1854 their forays approached open war.

     Late in February 1854 Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, commanding Fort
Union, sent Lt. David Bell and a company of the 2nd Dragoons east to the
Canadian River to investigate reports of Jicarillas plundering the cattle herd
of Samuel Watrous, who supplied Fort Union with beef.  On March 2 Bell's 24
horsemen clashed with an equal number of Apaches under Lobo Blanco, killed
five (including the chief), and wounded more before the Indians fled.  A month
later a large force of Apaches ambushed a company of 62 dragoons under Lt.
John W. Davidson on the road between Taos and Santa Fe.  Davidson left the
field with 22 dead and 36 wounded.  These incidents impelled the department
commander, Brig. Gen. John Garland, to launch a full-scale offensive against
the offenders.

     Within 3 hours after learning of the Davidson disaster, Colonel Cooke had
set the garrison of Fort Union in motion for Taos.  There he organized a force
of 200 dragoons and footmen and enlisted 30 Pueblo Indian scouts. Guided by
Kit Carson, agent for the Utes, the command crossed the Rio Grande and plunged
into the forbidding mountains, still white with the last touches of winter.
On April 8 the pursuers overtook a band of 150 Indians under Chief Chacon, who
had posted his men among rocks and trees on a slope at the foot of which ran
the snow waters of the Rio Caliente.  The troops waded the icy stream and
swarmed up the mountainside, Lieutenant Bell's company swinging to the left
and catching the enemy line in the flank.  Resistance dissolved and the
warriors scattered through the timber with casualties of five killed and six
wounded.  The attackers lost one killed and one wounded.

     For a month Cooke marched and countermarched in a vain effort to overtake
the Indians once more.  The rugged mountains, swept by blizzards, cloaked in
fog, and buried under drifts of snow, soon exhausted and sickened the command.
Himself ill, Cooke called off the chase.

     The Apaches were scarcely less worn out.  Many gave up, but a few
diehards continued to terrorize the countryside.  The following July, Capt.
George Sykes and 58 dragoons from Fort Union picked up the trail of one such
war party and followed it into the mountains west of the fort.

     Riding down the floor of a canyon, they flushed 10 or 15 Indians, who
spurred their ponies up the side of the gorge.  Lt. Joseph Maxwell and 20
dragoons charged up the slope in pursuit.  The lieutenant and four men reached
the top first and found themselves suddenly in the midst of eight warriors
hidden among some rocks.  As Maxwell swung his saber overhead, the Apaches
loosed a volley of arrows.  Two found their mark and killed him instantly. The
war party made good its escape, and the dragoons returned to Fort Union with
the body of the young officer.  "I have no words," Captain Sykes reported to
Colonel Cooke, "to express my feelings in making this announcement.  A braver,
gallant or more high-toned gentlemen & soldier never drew sword."

The Ute War of 1855

     Many of the Jicarillas whom Cooke's campaign had failed to subdue took
refuge with the Ute Indians, who lived in the mountains bordering the San Luis
Valley of southern Colorado (then part of the Territory of New Mexico). Hardly
had the Jicarilla troubles subsided than the Utes went on the rampage. On
Christmas Day 1854 about 100 Utes and a few Jicarillas descended on the
settlement of Hardscrabble, which later became Pueblo, Colo.  They killed 15
men, captured 2 women, and ran off all the stock.  Then they crossed the
Sangre de Cristo Mountains and attacked a settlement recently founded in the
San Luis Valley near where Alamosa now stands.  General Garland decided to
treat the Utes as he had the Jicarillas.

[See Los Pinos Ute: Ute Tribe. Encampment at Los Pinos, Colorado.]

     Col. Thomas T. Fauntleroy and units of the 1st Dragoons had replaced
Cooke and the 2nd Dragoons at Fort Union.  Strengthened by regular companies
from other forts and six companies of New Mexico volunteers under Lt. Col.
Ceran St. Vrain, Colonel Fauntleroy took the field with some 500 men early in
February 1855.

     Establishing a base of operations at Fort Massachusetts, on the eastern
edge of the San Luis Valley, Fauntleroy scoured the basin and surrounding
mountains for hostile camps.  Men and horses suffered from intense cold and
deep snow such as plagued Cooke a year earlier, but relentless pursuit yielded
results.  On March 19 the troops skirmished with a war party near Poncha Pass,
killed eight warriors, and after a 4-day chase captured the party's entire
pony herd.

     Next, Fauntleroy split his command.  While he and the regulars continued
to search the San Luis Valley, St. Vrain's volunteers rode to the plains east
of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to look for Utes.  On April 25 the New
Mexicans jumped a band of 60 Indians on the Huerfano River, killing or
capturing 13 and putting the rest to flight.

     Fauntleroy, too, tasted victory.  On the night of April 28, his men crept
undetected into positions on 2 sides of a Ute camp estimated to contain 150
warriors.  Bonfires illumined the village, and the Indians were in the midst
of a riotous war dance.  Suddenly the blackness at the edge of the village
erupted with rifle fire that raked the lodges with devastating effect.  It
"swept the enemy like chaff before the wind," Fauntleroy recalled, and they
scattered in fright in the opposite direction.  The soldiers charged through
the village and for about 25 minutes pressed the surprised dancers in a
running fight.  Then they returned to burn the lodges, food, and other
supplies in the village.  The colonel counted 40 Utes slain by the murderous
fire of his men.

     This battle broke Ute resistance.  There were several more skirmishes,
but in July 1855 the Indians sued for peace.  Fauntleroy returned to Fort
Union, and the volunteers were mustered out of the service.

Guardian of the Santa Fe Trail

     Yet another enemy summoned the Fort Union garrison to frequent field
service.  For 30 years the Kiowas and Comanches who roamed the Plains to the
east had made travel on the Santa Fe Trail a perilous undertaking.  An
important and continuing duty of Fort Union was to lessen this danger.

     No sooner had Colonel Sumner selected the site of Fort Union in the
summer of 1851 than he dispatched Capt. James H. Carleton and Company K, 1st
Dragoons, to make regular patrols of the trail between the fort and the
Arkansas River.  Carleton performed similar duty during the summer and autumn
of 1852.  Thereafter the escort system was used.  The freighters whose
caravans were reaching New Mexico in mounting numbers felt no need of escorts.
They understood the conditions of the trail and organized their own defense.
Not so the stagecoach drivers of the Independence-Santa Fe Mail, who with one
or two light wagons had to make their way across the Indian-infested Cimarron
Desert.  Whenever company or postal officials sensed danger, they called upon
the commanding officer at Fort Union for help.

     The escort usually consisted of an officer and 20 to 40 men, later of a
sergeant and 15 to 20 men, who accompanied the stages to the Arkansas River
and returned to Fort Union with the next westbound mail.  The soldiers,
infantry or dismounted horsemen, rode in wagons.  This method was adopted in
1857 by General Garland because it afforded better defense in the event of
attack and because of the scarcity of grass in the Cimarron Desert.  Even so,
the mules drawing the escort wagons frequently broke down and always had
trouble keeping up with the mail coaches.  The stage company had relay
stations with fresh animals on the Mora and the Arkansas, but the army mules
traveled more than 600 miles, from Fort Union to the Arkansas and back,
without relief.

     Occasionally the Indians tested the defenses.  On December 4, 1859, for
example, 20 Kiowa warriors swept down on the mail wagon and its escort at Cold
Springs, in the Oklahoma Panhandle.  Though driven off after wounding one
soldier, they kept the troops pinned down with long-range rifle fire for
several hours.

Chasing Kiowas and Comanches, 1860-61

     Depredations multiplied in 1860, and from Kansas to New Mexico traffic on
the Santa Fe Trail moved under almost constant danger of Kiowa and Comanche
attack.  In March 1860 Army headquarters in New York ordered three columns to
operate independently in the Kiowa-Comanche country during the summer.  One
was to come from Fort Riley, Kansas; one from Fort Kearny, Nebraska; and a
third from New Mexico.  Six companies of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen
rendezvoused at Fort Union in May 1860 and rode out in search of the hostiles.

     First under Maj. Charles F. Ruff later under Capt. Andrew Porter, the
Fort Union column marched and countermarched in the plains bordering the
Canadian River.  The elusive Indians stayed out of reach.  While the command
was on the Pecos River, far to the south, word came that the Comanches were in
the north and preparing to attack Fort Union itself.  Reinforcements hastened
to strengthen the defenders, but no enemy appeared.  While the troops scouted
the country east of the Canadian, however, Comanches swept down on a temporary
supply camp, only to be driven off by the two companies of infantry posted as
guard.  In July the Mounted Riflemen stumbled on a hostile village, but the
occupants had sensed danger and fled.  Finally, in October, the department
commander suspended further operations.

     For 5 months the Fort Union column had pressed an arduous search for the
Plains marauders, yet the chief result was a collection of broken-down horses
suffering from overwork, malnutrition, and the ravages of a disease known
as "black tongue."  Smarting under the failure, the officers looked forward to
another chance.  It came in December when Lt. Col. George B. Crittenden,
commanding Fort Union, learned that a war party of Kiowas and Comanches was
harassing traffic on the Mountain Branch of the trail about 70 miles north of
the fort.

     With 88 men of the Mounted Rifle Regiment he marched up the trail.  The
Indians, however, had moved east and were menacing the Cimarron Branch.  The
troops followed the trail night and day and, on January 2, 1861, charged a
village of 175 lodges on the Cimarron River 10 miles north of Cold Springs.
The Indians were driven from their camp with a loss of 10 killed and an
unknown number wounded.  Crittenden had three men wounded.  The soldiers
destroyed the village and its contents and returned to Fort Union with 40
captured horses.

     Colonel Fauntleroy, now department commander, was elated, and in March
reported that the Comanches had withdrawn from the borders of the territory.
Some of the chiefs, in fact, came to a conference with military authorities on
the Pecos River and promised to give no more trouble.

     Fauntleroy next turned to the Mescalero Apaches, who had terrorized
central and southern New Mexico for many years.  He sent Colonel Crittenden
south from Fort Union to operate against these Indians.  No battles were
fought, but Crittenden harried them so relentlessly that by late May
Fauntleroy could report that "The Mescaleros have sued for peace, [and] seem
disposed to refrain from future hostilities against the settlements."

     Actually, neither the Mescaleros nor the Kiowas and Comanches had been
pacified, but other matters were absorbing the attention of the Army in New
Mexico.

[See Dawn Attack: "Early Dawn Attack," by Charles Schreyvogel, typifies
several engagements with the southern tribes.]