Part 2

These mail coaches were the forerunners of the “Limited Express” and the Pullman sleeper of the present day; and the rough, brave men who drove and managed them and protected the stations, fighting Indians the while, were the pioneers, the Daniel Boones and Simon Kentons of this frontier! They opened the way for the Southern Pacific, the Mexican Central, the “Sunset” and the Santa Fe.

Does the tenderfoot who now rides over these routes, in luxury and safety, appreciate the work of these men? I have heard more than one of them intimate that he would have done things much better than we did, if he had only arrived in time. I am very sure I have heard several of them say that they would have made and saved plenty of money, if they had only had our opportunities; and this appears to me the proper place for a few remarks on success and failure in life; if, indeed, any place is good for such a homily. By success I, of course mean what the majority of men mean by the word success—the accumulation of wealth.

Well, during the ten years following my locating at El Paso, I was well and familiarly acquainted with at least fifty active, intelligent, educated young men, of whom it might have been predicted that they would succeed in life. These, if now living, would all have more than three-score years. Several of them died by the hands of the Indians, and some of them by the hands of their own countrymen, a number went to the bad or died early. Several of them lived beyond middle age and led brave, honorable and useful lives, but I recall _only two_ who could be classed as successful men, according to the above test. True, some of them gained much money and spent it liberally and often charitably, or lost it, but according to the popular idea, a man to be successful must have plenty of money _when he dies_. And though he leaves no minor children or dependents, his neighbors will whisper at his funeral, “He died poor,” in much the same tone as one might say, “He was hanged.”

In order that the importance of these mail routes and other enterprises on this frontier may be appreciated, I must here state a fact which may seem strange to some of my readers. At that time this whole frontier was in the actual possession of savage Indians. The Americans and Mexicans were secure only near the military posts, or villages, or large settlements, and when they traveled from place to place, they traveled in companies strong enough for defense, or at night and by stealth, trusting to Providence, or luck, each according to his faith.

The men who, for whatever reasons, had made their way to this distant frontier, were nearly all men of character; not all of good character, certainly, but of positive, assertive individual character, with strong personality and self-reliance. (The weaklings remained at home.) Many of them were well bred and of more than ordinary intelligence, and maintaining the manners of gentlemen. Even the worst of these men are not to be classed with the professional “toughs” and “thugs” who came later with the railroads. They were neither assassins nor thieves nor robbers. Vices? Plenty; but they were not of the concealed or most degrading kinds. Violence? Yes, but such acts were usually the result of sudden anger or of a feeling that under the conditions then existing each man must right his own wrongs or they would never be righted. Their ideas of right and wrong were peculiar, but they _had_ such ideas nevertheless. I knew a young man who was well liked and had good prospects, who violated confidence and attempted to betray his benefactor. The facts became known. Now, if he had shot a man because he did not like him much, anyhow, or if he had run away with his neighbor’s wife, his conduct might have been overlooked. But treachery? Ingratitude? Never! He became the most despised man in the community. The merchants and business men were certainly an exceptional class. Honorable, highly intelligent, charitable and gentlemanly. I could name a dozen gentlemen who were here even as far back as the “sixties,” from which list I believe any President might have selected an able cabinet. Not all of these were of my own race; and yet, even these did not hold themselves entirely aloof from the other classes. The times did not favor or permit such exclusiveness.

Common trials and dangers united the two races as one family, and the fact that one man was a Mexican and another an American was seldom mentioned, and I believe as seldom thought about. Each man was esteemed at his real worth, and I think our estimates of each other’s characters were generally more correct than in more artificial societies.

Spanish was the language of the country, but many of our Mexican friends spoke English well, and often conversations, and even sentences, were amusingly and expressively made up of a blending of words or phrases of both languages.

To the traveler, who had spent weeks crossing the dry and desert plains, this valley, with the grateful humidity of the atmosphere, the refreshing verdure, the perfume of the flowering shrubs, the rustling of the leaves of the cottonwood trees, and their cool shade, and in the spring or summer, the bloom of the many fruit trees, or the waving of grain fields, were all like a sight or breath of the Promised Land!

The people, the peasantry, were content and happy. To them, with their simple wants, it was a land of plenty. The failure of water in the Rio Grande has sadly changed all this. It may be said that this valley and the things here described were not in themselves beautiful, but only appeared so by contrast with the barren country over which the wanderer had traveled; and this may be true, but it is not wise to analyze too severely the things that give us pleasure. They are few enough at best.

Our currency was the Mexican silver dollar, then at par, and the Mexican ounce, a gold coin worth sixteen dollars.

There were no banks, and no drafts or checks except those given out by the paymasters and quartermasters of the United States Army.

Everybody loaned money when he had it, but only for accommodation. I knew of only one man in the whole valley who loaned money at interest or required security.

It was no unusual thing for merchants to loan large quantities of their goods, bales of prints and muslin and sacks of sugar and coffee to their neighbor merchants, to be repaid in kind when their wagon train arrived.

Carriages and buggies were considered as almost community property, and the man who refused to lend them was considered a bad neighbor.

Everybody had credit at “the store,” and everybody paid up—sooner or later.

There were no hotels. Travelers stopped at each other’s houses and even strangers were welcome there. Any one having any claim to gentility or education was cheerfully received and entertained by the officers at the army posts, and many, _very many_, by the collector of customs at El Paso.

There was one peculiar fact about the El Paso of those early days, for which I could never give any good reason.

Perhaps there were several reasons.

Our little village was better known, or, rather, it had greater notoriety and elicited more interest and inquiry, than any other town in the United States of twenty times its population. I know this from my own experience during my visits to Eastern cities, and the same statement was made by every El Paso wanderer on returning home. I mean that a gentleman registering from El Paso in any of the great cities received more attention and was more questioned about his town than one from San Antonio or Denver.

It seemed impossible to go anywhere without meeting an army officer or some one who had lived at El Paso, or some stranger who had heard of the little hamlet and was eager to learn more.

In spite of privations, our little village seemed to have an unaccountable fascination for every one who saw it, refined American ladies as well as the less fastidious and sterner sex.

This was _my_ El Paso. To me it was like the Deserted Village to Goldsmith.

The new El Paso got away from me. _Que sea por Dios._

Our merchandise and supplies were brought from St. Louis, a distance of sixteen hundred miles, or from Port Lavaca, Texas, a distance of nine hundred miles, by large trains of immense freight wagons, “Schooners of the Plains,” drawn by fourteen to eighteen mules, usually four abreast, at a cost of twelve and one-half to fifteen cents per pound for freight only. These trains were usually accompanied by twenty-five to forty men, including the drivers, all of whom were well armed, and stood guard like soldiers.

The “wagonmaster” was a character of importance and authority, and a hunter was usually employed to procure fresh meat and to look out for Indians and for Indian “sign.” These trains, like the stage coaches, were often attacked by Indians, but because of the greater number of men and better means of defense, they were not so frequently “taken in” as the latter.

I quote here the prices of a few of the articles purchased by me of El Paso merchants during the “sixties,” having preserved the original bills: One common No. 7 kitchen stove, $125; ham and bacon, 75 cents per pound; coffee, 75 cents per pound; sugar, 60 cents per pound; lard, 40 cents per pound; candles, 75 cents per pound; one-half ream letter paper, $4; nails, 50 cents per pound; matches, 12½ cents per box; tobacco, $2 per pound; calico (print), 50 cents per yard; bleached muslin, 75 cents per yard; unbleached muslin, 50 cents per yard; coal oil, $5 per gallon; alcohol, $8 per gallon; lumber, rough sawed, 12½ cents per foot; empty whiskey barrels, $5 each; starch, 50 cents per pound. But if we paid high prices, we also received high prices for what we had to sell. I will here state briefly a few of my own business experiences. I made large quantities of wine from the El Paso grape, and sold it readily at $5 per gallon, $200 per barrel of forty gallons. For two years I furnished the Government with all the vinegar and salt used in the Military Department of New Mexico, vinegar at $1.70 per gallon, and salt at 17 cents per pound, delivered at El Paso. Vinegar, four thousand gallons, and salt, one thousand bushels. The vinegar was manufactured from the El Paso grape, and the salt was brought from a natural salt lake, one hundred and twenty-five miles northeast of El Paso, and ground at Harts Mills, near El Paso, and sacked here.

The Government had previously been hauling these articles from St. Louis, a distance of sixteen hundred miles. My partner, Don Juan Zubiran, and myself one day delivered three hundred head of beef cattle to the Government at Las Cruces, New Mexico, at 18 cents per pound on the hoof—$90 per head. For a year I delivered beef on the block to the troops at Fort Bliss at 22 cents per pound.

I will now give some items from the other side of my ledger. Three hundred head of cattle belonging to my partner, Mr. Norboe, and myself were taken by Indians in Arizona in 1865, and half of our herders killed. These cattle were being driven to California, where there was then a good market. A white man, also a partner, got away with $11,000 worth of my cattle at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, by selling them and running away with the money.

Another partner, an honest man, died my debtor to the amount of $14,000. This would not have occurred had the gentleman not become insane and unable to settle his large and complicated business.

From the day of my first arrival at El Paso, I determined to make the place my permanent home, and I have never had any desire to change that choice. From the first I foresaw the prospective importance of the place, and many a still, lonesome night have I listened to the roaring of the waters over the dam at Harts Mill, a mile above the village, and tried to fancy it the rumbling of railroad trains, which were then fifteen hundred miles away. No, I do not claim to have foreseen that El Paso would be the center of so many railroads, but I felt sure that the first road to the Pacific Ocean would pass through El Paso, and _so it would_, had it not been for the Rebellion. I would not claim to have had this foresight, did not my letters to my friends during those early years (some of which are still extant) bear out the statement. I probably wrote more and spoke more about the certain future of El Paso than any one who ever lived here. I did more. I proved my faith by my acts. For ten years, amid all the folly and extravagance and vices of my bachelor youth, I kept one object constantly in view: to acquire and hold and pay taxes on a sufficient number of town lots to make me reasonably independent when the railroads should come, and for a time I owned more desirable property in El Paso than any other individual ever owned except the proprietors of the town tract.

Well, the greater portion of this valuable property was taken from me by corrupt courts and officials and by faithless lawyers and supposed friends, and by other means which I may or may not refer to in these writings. If any man says he would have defended himself and his rights better or more courageously than I did, I can only reply that I think I was fortunate to escape with my life! After all this, more than a hundred strangers (who never owned enough of mother earth to be buried in) have said to me: “You have been here a long time, Mr. Mills, and if you had only known what El Paso would be you could have bought town property very cheap and could have been wealthy,” etc., etc. Then, for a moment, homicidal thoughts come into my mind. But it would do no good to kill such a man. A fool or two more or less in the world, or even in a community, would make no perceptible difference. There are so many!

It has been said these men of the frontier in those early days led indolent, idle lives in a “Sleepy Hollow,” and that is true in a way.

The conditions were such that constant toil and endeavor were almost impossible. A train of wagons would arrive from Mexico with silver or other products and in a few days the El Paso merchant would sell or exchange thousands of dollars’ worth of goods, and then for weeks he might not have a customer worthy of his attention.

Another man would labor almost incessantly night and day for a time in filling some Government contract, and then for months, perhaps, no other opportunity would offer for the exercise of his energy. It was “enforced idleness.” But in the long run these men expended as much effort, physical and mental, in chasing the nimble dollar as the most plodding, methodical Chicago business man of today.

Profits were often great and risks were always great. I do not think the desire for money, for its own sake, was as strong as in older communities, and this led to what we called liberality and what the wise call extravagance. If any man had devoted all his energies to accumulating and hoarding money he would have been viewed with disfavor by his neighbors, and at that time men were in many ways dependent upon the good will of their fellows.

If any gentleman did not care to bet on the horse race or to “sit in” at the poker game, no one criticised his peculiarity, because each granted to the other the right he claimed for himself, to do as he pleased about such amusements. But if such a one gave out that he thus refrained because he feared to set a bad example to others or because he feared Divine wrath, his sincerity would have been doubted, and frankness and candor were rated among the essential virtues.

Within the memory of men still living there occurred an incident which illustrates men’s views of law and order in those days. A certain desperado had been getting drunk and riding into stores and saloons and firing his pistols at random in the streets and threatening people’s lives, till the “good citizens” became weary. Finally he took a snap shot at the popular member of the Legislature, Mr. Jeff Hall, on the main street. This was too much. In a few moments fifteen or twenty of the aforesaid “good citizens” were chasing him over town with shotguns, rifles and pistols. The desperado was brought to earth in the corral of the old Central Hotel—“Hell’s half acre”—pierced by many missiles. Then there was an animated dispute among the above mentioned good citizens as to who had fired the fatal shot. One claimed to have done the work with his shotgun. Another said that such small ammunition at long range could not kill such a man, but that it was his rifle shot in the neck that did it. A third said that he had dispatched the deceased with three body shots from his sixshooter, and so on.

At last “Uncle Ben” Dowell said: “Gentlemen, some day some judge or other may come along and be holding court, and some of us may have trouble about this business.” Thereupon they organized a coroner’s jury, composed of the identical men who did the shooting, and sat upon the corpse and agreed upon a verdict, to the effect that “Deceased came to his death by gunshot wounds _from the hands of parties unknown_.”

It was about this time that an El Paso merchant, still living in this valley, had a little experience with the rough Americans here, mostly gamblers. There were many of the latter class.

At this time the fraternity were broke, and some of them had pawned their pistols with this merchant for money. But finally one of them reported to the “boys” that Mr. —— had refused to make any more loans on pistols. “How did you approach him?” was asked.

“Why, I presented the handle of my pistol and asked him to loan me $25 on it.” “Idiot,” said “Snap” Mitchell, the leader, “you don’t know how to soak a pistol; watch me.” So “Snap” went to the store and presenting the _muzzle_ of his pistol asked for a loan. He got it, and went away with the pistol also.

I believe my friend remembers the transaction. Later this same merchant was called upon by a party of secessionists, who accused him of being a —— abolitionist, and talked to him seriously about the penalty, which was hanging. My friend was a foreigner and did not understand our language as well as he does now. I asked him what he said to them when they threatened to hang him, and he replied: “Well, I told them that I had no ‘scruples’.” Of course, he meant that he had no preference for either the Union or Confederate cause. It is certain that he did not mean that he had no scruples about being hanged!

An officer of volunteers bought goods of this same merchant, refused to pay him, swindled him, and because asked to pay called him a —— Jew and other pet names, and finally sent him a formal challenge to fight a duel. The merchant came to me greatly agitated, and declared that he would rather die than suffer such indignities, and asked my advice. I knew that he was in earnest, and the officer was notified to appear at sunrise at the graveyard on the hill, distance ten paces, double-barreled shotguns loaded with buckshot, to fire at the word. The officer declined, declaring the terms “barbarous,” and that ended his career as a valiant son of Mars.

MURDER AND ROBBERY OF GIDDINGS’ STORE (SHELDON BLOCK).

In 1859 the San Antonio Mail Company had its headquarters on the lot where the Sheldon building now stands. They had in the old adobe house as large a stock of general merchandise as any El Paso merchant now carries. The clerks who slept in the store were a Mr. Atkins, familiarly known as “Ole Dad,” and “Fred” ——, a young German. One night Atkins was absent and Fred was sleeping in the store alone.

The next morning a window in the south side of the building was found to have been dug out of the wall and poor Fred was lying dead in his bed with fourteen knife wounds in his body. A large amount of money had been taken from the store (there were no safes nor banks here then) and quantities of valuable goods had also been carried away. This was evidently the work of robbers from the Mexican side of the river. No trace of the robbers or money or goods was ever discovered.

After this murder Mr. Atkins declined to sleep in the store alone. The writer was at that time clerking for St. Vrain & Co., merchants, in the old Central Hotel building, which was burned down a few years ago. As we had plenty of people to protect the St. Vrains store it was agreed that I should go over each night and sleep in the store which had been robbed. But soon the scare was over and Atkins, saying that “lightning never struck twice in the same place,” left me alone for one night. I had a shotgun and pistol, and a good watchdog. The merchants of the village had employed a Mr. Cullimore (now of Austin, Tex.), familiarly called “Bones,” to patrol the town of nights.

That night about 2 o’clock I heard the report of both barrels of “Bones’” shotgun resounding in the little plaza, and his voice calling to me to “look out, Mills!” Robbers, probably the same party, had commenced to dig out the same window and had half finished the work when “Bones” fired on them without effect. They fled, of course, and left only a hat and handkerchief on the ground as remembrances. It was long before any one would sleep alone in that store.

THE CANBY-SIBLEY CAMPAIGN IN 1861-2.

The following notes are published substantially as they were written soon after the close of the campaign.[1] The remoteness of New Mexico from the scenes of vastly more important conflicts prevented historians of the war from writing of that campaign, which, though insignificant by comparison, was one of the knightliest and most romantic in history. I have here aimed to do justice to the brave men, of both armies, who marched and countermarched, and fought and fled and fought again along the banks of the Rio Grande forty years ago.

In 1858, when still a youth, accident and adventure brought me to El Paso. * * * Determining to make my home in this valley, and being without money or friends or a profession, I commenced life as a merchant’s clerk. I had spent about three years in that capacity when the news of the firing on Fort Sumter and the inglorious surrender by General Twiggs, of all the United States troops in Texas, startled us as much, though ten days old, as though the lightning had brought it. We had heard a great deal of street corner talk about secession, and a packed convention had passed a resolution declaring Texas out of the Union, which resolution had been submitted to a vote of the people; my brother (now Col. Anson Mills), myself and only two or three others voting against it in El Paso County. The Mexican voters, of course, knew but little about the questions involved in secession and were influenced by the Americans, most of whom favored secession, those of Northern birth being loudest in their protestations of devotion to the South and loudest in denunciation of “abolitionists,” which meant all who did not favor rebellion.

There was at that time a garrison of United States troops at Fort Bliss, within a mile of El Paso; another at Fort Quitman, ninety miles below, on the river, and several other posts in striking distance, all of which were included in the surrender of General Twiggs to the “Texas commissioners” at San Antonio, 700 miles away! There was not a Confederate soldier within 500 miles of Fort Bliss, but such is the power of military discipline that the post commander, Colonel Reives, though urged by my brother and myself and others to disregard Twiggs’ order of surrender, turned over his arms and valuable stores to Commissioner McGoffin and marched with his command, as prisoners, to San Antonio.

Then we determined that my brother should go to Washington city and report the condition of affairs here, and try to get the Secretary of War to order these officers not to respect Twiggs’ surrender, but he arrived too late.