Part 3

"But in the midst of this we were cheered with the presence of our friend, Mr. Little, of New Hampshire, who assures us of the personal friendship of the President in the act before us; and this assurance, though not doubted by us in the least, was soon made doubly sure by the testimony of Col. Kane, of Philadelphia."

FOOTNOTES:

[21:a] Transcriber's Note: Footnote missing in original.

[23:b] History of Brigham Young, August 14, 1846, Ms., Bk. 2, pp. 151-2.

[24:c] See Orson Pratt in Millennial Star, Vol. X, pp. 241-7.

[25:d] Conquest of New Mexico, p. 92.

[25:e] See History of the Mormon Church (Roberts), Americana, March, 1912, p. 308, for a letter from the United States War Department on this subject.

[25:f] History Mormon Church, Americana, March, 1912, p. 310.

[26:g] Mill. Star, Vol. VIII, p. 117.

IV.

THE MARCH OF THE BATTALION FROM FORT LEAVENWORTH.

At Fort Leavenworth the Battalion received its equipment of 100 tents, one for every 6 privates; also their arms and camp accoutrements. When drawing the checks for clothing, the paymaster expressed great surprise to find that every man was able to sign his own name to the pay roll.

=Death of Col. Allen. Question of a Successor.=--At Fort Leavenworth Col. Allen was taken ill; but on the 12th of August he ordered the Battalion to start on its western march, while he would remain a few days, recuperate and overtake them. He died on the 23rd, much lamented by the Battalion, which had become warmly attached to him. Commenting upon his demise the author of the "Doniphan Expedition," William E. Connelly, says:

"Thus died Lieutenant-Colonel Allen, of the first U. S. dragoons, in the midst of a career of usefulness under the favoring smiles of fortune, beloved while living, regretted after death by all who knew him, both among the volunteers and the troops."

On the death of Col. Allen the question of succession in command was considered. It appears that this subject was mooted at the time the companies of the Battalion were enlisted; and "Col. Allen repeatedly stated to us," says Brigham Young, "that there would be no officer in the Battalion, except himself, only from among our people; that if he fell in battle, or was sick, or disabled by any means, the command would devolve on the ranking officer, which would be the Captain of Company 'A' and 'B', and so on according to letter." The Battalion appears to have had the same understanding, for at a council meeting of the officers it was agreed by them that Captain Jefferson Hunt, of Company "A", should assume command, which decision was afterwards sustained by the unanimous vote of the men. Meantime, however, Major Horton, in command at Fort Leavenworth, sent Lieutenant A. J. Smith, of the regular army, to take command of the Battalion. This led to a threatened complication; for an appeal to such written military authorities as were available to the officers of the Battalion, left them hopelessly divided in their conclusions. On the arrival of Lieutenant Smith a council of officers was held in which the Battalion officers demanded to know what reasons existed for their acceptance of him as commander rather than Captain Hunt. To which it was answered that the government property in possession of the Battalion was not yet receipted for, but that Lieutenant Smith could receipt for it, and being a commissioned officer of the regular army, he would be known at Washington, and his actions and orders recognized; whereas the officers of the Battalion had not yet received their commissions, and it would be doubtful if their selection of a commander would be approved. After this discussion Captain Hunt submitted the matter to the officers, and all but three voted in favor of accepting Lieutenant Smith as the commander of the Battalion.

=Complaints of the Volunteers.=--With Lieutenant Smith had come Dr. George B. Sanderson, whom Col. Allen, at Leavenworth, had appointed a surgeon in the U. S. army, to serve with the Mormon Battalion. According to the historian of the Battalion,[29:a] the volunteers suffered much because of the "arrogance, inefficiency and petty oppressions" of these two officers. This view of these officers, however, is to be accounted for by the Volunteers being suddenly brought under the enforced discipline of the U. S. army regulations. The heat of the season was excessive, the men had been already much exhausted by the strenuous labor and exposure during the journey through Iowa with their people earlier in the season, and as a result many of them fell a prey to the malaria prevalent in the country and at this season of the year. For this Dr. Sanderson prescribed calomel and arsenic, and as the men were averse to taking medicine, pleading even religious scruples against the drugs, the matter gave rise to much unpleasantness between the Battalion physician and the command, involving therein Lieutenant Smith, who, in the interest of what he no doubt regarded as discipline, sided with the physician.

=The Line of March.=--The Battalion's line of march, from Fort Leavenworth, after crossing the Kaw or Kansas river, followed that of the first Missouri Dragoons, led over the route that same year by Col. Doniphan, via Council Grove, thence some distance up the Arkansas River to a little beyond Fort Mann, where they crossed that river in order to take what was known as the "Cimmeron Route"--because it crossed Cimmeron river and followed some distance up the south branch of the stream, called Cimmeron Creek. The last crossing of the Arkansas they reached on the 16th of September, and here the commanding officer insisted that most of the families--about twelve or fifteen in number, which had so far accompanied the Battalion--should be detached and sent under a guard of ten men up the Arkansas to Pueblo, which nestles at the east base of the Rocky mountain range. There were stout protests against this "division of the Battalion;" as it was held to be a violation of the promise that the Battalion would not be divided, also that these families should be permitted to travel with the Battalion to California. Unquestionably, however, the arrangement was in the best interests both of the families and of the Battalion, and accordingly the detachment was made up as proposed, and marched to Pueblo under command of Captain Nelson Higgins.

=Arrival at Santa Fe; Condition of the Command.=--The main body of the command continued its march south-westward to San Miguel, thence turning the point of a mountain range marched north westward to Santa Fe, where they arrived in two detachments on the 9th and 12th of October, respectively. Upon the arrival of the first detachment the Battalion was received by a salute of one hundred guns by order of Col. Doniphan,[30:b] then in command both as civil and military head of the department of New Mexico; but making ready for what was to be his great and historic march upon Chihuahua.

On the arrival of the Battalion at Santa Fe it was learned that General Kearny, previous to his departure for the west, had designated Col. P. St. George Cooke[31:c] to take command of the Battalion and to follow on his trail with wagons to California.

Speaking of the condition of the Battalion, on its arrival in Santa Fe, and remarking on its physical unfitness to undertake the march to California, Col. Cooke, in his "Conquest of New Mexico," says:

"Everything conspired to discourage the extraordinary undertaking of marching this Battalion eleven hundred miles, for the much greater part through an unknown wilderness, without road or trail, and with a wagon train.

"It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old and feeble, and some too young; it was embarrassed by many women; it was undisciplined; it was much worn by traveling on foot, and marching from Nauvoo, Illinois; their clothing was very scant; there was no money to pay them, or clothing to issue; their mules were utterly broken down; the quartermaster department was without funds, and its credit bad; and animals were scarce. Those procured were very inferior, and were deteriorating every hour for lack of forage or grazing."[31:d] "So every preparation must be pushed--hurried. A small party with families had been sent from Arkansas crossing up the river, to winter at a small settlement close to the mountains, called Pueblo. The Battalion was now inspected, and eighty-six men found inefficient were ordered, under two officers, with nearly all the women, to go to the same point; five wives of officers were reluctantly allowed to accompany the march, but furnished their own transportation. By special arrangement and consent, the Battalion was paid in checks--not very available at Santa Fe (i. e. negotiable).

"With every effort, the quartermaster could only undertake to furnish rations for sixty days; and, in fact, full rations, of only flour, sugar, coffee and salt; salt pork only for thirty days, and soap for twenty. To venture without pack-saddles would be grossly imprudent, and so that burden was added."[32:e]

=Invalided Detachment Sent to Pueblo.=--It was understood that the men invalided and their escort, together with the women and children belonging to the Battalion, would have the privilege in the spring of intercepting the main body of their people moving to the west, and going with them "at government expense."[32:f] The above arrangement was the result of a council of the officers of the Battalion with Colonel Doniphan of Missouri, then in charge of military and civil affairs at Santa Fe, and with Col. Cooke who had been designated by Gen. Kearny to take command of the Battalion in its march to the Pacific, on his own departure from Santa Fe to California. Captain James Brown, of Company C., and St. Elam Luddington, of Company B, were the two officers above referred to as being placed in charge of the detachment. This company arrived at Pueblo on the 17th of November, and went into winter quarters near the encampment of Captain Higgins, who had preceded them to that point; and the next spring, according to the above arrangement, joined in the westward movement of their people, following so closely the pioneer company led by Brigham Young, that they entered Salt Lake Valley on the 29th of July, five days after the arrival of the first pioneer company. To the wife of one of the members of the Battalion, Mrs. Catherine Campbell Steele, wife of John Steele, Company D, was born the first white child in "Utah," August 9th, 1847.

FOOTNOTES:

[29:a] This is Sergeant Daniel Tyler, author of "A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War." The work was published in 1881. H. H. Bancroft speaks very highly of this work in his History of California, Vol. V, p. 477, note.

[30:b] Col. Doniphan had come to Santa Fe with Kearny, commanding the first Missouri regiment; and after the departure of the General for California, he was left in command at Santa Fe until the arrival of Col. Sterling Price, who when he arrived, was to take command at Santa Fe (Doniphan's expedition, Connelley, 1907, pp. 250-1-3). The historian of the Mormon Battalion notes that the command of Col. Price, numbering about 1,200 men, received no such marked honor on their arrival in Santa Fe as was accorded to the Battalion. (Tyler's Battalion, p. 164.)

[31:c] The Colonel was born in Virginia in 1809. Graduated from West Point in 1827; was in the Black Hawk war in Illinois--1832, and at the Battle of Bad Ax, fought in July of that year. In 1833 he was made a Lieutenant; saw service on the plains, principally in what is now Kansas, before the Mexican war; in this war he took a prominent part in the affairs at Santa Fe and marched the Mormon Battalion to California. "During the fifties, in the border troubles in Kansas he saw much service; in the Civil War he was for the Union. He was retired in 1873, having served in the army continuously for forty-six years. He died March 20, 1895." "Doniphan's Expedition," p. 264.

[31:d] Later, Col. Cooke again complains of his teams, in the following passage: "I have brought road tools and have determined to take through my wagons; but the experiment is not a fair one, as the mules are broken down at the outset. The only good ones, about twenty, which I bought near Albuquerque, were taken for the express for Fremont's mail--the General's order requiring the twenty-one best in Santa Fe." (Cooke's Conquest, p. 93). To this Sergeant Tyler adds: "It is but justice to the Colonel to state here that with few exceptions, the mule and ox teams used from Santa Fe to California were the same worn out and broken down animals that we had driven all the way from Council Bluffs and Fort Leavenworth; indeed, some of them had been driven all the way from Nauvoo, the same season." (Tyler's Battalion, p. 175).

[32:e] Conquest of New Mexico and California. An Historical and Personal Narrative by P. St. George Cooke, G. P. Putnam and Sons, N. Y. 1878: pp. 91-2.

[32:f] See History of the Mormon Church, Americana, (Roberts), April No. p. 3776--note.

V.

THE MARCH OF THE BATTALION FROM SANTA FE TO THE MOUTH OF THE GILA.

The Battalion began its march from Santa Fe on the 19th of October, Colonel Cooke in command, Lieutenant A. J. Smith, who had led the Battalion to Santa Fe, became the acting commissary of subsistence; and Lieutenant George Stoneman, acting quartermaster, instead of Lieutenant Samuel E. Gully, who had resigned. Both Smith and Stoneman were of the regular army. Dr. Sanderson was continued as Physician-surgeon to the command. The guides to the expedition--appointed by Gen. Kearny--were Weaver, Charbonneau, and Leroux; and Stephen C. Foster, called "Doctor," in all the narratives, was employed as interpreter.

=More Invaliding.=--The course of the march for some time was southward down the valley of the Rio Grande. On the 10th of November, fifty-five more men were declared physically unable through sickness to continue the march, and accordingly were detached, and under Lieutenant W. W. Willis were ordered back to Pueblo to join the other detachments that had been sent there. After much suffering from the hardships of the journey--weak teams, scant supplies of food, illy clad, general sickness among the men, the fall of December snows in the mountain ranges north of Santa Fe, excessive cold, and several deaths occurring, this detachment finally arrived at Pueblo between the 20th and 24th of December, in a most pitiable condition; but they were warmly received by members of the Battalion already quartered there,[35:a] numbering, now, all told, about one hundred and fifty.

=Hardship of Excessive Toil.=--One cause of so many men breaking down in health was the excessive toil at the wagons through the sand stretches of the road, began early in the march from Santa Fe--while yet in the valley of the Rio del Norte, in fact, and continuing along the whole route to and through the California desert lying between the Colorado and the coast range of mountains. "Our course now lay down the Rio del Norte [The Rio Grande]," says Sergeant Tyler. "We found the roads extremely sandy in many places, and the men while carrying blankets, knapsacks, cartridge boxes (each containing thirty-six rounds of ammunition), and muskets on their backs, and living on short rations, had to pull at long ropes to aid the teams. The deep sand alone, without any load was enough to wear out both man and beast." Later he remarks: "We had to leave the river for a time, and have twenty men to each wagon with long ropes to help the teams pull the wagons over the sand hills. The commander perched himself on one of the hills, like a hawk on a fence post, sending down his orders with the sharpness of--well, to the Battalion, it is enough to say--Colonel Cooke."

One of the Battalion celebrates this incident of the march in doggerel verse of which two stanzas follow:

"Our hardships reach their rough extremes, When valiant men are roped with teams, Hour after hour, and day by day, To wear our strength and lives away.

* * * * *

"We see some twenty men or more With empty stomachs and foot sore, Bound to one wagon plodding on Through sand, beneath a burning sun."[36:b]

In the trackless part of the Battalion's march through the sand stretches, in addition to pulling at the wagons, companies marched in double-single file, in each other's footsteps, to make tracks for the wagon wheels.

=Irrigation in New Mexico.=--It was while at Santa Fe, and while passing down the Rio del Norte, that the Battalion saw, for the first time, irrigation in operation. Tyler thus describes it: "Canals for irrigation purposes were found all along the banks of the river. Some of them several miles in length. They conveyed water to the farms, or as they were called in that country, ranchos. There being little or no rain during the growing season, the water was made to flow over the ground until it was sufficiently saturated, and then shut off until needed again for the same purpose."

=March Down the Rio Grande.=--As the command in its southward movement down the Rio Grande reached the point where General Kearny left the valley for a direct march westward--228 miles south of Santa Fe--and where, too, Kearny had abandoned his wagons; the guides declared it impossible to follow the Gila route proper with the wagons; and hence a circuit to the south through Sonora via Janos and Fronteras was proposed and determined upon at a council of officers.

In the first stages of this changed course, however, the road bore to the southeast, and this was not to the liking of Col. Cooke, because it would carry his command within hailing distance of General Wool, who might incorporate it in the "Army of the Centre,"--as the General's division of the invading forces against Mexico was called--to operate against Chihuahua. In that event, as the Colonel himself expressed it, he would lose his trip to California. To bear to the southeast was not to the liking of the Battalion, as that was not in the direction of California, but one which might lead them within the sphere of the "Army of the Centre," and they would find themselves discharged in Old Mexico instead of California, at the end of their term of enlistment. The entire command was thrown into gloom by this change in the line of march: "All of our hopes, conversations and songs," says the historian of the Battalion--Tyler--"were centered on California. Somewhere on that broad domain we expected to join our families and friends."

="Blow the Right!" The Westward Turn.=--"On the morning of the 21st," says Tyler, "the command resumed its journey, marching in a southern direction for about two miles, when it was found that the road began to bear southeast instead of southwest, as stated by the guides. The Colonel looked in the direction of the road, then to the southwest, then to the west, saying, 'I don't want to get under General Wool, and lose my trip to California.' He arose in his saddle and ordered a halt. He then said with firmness: 'This is not my course. I was ordered to California,' 'and,' he added with an oath, 'I will go there or die in the attempt.' Then turning to the bugler, he said, 'Blow the right!'

"Turning westward at this point, 32° 41´ north latitude, and but a short distance--some thirty miles--north of the present city of El Paso--the course of march was westward to San Bernardino rancho, thence to Yanos and so to the San Pedro river where the command arrived on the 9th of December.

"=The Fight with Wild Bulls.=--Here occurred the only fighting the Battalion engaged in on its expedition, a battle with wild bulls. This section of the country seemed to abound with herds of wild cattle, and the males among them were much more bold and ferocious than among the buffalos. Attracted by curiosity these herds gathered along the line of march, alternately scampering away and approaching; and some of the bolder ones, as if in resentment of the Battalion's invasion, attacked the column. Several mules were gored to death by them, both in the teams and among the pack animals; and Colonel Cooke records how some of the wagons were thrown about by the mad charge of these furious beasts. The troops had been ordered to march with guns unloaded, but in the presence of such a danger the men loaded their muskets without waiting for an order to that effect, and when attacked would fire upon the charging beasts, so that the rattle of musketry was for once heard all along the line. The bulls were very tenacious of life, however, and more desperate and dangerous when wounded than before."

Tyler speaks of one fight between Dr. William Spencer and a bull which was shot five times, twice through the lungs, twice through the heart, and once through the head, and yet would alternately rise and fall and rush upon the doctor until a sixth ball between the eyes, and near the curl of the pate, proved fatal.[38:c] Colonel Cooke confirms Tyler's narrative about the bull continuing to rush on after being twice shot through the heart, and adds: "I have seen the heart." Cooke also relates the feat of Corporal Frost in bringing down one of these ferocious animals: "I was very near Corporal Frost, when an immense coal-black bull came charging upon us, a hundred yards distant. Frost aimed his musket, a flintlock, very deliberately and only fired when the beast was within six paces; it fell headlong, almost at our feet."[39:d] Tyler adds: "The Corporal was on foot while, of course, the Colonel and staff were mounted. On the first appearance of the bull, the Colonel, with his usual firm manner of speech, ordered the corporal to load his gun, supposing, of course, that he had observed the previous order of prohibition. To this command he (the corporal) paid no attention. Thinking him either stupified or, dumbfounded, with much warmth and a foul epithet he next ordered him to run, but this mandate was as little heeded as the other. Doubtless Cooke thought one man's 'ignorance with some stubborness' was about to receive a terrible retribution, but when he saw the monster lifeless at his feet, through the well-directed aim of the brave and fearless corporal, how changed must have been his feelings!"[39:e] The number of the wild bovine enemy killed in the engagement is variously reported as from twenty to sixty, and by one writer as high as eighty-one.