that time), I had not the least desire to remain. However, a few miles
back, where the river makes the bend, there is a singular grandeur about
the country, with nothing to break the utter loneliness, save the sad,
heavy murmur of the water. And now we are out on the plains again; day
after day we travel over land that lies so level and so still that not a
being but the lark seems living here beside us. How hot and fierce the
sun glares down on the slowly-winding column--a serpent it seems, with
its length outstretched, as it moves over the bare, brown prairie. The
spirit grew oppressed, and the heart fainted in the noon-day sun; the
command to halt was always received with joy; and more than once we had
to make forced marches to reach water. Yet we lost but one man out of
the eight hundred, and he died the day we struck the Arkansas
again--died in the road almost--and we carried him with us to camp; and
at night, when the stars had come out and tear-drops hung in the eyes of
the flowers by the river-bank, they carried him to his lonely grave. I
went to the tent-door when I heard the muffled drums, and stood outside,
in the dark, where I could see the short procession passing. Lanterns
were carried in the train that moved ghostly away from the camp-fires
and the white-looming tents. The grave was not far, and when they had
lowered the coffin I saw the form of a man bowing over it, as though in
prayer, and then the earth was shovelled back. The soldiers returned
with measured tread, and left their comrade on the wide, lone prairie,
with only the Arkansas to sing his dirge.
I went to sleep with tears in my eyes; but we were to make an early
start in the morning, and before daybreak we were all awake and astir.
Sadness could not live in the heart those early mornings, and I thought
sometimes the general had _reveille_ sounded so early purposely, to show
us how beautiful Nature was at sunrise.
Sunrise on the plains! Is there anything in music, in painting, in
poetry, that can bring before eyes that have never beheld it, the
passing beauty of such a scene? There are strains in music which bring a
faint shadow of the picture back to me; no art can ever reproduce it.
How balmy the faint breath of wind that seems to lift upward the light,
gray clouds, to make way for the rosy tints creeping athwart the
horizon! Watch the clouds as they rise higher in the heavens; see how
the sun-god has kissed them into blushes as bright as the damask-rose,
sending a flood of yellow light to cover them with greater confusion.
Now they float gently upward till they reach the clear, blue sky, from
where the yellow light has faded; and, watching bevies of other clouds,
still dancing in the light above the first rays of the rising sun, the
color fades from them, and they waft hither and thither--white clouds on
deep blue ground--till the morning breeze bears them away from our
sight. But words are weak and tame; and the yellow-breasted prairie-lark
alone, rising high in the sun-bright air as the day begins, gives fit
expression to her thanks for the glories of creation, in the wordless
song she sings forever.
We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; it
was very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the
_générale_ was sounded, the families occupying them could be seen
tumbling out, the children only half-dressed; and it happened sometimes
that carriages were left behind, when not ready to fall into line when
the march was beaten. In times of danger from Indians, of course, this
would not have happened; but at that time there was thought to be no
danger, except at night.
Mrs. Melville had developed into an unmitigated tyrant, and one of her
victims was an Englishman, a raw recruit, who had been given the
lieutenant as servant. His name was either Ackley or Hackley, Ockley or
Hockley. If he insisted it was one, Mrs. Melville said it was the other;
and so completely cowed was he at last that he no longer dared to assert
his right to any name. I often thought it was a national revenge she was
wreaking on the poor fellow (she and her husband had sprung from the
Emerald Isle). He had to do all the work that should have fallen to her
share, and he never had a moment to spare for the lieutenant or myself.
From the first day of starting, I had detected, among the detail of men
sent to pitch our tent, a countryman of mine, a poor Dutchman, the
greenest of his kind. I electrified him one day by speaking German to
him, and ever after his pale, worn face would brighten, and his eyes
light up, when I asked of him any little service or assistance. The
general, knowing me to be a German, allowed the man to wait on us; and
Mohrman was happy as a king when he could fondle Toby, or put our tent
to rights, and fix things comfortably for me in the carriage. He was a
cabinet-maker, and the camp-table he made for us was the envy of the
whole camp. The poor fellow was weak in the chest (something unusual for
one of his nationality), and a big Irish corporal, who was a good enough
fellow otherwise, had always imposed on Mohrman, because he was ignorant
of the language, and could make no complaint to his officer. He
continued to bear with Stebbins's petty persecutions like a saint, till
one morning he made his appearance at the tent-door, with tears in his
eyes, and complained that the corporal had deprived him of the last
thing he had left, coming from the "Fatherland"--his _Gesang-Buch_,
which his mother had given him on the day of confirmation.
I stepped outside, where Corporal Stebbins with his detail stood,
waiting to strike the tent at the sounding of the _générale_. There was
a lurking grin on the corporal's face, as he approached at my summons.
"Corporal," said I, "have you Mohrman's book?"
"Sure, ma'am, and is it his prayer-book the poor b'y wants? Ye see, he
complained yesterday that his knapsack was so heavy that he couldn't
pack me blankets; so I thought I'd carry this for him a while;" and,
amidst a half-suppressed snicker, he solemnly drew forth from his
capacious pocket a big black hymn-book, substantially German-looking,
about ten inches in length by five inches across.
"I'll take that book," said I, looking severe, and turning very quickly
to hide my face.
After this Mohrman seemed to have more peace; and we journeyed on
serenely till we reached Fort Lyon, Colorado, the first human habitation
we had laid eyes on for many weeks. Sterile and rock-strewn as the
country is, it was the boast of the post commander that he had as fine a
company-garden as could be seen, twenty miles away from here; to which
his wife added, "the only pity was that the vegetables should always be
dry and wilted before they reached the garrison."
I was well pleased to think that our destination lay beyond Fort Lyon;
though there were those among the ladies who so dreaded the crossing of
the Arkansas just before us, and the passage of the Raton Mountains
later, that they would have remained here, where no flower could be
coaxed into blossom, rather than have gone on. The Arkansas river was to
be crossed at Bent's old fort, where the overland mail-stage also had
its crossing. The carriages were discreetly sent a mile or two above the
fording-place, for the soldiers--poor fellows--had to swim across, their
clothes, knapsack, and gun in one hand, while with the other they held
to the stout ropes stretched from shore to shore. Not a man of the eight
hundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend a
helping hand at the first cry for aid, and they all crossed safely,
though many, I dare say, in fear and trembling. When the men were over,
the married officers were permitted to join the ladies, and we were
ferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for which
little water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland Mail
Company. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master and
teamsters; and when the whole train was on the other side, we thought we
had spent rather a pleasant day.
Like sailors scanning the edge of the horizon for land, so the soldiers
had for days been watching the nearer approach of the Spanish Peaks
looming faintly in the distance, and breaking the grand monotone of the
level, changeless plain, verging, where the eye could see no further,
into limitless space. Those who had been out this way before commenced
talking of the "Picketwire," and the beautiful valleys we should see,
and the big onions the Mexicans would bring to the camp to sell. After a
while I discovered that the "Picketwire" was a little river--the
"Purgatoir" or "Purgatory"--along whose banks the Mexican raised
vegetables and fruit, of which I saw specimens, later, in the big onion
spoken of. I had not been in California then, and the onions produced
there, of the size of a large saucer, certainly had a stunning effect on
me.
I am not prepared to say why the little river was called Purgatory. For
the most part the country was good enough--lovely, even; and sometimes
grand. One or two days seemed rather purgatorial though, come to think
of it. On one occasion we passed through steep, barren hills, strewn all
over with little cylindrical pieces of iron, that looked exactly as
though they had been melted in that place just below purgatory, and
thrown up here to cool. Another day we marched along the bed of a river,
over boulders from three to six feet high; if _we_ did not think it
purgatory, the horses and mules certainly did. But the worst day of all
remained.
It broke at last--the dreaded day in which the Raton Pass was to be
attempted. The horrors of the Pass, however, must have been less vivid
in the eyes of the general than in the minds of the ladies belonging to
his command; for, contrary to all hopes and expectations, he allowed
none of the married officers to remain with the carriages. It was a
"steep" pass, undeniably. To this day I have not forgotten the sound of
the grating of the wheels on the bare, unmitigated rock, as the carriage
made ascents and descents that were truly miraculous--one wheel pointing
heavenward sometimes, while the other three were wedged in below;
scraping along a rock wall, bounding from rock to rock, with the
pleasant prospect, on the other side, of a launch from a jagged,
well-deep precipice, into eternity.
The crowning point to our terror, and to the grandeur of the scene, was
a fearfully inclined plane of solid rock, with a frowning bank on one
side, a gaping drop-off on the other, and a dark, heavy wall rising
square in front of us; against which, to all appearances, the mules must
dash their brains out, for neither bit nor brake was of the least avail
on this road. Just where the crash against the wall seemed inevitable,
there was a narrow curve, and the road ran on in spite of the seeming
impossibility. True to the saying, that there is but a step from the
sublime to the ridiculous, I fell to laughing here, so that Melville
turned in surprise to see whether fear and terror had robbed me of my
sober senses; but I had seen in passing, painted on that dreadful wall
of frowning rock, the cabalistic words and signs: "Old Cabin Bitters;
S---- T---- 1860 ---- X----;" and below this, "Brandreth's Vegetable
Pills."
These horrors past, there lay before us valleys, hills, crags--that
formed as picturesque a landscape as tourist's eye was ever gladdened
by. At the foot of tall, straight pines, crowning the heights and
covering the sloping hill-sides, was a carpet of short, soft grass, out
of which laughed the merriest flower-eyes, and over which nodded the
slenderest stalks, bearing blossoms that seemed exotic in their
intensely bright hues. The balm-laden breath of the wind told enticing
tales of the untrod velvet on the heights above, where the pine-trees
bent and swayed in the passing breeze. We had come upon this all so
unexpectedly that the lieutenant insisted on my mounting Toby to obtain
a better view of the whole country. My saddle was in the wagon
somewhere, and there was no time to hunt it up; but as I had seen Mrs.
Lane start off on the colonel's horse and saddle sometime before, I
clambered on Toby's back at once, into the lieutenant's saddle. By
crossing some little low hills, which the command had to march around, I
found myself pretty soon ahead of the train. Not aware that we were to
pass any place where human beings dwelt, I kept bravely on--feeling all
the more safe from seeing Captain Newbold's cow, with her guardian, just
in front of me. When I saw a rude kind of gateway a little later, I
could not resist the promptings of my curiosity, and quite forgot the
command, which approached just then with beating drums and flying
colors. Had I realized how near they were upon me, I think my native
modesty would have prompted me to let General Sykes, with his command,
pass in front of me; but seeing Captain Newbold's cow march through the
gate, and an avenue of Mexican and Indian faces, I followed the lead,
barely escaping the feet of the drummer-boys, who were close on my
heels.
It was the residence of an old pioneer--old Wooten--a pioneer in the
boldest sense of the word. In conversation with one of the officers,
when Kit Carson was mentioned, he spoke of him as being a comparative
stranger in these parts, having been in the country only some
twenty-five or thirty years.
If, in the eyes of the straggling Mexicans gathered around, it was an
honor to ride in front of the command--next after Captain Newbold's
cow--that honor, and the privilege of riding in the lieutenant's saddle,
was dearly paid for before night. Determined not to have the
drummer-boys so close behind me again, I turned aside from the road,
lured on by the magnificent fresh, soft grass before me. Toby seemed
strangely averse to crushing the grass, for he stepped very gingerly,
and made two or three attempts to turn back. Sky-gazing, I urged him on,
till a sudden plunge he made had nearly thrown me out of the slippery
saddle, and for the first time I saw that the fresh, treacherous green
had only covered an ugly quagmire, in which Toby was wildly plunging
about, getting in deeper at every fresh effort to raise himself. The
command had nearly passed; only Colonel Bankhead lingered behind,
picking the rare flowers for his wife--gallant man!--and my wild shouts
caused him to look around. It was a slow job to rescue me; and by the
time I was on dry soil, the colonel's clothing was very much the color
of Toby's legs just then, for the frightened horse would not move a
step, and Colonel Bankhead--I repeat my thanks to him now--had made his
way into the horrible bog at the risk of his life almost. After this I
could let Toby have the reins, and go anywhere--he never got mired
again. But I took to the carriage that day, and never mounted Toby again
till we reached Fort Union, some time later.
They were building very comfortable quarters at Fort Union when we got
in, but that did us no good. General Sykes had his camping-ground
assigned by General Carleton a mile or two outside the post; and our
place was with the Fifth Infantry, until our regiment should get in. Now
we used to strain our eyes looking for signs of "our regiment;" not that
we were not well enough off where we were, but we used to congregate at
the tent of some officer of the Third, and feel clannish, and speak of
the delight we should feel when "old Howe" got in with the regiment--all
out of sheer contrariness, I suppose.
One day Melville rushed wildly into the tent, and announced a great dust
arising in the distance. We all rushed out, and a perfect fever took
possession of the camp--cavalry and infantry, officers and men. Tables
and mess-chests were brought out and spread; bottles were uncorked, and
fruit-cans opened; dried-apple pie (a great luxury, I assure you) and
salt pickles, raw sliced onions and raspberry jelly, were joyfully
placed side by side.
Nearer rolled the dust--slowly--slowly; a snail might have moved faster,
I thought, than this regiment, famed once as the Rifles, and blessed
with the reputation of being very unlike a snail in general character.
Mrs. Melville needed no stimulant to do her best; affection and ambition
prompted her alike--she had served with the Third before, and was now
again of them--and she worked like a beaver to have the table well
spread for the expected guests. The slow, heavy tramp of the approaching
troops shook the earth like far-off thunder; but the dust was so thick
that it was hard to tell where the soldiers left off and the wagons
commenced, while the train moved. At last there came the sudden clanging
of trumpets, so shrill and discordant that I put my hands up to my ears,
and then the command halted near our camp.
Let no one dream of a band of gay cavaliers riding grandly into the
garrison on prancing steeds, and with flying banners! Alas, for romance
and poetry! Gaunt, ragged-looking men, on bony, rough-coated
horses--sun-burned, dust-covered, travel-worn, man and beast. Was there
nothing left of the old material of the dashing, death-daring Rifles?
Ah, well! These men had seen nothing for long weeks but the red,
sun-heated soil of the Red River country; had drank nothing but the
thick, blood-red water of the river; had eaten nothing but the one dry,
hard cracker, dealt out to them each day; for they had been led wrong by
the guide, had been lost, so that they reached Fort Union long after,
instead of long before, the Fifth Infantry.
Their camping-ground was assigned them quite a distance from the Fifth,
and we rode over the next day to visit the ladies who had come with the
command. The difference between the two camps struck me all the more
forcibly, I presume, because General Sykes was famed for the order and
precision he enforced; and when we rode up to his tent two days later,
to bid him good-bye (the officers of the Third having received orders to
join their regiment), I exclaimed, in tones of mild despair:
"Oh, general, can you not come with us, and take command of the Third?"
He shook his head solemnly, looking over to the cavalry camp.
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, madame, than to accede to your
wishes; but really in this instance I must decline. _There are too many
unruly horses for me in that camp._"
I hope the general meant only what he said; I hope too the Third will
forgive me, when I say that an old soldier in the ranks, a German, once
told me in confidence that every member of that regiment could pass
muster for the Wild Huntsman, so well known in the annals of terror in
German fable-history.
II.
It was a novel court-martial, whose last sitting was held at the dead of
night, between Fort Union and Los Vegas, in New Mexico. Let no one think
that a love of the romantic induced the general commanding to order this
assembling at the "witching hour, when church-yards yawn," but dire
necessity--"the exigencies of the service," as they have it. General
Sykes, who was president of the court, was under orders to take up the
line of march with his infantry, on the day following, for Fort Sumner,
while Colonel Howe, with five companies of cavalry, was to proceed to
Fort Craig; and as General Carleton understood no joking in regard to
orders once issued, and as the board had not been able to finish up the
business brought before it while convened at Fort Union, this midnight
session was agreed upon--the command to separate and march in opposite
directions, as soon as the court adjourned.
Of the prisoners at the bar, the lieutenant was one, though I have
forgotten for what heinous crime arraigned; doubtless the charges
against him and the other unfortunate wights were very grave and serious
in the eyes of their superior officers, though trivial they might be in
the estimation of civilians. Just as the gray dawn crept up the horizon,
the lieutenant entered the tent, where I was waiting, fully dressed for
the march, knowing that the tents would be struck as soon as the court
was over.
Slowly the long train arranged itself, and lumberingly it wound its way
out of the camp, entered only at a late hour the evening before. The
blast of the bugle seemed fairly to cut the crisp morning air, and the
horses neighed and stamped, while here and there a mule couple--part of
the six attached to each wagon--would begin frisking and jumping, till
called to order by the blacksnake of the irritable driver. As the
lieutenant was under arrest, he was relieved from duty; and as this
state of things was likely to continue until the proceedings and
findings of the court had been sent to Washington and returned, we set
out with the intention of enjoying the journey as well as was possible
under the circumstances. We were expected to march with the command, but
in the rear of the cavalry, and preceding the army-wagons. The dust,
however, was anything but pleasant here, and as, altogether, Uncle Sam
holds the lines of government somewhat slacker in these frontier
countries, the lieutenant was allowed to take his carriage, the orderly,
and the wagon containing our tent and camp furniture, to the end of the
entire train. In this way we could make a halt, or an excursion into the
neighboring country, whenever we felt inclined, and could catch up again
with the command by the time it went into camp--where I was an object of
envy to the other ladies, whose husbands were not under arrest.
Toward noon we reached Los Vegas, the first Mexican town I had
seen--Fort Union being but the entrance to New Mexico. The country
around Los Vegas is flat and uninteresting, but by no means barren,
though only a small portion of it is cultivated. A little stream, the
Gallinas, runs by the place, emptying later into the Rio Pecos; but the
Mexicans are not content with this water-course alone--they have dug
irrigating canals, which look again like little streams where grass and
wild flowers have sprung up on the banks. It is the only branch of art
or industry cultivated anywhere in New Mexico--this digging of
irrigating ditches--and in it the Mexicans surely excel. Wherever we see
a patch of green, we may be certain of finding canals on at least two
sides of it; and they can lead the water where a Yankee, with all his
ingenuity, would despair of bringing it.
The houses of Los Vegas, though looking very much so to me then, are not
so hopelessly Mexican as those I found later along the Rio Grande and
farther in the interior. The houses were one story high, the roofs of
mud, of which material were also mantle-shelves, window-sills, walls and
floors. But the little enclosed fire-places, with overarching mantle,
were smooth and white, as were the walls; and the more pretentious
houses, and where Americans lived, were set with glass. In the houses of
the Mexicans I noticed that a width of red or yellow calico was tacked
smoothly up around the wall, at a distance of three or four feet from
the ground. The use of this drapery is just as incomprehensible to me
as what benefit the trunks derive from being placed on two chairs, while
the members of the family and visitors are requested to be seated on the
floor. But then it is not every New Mexican family that can boast of
having a trunk; and those who have one, and no chairs, build a kind of
platform or pedestal for it to rest on.
The troops, while we were sight-seeing in Los Vegas, were not allowed to
halt at all, but marched on toward Puertocito, where camp was made. At
Fort Union a new driver had been assigned to our baggage-wagon--a little
monkey-faced old man, Manuel--who had addressed me in Spanish, early
that morning, praying that we should allow him to stop at Los Vegas,
where his wife and his "pretty little girls" were living. I understood
no Spanish, but his eyes looked so beseechingly when his request was
made known to me, that I was glad to tell him we should stop there. The
man was to go with us to the end of our journey, and it might be a long
time till he could see his people again.
When the lieutenant sent the orderly for Manuel, with directions to move
on and overtake the command, I saw the old man tumbling out of a little
low house near by, his faithful wife and "pretty little girls" tumbling
out after him--half a dozen of the scrawniest, most apish-looking
specimens I ever saw of Spanish or Mexican people. For miles the "pretty
little girls" followed the father and the army-wagon, and wherever we
passed a house on the road, one or more women would come to the
door--large-eyed and sweet-voiced--wishing good-day and good-journey to
old Manuel. As far as my Spanish goes, _Puertocito_ signifies little
gate, or entrance. It should be Grand Gate, so majestically do rocks and
boulders arise from out of green meadows and tree-covered hillocks.